Sodomy laws in the United States

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodomy_laws_in_the_United_States 

 

Decriminalization of same-sex sexual intercourse in the United States

  1962

  1971

  1972

  1973

  1974

  1975

  1976

  1977

  1978

  1979

  1980

  1983

  1985

  1992

  1993

  1996

  1997

  1998

  1999

  2001

  2003

Current status of state statutes regarding sodomy and bestiality. All sodomy statues have been invalidated (ruled unconstitutional) by state courts and/or Lawrence v Texas, but 12 have not been repealed by their state legislatures.

  No statute banning sodomy

  Statute bans bestiality

  Statute bans same-sex sodomy

  Statute bans sodomy

Sodomy laws in the United States, which outlawed a variety of sexual acts, were inherited from colonial laws in the 17th century. While they often targeted sexual acts between persons of the same sex, many statutes employed definitions broad enough to outlaw certain sexual acts between persons of different sexes, in some cases even including acts between married persons.

Through the 20th century, the gradual decriminalization of American sexuality led to the elimination of sodomy laws in most states. During this time, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of sodomy laws in Bowers v. Hardwick in 1986. However, in 2003, the Supreme Court reversed the decision with Lawrence v. Texas, invalidating sodomy laws in the remaining 14 states: Alabama, Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Utah and Virginia.

History

Up to Lawrence v. Texas

Colin Talley argues that the sodomy statutes in colonial America in the 17th century were largely unenforced. The reason he argues is that male-male eroticism did not threaten the social structure or challenge the gendered division of labor or the patriarchal ownership of wealth. There were gay men on General Washington's staff and among the leaders of the new republic, even though in Virginia there was a maximum penalty of death for sodomy. In 1779, Thomas Jefferson tried to reduce the maximum punishment to castration. It was rejected by the Virginia legislature. Justice Anthony Kennedy authoring the majority opinion in Lawrence v. Texas stated that American laws targeting same-sex couples did not develop until the last third of the 20th century and also wrote that:

Early American sodomy laws were not directed at homosexuals as such but instead sought to prohibit nonprocreative sexual activity more generally, whether between men and women or men and men. Moreover, early sodomy laws seem not to have been enforced against consenting adults acting in private. Instead, sodomy prosecutions often involved predatory acts against those who could not or did not consent: relations between men and minor girls or boys, between adults involving force, between adults implicating disparity in status, or between men and animals.

Prior to 1962, sodomy was a felony in every state, punished by a lengthy term of imprisonment and/or hard labor. In that year, the Model Penal Code (MPC) — developed by the American Law Institute to promote uniformity among the states as they modernized their statutes — struck a compromise that removed consensual sodomy from its criminal code while making it a crime to solicit for sodomy. In 1962, Illinois adopted the recommendations of the Model Penal Code and thus became the first state to remove criminal penalties for consensual sodomy from its criminal code, almost a decade before any other state. Over the years, many of the states that did not repeal their sodomy laws had enacted legislation reducing the penalty. At the time of the Lawrence decision in 2003, the penalty for violating a sodomy law varied very widely from jurisdiction to jurisdiction among those states retaining their sodomy laws. The harshest penalties were in Idaho, where a person convicted of sodomy could earn a life sentence. Michigan followed, with a maximum penalty of 15 years' imprisonment while repeat offenders got life.

By 2002, 36 states had repealed their sodomy laws or their courts had overturned them. By the time of the 2003 Supreme Court decision, the laws in most states were no longer enforced or were enforced very selectively. The continued existence of these rarely enforced laws on the statute books, however, are often cited as justification for discrimination against gay men, lesbians, and bisexuals.

On June 26, 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court in a 6–3 decision in Lawrence v. Texas struck down the Texas same-sex sodomy law, ruling that this private sexual conduct is protected by the liberty rights implicit in the due process clause of the United States Constitution. This decision invalidated all state sodomy laws insofar as they applied to noncommercial conduct in private between consenting civilians and reversed the Court's 1986 ruling in Bowers v. Hardwick that upheld Georgia's sodomy law.

Before that 2003 ruling, 27 states, the District of Columbia, and 4 territories had repealed their sodomy laws by legislative action; 9 states had had them overturned or invalidated by state court action; 4 states still had same-sex sodomy laws; and 10 states, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. military had anti-sodomy laws applying to all regardless of sex or gender.

Repeal since Lawrence v. Texas

In 2005, Puerto Rico repealed its sodomy law, and in 2006, Missouri repealed its law against "homosexual conduct". In 2013, Montana removed "sexual contact or sexual intercourse between two persons of the same sex" from its definition of deviate sexual conduct, Virginia repealed its lewd and lascivious cohabitation statute, and sodomy was legalized in the US armed forces.

In 2005, basing its decision on Lawrence, the Supreme Court of Virginia in Martin v. Ziherl invalidated § 18.2-344, the Virginia statute making fornication between unmarried persons a crime.

On January 31, 2013, the Senate of Virginia passed a bill repealing § 18.2-345, the lewd and lascivious cohabitation statute enacted in 1877. On February 20, 2013, the Virginia House of Delegates passed the bill by a vote of 62 to 25 votes. On March 20, 2013, Governor Bob McDonnell signed the repeal of the lewd and lascivious cohabitation statute from the Code of Virginia.

On March 12, 2013, a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit struck down § 18.2-361, the crimes against nature statute. On March 26, 2013, Attorney General of Virginia Ken Cuccinelli filed a petition to have the case reheard en banc, but the Court denied the request on April 10, 2013, with none of its 15 judges supporting the request. On June 25, Cuccinelli filed a petition for certiorari asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review the Court of Appeals decision, which was rejected on October 7.

On February 7, 2014, the Virginia Senate voted 40-0 in favor of revising the crimes against nature statue to remove the ban on same-sex sexual relationships. On March 6, 2014, the Virginia House of Delegates voted 100-0 in favor of the bill. On April 7, the Governor submitted slightly different version of the bill. It was enacted by the Legislature on April 23, 2014. The law took effect upon passage.

Utah voted to revise its sodomy laws to include only forcible sodomy and sodomy on children rather than any sexual relations between consenting adults on February 26, 2019. Governor Gary Herbert signed the bill into law on March 26, 2019.

On May 23, 2019, the Alabama House of Representatives passed, with 101 voting yea and 3 absent, Alabama Senate Bill 320, which repeals the ban on "deviate sexual intercourse". On May 28, 2019, the Alabama State Senate passed Alabama Senate Bill 320, with 32 yea and 3 absent. The bill took effect on September 1, 2019. Alabama is the southernmost continental state to repeal their sodomy law as of 2023.

