From owner-population-bio@net.bio.net Sat Oct 01 23:00:00 1994 Path: biosci!galaxy.ucr.edu!ihnp4.ucsd.edu!usc!howland.reston.ans.net!swiss.ans.net!solaris.cc.vt.edu!news.duke.edu!news-feed-1.peachnet.edu!umn.edu!newsdist.tc.umn.edu!urvile.msus.edu!TIGGER.STCLOUD.MSUS.EDU!DEGROOTE From: degroote@TIGGER.STCLOUD.MSUS.EDU (David DeGroote) Newsgroups: bionet.population-bio Subject: human populations and resource availability Date: 1 Oct 1994 21:34:35 GMT Organization: ST. CLOUD STATE UNIVERSITY, ST. CLOUD, MN Lines: 19 Message-ID: <36kklb$28b@urvile.MSUS.EDU> Reply-To: degroote@TIGGER.STCLOUD.MSUS.EDU NNTP-Posting-Host: tigger.stcloud.msus.edu Initially I skipped thru articles with this thread. A cursory viewing indicated more "Rush" type science bashing (not intended to cause spontaneous ignitions). Mr. Giorgini's sources appear to question scientific hypothesis as Dr. Decelles points out. As an instructor of undergraduate students I constantly must challenge them to question scientific dogma. There is very little known about global ecosystems, either nature systems or ones that have been significantly altered by anthropocentric activities. Many years ago I attended a seminar given by an Australian forester who illustrated the near complete devastation of forests in New Guinea due to overpopulation. There are numerous examples of localized over-population problems but the more significant question is: do localized problems led to global consequences? We need to question, discuss and investigate these matters. Answers will not come from accusatory polemics--in which a fixed amount of information represents the final basis for discussion and that technology represents the holy grail of the future. IMHO-our species is subject to a grand stochastic event-if we have the intelligence claimed then to examine risk should follow. David DeGroote From owner-population-bio@net.bio.net Sat Oct 01 23:00:00 1994 Path: biosci!agate!ames!waikato!waikato.ac.nz!aeiham From: aeiham@waikato.ac.nz Newsgroups: bionet.population-bio Subject: Re: Those pesky possums & the modest proposal Message-ID: <1994Oct2.205912.33753@waikato.ac.nz> Date: 2 Oct 94 20:59:12 +1300 References: <36h4mn$bok@mserv1.dl.ac.uk> Distribution: world Organization: University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand Lines: 64 In article , zzdecell@ACC.WUACC.EDU (decelles paul) writes: > Aside from Mr. Nobody's application of virus techniques for population > control for humans, I also wonder about using these methods in general. > I'm not familiar with new zealand possums, but the possums we have here > hardly ever rise to the level of a pest species. Maybe an occasional > nuisance but hardly one that would merit advanced biotechnology to > control. > > Is it worth applying this quick techno-fix to these critters or is there > some massive overriding public health need to control possums in this way? > Please, perhaps you or someone else from down below can enlighten us. > > Dr. Paul Decelles To expand on my previous aside about possums in NZ (although I'd describe myself as a microbial ecologist / modeller, so it's not really my field)... I guess possums were introduced for a fur trade, our only native mammal is a small (and now threatened) bat. They are insidiously and rapidly destroying our native forests (the bits we haven't burnt down, that is). Insidious and rapid isn't a contradiction in terms, they're targetting more palatable species (generally the same ones our native birds depend on), so the forest doesn't disappear, but aerial views show rapidly spreading death of certain species. They have also recently been observed predating native bird chicks, and are considered a potential vector for bovine TB (this may actually be a Good Thing, if money (cows) instead of just the environment is involved, something may actually get done). Shooting is not particularly effective, bounty systems naturally target areas where high kills are easiest, as opposed to areas most needing relief. Trapping has I think been successful on some small off shore islands (or maybe that was rats), but on the mainland I think they're breeding too fast for that to help. There is a controversial but apparently effective program with aerial drops of the poison 1080 (sodium monofluoroacetate). It's controversial because it can kill native birds, but the numbers involved seem very low, and destruction of habitat (by possums) must surely be the greater threat to birds. Increased rates of successful bird breeding (many of our native birds are threatened) have been reported in areas targetted with 1080, although this effect probably isn't highly replicated yet. That leaves biocontrol. Koala chlamydia has been tested unsuccesfully, but there are other potential sources of diseases that might prove useful. there's also a long term project to develop an oral vaccine to make females reject sperm. And this other program to genetically modify a possum disease to spread this immunity to sperm. Unfortunately it isn't a quick techno-fix, it's all very much in early development stages at present. We also have an unpleasant synergistic (sp?) relationship between rabbits and an introduced weed the rabbits wont eat, between them they're wiping out our native grassland ecosystems. In general NZ's geographic isolation has resulted in a naive, or ancient, animal population that is very vulnerable to introduced mammals. Many of our birds are flightless, our substitute for a mouse was a giant insect that can't compete with rats, the stoats etc. released to remedy the rabbits have more impact on the native birds, and of course our giant landsnails and other unusual old form macro invertebrates are severly depleted. Hopefully if anyone want's any more information a real animal ecologist will contribute. Somehow I doubt the term 'extinction' has ever been applied to a bacterium :-) Cheers -Terry Brown From owner-population-bio@net.bio.net Sat Oct 01 23:00:00 1994 Path: biosci!agate!howland.reston.ans.net!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!netline-fddi.jpl.nasa.gov!phoebe.jpl.nasa.gov!tycho!jdg From: jdg@tycho.jpl.nasa.gov (Jon Giorgini) Newsgroups: bionet.population-bio Subject: Re: POPULATION: Delusions and Reality Date: 2 Oct 1994 04:00:26 GMT Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena CA Lines: 53 Sender: jdg@tycho (Jon Giorgini) Distribution: world Message-ID: <36lb8r$rck@phoebe.jpl.nasa.gov> References: <36f58o$o1l@phoebe.jpl.nasa.gov> NNTP-Posting-Host: tycho.jpl.nasa.gov Well, let's take a look at reality versus the predictions made by Forrester and popularized in the 1970 book "Limits of Growth", whose ideas remain a bedrock article of faith among apocalyptics (i.e. resource depletion via exponential growth, etc.). At most ecology meetings, people simply stipulate to the beliefs articulate in books like "Limits of Growth" before they get down to the business of figuring out how to re-order world society and everyone else's lives. Forrester's computer model looks at how feedback loops affect several interlocking, highly aggregated variables. Feedback loops, of course, are circular flows in which changes in one variable provoke changes in a second, which in turn alters the first. For example, the feedback loop most apocalyptics fixate on supposes that the production of more food induces an increase in population which provokes greater for production which supports greater population, etc. Forrester claims this computer model is superior to the mental model of reality most of us have because it "clarifies" how components of the "world system" interact to impose limits to growth. It is now 20 years later. How have Forrester's predictions faired? He predicted in 1972 that the world would run out of gold by 1981, mercury by 1985, tin by 1987, zinc by 1990, petroleum by 1992 and copper, lead and gas by 1993. Not quite. The U.S. Bureau of mines estimates that at >1990< rates, world reserves of gold will last 24 years, mercury 40 years, tin 28 years, zinc 40 years, copper 65 years, and lead 35 years. This assumes no changes in technology and no new discoveries. One can imagine how good those assumptions are. Manufacturing, as we speak, is becoming less and less dependent on these materials. Optical fibers are replacing huge masses of copper. The World Resources Institute indicates that between 1970 and 1988, the average price of all metals and minerals FELL 40%. This means the worlds supply is more abundant than at any point in human history. PROVEN reserves of oil are expected to last 46 years, and natural gas 58 years at constant 1988 production levels. There has been an explosion in wealth during the interval when the iron-clad exponential computer models were supposed to be moving us up the ever steepening curve of despair and collapse. The public and apocalyptics are still beguiled by the "resource illusion", the notion that physical substances are the chief source of wealth. Since the world is finite, it seems so "obvious" that there can only be so much of anything in the world. History CLEARLY shows that no exhaustible resource is essential or irreplaceable. A deposit of copper is just a pile of rocks without the know-how to mine, mill, refine, shape, ship and market it. So it will be with the organic composites and molecular assemblers of the future. From owner-population-bio@net.bio.net Sat Oct 01 23:00:00 1994 Newsgroups: bionet.population-bio Path: biosci!agate!howland.reston.ans.net!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!milo.mcs.anl.gov!usenet From: usenet@mcs.anl.gov Subject: Chimpanzee Genotyping in Africa - UCSD Professor James Moore Message-ID: Summary: Real time discussion Keywords: Kin Selection, Social Structure, Gene Flow, Primate Evolution, Virtual Sender: m50jft1@hayek.cob.niu.edu (John Towell aka WatsonCrick) Organization: BioMOO - the virtual meeting place for biologists Date: Sat, 1 Oct 1994 02:32:23 GMT Expires: Fri, 7 Oct 1994 05:00:00 GMT Lines: 41 Reality Path: juju.mcs.anl.gov!towell Date: Sat, 1 Oct 1994 2:32:16 GMT Message-id: <78097873622785@juju.mcs.anl.gov> Nntp-Posting-Host: juju.mcs.anl.gov From: towell@juju.mcs.anl.gov (Beth Towell) This week on ***********Wats' World********* - the virtual science talk show. A recent paper in "Science" (265: 1193-1201) presented the results of a genotypic study of chimpanzees at numerous African sites. On Friday - Oct. 7 at 10:00 am PDT (5 pm GMT) Anthropologist James Moore will be at BioMOO to discuss the implications of this fascinating paper. Guests are invited to participate in the discussion with Jim and Wats. What is BioMOO? BioMOO is a virtual meeting place for biologists. How do I get to BioMOO? With the commands: 'telnet bioinformatics.weizmann.ac.il 8888' then: 'connect guest' Once you have connected to BioMOO type: '@go seminar room' and you'll be there for the discussion with UCSD Anthropology Professor James Moore. AGAIN - that's Friday, October 7th at 10:00 am PDT: 1:00 pm EDT and 5:00 pm GMT AT: ~%HHH!*%nx. HM ~4HHH: :HHHH~ .xH*""tx. .xH*""tx. MMM `MMM `" MMMM: MXMMX MMM #MM. MMM #MM. MMM MM" +nn .n*%x. M`MMM M XMMX MMM MMM, MMM MMM, MMM!**MX. MM MM 4Mh M ?MMM X~ XMMX 'MMM MMMX 'MMM MMMX MMM MMM: MM MM 'MM M ?MMMd" XMMX 'MMM MMM' 'MMM MMM' MMM MMMf MM MM 'MM M MMMf XMMX `MMk :MM# `MMk :MM# ..MMMk..HM*" .MM. `MX..M* .:M.. MM .MMMM. "Mh...xM"' "Mh...xM"' ...the virtual meeting place for biologists. From owner-population-bio@net.bio.net Sun Oct 02 23:00:00 1994 Newsgroups: bionet.population-bio From: COMINT@arout.demon.co.uk (AROUTIOUN AGADJANIAN) Path: biosci!bcm!cs.utexas.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!news.sprintlink.net!demon!arout.demon.co.uk!COMINT Subject: Overpopulation - new approach Organization: BIOCYBERNETICS Reply-To: COMINT@arout.demon.co.uk X-Newsreader: Demon Internet Simple News v1.29 Lines: 67 Date: Mon, 3 Oct 1994 19:22:20 +0000 Message-ID: <781212140snz@arout.demon.co.uk> Sender: usenet@demon.co.uk What leads to overpopulation? Whether the present rate of population growth is of social origin or it is display of to-be-revealed biological nature of human animal? Our team has developed a theory allowing new view at overpopulation problem. In the course of long term investigations we have come to a conclusion: violent death of people leads to increase in birth-rate in survivors. This phenomenon is inherent to human as well as all other living creatures and it is an integral part of intrinsic mechanism providing natural regulation of population numbers. To prove the link between reproduction rate of living creatures and violent death rate within a population we have conducted a series of experiments on laboratory animals. The experiment pattern was extremely simple similar to that of well-known experiments aimed to study population self regulation at the level of numbers in which populations of laboratory animals are exploited as they might be by predators. In these experiments we observed the reproduction rate in several identical groups of animals from which the equal numbers of animals were removed. The difference in our experiments was that the animals from the experimental group were killed and then removed while the animals from the control were just removed (An attempt was done to model what occurs in nature). Results proved the theoretically predicted increase in reproduction rate in the experimental groups. Conclusion. Nowadays progressive growth of population is a result of regular and mass destruction of people (violence, wars, epidemics, starvation, catastrophes, etc.). The only alternative for humanity to survive is to decrease people's destruction led by unnatural causes. Efforts should be directed to limit the level of violent death all over the world at least to that in developed countries. We attach the schemes and the results of the experiments conducted on laboratory white mice and drosophila to allow those interested to repeat them. In experiments with mice 25-40 females and 11-25 males (for experimental and control groups) were selected with identical age and weight, kept in identical conditions. On 11th day of isolation one female was killed in experimental group (with the presence of other individuals and under common glass lid) and one female was removed from control alive. On 12th day the procedure was repeated. On 13th day the experimental group of females and experimental group of males were placed together. The same was done in control. The procedure of killing and removal was continued to 18th day included. On 19th day males were removed from both groups and after given time the number of pregnant females were counted in each group. Experiments showed 65% higher pregnancy level in the groups where females were killed in the presence of others. Estimated statistical accuracy was 0.01 in each series. In experiments with drosophila 20-40 flies were killed each day or with one-day interval (flies were placed in glasses with nutrient medium to provide the development of individuals from an egg to an imago). Six procedures of killing were implemented at preimago stage and one was implemented at imago stage. The flies were then placed in other glasses with raisins medium and females were fed before egg-laying. The other number of flies was killed in the glasses with raisins medium, and then the flies were placed in separated glasses with fresh nutrient medium by pairs (male and female) for two days. Reproductive efficiency was estimated by number of flies developed in these glasses. Flies in control were subject to identical conditions except the killing. In experimental groups the average number of offsprings for one female was 95.64. The figure was 84.42 in control. Estimated statistical accuracy was 0.002 in each group. ___________ AROUTIOUN AGADJANIAN From owner-population-bio@net.bio.net Sun Oct 02 23:00:00 1994 Newsgroups: bionet.population-bio Path: biosci!rutgers!sgigate.sgi.com!sgiblab!spool.mu.