Planet Earth and Mankind's Hubris

Our gorgeous home

Watching "Planet Earth" walking on my treadmill in the basement is not a bad way to start the day. You might ask why I don't go out and simply experience planet earth, but it's before sunrise and if I leave the house for a walk without inviting my Labrador retriever he would crash into instant depression and need electroshock therapy. You're going OUTSIDE?  Without ME? He would not listen to reason about the risks of walking him in the dark, where he can find unsavory of possibly life threatening things on the ground to eat I cannot see.

Wait! You're going out? Without me?

You may say I'm projecting, going all anthropomorphic, but that dog has emotions, and he has a face and he is not hard to read, and in fact he is difficult to ignore. He does not say much, but he emotes effectively. 

Having said all that, what I'm talking about today is all about projecting human values on the planet and its animal inhabitants.

As I've mentioned before, I have a long running dispute with the State of New Hampshire for designating Norway maple trees as an "invasive species" and outlawing the procurement, planting or fraternizing with these trees in the state. 

Just what, exactly, is an "invasive species?"  Are we not all invasive species, having moved into whatever place on the planet we have found a good place to live and occupied some niche successfully?  What the State of New Hampshire means by calling this innocent, purple leafed tree "invasive" is the state legislators do not like the tree, consider it a pest. 

Cute, from a distance

We do not like snake fish in the Northeast, an import from China, because they are ugly and successfully eliminate fish we do like, such as trout and perch. So we designate snake fish "invasive."

We don't like it when one species crowds out other species we find cute or useful, but we have no problem planting corn fence post to fence post or replacing the Great Plains grass with wheat or corn or soy. Are these not invasive species of plants?

Okay, melt my heart

Invasive species is a religious concept, a value judgment, not evolutionary science.

This morning Planet Earth followed a male  Brazilian beetle with huge jaws, as he made his way up a sixty foot tree, encountering other male beetles, on his way to the female at the top. Each encounter was a sumo wrestling match,no other way to describe it. He simply threw his opponent off the tree and marched on upwards until to got to his prize, the female beetle. 

Would you admit this kid to your college?

As David Attenborough narrated "Planet Earth" showed us insects which acquired protective coloration "so they can blend in with the dead leaves around them,"  or they had acquired a layer of blubber "so they can thrive in  icy waters,"  as if these animals had made a decision to acquire these things like shopping at the mall, "Oh, I need some camo skin," or, "Oh, I need some insulation for that cold water."

Unkind to penguins 

Of course, nothing like this happens. Bugs with camouflage have a selective advantage and live to reproduce; seals survive because of their insulation and reproduce. 

Swallows fish whole

"Planet Earth" has the most amazing scenes--you wonder how they had the patience to be there to photograph these things. But the narrative which accompanies all this is just so "intelligent design," definitely not guided by evolutionary theory.

Planned Parenthood mascot

They did show a wonderful vulture who arrives at a carcass picked clean by other, smaller vultures, "Timed just as his tastes demand," and he makes off with a large bone, sails skyward and drops it on rocks below which shatters the bone so its soft, fatty marrow is exposed. He then swallows the bone fragments whole into the acid bath in his stomach he has designed especially to dissolve bones.

Yoda's cousin

Of course, these birds are engaging in some deliberate manipulation of their environment, dropping the bones. I see seagulls do this every morning at North Beach, Hampton, NH, where they drop clams on the seawall, smashing them open and then they descend to pick at the soft muscular inhabitants inside.

Plover power

We do admire and love some animals for emotional reasons. But we have to realize, cute as polar bear cubs are, polar bears would eat you alive if you crossed their path in the Arctic; as cute as seals are to us, they are not so cute to the penguins or fish they eat.  Dogs may love us and snuggle, but they are not kind to squirrels or cats.

We live in a dog eat dog world. We ought not forget that.

Invasive species