Elizabeth Kolbert
1961 - Present
The Sixth Extinction
There have been five times in the history of life on earth when over 50% of all living species have gone extinct over a relatively short period of time—evolutionarily speaking. The most recent was about 66 million years ago when a bolide collided with Earth in the Yucatan Peninsula and wiped out the dinosaurs and most other species.
Elizabeth Kolbert, in her book The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, argues that we are probably in the midst of a sixth extinction now. If so, what does that mean for the future of Homo sapiens? What about other catastrophes such as a massive volcano or a nuclear holocaust? Do these simply wipe out today's humans—never to return again; or is this a possible pathway to our successor species?
Click on links to other players in my journey below.
Ardi * Aubrey de Grey * Bill Joy * C. Owen Lovejoy * Carl Linneaus * Charles Darwin * CRISPR *
Daniel E. Koshland, Jr * Elizabeth Kolbert * Ernst Mayr * Eugene E. Harris * Gregor Mendel * Henry Markram *
Ian Tattersall * Jean-Baptiste Lamarck * John Markoff * Katherine Pollard * Kevin de Queiroz * Lucy *
McBrearty and Brooks * Miguel Nicolelis * Paul Allen * Paul Berg * R.A.Fisher * Scott Blois * Singularity *
Stephen Jay Gould * Svante Pååbo * Sydney Brenner * Terry Sejnowski * Theodosius Dobzhansky *