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!uchinews!quads!ecec From: ecec@quads.uchicago.edu (Eric Cabot) Subject: Re: Confused about population data Message-ID: <1994Oct3.224958.1615@midway.uchicago.edu> Sender: news@uchinews.uchicago.edu (News System) Reply-To: ecec@midway.uchicago.edu Organization: University of Chicago References: <9409211741.AA28178@minerva.cis.yale.edu> <35ssso$jlb@paperboy.gsfc.nasa.gov> <36fn1f$og4@phoebe.jpl.nasa.gov> Date: Mon, 3 Oct 1994 22:49:58 GMT Lines: 16 I'd be interested to see some numbers backing up your assertion that there are more trees in the U.S. now then there were in the 1700's. The fact is that most of the eastern portion of the midwest (Ohio,Indiana, Kentucky, Illinois, Wisconsin, Michican) was once the most heavily forested part of the country, and that is certainly no longer the case. Furthermore, in the areas where I've had a chance to examine both logging and reforestation practices first-hand (Washington, Oregon, Alaska, British Columbia) it's pretty clear that reforestation over the last 40 years has not kept apace with logging. Let's just be thankful for causes like the habitat protection of the Spotted Owl and the Bald Eagle. They are an effective means of slowing down the rate of logging. -Eric Cabot campaign in the Northwest and the From owner-population-bio@net.bio.net Mon Oct 03 23:00:00 1994 Path: biosci!galaxy.ucr.edu!ihnp4.ucsd.edu!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!netline-fddi.jpl.nasa.gov!phoebe.jpl.nasa.gov!tycho!jdg From: jdg@tycho.jpl.nasa.gov (Jon Giorgini) Newsgroups: bionet.population-bio Subject: Re: Confused about population data Date: 4 Oct 1994 17:02:54 GMT Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena CA Lines: 28 Sender: jdg@tycho (Jon Giorgini) Distribution: world Message-ID: <36s1rv$r2@phoebe.jpl.nasa.gov> References: <36fn1f$og4@phoebe.jpl.nasa.gov> <1994Oct3.224958.1615@midway.uchicago.edu> <36q8c2$t6m@phoebe.jpl.nasa.gov> <1994Oct4.134234.12470@midway.uchicago.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: tycho.jpl.nasa.gov According to the U.S. Forest service, annual timber growth in the U.S. now exceeds harvest by 37%. Annual growth has exceeded harvest every year since 1952. As a result, the number of wooded acres in the U.S. has grown by 20% in the past 20 years. The average annual wood growth in the U.S. today is three times what it was in 1920. In Vermont, the area covered by forests has increased from 35% a hundred years ago to about 76% today. In all developed countries of the world, including the U.S. and Canada, forestry is now conducted on a sustainable yield basis where growth exceeds harvest. Forestry is beginning to evolve from the gathering of natural inventories to the cropping of forest plantations. Contrary to the assertion that these young forests "don't count" (?), trees in replanted forests (harvested before disease and fire destroy them) tend to be younger, healthier than original forest counterparts. Some "man-made" forests are indistinguishable from original forests as far as biodiversity. The gorgeous wilderness scenes in the movie "Last of the Mohicans" were filmed in a formerly clear-cut commercial forest, not an original forest. In the 1800's exponential models were used to fabricate another timber shortage scare, much as they were once again in the 70's to date. We were supposed to have stripped the earth bare about 100 years ago. Reality is moving in the opposite direction mandated by exponential models. This should call into question exponential models. (I don't know what Lake Erie fisheries has to do with reforestation). From owner-population-bio@net.bio.net Mon Oct 03 23:00:00 1994 Path: biosci!galaxy.ucr.edu!ihnp4.ucsd.edu!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!netline-fddi.jpl.nasa.gov!phoebe.jpl.nasa.gov!tycho!jdg From: jdg@tycho.jpl.nasa.gov (Jon Giorgini) Newsgroups: bionet.population-bio Subject: Scaring People for Profit and Policy Date: 4 Oct 1994 17:31:51 GMT Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena CA Lines: 46 Sender: jdg@tycho (Jon Giorgini) Distribution: world Message-ID: <36s3i7$r2@phoebe.jpl.nasa.gov> References: <36fn1f$og4@phoebe.jpl.nasa.gov> <1994Oct3.224958.1615@midway.uchicago.edu> <36q8c2$t6m@phoebe.jpl.nasa.gov> <1994Oct4.134234.12470@midway.uchicago.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: tycho.jpl.nasa.gov There are more than 450 national organizations (uncounted local ones), promoting policy change supposedly mandated by incipient environmental catastrophes. While not all are radical apocalytpics, they all share the institutional imperative to find and publicize an endless series of crises and disasters, since without calamities to combat, they have no reason to exist. Most have thus become quite skilled at marketing doomed. Leading environmental groups (Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council, etc.), pulled in over $400 million dollars in 1990, from a contributor base of 4 million people. Four hundred million dollars is 10 times the amount of money raised by Republicans and Democrats TOGETHER in 1990. This leads to situations such as having the public introduced to the concept of "nuclear winter" when it was first mentioned in the Oct '83 issue of Parade magazine (a glossy Sunday supplement) by Carl Sagan, after a Washington D.C. public relations firm was hired for $80000 dollars. It was only after the concept had been firmly planted in the minds of the public that other scientists were allowed to examine the reasoning (typical of environmental studies; first a cadre releases a study in a carefully orchestrated press conference, THEN there is peer review. By the time details are shown to be false (if not outright fabricated), it's too late; the public has accepted this "scientific" scare and the multi-million dollars eco-groups have seized on a new reason for funding. Policy makers in D.C. have seized on a new excuse for expanded federal control of some resource (new bureaurcracy, funding) and Third World nations are looking to the U.S. for hand-outs to help them "stop" their dangerous behavior. Academics have new studies to conduct and the money flows). Everyone wins but the poor saps who were suckered into paying for it (the public). As far as nuclear Winter, Russell Seitz wrote of Sagan's TTAPS model in blistering terms: " Instead of a planet with continents and oceans, the TTAPS model postulates a featureless, bone-dry billiard ball. Instead of nights and days, it postulated 24-hour sunlight at 1/3 strength. Instead of realistic smoke emissions, it simply dumped 10-mile-thick soot clouds into the atmosphere instantaneously. The model dealth with such complications as east, west winds, sunrise, sunset and patchy clouds in a stunningly elegant manner -- they were ignored.) Similar problems exist with "ozone hole", "global warming", in fact, every single eco-scare you can think of. Remember the "alar" scare? Remember dioxin? Remember 20 years ago when we were running out of resources, there was supposedly exponential population growth and, what's more, the planet was COOLING into a new global ICE-AGE? From owner-population-bio@net.bio.net Mon Oct 03 23:00:00 1994 Newsgroups: bionet.population-bio Path: biosci!agate!howland.reston.ans.net!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!uchinews!quads!ecec From: ecec@quads.uchicago.edu (Eric Cabot) Subject: Re: Confused about population data Message-ID: <1994Oct4.134234.12470@midway.uchicago.edu> Sender: news@uchinews.uchicago.edu (News System) Reply-To: ecec@midway.uchicago.edu Organization: University of Chicago References: <36fn1f$og4@phoebe.jpl.nasa.gov> <1994Oct3.224958.1615@midway.uchicago.edu> <36q8c2$t6m@phoebe.jpl.nasa.gov> Date: Tue, 4 Oct 1994 13:42:34 GMT Lines: 29 In article <36q8c2$t6m@phoebe.jpl.nasa.gov> jdg@tycho.jpl.nasa.gov (Jon Giorgini) writes: >>I'd be interested to see some numbers backing up your assertion that >>there are more trees in the U.S. now then there were in the 1700's. > >Forested lands in the U.S. reached their low point of 464 million acres in >the 1920's. They have since expanded to more than 728 million acres today. >("America's Renewable Resources, Frederick & Sedjo, editors, 1992 Washington D.C, >p 92). There is a USDA report on the same subject. That's all well and good but (1) what is the source of their numbers? (2) what was the forested acerage prior to the decline leading to the low point of the 1920's? I'm having a problem with the use of a ground cover estimate such as acreage rather than a measurment including information concerning what is in those acres. It's a little artificial to compare an Ohio valley hardwood forest, or one on the Olympic Penninsula to a Southwestern chapperal soft wood forest, for example. >looking >at a snapshot now and deciding it's time to reduce humanity to subsistence >(after your wood frame house is built, of course) only leads to the destruction >of wealth which leads to more environmental destruction. I haven't the vaguest idea what you are trying to discuss here..... I appreciate that almost everyone has a political viewpoint about any given topic, but would you mind keeping this discussion focused on the science and try to restrain the urge to succumb to political diatribe?. _Eric From owner-population-bio@net.bio.net Mon Oct 03 23:00:00 1994 Path: biosci!rutgers!netnews.upenn.edu!msuinfo!agate!howland.reston.ans.net!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!uhog.mit.edu!sgiblab!sgigate.sgi.com!enews.sgi.com!decwrl!netcomsv!ix.netcom.com!netnews From: Bhupi@ix.netcom.com (Bhupinder Singh) Newsgroups: bionet.population-bio Subject: need help: information on plague vaccine needed Date: 4 Oct 1994 05:54:04 GMT Organization: Netcom Lines: 6 Distribution: world Message-ID: <36qqls$ln0@ixnews1.ix.netcom.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: ix-sj14-07.ix.netcom.com Due to sudden break in of the plague epidamic in India, there are lot of anxities for demand of vaccine for human plague. Any information regading such vaccine from any agency would help save hundreds of thousands lives. Please get in touch with me as soon as possible. Bhupi Ph.(408) 383-0800 From owner-population-bio@net.bio.net Mon Oct 03 23:00:00 1994 Newsgroups: bionet.population-bio Path: biosci!galaxy.ucr.edu!ihnp4.ucsd.edu!usc!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!hearst.acc.Virginia.EDU!murdoch!darwin.clas.Virginia.EDU!mgk From: mgk@darwin.clas.Virginia.EDU (Mahlon G. Kelly) Subject: Re: Overpopulation - new approach Message-ID: Sender: usenet@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU Organization: uva References: <781212140snz@arout.demon.co.uk> Date: Tue, 4 Oct 1994 04:09:40 GMT Lines: 87 COMINT@arout.demon.co.uk writes: > What leads to overpopulation? Whether the present rate of population > growth is of social origin or it is display of to-be-revealed > biological nature of human animal? > > Our team has developed a theory allowing new view at overpopulation > problem. In the course of long term investigations we have come to a > conclusion: violent death of people leads to increase in birth-rate in > survivors. This phenomenon is inherent to human as well as all other > living creatures and it is an integral part of intrinsic mechanism > providing natural regulation of population numbers. > > To prove the link between reproduction rate of living creatures and > violent death rate within a population we have conducted a series of > experiments on laboratory animals. The experiment pattern was extremely > simple similar to that of well-known experiments aimed to study > population self regulation at the level of numbers in which populations > of laboratory animals are exploited as they might be by predators. In > these experiments we observed the reproduction rate in several > identical groups of animals from which the equal numbers of animals > were removed. The difference in our experiments was that the animals > from the experimental group were killed and then removed while the animals > from the control were just removed (An attempt was done to model what occurs > in nature). Results proved the theoretically predicted increase in > reproduction rate in the experimental groups. > > Conclusion. Nowadays progressive growth of population is a result of > regular and mass destruction of people (violence, wars, epidemics, > starvation, catastrophes, etc.). The only alternative for humanity to > survive is to decrease people's destruction led by unnatural causes. > Efforts should be directed to limit the level of violent death all over > the world at least to that in developed countries. > > We attach the schemes and the results of the experiments conducted on > laboratory white mice and drosophila to allow those interested to > repeat them. > > In experiments with mice 25-40 females and 11-25 males (for > experimental and control groups) were selected with identical age and > weight, kept in identical conditions. On 11th day of isolation one > female was killed in experimental group (with the presence of other > individuals and under common glass lid) and one female was removed from > control alive. On 12th day the procedure was repeated. On 13th day the > experimental group of females and experimental group of males were > placed together. The same was done in control. The procedure of killing > and removal was continued to 18th day included. On 19th day males were > removed from both groups and after given time the number of pregnant > females were counted in each group. Experiments showed 65% higher > pregnancy level in the groups where females were killed in the presence > of others. Estimated statistical accuracy was 0.01 in each series. > > In experiments with drosophila 20-40 flies were killed each day or with > one-day interval (flies were placed in glasses with nutrient medium to > provide the development of individuals from an egg to an imago). Six > procedures of killing were implemented at preimago stage and one was > implemented at imago stage. The flies were then placed in other glasses > with raisins medium and females were fed before egg-laying. The other > number of flies was killed in the glasses with raisins medium, and then > the flies were placed in separated glasses with fresh nutrient medium > by pairs (male and female) for two days. Reproductive efficiency was > estimated by number of flies developed in these glasses. Flies in > control were subject to identical conditions except the killing. In > experimental groups the average number of offsprings for one female was > 95.64. The figure was 84.42 in control. Estimated statistical accuracy > was 0.002 in each group. > > ___________ > AROUTIOUN AGADJANIAN Would you please give us your institutional affiliation? And would you please provide references to the above work? References to refereed journals? I ask this because the experimental design seems (to be diplomatic) sort of questionable. If you have not presented the work for examination by outside referees, then I think that we should all be skeptical. Quite frankly, I find it rather amazing that anyone would try to make conclusions from experiments such as you have described. However, perhaps the limited space available here limits what you can tell us. Or is it all a joke??? Mahlon Kelly From owner-population-bio@net.bio.net Mon Oct 03 23:00:00 1994 Path: biosci!bcm!cs.utexas.edu!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!netline-fddi.jpl.nasa.gov!phoebe.jpl.nasa.gov!tycho!jdg From: jdg@tycho.jpl.nasa.gov (Jon Giorgini) Newsgroups: bionet.population-bio Subject: Re: Confused about population data Date: 4 Oct 1994 00:41:38 GMT Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena CA Lines: 13 Sender: jdg@tycho (Jon Giorgini) Distribution: world Message-ID: <36q8c2$t6m@phoebe.jpl.nasa.gov> References: <9409211741.AA28178@minerva.cis.yale.edu> <35ssso$jlb@paperboy.gsfc.nasa.gov> <36fn1f$og4@phoebe.jpl.nasa.gov> <1994Oct3.224958.1615@midway.uchicago.