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+--- Thread: Changing Climate, Not Humans, Killed Australia’s Massive Mammals (/thread-3306.html)
Changing Climate, Not Humans, Killed Australia’s Massive Mammals - C C - Jan 28, 2017
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/changing-climate-not-humans-killed-australias-massive-mammals-180961911/
EXCERPT: [...] As far as Australia goes, humans have been promoted as prime culprits. Not only would early-arriving aboriginals have hunted megafauna, the argument goes, but they would have changed the landscape by using fire to clear large swaths of grassland. Some experts point to Australia’s megafauna crash after human arrival, around 50,000 years ago, as a sure sign of such a human-induced blitzkrieg. [...] The problem is, there’s no hard evidence that humans were primarily to blame for the disaster that befell these giants. Judith Field, an archaeologist at the University of New South Wales who focuses on megafauna and indigenous communities in Australia and New Guinea, says the hunting hypothesis has hung on because of its appealing simplicity. “It’s a good sound bite” and “a seductive argument to blame humans for the extinctions” given how simple of a morality fable it is, she says. But when it comes to hard evidence, Field says, the role of humans has not been substantiated.
So what really happened? The picture is far from complete, but a paper by Vanderbilt University paleontologist Larisa DeSantis, Field and colleagues published today in the journal Paleobiology argues that the creeping onset of a warmer, drier climate could have dramatically changed Australia’s wildlife before humans even set foot on the continent. And while this event was natural, it is a frightening portent of what may happen to our modern wildlife if we do nothing to stop the scourge of today's human-caused climate change....
RE: Changing Climate, Not Humans, Killed Australia’s Massive Mammals - Ben the Donkey - Feb 1, 2017
If one were to study the Aboriginal oral tradition, it's reasonably evident that the Australian Megafauna extinction thing was evident prior to/during human migration onto the continent. Much of the oral tradition has some historical basis in fact.
They (the Aboriginals) might have contributed toward the extinction of megafauna, but it is by no means guaranteed they precipitated it.
Generally speaking, an opinion for/against human intervention with regard to the extinction of megafauna in Australia has an agenda.
Science needs to stop arguing about one or the other.
RE: Changing Climate, Not Humans, Killed Australia’s Massive Mammals - RainbowUnicorn - Feb 6, 2017
(Feb 1, 2017 04:43 PM)Ben the Donkey Wrote: Generally speaking, an opinion for/against human intervention with regard to the extinction of megafauna in Australia has an agenda.smacks of eugenics ring-fencing ideology
additionally shelving the racial anecdotes leaves the simple minded to be highly suggestive that technology can solve the issue as a form of self beleif that negates their requirement to do things to help reverse climate change.
this languishing ideological dicotomy of binary polar factualisation pervades a majority of common public policy.
RE: Changing Climate, Not Humans, Killed Australia’s Massive Mammals - Ben the Donkey - Feb 7, 2017
A far as I understand your post....
No, RU, I was simply demanding that science determine an answer for the extinction of mega fauna without having to answer direct agenda-driven questioning.
There is every chance the extinction was a result of several factors, not just one or the other. A more open-minded approach would probably be more beneficial than conducting research based solely upon simple yes/no questioning.
The Aboriginal oral tradition provides plenty of evidence they were at least aware of megafauna after their migration to Australia.
What happened after that still needs to be determined, if it can be.