The New Paganism of Biodiversity
Just as I suspect that multiculturalists have a lot of different restaurants and cuisines in mind when they praise multiculturalism, so I suspect that most of those who espouse biodiversity as a good in itself are thinking mainly of attractive or at least of harmless creatures, rather than, say, Ascaris lumbricoides, the giant (and repellent) roundworm that infects children and can cause intestinal obstruction, or Dracunculus medinensis, the Guinea-worm that, once it emerges from the skin of the foot, must be wrapped round a stick and pulled out slowly and painfully over weeks or months. It is not difficult, in fact, to think of many species that would not much be missed.
The espousal of biodiversity as a good in itself, then, is a form of pagan theodicy, in which Nature is ultimately benevolent and knows best, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding. It is the belief that organisms such as Taenia solium, the pork tapeworm, fulfill a function in the great, but unspecified, scheme of things. No one wants this kind of biodiversity in or for himself, of course.
None of this implies that the destruction of species is never, often, or even usually regrettable; but that is quite another matter from the new paganism of biodiversity.
Minor error:
“Dispatches from the Society for the Protection of the Malaria Virus”
Malaria is caused by a protozoan, not a virus.
“was in fact only 55 percent effective in protecting against all episodes of malaria, and still less effective, at 35 percent, against severe episodes.”
This does not make sense, since severe episodes are a subset of all episodes.
Mike,
You’re right about malaria not being a virus, but the statistics make sense to me: Let’s say that you have a test population of 2000. You divide this test population into two groups of 1,000 apiece. to the control group you inject a placebo. To the experimental group you inject the vaccine. You then expose all 2,000 to malaria. All of the controls get the disease and of these, 100 are “serious”. Only 450 of the experimental group gets sick. That’s a 55% reduction in all cases, however, of this 450, 65 are “serious”. That’s a 35% reduction in serious cases. Have I missed something here?
That’s about right, Bill.
And it especially makes sense with an infectious disease. People with more serious infections often have co-factors such as diabetes (in Africa, the co-factor could be AIDS) on which the vaccine has no effect.
I find it unlikely that Dr. Daniels would make a mistake regarding malaria being caused by a virus, so perhaps he did not write the title or subtitle of this article. It should be noted that an old definition of virus is “agent that causes infectious disease”, and given Dalrymple’s extensive reading of the writings of doctors from previous centuries, it is also possible that he intentionally or inadvertently was using this definition of virus.
Why does it say spirochete now????? That’s just plain wrong.
“Dispatches from the Society for the Protection of the Malaria Spirochete.” This is the subtitle of the article. Of course a spirochete is not a virus and not a plasmodium. The subtitle is obviously an addition by an editor because Dr. Daniels is well acquainted with Malaria having worked in Africa for a time.
Just because one is a doctor doesn’t mean one is incapable of occasional taxonomic flatulence. I smell it all the time.
Bill Gates spent $ 1.75 Billion of his own money to develop this vaccine and he took a hands on approach to managing the project.
Steve Jobs, in contrast, closed down all Apple philanthropy–when asked why he did not contribute to any charities Jobs said-Quote
” Love cannot buy you money ”
As sad legacy indeed
Who cares? Free people may do what they wish with the fruit of their labors.
Do you have a source for that quote? Some time on Google links Jobs to that line twice, both in blog comments, in reference to two different things.
Greetings:
Your comment reminded me of a sweetheart I used to have who was fond of saying to me that “Your money is our money; my money is my money.”
Mr. Jobs (Peace be upon him) provided opportunities for thousands of people to earn their livelihoods by producing products that are used and enjoyed by millions. That you should have a need to speak ill of the so recently dead, says nothing good about your character.
And in the name of “saving us all from chemicals”, the developed countries (including the United States) essentially banned DDT in the 1960s. Mainly at the behest of Rachel Carson, who made a variety of claims in “Silent Spring” that have since been disproven scientifically (softening of the shells of eagle eggs, etc.).
Has anyone ever gotten around to calculating the number of deaths in Third World countries due to malarial mosquitoes that were alive, rather than being properly controlled, because DDT was prohibited?
Then again, the “biodiversity” crowd tend to become frantic when anyone mentions human populations. They think there are too many of us already. So, in their estimation, the malarial mosquitoes are soldiers fighting heroically to save Holy Mother Gaia from us rotten, nasty, evil humans.
At least they know which side they are on. Our “political leaders”, not so much. That would require thought, after all.
clear ether
eon
Many years ago I read in a credible source (I read no other kind) which I cannot now remember, that the number of post-DDT deaths by malaria was around 90 Million. That would probably make it 110 Million or much more today.
Biodiversity is an invention of Federal grantees in academia, most of whom have useless “biology” degrees, the undiscipline of “biology” not being a science but a taxonomy. A taxonomy they often get wrong, shuffling creatures from one phyla, genus or species to another with each new archeological find.
The “hundreds of species disappearing” every year with which these taxonomist grantees panic the public are among millions brought into being every year by gamma rays and such, and among billions they haven’t even found yet.
These people are the pathetic alchemysts of the modern age who filch more than the treasure of our public commons, but the minds of generations of our human capital.
“…Rachel Carson, who made a variety of claims in “Silent Spring” that have since been disproven scientifically…”
Nothing dies harder than a well constructed lie.
