Jim,

I think you are still far out. From what you wrote about Leopold, i did not get
the impression that you understand the 'organism' metaphor in the same way. The
way Leopold seems to suggest the organism metaphor does not imply anything about
loss, but rather a harmonious coordination. Every one that uses a metaphor
cannot be accountable on everything that can be imagined in the metaphor. You
imagine body parts you would more happily or less happily part from, but this
was not Leopold's meaning but an irrelevant, different metaphor. You cannot
logically combine them. Metaphors are not used as universal examples for
everything that can be associated with them.

You claim:
>"Plenty of parts are more important than other parts, in bodies and in
mechanisms.  Lose your heart, you're dead; lose your hair, you're bald; lose
your inflamed appendix, you're alive.  The same goes for mechanisms.

First of all the metaphor does not have to work your way, becuse as i said, it
seems that Leopold's concept was totally different. Anyway, can't you see the
fallacy in the above:
1) I agree about the heart.
2) Do you really not mind losing even your hair? Do you think it makes no
difference in your personality? I don't think so. It does not matter if baldness
does not take your life. What matters is that you hate being bald, and you don't
want it no matter what. So you need EVEN the fallen hair.
But most important:
3) I think the appendix argument is a pure sophism: When you 'lose your appendix
and stay alive' as you say, in fact you compromise a sick part of your body,
which by being sick endangers the function of the body BECAUSE the body is a
whole and needs all the parts in a healthy state. That's why when your appendix
is NOT sick, you instinctively DON'T want to lose it and a precautionary
operation is rare. So in fact if your own metaphor of a body is to work
(irrelevantly to Leopold's)  you would be talking about something like a plague,
a pest, a 'weed', you name it (the corresponding of the appendix in the body),
and not about innocent despensible (according to you) little creatures.

Well, still you don't have to do anything but wait, because no plague lasts
forever. The land- 'organism' (in Leopold's way) will eventually clear the
plague, or regulate it, limit it, balance it, etc.  So first of all even this
land 'organism' would be very likely to buffer the results of a metaphoric
analogue of appendicites, *not out of scope* (like appendicites removal), but as
a matter of evolution, adaptation etc. Even this land-'organism' loses species,
but these species are NOT harmful appendix-like species (unless by chance), and
they are *not* lost becuse they play  an appendix-like role in the
land-organism. Surely many species have been lost and 'nothing happened' on
earth because some others took their place.

In this way, maybe, as you say, we can afford to lose a few more species and
nobody will know they are missing (say). However, when we start thinkng about
who decides to get away with them and for what reason,  then again the usual
'philosophical' dilema you place proves to be very pragmatic and dangerous.
Simply, extinction is not in nature's hands, not even in human hands, but in the
hands of few land exploitation agents. (One, to be carried over).
Next, when we consider the  rate of man-made  extinction, we see that it does
not usually follow the patterns that the 'land organism'  -nature- follows. On
the contrary, it is much faster, and much more directional in a way than
nature's much more random extinctions: When you are logging a forest, destroy a
bog, or hunt whales, you persistently direct extinction to specific creatures
and their food chains  in a systematic way.
In this way, you are not looking after the health of your body (in any sense) so
you lose your heart, cure appendicites and die of  accute baldness!   :-)







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