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'Fires wiped out' ancient mammals
BBC ^
| 7/8/05
| Helen Briggs
Posted on 07/08/2005 9:39:15 AM PDT by LibWhacker
click here to read article
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To: Vaquero
Thanks for the ping. Interesting, but probably not an evo thread. (I'm so picky.)
21
posted on
07/08/2005 11:36:46 AM PDT
by
PatrickHenry
(Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas. The List-O-Links is at my homepage.)
To: Archon of the East
22
posted on
07/08/2005 11:39:19 AM PDT
by
Junior
(“Even if you are one-in-a-million, there are still 6,000 others just like you.”)
To: Bigg Red; SunkenCiv
"The first humans to arrive in Australia destroyed the pristine landscape... "The same thing was said about North America when the humans got here 12,000 years ago.
Now that we've found 30-40,000 year old human foot prints in Mexico, what killed the large mammals off 12,000 year ago, huh?
23
posted on
07/08/2005 11:44:30 AM PDT
by
blam
To: Junior
Even if it could be determined with 100% certainty that fires did in fact "wipe out" pristine landscape, there is absolutely no certain way to determine if humans were in fact the cause. Fires ignite naturally all the time. I believe Australia was still a real hot place 45,000 years ago. Granted this article does in fact use phrases like "best fit" and "we don't think" and the type of carbon "gives a picture" all showing the obvious lack of any ability to ascertain with acceptable reliability their speculation, It still strongly states that "evil man" is the cause of destruction.
That being said, if man did set fires for the reasons stated one has to ask how dense was the human population? Enough to impact the whole species in all areas? If fires got out of control then that would suggest an environment that is conducive to natural causes for fires. So even though the title is a possibility, the absolute statement that man is in fact the lone and sole cause is malarkey. Yes I have read the concluding sentence:
It is likely that extinctions were not caused by any single event, but reflect compounding factors such as natural climate changes associated with the Ice Age fluctuations and, quite possibly, the arrival of humans."
This should have been the introduction IMO if an article of this type is to be take seriously.
24
posted on
07/08/2005 12:17:41 PM PDT
by
Archon of the East
("universal executive power of the law of nature")
To: Archon of the East
That's a whole lot better than just willy nilly blowing it off. Thanks.
25
posted on
07/08/2005 12:29:26 PM PDT
by
Junior
(“Even if you are one-in-a-million, there are still 6,000 others just like you.”)
To: sure_fine
Reparations!!!
26
posted on
07/08/2005 12:54:23 PM PDT
by
bfree
(PC is BS)
To: LibWhacker
Once upon a time, science was about the search for truth. Then, government funding became involved and science has become the hunt for unending research grants. If not, why does every government research study end with "the results are inconclusive, we need more time (they say, but they actually mean money) to fully research the issue."
27
posted on
07/08/2005 6:05:29 PM PDT
by
Surtur
(Wal-mart...walnuts, Oprah...Uma, coincidence, I think not.)
To: blam
Yeah, I'm not sympathetic to the "humans did it" view, most of the time. It tends to be just anachronism projection, and an attack on the current lifestyles and personal liberty of we the people.
In Horus, a journal published by the late David Griffard, vol II no 1 (1985), Barry Fell was interviewed. Alas, DG went down in a private plane after the seventh issue. Among other things: In the middle of Australia there is a group of three or four meteorite craters called the Henley craters. They're like the Arizona meteorite crater -- not so big, but there are several of them -- and, like in Arizona, the land was scattered with pieces of iron meteorite. I think the [inaudible] dating very slow growing desert plants. They believe that the date is about 5000 years ago -- the formation of the craters. The Aboriginal name for this area is the "Place Where The Sun Walked on the Earth" -- they must have seen it!
28
posted on
07/08/2005 11:02:18 PM PDT
by
SunkenCiv
(last updated by FR profile on Tuesday, May 10, 2005.)
To: LibWhacker
< sarcasm>
Of course, natural wildfire had nothing to do with it, just as modern vulcanism, putting out more CFCs in on explosion than human kind has done during its entire racial history, has nothing to do with climate change either.
< /sarcasm>
To: Archon of the East
Could the fires have been ignited due to wars between tribes? One band of tribes bent on burning the other out, all over the territory.
If it was just from careless campfires, it sounds like the place was a tinderbox already and some well placed lightning could have easily done the same job.
30
posted on
07/08/2005 11:23:32 PM PDT
by
The Red Zone
(Florida, the sun-shame state, and Illinois the chicken injun.)
To: LibWhacker
Too many back yard barbecues
To: The Red Zone
Could the fires have been ignited due to wars between tribes? One band of tribes bent on burning the other out, all over the territory. If it was just from careless campfires, it sounds like the place was a tinderbox already and some well placed lightning could have easily done the same job. All are possibilities, and how could one a person determine the exact time and cause of such occurrences? It is also possible that it wasn't fire at all. That is why when you read these articles you will always see terms like "best fit". I don't mind research and speculation but the first line in the article is quite pathetic and speaks towards todays politics rather than any science. The big mistake people make when reading this "malarkey" is they take the statement of two events occurring at that same time and automatically accept that they are connected. It is kind of like what linear regression analysis is to todays scare mongering, essentially made up information to support a position, not exactly the same but a lack of cause and effect science to be sure.
32
posted on
07/09/2005 5:52:47 AM PDT
by
Archon of the East
("universal executive power of the law of nature")
To: LibWhacker
Maybe they just liked fried chicken Genyornis.
33
posted on
07/09/2005 12:07:43 PM PDT
by
balrog666
(A myth by any other name is still inane.)
To: LibWhacker
The writer should study the progression of flora on CRP land in the US prairie regions. It seems that trees and scrub flourish best in areas where the grass has neither been grazed nor burned. Fires commonly only lead to regrowth of native grasses without competition from scrub.
34
posted on
07/09/2005 12:15:16 PM PDT
by
Smokin' Joe
(Grant no power to government you would not want your worst enemies to wield against you.)
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