Maryland voted to repeal its sodomy law on March 18, 2020. The bill became law in May 2020 without the signature of Governor Larry Hogan. While the original text of the bill intended to repeal both the state's sodomy law and unnatural or perverted sexual practice law, amendments from the Maryland Senate urged to solely repeal the sodomy law. On March 31, 2023, the Maryland legislature voted to repeal the unnatural and perverted sexual practice law. The bill was sent to Governor Wes Moore for signature. As he did not veto the bill within 30 days of passage, Moore allowed for the bill to become law without his signature, with the repeal set to take effect on October 1, 2023.

Idaho repealed its sodomy law in March 2022. The repeal was a result of a lawsuit brought on in September 2020 by a plaintiff known as John Doe. John Doe alleged his constitutional rights were violated when he was forced to register as a sex offender upon moving to Idaho due to a conviction for "oral sex" two decades prior.

On May 17, 2023, the Minnesota legislature passed an Omnibus Judiciary and Public Safety Bill that included provisions repealing the state's sodomy, adultery, fornication, and abortion laws. On May 19, the Governor signed the bill into law. It took effect the following day.

Remaining defunct statutes since Lawrence v. Texas

Louisiana's statutes still include "unnatural carnal copulation by a human being with another of the same sex" in their definition of "crimes against nature", punishable (in theory) by a fine of up to $2,000 or a prison sentence of up to five years, with or without hard labor; however, this section was further mooted by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in 2005 in light of the Lawrence decision.

In State v. Whiteley (2005), the North Carolina Court of Appeals ruled that the crime against nature statute, N.C. G.S. § 14-177, is not unconstitutional on its face because it may properly be used to criminalize sexual conduct involving minors, non-consensual or coercive conduct, public conduct, and prostitution.

In April 2014, a proposed Louisiana bill sought to revise the state's crime against nature law, maintaining the existing prohibition against sodomy during the commission of rape and child sex abuse, and against sex with animals, but removing the unconstitutional prohibition against sex between consenting adults. The bill was defeated on April 15, 2014 by a vote of 66 to 27.

In March 2023, the Texas House committee on Criminal Jurisprudence unanimously passed House Bill 2055 that would repeal its “homosexual conduct” law criminalizing gay sex. The bill’s author, Rep. Venton Jones, D-Dallas, agreed to amend the bill to keep portions of current law that say “homosexuality is not a lifestyle acceptable to the general public” in order to get it passed out of committee. It did not receive a vote in the State House before the deadline.

As of May 2023, 12 states either have not yet formally repealed their laws against sexual activity among consenting adults or have not revised them to accurately reflect their true scope as a result of Lawrence v. Texas. Often, the sodomy law was drafted to also encompass other forms of sexual conduct such as bestiality, and no attempt has subsequently succeeded in separating them. Nine states' statutes purport to ban all forms of sodomy, some including oral intercourse, regardless of the participants' genders: Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma and South Carolina. Three states specifically target their statutes at same-sex relations only: Kansas, Kentucky, and Texas.

• Florida (Fld. Stat. 800.02.)
• Georgia (O.C.G.A. § 16-6-2)
• Kansas (Kan. Stat. 21-3505.)
• Kentucky (KY Rev Stat § 510.100.)
• Louisiana (R.S. 14:89.)
• Massachusetts (MGL Ch. 272, § 34.) (MGL Ch. 272, § 35.) – 2023 repeal bill
• Michigan (MCL § 750.158.) (MCL § 750.338.) (MCL § 750.338a.) (MCL § 750.338b.) – 2023 partial repeal bill
• Mississippi (Miss. Code § 97-29-59.)
• North Carolina (G.S. § 14-177.)
• Oklahoma (§21-886.)
• South Carolina (S.C. Code § 16-15-60.)
• Texas (Tx. Penal Code § 21.06.)

Researchers have shown that sodomy law repeals led to a decline in the number of arrests for disorderly conduct, prostitution, and other sex offenses, as well as a reduction in arrests for drug and alcohol consumption, in line with the hypothesis that sodomy law repeals enhanced mental health and lessened minority stress.

Federal law

Sodomy laws in the United States were largely a matter of state rather than federal jurisdiction, except for laws governing the District of Columbia and the U.S. Armed Forces.

District of Columbia

In 1801, the 6th United States Congress enacted the District of Columbia Organic Act of 1801, a law that continued all criminal laws of Maryland and Virginia, with those of Maryland applying to the portion of the District ceded from Maryland and those of Virginia applying to the portion ceded from Virginia. As a result, in the Maryland-ceded portion, sodomy was punishable with up to seven years' imprisonment for free persons and with the death penalty for enslaved persons, whereas in the Virginia-ceded portion it was punishable between one and ten years' imprisonment for free persons and with the death penalty for enslaved persons. Maryland repealed the death penalty for slaves in 1809 and modified the penalty for all persons to match Virginia's terms of imprisonment. In 1847, the Virginia-ceded portion was given back to Virginia, thus only the Maryland law had effect in the district.

In 1871, Congress enacted the District of Columbia Organic Act of 1871, a law that reorganized the district government and granted it home rule. All existing laws were retained unless and until expressly altered by the new city council. Direct rule was reinstated in 1874. In Pollard v. Lyon (1875), the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a District of Columbia U.S. District Court ruling that spoken words by the defendant in the case that accused the plaintiff of fornication were not actionable for slander because fornication, although involving moral turpitude, was not an indictable offense in the District of Columbia at the time as it had not been an indictable offense in Maryland since 1785 (when a provincial law passed in 1715 that banned both fornication and adultery saw only its fornication prohibition repealed). The criminal status of sodomy became ambiguous until 1901, when Congress passed legislation recognizing common law crimes, punishable with up to five years' imprisonment and/or a fine of $1,000.

In 1935, Congress made it a crime in the district to solicit a person "for the purpose of prostitution, or any other immoral or lewd purpose". In 1948, Congress enacted the first law specific to sodomy in the district, which established a penalty of up to 10 years in prison or a fine of up to $1,000, regardless of sexuality. Oral sex was included in the law's application. Also included with this law was a psychopathic offender law and a law "to provide for the treatment of sexual psychopaths". The metropolitan police department eventually had several officers whose sole job was to "check on homosexuals". Multiple court cases dealt with the issue in the following years. Many of the published sodomy and solicitation cases during the 1950s and 1960s reveal clear entrapment policies by the local police, some of which were disallowed by reviewing courts. In 1972, settling the case of Schaefers et al. v. Wilson, the D.C. government announced its intention not to prosecute anyone for private, consensual adult sodomy, an action disputed by the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. The action came as part of a stipulation agreement in a court challenge to the sodomy law brought by four gay men.

