The Sixth Extinction Chapter 5 - Elyonni Tordesillas

      Kolbert starts chapter 5 by introducing the ideas of Thomas Kuhn, the science historian who first proposed the concept of the “paradigm shift.” In 1949, there was a famous experiment in which students were asked to name a series of playing cards as the experimenters flipped them face-up. Some of the cards had been doctored—for example, there was a red six of spades (instead of the usual black card). When experimenters showed the cards quickly, students misread the cards; when they showed the cards more slowly, students were more likely to recognize their mistakes. The experiment proved to be an important influence on the thinking of Kuhn. Kuhn argued that, throughout history, humans are forced to adapt to changing environments. At first, they try to respond to their new environment using the same strategies and coping mechanisms they’ve already learned. But eventually, humans learn new strategies for living in their new environment, a new “paradigm” for survival. Kuhn's ideas about paradigm shift's were a good lens to use to study the history of evolutionary science. Elizabeth Kolbert states "The history of the science of extinction can be told as a series of paradigm." Essentially, what she is saying is how over the course of history different species are able to survive due to their ability to adapt. When scientists studied the first fossils, they tried to argue that these fossils belonged to living species. It took Cuvier to introduce the new paradigm: some animals go extinct. It took the Alvarezes, with their theory of an asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs, to introduce the new paradigm of mass-extinction. Today, most scientists believe that species usually go extinct gradually, except when there’s a sudden, catastrophic event, in which case many species go extinct very quickly.