| 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? |