In 1973, Congress again granted the district home rule through the District of Columbia Home Rule Act. It provided for a new city council that could pass its own laws. However laws regarding certain topics, such as changes to the criminal code, were restricted until 1977. All laws passed by the D.C. government are subject to a mandatory 30-day "congressional review" by Congress. If they are not blocked, then they become law. In 1981, the D.C. government enacted a law that repealed the sodomy law, as well as other consensual acts, and made the sexual assault laws gender neutral. However, the Congress overturned the new law. A successful legislative repeal of the law followed in 1993. This time, Congress did not interfere. In 1995, all references to sodomy were completely removed from the criminal code, and in 2004, the D.C. government repealed an outdated law against fornication.

Military

Main article: Section 839(a) of title 10 United States Code § 925 - Article 125.

Although the U.S. military discharged soldiers for homosexual acts throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth century, U.S. military law did not expressly prohibit homosexuality or homosexual conduct until February 4, 1921.

On March 1, 1917, the Articles of War of 1916 were implemented. This included a revision of the Articles of War of 1806, the new regulations detail statutes governing U.S. military discipline and justice. Under the category Miscellaneous Crimes and Offences, Article 93 states that any person subject to military law who commits "assault with intent to commit sodomy" shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.

On June 4, 1920, Congress modified Article 93 of the Articles of War of 1916. It was changed to make the act of sodomy itself a crime, separate from the offense of assault with intent to commit sodomy. It went into effect on February 4, 1921.

On May 5, 1950, the Uniform Code of Military Justice was passed by Congress and was signed into law by President Harry S. Truman, and became effective on May 31, 1951. Article 125 forbids sodomy among all military personnel, defining it as "any person subject to this chapter who engages in unnatural carnal copulation with another person of the same or opposite sex or with an animal is guilty of sodomy. Penetration, however slight, is sufficient to complete the offence."

As for the U.S. Armed Forces, the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces has ruled that the Lawrence v. Texas decision applies to Article 125, severely narrowing the previous ban on sodomy. In both United States v. Stirewalt and United States v. Marcum, the court ruled that the "conduct [consensual sodomy] falls within the liberty interest identified by the Supreme Court," but went on to say that despite the application of Lawrence to the military, Article 125 can still be upheld in cases where there are "factors unique to the military environment" that would place the conduct "outside any protected liberty interest recognized in Lawrence." Examples of such factors include rape, fraternization, public sexual behavior, or any other factors that would adversely affect good order and discipline. Convictions for consensual sodomy have been overturned in military courts under Lawrence in both United States v. Meno and United States v. Bullock.

Repeal

On December 26, 2013, President Barack Obama signed into law the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2014, which repealed the ban on consensual sodomy found in Article 125.

Magnetar

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetar 

 

Artist's conception of a magnetar, with magnetic field lines

 

Artist's conception of a powerful magnetar in a star cluster

A magnetar is a type of neutron star with an extremely powerful magnetic field (∼10⁹ to 10¹¹ T, ∼10¹³ to 10¹⁵ G). The magnetic-field decay powers the emission of high-energy electromagnetic radiation, particularly X-rays and gamma rays.

The existence of magnetars was proposed in 1992 by Robert Duncan and Christopher Thompson. Their proposal sought to explain the properties of transient sources of gamma rays, now known as soft gamma repeaters (SGRs). Over the following decade, the magnetar hypothesis became widely accepted, and was extended to explain anomalous X-ray pulsars (AXPs). As of July 2021, 24 confirmed magnetars were known.

It has been suggested that magnetars are the source of fast radio bursts (FRB), in particular as a result of findings in 2020 by scientists using the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) radio telescope.

Description

Like other neutron stars, magnetars are around 20 kilometres (12 mi) in diameter, and have a mass of about 1.4 solar masses. They are formed by the collapse of a star with a mass 10–25 times that of the Sun. The density of the interior of a magnetar is such that a tablespoon of its substance would have a mass of over 100 million tons. Magnetars are differentiated from other neutron stars by having even stronger magnetic fields, and by rotating more slowly in comparison. Most observed magnetars rotate once every two to ten seconds, whereas typical neutron stars, observed as radio pulsars, rotate one to ten times per second. A magnetar's magnetic field gives rise to very strong and characteristic bursts of X-rays and gamma rays. The active life of a magnetar is short compared to other celestial bodies. Their strong magnetic fields decay after about 10,000 years, after which activity and strong X-ray emission cease. Given the number of magnetars observable today, one estimate puts the number of inactive magnetars in the Milky Way at 30 million or more.

Starquakes triggered on the surface of the magnetar disturb the magnetic field which encompasses it, often leading to extremely powerful gamma-ray flare emissions which have been recorded on Earth in 1979, 1998 and 2004.

Neutron Star Types (24 June 2020)

Magnetic field

Magnetars are characterized by their extremely powerful magnetic fields of ∼10⁹ to 10¹¹ T. These magnetic fields are a hundred million times stronger than any man-made magnet, and about a trillion times more powerful than the field surrounding Earth. Earth has a geomagnetic field of 30–60 microteslas, and a neodymium-based, rare-earth magnet has a field of about 1.25 tesla, with a magnetic energy density of 4.0 × 10⁵ J/m³. A magnetar's 10¹⁰ tesla field, by contrast, has an energy density of 4.0×10²⁵ J/m³, with an E/c² mass density more than 10,000 times that of lead. The magnetic field of a magnetar would be lethal even at a distance of 1,000 km due to the strong magnetic field distorting the electron clouds of the subject's constituent atoms, rendering the chemistry of known lifeforms impossible. At a distance of halfway from Earth to the moon, an average distance between the Earth and the Moon being 384,400 km (238,900 miles), a magnetar could wipe information from the magnetic stripes of all credit cards on Earth. As of 2020, they are the most powerful magnetic objects detected throughout the universe.

As described in the February 2003 Scientific American cover story, remarkable things happen within a magnetic field of magnetar strength. "X-ray photons readily split in two or merge. The vacuum itself is polarized, becoming strongly birefringent, like a calcite crystal. Atoms are deformed into long cylinders thinner than the quantum-relativistic de Broglie wavelength of an electron." In a field of about 10⁵ teslas atomic orbitals deform into rod shapes. At 10¹⁰ teslas, a hydrogen atom becomes 200 times narrower than its normal diameter.

Origins of magnetic fields

The dominant theory of the strong fields of magnetars is that it results from a magnetohydrodynamic dynamo process in the turbulent, extremely dense conducting fluid that exists before the neutron star settles into its equilibrium configuration. These fields then persist due to persistent currents in a proton-superconductor phase of matter that exists at an intermediate depth within the neutron star (where neutrons predominate by mass). A similar magnetohydrodynamic dynamo process produces even more intense transient fields during coalescence of pairs of neutron stars. But another theory is that they simply result from the collapse of stars with unusually strong magnetic fields.

Formation

Magnetar SGR 1900+14 (center of image) showing a surrounding ring of gas 7 light-years across in infrared light, as seen by the Spitzer Space Telescope. The magnetar itself is not visible at this wavelength but has been seen in X-ray light.