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: tycho.jpl.nasa.gov >I'd be interested to see some numbers backing up your assertion that >there are more trees in the U.S. now then there were in the 1700's. Forested lands in the U.S. reached their low point of 464 million acres in the 1920's. They have since expanded to more than 728 million acres today. ("America's Renewable Resources, Frederick & Sedjo, editors, 1992 Washington D.C, p 92). There is a USDA report on the same subject. In the past, forest fires burned across whole states. Now they are doused ASAP. There are cycles of growth and renewal with periods of hundreds of years. Looking at a snapshot now and deciding it's time to reduce humanity to subsistence (after your wood frame house is built, of course) only leads to the destruction of wealth which leads to more environmental destruction. From owner-population-bio@net.bio.net Mon Oct 03 23:00:00 1994 Newsgroups: bionet.population-bio Path: biosci!daresbury!trane.uninett.no!sunic!pipex!jura.sasa.gov.uk!news From: odonnell@sasa.gov.uk (Kevin O'Donnell) Subject: Re: POPULATION: Delusions and Reality Organization: Scottish Agricultural Science Agency Date: Tue, 4 Oct 1994 09:05:12 GMT Message-ID: X-Newsreader: WinVN 0.91.3 References: <9409290738.AA14810@minerva.cis.yale.edu> <36f58o$o1l@phoebe.jpl.nasa.gov> Sender: news@jura.sasa.gov.uk (Usenet) Lines: 21 > > Based on human history, the problem is poverty. The cleanest environments >with the least hunger and the best environments and stable or declining >populations are produced by those societies that produce the most wealth. >These are capitalist societies based on individual liberty. > The first sentence is correct. So is the second. Sadly, Jon couldn't make it three in a row. The cleanest environments, least poverty and most stable populations are to be found in the European social-democracies (in which category I would still include the UK), where collective need takes some priority over private greed. I was tempted to suggest that this debate really belongs in alt.fan rush-limbarf, however I think that there is a serious debate to be role of altruism and selfishness in humanity's past and future development. Kevin O'Donnell Edinburgh Scotland From owner-population-bio@net.bio.net Mon Oct 03 23:00:00 1994 Path: biosci!rutgers!gatech!howland.reston.ans.net!spool.mu.edu!torn!news.ccs.queensu.ca!qlink!3twc2 From: 3twc2@qlink.queensu.ca (Cook Thomas W) Newsgroups: bionet.population-bio Subject: Re: Confused about population data Date: 4 Oct 1994 20:39:24 GMT Organization: Queen's University, Kingston Lines: 24 Distribution: world Message-ID: <36sehs$fj3@knot.queensu.ca> References: <36fn1f$og4@phoebe.jpl.nasa.gov> <1994Oct3.224958.1615@midway.uchicago.edu> <36q8c2$t6m@phoebe.jpl.nasa.gov> <1994Oct4.134234.12470@midway.uchicago.edu> <36s1rv$r2@phoebe.jpl.nasa.gov> NNTP-Posting-Host: qlink.queensu.ca X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Jon Giorgini (jdg@tycho.jpl.nasa.gov) wrote: : According to the U.S. Forest service, annual timber growth in the U.S. now : exceeds harvest by 37%. Annual growth has exceeded harvest every year since 1952. : As a result, the number of wooded acres in the U.S. has grown by 20% in the : past 20 years. The average annual wood growth in the U.S. today is three : times what it was in 1920. In Vermont, the area covered by forests has : increased from 35% a hundred years ago to about 76% today. : : In all developed countries of the world, including the U.S. and Canada, forestry : is now conducted on a sustainable yield basis where growth exceeds harvest. : Forestry is beginning to evolve from the gathering of natural inventories to the : cropping of forest plantations. Forgive my honest confusion, but something bothers me about this argument. We are all aware of the public opinion battles being waged between loggers and enviromentalists where old growth forests are "threatened". If the amount of forested land is increasing, why is there any conflict at all? Presumably the loggers could simply continue to log their "sustainable" forests and the environmentalists could be left to enjoy their treasured wilderness. Thomas Cook ----------------- From owner-population-bio@net.bio.net Mon Oct 03 23:00:00 1994 Path: biosci!galaxy.ucr.edu!library.ucla.edu!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!howland.reston.ans.net!cs.utexas.edu!geraldo.cc.utexas.edu!austin.lockheed.com!not-for-mail From: mcinroy@austin.lockheed.com (John W. McInroy) Newsgroups: bionet.software,bionet.population-bio,sci.bio Subject: Software to track wildlife migration? Date: 4 Oct 1994 16:43:46 -0500 Organization: Lockheed Austin Division Lines: 94 Message-ID: <36siai$1jq@antares.Austin.Lockheed.COM> NNTP-Posting-Host: antares.austin.lockheed.com Xref: biosci bionet.software:9521 bionet.population-bio:817 sci.bio:11159 Last month I posted the following item: : I am looking for software that can be used to : track phenomena such as the movement of banded : birds or other wildlife. I would appreciate : any information available. : I will summarize responses and post them. : John McInroy [McInroy@Austin.Lockheed.com] Thanks to all who responded. As promised, here is a summary of the responses that I have received so far: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Dr Tristram Wyatt, Continuing Education" . . . wildtrak is one such programme you can get details by writing to Dr I Todd, Dept of Zoology, univ of oxford, south parks rd, oxford, OX1 3PS, UK regards t ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: bss119@thunder ( Mr. R.D.McKay) Organization: University of Wales, Bangor. I'm not sure how applicable it would be, but would one of the telemetry software packages be of any use? I believe the US Fish and Game people have put one out through the University of Idaho called simply Home Range. A better option would be Robert Kenward's program Ranges IV (or maybe even V by now). This allows associated variable with fixes, and I have seen it used to determine home range over time slices. Kenward works for the UK Institute of Terrestrial Ecology (ITE). -- Valerian. BSS119@bangor.ac.uk [from my response:] Do you happen to have an e-mail address for R. Kenward? From: "Mr. R.D.McKay" . . . Sorry, I don't have an e-mail address for the guy. I'll send you a postal as soon as I can get my hands on one. . . . ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From huberr@bkfug.kfunigraz.ac.at Ukn Oct 4 07:38:32 1994 . . . I have written a program for the analysis of homeranges for the Apple Macintosh. The program is currently in a beta version and will be distributed as postcard ware. The documentation is still very sketchy, and the software may still contain a few bugs (actually I am sure it does). If you are interested then you are more than welcome to give the program a spin. It accepts ASCII TEXT files containing the X and Y coordinates of consecutive captures; the coordinates are separated by a tab, captures are separated by carriage returns - so nothing out of the ordinary. I am working on recompiling it for the Power PC but have not completed that yet. You can then use a variety of analyses to estimate homeranges, calculate activity centers, etc. It also does some contour plots and surface plots of utilisation distributions. It would help me greatly to hear of other people applying it to their data sets and what would come in handy for other users. I intend to publish the program and its availability later this fall - if all goes well. So let me know if you are interested. You can access the program and a folder containing sample documents via FTP from 143.50.28.74 using 'Home' and 'Range'. Note this is case sensitive. Hope this is of any help, Lobsterman Robert Huber /\ Snailmail: Karl-Franzens-University Graz / \ Dept. Zoology, Div. Neuroethology --/----\-- Universitaetsplatz 2 |_|____|_| A-8010 Graz | /\ | AUSTRIA | \/ |___ old EMail: Lobsterman@edvz.uni-graz.ada.at |______/ new Email: Robert.Huber@kfunigraz.ac.at __/ Grazer Tel: Austria (316) 380-5281 (office) / Uhrturm or 380-5604 (lab) or 380-5597 (secretary) Fax: Austria (316) 381-255 --------------------------------------------------------- | I can't see Texas from here! | | and Harvard Square neither | --------------------------------------------------------- From owner-population-bio@net.bio.net Mon Oct 03 23:00:00 1994 Path: biosci!cc.UManitoba.CA!umbjork1 From: umbjork1@cc.UManitoba.CA (Natalie Kim Bjorklund) Newsgroups: bionet.population-bio Subject: Killing Mice Date: 4 Oct 1994 13:52:25 -0700 Organization: BIOSCI International Newsgroups for Molecular Biology Lines: 5 Sender: daemon@net.bio.net Distribution: world Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: net.bio.net I can't believe you got that experiment past a decent ethics committee. Certainly we would never have been able to conduct such an experiment on mammals here at U of Manitoba. From owner-population-bio@net.bio.net Tue Oct 04 23:00:00 1994 Newsgroups: bionet.population-bio Path: biosci!agate!dog.ee.lbl.gov!news.cs.utah.edu!emba-news.uvm.edu!moose.uvm.edu!jschall From: jschall@moose.uvm.edu (Joseph J. Schall) Subject: Graduate Research Fellowships available Message-ID: <1994Oct5.161718.5104@emba.uvm.edu> Sender: news@emba.uvm.edu Organization: EMBA Computer Facility, University of Vermont X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Date: Wed, 5 Oct 1994 16:17:18 GMT Lines: 32 FELLOWSHIPS TO PURSUE GRADUATE STUDIES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT -- EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY AND EVOLUTIONARY ECOLOGY The Evolutionary Ecology cluster in the Zoology Department has received a major grant from the National Science Foundation to fund six (6) new Ph.D. students in Ecology/Evolution/Animal Behavior. These students will start the program in Fall, 1995 and be funded for five years. The stipend is $14,000/year, with full tuition paid, plus a stipend for travel and supplies. The Evolutionary Ecology cluster also has a $1.5 million grant to support research which can be used to assist graduate students. Students who receive a GRT must be US citizens or residents. Students who receive one of the Training Grants must conduct a research project in either ecological/evolutionary parasitology or use molecular techniques in some area of ecology-evolution-or animal behavior. Every graduate student in the program is required to take courses and other training to learn modern molecular techniques as applied to studies in population biology. This training is provided in the clusterÕs Molecular Ecology and Evolution Laboratory that is funded by NSF. The Graduate Program especially is interested in applications from women or members of minority groups not well represented in science. A full packet of information (including application materials) can be obtained from Jos. J. Schall, Department of Zoology, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT 05405 or by e-mail at jschall@moose.uvm.edu From owner-population-bio@net.bio.net Tue Oct 04 23:00:00 1994 Path: biosci!MINERVA.CIS.YALE.EDU!rannala From: rannala@MINERVA.CIS.YALE.EDU (Bruce Rannala) Newsgroups: bionet.population-bio Subject: Re: Scaring People for Profit and Policy Date: 5 Oct 1994 09:08:13 -0700 Organization: BIOSCI International Newsgroups for Molecular Biology Lines: 71 Sender: daemon@net.bio.net Distribution: world Message-ID: <9410051608.AA10116@minerva.cis.yale.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: net.bio.net Mahlon G. Kelly writes: > I recently took early retirement from the Univ. of Va. Dept >of Environmental Sciences. A major reason was watching my >colleagues become whores under the pressures of publish or >perish, and the movement of funds from basic science to trendy >"crises" as seen by the public and supported by the politicians >and beaurocrats. I don't see any mention of it in your message, >but one of the sources of the problem is scientists who do >their work and publish it in such a way as to increase the >hysteria. They do it subtly, and are often unaware they are >doing it, but it is done. > Yes, it is unfortunate that politicians must invariably hold the purse strings, and that they are, perhaps, more sensitive to the opinions of the general public than the average scientist. The NSF still allocates plenty of money for basic research, however, and the distribution of those funds is by peer review, so things aren't really so bad for most scientists doing basic research (things are certainly far better for natural scientists in the US than they were only a hundred years ago). I am more often amazed at how much funding is available for basic research, which, in the view of the average taxpayer, is a complete waste of money. Those doing basic science must still have considerable political clout. Since most scientists publish their work in refereed journals, it escapes me to see how they may publish it "in such a way as to increase the hysteria" without the reviewers approving of such an "hysteria-inducing" tone. This is rather vexing; if the peer review process is really working, any latent "hysteria" which, according to my dictionary, is "a morbid or senseless emotionalism" should be weeded out by the reviewers. Of course, ones opinion of what may constitute hysteria depends on what one considers "morbid" or "senseless." These things really are a matter of opinion: in Mr. Kelly's opinion, many scientists are not conservative enough in their published opinions on the environment; others might feel they are too conservative. It is not a question of fact or logic. >I recently had a long conversation with the exucutive vice >president of one of the largest environmental organizations, >but a very conservative one. He told stories of the >relationships of some of the "green" organizations with the >press, and the amount spent on agendas that give power to the >vested interests of those organizations. The stories are >incredible. Hundreds of millions are being spent with P.R. >firms, mainly to influence the media and politicians. > >Anyone who doubts that the "green" organizations are big >business hasn't done his/her homework. > Anonymous insider information is always questionable and belongs in the tabloids. Please name your informant so that we may verify his story. Still, it is often true that anything of public importance in America becomes "big business", whether green, or not-so-green; it seems to be an inevitable outcome of the political and economic structure. Of course, whenever moderately large amounts of money are involved, corruption, the media, the politicians, and every other variety of blue meany creeps in. Similar problems arise in labour organizations and other such things. The point is, the existence of corruption does not invalidate the basis, or need, for such organizations; it instead implies the need for public audits, checks on the accuracy of PR statements etc. It does not show consistent logic to conclude "environmental organizations are corrupt" therefore "there is no environmental problem", the two things are unrelated. The amount of money gathered by environmental organizations only becomes an issue if you believe that these organizations are "creating" an environmental crisis as a PR tactic to fill their own pockets. The grassroots history of environmentalism contradicts this notion, not to mention the bulk of mainstream science. Perhaps yet another posting for alt.conspiracy? Bruce Rannala, Department of Biology, Yale University rannala@minerva.cis.yale.edu From owner-population-bio@net.bio.net Tue Oct 04 23:00:00 1994 Path: biosci!galaxy.ucr.edu!ihnp4.ucsd.edu!agate!msuinfo!