Got Lumber?

The information regarding the negative impact of rainforest deforestation is absolutely staggering. Unfortunately, the only "value" that too many people seem to understand is that of money. The rainforest has no value, the environment has no value, an estimated 50,000 extinct species a year has no value... our future has no value to big businesses because as long as someone is making money, it doesn't seem to matter exactly how they're making it.

I have to believe that the rainforests have fallen victim to the way business is done. We have allowed companies too much freedom in how they go about their business, and much of their decision making relies on pleasing the stockholders (people who only need to have money, not intelligence or a reasonable level of foresight, to qualify as such) instead of doing what is right. "Get all the resources you can, however you can, and line my pockets with dolla dolla bills, ya'll!" Silly. And devastatingly effective in terms of what gets done. The clear cutting of the rainforests isn't a slow procedure, and as much as many people might argue that it is a job undertaken with the knowledge of exactly what the rainforest can handle... all I know is that we wouldn't be having this conversation if "what the rainforest can handle" was even being considered, even half the time.

I never even thought about the genocide that occurs in the rainforests at the hand of the white man. My concentration is history, so I should have been able to connect the dots without having to be told about the tribes that have been wiped out of the rainforests since the beginning of the twentieth century. The European colonists, as far as I know, aren't exactly building schools in the rainforest, so this isn't even some blind nationalistic imperialism... which is sickening in itself, but at least with that a person could point to something, however wrong it may be, as the reason for someone's actions.

If you have read the page linked in class, you have read about what the rainforest has to offer. You have read that the rainforest is responsible for twenty percent of our oxygen - I don't know about you, but that's something I need to survive. As populations continue to increase worldwide, and people continue to live longer and longer, can we really afford to lose that much oxygen? Think about taking a jog where you live right now. Now, think about taking a jog about a mile above sea level... and I don't think the difference in oxygen level there is anywhere near twenty percent. Couple that with the increased number of people breathing the same air, and I can see a scenario where the world's human population is breathing oxygen faster than the global environment can replace it.

The rainforest is also home to twenty percent of the world's fresh water. Let's say we tear down the rainforest, develop that land, and... then what? Stupid people with their status symbol sport utility vehicles and ignorant lifestyles are going to pollute that water, blame the generation before or after theirs without any sort of inner reflection (because it's always someone else's fault), and we'll not only have twenty percent less oxygen, but we'll also have twenty percent less fresh water to go along with the ever increasing population.

Stop deforestation. Stop having so many babies. Stop being stupid. It's a thing, look it up.

"Just a Theory"? Pff. Please.

****If you are easily offended, please read no further. Thank you.**** "Evolution is just a theory." What are speakers of this statement trying to say when they use the words "just a." It's simple, really, and I'm getting a little tired of spelling it out for people. When someone uses "just a" in relation to scientific theory, I honestly believe they are really trying to say, "I don't understand it and I don't want to understand it. We've got this book, see, that lays it all out there with knowledge from two thousand years ago and it makes things really simply. A giant space man put us here, in this form, and that's that. Everything that is, always was, and I don't want to hear anything else." The dismissiveness of the words "just a" is just that - a way to dismiss scientific research by including a simple two word phrase, and it's both interesting and sad that those two words can be more persuasive in a debate than all of the information obtained over the centuries about evolution. In everyday life, where people use words all the time in ways they are not intended to be used, the word "theory" means an idea, a hunch, a gut feeling. It's a thought that hasn't been researched, isn't being researched, and most likely won't be researched. In these frequent cases, a theory is most likely not even as strong as some lame-ass hypothesis. In science, however, a theory is several steps down the line from simple hypothesis. There has been research done, observations made, and the use of rational thought is heavily involved in the matter. I believe that people often take offense to evolutionary concepts because it's not a pretty thing to think about, at least in the way I have heard people respond to it. It's been as simple as,"Ew! There is no way I used to be a monkey!" Well, no one said you were a monkey. You were born a human baby, didn't learn too much between then and now, and here I am having to explain simple things to you. When I lived in Virginia, it was a much deeper hatred of the theory of evolution that I saw in the church my father made me attend. Family was very important to these people. So was respect of your elders, to the point of not questioning their reasoning, beliefs, or biases. So was God, and quite often, a literal interpretation of the Bible. I was 13, and all I could do was shake my head and bite my tongue at the irrational things I would hear. As it sometimes turns out, people are offended by the theory of evolution because it basically calls out their beliefs, and the beliefs held by several generations of their family. Some people simply are not prepared to admit that maybe, just maybe (and in this case, abso-freakin'-lutely!), their family could have been believing in the wrong thing for all these years... decades... centuries. Who are scientists to question the guys with the guns? The theory of evolution does not attempt to undermine anyone's beliefs. It simply lays out the data that has been collected, lined up, and understood to show a timeline of how life has changed since the first single-celled organisms developed on Earth. It works from a standpoint of genetic development, rather than some magical ""Poof! We're here!" concept, which hasn't realistically been researched, probably isn't being researched, and most likely won't be researched because faith can't be quantified. There is no recordable data about faith - you believe, or you don't, and I don't. There is data about the theory of evolution, though... and that's more than enough for me.

Mostly comfortable, but...

I don't quite understand the dihybrid cross. I'm a little confused about how to set up the Punnett squares, because I'm not sure how to read the genotypes and put them into action. The example given in our problems in question 6 discusses the guinea pigs with (BBRR) and (bbrr) genotypes. Is that four genotypes per parent pig, or am I making things more complicated than they need to be? Other than that, I'm okay up to this point.