In a supernova, a star collapses to a neutron star, and its magnetic field increases dramatically in strength through conservation of magnetic flux. Halving a linear dimension increases the magnetic field strength fourfold. Duncan and Thompson calculated that when the spin, temperature and magnetic field of a newly formed neutron star falls into the right ranges, a dynamo mechanism could act, converting heat and rotational energy into magnetic energy and increasing the magnetic field, normally an already enormous 10⁸ teslas, to more than 10¹¹ teslas (or 10¹⁵ gauss). The result is a magnetar. It is estimated that about one in ten supernova explosions results in a magnetar rather than a more standard neutron star or pulsar.

1979 discovery

On March 5, 1979, a few months after the successful dropping of satellites into the atmosphere of Venus, the two uncrewed Soviet spaceprobes, Venera 11 and 12, were hit by a blast of gamma radiation at approximately 10:51 EST. This contact raised the radiation readings on both the probes from a normal 100 counts per second to over 200,000 counts a second, in only a fraction of a millisecond.

This burst of gamma rays quickly continued to spread. Eleven seconds later, Helios 2, a NASA probe, which was in orbit around the Sun, was saturated by the blast of radiation. It soon hit Venus, and the Pioneer Venus Orbiter's detectors were overcome by the wave. Seconds later, Earth received the wave of radiation, where the powerful output of gamma rays inundated the detectors of three U.S. Department of Defense Vela satellites, the Soviet Prognoz 7 satellite, and the Einstein Observatory. Just before the wave exited the Solar System, the blast also hit the International Sun–Earth Explorer. This extremely powerful blast of gamma radiation constituted the strongest wave of extra-solar gamma rays ever detected; it was over 100 times more intense than any known previous extra-solar burst. Because gamma rays travel at the speed of light and the time of the pulse was recorded by several distant spacecraft as well as on Earth, the source of the gamma radiation could be calculated to an accuracy of about 2 arcseconds. The direction of the source corresponded with the remnants of a star that had gone supernova around 3000 BCE. It was in the Large Magellanic Cloud and the source was named SGR 0525-66; the event itself was named GRB 790305b, the first-observed SGR megaflare.

Recent discoveries

Artist's impression of a gamma-ray burst and supernova powered by a magnetar

On February 21, 2008, it was announced that NASA and researchers at McGill University had discovered a neutron star with the properties of a radio pulsar which emitted some magnetically powered bursts, like a magnetar. This suggests that magnetars are not merely a rare type of pulsar but may be a (possibly reversible) phase in the lives of some pulsars. On September 24, 2008, ESO announced what it ascertained was the first optically active magnetar-candidate yet discovered, using ESO's Very Large Telescope. The newly discovered object was designated SWIFT J195509+261406. On September 1, 2014, ESA released news of a magnetar close to supernova remnant Kesteven 79. Astronomers from Europe and China discovered this magnetar, named 3XMM J185246.6+003317, in 2013 by looking at images that had been taken in 2008 and 2009. In 2013, a magnetar PSR J1745−2900 was discovered, which orbits the black hole in the Sagittarius A* system. This object provides a valuable tool for studying the ionized interstellar medium toward the Galactic Center. In 2018, the temporary result of the merger of two neutron stars was determined to be a hypermassive magnetar, which shortly collapsed into a black hole.

In April 2020, a possible link between fast radio bursts (FRBs) and magnetars was suggested, based on observations of SGR 1935+2154, a likely magnetar located in the Milky Way galaxy.

Known magnetars

On 27 December 2004, a burst of gamma rays from SGR 1806−20 passed through the Solar System (artist's conception shown). The burst was so powerful that it had effects on Earth's atmosphere, at a range of about 50,000 light-years.

As of July 2021, 24 magnetars are known, with six more candidates awaiting confirmation. A full listing is given in the McGill SGR/AXP Online Catalog. Examples of known magnetars include:

• SGR 0525−66, in the Large Magellanic Cloud, located about 163,000 light-years from Earth, the first found (in 1979)
• SGR 1806−20, located 50,000 light-years from Earth on the far side of the Milky Way in the constellation of Sagittarius and the most magnetized object known.
• SGR 1900+14, located 20,000 light-years away in the constellation Aquila. After a long period of low emissions (significant bursts only in 1979 and 1993) it became active in May–August 1998, and a burst detected on August 27, 1998, was of sufficient power to force NEAR Shoemaker to shut down to prevent damage and to saturate instruments on BeppoSAX, WIND and RXTE. On May 29, 2008, NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope discovered a ring of matter around this magnetar. It is thought that this ring formed in the 1998 burst.
• SGR 0501+4516 was discovered on 22 August 2008.
• 1E 1048.1−5937, located 9,000 light-years away in the constellation Carina. The original star, from which the magnetar formed, had a mass 30 to 40 times that of the Sun.
• As of September 2008, ESO reports identification of an object which it has initially identified as a magnetar, SWIFT J195509+261406, originally identified by a gamma-ray burst (GRB 070610).
• CXO J164710.2-455216, located in the massive galactic cluster Westerlund 1, which formed from a star with a mass in excess of 40 solar masses.
• SWIFT J1822.3 Star-1606 discovered on 14 July 2011 by Italian and Spanish researchers of CSIC at Madrid and Catalonia. This magnetar contrary to previsions has a low external magnetic field, and it might be as young as half a million years.
• 3XMM J185246.6+003317, discovered by international team of astronomers, looking at data from ESA's XMM-Newton X-ray telescope.
• SGR 1935+2154, emitted a pair of luminous radio bursts on 28 April 2020. There was speculation that these may be galactic examples of fast radio bursts.
• Swift J1818.0-1607, X-ray burst detected March 2020, is one of five known magnetars that are also radio pulsars. By its time of discovery, it may be only 240 years old.

Magnetar—SGR J1745-2900
Magnetar found very close to the supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A*, at the center of the Milky Way galaxy

Bright supernovae

Unusually bright supernovae are thought to result from the death of very large stars as pair-instability supernovae (or pulsational pair-instability supernovae). However, recent research by astronomers has postulated that energy released from newly formed magnetars into the surrounding supernova remnants may be responsible for some of the brightest supernovae, such as SN 2005ap and SN 2008es.