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!yarrina.connect.com.au!warrane.connect.com.au!pandora.connect.com.au!user From: karyn@connect.com.au (Karyn Davis) Newsgroups: bionet.population-bio Subject: How do I get a copy of PAUP? Followup-To: bionet.population-bio Date: Wed, 05 Oct 1994 18:49:31 +1000 Organization: Connect.com.au P/L, Sydney, Australia Lines: 14 Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: pandora.connect.com.au Hi, I am trying to get hold of a copy of PAUP. How do I go about doing this?? Who do I contact?? I have tried emailing swofford@onyx.si.edu but have had no reply. Any ideas gratefully received. Please email responses to: karyn@connect.com.au as I don't get much time to read news these days. Thanks. Karyn Davis From owner-population-bio@net.bio.net Tue Oct 04 23:00:00 1994 Newsgroups: bionet.population-bio Path: biosci!galaxy.ucr.edu!ihnp4.ucsd.edu!usc!nic-nac.CSU.net!charnel.ecst.csuchico.edu!olivea!uunet!hearst.acc.Virginia.EDU!murdoch!darwin.clas.Virginia.EDU!mgk From: mgk@darwin.clas.Virginia.EDU (Mahlon G. Kelly) Subject: Re: Scaring People for Profit and Policy Message-ID: Sender: usenet@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU Organization: uva References: <36s3i7$r2@phoebe.jpl.nasa.gov> Date: Wed, 5 Oct 1994 03:15:29 GMT Lines: 74 jdg@tycho.jpl.nasa.gov writes: > There are more than 450 national organizations (uncounted local ones), > promoting policy change supposedly mandated by incipient environmental > catastrophes. > > While not all are radical apocalytpics, they all share the institutional > imperative to find and publicize an endless series of crises and disasters, > since without calamities to combat, they have no reason to exist. Most have > thus become quite skilled at marketing doomed. > > Leading environmental groups (Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council, > etc.), pulled in over $400 million dollars in 1990, from a contributor base > of 4 million people. Four hundred million dollars is 10 times the amount of money > raised by Republicans and Democrats TOGETHER in 1990. > > This leads to situations such as having the public introduced to the concept > of "nuclear winter" when it was first mentioned in the Oct '83 issue of Parade > magazine (a glossy Sunday supplement) by Carl Sagan, after a Washington D.C. > public relations firm was hired for $80000 dollars. It was only after the concept > had been firmly planted in the minds of the public that other scientists were > allowed to examine the reasoning > > (typical of environmental studies; first a cadre releases a study in a > carefully orchestrated press conference, THEN there is peer review. By the time > details are shown to be false (if not outright fabricated), it's too late; the > public has accepted this "scientific" scare and the multi-million dollars > eco-groups have seized on a new reason for funding. Policy makers in D.C. have > seized on a new excuse for expanded federal control of some resource > (new bureaurcracy, funding) and Third World nations are looking to the U.S. for > hand-outs to help them "stop" their dangerous behavior. Academics have new > studies to conduct and the money flows). Everyone wins but the poor saps who > were suckered into paying for it (the public). > > As far as nuclear Winter, Russell Seitz wrote of Sagan's TTAPS model in > blistering terms: " Instead of a planet with continents and oceans, the TTAPS > model postulates a featureless, bone-dry billiard ball. Instead of nights > and days, it postulated 24-hour sunlight at 1/3 strength. Instead of > realistic smoke emissions, it simply dumped 10-mile-thick soot clouds into > the atmosphere instantaneously. The model dealth with such complications as > east, west winds, sunrise, sunset and patchy clouds in a stunningly elegant > manner -- they were ignored.) > > Similar problems exist with "ozone hole", "global warming", in fact, every > single eco-scare you can think of. Remember the "alar" scare? Remember dioxin? > Remember 20 years ago when we were running out of resources, there was supposedly > exponential population growth and, what's more, the planet was COOLING into a > new global ICE-AGE? I am sure you are going to be flamed for that one, but not by me. I recently took early retirement from the Univ. of Va. Dept of Environmental Sciences. A major reason was watching my colleagues become whores under the pressures of publish or perish, and the movement of funds from basic science to trendy "crises" as seen by the public and supported by the politicians and beaurocrats. I don't see any mention of it in your message, but one of the sources of the problem is scientists who do their work and publish it in such a way as to increase the hysteria. They do it subtly, and are often unaware they are doing it, but it is done. I recently had a long conversation with the exucutive vice president of one of the largest environmental organizations, but a very conservative one. He told stories of the relationships of some of the "green" organizations with the press, and the amount spent on agendas that give power to the vested interests of those organizations. The stories are incredible. Hundreds of millions are being spent with P.R. firms, mainly to influence the media and politicians. Anyone who doubts that the "green" organizations are big business hasn't done his/her homework. Mahlon Kelly From owner-population-bio@net.bio.net Tue Oct 04 23:00:00 1994 Path: biosci!galaxy.ucr.edu!ihnp4.ucsd.edu!swrinde!howland.reston.ans.net!news.sprintlink.net!news.clark.net!mitchlev_ppp.clark.net!mitchlev From: mitchlev@clark.net (Mitch Leventhal) Newsgroups: bionet.population-bio Subject: Population of Sierra Leone in 1959 ? Date: Wed, 5 Oct 1994 03:32:51 GMT Organization: University of Chicago, Dept. of Educ. Lines: 9 Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: mitchlev_ppp.clark.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Newsreader: Trumpet for Windows [Version 1.0 Rev Final Beta #10] If anyone can easily provide this figure, please email me. Thanks. Mitch Leventhal University of Chicago -- Department of Education Tel. (H/W) 301-230-2536 email: mitchlev@clark.net ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Economies of Scale/Human Resource Planning/ Development Integration/Trade in Educational Services From owner-population-bio@net.bio.net Tue Oct 04 23:00:00 1994 Path: biosci!galaxy.ucr.edu!ihnp4.ucsd.edu!swrinde!howland.reston.ans.net!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!news.umbc.edu!haven.umd.edu!purdue!lerc.nasa.gov!kira.cc.uakron.edu!ns.mcs.kent.edu!Nimitz.mcs.kent.edu!dclose From: dclose@Nimitz.mcs.kent.edu (Webber) Newsgroups: bionet.population-bio Subject: Help Date: 5 Oct 1994 03:01:12 GMT Organization: Kent State University Lines: 8 Message-ID: <36t4to$bj9@ns.mcs.kent.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: nimitz.mcs.kent.edu Does anyone know if there is any site that has current information about population in the U.S. and or other countries of the world? If you do, could you please e-mail the online site to me as I do not read this group? Thanks. -- "Brother will kill brother dclose@mcs.kent.edu Speading blood across the land. Killing for religion Is something I don't understand." Dave Mustaine, Megadeth From owner-population-bio@net.bio.net Tue Oct 04 23:00:00 1994 Path: biosci!ACC.WUACC.EDU!zzdecell From: zzdecell@ACC.WUACC.EDU (decelles paul) Newsgroups: bionet.population-bio Subject: Re: Scaring People for Profit and Policy Date: 4 Oct 1994 19:47:12 -0700 Organization: BIOSCI International Newsgroups for Molecular Biology Lines: 90 Sender: daemon@net.bio.net Distribution: world Message-ID: References: <36s3i7$r2@phoebe.jpl.nasa.gov> NNTP-Posting-Host: net.bio.net It's difficult to know which of Jon Giorgini's articles to comment on so I'll collapse some comments together. First with respect to "scaring people for profit & policy", $400 million dollars is raised by environmental groups could very well be 10 times the amount of money that parties get directly...but what's the point. After all, not all of that money goes to sway the gullible public. Secondly, I wonder how that 400 million stacks up with the amount of money spent by the insurence industry and friends to defeat health care reform, or to get more general how does it stack up to the amount of money spent on advertising during football games. People who like to scare others always like to throw around big sounding numbers that just ain't so big. To be fair some environmental arguements have such numbers as well and when I teach environmental science I point these out when I see them even in some environmental science texts(Please don't ask which texts, I'm not up for fights about that.) With respect to Carl Sagan's work, I seem to remember a Science article by Sagan et. al., laying out the model. Last time I checked Science is a referried journal and I suppose my memory of the existance of this article could be flawed. As for the PR stuff, if true you're right to be upset...after all remember cold fusion??? That got so big precisely because the scientists involved did not go the referried route. I'm not sure your criticism of the model is entirely fair; after all scientists create simplyfied abstractions of the real, that they hope capture the essential features of the problem at hand. These should be pointers to potential problems, and new questions. With respect to things we remember, well my memory aint to good, but as I recall the EPA still considers dioxin a highly dangerous chemical and recently reevaluated the data. Of course you are probably going to reply that they are just covering themselves for the Love canal fiasco. Exponential growth, you're right I don't remember that because as I believe I pointed out before, until very recently world population was growing faster than exponential. I might point out that a recent Vatican sponsered conference on population growth came to the conclusion that population growth is a serious problem. (I'm still trying to get original documents on this so if any one has a pointer to this I'd appreciate it!) People it seems can disagree on how to deal with population growth, but it is a problem we have to grapple with, if only to make it easier to deal with the rising expectations of the developing countries including some biggies like China and India. You criticise the arguements that we are running out of resources. By your own data (Giorgini 2 Oct 1994:04:00:26 GMT) we have 24 years of proven gold reserves, 65 years of copper etc. Granted as you point out we are substituting other materials (Optical fiber for copper etc.) but I'll bet (not much, maybe a pizza or a beer) that if you examine reserve and consumption figures from an earlier time, say the 50's or 30's, the reserves were much larger. Also, remember we've gotten the easy stuff out at least in this country. When I was growing up we still had high quality lake superior iron ore. Now the high quality stuff is taconite(at best). Your mention that the average price of all metals and minerals fell by 40%, in Giorgini (Oct 2 )4:00:26 GMT. I've seen similar figures and they are best on constant dollars pegged to some year, probably 1980. You cannot jump from this as you seem to want to do to the conclusion that this proves that resources are not limiting. Resource scarcity is at least one of the things that drives substitution. Another is that some of the substitutes are technologically superior. For instance the other month I was at a Kite festival admiring some high performance stunt kites. The spars and struts were made of hollow carbon composite rod. Wonderful strength to weight ratio, but very expensive. Maybe if you want to look at costs, you need to look at costs to get the substitute to a comparable level of utility to the original material. The point is its really difficult to interpret the meaning of your 40% number. One final comment then I'm going home to bed. In your article of Oct 4:00:41:38 GMT your last sentence "Looking at a snapshot now and deciding it's time to reduce humanity to subsistance(after your wood frame house is built, of course) only leads to the destruction of wealth which leads to more environmental destruction." I don't think most environmentalists, and I'll grant you there are exceptions even in this group as you know, want to reduce humanity to subsistance, but want to see our species develope a long term perspective and a sustainable point of view. From my perspective as a biologist we need to get a handle on a long term direction, maybe a long term vision before we close out our biological technological and social options and get locked into a path that we may not be able to reverse. Cheers and I'm going home to bed. Dr. Paul Decelles Department of Biology Washburn University Topeka, KS. From owner-population-bio@net.bio.net Wed Oct 05 23:00:00 1994 Newsgroups: bionet.population-bio Path: biosci!agate!spool.mu.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!hearst.acc.Virginia.EDU!murdoch!darwin.clas.Virginia.EDU!mgk From: mgk@darwin.clas.Virginia.EDU (Mahlon G. Kelly) Subject: Re: Scaring People for Profit and Policy Message-ID: Sender: usenet@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU Organization: uva References: <36vbfr$3ob@ixnews1.ix.netcom.com> Date: Thu, 6 Oct 1994 03:52:33 GMT Lines: 18 I pondered whether I should follow up on this thread, then decided it would simply turn into one of those escalating flame things. Just two comments. 1) while basic research funding is peer reviewed, the "peers" often have their own axes to grind, and they are appointed by bureaucrats who have their own budgets to defend. 2) Although journal articles are peer reviewed, there are many other ways that scientists can influence what the public hears and sees, such as press releases, interviews, dissemination of unreviewed reports, etc. Just look at the attention grabbed by EPA reports. And then look at the quality of much of the science. Lest anyone think that I am saying this from bitterness, I am not. I had major funding for basic research. Mahlon Kelly From owner-population-bio@net.bio.net Wed Oct 05 23:00:00 1994 Path: biosci!galaxy.ucr.edu!library.ucla.edu!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!howland.reston.ans.net!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!ruger-5.slip.uiuc.edu!user From: r-larkin@uiuc.edu (Ron Larkin) Newsgroups: bionet.software,bionet.population-bio,sci.bio Subject: Re: Software to track wildlife migration? Date: Wed, 05 Oct 1994 20:58:25 -0600 Organization: Illinois Natural History Survey Lines: 23 Message-ID: References: <36siai$1jq@antares.Austin.Lockheed.COM> NNTP-Posting-Host: ruger-5.slip.uiuc.edu Xref: biosci bionet.software:9539 bionet.population-bio:827 sci.bio:11185 In article <36siai$1jq@antares.Austin.Lockheed.COM>, mcinroy@austin.lockheed.com (John W. McInroy) wrote: > Last month I posted the following item: > : I am looking for software that can be used to > : track phenomena such as the movement of banded > : birds or other wildlife. I would appreciate > : any information available. John, Having missed the original post, I don't see much direct connection between "wildlife migration", banding data, and the home range analysis programs listed in your summary posting. Nevertheless, you may be interested in a review article on home range software that appears in the summer '94 Wildlife Society Bulletin. It reviews about a dozen packages that run on PC's. I can send you a reprint if you like. Regards, Ron Larkin Illinois Natural History Survey r-larkin@uiuc.edu PS Is Lockheed applying its technology and muscle to wildlife matters??? From owner-population-bio@net.bio.net Wed Oct 05 23:00:00 1994 Path: biosci!bcm!cs.utexas.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!gatech!newsxfer.itd.umich.edu!zip.eecs.umich.edu!yeshua.marcam.com!charnel.ecst.csuchico.edu!olivea!trib.apple.com!amd!netcomsv!netcomsv!ix.netcom.com!netnews From: Jerry1@ix.netcom.com (Gerald Grow) Newsgroups: bionet.population-bio Subject: Re: Scaring People for Profit and Policy Date: 5 Oct 1994 23:05:31 GMT Organization: Netcom Lines: 61 Distribution: world Message-ID: <36vbfr$3ob@ixnews1.ix.netcom.