The philosophers of science started to take a serious observation to the changes and improvements in biology most especially after the discovery of the structure of DNA (Deoxyribonucleic acid) in 1953, and to the more recent advances in genetic engineering.

Philosophy of biology is a recent subfield under the philosophy of science. The philosophy of science, as an area in philosophy, focuses on the epistemic, metaphysical, and semantic concerns of science. Philosophy of biology, therefore, also deals with epistemological and metaphysical issues particularly on the biological and biomedical sciences.

Now, it happens to be increasingly evident that starting from the 1990’s, there emerges an exciting and interesting field philosophy of biology which explores questions regarding the communicative developments within and between the tiniest cells and tissues, or even between organisms of various fauna and flora.

These developments also includes other key ideas such as the incorporation of psychology into a much wider neuroscience, as well as the reduction of all life processes to biochemical reaction, such as, the explanations of the origin of life from sparks of chemical reactions, i.e., from non-life.

Today, philosophy of biology has transformed into a very important and most-sought field of expertise. As a matter of evidence, there exist an International Society for the History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Biology (ISHPSSB), a professional organization founded in 1990 with its principal office in Virginia, USA that brings together scholars from diverse disciplines, including the life sciences and other areas of science.

ISHPSSB’s yearly encounters are widely known for their scientific, multidisciplinary conferences, and for fostering cooperative exchanges and participations. The society’s name itself already reflects the interdisciplinary nature of the field. It is open to all scholars interested in any aspect of biology.

Some scientists have suggested that over 50,000 species are going extinct every year. Most of these extinctions will be unnoticed and undocumented as they represent flora and fauna we never even knew existed.

Even today we destroy flora and fauna alike; sometimes directly as when we control the population growth of other species through systematic slaughters, and culling, sometimes indirectly, as when introduced species become invasive and kill other species.

We poison gophers and rabbits who make holes in pastures, then we kill coyotes who go after livestock when they cannot find gophers and rabbits to eat. We shoot wolves, cougars, and bears, that become a threat to people, then we kill deer because there are no wolves, cougars, and bears, to control the deer population.

We select which species are important to us, and have decided that the human species is the most important of all. It is extremely ironic that our own species is allowed to reach the numbers it has, topping 7 billion people as of October, 2011.

For some reason we find it easier to kill off seals so they do not eat “our fish” rather than restricting our population growth, or our consumption of fish. For some reason we have decided that we need to cut the rain forest at a rate where we consume nature faster than it can recover. For some reason we have allowed humanity to build a large dept to nature that few are interested in repaying.

Do we have the right do destroy other species to maintain our own?

How can we Repay Nature?

We can repay nature by finding ways to live a sustainable life without destroying other life at the same time.

• Spaying and Neutering our pets so we do not have to control excess populations of cats and dogs through euthanasia.
• Eat less tuna, or none at all.
• Eat less meat in general. Have 2-4 meatless days every week.
• Stop overeating.
• Opt for smaller homes, ones that require less resources to build, and that take up less space.
• Reuse, and Recycle, and consume less in general.
• Put out bird food in the winter.
• Allow our yards to be more natural, include more trees, shrubs, and other plants, reducing the size of the lawn itself.
• Restricting human population growth is key to reducing the damage we do. This might mean only allowing people to have one child for a few generations until such a time has come that we can allow more.
• Birth control and education about birth control must be made available to all worldwide.
• Reduce destruction of the rain forest by using products that depend on the rain forest being in place (shade grown coffee, rain forest nuts).
• Encourage a respect for nature in our children by not allowing them to squish bugs just for the fun of it.
• Support zoos that have breeding programs for endangered animals and those already extinct in the wild.
• Discourage shopping for pets in pets stores where animals (birds, reptiles, marine fish) are caught in the wild.

There are thousands of other ways we can repay our debt to nature and live in harmony with other life on the planet.  If you can think of some please share them in the comments.  Or you might want to write your own article and get paid, you can join here to do so!

Little more than six percent of the earth’s surface is rainforest, yet within them are more than half of the world’s plant and animal life.  These areas are called rainforests because of the immense amount of rainfall every year.  The climates within the rainforests are normally hot and humid, which helps the plant species grow thick and lush.

