CarlShulman comments on Mini advent calendar of Xrisks: Pandemics - Less Wrong

3 Post author: Stuart_Armstrong 06 December 2012 01:44PM

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Comment author: CarlShulman 06 December 2012 09:03:13PM *  4 points [-]

Recent observations, not fossil record or ancient history. And extirpation of a connected population from its (substantial) range is an OK proxy.

Comment author: [deleted] 06 December 2012 10:18:40PM *  6 points [-]

Do you have any examples of a species rendered extinct by a plague in nature?

Recent observations, not fossil record or ancient history. And extirpation of a connected population from its (substantial) range is an OK proxy.

My first thought, off the top of my head, is Dutch Elm Disease, which developed in Asia, where the trees grew tolerant of it, but then spread to other areas, where the trees had no resistance. Non-Asiatic elms aren't extinct yet, but I think the two options are either: 1) Saved via human intervention, genetic modification, etc., or 2) The susceptible breeds will eventually go extinct as it spreads.

Comment author: Desrtopa 09 December 2012 03:49:26AM 1 point [-]

The American Chestnut is not completely extinct either, but has been mostly eradicated by chestnut blight.

Comment author: gwern 06 December 2012 09:41:41PM *  3 points [-]

And extirpation of a connected population from its (substantial) range is an OK proxy.

I'm not a paleontologist, but don't we see species suddenly vanish from their ranges all the time even excluding the mass extinction events? How do we know that some of these extirpations are not pandemics?

Comment author: JoshuaZ 07 December 2012 02:22:56PM *  0 points [-]

Well, the time period then is quite small. Moreover, we're currently inadvertently killing so many species, that a handful being killed by disease could just get lost in the noise. I suspect there aren't any, but it isn't clear how to test that.