A Process of Natural Selection or Human Impact: The Path to Human Extinction

It is easy to say that extinction is a natural selection process, but the reality is that this is not always the case; in fact, some would say that it is quite often not the case at all. Humans have a tenancy to want to pass the blame, especially in situations where they feel especially guilty and especially helpless to right the wrong they have committed. According to an exhibit at the Illinois State Museum “Many scientist think that people caused the extinction in North America at the end of the Pleistocene.” They site reasons such as over-hunting or consistently hunting a key species which would have had a strong effect on an entire eco-system (MCMillan, 2005). Of course it is undeniable that “of all the species that have existed on Earth 99.9% are now extinct and many of them perished during major cataclysmic events” (Simberloff, 2012), but the fact is that humans were certainly no help in the matter anymore than we seem to be right now. Some of the top current causes for extinction are human spurred such as habitat displacement due to deforestation and growing populations and cities, not to mention pollution and over-use of natural resources. It is ridiculous for us to state that extinction is part of natural selection and ignore our own impact and role on the whole thing, and that is not part of natural selection nor is it a good thing because we rely on all of the other species on this planet far more than we care to take notice of. According to “Extinction: The Death Of Everything” “As more species die it becomes more difficult for the survivors to find food, eventually this will include us. It is for precisely these reasons that it is extremely important for us to save a sample of every species in hopes of re-establishing the proper environment and habitat to someday be able to reintroduce these disappearing things that we so desperately need to keep alive. It is my personal belief that as the only species on this planet capable of considering and carrying out such a feat that it is in fact our responsibility to do so. We should indeed be concerned with the extinction rate as according to Prof. Dan Simberloff it is happening at an exelorated rate and it is imparitive that we do what we can to ensure the survival of as many species as possible which may in turn be the very thing that ensures our own.

Recently I have had the awful experience of dealing with a situation where I had to show that one of my articles did in fact belong to me and that I did in fact write it quite a while ago, for that purpose I have decided to add this little bit of information to all of my articles. Some of my articles are based on things that I have studied in school, I post them because I find the topics extremely interesting and figure others will as well and hope they they will inspire some discussion or deeper research or simply offer the information to those who may not otherwise learn about it. I realize that many people will see my articles which is why I post them here, I do not post them here for people to copy. Plagiarism is serious, I put a great deal of hard work into my writing and research and expect others to give me the common courtesy of not taking credit for accomplishments that are not their own. If you intend to use any part of any of my work please respectfully request to do so and I will answer in a timely manner and please give me proper credit by citing my work as a source. For many, you should check with your school before citing articles from Hub pages as it may not be considered to be an acceptable academic resource. For the few articles that I have that are not academically based, I would still like the same respect before any part of my work is used for any purpose and please do not copy my articles and post them elsewhere, if you appreciate some piece of information that you gathered from my work please feel free to request my permission to post it or link back to my page.

Thank you for your cooperation. Myranda Grecinger

Berens, Dan,(2012) Extinction: the death of everything

http://www.uwec.edu/jolhm/EH4/Extinction/EXTINCTION.htm

McMillan, Bruce, 2005, Late Pleistocene Extinctions, Illinois State Museum,

http://exhibits.museum.state.il.us/exhibits/larson/lp_extinction.html

Simberloff, Daniel professor of environmental studies and director of the Institute for Biological Invasions at the University of Tennessee,(2012) RoundTable: A Modern Mass Extinction

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/extinction/massext/discuss_01.html