SAO PAULO — The vast majority of the Earth’s estimated 13 million species are still unknown and to describe them all would take up to 2,000 years, according to a leading Brazilian scientist. This would make sense because it took 4,000 years to achieve these estimated numbers.
“We estimate that there are a total of around 13 million species (known and unknown) in the world,” says Thomas Lewinsohn, a renowned professor of ecology at the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP) in Sao Paulo state.
“Out of these, roughly 1.75 million species, including micro-organisms, plants, insects, bacteria and animals, have been described,” he reported.
And there is actually no consensus on the exact number of species, with experts relying on extrapolation based on known data. But we do know how many class, order, family and genus we have. The variety of species is vast.
Lewinsohn presented his findings at a forum organized here last week by FAPESP, a local research foundation focusing on Sao Paulo state’s biodiversity.
He said a major problem was a lack of data in countries with the greatest biodiversity such as Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Indonesia or South Africa.
“Most species have been discovered by amateur taxonomists (scientists who classify organisms according to their physical or cellular characteristics) in Europe,” he noted. “That is not the case in Brazil and countries with high biodiversity where we do not have an army of amateur taxonomists.”
The term biodiversity gives the impression that life sprang forth out of nothing and that we are only now discovering the extent of that spontaneity. The truth is that from the time of the flood the variety of the “kinds” of life that God created is barely being realized.
Dogs have only ever produced dogs. The combinations of their DNA are incredibly diverse, but they are still dogs. Evolutionary scientists are using such discoveries to limit the freedoms of mankind in an effort to “conserve” the unknown amount of biodiversity in our world.
What we should learn from this information is that our Lord is great and infinitely creative. We should worship the creator rather than the creation.
