Sudden Mass Extinction Event Discovery

Sleen writes: "A new study that will appear in today's issue of the journal Science reports that the mass extinction event that preceded the age of the dinosaurs was much more sudden than expected. This article has some preliminary details. The dinosaurs actually survived this event and went on to be quite successful. But the small mammal-like reptiles did not. At this point they don't know if this cataclysm was caused by an asteroid, like in the case of 65mya at the KT boundary, or if it was caused by excessive volcanism. In the case of the dinosaur extinctions, they were on their way down when the asteroid hit, perhaps being the last straw. But this earlier event that somehow wiped out up to 80% of life on earth didn't kill them off. Interesting..."

Comments

The Big Picture

[bitva]

This really puts into perspective just how fast we could be wiped off this place. And how silly things like money, violence and buffer overflows really are.

evolution

[boarder]

You know... this is one of the things that has always boggled my mind. If it weren't for this mass extinction, then dinosaurs might not have continued. If they hadn't continued and the other small mammal-like reptiles had, would humans have evolved? All of these extremely random occurances that had to happen for us to come about as we are today, happened. That is interesting in and of itself. Some other thought exercises for you:

On another Earth-like planet where things developed just like here, if that extinction doesn't occur will these mammal-like reptiles develop intelligence and rule and populate their solar system? e.g. Divergent Evolution.

Or will natural selection and stuff still produce mammals that become similar to us eventually taking over despite the dominant reptiles? e.g. Convergent Evolution

Would we as humans still evolved if this extinction hadn't occured?

Are these kinds of random occurances NECESSARY to create intelligent life in the universe? If so, there may be much less life out there than I previously thought. I have always thought that even if our solar system is one in a billion able to support life, then there are still billions of galaxies with a billion stars. Therefore there must be other intelligent life out there. If something like this had to occur to create us, maybe the odds aren't so good.

Suppose there is a God or super-intelligent alien race watching over the universe. What if He/They saw that these mammal-like reptiles were poised to take over the planet and create intelligence, but they didn't like their specific personality traits. Would they create this mass extinction to save the universe from a violent species?

I love thinking about fun stuff like this. I'm sure much smarter people than me can come up with much better questions, but you can start really opening up areas of conversation with this.

Re:evolution

[JoeGee]

Does intelligence require a mammalian brain? Octopii might beg to differ. Who knows where reptilian intelligence might have gone had the KT impact not occured?

We are endothermic, we are quick in body and mind, but this does not mean that we are the only answer to the question "what kind of biology is required for sentiency?"

The only answer we have is "human", but we see hints in the world around us that many different forms can acquire insightful intelligence, so it may be premature (and very Gene Roddenberry) to assume that only humanoids can be sentient. :)

Re:evolution

[PD]

The fact that the random events unfolded in an unlikely sequence that led to homo sapiens does not imply divine intervention. If we weren't here, something else would be here, probably marveling at how unlikely their existence was.

After all, it's pretty unlikely that an individual person will win the lottery, but somehow, it happens quite frequently. Did god guide the numbers? After all, just one number different and the winner wouldn't have won at all.

Re:evolution

[JoeGee]

As I recall the dictum in the series Roddenberry oversaw, the original Trek, as well as NexGen was "no nonhumanoid regulars". This may have been due to budgetary concerns, but as I recall Roddenberry made this decision so that his viewing audience would not find aliens "too alien." In any case, the regular races are all bilaterally symmetrical bipeds.

Xelatians might be an exception, but we never see them out of their environment suits. The acidic carpet, the Horta from "Devil in the Dark", like the Tholians, was a one-shot. We seldom saw Odo in his non-solid guise, and the Chameloid from the "Undiscovered Country" was remarkably humanoid in every form it took.

My point is that we cannot make the assumption that the Star Trek panoply of aliens is what awaits us in space. If we run into bilaterally symmetric bipeds with the frequency of the denizens of the Trek universe, then something about our universe is really wierd.

Even within our own biosphere two rear or lower appendages, two upper or forward appendages, ten fingers, ten toes, a distinct head, two eyes, two nostrils, and a horizontally-opening mouth is not the most common configuration.

By sheer volume of biomass -- or even of species -- six-legged multi-eyed endothermic animals with exoskeletons are much more common than vertibrates with human-like features.

Re:Maybe the extinction was caused...

[Teun]

Surely we would have found the Coke cans and assiociated trash as witnesses.....

NYTimes coverage

[jeffsenter]

Here is the NYTimes article

Re:Maybe the extinction was caused...

[SIGFPE]

Do you think Coke cans might last 200,000,000 years? I'm fairly sure there'd be little trace after 2,000 years and certainly no trace after 20,000. Maybe nuclear waste might be detectable...
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