Re: The magic of conlang (was: Has anyone made a real conlang?)
| From: | Andrew Nowicki <andrew@...> |
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| Date: | Friday, April 25, 2003, 19:09 |
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John Cowan wrote:
JC> IMO all natural phenomena are truly beautiful:
> There are no ugly natural objects, nor animals, plants, stones
> or waters, and even less are there ugly stars in the sky. We
> have been taught to call ugly ("ugly beast") certain animals
> considered harmful, but their natural ugliness ends there.
> --Primo Levi, "The Fear of Spiders" in _Other People's Trades_
Nature's beauty is skin deep. When you dissect a wild
animal, you will find several species of parasites
crawling inside its host. Most of wild species, maybe
as many as 80% of them, are parasites. Mitochondria
and other cell organelles are descendants of parasites.
Parasites stabilize ecosystems and are true masters of
wild nature. If they had not existed, all forms of life
would have been primitive single cell organisms. You can
learn more about parasites from Carl Zimmer's book
"Parasite Rex: Inside the Bizarre World of Nature's
Most Dangerous Creatures". Diversity is much more
important property of wild nature than its beauty:
http://www.islandone.org/LEOBiblio/DIVERSIT.HTM
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