Balance of nature: importance of ecosystems (Introduction)

by David Turell , Tuesday, April 02, 2019, 15:43 (1844 days ago) @ dhw

QUOTES: "In the systems I’m looking at right now, humans are super generalists. They feed on many more things than almost all other species.
"In any food web, most animals are fairly specialized in what they eat. Most eat 10 or fewer things. You have a few things that eat more and more. And then out at the very end of the long tail of the distribution is where humans tend to be. In a sense, that is special."

DAVID: Many systems are described and how many of them are influenced by humans. It is a decisive discussion as to why the bush of life is so important as a food source. And it shows why God knew what He was doing in setting up the diversity so evolution could progress over time with a full energy supply.

dhw: A strange conclusion. Let me summarize this collection of obvious facts: all forms of life need food, so of course ecosystems are important for all organisms. Different forms of life need different types of food, some eating more types and some eating fewer. If they can get what they need, they survive. If they can’t get what they need, they die. There is always some kind of hierarchy in the food chain, but there is no such thing as “the” balance of nature, because it changes all the time, according to what eats what. If your God deliberately designed all the comings and goings of the ever changing bush of life and of ecosystems, this suggests anything but the single purpose of deliberately designing the brain of H. sapiens.

You've skipped over, as usual, God's choice of evolution to reach the human level.