I was recently having a conversation with my Vet about the spread of a new strain of Ivermectin resistant heartworms. Frankly, I am amazed that it has taken this long for Dirofilaria immitis to develop a resistant strain. I suggested that instead of searching for a new, more effective treatment that we exterminate all mosquitoes by inundating the country with DDT. I was not serious of course, that would not work. However, if I were able to exterminate such critters that serve as vectors for horrible disease, I would without hesitation. Ticks, fleas, mosquitoes, many species of roundworms and flatworms….I could make quite a list; gone.
On my suggestion of soaking the continent in DDT my Vet was horrified and commented that it would kill practically every lifeform, including humans. I didnt know what to say to her. She is very sharp, well educated, but seriously misinformed about DDT.
60 million dead babies and widespread ignorance. Such is the legacy of Rachael Carson. May she rot in hell.
I stand corrected. 110 million. Ten million here, ten million there…what difference? As the kindly Dr. Charles Wurster said, “People are the cause of all the problems. We have too many of them. We need to get rid of some of them, and this (referring to malaria deaths) is as good a way as any.”
What a sweetheart ole Charly is. May he rot in hell too.
I remember running around campgrounds as a child, chasing the jeep with the DDT fogger – evidently your vet wasn’t with me at the time. However, she is correct:
I have been exposed to DDT, and I will die.
Hey, that’s logic, and logic doesn’t lie.
Another thing that comes to mind in this thought experiment: _adult_ birds would not be killed by a one-year saturation of DDT…
Yes, the enviro-Nazis believe there are too many of us anyway, and think malaria is as good a check against overpopulation as any. This falls in line with Malthusian ideas about overpopulation, which are spurious because they omit, incredibly, the fact that people die.
The reason people in third world nations keep having so many babies, is that so many of their children die. You would also have a lot of children too, if you knew at least half of them would die, and that was exactly the situation in the 17th and 18th centuries in Europe.
As soon as living standards improve, by, for example, eliminating the scourge of malaria, the birth rate drops, every time.
During the Burma Campaign in WW2, Orde Wingate’s Chindits suffered more casualties and fatalities from malaria than enemy action.
No Casevac helicopters in those days and little space for conventional aircraft landings, the infected suffered horrendous hardship and the only way out was strapped to a mule.
As a result vast areas of jungle were sprayed with DDT and voilla, problem solved.
Did this mass slaughter of those blood sucking parasitic insects result in a silent, fauna denuded Burma?
You’d have to ask the Burmese (that is if you could in this repressive state) but I’m sure we’d have all heard about it by now.
We’ve got Rachel Carson to thank for why we’re dealing with this menace in such magnitude.
Back in the day, quinine would fix you up pretty good if you got malaria, albeit with tinnitus as a side effect. Not sure if it’s still being used.
It is.
Actually,chloroquine is the preferred drug, but why quibble?
Yes but doesn’t mix as well with gin.
That’s what help the Brits to conquer the tropics, y’know.
Seriously.
The earth-huggers can’t have all these people cluttering up the planet, despoiling it. That’s the bottom line.
The eco-freaks hate people, and they also hate their own idea of God (as they misunderstand Him to be).
As long as it’s Other People, not them.
One strategy proposed is to introduce a bioengineered transgenic strain of the Anopheles mosquito resistant to P. Falciparum. The idea is that the new strain would outcompete the wild strains carrying the parasite.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3080844/
That would drive the envro-puritans nuts.
Oh, sure. Then you have to breed three other strains resistant to P. vivax, P. Ovale, and P. malariae and somehow get them to eliminate each other along with the wild type. Good luck with that. Since Malaria is strictly a human disease, vaccinating the humans has a better chance of eliminating all four Plasmodia species. I imagine coming up with 4 vaccines would be easier than coming up with 4 resistant strains of mosquitoes that eliminate one another.
Or one mosquito resistant to all of them.
If P. Falciparum alone were brought under control that would be a great improvement as the others are rarely fatal so they are focusing on that in this study. The idea is not frankenbug vs vaccine. The two are not mutually exclusive and neither is ever likely to be 100% effective alone.
Cross African and European honeybees? Sure, I don’t see a problem.
Bunnies in Australia? Sure, I don’t see a problem.
Frankensquitos? Sure, I don’t see a problem.
Every 45 seconds in Africa, a child dies from malaria, yet we continue to ban DDT, the single most effective weapon against the cause of the disease, because we worry about its affect on birds.
“I suspect that eradicating small pox was wrong. It played an important part in balancing ecosystems.”
- John Davis, editor of Earth First! Journal
There’s one US lab and one (at least) Russian lab that still has the smallpox virus. Some folks don’t want us to get rid of it entirely, due to “biodiviersity” reasons — that it’s wrong to get rid of a species or even a virus.
Uh, The real reason is that we don’t trust the Russians. If they were to weaponize some of their stock (or give some to Iran to do it for them) and attack us, we better have some of our own to make vaccine with.
A core idea in this biodiversity debate is if all species must be save for some purpose. I would propose that life is an experiment with success and failure, life and death as the inevitable outcomes. Species have failed and have become extinct. If all of the living experiments are given the rights to chance, then species have the right to fail and become extinct. The earth can always use the fertilizer. Saving them all, saving all of nature works against nature.
Disease microbes are too small to fail! They need a government bailout!
