So im reading the National Geographic from January today, which might i say has some of the best pictures of the grand canyon i have ever seen (quality stuff, National Geographic), and i stumble across an article about frogs.
Apparently, a lot of frogs have been getting their butts owned by destruction of habitat (surprise!), but also a certain type of fungi, more lethal even than habitat change, that infects their skin and alters their water proportion. This all leads to 20 or so species becoming extinct and hundreds or thousands more becoming endangered in the past 20 years (so pretty recent mind you).
So rapid is the change in population due to the fungi, that some researchers are abducting the remaining individuals to put them in zoos to keep them from going extinct and to weather this storm.
At this point, my natural reaction is to say: "well, to heck with the froggies, they suck at life! can't they adaot to this new fungi? and if not, they deserve to die!"
And then i realize what National Geographic, a bastion of all things Darwinian, is doing: they are thwarting, nay, going behind natural selection and Darwin's back in trying to save these poor little froggies that couldn't adapt fast enough to a strain of fungi that occurred naturally. HEATHENS! How dare they try to save animals that obviously lost at life and whose genes were not meant to survive! YOU ARE TOYING WITH THE VERY THING THAT MADE EVERYTHING YOU SEE! STOP IT!
/end sarcasm.
Honestly National Geographic, you can't have it both ways: you want to conserve and protect this fine planet and all of its inhabitants, which with all my heart i support, and i commend you in your efforts; yet your doctrine is incompatible with this goal. You say and believe that natural selection and the law of the jungle brought us all to where we are today, yet you go against it every other page when you're trying to save the world.
Either sit back and relax and watch the world go to hell with the snazzy pictures you produce, staying with your Darwinian point of view; OR do what it is you do in trying to save the precious world we have, but abandon your illogical stance on the world if you wish to not be the hypocrite you are.
/end rant
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