Is the planet "broken" and did that cause the evolution of predation?

Wexler said:
Question for the board: is it possible that because the planet is “broken” (the collision that gave the Earth its iron core that spins, the moon, the tilt, the wobble, not to mention the tectonics, the inconsistent position of the landmasses, the extreme climate change…oh and a mediocre sun) life on this planet evolved the need for predation?

If the planet itself was a uniform, stable and nurturing environment with equal distribution of resources life would have evolved differently...and thus no predatorial behavior...and that while evolution might be consistent for life through the universe, predatorial behavior is not?
Thanks!
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Impossible in the long run, unless you want to shorten lifespans to say, the lifespan of a Mayfly.
Every living thing needs energy and must eat. In general terms this is predation.

The planet is a confined space and the Exponential Function eventually will result in depletion of resources, resulting in competition (war) for those sources.
This may be of interest:

And this may be scary, but it seems Nature has accounted for every possible survival technique in every species, alive or extinct.
 
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Wexler said:
Hmmm, ok, fair point I guess, but really, how about these?

1End-Ordovician, 443 million years ago.
This coincides with very rapid glaciation; sea level fell by more than 100 metres, devastating shallow marine ecosystems; less than a million years later, there was a second wave of extinctions as ice melted, sea level rose rapidly, and oceans became oxygen-depleted.

2Late Devonian, c 360 million years ago.
A messy prolonged event, again hitting life in shallow seas very hard, and an extinction that was probably due to climate change.

3Permian-Triassic mass extinction, c 250 million years ago.
The greatest of all, ‘The Great Dying’ of more than 95% of species, is strongly linked with massive volcanic eruptions in Siberia that caused, among other effects, a brief savage episode of global warming.

4Triassic-Jurassic mass extinction, c 200 million years ago.
This has been linked with another huge outburst of volcanism.

So lets review: rapid glaciation, ice melting oceans became oygen-depleted, climate change, massive volcanic eruptions, global warming and volcanism...


Nothing "broken" about that system, eh?
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"Broken" implies an anthropic interpretation that it became 'worse off'. In fact, all of those events were apparently necessary to bring to fruition the human species, and so one could suggest that things were instead "fixed" to make the planet better. Our ancestors were present throughout all of those 'events', albeit not as H. sapiens sapiens, and we survived all of those 'events' taking advantage of the changes and evolving along with the changing circumstances.
 
Walter L. Wagner said:
"Broken" implies an anthropic interpretation that it became 'worse off'. In fact, all of those events were apparently necessary to bring to fruition the human species, and so one could suggest that things were instead "fixed" to make the planet better. Our ancestors were present throughout all of those 'events', albeit not as H. sapiens sapiens, and we survived all of those 'events' taking advantage of the changes and evolving along with the changing circumstances.
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I am always amused by the subjective interpretations of the "condition of the planet earth".

The planet is doing just fine, its the life on the planet that is in jeopardy. The planet has withstood the most violent cosmic assaults from a number of natural events and will be here long after we are gone.

The planet is not threatened by human activity, humans and other life forms are! But to the planet we are at most just a surface nuisance.

George Carlin said it best (warning crude language)
 
Write4U said:
I am always amused by the subjective interpretations of the "condition of the planet earth".

The planet is doing just fine, its the life on the planet that is in jeopardy. The planet has withstood the most violent cosmic assaults from a number of natural events and will be here long after we are gone.

The planet is not threatened by human activity, humans and other life forms are! But to the planet we are at most just a surface nuisance.

George Carlin said it best (warning crude language)
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George Carlin is no longer with us to defend himself. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Carlin

While some of what he says is true, or funny, much is not. I take exception with his suggestion that we should allow species to go extinct, if we are the cause. One of the better examples of active human effort to prevent extinction is with the condor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_condor I believe other efforts are likewise warranted.
 
Walter L. Wagner said:
George Carlin is no longer with us to defend himself. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Carlin

While some of what he says is true, or funny, much is not. I take exception with his suggestion that we should allow species to go extinct, if we are the cause. One of the better examples of active human effort to prevent extinction is with the condor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_condor I believe other efforts are likewise warranted.
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Of course I agree. I just wanted to show the irony of our efforts to help other species survive, while at the same time continuing with our practices that will make them extinct. Aside from natural selection and natural calamities, humans are the main cause for the eventual extinction of species including ourselves.

If we were to realize the importance of say the honeybee (which is now in mortal danger) we would stop the use of all herbicides. Honeybees are responsible for the propagation of some 70% of all flowering plants and trees and if they were to disappear, half of all animals on earth would die.
A precious pollinator of fruits and vegetables, the disappearing bees left billions of dollars of crops at risk and threatened our food supply
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http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/silence-of-the-bees-introduction/38/

IMO, his main point was that before we start "saving the planet", we should concentrate on "saving the eco-system" on the planet and we should begin by recognizing human impact on its environment. Setting aside wildlife preserves will do nothing to restore the natural global balance. But there is something we can do immediately to great benefit of the earth's eco-system.

Hemp is one of the most versatile and environmentally friendly crops. Hemp is a natural CO2 scrubber and can yield products ranging from paper, to cloth, to building materials, to an low polluting bio-fuel. It restores and fixes the soil it grows in, it is pest resistant and has a very favorable ratio of crop yield as compared to trees or cotton and can grow in almost every soil with little demand for water.
Compare this to the use of 1 gallon of water to produce a single almond, which we love to eat, but don't need)

1 acre of hemp will produce as much useable product as 4 acres of trees. But we have outlawed hemp and continue to cut down forests, the lungs of the world. This is the irony. Its all about profit, not about the planet.

I urge all to read the following links carefully and consider the implications of using Hemp as a beneficial eco-friendly crop. Below are some revealing (and little known) beneficial properties of hemp. Below, I have quoted just a few of the much longer list of benefits.
Pollution free : Hemp is such as hardly plant that can grow almost anywhere at any climate; it hardly needs fertilizer, herbicides or pesticides, so it reduces the pollution to the earth, air and water; but this is not all. Hemp itself actually cleans up toxins from the ground, under a process namely phytomerediation. Chemical pollution can also be significantly reduced if displace cotton with hemp for clothing, as 50% of the world’s pesticides goes on cotton fields.

Efficient Land Use. Hemp can yield four times of an average forest can. A hemp crop can be harvested in ninety days, while trees take around twenty- five years. Just imagine, once we harvested the forest, it will need some 25 years to recover the deforestation.
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http://1st-ecofriendlyplanet.com/tag/environmental-benefits-of-hemp/
 
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