The word biophilia means the love (philia) of nature (bio), and was popularized by E.O. Wilson in a book back in 1984. I requested a Wikipedia article on the topic several months ago. Looks like someone jumped on it and did a pretty good job.
A friend of mine is an avid birder and maintains an impressive backyard wildlife habitat. However, her bird feeders also attract squirrels and rats. The squirrels were becoming a nuisance so she had traps set for them a week ago. She figured there were three or four problem animals. The fourteenth squirrel has been eliminated and they are still coming. As for the rats, well, that's what rat poison is for.
Bears in Napa Valley are being shot to protect grapes and wolves in Idaho are being shot and poisoned for lots of reasons. You can go here to learn how to poison a wolf.
I think Wilson really missed the mark on that one. People are to biodiversity on Earth what a drop of penicillin is to bacteria in a petri dish.
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jdhlax Posted 1:38 pm
28 Dec 2005
Jeff Hoffman
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amazingdrx Posted 7:54 pm
28 Dec 2005
Sounds about right.
Population control really is THE central environmental issue as it has been all along.
It is hard to believe that the self chatacterized good people of faith use a spiritual excuse to stall any kind of progress in this area of human affairs.
But that's it, conservative religious/political forces of every denomination are united in their goal to out populate the other religions in order to please their diety.
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david anderson Posted 5:53 am
30 Dec 2005
I always found more than a little irony in the idea that the world is full of people that should not be reproducing, but they seem to be the most productive at it. While those that are the best suited choose to have the fewest.
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Biodiversivist Posted 6:56 am
30 Dec 2005
Children grow up and go their own ways, that is why Christianity has splintered into over 2400 sects. I know an awful lot of people who were raised Catholic but who have since rejected most of the dogma. Italy has the lowest fertility rate in Europe.
Also, memes can be passed along without genes.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Help acquire and protect ecological hotspots, give to a conservation organization: http://www.saveourbiodiversity.com
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david anderson Posted 3:36 am
31 Dec 2005
The Catholics in Italy is not a great example because you aren't comparing the children to their parents, you are comparing them to the image of their religion.
While the coorelation of children's political leanings to their paren'ts is not 100%, it is still statistically much higher than 50%.
Our parents are still the most influential people in our formative years. We rebel in some ways, some of us more than others, but we still have everything they taught us during those years programmed into us.
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Biodiversivist Posted 12:56 pm
07 Jan 2006
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Help acquire and protect ecological hotspots, give to a conservation organization: http://www.saveourbiodiversity.com
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