| Adapted for the Internet from: Why God Doesn't Exist |
Summary
The extinction of the dinosaurs has been debated for nearly a century, but most popular theories
currently in vogue are relatively recent proposals. At the top of the list we have Alvarez's asteroid-impact
winter theory, which most people outside of Paleontology and perhaps a plurality of paleontologists
believe.
Raup reinforces this theory by pointing out that extinctions seem to be periodic. Dewey and Keller
suggest that volcanic activity could have just as well done the dinosaurs in over a period of a million
years, and that no extraterrestrial agents need be invoked. They argue that the volcano theory is more
consistent with the record. Lesser dino extinction theories include the ever popular climate and disease
theories, egg predation, and supernova. Bakker has blended the first two into a mechanism he believes
accounts for the disappearance of his favorite animals. Egg predation and extraterrestrial causes deserve
very little analysis beyond what is already in the popular literature. The result is that a lot of the funds of
Paleontology are being diverted to the investigation of this phenomenon. The question we must answer is
whether we will become extinct before the paleontologists solve the riddle.
Because extinction theories are accused of being tailored to specific cases, the proponents of
catastrophic extraterrestrial took their reasoning to a new (and predictable) plateau. The new paradigm is
that all extinctions were due to extraterrestrial impacts. It won't take long for this blood to reach the main-
stream, and it is just a question of time before everyone will be talking about the same red river. To peddle
ET theories, Paleontology enlisted a most trusted ally -- Astronomy -- and this is how the mathematicians
got their foot in the door and became part time paleontologists. The mathematicians are flattered, and now
we have more funds being diverted to this obviously lunatic venture. Extinction has slowly slipped away
from the hands of the people who went to college to study this subject, and it is now the mathematical
physicists who babble about dinosaurs.
Of course, if Man had been around in the Cretaceous, there would never have been an asteroid theory. All
recent extinctions are blamed on us. The older extinctions are due to comets. So what are the
anthropologists, paleontologists, and mathematical physicists still investigating if we know everything?
The only reason people still entertain the 'impact winter' theory is that we cannot 'prove' what happened
so long ago. Like with their counterparts of Anthropology, the paleontologists will continue to believe
their pet theories irrespective of the amount of evidence produced.
As happens always when theories outlive their natural life span, the proponents have to invent ever more
fantastic mechanisms to account for unexplained phenomena. The question all extinction theories alive
today have trouble answering is selectivity. How did the tiny animals get away with it? How did the
asteroid manage to kill T-Rex and Triceratops and leave the others to multiply? Ergo, the proponent
invents a far-fetched mechanism to dispose of the troublesome exception.
The reason all theories on the books fail is that they invoke extrinsic agents. Only an intrinsic agent
pertinent to all species of plants and animals irrespective of habitat can explain why they periodically go
extinct. This agent is aging. Species age as surely as an individual ages. It is the idiotic notion that
intraspecific competition oscillates back and forth around the carrying capacity forever that has blind-
sided the paleontologists to the real causes of extinction.
| An asteroid impact did NOT cause the extinction of the dinosaurs! |
- ________________________________________________________________________________________
- Last modified 03/01/08
- Copyright © by Nila Gaede 2008
Module main page: We are the last generation of humans on Earth!
This page: An asteroid did not cause the extinction of the dinosaurs
Pages in this module:
- 1. Benton: The history of extinction theories
2. Alvarez: How does an asteroid justify selectivity?
2 Raup and Sepkoski: Periodic extraterrestrial agents?
3. Dewey and Keller: Volcanic gases?
4. Bakker: Diseases came through a land bridge?
6. So then, how did the T-Rex disappear?
| Duck Bill ! |
| losing his head over a few dinos |
| A comet? No kidding? |