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Dear colleagues: I believe paleontologists are in a curious position when it comes to discussing the present crisis in biodiversity as a mass-extinction event. First, it is no doubt absolutely true that a lot of extinction is now taking place without humankind's having caused it. [The black-footed ferret may be an example. Although the prairie-dog-town habitat has been cut back sharply, the ferrets seem to be doing poorly even where the habit is undisturbed and extensive. I don't actually know any of this, of course, but mammalogist friends have assured me that it is true.] In spite of the fact that some nonanthropogenic extinction is taking place, we know the cause of the present crisis, if not the cause of some of the individual extinctions. The crisis is caused by one species, and if Homo sapiens were to disappear from the earth tomorrow, things would start getting better on Wednesday. Regarding ancient extinctions, we are still arguing whether some of them took place, and we are a long way from settling on a cause for all but one or two mass-extinction events. This makes very hollow the plea to granting agencies we sometimes hear--that we have to understand the Frasnian-Famennian (or other) crisis in order really to understand what is happening in the modern world. It just isn't so. Second, everyone agrees that the crisis in biodiversity in the modern world is a bad turn of events--one that ought to be stopped and reversed if possible. The message from paleontology, however, is that mass extinction has been a good thing--or at the very worst a neutral thing. We hear that perhaps 95 percent of the marine species went extinct at the end of the Permian. The extinction cleared space for the Modern Evolutionary Fauna. We lost the dinosaurs (except for the birds) at the end of the Cretaceous, an event that cleared space for the rise of the mammals and the birds. Who regrets their extinction, considering the probably consequences of the alternative for the rise of the mammals? In the sea we lost the ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, and mosasaurs. Would we have dolphins and whales if these reptilian sea monsters were still around? I doubt it. I am not suggesting that the modern crisis in biodiversity is a good thing. I do suggest, however, that in the far, far future a surviving sapient species, if any, viewing the event a posteriori, would be glad the extinction happened if it cleared space and facilitated their evolution. How do we carry this message to the public and the granting agencies without sounding like a bunch of dedicated rednecks? Best wishes, Roger -- Roger L. Kaesler Paleontological Institute The University of Kansas 121 Lindley Hall Lawrence, Kansas 66045-2911 (913) 864-3338 = telephone (913) 864-5276 = FAX It is our job as editors to find meaning where none was intended.
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