What a bunch of fools. I’d like to be kinder and less harsh, but there’s no escaping it – they’re fools. Evolution is supposed to have winners and losers otherwise after a while, there are no more exploitable niches for new species to occupy. (Just to be topical – Occupy Niches Now!!!)
Imagine if the one-celled beasties floating in the primordial seas of Earth banded together and fought to preserve life only for one-celled beasties. No multi-cellular creatures welcome here!
Given the number of disease-causing ‘critters’ which have partly evolved to develop drug resistances or even multiple drug resistances, it’s hard to imagine that Plasmodium falciparum doesn’t have a fighting chance of doing the same. And if it doesn’t/can’t, rest assured – there will be a new species of critter to pop up on our radar right quick to fill the niche vacated by Plasmodium falciparum. Most of the biodiversity nuts I’ve met and spoken with complain that by eliminating species, mankind is “playing God”. That they can say that with a straight face when what they’re proposing is just as much “playing God” is beyond me. It is the nature of nature that new disease-causing agents are evolving all the time.
These same loons would jump at a chance to eliminate political diversity or any thinking that differs from their own. Welcome to Udopia.
First you create preposterous strawmen, imaginary loons who believe in protecting infectious organisms, then you blast this protection as “a form of pagan theodicy, in which Nature is ultimately benevolent….” And readers are falling for this, jumping in with their own condemnations.
More than half the world’s population is pagan, so you’ve managed to disparage more than half the world’s population, and you’ve also demonstrated, by the letter writers jumping on the fake bandwagon, that there is no limit to the stupidity of some people. I can’t believe PJ Media would allow such an incredibly bigoted and offensive article to be published on its site.
Look at some of these letters. The writers actually think that these disease-protecting loons are real and plentiful. Martin Hale writes: “What a bunch of fools. I’d like to be kinder and less harsh, but there’s no escaping it – they’re fools. Evolution is supposed to have winners and losers otherwise after a while, there are no more exploitable niches for new species to occupy. (Just to be topical – Occupy Niches Now!!!)”
No Martin, you are a fool. You too Thomas_L. Re-read the article. It isn’t about REAL people, it’s about strawmen who theoretically MIGHT support biodiversity as intrinsically good, even if it includeded diseases. In the entire world there may be one or two insane people nursing rabies virus in their refrigerators, but this has nothing to do with paganism or some supposed “theodicy.” And it has nothing to do with the normal advocates of biodiversity.
The older I get, the more appalled I have become at so many self-avowed conservatives. Since when did religious bigotry, hatred of homosexuals, lust for killing and otherwise abusing animals, bible-thumping, and plain ignorance and stupidity become hallmarks of alleged conservatism? When did using “pagan” as a slur become acceptable to conservatives?
Did Roger Simon approve this article? Does HE also hold pagans in comtempt?
Ladies and gentlemen, here’s a good example of a concern troll.
Sure looks like a concern troll to me.
You, sir, hagve all the characteristics of a progressive: accuse conservatives of what you, yourself do, try to speak for conservatives, and use blatant lies about conservatives!
No, I think he’s just a moron. Remember this piece celebrating Rhys Davies, a homosexual Welsh author: http://www.city-journal.org/2011/21_1_otbie-rhys-davies.html
?
Or perhaps this piece, which touches on humanity’s treatment of animals:
http://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm/frm/1636/sec_id/94282
Also, Dalrymple is an atheist, but not the unpleasant kind who proselytizes. Lots of us dumb religious bigots still like him! I suppose that’s because he has positive things to say about religion, and doesn’t allow his personal unbelief to stop him from fairly assessing religion’s place in Western civilization.
Florida: good luck with your strawmen!
“If they succeed in establishing religion as a basic Republican Party tenet, they could do us in. … To retreat from that separation would violate the principles of conservatism and the values upon which the framers built this democratic republic. … I’m frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in ‘A,’ ‘B,’ ‘C,’ and ‘D.’ Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me?”
Would you consider Barry “Mr. Conservative” Goldwater, the man many consider to be the founder of the conservative movement, to be a “concern troll”? Goldwater was deeply concerned about the Religious Right’s relentless war on the Constitution and basic American freedoms. If alive today I think he would still be concerned.
Are you Junkyard Dog’s sock puppet, or is it the other way around? Neither of you can write well enough to make your points clear.
Goldwater married a hot young lib chick when he was in his 70s. He came more to her way of thinking the older he got. So what? It discredits nothing he stood for when he was in his prime.
This is one of the problems with the Left – Cult of Personality, c’est vous! You think you can deflect blame from Barry bailing out Wall St. crooks by saying “Bush did it, too!” So what? Bush did lots of stuff Conservatives didn’t like – that’s no argument.
Goldwater was right about reverse discrimination in the 1964 Civil Rights Act because he was right, not because he was Goldwater. (And Humphrey lied about it on the floor – not because he was Humphrey, but because he was a Lefty, and that’s what Lefties do best.)
‘More than half the world’s population is pagan’
What are you talking about?
‘The writers actually think that these disease-protecting loons are real…’
Uh, he quoted the guy from Earth First! didn’t he?
‘bible-thumping’
Now who’s the bigot?
Why don’t you hang out at Huffington Post before they go bankrupt?