Self-domestication

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-domestication 

Self-domestication is the process of adaptation of for example wild animals to cohabiting with humans, without direct human selective breeding of the animals. Dogs and cats have undergone this kind of self-domestication. Self-domestication also refers to the evolution of hominids, particularly humans and bonobos, toward collaborative, docile behavior. As described by British biological anthropologist Richard Wrangham, self-domestication involves being in an environment that favors reduction in aggression, including interspecific and intraspecific antagonism, for survival. The human self-domestication hypothesis argues that, like mammalian domesticates, humans have gone through a process of selection against aggression – a process that in the case of humans was self-induced, in favor of social behavior from which the group as a whole benefited, such as intelligence, soft skills, emotional intelligence and where individuals with an antisocial personality disorder would be eliminated by the group. For this to happen, sophisticated language was necessary to plot against the bully or individual with excessive aggressive behavior, so one would not be killed themselves. It is hypothesized that this is what differentiated Homo erectus and Homo neanderthalensis from H. sapiens: the ability of sophisticated language, allowing better social collaboration, elimination of excessive aggressive behavior in the group, leading to self-domestication and could explain why only homo sapiens survived from all the hominae. Spandrels, or evolutionary byproducts, also accompany self-domestication, including depigmentation, arrested development, and reduced sexual dimorphism.

In animals

Wild animals may self-domesticate when less aggressive behavior enhances their survival in the vicinity of human beings. This facilitates their ability to take advantage of increased food availability arising from domestic niches. Alternatively, when occurring in non-human environments, self-domestication may be favored by prosociality, as traits arising from self-domestication lead to stronger social structures. An environment that supports the survival of self-domesticated animals can lead to other apparent changes in behavior and appearance that deviate from their wild phenotypes. These traits include, but are not limited to, depigmentation, floppy ears, curly tails, smaller teeth, smaller cranial anatomy, juvenile behavior, reduced sexual dimorphism, and arrested development. Smaller skulls, increased playfulness, and reduced aggression have also been observed in self-domesticated species.

Red foxes

British cities have populations of red foxes that have established themselves in urban areas, and shows the first signs of self-domestication. Compared to their rural relatives, the urban foxes have adapted to their environment by evolving shorter jaws and smaller brains.

Cats

As grain plants and livestock became domesticated 9,000 years ago in the Fertile Crescent, hunter-gatherers built urban villages. After a 100,000-year history of nomadism, these hunter-gatherers transitioned to adopting a sedentary lifestyle. Though many societies domesticated barnyard animals for food resources—an example of artificial selection—villagers had little desire or motivation to domesticate wildcats to be house pets. Instead, wildcats, such as the species Felis lybica, began exploiting new resources offered by human environments, such as a proliferation of rodents in grain stores. These cats were tolerated by people, supporting their natural evolution to deviate further from their wild counterparts. This favored the perpetuation of reduced aggressive behavior and increased “tameness,” which made the cats increasingly tolerable in human society.

Dogs

See also: Origin of the domestic dog

Noticing that a dog's skull looks like that of a juvenile wolf, Richard Wrangham suggested that this species could self-domesticate. While some humans may have intentionally domesticated wolves into dogs, this alternate hypothesis states that wolves effectively domesticated themselves by establishing a mutually beneficial relationship with prehistoric humans. They scavenged on the remains of the prey animals left by the prehistoric people at the human settlements or the kill sites. Those wolves that were less anxious and aggressive thrived, continued to follow the prehistoric humans, and colonized the human-dominated environments, generation after generation. Gradually, the first primitive dogs emerged from this group.

Bonobos (Pan paniscus)

The evolutionary anthropologist Brian Hare proposed that bonobos (Pan paniscus) have also undergone self-domestication. Despite their close relation to chimpanzees, bonobos exhibit significantly lower levels of aggression. Male chimpanzees use intimidating displays to compete for resources, access to mating, and dominance rank. Both female and male chimpanzees may instigate infanticide. In comparison, bonobos deliver calm displays, the most aggressive action ever being using branches merely as a prop, never to make physical contact with another bonobo. Females are organized in coalitions, minimizing if not eliminating intimidation by males for mating. Males do not form alliances with other male bonobo; instead, male-female bonobo alliances are prolific, with strong bonds between mother and sons. Intergroup tolerance is much higher in bonobos in contrast to chimpanzees. Additionally, bonobo adults are known to engage in play much more frequently than chimpanzee adults, suggesting that bonobos showcase more juvenilized behavior. The cognitive traits that have caused these phenotypic differences to arise are not fully clear; however, cognitive differences between bonobos and chimpanzees have been established in the orbitofrontal cortex, motor cortices, and hippocampus. These neural regions are associated with feeding habits, motor coordination, and emotions.

It remains a point of discussion why the mechanism of natural selection has favored self-domestication in bonobos over time. One theory suggests that self-domestication reinforces stable social structures, favoring prosocial behavior; thus, self-domestication has predominantly been motivated by changing intraspecific dynamics. Bonobo groups are more stable than chimpanzee groups, due to their decreased reliance on scramble competition. Bonobo social groups consist of a significant percentage of each local community, often 16-21% more inclusive of the total population than chimpanzee groups. Since female-female coalitions are so strong, intimidating, coercive approaches for mating and high-ranks are not as fruitful; males find greater reproductive success from kinship ties with mothers.

In addition to these behavioral observations, morphological evidence supports the hypothesis that bonobos, unlike the closely related chimpanzees, have undergone self-domestication. Bonobos, who also exhibit less aggressive demeanors, have a cranial reduction up to 20%, flattening of facial projection, and diminished sexual dimorphism. Bonobos also have smaller teeth. Their white tail-tufts and pink lips, coloration typically observed in juvenile primates, is persistent in phenotypes of adult bonobos; this depigmentation signals extended periods of juvenilized traits.

Marmoset monkeys (Callithrix jacchus)

The neuroscientist Asif A. Ghazanfar revisited the self-domestication hypothesis in marmoset monkeys, a previously undocumented species in application to the theory. The study sought to elucidate how affiliative behavior facilitates the development of domestic phenotypes and determine the social underpinnings behind self-domestication's natural selection. So, the researchers identified both an affiliative behavior and a hallmark morphological trait indicating domestication: in marmoset monkeys, these would be vocal exchanges and a species-distinctive white facial fur patch. Their study found that, when marmoset parents provide more vocal feedback to their offspring, juvenile marmosets correspondingly undergo a larger growth of their white facial fur patch. This white facial patch lacked melanocytes, which originate from neural crest cells, suggesting that there exists a pleiotropic linkage with neural crest cells. This is a significant finding in support of the hypothesis, as neural crest cell abundance is directly related to the adrenal gland size. Lower aggression, as arises from self-domestication, also is accompanied by a smaller adrenal gland, due to a decreased urgency to mitigate stressful conditions. A smaller adrenal gland means that there will be fewer neural crest cells, and thereby melanocytes; the phenotypic result will be a reduction in pigmentation, a common byproduct of self-domestication, as is observed in the marmoset monkeys.

Ghazanfar's study with marmoset monkeys further substantiated the self-domestication hypothesis, which has also emerged in humans. He proposed that the common denominator, and thus a likely driver and selective pressure of domestication, between both marmosets and humans was cooperative breeding. In marmosets, cooperative breeding was a mating system driven by their production of dizygotic twins, whereas in humans, it may be driven due to the extensive amount of parental care that goes into an offspring's early years of development.

