I bet everyone (including myself) is predisposed to the virtues of biodiversity. The problem is the belief that only man- and probably intentionally - is working against it. Man,believe it or not, is a part of nature. If man accelerates the progress of "invasive" species that may be (if you believe it) unfortunate, but not unnatural. Species that cannot compete are going to eventually fail - the only question is when. Exactly how much attention should we pay to the timing?

We look at extinction as a "bad" thing because we don't want to become extinct. But extinction is not necessarily a bad thing. Extinctions open up new niches for other organisms to fill and allows for the evolution of new species. Truth is most organisms go extinct, many dominate (like the trilobite) for long periods of time only to be wiped out relatively quickly. As humans, I feel that we don't understand change, we often assume that change is bad. We also misunderstand death and extinction. There is no good and bad, there is just life and it always finds a way. No need to worry.

Your understanding of biology and extinction is abysmal. Your definition of the word "natural" is meaningless.

I never said "natural" but the above poster never used the word extinction. Who are you insulting?

Neither of you seems to have any idea what you're talking about.

Why are you such a prick (with such a cool name too... what a shame)? If you disagree with me that is fine, that is what a discussion is supposed to be. I don't think that it is outrageous to say that as humans we really don't know what is "good" or "bad". It is certainly not outrageous to say that humans, our activities and our impact on the Earth are natural processes.

It's absolutely outrageous to say that we don't know what is good or bad. It should be clear to anyone who knows anything about ecology that adding invasive species can only be bad for the organisms that are already there, that it can only lead to extinction of some of the original organisms, and that increasing the extinction rate is a very, very, very bad thing.

Pretending that paving the planet, or destroying the climate, or polluting the oceans, or increasing the extinction rate by a thousand times is "natural" is to remove any sort of meaning from the word. Also, from a practical standpoint, it's beyond outrageous, it's moronic. Now, if saying your opinion is "moronic" hurts your feelings, then there's an easy way to solve that. Don't have such moronic opinions.

If you really are a biologist, then you're surely familiar with Gause's Law of Competitive Exclusion. It's one of the basic rules of ecology and evolution.

Gause's Law of Competitive Exclusion simply states that when there are two species competing for a resource that does not vary one of the two competitors will always overcome the other, leading to either the extinction of this competitor or an evolutionary or behavioral shift towards a different ecological niche.

I am arguing that extinction itself is not a "bad" thing.

Besides, as the genius that you think you are you should know that Gause's law is actually rarely observed in nature and that many animal communities exists in violation of it (plankton for example). Gause formed this idea based on experiments he did using paramecium and yeast in culture... hardly a accurate model of a complex ecosystem. But i'm sure you already know all that. My ideas hardly hinge on this law anyway, as my basic point is that extinction of species is not a bad thing in the log run, extinction is natural and healthy. I'm not sure why you are so hot and bothered by a disagreement. I'm not sure why you have to believe that I am a "moron" rather that explain your argument without throwing out random laws that you don't even understand and that even if you had, are not relevant to the discussion.

Also, do you just go around memorizing things that other people came up with or do you ever synthesize your own ideas?

...doesn't mean it's true.

Gause's Law is A) observed quite regularly in nature, and B) pertinent to the discussion, since adding a new competitor to an ecosystem often means that one or the other is going to be rendered extinct. Since you don't think that extinction is such a big deal, I guess you don't think this matter. And you couldn't be more wrong. Yes, every species eventually goes extinct. If this was happening at the natural (oops, sorry, a word you don't understand) rate, it would be no big deal, since the natural extinction rate is just a specied or two a year, and new species would evolve fast enough to replace them. Unfortunately, current human-caused extinction (read: not natural) is occuring at about a thousand times this rate. We're destroying biodiversity at a rate much faster than can be replenished.

And no, I don't synthesize my own ideas--I get 'em from Wikipedia, just like you.

Gause's law wasn't my "idea", it was yours. I didn't present it as "my idea". Ideas are not retrieved from others wiki or not, if I don't understand natural you don't understand idea which was my criticism of you in the first place. Whether it is from wikipedia or not doesn't matter. You think that there should never be a new competitor paced into and ecosystem!!??

Enlighten me on Gause, since I am not an ecologist why don't you give me examples where his law is observed besides finches in the Galapagos. What parts of the supposed wiki article are untrue and why?

New competitors come into ecosystems all the time, ecosystems are dynamic not static. You make it sound as if there is some divine control that makes sure everything is fair in nature, like there is some grand plan...I don't think there is. Extinction rates vary from place to place and from time to time (say 65 million years ago it was different than now).

Our impact is no different than that of cyanobacteria 2 billion years ago that changed the atmosphere with their waste (oxygen), or when that comet wiped out the majority of life on Earth when mammals just getting their start, or the various Ice ages that followed.

I disagree with you fundamentally that humans and human activity is not a natural force.

...that you're wrong.

That's it?

Convince me that I am wrong, at the very least tell me where wiki is wrong... I admit i am not an ecologist.

If you think that the human race doesn't need to avoid wiping out all of life down to the cyanobacterium level, then I'm pretty sure we're not even speaking the same language.

On an unrelated note, isn't it tough to be an immunologist who is rooting for the pathogens over the victims?

You know I tried to look up The Competitive Exclusion Principle by Hardin in Science but it was published in 1960 so I couldn't get a PDF. I'll see if I can get it from the library here. That is awful old though, I mean most cell biology articles from the 1990s are way off, let alone those from the 60s and anything that has been around that long would have been challenged. Were hardin's ideas ever challenged by up and coming ecologists?

He was a pretty controversial guy.

I don't "root" for anything. I got into immunology because I wanted to study cell to cell communication and Immunology is a great system for that.

The very fact that you see the hosts as "victims" says a lot. It is strange to me that you see life in terms of good and evil. Do you root for the cheetah or the gazelle? To me it seems that you should root for both and neither.