Because I’m a conservative. When you combine the numbers of people following Hinduism, Buddhism, Bon, Zoroastrianism, and the indigenous religions of Africa, the Caribbean, Australia, China, Tibet, the many surviving ancient pagan traditions of Europe (especially Italy), the Native religions of the Americas, and sundry neo-pagan cults, more than half the world’s population is pagan.
Who cares what somebody from Earth First said? How many people belong to that group?
Who cares what St. Paul, a lunatic, would have thought? This is the same maniac who came up with the concept of predestination.
The comments to my letter illustrate the obvious. There are no groups in
America dumber or more hateful than born-again bible-thumping Christians and Koran-thumping Muslims, cowering in terror of a God who threatens to throw them into eternal fire if they don’t throw their foreskins at him and kiss his bloody feet. I wonder how many of them would rail against gay marriage (which doesn’t harm anyone) or anything else if they didn’t have their Bible to tell them what to do. Apparently, they have no internal moral compasses, but must rely on garbled scriptures and pompous preachers to tell them right from wrong.
Using “pagan” as a pejorative is unique to Christians, Jews, and Muslims, yet their own religious are all laughable plagiarisms of earlier pagan religious turned into superstitious nonsense.
What in hell is a “concern troll?” I’ve been posting to this site for years.
To quote Mario van Peebles in “Heartbreak Ridge,” don’t go away made; just go away, Florida.
Boy your ignorant…
Paganism is the outgrowth of ancestor worship. Jupiter is reasonably Japheth, Noah’s eldest son. Hephaestus is Cain. Poseidon means ‘son of Sidon’ who is a character from early Biblical history.
Mankind has a tendency to deify its ancestors and kings. See Julius Caesar.
Wotan is one of the earlier kings of the Scandinavian peoples.
=========
I also find Charlie Stross’ idea in one of his books that Mother Earth is a death goddess rather amusing and on target. How many children must we sacrifice to Mother Earth to appease her wrath, Florida? Ten million? Twenty? How will we know when we’ve done enough? Are you one of her prophets to speak for her? And if so, by what mighty miraculous deeds, comparable to the Ressurection, or the parting of the Red Sea…or let us be generous, even the turning of the water into wine are there that we may be sure you speak with divine authority? And if you get your authority from the holy book, Silent Spring, then what mighty works has Rachel Carson done, what healings, what children raised from the dead are attributed to her?
The primary purpose of biodiversity is to reduce man (that single creature with rights given to him by Nature’s God)to the level of just another animal.
The wish us to act like animals (destroy our grand nation that embarasses theleft) and above all -they can then play their cultureof death games (first the unborn, with Obama it’s already the just born and very quickly it will be the old and expensive called the why were they born)
St. Paul would recognize this as just another play by the powers and principalities slapping God’s face by reducing man to the level of lower creatures as opposed to the reality that God made man out of love, in His own image and gave him the task of having “dominion over all things.”
Our declaration of independence recognizes this -the left loathes such thought.
The socialists merely think of controlling man, and God and religion as insurmountable competition if they allow it to exist unhampered.
Absolutely.
But the irony of it all is, as JED mentioned above, that radical biodiversity advocates themselves think that there must be a reason for it. But unless they have some sort of information I’m not aware of, people of faith are way ahead on that score.
If we would do as they wish, and act as the brutish animals they accuse us of being, how long do they think they would survive in the Hobbesian world that would erupt about them, where life is “…solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short…”?
Does the phrase “Be careful what you ask for” bring second thoughts?
Humans ARE animals, no matter what the insane St. Paul, and the equally nutty St. Augustine, had to say.
Doubtless, it makes you feel special and superior believing animals are subordinate to humans, but there is NO scientific or spiritual evidence to support your belief. Only religion, YOUR religion, defends your position. Since all religion is scientifically dubious, you’ve invested your entire philosophy in a suspect hypothesis.
You are not special. You are not a superior being. You are just one of trillions or life-forms on this planet, subject to the same laws of physics. In a hundred years, nobody will give any more flip about you than about the goat living in Mr. Green Jean’s barn. You can dream all you want about being better and higher and more important, but you are not.
Pray all you want to gruesome Yahweh; prostrate yourself all you want to gruesome Yahweh; beg and plead for salvation and a special place in heaven; profess your belief in Jesus, and act like a boot-licking dufus. None of it will make any difference, or may actually set you back.
Meanwhile, I will believe in a force of kindness and generosity and goodness. Not your concept of goodness, which is cruel and incomprehensible. I don’t expect humans to be perfect; I empathize with their miseries and sufferings; I applaud them for their perseverance and courage, and I think they are miraculous. But, no, I do no not think they are superior to other creatures, who suffer far worse, and I do not believe for an instant that they have dominion.
I’m a pagan, and glad of it. I’ve been one for forty-three years. I would rather kill myself than be an egotistical Christian, forever harming helpless creatures and making other people’s lives intolerable. When I go to sleep, I do knowing that I’ve done my best, or near-best, to alleviate suffering, and that I haven’t willingly contributed to planetary misery. You can damn me to hell, and your hideous god can damn me to hell, but there is a higher power, far, far superior to your madman Yahweh, and I know it will protect me from your petty, vicious fire god.
I’m a Buddhist, a “pagan” only in sense 1 here:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pagan
It’s obvious to me that you are a pagan only in sense 2.
