: I remember viewing in a post a while down that 99% of the species to live on this planet were instinct, with an implication that it should be of great concern to me.UH yeah that was me, but I don't recall implying that this should be of great concern. Actually what I said was, that I am very at peace with this belief. Projecting?
: Well I suppose on the face of it that seems forceful..
: but is it really?
In what context?
: One must question oneself: "Have those 99% of species been around on this planet since the first life form appeared?" No. They came later... and thousands of them died (read: went EXTINCT) before our earliest human ancestors ever sprang forth from the fray. We've occupied this planet for only a very short part of its history, and only until VERY recently have we become so effecient at destroying it that we pose any threat to it on a global scale at all.
: So even if it is an empirical fact that 99% of species which once existed on this planet are gone, you still won't find me caring. I'm not taking the blame for the comet that killed most plant and animal life 65 million years ago... (a large chunk of the extinction percentage, I'll wager) and the claim that I should be feel guilty or even concerned about (with the 99% anecdote) is both laughable and annoying.
: 99% huh? Yawn.
: - C.
Hush little baby go to sleep, yawn yawn yawn. Like I always say, don't take my word for it, do your own research. Some of the strange species from before will be interesting enough to keep your yawning at bay, I hope. I myself first heard the 99% estimate in a book titled Origins Reconsidered by Richard Leakey and Roger Lewin (both world renowned and highly respected)It was stated in this book that there have been about 5 mass extinctions which seem to have occured approximently every 26 million years, dinosaur age being the most famous, occuring for various reasons. Try a search on mass extinction for a start.
Certainly you should not annoy yourself for misinterpreting my posts. I feel sure that no one would ever expect you to take the rap for any mass extinctions. What I thought I was saying in that posting was that this is not an unusual thing, these mass extinctions. It is seemingly bound to happen anyway, we are just speeding up the process quite a bit. At any rate we have a good chance of living our full spans, for whatever that is worth in light of the "world today".
None.
