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Forums - Politics Discussion - Planned extinction: Is it ethical to deliberately wipe out a species?

 

Do you think it is?

Yes 69 56.56%
 
No 53 43.44%
 
Total:122
JazzB1987 on 09 May 2015
daredevil.shark said:
JazzB1987 said:

Dont kill them make them harmles(I mean we also dont kill stupid people so why kill mosquitos who are obviously smarter than dumb people?)

Make a mosquito bite just cause the tiny hole. Neither itching red bumb nor let them spread the deseases. (dunno how to do the last thing tho)

OR change their DNA so they HATE human scent and move on and go bite trees or whatever.


About the viruses etc? i dont care.

You never now what might happen.

no joke  2 days ago or so I was talking to a friend and i asked "why is there no Zombie flies or zombie mosquitos etc. I mean they are so small you cant just go and defend against them. You would turn into a zombie without knowing that something bite you".

:)



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RCTjunkie on 09 May 2015

Humans first and foremost. If it benefits our species, wipe 'em out. If it harms our species, preserve them by all means.



WHO IS JESUS REALLY?

ReimTime on 09 May 2015

I would also like to add that Engineering is quickly replacing evolution as a driving force of change on our planet. Genetic revolution instead of evolution; and many species will not be able to keep up.



#1 Amb-ass-ador

curl-6 on 09 May 2015
mornelithe said:
curl-6 said:

When you hear that a species is endangered, it's usually in the context that it should be saved before it's lost forever.

But what if the species in question is the Guinea Worm, or the Polio virus? Both are critically endangered thanks to decades of deliberate extermination efforts by humans. Both also happen to cause debilitating disease.

We've done it before; Smallpox and Rinderpest are extinct in the wild thanks to successful eradication campaigns.

And why draw the line there? In 2003, biologist Olivia Judson proposed that by wiping out 30 species of mosquito through the introduction of recessive "knockout" genes, we could save at least a million human lives annually that would otherwise be lost to malaria, dengue fever, and other mosquito-borne diseases.

So, do you believe that it's ethically right to intentionally eliminate a species from the earth?

That's actually incorrect.  Setting aside the outbreaks in the US due to anti-vaxxer idiots.  There are a number of scientific and military installations that have samples of all of these virii.

That's why I said "extinct in the wild". ;)

The last case of wild smallpox was in 1977, Rinderpest in 2001.



curl-6 on 09 May 2015
SuperNova said:
curl-6 said:

How do you feel about the guinea worm, an animal that can only reproduce by infecting humans and causing debilitating illness?


It is specialized to humans? That seems like a promising ecological niche.

To be honest I can't comfortably pass judgement/offer a solution on that one because I'm not familiar with it. I'm reasonably well informed about Malaria, but I've never heard of the guniea worm. I don't know wich invironments it typically lives in (aside from Human bodys) and what it does. Or how you would go about planned extinction in it's case.

I mean in the case of malaria the Idea is not to wipe out the parasite itself, but to remove one of the hosts from the reproduction cicle. Is there a similar thing with the gunea worm? Or is it passed human to human?

I'd have to research this, and I'm frankly too lazy. :P

If I assume that this worm and humans lived in a vacuum and nothing else but these two species are involved, it falls back on what I said about viruses and vaccination. If we find a way to protect ourselves from getting infected by the worm, and as consequence the worm goes extinct because it fails to adapt, thats evolution.

(As an aside the thought of having fucking worms living inside me makes my skin crawl....*shudder*)

Edit: Ok, had a quick look at the Wiki and it seems that, these are contracted by accidently drinking infected waterflee larvas. In that case my answer would be simple. Make sure suffcient infrastuckture is built to give the people accsess to clean water. Wich we should be doing anyways.

That's how they're doing it already; giving people filters to drink through and treating water sources with larvacide to make it safe. 

The only way the Guinea Worm can reproduce is through infecting a human body, so by protecting people from it, you're also dooming the worm to die out.



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curl-6 on 09 May 2015
Ruler said:
curl-6 said:

When you hear that a species is endangered, it's usually in the context that it should be saved before it's lost forever.

But what if the species in question is the Guinea Worm, or the Polio virus? Both are critically endangered thanks to decades of deliberate extermination efforts by humans. Both also happen to cause debilitating disease.

We've done it before; Smallpox and Rinderpest are extinct in the wild thanks to successful eradication campaigns.

And why draw the line there? In 2003, biologist Olivia Judson proposed that by wiping out 30 species of mosquito through the introduction of recessive "knockout" genes, we could save at least a million human lives annually that would otherwise be lost to malaria, dengue fever, and other mosquito-borne diseases.

So, do you believe that it's ethically right to intentionally eliminate a species from the earth?

So after your logic we should kill our self too, because the human species is probably the biggest parisite on the planet ? 

I wasn't attempting to push any particular line of logic, just posing a question. :)

To answer your question though, no, I do not support the extermination of the human race.



bigtakilla on 10 May 2015

maybe everyone and everything in the universe should just die. All problems solved.



HollyGamer on 10 May 2015
Ultrashroomz said:
Whatever needs to be done to help the human race should be done.

This should be the answer,

In my opinion and my believe and also in my religion, world is exist for human and spirit (Jin), so other thing exist to support their existent. But Human also need to preserve other species including animal and plant that exist in this world or universe for their own benefit. every species from virus, bacteria, worms, amoeba, (you mention) is important for human and Jin. So human also responsible to maintain their balance. Even a dangerous virus has some purpose if we can find and do some rearch, but if we still unable to find the benefit then it's better if we control their population. but i believe all that created or born on this world and universe has some purpose.



Toxy on 11 May 2015

Wiping out an entire species can have repercussions on the ecosystem.
Wiping out a virus/disease on the other hand is perfectly fine.

The focus should be on creating a vaccine/anti-virus to counteract and prevent diseases from spreading.
Wiping out an entire species is not ethical as there are other solutions that can be made.



curl-6 on 11 May 2015
Toxy said:
Wiping out an entire species can have repercussions on the ecosystem.
Wiping out a virus/disease on the other hand is perfectly fine.

The focus should be on creating a vaccine/anti-virus to counteract and prevent diseases from spreading.
Wiping out an entire species is not ethical as there are other solutions that can be made.

So what about the Guinea Worm? It's a non-microbial animal that can only survive by harming people.