Re: Extinction (was Jurassic Intelligence)

[Phillip Bigelow <n8010095@henson.cc.wwu.edu>]

Peter, you wrote:
>Dave Jablonski's work has clearly shown that the most important factor 
>during the various extinction events has been wide geographic distribution..

Sounds good to me.  But, having not read the paper in question yet, I can only
guess that Jablonski put a very high "weight" on the environment, itself,
moreso than did my little list, which places more weight on the responsibility 
of the *organism* to resist the environment. Two sides of the same coin. 
  Ok, so there is a 5th rule I have to add... :-)

This begs a question, however: 
  If "wide geographic distribution" =~ survival (or better odds of it), then 
doesn't this argue *against* world-wide catastrophism in most big 
extinctions?  It seems to me that wide geographic distribution, (particularly
if the entire world population is not *isolated*), would be *particularly* 
sensitive to catastrophic causes (almost by definition...if "catastrophism" is
used in it's most common meaning).  Besides, didn't a lot of cosmopolitan
Cretaceous marine nannofossils bite the dust at the K/T boundary?  Now I am
getting confused......
   Interesting thing, this extinction business.  Part crap-shoot, part
by-design.  I'd better read Jablonski.
                                       phil