Ever been any natural extinctions:Was Selective preservation of species

[Paul Cherubini]

My last post attempt got chopped off so I hope it works this time.

Neil Jones wrote:

> It is frequently cited that extinction is a natural process. (This is
> usually done by the opponents of conservation.) However, in
> reality surely the level of natural extinctions is utterly minuscule
> when compared to those which are "man-made".

I guess that depends on the time frame we are talking about.
Take a look at this vegetation and glacial coverage map of Europe.
http://www.saber.net/~monarch/europe18K.JPG 
It doesn't appear that many butterflies could have existed
in England just 10,000 - 20,000 years ago.

According to archaeologist Donald Grayson, one of the reasons
people tend to embrace "man-made" vs natural causes of
extinction (at least in the case of large mammals) has to do 
with "green politics" as explained below:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/11/1112_overkill.html

A renewed assault is being made on the popular idea that the
mass extinction of large mammals in North America around
10,500 years ago was the result of human hunting.

The overkill hypothesis was first put forward more than a
century ago and has been widely accepted for the past 30
years. But it does not square with the known facts and has
become more a faith-based credo than good science, said
Donald Grayson, an archaeologist at the University of Washington.

"One of the reasons people have glommed on to the overkill
hypothesis is 'green' politics," said Grayson. "It plays to the
Judeo-Christian theme that human beings are all-powerful
and responsible for negative impacts on the environment.

Paul Cherubini

 
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