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: ix-pl3-06.ix.netcom.com In <36s3i7$r2@phoebe.jpl.nasa.gov> jdg@tycho.jpl.nasa.gov (Jon Giorgini) writes: > > There are more than 450 national organizations (uncounted local ones), >promoting policy change supposedly mandated by incipient environmental >catastrophes. > > While not all are radical apocalytpics, they all share the institutional >imperative to find and publicize an endless series of crises and disasters, >since without calamities to combat, they have no reason to exist. Most have >thus become quite skilled at marketing doomed. > > Leading environmental groups (Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council, >etc.), pulled in over $400 million dollars in 1990, from a contributor base >of 4 million people. Four hundred million dollars is 10 times the amount of money >raised by Republicans and Democrats TOGETHER in 1990. > > This leads to situations such as having the public introduced to the concept >of "nuclear winter" when it was first mentioned in the Oct '83 issue of Parade >magazine (a glossy Sunday supplement) by Carl Sagan, after a Washington D.C. >public relations firm was hired for $80000 dollars. It was only after the concept >had been firmly planted in the minds of the public that other scientists were >allowed to examine the reasoning > > (typical of environmental studies; first a cadre releases a study in a >carefully orchestrated press conference, THEN there is peer review. By the time >details are shown to be false (if not outright fabricated), it's too late; the >public has accepted this "scientific" scare and the multi-million dollars >eco-groups have seized on a new reason for funding. Policy makers in D.C. have >seized on a new excuse for expanded federal control of some resource >(new bureaurcracy, funding) and Third World nations are looking to the U.S. for >hand-outs to help them "stop" their dangerous behavior. Academics have new >studies to conduct and the money flows). Everyone wins but the poor saps who >were suckered into paying for it (the public). > > As far as nuclear Winter, Russell Seitz wrote of Sagan's TTAPS model in >blistering terms: " Instead of a planet with continents and oceans, the TTAPS >model postulates a featureless, bone-dry billiard ball. Instead of nights >and days, it postulated 24-hour sunlight at 1/3 strength. Instead of >realistic smoke emissions, it simply dumped 10-mile-thick soot clouds into >the atmosphere instantaneously. The model dealth with such complications as >east, west winds, sunrise, sunset and patchy clouds in a stunningly elegant >manner -- they were ignored.) > > Similar problems exist with "ozone hole", "global warming", in fact, every >single eco-scare you can think of. Remember the "alar" scare? Remember dioxin? >Remember 20 years ago when we were running out of resources, there was supposedly >exponential population growth and, what's more, the planet was COOLING into a >new global ICE-AGE? > Jon, If you're going to quote from EcoScam, shouldn't you give credit to the author? I bought the book because I wanted to find out where you were getting all this pseudo-scientific information. The book is pathetic. Sponsored (or at least supported) by the conservative Cato Institute, the author (a journalist, not a scientist) uses half-truths and unsupported dogmatic statements to "prove" his case. IMHO, Ronald Bailey has written a polemic based on ultraconservative dogma, rather than a balanced review of the environmental/political situation. Certainly nothing he has written would withstand even the most casual peer-review process by serious scientists. --Jerry From owner-population-bio@net.bio.net Wed Oct 05 23:00:00 1994 Path: biosci!bcm!cs.utexas.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!EU.net!sunic!ugle.unit.no!trane.uninett.no!daresbury!not-for-mail From: higuet@ccr.jussieu.fr (Dominique Higuet) Newsgroups: bionet.population-bio Subject: request: looking for strains from natural populations Date: 6 Oct 1994 13:02:43 +0100 Lines: 22 Sender: lpddist@mserv1.dl.ac.uk Distribution: bionet Message-ID: <370p13$jul@mserv1.dl.ac.uk> X-Sender: higuet@moka.ccr.jussieu.fr Original-To: pop-bio@dl.ac.uk In the eighties, we have studied a great number of natural populations of Drosophila melanogaster in regard to the PM system of hybrid dysgenesis. Ten years later, we would like to realise a similar analysis in natural populations which have been captured since 1992. So if you have in your laboratory or nearby, strains recently collected in natural populations (either masse culture or maintained as isofemale lines), could you be kind enough to send them to us with informations about the country and the date of capture, and the number of flies at the origin of each strain. In the case of isofemale lines, five to ten lines per strain would be fine. Could you please send flies from European or Asian populations to D.HIGUET (Institut J. Monod, Laboratoire Dynamique du G=E9nome et Evolution, 2 place Jussieu, Tour 42 - 4=E8me =E9tage, 75251 Paris cedex 05 - France) and flies = from African or American populations to G.PERIQUET (I.B.E.A.S, Facult=E9 des Scie= nces, Parc Grandmont, 37200 Tours - France). Thanks a lot in advance. D.HIGUET - G.PERIQUET From owner-population-bio@net.bio.net Thu Oct 06 23:00:00 1994 Path: biosci!galaxy.ucr.edu!ihnp4.ucsd.edu!agate!cat.cis.Brown.EDU!news2.near.net!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!gatech!howland.reston.ans.net!swrinde!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!netline-fddi.jpl.nasa.gov!phoebe.jpl.nasa.gov!tycho!jdg From: jdg@tycho.jpl.nasa.gov (Jon Giorgini) Newsgroups: bionet.population-bio Subject: Re: Scaring People for Profit and Policy Date: 6 Oct 1994 23:20:34 GMT Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena CA Lines: 30 Sender: jdg@tycho (Jon Giorgini) Distribution: world Message-ID: <3720o2$53c@phoebe.jpl.nasa.gov> References: <36vbfr$3ob@ixnews1.ix.netcom.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: tycho.jpl.nasa.gov >Jon, > If you're going to quote from EcoScam, shouldn't you give credit to the author? >I bought the book because I wanted to find out where you were getting all this >pseudo-scientific information. The book is pathetic. Sponsored (or at least supported) >by the conservative Cato Institute, the author (a journalist, not a scientist) uses >half-truths and unsupported dogmatic statements to "prove" his case. IMHO, Ronald >Bailey has written a polemic based on ultraconservative dogma, rather than a balanced >review of the environmental/political situation. Certainly nothing he has written >would withstand even the most casual peer-review process by serious scientists. > --Jerry No, that is not correct. Half the book is composed of extensive quotes of people promoting various doom scenarios. The remainder is a meticulously referenced (40 pages of references) survey of the literature documenting serious problems (and outright corruption) with the science of doom as documented by other scientists in the field who have published works. The author was a science writer for Forbes magazine and a producer for PBS. His discussion of the past record of professional doomsters like Paul Ehrlich, Forrester and Sagan is invaluable. One begins to see the paths their minds trundle along and see it reflected in media reporting. Instead of slandering the author and his intent, describe what errors you think exist -- and be as liberal with the quotes as Bailey was. I think the violent nature of your response, devoid of content, should cause many sleepy people to prick up their ears and perhaps dig up a copy of Ecoscam so they can analyze it for themselves. From owner-population-bio@net.bio.net Thu Oct 06 23:00:00 1994 Path: biosci!bcm!cs.utexas.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!spool.mu.edu!caen!kuhub.cc.ukans.edu!kuts2p11.cc.ukans.edu!bteas Newsgroups: bionet.population-bio Subject: Looking for density studies done on seaweed Message-ID: From: bteas@falcon.cc.ukans.edu (B. W. Teasdale) Date: Fri, 7 Oct 94 21:57:13 GMT Nntp-Posting-Host: kuts2p11.cc.ukans.edu X-Newsreader: VersaTerm Link v1.1.5 Lines: 6 I am looking for studies done on macro-algae, concentrating on density and its effect on growth. Please respond to news or e-mail bteas@falcon.cc.ukans.edu Thankyou for your time, Brian W. Teasdale student at the University of Kansas. From owner-population-bio@net.bio.net Thu Oct 06 23:00:00 1994 Path: biosci!GYPSY.FSL.WVNET.EDU!sandy From: sandy@GYPSY.FSL.WVNET.EDU Newsgroups: bionet.population-bio Subject: how many forests? Date: 7 Oct 1994 07:07:44 -0700 Organization: BIOSCI International Newsgroups for Molecular Biology Lines: 79 Sender: daemon@net.bio.net Distribution: world Message-ID: <9410071402.AA03463@gypsy.fsl.wvnet.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: net.bio.net I work for the US Forest Service and I find it necessary to comment on some of the "facts" that Jon Giorgini has made recently about trends in Forest area in the US and the world: > As a result, the number of wooded acres in the U.S. has grown by 20% in the past 20 years. > Forested lands in the U.S. reached their low point of 464 million acres in > the 1920's. They have since expanded to more than 728 million acres today. The most comprehensive publications that our agency publishes are the Resource Plannning Act (RPA) Assessments which are published periodically under a Congressional mandate to assess timber resources in the nation. The most recent of these is, "Powell, et al. 1993. Forest Resources of the United States, 1992. USDA Forest Service General Technical Report RM-234" In the 1992 RPA, the summary shows that forest area in the US dropped dramatically from about 1 billion acres in 1600 to about 732 million acres in 1920 and then rose slightly by 1940 to about 760 million acres. Since 1940, the forest land area in the US has remained essentially constant. These figures may vary slightly in different reports because there are many different ways to define what consitutes "forested area" but the trends are essentially the same in all of these reports. Though Mr. Giorgini's assertion that there is currently a rapidly increasing forest area in the US is incorrect, this assertion is true in certain regions. For example, over the last 100 years there has been a steady increase in forested area in the northeastern US. Increases in forested area cannot be attributed to fire suppression as Mr. Giorgini asserts, but instead they are mostly due to abandonment of agricultural land use. > According to the U.S. Forest service, annual timber growth in the U.S. now > exceeds harvest by 37%. Annual growth has exceeded harvest every year since > 1952. Mr. Giorgini is more or less correct here, however it is important to understand why this trend exists. The explanation lies mostly with the fact that most of the forest land in the US is second growth. Around the turn of the century, most forests were still old growth in the US. These forests grew very slowly so the annual cut exceeded annual growth. Now, our forests are almost all second growth forests and they grow much quicker. Furthermore, our annual cut has decreased dramatically over the last 30 years. Together these trends result in a much higher annual growth than cut. I might add that our 2nd growth forests are actually very unnatural. Though these forests look "green" from the highway and in Movies, the biological diversity is much different from that of the original forests. > In all developed countries of the world, including the U.S. and Canada, forestry > is now conducted on a sustainable yield basis where growth exceeds harvest. Our agency must manage National Forests under pressure from the forest industry to cut more and pressure from environmental groups to cut less. Over the last 30 years, the annual cut on National Forests has dropped dramatically and I believe that with a few exceptions our current practices can be described as sustainable. However, this is clearly not the case in the rest of the world. Vast areas of the world have been, and continue to be, deforested both for purposes of conversion of land to agricultural use and for extraction of wood products. In many of the most overpopulated areas of the world, these forests have mostly never been replaced. Unfortunately, this trend is continuing. Much of this deforestation can be attributed to extraction of wood products by developed countries such as Japan and the US. Economic forces in impoverished areas such as Siberia, central america, and southeast Asia often cause the liquidation of forest resources with little or no planning for the future. I think that it Mr. Giorgini may not realize that the problems of overpopulation are very different in other parts of the world than they are here in the US. Not only is this true in terms of understanding world forest resources but it is also important in understanding how overpopulation affects food and public health problems as well. I would strongly ecourage Mr. Giorgini to take a trip to an overpopulated country such as India, Bangladesh, or China if he truely doubts that world population growth is a problem. -------------------------------------------------------------- Sandy Liebhold ^ Research Entomologist USDA Forest Service /|\ 180 Canfield St. //|\\ sandy@gypsy.fsl.wvnet.edu Morgantown, WV ///|\\\ 304-285-1609 voice 26505 USA | 304-285-1505 FAX -------------------------------------------------------------- From owner-population-bio@net.bio.net Thu Oct 06 23:00:00 1994 Path: biosci!bcm!cs.utexas.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!library.ucla.edu!ucsbuxb.ucsb.edu!ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu!not-for-mail From: 6500mll@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu (Michael Lightstone) Newsgroups: bionet.population-bio Subject: Re: POPULATION: Delusions and Reality Date: 6 Oct 1994 18:15:12 -0700 Organization: University of California, Santa Barbara Lines: 26 Message-ID: <3727f0$mv8@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu> References: <9409290738.AA14810@minerva.cis.yale.edu> <36f58o$o1l@phoebe.jpl.nasa.gov> NNTP-Posting-Host: ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu In article odonnell@sasa.gov.uk (Kevin O'Donnell) writes: >> >> Based on human history, the problem is poverty. The cleanest environments >>with the least hunger and the best environments and stable or declining >>populations are produced by those societies that produce the most wealth. >>These are capitalist societies based on individual liberty. >> >The first sentence is correct. So is the second. Sadly, Jon couldn't >make it three in a row. The cleanest environments, least poverty and >most stable populations are to be found in the European >social-democracies (in which category I would still include the UK), > where collective need takes some priority over private greed. I was just wondering on what sources you are basing your claim that European social democracies have the cleanest environments. I would bet that except for the sparsely populated Scandinavian countries, the rest of Europe is on average the same or worse than the U.S. or Canada. Also, with regards to population, I believe that Ireland has one of the highest birth rates among developed nations. Mike From owner-population-bio@net.bio.net Fri Oct 07 23:00:00 1994 Path: biosci!agate!trib.apple.com!amd!amdahl!netcomsv!ix.netcom.com!netnews From: Jerry1@ix.netcom.com (Gerald Grow) Newsgroups: bionet.population-bio Subject: Re: Scaring People for Profit and Policy Date: 8 Oct 1994 01:23:52 GMT Organization: Netcom Lines: 60 Distribution: world Message-ID: <374sb8$ks1@ixnews1.ix.netcom.