December 21, 2015
WE ARE ALL DESIGNIST NOW:
Humans Caused a Major Shift in Earth's Ecosystems 6,000 Years Ago : We upended a pattern held for 300 million years, and that may mean we are causing a new phase in global evolution (Kimbra Cutlip, 12/16/15, SMITHSONIAN.COM)
It's hard to imagine a global force strong enough to change natural patterns that have persisted on Earth for more than 300 million years, but a new study shows that human beings have been doing exactly that for about 6,000 years.The increase in human activity, perhaps tied to population growth and the spread of agriculture, seems to have upended the way plants and animals distribute themselves across the land, so that species today are far more segregated than they've been at any other time.That's the conclusion of a study appearing this week in the journal Nature, and the ramifications could be huge, heralding a new stage in global evolution as dramatic as the shift from single-celled microbes to complex organisms.
Posted by Orrin Judd at December 21, 2015 2:44 PM