The USDA Forest Service is proposing widespread forest thinning on our public lands across the West in a misguided attempt to reduce the impact of drought, fire, and insects (see National Forest Restoration Projects, Sierra Nevada National Forest Land Management Plan Revisions, news articles). These logging schemes are the latest in a series of Forest Service attempts to chainsaw their way out of a perceived problem. However, forests in the western United States have evolved to naturally self-thin uncompetitive trees through forest fires, insects, or disease. Forest fires and other disturbances are natural elements of healthy, dynamic forest ecosystems, and have been for millennia. These processes cull the weak and make room for the continued growth and reproduction of stronger, climate-adapted trees. Remaining live trees are genetically adapted to survive the new climate conditions and their offspring are also more climate-adapted, resistant, and resilient than the trees that perished. Without genetic testing of every tree in the forest, indiscriminate thinning will remove many of the trees that are intrinsically the best-adapted to naturally survive drought, fire, and insects.