The Observer Effect?

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Ray's Law- All good discussion moves towards philosophy and/or relativism. Nice thread OP.
 
Ray's Law- All good discussion moves towards philosophy and/or relativism. Nice thread OP.

Is that what "humans are not part of the natural world" called now? Or are you just being excessively charitable?
 
That's just silly - humans are just another species and absolutey part of the natural world.

Further, man's evolution beyond hunter gatherer was also part of a natural process.

Do we always make the best choices for the planet? Absolutely not - but we are just as much a part of the natural world as any other species (many of which can be quite dangerous/destructive to other species, btw).

I agree. And just like every other species that went extinct, we have our Achilles Heel that will be our undoing. We have been around a relatively short amount of time compared with some species. The enlarged brain was an interesting evolutionary experiment. We will take many other species with us when we go, which I suppose is unprecedented, but I believe that, too, is part of the natural way of things.
 
If a dolphin (or any other animal) wants to touch me, I will be thrilled. However, I won't return their touch because I don't want them to get used to humans & I could inadvertently hurt them

I had a fish that I need to ID sometime try to bite my fingertips off while I was trying to get a shot of a shrimp eating a sea star's leg. I tried to swat it away, but of course you can't touch them if they don't want you to. So: not thrilled, tried to hit back, did not succeed (nor did I expect to). I claim justifiable self-defence.
 
We will take many other species with us when we go, which I suppose is unprecedented, but I believe that, too, is part of the natural way of things.

Better but still too anthropocentric: we won't take them with us, we'll perish in the same extinction event with them.
 
I had a fish that I need to ID sometime try to bite my fingertips off
Sounds like a damn-sel fish. Thank goodness they are tiny!
 
Better but still too anthropocentric: we won't take them with us, we'll perish in the same extinction event with them.

But we will make a lot of species extinct before we ourselves get there.
 
But we will make a lot of species extinct before we ourselves get there.

Yeah, Earth won't be a pleasant planet for the last humans. In the meantime, I'm going to chow down on what we've got left. :stirpot: Getting back a bit to the topic, I prefer to neither intentionally eat species on the verge of extinction nor abstain from all seafood. I believe we're going down as a species--and sooner rather than later on the evolutionary timeline--but I would prefer to neither hasten our demise nor go out of my way to delay it. Some sort of balance for my time here on Earth.
 
Humans aren't part of the natural world. We are conquerers and destroyers of it. We bend nature to our whims and drive other species to extinction. Once we evolved past hunter gatherer status and primitive tool making, we started shaping the world in a very unnatural fashion.

Man cannot violate the laws of nature. Everything we do is within the laws of nature. Primitive tool making did not keep nature untouched. Look at all the big game species that went extinct in North America 20-40,000 years ago. Man can make what seem to be good or bad decisions but they are all within nature.

Lots of species have been driven to extinction long before we began grunting around.

Its like natural or unnatural foods. All obey the laws of physics and chemistry. Some natural things are very deadly. Some "artificial" things are good. Judge on merits not on labels.

Personally I do not eat things that are rare or that I view as having rudimentary intelligence. (dolphins, primates, etc.) Intelligence is on a continuum. Now chickens they are so dumb they deserve to die.
 
Now chickens they are so dumb they deserve to die.
And Hogfish. They are indeed God's gift to Spearos. :D
 

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