Of course humans are above animals, of course humans are special. All human societies ever found have music; no animals do. Humans appreciate a pretty sunset; animals do not. Humans are capable of angelic kindness and sadistic cruelty; animals aren’t.
Humans are capable of hearing and understanding the Buddha-Dharma, animals are not. This is why the murder of a human is a much deeper and graver sin in Buddhism than killing your neighbor’s cat would be.
Stop taking offense on Buddhism’s behalf, toots. Dalrymple wasn’t insulting us, and he wasn’t insulting Hindus. He just means YOU.
Oh, and lay off St. Paul. He and Luke the Evangelist personally brought thousands and thousands of the worst kind of pagans to practice the Ten Commandments – and we Buddhists wish ALL our neighbors would follow such a lovely moral code.
That’s quite a funny rant, as illogical as it may be. I find it particularly entertaining how you say there is NO spiritual or scientific evidence to support that people are superior to animals. There’s actually quite a bit, but of course you’ll deny it all so I’ll just point it out for the benefit of other readers.
You do realize that your mental construct of a “force of kindness, goodness and generosity,” is uniquely human. And since that is the code by which you say you live (though your anger toward people of faith does make one question how well you adhere to it) it doesn’t really matter if you attach it to God or not. As such, you’re not one with the animals any more than Christians are. Even your incomplete morality places you above them- because you possess it, and they don’t.
And there is plenty of other evidence to support that people are superior to animals, besides the existence of a moral code. Our ability to manipulate our environment in our favor, for one. ANd don’t give me any regurgitated drivel about animals being equal because there is more bacterial biomass than human, or that they can survive in more environments. That may be true, but that’s because they changed to suit the environment, not the other way around. We really are masters of the planet, if not the universe. The mere fact that you can access the internet to post your little tirades is proof of that. Imagine what your life would be like without all of the inventions of men and women other than yourself, those who still believe that people are better than animals, and as such, deserve greater comfort and convenience. If, after pondering such marvelous things, you still go to bed feeling that we’re all unimportant nothings, then you’re not morally superior, you’re just a hypocrite.
You keep using this word ‘pagan’ but I do not believe it means what you think it means.
Look up the history. To those who originated the term, pagan had the same context that today is meant by the term hillbilly. It does not refer to non-Christians, as it predates Christianity. It is simply the urban sophisticates sneering at the rubes out in the hinterlands.
Whenever I meet some dippy goth kid from the burbs who says they are a pagan, I have to suppress a giggle. Not for fear of insulting them but because it might stop them from from offering further amusement.
————–
On the subject of the article. Biodiversity is not inherently evil. Not in the original intent that cause d the word to be coined. There are dangers to monoculture. The Potato Famine that killed over a million in Ireland is a good example. The potato crop came from a single type imported from the Americas and was spread through a form of cloning. Thus the crop was extremely vulnerable to a single organism’s attack. But micro-organisms in general are fantastically diverse and we’ve identified only a small fraction of all those in existence.
The evidence appears to indicate that the major malaria forms are driven by species that evolved alongside our own and have no discernible role in the ecosystem other than to prey on us. Eliminating the most prevalent from existence is extremely unlikely to cause any ecological disaster. Even the mosquitoes would be undisturbed.
Biodiversity, like any aspect of nature, can work both for and against human interests. When African diseases, mainly malaria and yellow fever, reached the Americas, it was devastating to the native and European populations alike. Africans, having lived with these diseases for millenia, enjoyed some resistance. Unfortunately, this also meant African slave were an attractive source of labor. Without malaria and other diseases of African origin, the enslavement of Africans for use in the Americas would not have been economically attractive.
Nature doesn’t care one way or the other. Caring is something left to humans by the simple fact of being capable of caring.
And to the rest of us you appear to be a lunatic, ranting and raving about things you don’t believe in. I’d say one of the strongest arguments that YHWH is the true God is that pagans can’t shut up about Him. It is not enough for the pagan not to worship YHWH, the pagan must hate Him, too. That hatred, in turn, is directed at YHWH’s worshipers, who are slandered in every possible way, and murdered if the pagans think they can get away with it.
Udopia, I love it!
The biodiversity idea is mistaking a mental construct: Species- for reality. Reality is that most organisms differ from each other genetically. A rabbit differs from an earthworm and I differ from you. Species is an idea-not a reality. It is a way to divide up the genetic continuum in order to make sense of it. Taxonomy is a structure in our minds not a structure in the world.
If the biodiversity proponents really believe that every different type of DNA is valuable, they should be among the most fervent of pro-lifers. Instead they worry about an arbitrary division in the continuum. If organism A differs from organism B by amount X, then it is invaluable and must be preserved. If it only differs by less than X, then “Oh well, who cares?”
Bravo, Doc.
Yes, excellent stuff – more please. And link to your books on the side like Victor Davis Hanson and Roger Kimball do!
You might think the preservation of Plasmodium falciparum is a bug, but the High Priests of Gaia, who lead the cult of environmentalism, think is a feature.
We know that they hate humanity and wish to see it debased, but few people know that high on their list of “problems” that need to be solved is the Earth’s overabundance of brown babies.
Yes folks, environmentalism is the last socially acceptable form of racism. The only way that white upper class Americans can take action against black and brown people without being shunned as hateful bumpkins.
Think about it.