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: ix-pl4-19.ix.netcom.com In <3720o2$53c@phoebe.jpl.nasa.gov> jdg@tycho.jpl.nasa.gov (Jon Giorgini) writes: > >>Jon, >> If you're going to quote from EcoScam, shouldn't you give credit to the author? >>I bought the book because I wanted to find out where you were getting all this >>pseudo-scientific information. The book is pathetic. Sponsored (or at least supported) >>by the conservative Cato Institute, the author (a journalist, not a scientist) uses >>half-truths and unsupported dogmatic statements to "prove" his case. IMHO, Ronald >>Bailey has written a polemic based on ultraconservative dogma, rather than a balanced >>review of the environmental/political situation. Certainly nothing he has written >>would withstand even the most casual peer-review process by serious scientists. >> --Jerry > > > No, that is not correct. Half the book is composed of extensive quotes of >people promoting various doom scenarios. The remainder is a meticulously >referenced (40 pages of references) survey of the literature documenting serious >problems (and outright corruption) with the science of doom as documented by >other scientists in the field who have published works. > > The author was a science writer for Forbes magazine and a producer for PBS. > > His discussion of the past record of professional doomsters like Paul >Ehrlich, Forrester and Sagan is invaluable. One begins to see the paths >their minds trundle along and see it reflected in media reporting. > > Instead of slandering the author and his intent, describe what errors you >think exist -- and be as liberal with the quotes as Bailey was. > > I think the violent nature of your response, devoid of content, should cause >many sleepy people to prick up their ears and perhaps dig up a copy of Ecoscam >so they can analyze it for themselves. > Jon, An excellent point. I think more people should read EcoScam and judge for themselves what the writer has to say. I have no doubt the vast majority of readers can judge for themselves the obvious bias of the author. OK, a couple of points. If one wants to "see the paths their [Ehrlich, Forrester, and Sagan] minds trundle along," why not read their works instead of an interpretation by someone else. Let me quote from the Introduction to "The Limits to Growth," which Bailey so maligns: "The model we have constructed is, like every other model, imperfect, oversimplified, and unfinished. We are well aware of its shortcomings, but we believe that it is the most useful model now available for dealing with problems far out in the space-time graph. To our knowledge, it is the only formal model in existence that is truly global in scope, that has a time horizon longer than thirty years, and that includes important variables such as population, food production, and pollution, not as independent entities, but as dynamically interacting elements, as they are in the real world." (p. 21-22, in the Universe Books edition, 1972.) Also, why didn't Bailey even mention the second report to the Club of Rome, "Mankind at the Turning Point," which took the single global model of Meadows et al., and broke it down into regional models, which showed the same result as the original model, except that different regions collapsed at different times. This message is getting too long already. I'll be glad to supply more details if you want them. --Jerry From owner-population-bio@net.bio.net Sat Oct 08 23:00:00 1994 Newsgroups: bionet.population-bio From: COMINT@arout.demon.co.uk (AROUTIOUN AGADJANIAN) Path: biosci!daresbury!trane.uninett.no!sunic!pipex!news.sprintlink.net!demon!arout.demon.co.uk!COMINT Subject: Re: Overpopulation - new approach References: <781212140snz@arout.demon.co.uk> Organization: BIOCYBERNETICS Reply-To: COMINT@arout.demon.co.uk X-Newsreader: Demon Internet Simple News v1.29 Lines: 94 Date: Sun, 9 Oct 1994 14:58:05 +0000 Message-ID: <781714685snz@arout.demon.co.uk> Sender: usenet@demon.co.uk In article mgk@darwin.clas.Virginia.EDU "Mahlon G. Kelly" writes: > COMINT@arout.demon.co.uk writes: > > What leads to overpopulation? Whether the present rate of population > > growth is of social origin or it is display of to-be-revealed > > biological nature of human animal? > > > > Our team has developed a theory allowing new view at overpopulation > > problem. In the course of long term investigations we have come to a > > conclusion: violent death of people leads to increase in birth-rate in > > survivors. This phenomenon is inherent to human as well as all other > > living creatures and it is an integral part of intrinsic mechanism > > providing natural regulation of population numbers. > > > > To prove the link between reproduction rate of living creatures and > > violent death rate within a population we have conducted a series of > > experiments on laboratory animals. The experiment pattern was extremely > > simple similar to that of well-known experiments aimed to study > > population self regulation at the level of numbers in which populations > > of laboratory animals are exploited as they might be by predators. In > > these experiments we observed the reproduction rate in several > > identical groups of animals from which the equal numbers of animals > > were removed. The difference in our experiments was that the animals > > from the experimental group were killed and then removed while the animals > > from the control were just removed (An attempt was done to model what occurs > > in nature). Results proved the theoretically predicted increase in > > reproduction rate in the experimental groups. > > > > Conclusion. Nowadays progressive growth of population is a result of > > regular and mass destruction of people (violence, wars, epidemics, > > starvation, catastrophes, etc.). The only alternative for humanity to > > survive is to decrease people's destruction led by unnatural causes. > > Efforts should be directed to limit the level of violent death all over > > the world at least to that in developed countries. > > > > We attach the schemes and the results of the experiments conducted on > > laboratory white mice and drosophila to allow those interested to > > repeat them. > > > > In experiments with mice 25-40 females and 11-25 males (for > > experimental and control groups) were selected with identical age and > > weight, kept in identical conditions. On 11th day of isolation one > > female was killed in experimental group (with the presence of other > > individuals and under common glass lid) and one female was removed from > > control alive. On 12th day the procedure was repeated. On 13th day the > > experimental group of females and experimental group of males were > > placed together. The same was done in control. The procedure of killing > > and removal was continued to 18th day included. On 19th day males were > > removed from both groups and after given time the number of pregnant > > females were counted in each group. Experiments showed 65% higher > > pregnancy level in the groups where females were killed in the presence > > of others. Estimated statistical accuracy was 0.01 in each series. > > > > In experiments with drosophila 20-40 flies were killed each day or with > > one-day interval (flies were placed in glasses with nutrient medium to > > provide the development of individuals from an egg to an imago). Six > > procedures of killing were implemented at preimago stage and one was > > implemented at imago stage. The flies were then placed in other glasses > > with raisins medium and females were fed before egg-laying. The other > > number of flies was killed in the glasses with raisins medium, and then > > the flies were placed in separated glasses with fresh nutrient medium > > by pairs (male and female) for two days. Reproductive efficiency was > > estimated by number of flies developed in these glasses. Flies in > > control were subject to identical conditions except the killing. In > > experimental groups the average number of offsprings for one female was > > 95.64. The figure was 84.42 in control. Estimated statistical accuracy > > was 0.002 in each group. > > > > ___________ > > AROUTIOUN AGADJANIAN > > Would you please give us your institutional affiliation? And > would you please provide references to the above work? > References to refereed journals? > > I ask this because the experimental design seems (to be > diplomatic) sort of questionable. > > If you have not presented the work for examination by outside > referees, then I think that we should all be skeptical. > > Quite frankly, I find it rather amazing that anyone would try > to make conclusions from experiments such as you have > described. However, perhaps the limited space available here > limits what you can tell us. > > Or is it all a joke??? > > Mahlon Kelly > More than 10 years our team has been investigating the nature of a phenomenon discovered by us - feedback between reproduction rate and that of violent death within a population. Number of series of experiments on mice, rats, some insect species, aquarium fish have been conducted in former USSR. Results of all experiments carried out have proved the existence of feedback between death and birth. Unfortunately, we had no possibility and no funds to conduct any quantitative or qualitative investigations on the effect. Theory and experimental results have been published in former USSR scientific and popular press but they are unknown in wide scientific world (as many other discoveries and investigations in former USSR). The experiments described in Overpopulation - New Approach were first published in the article Feedback and Plant Protection by Agadjanian I.A., J. Plant Protection, May Issue, 1983, Moscow. These are first experiments conducted in Science and Research Sanitary Institute, Novosibirsk, Russia. Unfortunately, we had no possibility to present the results of these experiments as well as others for examination by outside (abroad) referees. Our conclusions result from all experiments conducted by us and independent experimentators. Moreover, preliminary demographic survey has been carried out in 1989 by Demographic Office, Academy of Science of Armenia. Results showed that population explosion observed in Middle Asia former USSR republics results from Afghan war. Also it was proved that drop in birth rate would have been registered there in eighties if war had not been started. Before and after the beginning of Afghan war there were number of social, economic, demographic factors leading to birth rate decrease in above mentioned former USSR republics. What is interesting that survey evidenced even higher birth rate in regions immediately bordering with fight regions. The aim of Overpopulation - New Approach is to call interest towards our work and to find scientists and research institutions to assist us to bring together all job already done and to develop it. -- AROUTIOUN AGADJANIAN From owner-population-bio@net.bio.net Sat Oct 08 23:00:00 1994 Newsgroups: bionet.population-bio From: COMINT@arout.demon.co.uk (AROUTIOUN AGADJANIAN) Path: biosci!daresbury!trane.uninett.no!sunic!pipex!uunet!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!howland.reston.ans.net!news.sprintlink.net!demon!arout.demon.co.uk!COMINT Subject: Re: Killing Mice Distribution: world References: Organization: BIOCYBERNETICS Reply-To: COMINT@arout.demon.co.uk X-Newsreader: Demon Internet Simple News v1.29 Lines: 12 Date: Sun, 9 Oct 1994 14:58:39 +0000 Message-ID: <781714719snz@arout.demon.co.uk> Sender: usenet@demon.co.uk In article umbjork1@cc.UManitoba.CA "Natalie Kim Bjorklund" writes: > I can't believe you got that experiment past a decent ethics > committee. Certainly we would never have been able to conduct such an > experiment on mammals here at U of Manitoba. > > > Do you really find killing some numbers of mice (rats, insects, fish, etc.) in order to prove how disastrously dangerous the killing is NOT ETHIC??? Or to prove that saving people from starvation and diseases, banning weapon industry and trade are not only humane but the only way for all of us to survive? Or to prove that only provision of possibility for each of born on the Earth not to die from unnatural causes and to live till seniority can be (along with all other social means) the only way to stop progressive population growth rate? Do you find killing animals in laboratory experiments to prove all this is NOT ETHIC??? People are killing each other, animals, insects, fish,plants, micro-organisms guided by various aims. In 20th century they do it in larger and larger scale due to technical means. In order to stop, maybe we need to learn more about death. The attitude towards killing might change only when we understand (even if it is at the cost of experiments on animals) that death is not just a transfer of material from living state into non living, it is not just a disappearing of living creature for all remaining living world, but something that can affect the physiology of reproduction, immunity, behaviour and even genotype of the survivors within a biological species. Common sense of civilisation tries to save humanity from threatening catastrophe through ethic bans on killing. Morality bans killing just because killing is not humane. Maybe it is high time to try to understand why `do not kill`... Maybe you would have been able to conduct such experiments on insects at U of Manitoba? -- AROUTIOUN AGADJANIAN From owner-population-bio@net.bio.net Sat Oct 08 23:00:00 1994 Path: biosci!agate!howland.reston.ans.net!pipex!uunet!haven.umd.edu!cville-srv.wam.umd.edu!usenet From: abirdson@next14pg2.wam.umd.edu (abirdson) Newsgroups: bionet.population-bio Subject: Law for 1,500 Communities : Free Air Time for You on Cable TV Date: 9 Oct 1994 22:24:16 GMT Organization: University of Maryland College Park Lines: 20 Distribution: world Message-ID: <379qig$q77@cville-srv.wam.umd.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: next14pg2.wam.umd.edu Keywords: Talk about Population on TV "About 1500 communities require their cable systems to provide a public access channel open without charge to *ANYONE* who wants to reach the public with a noncommercial message. The cable operator is required to provide a studio, video camera, and other assistance needed to get the message on the air. "Some cable operators cover such events as high school athletic awards dinners, band concerts, and service club speakers, presenting them either as they happen or on a delayed basis. The original idea was that the channel could become a public forum for the airing of opinion on local issues," says a 1994 textbook called Media Law, by Ralph L. Holsinger and Jon Paul Dilts. (If you want to purchase the book, have your local bookstore order it from McGraw-Hill, Inc., which is located in New York, St. Louis and San Francisco. Your group can talk about population or promote a political aganda. And people can run for office with no campaign funds because of this provision. Who out there with no campaign funds -- just a love for the people -- will run for governor or president? From owner-population-bio@net.bio.net Sun Oct 09 23:00:00 1994 Newsgroups: bionet.population-bio Path: biosci!agate!dog.ee.lbl.gov!ihnp4.ucsd.edu!sdd.hp.com!spool.mu.edu!sgiblab!uhog.mit.edu!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!howland.reston.ans.net!pipex!jura.sasa.gov.uk!news From: odonnell@sasa.gov.uk (Kevin O'Donnell) Subject: Re: POPULATION: Delusions and Reality Organization: Scottish Agricultural Science Agency Date: Mon, 10 Oct 1994 15:13:54 GMT Message-ID: X-Newsreader: WinVN 0.91.3 References: <9409290738.AA14810@minerva.cis.yale.edu> <36f58o$o1l@phoebe.jpl.nasa.gov> <3727f0$mv8@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu> Sender: news@jura.sasa.gov.uk (Usenet) Lines: 31 In article <3727f0$mv8@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu>, 6500mll@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu (Michael Lightstone) says: > >In article odonnell@sasa.gov.uk (Kevin O'Donnell) writes: > >I was just wondering on what sources you are basing your claim >that European social democracies have the cleanest >environments. I would bet that except for the sparsely >populated Scandinavian countries, the rest of Europe is on >average the same or worse than the U.S. or Canada. > >Also, with regards to population, I believe that Ireland has >one of the highest birth rates among developed nations. > >Mike > I was thinking more in terms of less poverty and less mad people running around with guns. I have no figures comparing pollution in the US with that in Europe, so you are right to pull me up on that. I would expect less pollution where the profit motive is not the sole factor in industrial development. The population of Ireland is still less than it was in the last century, thanks to an early experiment with the free market, where food was exported for profit, rather than used to feed people who were starving. Kevin O'Donnell Edinburgh Scotland From owner-population-bio@net.bio.net Sun Oct 09 23:00:00 1994 Path: biosci!bcm!cs.utexas.