Species Paper

One of the things I found interesting while writing the species paper and looking at Lloyd's rank of the top 100 species on Earth are the categories he chose to rank the species on in order to give them their overall score. His categories included:
*Evolutionary Impact
*Impact on Human History
*Impact on the Environment
*Global Reach
*Longevity
All these categories made sense to me except 1, why did he care so much about impact on human history? I was not surprised this was a category but I was disappointed. I understand that humans are in many ways the brightest species on Earth but we seem to be horrible at making good decisions. In fact, we have made many mistakes, and continue to make many mistakes, that not only effect our own species in a negative way but all other species on Earth. I am tired of people thinking humans are so great and that we are so much better than the rest of the world. If we were so great why could we not live without stable ecosystems? When it comes to wildlife management generally, it is the species at the top of the food chain that is the most disposable and humans are at the very top. If we died out I think everyone would agree that the Earth would be OK if not in a better place than it is today. Why is it so hard for humans to grasp that other species are just as important as ourselves if not more? How can people knowingly destroy the plant and not feel guilty? Where do we think we are all going to live if earth is somehow destroyed enough to not make an immediate recovery? How can we make humans see outside ourselves and begin to appreciate everything around us? If someone can answer this question than I would be forever grateful.

Alright. Sorry guys, my first blog got deleted by my lameo internet problems, and I didn't know how to save. My thoughts..my thoughts...

The fact that those little bacteria guys managed to pollute this whole planet into a place where we can survive blows my mind. I wonder if us humans will manage to do the same? The dino's got unlucky and a big chunk of rock ruined them, but we seem to be on the path to ruining ourselves.

How God fits into earth’s evolution? Well, I have no problem with seeing that God could be the reason for all this scientific process…I mean, why couldn’t He have made something as complicated as the Earth? Also, I would think time means little to Him, He is omnipresent and eternal…A billion years would mean nothing, so why couldn’t his thought of a day be our thought of millions of years passing by? It’s always interesting to think about.

I question that we can decide how to place a number of importance of a species. Everything everywhere is always changing, evolving, new species being discovered while others go extinct. We are all connected in odd little ways you don’t ever think is important until Bam, that species is gone, and we can notice the affects. Since this is so, how can we say oh, well, Plankton, you put out tons of oxygen, you are most important. (Ok, I know they do more than that, but for the sake of a little argument, just to get a new angle…) Trees are pretty big deals too…Not just oxygen, but they keep things from eroding, they are homes, heck, they help us build our homes. This isn’t even going that deep into an argument, I don’t know enough about my species, but it was what I thought after we did that talk in class the other day.

Anyway, these movies are really interesting, they give us lots of food for thought. I find that how we effect each other, and how discovering how the earth was made affecting us is interesting…But it is hard to really think about on one’s own. I like that we are being forced to give more thought about it, we can come up with our own theories, and who knows, maybe someone will be brilliant, and make a new discovery J

animals inhibating the planet

When reviewing the videos that we have been watching in class about the creation of our planet I feel like it takes my breath away. The idea that one small bacteria could have created all of the life on our planet is so phenomenal. I know it was explained in the video but I still can not help but think how in the world is that possible. I have never learned of these theories until now and I am suprised that we haven't been taught these theories when we were younger such as in high school. Why haven't we been taught this before?

What I want to know is how this bacteria specifically created all these different species? What were some of the first species created?


The idea that the planet was first filled with lava and then finally water is kind of a wierd concept, but it makes sense. How else would we have gotten the crust and the mantle?

I do not know how God fits into all these ideas. It perplexs me how then God exists or how these two ideas coinside. If God exists then what did he do exactly? I mean the bible states that God created all the plants and animals and made the universe. So if scientists find that one species was formed and then the rest of the plants and animals were formed from that then how do these two ideas fit together? It doesn't make sense. I guess you just have to believe in one idea or the other.

Was it god or was it the big bang theory?

When wondering how the world was created my mind tells me that God created it and not to believe in the big bang theory. I am a christian so i believe in most of the things that the bible tells us, mostly that it is God who created the world. So it's somewhat hard to get into the topic of how the earth was formed and later evolved. However, i do think that the big bang theory is a fairly decent explanation as to how the earth was created if it wasnt god who created it.

Just wondering???

I have never blogged before so I hope this works.

In class we talked about how earth was formed by rocks sticking to other rocks. The bigger the rock the more rocks would be attracted to it. My first thought was… Why does Mars stay where it is and not collide with earth? Then if the moon is made up of earth’s crust why would the moon not come back to earth? I believe Mars is bigger than earth so if a plant the size of Mars hit earth why would it break apart instead of earth? And two plants colliding creating the moon and destroying the other planet I think that would leave a HUGE dent in the earth.

I thought this was all interesting I am not a big science person so maybe I am missing something but this just did not make a lot of since to me.

Yes, the videos were extremely interesting, but they were also missing a lot of information and facts. The scientists are doing a great job trying to guess how it happened, but i believe that they will never know for sure. The human mind just isnt advanced enough to even fathom the idea of how the universe might have started. And its time they realized that. Its a great theory that the universe was once at a single point because everything is moving away from us at light speed. But for all we know, they are just traveling past otward from us due to the fact that there isnt any friction in space. A planet or star could have become stable and a supernova could have resulted, sending millions of rocks infinite in every direction. The only reason we dont fall out of orbit and drift around aimlessly as well, is because of the orbit of the sun, gravity, and whatnot. As the video showed, rocks would collide around and form larger conjoined rocks (like the bag of salt in space) until a single rock would get big enough to create a gravitational pull. Thus pulling more rocks to its surface infinitely, so i would guess. But im not sure why all of the space matter that space shuttles have to dodge to leave our planet doesnt fall and collide into earth... Anyway, there are a ton of unanswered questions that probably will never be answered. So just use your imagination and find your own belief. As for me, i believe the universe as we know it, is just a spec in the galaxy of another, and that galaxy is just a spec in another, and so on. Our planet is so miniscule and insignificant compared to all of space and time. I believe there are other planets that harbor life more intelligent and less intelligent than ours. But we will never know for sure. It isnt possible to make a machine that can travel through space at lightspeed to explore these ideas for ourselves. We cant even make it past the moon, yet the end of our solar system. And another interesting thought is that there are areas on our own planet that we do not have the technology to visit. The deepest oceans and trenches on earth have so much crushing force that we cannot explore these places. But we know its possible, because pictures have been taken of fish who can survive in such environments. We just need to invent the technology. I just think we have a lot to figure out about our own planet before we move on to conquering others.
And on a side note, i was just thinking, if there was a "big bang" and the universe was formed, and it is infinitely traveling in all directions, could you imagine if the "big bang" was replicated in another place in empty space. Two ground-zero points shooting universes in every direction infinitely. What happens when they collide at the speed of light?

12 Hours

In Thursday's lecture, I was very interested in the idea of taking the evolution of the universe and cramming it into only 12 short hours.  Once this was done, it could be seen just how little of time was spent on what seems to us as the important things.  Out of the 12 hours, the most time was spent on the accumulation of oxygen alone.  Eight hours were spent on oxygen filling the atmosphere and rising to a high enough level for animal survival.  Now I may be going out on a limb here, but I find it fascinating that most of earth's life was spent on producing one single element, yet dinosaurs came and went in a flash.

I would really like to comment on the idea of a fraction of a second as well, but that still blows my mind.  I'm still trying to catch that fraction before it flies by my head . . .