BSE as a normal form of natural selection?

W

water

the sea
Registered Senior Member
BSE as a normal form of natural selection?


I've just heard this on the radio (Austrian Ö3) -- maybe someone here knows more:

A scientist proposed this explanation for BSE: Farm animals, esp. cows, since they are taken care of so well by humans, become cognitively inactive; their survival doesn't demand much effort from them anymore. Seeking food, shelter, mates, avoiding danger, all the things necessary for survival, keep the brain in action and vigilant. But if the animals do not have these concerns to tend to, this is detrimental for the brain. And as a result of this detriment, chemical matters are produced which cause the animal to die. (This detriment evolving through generations of such farm animals.)

So it could be that cows, made "lazy" by man, are regarded as unfit by standards of evolution, so nature weeds them out.


Thoughts?
 
Mmmmm, interesting notion I suppose, but if that were the case why don't domestic pets develop an equivalent condition on a similar scale - cats and dogs are carnivores with brains developed not only to cope with the rigours of survival in the wild, but also accommodate active predation - domestication is an environment antithetical to what they're brains are "designed" for, yet similar pathology rarely, if at all, presents.

If the theory really is an idea applicable to the process of natural selection in broad terms, why the Bovine in Spongiform Encephalopathy?
 
The idea is anti-evolutionary. It postulates that an organism can sense when he is in an unnatural situation. It suggests that nature knows when conditions are not 'natural' anymore. And apparently 'nature' disapproves of 'unnatural' conditions for some reason.

And apparently there is already a mechanism in place to deal with these kind of situations. How this mechanism ever could have arisen by natural selection is a mystery to me. Could anyone please enlighten me in this respect. I would be happy to hear.

If anything, animals should be 'happy' to be farmed. Never before in the history of life where there so many cows, sheep and pigs running around or locked up in small cages on farms. Being farmed by humans made them an evolutionary succes! Farm animals are thriving. Being dumb and docile is a key to evolutionary succes in this case.
 
water said:
And as a result of this detriment, chemical matters are produced which cause the animal to die. So it could be that cows, made "lazy" by man, are regarded as unfit by standards of evolution, so nature weeds them out.
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No.

I’m no expert on prions but I do know that there are endogenous prion diseases in humans, that prion diseases occur in wild animals, and that prions exist in invertebrates and as far back (evolutionarily) as yeasts.

These data, and a whole lot more data besides, all argue against this “animal domestication” idea. It seems prion diseases have been around long before humans started domesticating animals.
<P>
 
spuriousmonkey said:
The idea is anti-evolutionary. It postulates that an organism can sense when he is in an unnatural situation. It suggests that nature knows when conditions are not 'natural' anymore. And apparently 'nature' disapproves of 'unnatural' conditions for some reason.

And apparently there is already a mechanism in place to deal with these kind of situations. How this mechanism ever could have arisen by natural selection is a mystery to me. Could anyone please enlighten me in this respect. I would be happy to hear.

If anything, animals should be 'happy' to be farmed. Never before in the history of life where there so many cows, sheep and pigs running around or locked up in small cages on farms. Being farmed by humans made them an evolutionary succes! Farm animals are thriving. Being dumb and docile is a key to evolutionary succes in this case.
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it wouldnt be an anti-evolutionary idea. all mutations that cause evolution happen randomly (or almost randomly, we don't exactly know but it seems that way). just because domestic cows die from BSE doesnt mean that nature somehow 'knows' that they are not in control of themselves anymore. the animals dont sense this in any way, they have no real conscious thought, especially now that we've dumbed them all down through domestication. the gene that carries BSE tendancy might be passed down more and more though, because farmers dont exactly know which cows have it till its too late. since a large majority of cows are slaughtered, the gene will have a greater probability of being either completely destroyed or, more likely, spread throughout the population.

i dont see how any animal in the farm industry could ever be 'happy.' first of all, those animals have such a simple mind, i dont think they have emotions like happiness. but if they did, i doubt they would be happy doing nothing, just waiting to be slaughtered for our consumption. they are certainly not an evolutionary success. their development has been made artificial and is no longer natural. they are not becoming smarter, or more adapt to their environment. their environment is becoming more adapt to them, or rather getting the most that we can out of them.
 
RoyLennigan said:
.... i dont see how any animal in the farm industry could ever be 'happy.' first of all, those animals have such a simple mind, i dont think they have emotions like happiness. but if they did, i doubt they would be happy doing nothing, just waiting to be slaughtered for our consumption. they are certainly not an evolutionary success.....
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em... Roy? If your reasoning discounts the probability for Cows to experience emotion such as happiness, how exactly do you account for them having the capacity to morbidly apprehend slaughter and consumption?
 
Maybe prion diseases are an inbuilt safety mechanism for preventing a species spread too much. They kill off a certain portion of the population no matter its size. Normally, the spreading of a population is restricted by external factors, esp. nourishment. But it seems that if this restriction isn't there (as it happens with farmed animals), the population can still be kept in check by other means, like inherent diseases.
 
Mr Anonymous said:
em... Roy? If your reasoning discounts the probability for Cows to experience emotion such as happiness, how exactly do you account for them having the capacity to morbidly apprehend slaughter and consumption?
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.... i dont see how any animal in the farm industry could ever be 'happy.' first of all, those animals have such a simple mind, i dont think they have emotions like happiness. but if they did, i doubt they would be happy doing nothing, just waiting to be slaughtered for our consumption. they are certainly not an evolutionary success.....
 
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