Boy, are you out of touch. Without environmentalists, we’d all be dying from some form of toxic crap or another. Think of the hundreds of companies caught dumping toxic waste into public water supplies, creeks, rivers, oceans, etc. You can call environmentalists all the ridiculous name you want, but without them, you and your family would be at incredible peril. Talk about biting the hands that feed you, and looking a gift horse in the mouth.
Extremists do not represent the norm, and this includes the extremists who call themselves environmentalists OR conservatives.
We meed stronger, not weaker, environmental protection laws, and stronger, not weaker, consumer protection laws. Every day, I marvel at television commercials for this or that new prescription drug purporting to heal or improve this or that, when two years later we find out that all of these drugs are poison. Thank your lucky stars that there are persons–you’d call them pagans–who investigate the claims and discover the truth.
If it weren’t for the “pagans,” you and your family would probably be dead or dying from crap sold to you by con artists, also known as “Christians.” Your lack of gratitude to those looking out for YOU is astounding. How nasty and small-minded can one get?
Now, it’s time for the environmentalists to turn their sights on the so called green alternatives. Many of these, including any product with essential oils (especially citrus oils) alleged to be non-toxic or less toxic, are even MORE poisonous to pets than the products they supposedly replace. “Green” alternatives are just another scam, with incredible potential for harm.
You’re a bigot, Florida. Go away.
Before you do, though, reflect on the legacy of Rachel Carson. She got politicians around the world to ban the safest, most effective insecticide against mosquitoes, DDT. And with NO PROOF that it affected bird populations, just a theory that it might make some raptor’s eggs’ shells thinner.
That was 50 years ago, Florida. A million malaria deaths a year x 50? That’s 50,000,000 dead black children, Florida.
No malaria deaths in Florida in the past 50 years, though, right? That’s because Florida, a malarial swamp, was thoroughly carpet-bombed with DDT in the 1940s and 50s, along with the rest of the Deep South. (Oh, are there still birds in Florida?)
And this senseless ban is still going on – there’d be no need for this vaccine if Africans could just be allowed to spray the interior walls of their homes once a year with DDT – no need for the massive spraying Florida got.
But eco-creeps like you won’t allow it! Just last year I read that a village in Uganda that was growing “organic” cotton for some tony European boutique corporation got threatened by said corporation when they found that the farmers were spraying the INSIDES of their HOMES (not fields) with DDT once a year. The corporation threatened a boycott unless they stopped.
In effect, the eco-thugs were saying “Don’t you dare protect your kids against malaria, or we’ll make it impossible for you to feed them!” Then they went home, kissed their own healthy kids, then patted themselves on the back for saving some mythical birds’ eggs.
The Rachel Carson bogey has been discredited for years, though gullible conservatives keep reviving it, like Freddy Kruger. DDT is available and used in many countries today. But, its safety has never been proved; that why it’s controversial.
But, this article isn’t about DDT, Rachel Carson, or eco-thugs. It’s about strawmen trying to protect infectious viruses and bacteria on the grounds of defending biodiversity. There are no people seriously doing anything of the kind, and quoting some druggie belonging to an organization of three hardly constitutes proof of anything–other than that the author was trying to stir up passions. The fact that so many readers fell for the trick is very telling.
I’m a bigot? Because I find belittling pagans and paganism offensive. Really? That’s your definition of bigot? Imagine that.
Yes, you are a bigot. An anti-Christian bigot. It’s obvious from what you write.
And either you are not a very careful reader, or none to bright. Dalrymple (an atheist, by the way) in no way belittled paganism. Describing the biodiversity movement as “a form of pagan theodicy”, while perhaps a good description of the movement, says nothing about paganism itself, pro or con.
“DDT is available and used in many countries today. But, its safety has never been proved; that why it’s controversial.”
Oh, it’s controversial because its safety hasn’t been proved – not because its absence has killed 50 million African children. Of course it’s been proved – advocates used to run around eating DDT to show its safety. Eating DDT has been conclusively proved safer than taking a shower (most accidents occur in the home) or driving to the market. Quit making up nonsense.
“But, this article isn’t about DDT, Rachel Carson, or eco-thugs.” Huh. Was it about vilifying St. Paul and stomping the status of Man down to that of animals, then?
“The Rachel Carson bogey has been discredited for years, though gullible conservatives keep reviving it, like Freddy Kruger.” That’s like Jews objecting to Nazis marching, and a friendly skin-head like yourself writing in that “The Adolf Hitler bogey has been discredited for years, though gullible Zionist pigs keep reviving it, like Pebbles and Bam-Bam.”
SHOW how it’s been discredited, don’t just sneer and assert, you gas-bag.
You cannot separate malaria deaths in Africa without talking Rachel Carson, a selfish hag who wanted to make a mark with her book before she died of cancer.
Hey, weren’t the Nazis proud pagans, too?
Again with the straw men. I’m not an eco-activist, and I avidly support the judicious use of DDT. But, again this nothing to do with the article. Did anybody here bother to read it before jumping into the comment box? Obviously you didn’t read my own letters, just a phrase here and there. I criticized the green movement and its fake products, but you missed that too.
Trying reading some books and articles on Carson before blasting her. She was not the monster portrayed by some critics.
Incidentally, it was air-conditioning, not DDT, that made Florida livable. It’s the only thing that makes it livable now. The bugs haven’t gone anywhere.
