The ‘Balance of Nature’ Myth
SPOTLIGHT: There’s no such thing as a ‘balance of nature.’ BIG PICTURE: A prominent theme of ecologist Daniel Botkin’s latest book, 25 Myths That Are Destroying the Environment, is that the natural world is more sophisticated than we imagine.
Everything is fluid. Numerous interactions are taking place at any given time. On multiple levels and in multiple directions. Between species and within species.
The belief that whales and other animals would be peachy keen if only humans weren’t around informs many conservation measures. We’re the skunk at the picnic. We disturb. We perturb. We upset a natural, intrinsic balance.
The irony of such ‘environmental’ thinking, says Botkin, is that it ignores the environment:
There is no change in the weather – no storms, hurricanes, or volcanic eruptions. The population has no diseases and no predators. Its food can’t vary in abundance because the amount of food just isn’t represented in the equation…
This school of thought is bankrupt. In Botkin’s words:
Scientists have tried very hard to see if the [balance of nature] logistic could work for real populations out in the wild; after searching the scientific literature at great length, I’ve found that they have always failed…it has never worked in the real world outside of a laboratory.
In physics, when an equation completely fails to make accurate forecasts of real events, it is abandoned…ecologists have done just the opposite of physicists: They have continued to use an equation that has never matched real-world observations.
Why do the WWF, the Sierra Club, and the Canadian Wildlife Federation continue to talk about the ‘balance of nature’? Perhaps because it inflates humanity’s importance. It places us at the center of the drama. It casts us as directors of the play and stars of the show.
How bizarre that professional environmentalists are in the business of dismissing and diminishing highly potent, natural forces.
TOP TAKEAWAY: The ‘balance of nature’ idea is folklore – a persuasive idea for which there is no evidence.
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Squidly
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NIce article, and one that I would agree with, however, the author appears to be quite naive. To ask:
Is extremely naive. There is but only one reason for the existence of such organizations, peddling the bullshit that they do … wait for it … MONEY !!
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Lloyd
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We were the primary Apex Predator on the Whales, so yes, if we were not around, there would probably be a lot more of them. Because we are Omnivores if we help to kill off one species, we can switch to another to eat. We probably helped to make the American Mammoth Extinct. But that does not refer to a Balance of Nature. That just means an Apex Predator makes the rules until there is not enough prey, then they starve to death. That is just Natural Selection.
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Squidly
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Ooooookay … not sure what that has to do with my comment though. The point of my comment was specific to organizations like WWF, Sierra Club and CWF .. they are scam organizations with a single purpose .. to make money!
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Wayne R
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The core belief of many “environmentalists” is indeed that Earth would be better off if humans were not around. After all we are the species causing “global warming”, “overpopulation”, “extinction of rare species” and of course war.
Why don’t they lead by example?
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tom0mason
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Lets say it again because so many people don’t get it.
Life on this planet, as far as can be understood, is all natural. If life, in it’s totality, is viewed as a process, for whatever end — a process of which we do not know either its path or purpose — we humans are just part of the process.
Humans are part of the natural process of nature.
We are not separate from nature, we are part of the process.
Whatever humans do, we do because it is within our nature to do it.
We can affect nature but rest assured if nature’s path moves away from us being top animal, nature could [will] without impunity, reorder the ecosystem and consequently leave all mankind extinct!
Stay healthy, live well, and respect nature — for nature commands more forces than our meager minds could imagine.
Just consider a bacteria that infects many animals (food and/or human pet animals) is changed via a virus to a form that renders most humans and some other animals sterile, or provokes early dementia, or some other disability or malady. All without prior symptoms for 3-10 years. Too far fetched? Just look at ‘Toxoplasma gondii’ and the related infections.
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Michael Grace
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There is no balance only chaos. The interactions are vast and have little predictability.Many species have died out due to anthropogenic impact but many have flourished.Vast ecosystems were annihilated in antiquity, when there were no people.I do not condone destruction, quite the opposite and we must salvage the remaining interactions.This is a political as apposed to ‘environmental’ will….the human society must change in all its facets and balance itself…..in the complexity.
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Jim Buchanan
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Have none of you children read John Wyndham’s ‘Consider Her Ways’? published circa 1956; a short story you can read in about a half hour.
So! Here we are, only 64 four years later; at the cusp of what Wyndham prophesied!
And, nobody remembers.
Fortunately, I am unlikely to see the end of life as we know it. However, you lot might… Do some research; start reading!
Persevere
Jim
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jerry krause
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Hi PSI Readers,
At another place I have just read that people’s concerns about the environment is political. If one reads Genesis 1:26-28, you might find the root cause.
“Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.’ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them. ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.’ ” (NIV)
A little over 4 centuries ago Man began to subdue what God had created. How did Man do this? It is what we call SCIENCE. Copernicus, Galileo, Brahe, Kepler, Newton, and other founders of this method of learning we call SCIENCE were Believers of this Creator God, as I am. So what we are experiencing is in what Man has from the beginning been involved: The War between Good and Evil.
Have a good day, Jerry
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