In humans

Hominids

Clark & Henneberg argue that during the earliest stages of human evolution a more paedomorphic skull arose through self-domestication. This assertion is based upon a comparison of the skull of Ardipithecus and chimpanzees of various ages. It was found that Ardipithecus clustered with the infant and juvenile species. The consequent lack of a pubertal growth spurt in males of the species and the consequent growth of aggressive canine armoury was taken as evidence that Ardipithecus evolved its paedomorphic skull through self domestication. As the authors state, comparing the species with bonobos:

"Of course A. ramidus differs significantly from bonobos, bonobos having retained a functional canine honing complex. However, the fact that A. ramidus shares with bonobos reduced sexual dimorphism, and a more paedomorphic form relative to chimpanzees, suggests that the developmental and social adaptations evident in bonobos may be of assistance in future reconstructions of early hominin social and sexual psychology. In fact the trend towards increased maternal care, female mate selection and self-domestication may have been stronger and more refined in A. ramidus than what we see in bonobos."

Further research has confirmed that Ardipithecus possessed paedomorphic cranial base angulation, position of the foramen magnum as well as vocal tract dimensions. This was interpreted as not only evidence of a change in social behavior but also a potentially early emergence of hominid vocal capability. If this thesis is correct then not only human social behavior but also language ability originally evolved through paedomorphic skull morphogenesis via the process of self-domestication.

The most comprehensive case for human self-domestication has been proposed for the changes that account for the much later transition from robust humans such as Neanderthals or Denisovans to anatomically modern humans. Occurring between 40,000 and 25,000 years ago, this rapid neotenization has been explained as the result of cultural selection of mating partners on the basis of variables lacking evolutionary benefits, such as perceived attractiveness, facial symmetry, youth, specific body ratios, skin tone or hair, none of which play any role in any other animal species. This unintentional auto-domestication, coinciding with the introduction of imagery of female sexuality, occurred simultaneously in four continents then occupied by hominins. It led to rapid changes typical for domestication, such as in cranial morphology, skeletal architecture, reduction in brain volume, to playful and exploratory behavior, and the establishment of thousands of deleterious conditions, syndromes, disorders and illnesses presumed absent in robust humans.

Of course, these specific views are very clearly based on multi-regionalist perspectives of human evolution which claim modern human populations evolved from relevant archaics present in each world region, as demonstrated in robust skeletal fossils. Such views are largely disproven by genetic evidence supporting the Out of Africa hypothesis with minor inter-breeding and genetic introgression. Despite this, however, human self-domestication entirely within Africa, say, during transition from earlier hominins, especially H. heidelbergensis to H. sapiens remains an open possibility. This would mean archaics in each region (e.g., neanderthals, denisovans) were largely replaced by self-domesticated H. sapiens as they spread around the globe. This possibility suggests self-domestication played a role in the success of H. sapiens, and the extinction of other lineages.

The idea of self-domestication was used by early Social Darwinism which, according to psychiatrist Martin Brüne in an article "On human self-domestication", developed from the idea that humans could "perfect" themselves biologically. The idea of self-domestication is also related to the concept of sociodicy.

Modern humans

Physical anatomy

Based on the dating of the fossil record, archaeologists have concluded that self-domestication likely occurred during the Pleistocene, over 300,000 years ago. Using the fossil record to compare Homo sapiens to pre-sapiens ancestors, archaeologists observed many of the same telling phenotypic characteristics that emerge as a consequence of self-domestication in animals. These features include diminished sexual dimorphism, smaller tooth size, reduction of the cranium, and smaller body size. H. sapiens fossils also demonstrated the flattening of brow-ridge projection and shortening of faces.

	Reduced aggression	Reduced cranium and skull	White patches	Floppy ears	Flattened facial projection	Small teeth	Juvenility	Curly Tails
Cats	Y	Y	Y	N	Y		N	N
Dogs	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Bonobos	Y	Y	Y	N	Y	Y	Y	NA
Marmosets	Y	NA	Y	N	NA	NA	NA	NA
Humans	Y	Y	N	N	Y	Y	Y	NA

Reactive aggression

Richard Wrangham further built upon this body of research, addressing how bonobos and chimpanzees could elucidate development of aggression in humans. Academics have raised concerns with inconsistencies with the self-domestication hypothesis, pointing out that it isn't logical that humans could potentially be domesticated given the profundity of violent acts for which they are responsible. Reconciling this paradox, Wrangham posited that self-domestication is the outcome of two different kinds of aggression: proactive and reactive aggression.

Proactive aggression, which is commonly observed in chimpanzees, is defined as an attack that was planned, motivated by achieving an end goal. Generally, humans demonstrate lower aggression within groups. Reactive aggression, much more closely associated with anger, is characterized as an immediate response to a threat—the human equivalent being "bar fights". Aligned with the behavior of self-domesticated bonobos, humans do not have a high propensity for reactive aggression. This lends further evidence to supporting the self-domestication hypothesis, of which reduced reactive aggression is a central trait.

Population density hypothesis

The population density hypothesis attempts to explain the decreased reactive aggression that is observed in modern humans. During periods of high population density, higher tolerance of associates may be favored due to an increased reliance upon social networks for reliable access to otherwise limited, scarce resources like food. H. sapiens began to exhibit this higher degree of social tolerance approximately 300,000 years ago, which—if this hypothesis upholds—would be associated with a higher population size. However, recent genetic data has currently put this hypothesis to rest, as H. sapiens actually underwent a population decline about 200,000 years ago.

Language-based conspiracy

The language-based conspiracy provides a convincing argument—and is currently the best-supported theory—explaining why reactive aggression was selected against in modern humans, thereby resulting in self-domestication. H. sapiens are theorized to have developed an elegant propensity for language that surpassed its predecessors, including H. neanderthalensis. Enhanced linguistic ability would have allowed for greater suppression and control over a power-hungry member of early hunter-gatherer societies. Those who attempted to achieve dominance over others would be subject to capital punishment, which was facilitated by shared intentionality from others that was easily communicated through language. Language allowed subordinates to collaborate, coordinating plans to dampen the attempt at dominance by the instigator. Over time, this resulted in the selection against reactive aggression.

Theoretical criticism

The self-domestication hypothesis has been met with some degree of criticism. Some researchers have argued that the human brain is peramorphic, instead of paedomorphic. Wrangham puts forth that these arguments do not address the evolution of Homo sapiens from their most recent ancestor, instead focusing too heavily on a direct contrast between apes and humans.

