Punctum Saliens

2 Responses to “And God saw that it was … good ???”

1. 1 Drew
   July 19, 2008 at 7:35 pm

   And Japanese beetles. They have eaten two wonderful birch trees in my front yard…this week alone! They are all dying deaths that any predator would applaud right now.

2. 2 Ken
   July 21, 2008 at 8:07 pm

   Drew, you mention predators. I started thinking after I posted this about the difference between parasites and predators. Parasites that kill their host are not all that different from predators. Just caught a thing on National Geographic channel about these moose who are being infected with thousands and thousands of ticks and end up slowly dying. Would I put lions and tigers and bears (oh my!) on my list? I don’t think so. So why are ticks on the list?

   Only thing I can think of is that a predator (usually) quickly kills its prey whereas a parasite slowly and, oftentimes, painfully kills its host. But is that a valid distinction for saying parasites are not good?

   What do you think?