There are rainforests on every continent in the world except Antarctica.  There are also large masses of rainforest located in the Hawaiian Islands, Belize, Fiji, Madagascar, and other tropical islands in the world.  Some of the products that we use every day come from these rainforests like vanilla, chocolate, coffee, rubber, nuts, hard woods, and tropical oils that are found in shampoos and other personal products.  Deforestation has become an unusually complicated topic because of the harvesting of these valuable resources. 

The purpose of this article is not to give one side of the deforestation issue an advantage over the other, or the other way around for that matter.  Nor is there any purpose in shocking the reader with statistics and scare tactics on the rainforests, environment, or ozone layer.  Rather, this article is written with an entirely different purpose in mind altogether. 

When I began writing, I was focused mainly on one Internet site.  The problem with that is that there are always at least two sides to every story; in a story such as this one with international implications, there are many facets.  When I began gathering information for this article, I thought that I was simply reporting what I read, and though I cited the source of this information, I didn’t realize that in writing about it the first time, I wasn’t giving justice to a whole other side of the coin.  The other side is the truth. 

I’m not saying that the source of my material is the truth or not the truth.  When I decided to change the article in its entirety, I did so after speaking with a very trusted friend.  There was no advice for or against the issue at hand, but merely that I should investigate further and make sure that the source I was quoting was not a proprietary source for one side of the issue or the other.  I took that to heart and am very grateful for the insight. 

In the 1980’s, logging companies in the northwest were put on an alert status and investigated, watched and reported about in various newspapers.  The articles were not especially kind to the men and women trying to do their best working in a field that, by design, was a source of contention because it was the logging industry; taking from the earth an important resource.  My experience is limited on this subject due to my age when I was located in the northwest and also because I didn’t personally work in the industry.  I did, however, have several friends and a few extended family members working in the logging industry and gathered information about the issues from them. 

Logging and clearing land changes the landscape even when handled in the correct fashion.  It’s simply untrue that logging won’t make the land look or behave differently.  However, there are ways of replacing important resources when those resources are needed for the use of man in every day life, including trees.  They are gifts of the earth.  The problems come when man forgets that they are intended for use and not abuse.  This complacency also causes a sort of trickle-down effect for all others harvesting these products, even when they are doing it correctly and legitimately, with permission and license from their respective governments.

Think back to reports of the deforestation of the Amazon in every newspaper in the world.  There are even a few movies that have been released on the subject.  The real concern is that the ecosystems contained in the rainforests are critical to the climates of the world; so much so that disturbing the acreage could create changes in the temperatures across the equator.  This statement doesn’t include the millions of species of flora and fauna that live and eat there.  They need the four layers of the rainforest in order to survive.

At this point, the real purpose of this article will become clear.  It is in the reporting of activity that those who read the reports can become emotionally involved.  Newspapers and magazines, electronic magazines and free-style articles are all written for the purpose of getting someone, their reader, to understand and believe in their point of view.  Before drawing a conclusion, this same reader should do more digging.  Investigation doesn’t have to take a lot of time and it is an important step; one that shouldn’t be ignored if the reader wants the whole truth and not just the amount of truth the writer gives.  In some instances, the writer hasn’t done enough digging; something this writer should have done before beginning the first draft of this article. 

In the last twenty years, satellites have been capturing images of logging and harvesting in the Amazon rainforests.  Are these images part of a problem in the Amazon or are they simply the images of a logging operation that is legitimate, working with a permit from the government and with permission to do so?  Is this a one-time cutting or is it a poaching operation?  Has this logging company replanted to give the rainforest new life in the future?  These are questions a person must ask before becoming angered and joining a group with extreme ideals.  There can be no harm in finding answers to these and other questions before taking such a step.

In preparing to write this article, I admit that I was one-sided and didn’t bother to check other sources for my material.  The images I saw were disturbing, to say the least.  It was the images that caught my attention at first, but then the words that accompanied these images made me angry.  It wasn’t until I spoke with my friend that I began to see that this might have been the intention of the author of the website that I visited.  The realization that I had given in to these emotions due to what the writer wanted me to read made me angry in a new way.  Had I been given the truth or had I been given just enough so that I’d see the issue the way they wanted me to see it?  I have a feeling that the latter is true.    

