If evolution predicts that the strong survive, then doesn't that imply that the weak die off? If so, then why do the enviros get so bent out of shape when some species die off, i.e. become extinct?
That's one of those social progressive paraphrases. It has little to do with the theory of biological evolution.
Well, it doesn't predict that the strong survive. It predicts that those species best adapted to their environment survive, and that changes in the environment can change the definition of "best adapted."
If so, then why do the enviros get so bent out of shape when some species die off, i.e. become extinct?
I'm not a watermelon, but I do get annoyed with the idea of humanity knocking off entire species either by accident or deliberately, if we can reasonably avoid doing so. This planet is, for the foreseeable future, our home; we should take care of it with the same diligence we should have in maintaining and cleaning our individual homes.
That is not what evolution predicts. Evolution discusses fitness in particular "landscape" AND robustness to changes in the landscape. Your immune response, raising your body temperature to 104 degrees, depends upon bacteria that thrive at 98.6 not doing so well at elevated temperatures - for instance. Dinosaurs did well until the mass extinction, at which point mammals, which were less fit for survival in competition with dinosaurs suddenly were a lot more fit under this cosmic nuclear winter. Strong and weak are relative terms. Mice are weak against all of their competitors. They reproduce to compensate.
Because a) that's a really lousy description of evolution, and b) evolution, like science in general, describes what happens in nature. That in no way requires humanity to follow suit.
For example, the fact that epidemics occur in nature doesn't mean that we ought to idly sit by while diseases run rampant.
If humans enjoyed things happening according to the laws of nature, and didn't have our own ideas about how conditions could be improved, we'd still be living in caves.
I did a KILLER version of that song last night at Kareoke. It was the original Billie Holiday mix and I pitched it an octave low and did a few riffs (but not too many).
It will now be part of my permanent song rotation.
They don't. They don't even know if and when that happens. What they don't like is the IDEA that some species die off. Even though 99% of all species that ever existed have died off.
Evolution does not predict that the strong survive.
Yeah, you would think, the enviros would simply say that's natural let it be. But of course since everything is man's fault and in particular Bush's fault, they'll never view it that way.
Actually, Scientists tell us there have been hundreds of extinctions in our lifetime. And something on the order of 1/3 of all bird species have gone extinct in the last 2000 years. So where are the new species, to keep up? We discover new species in extreme environments that have probably existed for ages. But I know of only two that proposed as "recent" new species. And they are just mosquitos and moths that have become isolated so long that they have lost the ability or will to mate with others of their species.
It seems like at current rates, we would see a lot of extinct species in the fossil record, which we do. But extinction without many new species is consistent with a cursed earth instead of evolution providing ever more diversity.