DDT was outlawed for years, not because it was bad in and of itself, but because untrained people were using it in vastly excessive quantities, allegedly causing harm to many animal species. As for the idiots eating it to prove how harmless it was, I’d love to see longterm follow-up studies on them. We had an agriculture official here who swore that malathion was harmless and that she could drink a glass of it she was holding with no ill-effect. Her audience responded by saying, “Go ahead. Drink it.” She did not. Meanwhile the local officials drenched my city with malathion night after night for several weeks to get rid of fruit flies (they sprayed from the center out, rather than from the outside in, just making matters worse). This so called harmless substance dissolved the paint on thousands of cars, melted their tires and anything else rubber exposed to it, and caused millions in property damage.
There is a reason there are federal usage labels on insecticides, and it has nothing to do with the benevolence of chemical companies.
This ducking and weaving of yours is getting pathetic, Florida.
“DDT was outlawed for years, not because it was bad in and of itself, but because untrained people were using it in vastly excessive quantities, allegedly causing harm to many animal species.” Prove it. I’m tired of your ignorant assertions. It was banned for years IN ANY QUANTITY, and it still is in most countries. The motives you describe for this banning – did you pull them from your armpit?
“As for the idiots eating it to prove how harmless it was, I’d love to see longterm follow-up studies on them.” I Googled “eating DDT”, and here’s what popped up first:
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=45063
Two choice quotes:
“Not afraid to put his mouth where his moxie was, Edwards took to swallowing a tablespoon of DDT on stage before every lecture on the subject. In September 1971, Esquire magazine pictured Edwards doing just that. The accompanying text explained that Edwards had ‘eaten 200 times the normal human intake of DDT.’ He did not even consider this gesture risky. In the one year of 1959, for instance, unprotected workmen had applied 60,000 tons of DDT to the inside walls of 100 million houses. Neither the 130,000 workmen or the 535 million people living in the sprayed houses had experienced any adverse effects.”
And this:
“For the record, the research activities of this DDT-eating scientist finally caught up with him. Edwards died of a heart attack while climbing Divide Mountain at Glacier National Park, where he held the unofficial title as the patron saint of climbing. He was 84 years old.”
So what’s your position now? You “avidly support judicious use”, which is semantically nil, because who defines judicious? Again, pathetic.
“Incidentally, it was air-conditioning, not DDT, that made Florida livable. It’s the only thing that makes it livable now. The bugs haven’t gone anywhere.”
How ignorant. The mosquitoes that carry malaria are gone, or, you know what? You’d have cases of malaria in Florida. I heard last year that Dengue Fever’s making a comeback in FL, though – better hope for some judicious use soon.
You don’t know how to argue, and you’re a bigot to boot. Why not toddle along now?
Please, Christians build hospitals and orphanages to serve pagans who are ignored by their fellow pagans. Do we use the opportunity to try to convert them? Of course, we wouldn’t be practicing our faith if we didn’t, but we treat the sick and care for the orphans anyway, even if they don’t convert.
“Words, words, mere words…” Please people, if you want to have a half-way intelligent discussion don’t you think that it’s a good idea to use words correctly? Paganism is a faith — Hello, King Lear, cosmic forces, destiny, fate, the Wheel of fortune? Time to stop cramming bloody, ugly intolerant Christianity down people’s throats.
Florida is exactly factually correct: Using “Pagan” as a pejorative is unique to Christians, Jews, and Muslims, yet their own religious are all laughable plagiarisms of earlier pagan religious turned into superstitious nonsense.
Paganism is not a negative faith or force. It is a faith held by millions of people across the globe for centuries. Anyone who uses the term Paganism as a pejorative obviously flunked kindergarden. Maybe the fools referring to Paganism as a pejorative might do a little net search before jumping into the cesspool of stupidity on this thread, huh? Oh, right, I forgot, the ego driven commenter could care less about facts and information.. it’s only FEELINGS that count! HAHAHAHAHAhahahaha FOOLS!!!
Charles Martel, who stooped the Muslims from taking over much of Europe, did so with a part Christian but mostly Pagan army. Christians owe a big dept to Pagans.
Yeah, and don’t forget the Undead – Vlad the Impaler was there in spades!
By the bye – it’s tacky to reply to your own comment, FeralJunkdogYardcat. Glenn Greenwald certainly found it uncomfortable when HE got caught at it.
A little net search, Junk Dog? Why not just use a dictionary:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pagan
Dictionaries are swell for finding the meaning of “mere words”, Junk. (But what was that about King Lear? A Shakespeare quote would be much more entertaining that your snotty little lecture about due diligence, dude.) As you can see, if you managed to follow the link, “pagan” is a pejorative in every sense of the word.
Buddhists and Hindus are polytheists, but we don’t refer to ourselves as “pagans”. (Surprisingly enough, we don’t refer to ourselves as infidels, heathens, shiksas, goyim, or non-believers, either.) No, some dork like you saw the movie DRAGNET with Dan Ackroyd and decided it was cool to take drugs and dance in furry leggings, so he proudly called himself a pagan.
“yet their own religious (sic) are all laughable plagiarisms of earlier pagan religious (double-sic) turned into superstitious nonsense” If it’s laughable, share it with the rest of the group! Give examples – we could use a laugh. Or did you flunk sharing in kindergarten?
