"TomHendricks474"  wrote in message
news:blkvsr$bha$1{at}darwin.ediacara.org...
> <<  If we can make organisms that
> are more useful to us, that's what matters. >>
>
>
> Perhaps in the short run, but I think there is a real
danger (and it is evident
> today IMO) that IF the entire biological world must please
humans to continue
> their existence - we will loose diversity that will
probably harm us in the
> end.

I'm sure you're right--IF this were true, but I doubt most
people in the biogenomic and ecology fields would allow that
to happen politically (so long as it is within their power
to control such a thing, i.e., vis a vis nature and
ecosystems, and our available scientific knowledge.) I think
the long-term is more secure than the short-term in this
regard, since ultimately (relatively far future) I'm sure we
will be able to "clone" any species we want simply from its
genomic data--once we learn to make and handle artificial
cells and chromosomes etc. and those artificial wombs Huxley
once invisioned  it's just a matter of physical
chemistry and engineering. This is just a matter of time I
believe.

But the more serious problems in the short and medium run
are, [1] obtaining a catalog of genomes of all known
species, and, [2] knowing what species we need or will need
for specific problems.

Right away, [1] has a problem in that we have only scratched
the surface on all species important to the ecosystem, in
fact we can only guess at the total number of species on the
planet. Hopefully, continuing the current program will yield
sufficient genomes to at least attempt to solve eco problems
before they become catastrophes, as long as critical species
don't become extinct before we can get this data. The
problems with [2] are (will be) the need to know all the
exact interactions of critical species with each other and
other details of the ecosystems.  While this seems almost
impossible, hopefully science will be able to approximate
needed info to solve future problems.

Certainly none of this sounds easy, but the hardest part is
over--we now know what the genome is and have started to see
how it works. The rest will just be grunt work. :) I think
the planet will still be around and working well several
millennia from now--as will humans and their science. The
glass is half full!      ...tonyC


> Now, we are seeing the loss of most large mammals across
the planet. They
> demand large ranges to get enough food and that directly
competes with humans
> in most places.
> What group is next?
> When selection on all species but humans is mostly based
on human desires,
> there are real problems in everybody's future.
>
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