“Some scientists think receding sea ice could lead to species mingling.” That’s the headline. It sounds like the newspaper headlines you see on old science fiction movies, you know? Which means either that we were way too accurate with the kind of apocalyptic future we always thought about, or we are giving ourselves away as prone to spectacular speculation, and further giving up on scientific integrity. Science, from what I remember, is supposed to observe what is happening, come up with a theory about why, and then figure whether that theory is correct or not. If so, it becomes a law. If not, we come up with a new theory.

It’s a descriptive process. Hypothesis and evidence gathering. So seeing a headline where scientists are effectively predicting the future, and not just the immediate future but the long-term, species-wide future that I can’t even imagine, means that science is getting out of control and trying to do something that it doesn’t do. Basically this guy from the University of Fairbanks thinks that the mammals of the arctic all evolved separately due to their separation from each other because of sea ice. Which is great, and sounds pretty straightforward. And I think that’s more or less based on the ideas supported by Darwin’s findings in the Galapagos, etc.

Now, the guy gets a little crazy with the predictions and a little loose with the facts from there. He says that as the ice melts, species will begin to mingle and interbreed. Polar Bears and walruses, things like that. And he’s saying this will happen, essentially, starting right now.

“In 100 years, the species (in the Arctic) will be different than the species today,” Kelly said. “Is that good; is that bad? It’s different, for sure.” -- Brendan Kelly, marine biology professor at UAF’s International Arctic Research Center

So now we have Alaskan marine biology professors making predictions about how climate change will affect the future of the arctic’s mammal species’. Ok then.

But his theory is based on the findings that people are discovering that point toward mixed-species offspring- some whales that look like two types of species’, and some evidence that there are cubs from grizzly-polar bear unions. And that does make a bit of sense. As Kelly points out, if this is happening and we are finding it, it is probably happening a lot more than we think.

He goes on to talk about how the distinctions between species is not as cut and dried as we like to think of it as, and that it’s more arbitrary and subjective than we like to think- which I believe. It’s a human type of logic to try and put everything out there into nice little boxes with edges and lines connecting or not connecting them. The fact is, of course, that nature is far from any kind of perfect order, and distinctions are messy already. The idea that they will get even messier as arctic ice melts, well, it’s a pretty believable theory to me. Will it be different 100 years from now? I’m a little more skeptical on that.

Photo Credit: Just Being Myself