[dohboi]

Do Humans Have a Madness Gene That Will Ensure the End of the Planet as We Know It?

http://www.truth-out.org/progressivepic ... dness-gene

Interesting interview with Elizabeth Kolbert, author of "The Sixth Extinction."

Can you explain the significance of invasive species, with humans being the "ultimate" invasive species?

Invasive species are species that do very well in a place that’s far from their native range. Often they thrive at the expense of the species that were already there: A classic example is the brown tree snake, which was brought to Guam from Papua New Guinea, probably in military cargo. It has eaten through most of Guam’s native mammal species, along with many of its native birds and reptiles. Humans originated in Africa and now we live on every continent. (Well, maybe don’t quite live on Antarctica, but certainly we like to visit it.)

Just about everywhere we’ve gone, like the brown tree snake, we’ve eliminated a significant number of native species...

Can you explain what you mean by the madness gene as described in Chapter Eight?

The madness gene is not my idea; it comes from a paleogeneticist named Svante Pääbo.

What he meant is that, for reasons that don’t seem entirely rational, people can’t sit still. They’re always pressing on to new places, even though the journey entails significant dangers. As he pointed out to me, how many people had to perish in the Pacific before people happened on Easter Island?

[rollin]

Up to this point I had great respect for E. Kolbert, but apparently she does not truly understand how even simple nature works. Every day in the life of animals is fraught with adventure and deadly danger, whether they be predator or prey. It's an exciting demanding adventurous way to live. The squirrel happily looking for nuts is very aware that a cat or dog might suddenly attack it, but it still ventures onto the ground to search out food or the next tree or a mate.

So people are supposed to be non-courageous, wimpy, conservatively thoughtful creatures that take no chances? Sorry, they evolved in a world where the fangs and claws and speed way outdid what people could do. Courage and cunning in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds on the open savannahs and in the jungles was how they survived.

We are no more crazy than my dog chasing after a bear or a fly biting a buffalo. What we have is a mutated brain combined with an upright stance that allowed manipulation of objects and materials within the environment that upset the normal balance attained within nature. Maybe we will evolve differently due to the upcoming major stressors that we helped to cause. Time will tell.

Mass extinction by other living creatures is not unique. The development of oxygen producing plants killed off the then current anaerobic types. It is no great leap of logic that some species were killed off by over-predation at times, just not at such a rate. Humans have indeed become an elemental force on the planet.
There will always be a good percentage of risk takers in the gene pool, those who test the limits. Every species expands it's range to the limits of it's abilities. Now we hunt fossil fuels as our ancestors hunted the boar or the deer.

I reserve the right to change my skeptically negative opinion of Kolbert's new book after I read it.

[Plantagenet]

Humans are hunter-gatherers. We are genetically programmed to explore down by the river to find the best berry patches and to climb up and over the mountains to hunt sheep etc.

It might seem like madness to a person living a sedentary and scholarly life and who gets all his food from the local grocery store, but for millennia traveling across wild land and hunting and gathering wild foods was the way humans survived.


Theres got to be some food out here somewhere......

[AndyA]

We are genetically programmed to explore down by the river to find the best berry patches and to climb up and over the mountains to hunt sheep etc.

they evolved in a world where the fangs and claws and speed way outdid what people could do. Courage and cunning in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds on the open savannahs and in the jungles was how they survived.

Yes that is a good way to rationalise the 'madness gene'. Yet how many animals eat without need, or kill without need, how many animals migrate without need? What animals seek power for the sake of power, or pursue goals that have no impact on survival? As I understand the 'madness gene' it is the instinct to take actions that have no relationship to survival, and can be counterproductive to survival. Like taking a one way boat trip in the open ocean.

[Subjectivist]

We are genetically programmed to explore down by the river to find the best berry patches and to climb up and over the mountains to hunt sheep etc.

they evolved in a world where the fangs and claws and speed way outdid what people could do. Courage and cunning in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds on the open savannahs and in the jungles was how they survived.

Yes that is a good way to rationalise the 'madness gene'. Yet how many animals eat without need, or kill without need, how many animals migrate without need? What animals seek power for the sake of power, or pursue goals that have no impact on survival? As I understand the 'madness gene' it is the instinct to take actions that have no relationship to survival, and can be counterproductive to survival. Like taking a one way boat trip in the open ocean.

Animals do these things all the time, except the boat trip, unless constrained by ecosystem balance. Two examples, the Reindeer of St. Mathews island vs the Moose of Grande Isle. The first were unrestrained and overpopulated to collapse, the latter had wolves cointroduced and the two populations balanced each other. For predators look at the behavior or large African tree cats, they will kill several Antelope and only eát their favorite piece storing the rest of he carcass in their tree to keep it away from the jackals. There is no rational reason to kill three or six antelope when they could feed themselves quite well on one.

[ennui2]

how many animals eat without need

My pet rabbit's got a Pavlov's Dog problem where he knows if he knocks the food-bowl around I'll give him something and based on his weight I'd say he's eating way more than he needs.

[Ibon]

Culture lead us to become Kudzu Ape and culture will eventually lead us to become human again.

