X-Message-Number: 28020
Date: Fri, 09 Jun 2006 15:50:36 -0400
From: 
References: <>
Subject: Re: CryoNet #28012 - #28016

I should have remembered that one must write very carefully in 
expressing opinions which might be controversial with some members.  
When I started off my previous post with the sentence "There is 
absolutely no solid evidence of mass extinctions" of course what I 
meant and still mean is that there is no evidence of mass extinctions 
going on right now.  Morgan correctly and usefully lists prior mass 
extinctions which I discuss in the body of my comment. Paleontology 
which both Anthony . and Morgan cite as refuting my argument has 
nothing to say about what is happening right now on this planet.  The 
critical question for us to ask right now is whether or not human 
activity is accelerating extinctions or retarding them, and, if either, 
how much?  Our ancestors hunted a number of speciies of large animals 
to extinction and that was unfortunate in some ways, perhaps beneficial 
in others, depending on the animal, but it never rose to the level of 
"mass extinctions" as designated by paleontologists.  Today various 
species are threatened in various parts of the world but mostly by 
people who use antiquated methods of farming, fishing, hunting, fuel 
consumption, etc.  The more advanced countries including the US, 
Canada, Western Europe, Australia, Japan and others have, over the last 
half century, become careful preservationists of animal and plant life 
and this is all very much to the good.  We have managed to set aside 
large tracts of land as wild preserves with very restrictive rules for 
human trespass.  We have also extended some of this control to fishing 
certain species in certain areas. What is not so good is the 
exaggeration and fear mongering which tends to  take aim at modern 
advanced societies and their dependence on science and technology.  The 
very word "extinction" evokes dread and was part of the reason that 
Darwin delayed publication for nearly 30 years after his discovery. We 
would certainly like our own species to survive, even though we never 
would have got here without many millions of extinctions of our less 
capable and less fortunate collateral ancestors. As for the hamburgers, 
of course, fear not.  They come from domesticated animals which humans 
began to reproduce in large numbers a long time ago as a more reliable 
source of protein than moose or elk. Domestication of animals and 
plants is very unnatural, but without a lot of that, nobody would have 
all that spare time to study rocks and all the exotic flora and fauna 
of our earth.  We would be just too busy hunting and gathering to care 
a whit about who was or wasn 't going extinct. None of the other 
species care either, of course.
We are getting way off topic here for cryonet so I will end here.  
Cryonics should be a big tent as far as ideologies are concerned, so I 
know I shouldn't complain about other's pet beliefs when they  put them 
on cryonet . However, there is one extinction that we should all care 
about, and that is the extinction of cryonics.  We are a small group 
and an easy target for people who have been whipped up into a state of 
hysteria about what humans with their crazy modern civilizations are 
doing to our planet.  These doom messages come from the left as much or 
more than from the right and feed on wildly exaggerated claims backed 
up by anecdotes and misleading statistical presentations.  They are 
recirculated endlessly in the press because catastrophe is newsworthy, 
even if future and unproven. Right now I suspect that we are so small 
in numbers that we are just off the radar screen, but a time will come, 
I hope soon, when we will be much larger, and some of these people will 
be wanting to extinguish us so that there will be more room on earth 
for whatever their favorite species might be.  Ron Havelock

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