Can you verbally reason?

Question

I don't think you can. After listening to people talk, I realized that people don't answer the actual question, they don't know what words mean, and even if they do, they only give you their answer to a question that they somehow invented.

For instance, here are some definitions to words:

Natural--Present in or produced by nature

Natural Selectioin--Natural selection is the process by which favorable heritable traits become more common in successive generations of a population of reproducing organisms, and unfavorable heritable traits become less common, due to differential reproduction of genotypes.

Now please tell me how people (despite irrational fears of global warming, etc.) are not natural in anything they do (as they are derived from nature and are "of" nature, and how our so-called exploitation of nature has not enabled us to be the very "definition" of fit as far as natural selection is concerned?

People have been saying that we are destroying the world forever now, so how can you attach any morality to those definitions when answering my question? Murder, Rape, Cheese dip, Agent Orange are all "natural" because they come from us, and we are natural. Just like bacteria make stuff from energy, so do we.

Also, how is exploiting resources and putting selective pressures on animals that are unfit "unnatural" or bad? There are bugs that we can never destroy that we can always eat and if a lot of people die, then they are unfit. Why do people attach morals and emotions to my straight forward scientific questions?

Answer 1

Our technology gives us an unfair advantage over all other species, one that we shouldn't exploit carelessly.  Spraying whole regions with DDT in an attempt to eradicate mosquitoes also nearly wiped out the bald eagle.  That isn't survival of the fittest; it's just irresponsibly destructive.  However, there are limits to our technology.  We depend on forests to provide our oxygen, and crops and animals for our food.  Do you really think that we could survive if we made the world uninhabitable for everything else but cockroaches?  I don't.  The environment is far more complex than you realize and you can't wipe out major parts of it without having far-reaching consequences.  Killing off all of the bees would also lead to the extinction of most of the plants they pollinate, which we depend on for food and oxygen.  Even if we could produce enough food artificially, we couldn't replace all of the oxygen.  Whether you like it or not, we're still a part of nature, and if we want to continue to survive we can't afford to destroy the environment.

For the record, your questions are more political than scientific.  You are so determined to "prove" that environmentalists are wrong, you would rather end up living underground with nothing to eat but cockroaches than admit that they might have a point.  That is not the viewpoint of a scientist.  Scientists don't make up their minds in advance and refuse to budge; they consider all of the facts and evidence, then determine what the truth is by experiments and observation.  You can go on campaigning for nihilism if you want to, but most people would rather not live in your post-apocalyptic wasteland if they have a choice, and they do.  

By the way, nihilism is NOT the same thing as Darwinism.  Wiping out almost all life on Earth (including most or all of the human race) just because we can wouldn't be natural selection; it would just be foolish and self-destructive.  I suppose it could be considered survival of the fittest in that the cockroaches are better equipped than we are to survive a nuclear war or other man-made catastrophe, but I wouldn't call it "natural" if we knowingly bring it on ourselves.  That's what separates us from the other animals.  We have the means to destroy ourselves, but we also have the self-awareness to choose not to do it.

Frankly, I think the people advocating the voluntary extinction of the human race have a better point than you have.  I'm not saying I'm one of them; I'm just saying their logic is more sound.  Removing humans from the equation would restore the balance that existed before we came on the scene.  By contrast, by your own admission, wanton destruction of other forms of life would mean death and hardship for humans as well (eating bugs and allowing the "unfit" to die), so what could anyone possibly gain by that?  It's not so much a question of morality as a question of what makes sense and what doesn't.  Destroying the environment knowing that it could also destroy us simply doesn't make sense.

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For those who don't know what nihilism means, here's the Merriam-Webster entry.  Definitions 1a, 1b, and 2a all seem applicable here.

Main Entry: ni·hil·ism  

Pronunciation: \ˈnī-(h)ə-ˌli-zəm, ˈnē-\

Function: noun

Etymology: German Nihilismus, from Latin nihil nothing — more at nil

Date: circa 1817

1 a: a viewpoint that traditional values and beliefs are unfounded and that existence is senseless and useless

b: a doctrine that denies any objective ground of truth and especially of moral truths

2 a: a doctrine or belief that conditions in the social organization are so bad as to make destruction desirable for its own sake independent of any constructive program or possibility

b (capitalized): the program of a 19th century Russian party advocating revolutionary reform and using terrorism and assassination

Answer 2

While a nihilistic attitude like "things happen and nothing matters" is hard to refute, there is at least a logical goal in preserving the environment, and that is maintaining our own quality of life.

Saving cute animals might be the face of environmentalism, but the cute ones are the least of our worries.  What if all pollinating insects became extinct?  What if algae became extinct and the food chain collapsed?  I find it hard to believe the world could support its current population of humans if either of these things happened.  There would be

Of course, you can always adopt the nihilist view, and claim that a dramatic rise in human death rate is natural as well.  Maybe the extinction of all of humanity is natural.  After all, who's going to argue?

Answer 3

That is the first valid question I've heard in a long time.

You are exactly correct and within the questions you ask today, you will find the answers tomorrow( how was that for vague) . Is uranium natural.   Yes I believe it is, yet we cringe when we hear the word.  Luckily we still have Tyrannosaurus Rex running around chewing up people...  oops maybe they're dead.          

Answer 4

You must concede, by your own line of reasoning, that morals are natural.  People come from nature.  Things that come from humans are natural because humans themselves are natural.  Humans create morals.  Therefore, morals are natural.

Isn't it natural, then, that people attach morals to scientific questions?

While it is often beneficial to remember that we experience the world through the sometimes foggy lens of language, after a certain point, questions of semantics just bog everything down.