if a kill a butterfly in the past would it affect the future in any way shape or form and can travel in the past and

Question: if a kill a butterfly in the past would it affect the future in any way shape or form and can travel in the past and will they be waiting for you
- Keywords:
  butterfly,
  death,
  future,
  kill,
  shape,
  travel
Asked by meatsword to Mike, Pip, Tianfu, Tim, Tom on 23 Jun 2012.
- Tim Stephens answered on 23 Jun 2012:
  
  I don’t imagine that killing one butterfly would affect the future in any measurable way, since there are generally lots of them around. Perhaps if you killed a rare one, then you might contribute to that species dying out. It is a pretty mean thing to do.
- Tom Lister answered on 25 Jun 2012:
  
  So, when you killed that butterfly, a sparrow that would otherwise have eaten it actually died of hunger. A buzzard that would have been flying around came down and fed on the dead bird and when it was taking off again, was struck by an arrow. This arrow, destined for King Harold, remained in the bird and the Saxons won the Battle of Hastings. Now, we would all be speaking something that sounds a bit like Welsh or Gaelic.
  
  Or the Normans would tried again the next year.
  
  Pretty unlikely though…
- Philippa Bird answered on 25 Jun 2012:
  
  Some people think that every time a situation could go one of several ways “another world” splits off and both worlds carry on their seperate paths (sort of like in the Philip Pullman books). So maybe you would live an entirely different life as a result of killing that butterfly.
  Walt Disney killed an owl when he was a kid and he felt so sorry he made all his animal movies in penitance!