Ecosystem health

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecosystem_health

Ecosystem health is a metaphor used to describe the condition of an ecosystem. Ecosystem condition can vary as a result of fire, flooding, drought, extinctions, invasive species, climate change, mining, fishing, farming or logging, chemical spills, and a host of other reasons. There is no universally accepted benchmark for a healthy ecosystem, rather the apparent health status of an ecosystem can vary depending upon which health metrics are employed in judging it and which societal aspirations are driving the assessment. Advocates of the health metaphor argue for its simplicity as a communication tool. "Policy-makers and the public need simple, understandable concepts like health." Some critics  worry that ecosystem health, a "value-laden construct", can be "passed off as science to unsuspecting policy makers and the public." However, this term is often used in portraying the state of ecosystems worldwide and in conservation and management. For example, scientific journals and the UN often use the terms planetary and ecosystem health, such as the recent journal The Lancet Planetary Health.

History of the concept

The health metaphor applied to the environment has been in use at least since the early 1800s and the great American conservationist Aldo Leopold (1887–1948) spoke metaphorically of land health, land sickness, mutilation, and violence when describing land use practices. The term "ecosystem management" has been in use at least since the 1950s. The term "ecosystem health" has become widespread in the ecological literature, as a general metaphor meaning something good, and as an environmental quality goal in field assessments of rivers, lakes, seas, and forests.

Recently however this metaphor has been subject of quantitative formulation using complex systems concepts such as criticality, meaning that a healthy ecosystem is in some sort of balance between adaptability (randomness) and robustness (order) . Nevertheless the universality of criticality is still under examination and is known as the Criticality Hypothesis, which states that systems in a dynamic regime shifting between order and disorder, attain the highest level of computational capabilities and achieve an optimal trade-off between robustness and flexibility. Recent results in cell and evolutionary biology, neuroscience and computer science have great interest in the criticality hypothesis, emphasizing its role as a viable candidate general law in the realm of adaptive complex systems.

Meaning

The term ecosystem health has been employed to embrace some suite of environmental goals deemed desirable. Edward Grumbine's highly cited paper "What is ecosystem management?" surveyed ecosystem management and ecosystem health literature and summarized frequently encountered goal statements:

• Conserving viable populations of native species
• Conserving ecosystem diversity
• Maintaining evolutionary and ecological processes
• Managing over long time frames to maintain evolutionary potential
• Accommodating human use and occupancy within these constraints

Grumbine describes each of these goals as a "value statement" and stresses the role of human values in setting ecosystem management goals.

It is the last goal mentioned in the survey, accommodating humans, that is most contentious. "We have observed that when groups of stakeholders work to define … visions, this leads to debate over whether to emphasize ecosystem health or human well-being … Whether the priority is ecosystems or people greatly influences stakeholders' assessment of desirable ecological and social states." and, for example, "For some, wolves are critical to ecosystem health and an essential part of nature, for others they are a symbol of government overreach threatening their livelihoods and cultural values."

Measuring ecosystem health requires extensive goal-driven environmental sampling. For example, a vision for ecosystem health of Lake Superior was developed by a public forum and a series of objectives were prepared for protection of habitat and maintenance of populations of some 70 indigenous fish species. A suite of 80 lake health indicators was developed for the Great Lakes Basin including monitoring native fish species, exotic species, water levels, phosphorus levels, toxic chemicals, phytoplankton, zooplankton, fish tissue contaminants, etc.

Some authors have attempted broad definitions of ecosystem health, such as benchmarking as healthy the historical ecosystem state "prior to the onset of anthropogenic stress." A difficulty is that the historical composition of many human-altered ecosystems is unknown or unknowable. Also, fossil and pollen records indicate that the species that occupy an ecosystem reshuffle through time, so it is difficult to identify one snapshot in time as optimum or "healthy." A commonly cited broad definition states that a healthy ecosystem has three attributes:

1. productivity,
2. resilience, and
3. "organization" (including biodiversity).

While this captures significant ecosystem properties, a generalization is elusive as those properties do not necessarily co-vary in nature. For example, there is not necessarily a clear or consistent relationship between productivity and species richness. Similarly, the relationship between resilience and diversity is complex, and ecosystem stability may depend upon one or a few species rather than overall diversity. And some undesirable ecosystems are highly productive.

"Resilience is not desirable per se. There can be highly resilient states of ecosystems which are very undesirable from some human perspectives , such as algal-dominated coral reefs." Ecological resilience is a "capacity" that varies depending upon which properties of the ecosystem are to be studied and depending upon what kinds of disturbances are considered and how they are to be quantified. Approaches to assessing it "face high uncertainties and still require a considerable amount of empirical and theoretical research."

Other authors have sought a numerical index of ecosystem health that would permit quantitative comparisons among ecosystems and within ecosystems over time. One such system employs ratings of the three properties mentioned above: Health = system vigor x system organization x system resilience. Ecologist Glenn Suter argues that such indices employ "nonsense units," the indices have "no meaning; they cannot be predicted, so they are not applicable to most regulatory problems; they have no diagnostic power; effects of one component are eclipsed by responses of other components, and the reason for a high or low index value is unknown."

Health indicators

Health metrics are determined by stakeholder goals, which drive ecosystem definition. An ecosystem is an abstraction. "Ecosystems cannot be identified or found in nature. Instead, they must be delimited by an observer. This can be done in many different ways for the same chunk of nature, depending on the specific perspectives of interest."

Ecosystem definition determines the acceptable range of variability (reference conditions) and determines measurement variables. The latter are used as indicators of ecosystem structure and function, and can be used as indicators of "health".

An indicator is a variable, such as a chemical or biological property, that when measured, is used to infer trends in another (unmeasured) environmental variable or cluster of unmeasured variables (the indicandum). For example, rising mortality rate of canaries in a coal mine is an indicator of rising carbon monoxide levels. Rising chlorophyll-a levels in a lake may signal eutrophication.

Ecosystem assessments employ two kinds of indicators, descriptive indicators and normative indicators. "Indicators can be used descriptively for a scientific purpose or normatively for a political purpose."

Used descriptively, high chlorophyll-a is an indicator of eutrophication, but it may also be used as an ecosystem health indicator. When used as a normative (health) indicator, it indicates a rank on a health scale, a rank that can vary widely depending on societal preferences as to what is desirable. A high chlorophyll-a level in a natural successional wetland might be viewed as healthy whereas a human-impacted wetland with the same indicator value may be judged unhealthy.

Estimation of ecosystem health has been criticized for intermingling the two types of environmental indicators. A health indicator is a normative indicator, and if conflated with descriptive indicators "implies that normative values can be measured objectively, which is certainly not true. Thus, implicit values are insinuated to the reader, a situation which has to be avoided."

The very act of selecting indicators of any kind is biased by the observer's perspective and separation of goals from descriptions has been advocated as a step toward transparency: "A separation of descriptive and normative indicators is essential from the perspective of the philosophy of science … Goals and values cannot be deduced directly from descriptions … a fact that is emphasized repeatedly in the literature of environmental ethics … Hence, we advise always specifying the definition of indicators and propose clearly distinguishing ecological indicators in science from policy indicators used for decision-making processes."

