Summertime, and the livin' is easy

[canyon_lady]

I have nothing smart to say right now--I'm too busy just enjoying life. My brain is full of sun and prairie, food, family, friends and planning for vacation next week. I'm sorry if I missed anything important that you've said recently--feel free to tell me about it in the comments!

Fortunately, other people are saying smart things. Like Richard

Comments

[bittergem]

Dude. That letter just made my night. My favorite part was when he defined "allusion" (classic snark!) until I got to this:

It is as though a person thinks that God must have the same limitations when it comes to creation as a person who is unable to understand, or even attempt to understand, the world in which we live. Isn’t that view insulting to God?

I did a happy dance. He said exactly what I want to say to every Creationist in existence. I think I love this guy. :-D

[canyon_lady]

Lenski is seriously awesome. Check out some of his papers if you get a chance, they're pretty cool. (Too lazy to link tonight!)

[cosmichic]

I like the approach in the quote. It reminds me of the native American approach.

This reflects my job, but when I hear the term conservation I think of restrictions on use, and that's something we need to be careful about. Hunting regulations, etc. etc., are important, but preserving access to land and water and doing whatever we can to get people outdoors is also really important. If people have connections to nature they're a lot more likely to care about it.

When we use the term "conservation" its usually related to energy and water conservation. We promote the use of the term "efficiency" because while conservation is great, we don't necessarily want to restrict how much water is being used, as long as its being used as efficiently as possible.

In particular I liked the line "you cannot love game and hate predators"--instances where we favor one species over another and create an imbalance, or where we bring in non-native species for one reason or another, usually lead to trouble.

[whitefjords]

I can't say that I agree much with that statement. I mean, it's a nice idea, but the practicality of it

[whitefjords]

Just finished reading that Lenski thing. Man, that's a riot. Some of the comments point me towards other things I should know: must find out more about this Dawkin fellow so I can hate him properly.

[rhobike]

>What do you think of when you hear the term "conservation"?

Today I think of _The Fallacy of Wildlife Conservation_ by John Livingston. Haven't read it but have read his book _Rogue Primate_.