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!library.ucla.edu!ucsbuxb.ucsb.edu!ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu!not-for-mail From: 6500mll@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu (Michael Lightstone) Newsgroups: bionet.population-bio Subject: Re: Scaring People for Profit and Policy Date: 10 Oct 1994 14:51:21 -0700 Organization: University of California, Santa Barbara Lines: 29 Distribution: world Message-ID: <37cd0p$b6d@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu> References: <9410051608.AA10116@minerva.cis.yale.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu In article <9410051608.AA10116@minerva.cis.yale.edu> rannala@MINERVA.CIS.YALE.EDU (Bruce Rannala) writes: >Mahlon G. Kelly writes: >>I recently had a long conversation with the exucutive vice >>president of one of the largest environmental organizations, >>but a very conservative one. He told stories of the >>relationships of some of the "green" organizations with the >>press, and the amount spent on agendas that give power to the >>vested interests of those organizations. The stories are >>incredible. Hundreds of millions are being spent with P.R. >>firms, mainly to influence the media and politicians. >> >>Anyone who doubts that the "green" organizations are big >>business hasn't done his/her homework. >> >Anonymous insider information is always questionable and belongs in the >tabloids. Please name your informant so that we may verify his story. > I don't think I can count the number of articles (in a single day) that appear in *reputable* media sources (such as the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, New York Times, etc...) that are based extensively on undocumented, insider information. Just an observation... From owner-population-bio@net.bio.net Mon Oct 10 23:00:00 1994 Path: biosci!EMAIL.AFIP.OSD.MIL!PARSONS From: PARSONS@EMAIL.AFIP.OSD.MIL Newsgroups: bionet.population-bio Subject: How many forests? Date: 11 Oct 1994 07:23:18 -0700 Organization: BIOSCI International Newsgroups for Molecular Biology Lines: 13 Sender: daemon@net.bio.net Distribution: world Message-ID: <9409117818.AA781896443@email.afip.osd.mil> NNTP-Posting-Host: net.bio.net I would like to thank Sandy Liebhold, USDA, for a well-supported and well-reasoned discussion of forestation and deforestation rates. I would add that as a biologist and natural historian who has spent much time in America's forests, both old growth and second growth, I have observed that the timber industry's idea of forest replacement very often is a dense monoculture that bears as much resemblance to a healthy forest ecosystem as a corn-field does to native tall grass prairie. To equate tree farms to old growth forest is simply ignorant and incorrect. Tom Parsons views are his own AFIP DNA Identification Lab. From owner-population-bio@net.bio.net Mon Oct 10 23:00:00 1994 Path: biosci!bcm!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!netline-fddi.jpl.nasa.gov!phoebe.jpl.nasa.gov!tycho!jdg From: jdg@tycho.jpl.nasa.gov (Jon Giorgini) Newsgroups: bionet.population-bio Subject: Re: Scaring People for Profit and Policy Date: 11 Oct 1994 18:37:43 GMT Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena CA Lines: 37 Sender: jdg@tycho (Jon Giorgini) Distribution: world Message-ID: <37em1o$9sp@phoebe.jpl.nasa.gov> References: <374sb8$ks1@ixnews1.ix.netcom.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: tycho.jpl.nasa.gov >Jon, > An excellent point. I think more people should read EcoScam and judge >for themselves what the writer has to say. I have no doubt the vast majority >of readers can judge for themselves the obvious bias of the author. > OK, a couple of points. If one wants to "see the paths their [Ehrlich, >Forrester, and Sagan] minds trundle along," why not read their works instead >of an interpretation by someone else. Let me quote from the Introduction to >"The Limits to Growth," which Bailey so maligns: > "The model we have constructed is, like every other model, imperfect, >oversimplified, and unfinished. We are well aware of its shortcomings, but >we believe that it is the most useful model now available for dealing with >problems far out in the space-time graph. To our knowledge, it is the only >formal model in existence that is truly global in scope, that has a time >horizon longer than thirty years, and that includes important variables such >as population, food production, and pollution, not as independent entities, but >as dynamically interacting elements, as they are in the real world." (p. 21-22, >in the Universe Books edition, 1972.) The model was not only imperfect and oversimplified, it was wrong. It has been shown to be wrong in every way. It predicted resource exhaustion by the early 1990's. In reality, natural resources have never been more available and cheaper. The same trend observed throughout human history continues. Reality has moved in PRECISELY the opposite direction "Limits of Growth" described as "inevitable". I gave specific resources in an earlier message, but consider Forrester's assumption that "an abundance of food is assumed to raise the birthrate by a factor of 2". As Bailey points out in Ecoscam, there is no basis for this at all. In fact, just the opposite is true. The countries with the best-fed populations (U.S. Western Europe, Japan) are exactly those with stable or declining populations. The problem is that so many people fall prey to the simplistic exponential models that cloak pessimistic dogma in scientific guise. Because so many people mistakenly believe these arguments, billions of dollars are being misallocated into wrong-headed programs to force social policies hostile to human nature. From owner-population-bio@net.bio.net Mon Oct 10 23:00:00 1994 Path: biosci!bcm!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!netline-fddi.jpl.nasa.gov!phoebe.jpl.nasa.gov!tycho!jdg From: jdg@tycho.jpl.nasa.gov (Jon Giorgini) Newsgroups: bionet.population-bio Subject: Let's Talk Computer Models Date: 11 Oct 1994 19:28:03 GMT Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena CA Lines: 80 Sender: jdg@tycho (Jon Giorgini) Distribution: world Message-ID: <37ep03$9sp@phoebe.jpl.nasa.gov> References: <374sb8$ks1@ixnews1.ix.netcom.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: tycho.jpl.nasa.gov >"To our knowledge, it is the only formal model in existence that is truly global >in scope, that has a time horizon longer than thirty years, and that includes >important variables such as population, food production, and pollution, not as> >independent entities, but as dynamically interacting elements, as they are in >the real world." (p. 21-22, in the Universe Books edition, 1972.) My head just throbs when I read things like this. Let's talk computer models. I do interplanetary spacecraft navigation (Magellan/Mars Observer); most recently, I have worked on asteroid orbit determination in the Solar System Dynamics Group (i.e. examples include Shoemaker-Levy 9 that impacted Jupiter last July, as well as thousands of other objects that are being discovered and tracked). What I do is define elaborate models of the solar system to account for all the forces acting on a spacecraft so that its position and velocity can be determined and predicted. For Magellan, the model definition is (and, as of tonight, WAS ("Sic transit gloria, Magellan!")) composed of over 4000 variables. The software that executes this model has over 2 million lines of code and has been developed over 30 years using the best algorithms and mathematical techniques ever developed. How it works is that we build a nominal model and predict a trajectory. This trajectory is used to acquire the spacecraft signal at tracking sites world-wide. We examine the model-predicted observations (typically Doppler shifts) and difference them with the actual measurements made by the tracking sites. The result is residuals and solved-for parameters ranging from state vector corrections, thruster firings, gravity field harmonic coefficients, even atmospheric drag (esp during aerobraking) obtained from the dynamic models, tracking data and parameter estimation theory working in concert. In other words, spacecraft are navigated by developing computer models, then continuously comparing their predictions with actual measurements of a point-source inside the spacecraft transmitter. This data is used to estimate corrections to the model parameters. Spacecraft navigation is a continuous process of model refinement based on extremely precise measurements. In fact, we can measure Magellan's instantaneous velocity while orbiting Venus to about 0.1 mm/s along the line-of-sight vector (millimeters per second). Instantaneous position to within RSS 50 meters. With such precise, continuous measurements of a single point simply moving through 3-d space under the action of gravity fields, atmospheric drag, solar pressure, thruster events (surely a limited set), how do we do with prediction? Well, we can predict the motion out about 2 weeks and still get within 10 kilometers. It took 3 years of model refinement to get there, as 10's of millions of measurements were folded into the construction of a degree and order 40 gravity field model. Earlier in the mission, new predictions had to be uplinked to the spacecraft twice a week. If not, spacecraft sequence timing would have been lost and the spacecraft shortly thereafter. So after - 3 years of orbiting Venus, - hundreds of millions of continuous, precise tracking measurements (of a point source) - being moved only by a limited set of Newton/Einsteinian ( ~ F=ma) forces - continuous, sophisticated model improvement - the best algorithms and mathematical techniques in existance ... simply predicting the position and velocity of this "point" beyond two months into the future is essentially useless (of course, lightly pertubred objects like Voyager can be predicted years into the future). So when you read things like "To our knowledge, it is the only formal model in existence that is truly global >in scope, that has a time horizon longer than thirty years, and that includes >important variables such as population, food production, and pollution, not as> >independent entities, but as dynamically interacting elements, as they are in >the real world." (p. 21-22, in the Universe Books edition, 1972.) ... you should know the words were written either by a fool or someone who is out to sell you a bill of goods. With models of the vastly more complex living systems on earth, no measurements and only the vaguest understanding of system structure and interactions, you can construct a model and get any result you want. PIPO -- Pessimism in, Pessimism Out. "The Limits to Growth" and "World Dynamics" are pathetic, delusional ideology dressed up as science to scare people into accepting self-destructive policies. From owner-population-bio@net.bio.net Mon Oct 10 23:00:00 1994 Path: biosci!cc.UManitoba.CA!umbjork1 From: umbjork1@cc.UManitoba.CA (Natalie Kim Bjorklund) Newsgroups: bionet.population-bio Subject: Killing Mice Date: 11 Oct 1994 11:46:35 -0700 Organization: BIOSCI International Newsgroups for Molecular Biology Lines: 71 Sender: daemon@net.bio.net Distribution: world Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: net.bio.net AROUTIOUN AGADJANIAN's comments can, I believe, best be summarised by saying that if a scientist is doing an experiment in the name of a greater good, any cruelty to experimental animals is justifiable. He also does not answer my implied question about an ethics committee and I therefore assume his work was not screened by an animal experimentation ethics committee. I am sorry but I must disagree the position that good intentions on the part of the scientist justify any sort of animal experimentation. We are sometimes too close to our own work to think objectively about the suffering we may be inflicting. Hence the need for ethics committees. I double checked with our University's veterinarian who heads our animal care committee before formulating this response.The experiment on mice, as described, would most likely fall in the highest category of animal suffering, Category E. Many Canadian universities, including U of Manitoba simply do not do any Categary E experiments. Where Category E experiments are done, they must have very strong scientific validity and merit. Additionally there must be no other way the results could be obtained and no other methodology available that could replace the animal experimentation. I would suggest that even if your experiment had validity and merit, which I leave to the judgement of others since this is not an area I am an expert in, there are superior methods for obtaining information on the possible association between violence and higher birth rates in humans. It would seem to me that before you started killing mice you should have tried epidemiological studies of birth rates in areas of high violence (i.e certain troubled inner city communities in the U.S.A. versus rural or small town America for example) or examined statistics in regions that are experiencing war or civil unrest. It would appear that you did the experiment and then found data out of Afganistan that seemed to support your result. (I assume you ensured the higher birthrate was not due solely to facts like it is difficult to get condoms when the drug store has been blown up.) In Canada, you would have been required to find supporting data first and then applied for the privilage of using the animals in this fashion afterward. We as a society profess to abhor violence and violent death for other reasons not related to increased birthrate. Your Category E experiment would not have been approved here even if you had proven your methodology was the best possible one. We already know that we should be stopping violence. Therefore the question of increased birthrates becomes irrelevant. I understand that the regulations in England are even stricter than here in Canada so I do not see how your experiment was approved. Finally I would like to add that I do not value mice more than men. In fact I have worked in laboraties where animal experimentation (granted only Category A and B) was routinely done. I did this because I believed the suffering to the animals was minimal and the potential results justified the minimal suffering our axolotls endured. Even this work required approval of an ethics committee. Our routine care of the animals was altered by the committee in a fashion that created marginally more work for us but less potential animal suffering. I for one am grateful for the committee's suggestions, both formal and informal and I was happy to implement them. If scientists are not extrmely careful about how they use animals, they will lose the privilage to use animals in experimentation at all. We will then have lost one of our greatest tools. Work like yours is the stuff that radical animal rights groups like to lobby the public and the politicians with as proof of our irresponsibility. It is time you revised your outlook on animal experimentation instead of flaming those who follow and believe in the rules about ethical use of animals and shouting self righteously about all the lives your work could save. Natalie K Bjorklund University of Manitoba From owner-population-bio@net.bio.net Mon Oct 10 23:00:00 1994 Path: biosci!bcm!