That which submits rules. - Frank Herbert

This moment here is the only observable time and place for us in our universe.

Providence and Manifest Destiny are synonyms often invoked to support arguments based on wishful thinking.

The thing the ecologically illiterate don't realise about an ecosystem is that it's a system. A system! A system maintains a certain fluid stability that can be destroyed by a misstep in just one niche. A system has order, flowing from point to point. If something dams that flow, order collapses. The untrained might miss that collapse until it was too late. That's why the highest function of ecology is the understanding of consequences.