[dohboi]

Rollin wrote: " upset the normal balance attained within nature"

Why shouldn't we consider it insane to "upset the normal balance attained within nature"?

We attained cleverness, nimbleness and drive without also attaining adequate wisdom to appropriately restrain the destruction that those attributes unleash in the world. But it is really modern industrial culture that has been least wise in this regard, and most destructive. Many traditional societies had indeed struck something like this balance, thought sometimes only after plowing through much of the native diversity they found.

The Easter Island example is interesting. Getting on a tiny boat and going across thousands of miles of open ocean on the off chance of running across a habitable island seems pretty crazy. Of course, the guy that made this point apparently didn't know about the amazing skills of those south seas sailors. There are stories of them accurately guiding a boat across hundreds of miles of open see directly to a designated island, even though the sailor doing the guiding was locked in the hull of the ship with no way to see where the sun was, nor the stars, nor the directions of the wind. These guys were/are crazy clever about feeling the waves and judging where the waves are bouncing off of various shoals and islands.

But still, why bother. Few other animals have made their homes in such a wide variety of habitats. It's surely something to do with our omnivorous nature. But presumably other impulses kept driving humans out of the Olduvai, out of the African continent, and ultimately out of the Eurasian, as well.

[Subjectivist]

The Easter Island example is interesting. Getting on a tiny boat and going across thousands of miles of open ocean on the off chance of running across a habitable island seems pretty crazy. Of course, the guy that made this point apparently didn't know about the amazing skills of those south seas sailors. There are stories of them accurately guiding a boat across hundreds of miles of open see directly to a designated island, even though the sailor doing the guiding was locked in the hull of the ship with no way to see where the sun was, nor the stars, nor the directions of the wind. These guys were/are crazy clever about feeling the waves and judging where the waves are bouncing off of various shoals and islands.

The Polynesians were particularly skilled during the exploration phase. They would row their outrigger canoes against the prevailing winds looking for new islands to colonize. If they got low on food or water before finding new islands they would put up a sail and row with the wind to get back home quickly.

[Pops]

But presumably other impulses kept driving humans out of the Olduvai, out of the African continent, and ultimately out of the Eurasian, as well.

Sure: we got hungry.
We either outgrew the food supply or degraded it and were smart enough to move on down the line and adapt to a different niche - a bunch of 'em.

It's silly to sit and bemoan the very genes that make us self aware. LOL

[dohboi]

I'm not bemoaning anything, just now. Just trying to assess the situation.

Presumably all species get hungry. But few other complex species have managed to spread themselves to nearly every nook and cranny of the earth. I do think that hunger has to do with it. But the fact that, when we're hungry, we can eat just about anything, rather than being restricted to, say, just local eucalyptus bark, means that there are generally more rewards for our species heading out into the unknown that for most others.

I don't know if that adds up to a 'madness' gene. But the ultimate consequence of that (and some other) urges certainly are now looking quite dire, wouldn't you say?

[Pops]

Not directed at you, boi, at the silly article.

Sure, we're a victim of our own success. Hopefully our inquisitiveness gets us out of another jam.

I'm not sure if being omnivorous is a cause or an effect or just additional armament along with the "not sitting still" gene.

[Peak_Yeast]

I know that some animal possibly ferret/mink killed all my chickens one night - but left with only one. Its madness I tell you - Madness.

[dohboi]

"I'm not sure if being omnivorous is a cause or an effect or just additional armament along with the "not sitting still" gene." Good (implied) question. I'm not wild about all the point in the article, but it seemed like it touched on a lot of points frequently mentioned around here, so might be the seed of a conversation.

As for mad animals, I swear the squirrels around here are crazy malicious sometimes. I've seen them just bite off stalks of various plants and just leave them there. Perhaps a resident squirrel psychiatrist can explain this for me?

[Subjectivist]

"I'm not sure if being omnivorous is a cause or an effect or just additional armament along with the "not sitting still" gene." Good (implied) question. I'm not wild about all the point in the article, but it seemed like it touched on a lot of points frequently mentioned around here, so might be the seed of a conversation.

As for mad animals, I swear the squirrels around here are crazy malicious sometimes. I've seen them just bite off stalks of various plants and just leave them there. Perhaps a resident squirrel psychiatrist can explain this for me?

Squirrels typically do that in dry weather they bite the top off and lick up the moisture as it comes up on the top.

[dohboi]

Thanks, Subj (now our resident squirrel psychologist?? ). I figured it must have something to do with moisture. But it can really be quite annoying. So do I leave out water for them to drink so they don't snip off my asparagus? I notice they do the same thing to new-growth twigs of trees.

[Subjectivist]

Thanks, Subj (now our resident squirrel psychologist?? ). I figured it must have something to do with moisture. But it can really be quite annoying. So do I leave out water for them to drink so they don't snip off my asparagus? I notice they do the same thing to new-growth twigs of trees.

I once worked in a place full of flower bed displays with a boss who was very unhappy with the squirrels during a drought so I learned all about the stinkers water harvesting habit. They planted flowers that needed minimal watering and when the drought swept through that summer a few squirrels devastated the beds in about three weeks in July. Other than complaining we treated it as a sunk cost. If they attack my veggies this summer I won't be so blasé about it.