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!netline-fddi.jpl.nasa.gov!phoebe.jpl.nasa.gov!tycho!jdg From: jdg@tycho.jpl.nasa.gov (Jon Giorgini) Newsgroups: bionet.population-bio Subject: Re: How many forests? Date: 11 Oct 1994 20:17:48 GMT Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena CA Lines: 43 Sender: jdg@tycho (Jon Giorgini) Distribution: world Message-ID: <37ertc$9sp@phoebe.jpl.nasa.gov> References: <9409117818.AA781896443@email.afip.osd.mil> NNTP-Posting-Host: tycho.jpl.nasa.gov >Since 1940, the forest land area in the US has remained essentially constant. >These figures may vary slightly in different reports because there are many >different ways to define what consitutes "forested area" but the trends are >essentially the same... I am looking at a graph from RM-234 that shows timber growth exceeding harvest since 1952. How does forest land stay "constant" if growth exceeds harvest? >Though Mr. Giorgini's assertion that there is currently a rapidly increasing >forest area in the US is incorrect, this assertion is true in certain regions. How can it be incorrect if net growth exceeds harvest for 40 years, nationally, according the report you mention in your post? In fact, the number of wooded acres has increased 20% nationally in 20 years. You can play games with definitions of "forest", etc., but there almost twice as many more trees now than there were in the 1920's. Now they may not be growing EXACTLY where you personally would like them to grow, but there are vastly more of them. The continent is being reforested. Rapidly. >Increases in forested area cannot be attributed to fire suppression as >Mr. Giorgini asserts, but instead they are mostly due to abandonment of >agricultural land use. So we can abandon fire-supression and just let the fires burn; this will not affect forest coverage. Question: what was the extent of forest burning prior to settlement of North America by people who put out fires? >I might add that our 2nd growth forests are actually very unnatural. Though >these forests look "green" from the highway and in Movies, the biological >diversity is much different from that of the original forests. As I said, if you want to see -A Forest-, take a look at the gorgeous scenes in "Last of the Mohicans", shot in a second-growth forest that was clear cut. The messages posted here try to lead you to believe second-growth forests are planted in rows like corn or something. It simply is not that way. If all the animals you would like to haven't moved in yet, it is their loss. It is a rich area. Research by the British Columbia Ministry of Forests has found that second-growth forests support populations and varieties of wildlife comparable to those in "natural" ? forests. They contain a diversity of tree species as high or higher than existed prior to logging. From owner-population-bio@net.bio.net Tue Oct 11 23:00:00 1994 Newsgroups: bionet.population-bio From: COMINT@arout.demon.co.uk (AROUTIOUN AGADJANIAN) Path: biosci!bcm!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!pipex!demon!arout.demon.co.uk!COMINT Subject: Overpopulation - new approach Organization: BIOCYBERNETICS Reply-To: COMINT@arout.demon.co.uk X-Newsreader: Demon Internet Simple News v1.29 Lines: 69 Date: Tue, 11 Oct 1994 20:39:06 +0000 Message-ID: <781907945snz@arout.demon.co.uk> Sender: usenet@demon.co.uk What leads to overpopulation? Whether the present rate of population growth is of social origin or it is display of to-be-revealed biological nature of human animal? Is it possible to prevent demographic catastrophe or the humanity is doomed? Our team has developed a theory allowing new view at overpopulation problem. In the course of long term investigations we have come to a conclusion: violent death of people leads to increase in birth-rate in survivors. This phenomenon is inherent to human as well as all other living creatures and it is an integral part of intrinsic mechanism providing natural regulation population numbers. To prove the link between reproduction rate of living creatures and violent death rate within a population we have conducted a series of experiments on laboratory animals. The experiment pattern was extremely simple similar to that of well-known experiments aimed to study population self regulation at the level of numbers in which populations of laboratory animals are exploited as they might be by predators. In these experiments we observed the reproduction rate in several identical groups of animals from which the equal numbers of animals were removed. The difference in our experiments was that the animals from the test group were killed and then removed while the animals from the control were just removed (An attempt was done to model what occurs in nature). Results proved the theoretically predicted increase in reproduction rate in the test groups. Conclusion. Nowadays progressive growth of population is a result of regular and mass destruction of people (violence, wars, epidemics, starvation, catastrophes, etc.). The only alternative for humanity to survive is to decrease people's destruction led by unnatural causes. Efforts should be directed to limit the level of violent death all over the world at least to that in developed countries. We attach the schemes and the results of the experiments conducted on laboratory white mice and drosophila to allow those interested to repeat them. In experiments with mice 25-40 females and 11-25 males (for experimental and control groups) were selected with identical age and weight, kept in identical conditions. On 11th day of isolation one female was killed in experimental group (with the presence of other individuals and under common glass lid) and one female was removed from control alive. On 12th day the procedure was repeated. On 13th day the experimental group of females and experimental group of males were placed together. The same was done in control. The procedure of killing and removal was continued to 18th day included. On 19th day males were removed from both groups and after given time the number of pregnant females were counted in each group. Experiments showed 65% higher pregnancy level in the groups where females were killed in the presence of others. Estimated statistical accuracy was 0.01 in each series. In experiments with drosophila 20-40 flies were killed each day or with one-day interval (flies were placed in glasses with nutrient medium to provide the development of individuals from an egg to an imago). Six procedures of killing were implemented at preimago stage and one was implemented at imago stage. The flies were then placed in other glasses with raisins medium and females were fed before egg-laying. The other number of flies was killed in the glasses with raisins medium, and then the flies were placed in separated glasses with fresh nutrient medium by pairs (male and female) for two days. Reproductive efficiency was estimated by number of flies developed in these glasses. Flies in control were subject to identical conditions except the killing. In experimental groups the average number of offsprings for one female was 95.64. The figure was 84.42 in control. Estimated statistical accuracy was 0.002 in each group. -- AROUTIOUN AGADJANIAN From owner-population-bio@net.bio.net Tue Oct 11 23:00:00 1994 Path: biosci!agate!trib.apple.com!amd!netcomsv!netcomsv!ix.netcom.com!netnews From: Jerry1@ix.netcom.com (Gerald Grow) Newsgroups: bionet.population-bio Subject: Re: Scaring People for Profit and Policy Date: 12 Oct 1994 03:59:29 GMT Organization: Netcom Lines: 47 Distribution: world Message-ID: <37fmv1$p1n@ixnews1.ix.netcom.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: ix-pl2-08.ix.netcom.com In <37cd0p$b6d@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu> 6500mll@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu (Michael Lightstone) writes: > >In article <9410051608.AA10116@minerva.cis.yale.edu> rannala@MINERVA.CIS.YALE.EDU (Bruce Rannala) writes: > >>Mahlon G. Kelly writes: > >>>I recently had a long conversation with the exucutive vice >>>president of one of the largest environmental organizations, >>>but a very conservative one. He told stories of the >>>relationships of some of the "green" organizations with the >>>press, and the amount spent on agendas that give power to the >>>vested interests of those organizations. The stories are >>>incredible. Hundreds of millions are being spent with P.R. >>>firms, mainly to influence the media and politicians. >>> >>>Anyone who doubts that the "green" organizations are big >>>business hasn't done his/her homework. >>> > >>Anonymous insider information is always questionable and belongs in the >>tabloids. Please name your informant so that we may verify his story. >> > >I don't think I can count the number of articles >(in a single day) that appear in *reputable* media >sources (such as the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, >New York Times, etc...) that are based extensively on >undocumented, insider information. > >Just an observation... > > So, what's the big deal? Environmental groups and corporate lobbyists alike know how the game's played in Washington, DC. Witness the deadlock in our late, not-lamented Congress, wrought by special-interest groups opposed to everything from environmental matters to health care. The environmental organizations long ago had to learn how to be effective lobbyists in order to get legislation passed in Congress. Probably the only time that wasn't true was in the early 1970s, when environmentalism was a true people's movement. Elected officials know how to count votes, and when the general public demanded environmental reform, they got it, but not without stiff resistance from corporate interests and many government agencies. Sweetness and light doesn't count for a heck of a lot inside the Beltway. --Jerry From owner-population-bio@net.bio.net Tue Oct 11 23:00:00 1994 Path: biosci!ACC.WUACC.EDU!zzdecell From: zzdecell@ACC.WUACC.EDU (decelles paul) Newsgroups: bionet.population-bio Subject: Re: Let's Talk Computer Models Date: 12 Oct 1994 09:45:55 -0700 Organization: BIOSCI International Newsgroups for Molecular Biology Lines: 65 Sender: daemon@net.bio.net Distribution: world Message-ID: References: <37ep03$9sp@phoebe.jpl.nasa.gov> NNTP-Posting-Host: net.bio.net John Giogini in his article of 11 Oct 1994 19:28:03 GMT notes that the type of modeling he does for solar system work is very complex e.g. "For Magellan, the model definition is (and, as of tonight, WAS ("Sic transit gloria, Magellan!")) composed of over 4000 variables. The software that executes this model has over 2 million lines of code and has been developed over 30 years using the best algorithms and mathematical techniques ever developed." Inspite of this complexity he further notes that his ability to predict the path of a spacecraft beyond two months into the future is "essentially useless." Then in reference to some of the simplistic global models he comments that " ... you should know the words were written either by a fool or someone who is out to sell you a bill of goods. With models of the vastly more complex living systems on earth, no measurements and only the vaguest understanding of system structure and interactions, you can construct a model and get any result you want. PIPO -- Pessimism in, Pessimism Out." Of course, as other commentators have noted many of these ecological models are oversimplified. From my way of thinking the fact that we have only the vaguest understanding of living systems on earth should give us pause in how we deal with them. Do we head long perturb tropical rain forest systems with out understanding them? Do we pump CFC's into the atmosphere when admittedly simplified models and admittedly limited data suggest a potentially severe problem? All models start out as being simplifications, including your models,(Obviously all models are merely absractions!) and in an ideal world we should perhaps hold off in presenting simplified global models. But what is the ethical burden of the ecological modeller when the model suggests that we may have a problem if we keep on doing what we are doing? Is it to spend 30 years making a highly detailed model and collecting the data to test the model or alert society at large to the potential problem and lay out the model as it stands? I think a case can be made for the latter so long as it is made clear that the model is provisional and highly simplified. Unfortunately given the anti-scientific bent of our society, ecologists and others are not allowed to collect the data they need without being criticised. For instance, several years ago there was a big stink (that's a pun folks) because some researchers wanted to examine methane output in cows. The rationale for this was that methane is a greenhouse gas, and one believed to be growing in importance. Cows and other ruminants along with other critters such as termites are believed to be important sources for methane. Of course conservative critics of environmentalism jumped on this experiment as a stupid waste of taxpayer money. I think the research did get funding eventually....but if we are really interested in having realistic models for environmental forecasting we have to collect useful data to develop and test the components of such models. If the critics of environmental models are really sincere, how about supporting increased funding for environmental research, both basic and applied? Paul Decelles Department of Biology Washburn University Topeka, KS. 66621 (913)-233-1010 ext. 1164 From owner-population-bio@net.bio.net Tue Oct 11 23:00:00 1994 Path: biosci!ERE.UMontreal.CA!philippp From: philippp@ERE.UMontreal.CA (P. Philippe) Newsgroups: bionet.population-bio Subject: Re: Overpopulation - new approach Date: 12 Oct 1994 04:11:03 -0700 Organization: BIOSCI International Newsgroups for Molecular Biology Lines: 36 Sender: daemon@net.bio.net Distribution: world Message-ID: <9410121109.AA06027@alize.ERE.UMontreal.CA> References: <781907945snz@arout.demon.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: net.bio.net ...stuff deleted > To prove the link between reproduction rate of living > creatures and violent death rate within a population we > have conducted a series of experiments on laboratory > animals. ...stuff deleted > Results proved the theoretically predicted > increase in reproduction rate in the test groups. ...stuff deleted Thanks for the description of the experiements. This is highly suggestive. I work in epidemiology, not too far from population problems, and I would be interested in having your point of view on the factors that are responsible for the change in the reproduction rate. Is it a mechanism that works at the scale of the individual organism, that then attains population proportions to then retro-feedback at the individual scale? Is it some kind of psychological? sociological? or biological factor? Many thanks for your time. ************************************************************************* Pierre Philippe, Ph.D BEWARE! Epidemiology IF NATURE CAN FOOL YOU, BE SURE IT WILL U of Montreal Quebec email:philippp@ere.umontreal.ca Canada ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Listowner EPIDEMIO-L (Listproc@CC.UMontreal.CA) ************************************************************************* From owner-population-bio@net.bio.net Wed Oct 12 23:00:00 1994 Newsgroups: bionet.population-bio Path: biosci!agate!howland.reston.ans.net!EU.net!ieunet!tcdcs!news.tcd.ie!gen024.gen.tcd.ie!user From: dmachugh@mail.tcd.ie (dmachugh) Subject: Software to detect Linkage Disequil. ? Message-ID: Followup-To: bionet.population-bio Sender: usenet@news.tcd.ie (TCD News System ) Organization: Genetics Department, Trinity College, Dublin 2. IRELAND Date: Thu, 13 Oct 1994 13:56:52 GMT Lines: 19 Hi, Is anybody of aware of a program that provides statistical analysis of allelic association (linkage or gametic disequilibrium) between multialleic genetic markers for population data? A program capable of generating random reshuffled bilocus genotypic distributions would be particularly desirable. This would create an synthetic distribution to compare the observed data with and would allow meaningful statistical assessment of populations with small sample sizes (approx. 50 individuals). We have data from a large number of microsatellites typed in 20 populations, hence source code would be useful as we could then port it to a DEC alpha to cut down the runtime. I would try a develop a pro