On Wed, 13 Sep 2000, you wrote:
> Scientists failed to find the Miss Waldron's Red
> Colobus monkey in six years of surveys- it is now
> officially extinct, the Yahoo News told me yesterday.
> The first extinct primate of the twentieth century
> (apparently, the surveys ended in '99, but for some
> reason the announcement of this was delayed until
> yesterday). This type of primate has not been seen in
> over twenty years, and is likely gone for good.
> I consider this yet another point not to take lightly
> when we consider what is happening to our world every
> day.
So what?
Even if homo sapien disappeared off the planet tomorrow, hundreds of
species would still become extinct every year. Why is it that many people
seem to assume that speciation was in some sort of magical equilibrium
until our species came along? Extinction is an artifact of biological
diversity. I don't see too many homo erectus wandering around these days,
yet no one laments their disappearance.
Maybe I am alone in this, but I don't see anything wrong with extinction
in principle. For every species that becomes extinct, a new one pops into
existence to take its place, and probably does a better job of it. I
simply can't fathom how the government, at the direction of environmental
groups, can spend millions or billions of dollars to save a rare insect
that was obviously poorly adapted to survive anyway. What a waste of
resources. With only a small number of exceptions, most species that
become exinct today would have become extinct in a relatively short
period of time anyway, with or without our help.
-James Rogers
jamesr@best.com
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