And integration of multiple, possibly conflicting, normative indicators into a single measure of "ecosystem health" is problematic. Using 56 indicators, "determining environmental status and assessing marine ecosystems health in an integrative way is still one of the grand challenges in marine ecosystems ecology, research and management"

Another issue with indicators is validity. Good indicators must have an independently validated high predictive value, that is high sensitivity (high probability of indicating a significant change in the indicandum) and high specificity (low probability of wrongly indicating a change). The reliability of various health metrics has been questioned and "what combination of measurements should be used to evaluate ecosystems is a matter of current scientific debate." Most attempts to identify ecological indicators have been correlative rather than derived from prospective testing of their predictive value and the selection process for many indicators has been based upon weak evidence or has been lacking in evidence.

In some cases no reliable indicators are known: "We found no examples of invertebrates successfully used in [forest] monitoring programs. Their richness and abundance ensure that they play significant roles in ecosystem function but thwart focus on a few key species." And, "Reviews of species-based monitoring approaches reveal that no single species, nor even a group of species, accurately reflects entire communities. Understanding the response of a single species may not provide reliable predictions about a group of species even when the group is comprised of a few very similar species."

Relationship to human health: the health paradox

A trade-off between human health and the "health" of nature has been termed the "health paradox" and it illuminates how human values drive perceptions of ecosystem health.

Human health has benefited by sacrificing the "health" of wild ecosystems, such as dismantling and damming of wild valleys, destruction of mosquito-bearing wetlands, diversion of water for irrigation, conversion of wilderness to farmland, timber removal, and extirpation of tigers, whales, ferrets, and wolves.

There has been an acrimonious schism among conservationists and resource managers over the question of whether to "ratchet back human domination of the biosphere" or whether to embrace it. These two perspectives have been characterized as utilitarian vs protectionist.

The utilitarian view treats human health and well-being as criteria of ecosystem health. For example, destruction of wetlands to control malaria mosquitoes "resulted in an improvement in ecosystem health." The protectionist view treats humans as an invasive species: "If there was ever a species that qualified as an invasive pest, it is Homo sapiens,"

Proponents of the utilitarian view argue that "healthy ecosystems are characterized by their capability to sustain healthy human populations," and "healthy ecosystems must be economically viable," as it is "unhealthy" ecosystems that are likely to result in increases in contamination, infectious diseases, fires, floods, crop failures and fishery collapse.

Protectionists argue that privileging of human health is a conflict of interest as humans have demolished massive numbers of ecosystems to maintain their welfare, also disease and parasitism are historically normal in pre-industrial nature. Diseases and parasites promote ecosystem functioning, driving biodiversity and productivity, and parasites may constitute a significant fraction of ecosystem biomass.

The very choice of the word "health" applied to ecology has been questioned as lacking in neutrality in a BioScience article on responsible use of scientific language: "Some conservationists fear that these terms could endorse human domination of the planet … and could exacerbate the shifting cognitive baseline whereby humans tend to become accustomed to new and often degraded ecosystems and thus forget the nature of the past."

Criticism of the concept and proposed alternatives

Criticism of ecosystem health largely targets the failure of proponents to explicitly distinguish the normative (policy preference) dimension from the descriptive (scientific information) dimension, and has included the following:

• Ecosystem health is in the eye of the beholder. It is an economic, political or ethical judgement rather than a scientific measure of environmental quality. Health ratings are shaped by the goals and preferences of environmental stakeholders. “There is no scientific basis for demarcating ecosystem health.”  "At the core of debates over the utility of ecosystem health is a struggle over which societal preferences will take precedence."
• Health is a metaphor, not a property of an ecosystem. Health is an abstraction. It implies "good", an optimum condition, but in nature ecosystems are ever-changing transitory assemblages with no identifiable optimum.
• Use of human health and well-being as a criterion of ecosystem health introduces an arrogance and a conflict of interest into environmental assessment, as human population growth has caused much environmental damage.
• Ecosystem health masquerades as an operational goal because environmental managers "may be reluctant to define their goals clearly."
• It is a vague concept. It is “undefinable in a rigorous sense and is, therefore, acceptable only as conveying a vague sense of well-being.”  "Currently there are many, often contradictory, definitions of ecosystem health," that "are open to so much abuse and misuse that they represent a threat to the environment."
• "There are in general no clear definitions of what proponents of the concept mean by 'ecosystem'."
• The public can be deceived by the term ecosystem health which may camouflage the ramifications of a policy goal and be employed to pejoratively rank policy choices. "The most pervasive misuse of ecosystem health and similar normative notions is insertion of personal values under the guise of 'scientific' impartiality."

Alternatives have been proposed for the term ecosystem health, including more neutral language such as ecosystem status, ecosystem prognosis, and ecosystem sustainability. Another alternative to the use of a health metaphor is to "express exactly and clearly the public policy and the management objective", to employ habitat descriptors and real properties of ecosystems. An example of a policy statement is "The maintenance of viable natural populations of wildlife and ecological functions always takes precedence over any human use of wildlife." An example of a goal is "Maintain viable populations of all native species in situ." An example of a management objective is "Maintain self-sustaining populations of lake whitefish within the range of abundance observed during 1990-99."

Kurt Jax presented an ecosystem assessment format that avoids imposing a preconceived notion of normality, that avoids the muddling of normative and descriptive, and that gives serious attention to ecosystem definition. (1) Societal purposes for the ecosystem are negotiated by stakeholders, (2) a functioning ecosystem is defined with emphasis on phenomena relevant to stakeholder goals, (3) benchmark reference conditions and permissible variation of the system are established, (4) measurement variables are chosen for use as indicators, and (5) the time scale and spatial scale of assessment are decided.

Related terms

Ecological health has been used as a medical term in reference to human allergy and multiple chemical sensitivity and as a public health term for programs to modify health risks (diabetes, obesity, smoking, etc.). Human health itself, when viewed in its broadest sense, is viewed as having ecological foundations. It is also an urban planning term in reference to "green" cities (composting, recycling), and has been used loosely with regard to various environmental issues, and as the condition of human-disturbed environmental sites. Ecosystem integrity implies a condition of an ecosystem exposed to a minimum of human influence. Ecohealth is the relationship of human health to the environment, including the effect of climate change, wars, food production, urbanization, and ecosystem structure and function. Ecosystem management and ecosystem-based management refer to the sustainable management of ecosystems and in some cases may employ the terms ecosystem health or ecosystem integrity as a goal. The practice of natural resource management has evolved as societal priorities have changed and, as a consequence, the working definition of ecosystem health, along with the overall management goals, have evolved as well.