I suppose it would be a good and wonderful thing if we became a theocracy and ordered that everyone praise God and keep his commandments and add some more commandments that we feel he would much approve of. We could probably get up to at least a hundred commandments in no time. But if we are to become a theocracy I would like better to understand the ways of the Lord. Why did He give Steve Jobs cancer? To keep him from being bored and make him good? But he died and so it couldn’t make him good. I suppose it was for some other reason that only God would ever understand. We know it must have been for a good and wise and merciful reason, whatever it was. Did He make the roof fall in on the kindly stranger who was trying to save the crippled woman from the fire? Don’t ask me why, because I don’t know. I only know it was to discipline him or to show him a more enlightened path. Reverend Burgess said in his sermon that billions of little creatures are sent into us to give us cholera, and typhoid and other sicknesses and the Lord must send them. He must educate and keep us from being bored and discipline us. And then there was the lightning that come last week and struck the new church, and burnt it down. It must have been to educate and discipline the church and make the church better. I suppose so as He always knows what’s best. But it killed a hog that wasn’t doing anything. Was it to educate and discipline the hog? Must have been. Mr. Hollister says wasps catch spiders and cram them down into their nests in the ground alive and there they live and suffer for days and days with the wasps chewing on them to make them feel pain and so become good and religious and praise God for His infinite mercies. I think Mr. Hollister is ever so kind for when I asked him if he would treat a spider like that, he said he hoped to be damned if he would. I suppose he will be damned for unenlightened talk like that.
Florida.
“Meanwhile, I will believe in a force of kindness and generosity and goodness.” MAN, all that hate directed at Christians and anyone else with a different set of values than yourself is a very strange variant of “kindness, generosity and goodness”
“Boy, are you out of touch. Without environmentalists, we’d all be dying from some form of toxic crap or another.”
You don’t find it extremest to suggest that nature is perfect until the introduction of the evil “man” who would have all the world a toxic waste dump without the likes of you?
The only ones trying to force their religion down the throats of others by force of law are the Evangelical Environmentalists, the Evangelical Progressives and Political Correctness Gurus.
Thomas Sowell has made the astute observation that such people have no interest in whether a particular policy is beneficial or not but only that it allows them to claim moral superiority. I don’t remember the quote exactly, but I think that this pretty well captures the essence of it.
“You don’t find it extremest to suggest that nature is perfect until the introduction of the evil ‘man’ who would have all the world a toxic waste dump without the likes of you?”
I find it amazing that you could find any such suggestion in my comments. Your comprehension level must be incredibly low. You too are inventing a straw man to knock down. I’m surprised you haven’t accused me of witchcraft…yet.
The “biodiversity” movement covers a multitude of sins. Dr. Dalrymple has highlighted one of the worst. I’d like to mention another, namely the money hustle. The UN has a Convention on Biodiversity that meets every couple of years to study which species are threatened and how to help them. Some of it’s work is worthy but from personal experience I can attest to some of the work being intellectually incoherent and run by activists who fit Dr. D’s description or by bureaucrats who just enjoy being flown on your tax dollars to another vacation spot for another conference. Worse, however, by far, are the redistributionists who just want to use the issue of Rich White Industrial World Raping The Planet to demand compensation. Did you know that plasmodium falciparum is a carrier not of illness but “genetic resources” that belong to indigenous peoples in the regions where it is found? Who have not been consulted by those who study it and want to design drugs or other tools to fight it? Those indigenous peoples need a place at the table in any negotiation of rights to access and use the resource for any purpose including research and very definitely if any money is to be made from it. Did you also know that the accumulated experience of the disease –what might work against it, how to cope with it day to day, even where the mosquitoes live and how to fight them– constitutes or contains elements of “traditional knowledge” which belong to those indigenous peoples, and which cannot be used without their consent? Again, as with the “genetic resources” of the pathogen itself, any attempt to profit by the indigenous peoples’ traditional knowledge will require negotiating an appropriate compensation package.
You may think this is satire. I wish it were.
Do you have their main Headquarter’s address, please? I’d like to send them some lovable and cuddly Yersinia Pestis that’s just dying for some attention.
/sarc
Good gracious, this one is easy. “Biodiversity” means proposing to preserve in amber the current condition (as of Tuesday at 10:00 AM) of any species that
(a) can only have its condition preserved through the advocates’ control over my livelihood, property, and/or bank balance;
(b) can be used as an obstacle to the commercial or recreational activities of others, where those activities are despised by the biodiversity advocate;
(c) gives biodiversity advocates a sense of superio virtue when the preservation of its current condition is advocated for.
Surely Christian, Neopagan, and whoever else can agree that the abominations Dr. Dalrymple describes are not the work of a good being. Wicca at least seems to be a religion for suburbanites, unaware of the horrors that exist in the world; while modern Christianity and New Atheism also ignore them in favor of wrangling back and forth about whether God or a benevolent Evolution is responsible for one or another phenomenon. Biodiversity advocates are certainly part of this intellectual suburbia as well: these abominations just don’t occur to them to fit into their schema.
Love is written on the stars, but malice is as well.
I understand that the worms-on-a-stick Dalrymple describes have been exterminated, which is a triumph for virtue in the world; I’ll have to see if there’s a way to contribute to the cause of wiping out giant roundworm as well. Creatures that big should be much easier to exterminate than smaller ones — a sign of overreach on the side of the powers of corruption.