Re: Rumors of mass extinctions greatly exaggerated?

From: Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Date: Sun Nov 18 2001 - 07:14:28 MST


Damien Broderick wrote:
>
> http://www.spacedaily.com/news/life-01zp.html
>
> Mass Extinctions May Be A Myth, Claim Scientists
>
> London - Nov 13, 2001
>
> Catastrophic mass extinctions, such as the one that saw the demise of the
> dinosaurs,could be a myth according to the findings of recent research into
> 100 million-year-old marine fossils.

Sounds to me like another case of a press release getting the research
wrong. The 65M B.C. asteroid extinction event is not being questioned.
An extinction event previously placed at 100M B.C. is being questioned.

> "Based on the fossil evidence we have analysed, we believe that there was no
> mass extinction 100 million years ago, as previously thought," concludes
> Professor Gale.
>
> "It is also probable that many of the other mass extinctions that were
> thought to have taken place during the history of life on Earth either did
> not happen or have been greatly exaggerated."

-- -- -- -- --
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/
Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence



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