There very well may be a problem with deforestation in the rainforests of the world, particularly the rainforests of the Amazon.  In fact, I am very sure that there is.  Selective logging is a real practice.  My question is this: is selective logging a legitimate operation performed by companies in Brazil and other Amazonian countries with permits and good practices that allow hardwoods to be harvested with as little disturbance of the surrounding trees and areas as possible?  And are these companies becoming targets of environmental groups that report only those findings that further their own causes or are these images really those of poachers trying to take advantage of a resource field, not knowing and possibly not caring that they are being viewed by others? 

There are good practices in harvesting and logging products from the rainforests of the world.  There are companies that do it legitimately and correctly and can have great satisfaction in knowing that they’ve been able to harvest usable goods from the earth and then subsequently replaced a valuable, renewable resource for the future.  My point is this: as a result of reading disturbing material reported on these and other activities, take great care in collecting data and factual material before drawing extreme conclusions about one side of the issue or the other.  In this, there is more of a balance and anger can be avoided altogether. 

I have listed below the links of the two sites I visited.  The first I used simply to learn about the layers of the rainforest and the second link is the written account of selective logging.  Feel free to peruse at leisure, but please heed the advice given to me and get more information before drawing any conclusions.      

http://www.srl.caltech.edu/personnel/krubal/rainforest/Edit560s6/www/whlayers.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/revealed-the-true-devastation-of-the-rainforest-511847.html   published 2005

Believe it or not, the world’s great woodlands supply 1.6 billion people with a means of earning a living, not only storing within themselves more than 25 gigatons of carbon, yet the wholesale felling of these forests accounts for fifteen per cent of the greenhouse gas emissions that are making life so difficult.

Trees are incredible life forms, factories of a kind in nature, cleansing the air we breathe, providing many vital medications and keeping the soil healthy. They are also responsible much of the fresh water circulation of the earth, the forest eco-systems playing a vital part.

In the area of Asia including Burma, massive damming projects are causing not only the demise of swamps and wetlands, wet rice cultivation taking precedence, but mangroves are becoming aquaculture areas. A staggering 95% of original forests have been felled here.  

75% of accessible fresh water on earth comes from forested watersheds, 65% of all developing countries biggest cities depend ant on forests around them for clean water. Another area of concern is the Albertine Rift in Africa.

Home to more animal species than any other place on the continent, the dangers of extinctions occurring among the 617 species found nowhere else are very grave, as 89% of the habitat has been destroyed to make way for agriculture.

In the USA, the Floristic Province Forests of California are another example of man’s idiocy. The last remaining refuge of the critically endangered wild condor, and a place where Grizzly bears are already extinct, this amazing home to sequoia and coastal redwood varieties of tree is in a truly bad way, only 10% of the original forest still intact.

South-western China is home to the shrinking environment that is vital to the survival of the incredibly rare Red Panda. The building of dams, the growth of agriculture to feed a burgeoning population, and the expansion of the cities means that 92% of the original habitat is now gone, those magnificent great forests lost forever.

The island of Madagasgar, home to many truly unique and wonderful creatures, is another place where logging and ever increasing agriculture needs are causing ever more of the natural habitats to be cleared by people needing land, The flora and fauna that can be found nowhere else on earth is now surviving in an area one tenth the size it used to be. How short-sighted are we?

Perhaps the most drastic and tragic example of human intervention is in the Indo-Malaysian peninsula, where the Sundaland hotspot is located. On the 17,000 islands that make up this awesome natural world, the wildlife, like orangutans, are in greater danger than at any time in history, with 93% of the forests destroyed here, and the point of no return being frighteningly close. Can we really be stupid enough to let this tragedy actually happen?

The most famously decimated rainforest in the world in undoubtedly the Amazon, the forest running down the Atlantic coast  of Brazil, holding twenty thousand plant species, 40% unique, with over 20 critically endangered animals.

