Evolution and humans: Earth's environmental role (Evolution)

by dhw, Wednesday, May 31, 2017, 12:27 (2731 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: I always respond the way I do because you always make the same comment: any confirmation of evolutionary processes confirms your view that God uses evolutionary processes! If you stop making that comment, I will stop responding to it.
DAVID: Since you know my view, I will stop, but I really make those statements for the lurkers who may be following us.

Then the sake of the lurkers it is incumbent on me to point out that these articles do not support your views.

DAVID: As for energy, I find your view of the balance of nature supplying energy entirely backward as I think the author demonstrates.
dhw: That is YOUR view. You wrote that the balance of nature was the source of energy! The source means that the “balance” is the supplier! No, I suggest that energy supply is what determines the balance of nature, as I think the author demonstrates.
You are correct. It works in both directions. More energy means more diversity can be supported, but I view it as still bound up in a working balance of nature which must remain balanced:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-017-0138

Thank you. I shan’t repeat the quotes, as my only disagreement is with your continued harping on “the balance of nature”. Energy supply leads to diversity, and diversity itself influences the environment. There is no “must remain balanced” because the balance is constantly changing according to the energy supply and according to the nature of the organisms in existence at the time. This is exemplified by:

“The emergence of life forms that eat one another transformed the nature of ecosystems, and introduced a powerful new set of evolutionary interactions, thus accelerating the pace of macroevolutionary change.”

The energy supply changed, carnivores appeared, the balance of nature changed. In the context of evolution, the balance of nature simply refers to whatever organisms and resources exist at the time. When we talk about it now, we mean the balance that exists now, and so when humans introduce foreign species which destroy the status quo, we say they are disturbing the balance of nature.