The great end of Permian extinction

It seems that global catastrophes and the ensuing mass extinction of all manner of life-forms, asteroid impacts and Dinosaurs immediately come to mind, were made for Popular Science.  Even Hollywood is in on the act.  Perhaps it’s because, in the telling, they appeal to some innate sense of nihilism, a bit like the existential threats that politicians trot out from time to time.

A recent scientific paper by Steven Stanley published by the US National Academy of Sciences, provides some good news on this score; past estimates of life forms snuffed out by such global events, have been exaggerated.  Stanley’s reassessment accounts for the fact that extinctions are taking place all the time, in the background, and that these individual, long-term biotic events need to be subtracted from the total species loss resulting from some catastrophe.  Continue reading →