Quote Originally Posted by Dan View Post
Quote Originally Posted by Humbert
New species emerge and old species die out. It continuously happens in pristine habitats untouched by man.
Anyone who's not a believer in the Book of Genesis would obviously have to agree but when it comes to conservation, that's beside the point because (i) we have the ability to choose whether or not to intervene and (ii) there aren't any habitats untouched by humankind. Undoubtedly, some of those species currently going (or recently having gone) extinct would have ended up in the same place if humanity have never existed (maybe pandas amongst them) but there's no way to explain the current mass extinction without reference to humanity.
If you want to lump things together as some kind of "mass extinctinction" go ahead and try to apply scientific reasoning to that belief. Good luck.
I would rather study extinction of species on a case by case basis. No doubt the presence of man and his effect on natural environtments is a major cause of the extinction of some species but not all.