Considering that in excess of one hundred million people rely on forest cover for fresh water, the continuous felling of trees is a travesty that has to be stopped before it is too late. Nature can make up for much of what mankind does wrong, but even she cannot combat the stupidity of a species that refuse to see how self-destructive they are. Let us pray it is not too late.

Head of the Central Java Regional Office of the Ministry of Justiceand Human Rights, Chairuddin Idrus said it was on the sidelines of an apple stand together forconservation combined Nusa Wana Nusakambangan Island at PierSodong.

“At least 4,000 acres of forest in Nusakambangan badly damagedand barren,” he said on Tuesday (19/04/2011).

Based on the findings Fauna Flora International, a number of rareflora and fauna in Nusakambangan it include leopard (Pantherapardus), tree plalar (Hydraokarous fitoralis), and interestWijayakusuma (Epiphyllum anguliger).

Director General of Corrections and Human Fortunately KemhukSugiyono admitted, made ​​possible the involvement of stakeholdersin forest logging. ”Not only our officers (Kemhuk and Human Rights),all who have authority in this island there might be involved,” he said.

Destruction of Habitats:

The destruction of the natural habitat is the most serious threat to the wild life. De-forestation deprives the Wild life of its shelter and food. It reduces the area of their movement and retards the reproductive capacity of certain animals. Various developmental works like roads, railway lines, industries, mines, human settlements, dams, reservoirs have reduced the natural habitats of the wild life.

Environmental Pollution:

Environmental pollution has resulted in decrease in wild life due to its damaging effects on certain habitats. Water pollution, air pollution and noise pollution have adversely affected the wild life.

Population Growth:

Population growth is a major threat to conservation efforts in many developing    nations. The   population pressures threaten park and protected land. The impoverished peasantry is forced to depend on dwindling natural resource base. The people with traditional rights forests continue to destroy flora and fauna and thus affect the wild life.

Hunting:

Hunting of animals for food, safety and pleasure has been in practice ever since the appearance of the man. Large number species of wildlife has vanished due to hunting of animals, some people use hunting as sports whereas others like tribes use hunting as a means of their livelihood.

Forest Fires:

Many a time the forest fires, which may be intentional or by mistake have been responsible for causing the extinction of several species of wild life in the past.

Physical Alteration of Environment:

Migratory animals are vulnerable to habitat destruction. Change of physical alteration of any site of their migratory route adversely affects them. They may parish because of failure to locate the route and to reach their destination. The preservation of the fauna and flora, some species of which are getting extinct at an alarming rate, has become a great urgent necessity for the survival of humanity.

Environmentalists’ conception of the ecological balance in nature is based on the fundamental concept that nature is a series of complex biotic communities of which a man is an inter-dependent part and that it should not be given to a part to trespass and diminish the whole. The largest single factor in the depletion of the wealth of animal life in nature has been the “civilized man” operating directly through excessive commercial hunting or, more disastrously, indirectly through invading or destroying natural habitats.

With the advent of television and the media hipe, sometimes we forget about
simple pleasures. However, reality brings us back to the thirsting need for
the natural simple pleasures which are found outdoors, around people, nature,
and animals. More and more you see people, groups of them who can be found
at breakfast time, eating with old friends and chatting. Children, who previously
enjoyed video games and television programs find these fascinations secondary
to plain ole going outside and participating in a ballgame, or a game of tag.

Simple pleasures for teens means just hanging out with friends. The chat
may not be too educational or what adults call uplifting, but the interaction
of soul with soul brings such enjoyment. There is something about being in
the outdoors, whether sitting on a porch, or in the back yard sharing, laughing,
and snacking which brings enjoyment in a simple way.

Adults find simple pleasures in remembering birthdays. The little card with
a small note letting one know he/she is remembered, though simple, means
a lot. A call checking on someone is another example of simple pleasures.
To let others know they are cared about and loved blesses those who reach
out and those who are reached. A small floral arrangement from the garden,
vegetables or fruit from the same, when given with a smile, bring cheer to
the giver also.

As we pass through this life, let us take time for simple pleasures. They
really don’t cost a lot. But they can pay great dividends.