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Actually, there would be little to no downside to eradicating mosquitoes:

http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100721/full/466432a.html



I know, but does that really feel right? Sort of the height of arrogance to me. "Let's take something super prevalent and remove it entirely and I'm sure we'll have a zero sum gain" Maybe it's true though.


What's the purpose of being human, if not to believe your species is morally superior to all others? ;-)

On a serious note, though, I would like to see the human race reach the level of modeling and engineering sophistication to be able to eradicate mosquitoes with no harm to ourselves or the species we depend on. We've basically eradicated numerous microscopic species, and accidentally driven some very large species to extinction; we might as well do it to mosquitoes. Think of how great it would be to eliminate malaria and all other mosquito-borne illnesses.


Species were going extinct long before humans. The biosphere adapted just fine.

Humans aren't magically bad, and what we do isn't automatically terrible for everything. It's possible for us to understand what we're doing.




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