"The Sixth Extinction" Chapter 2- Matthew Batista

In chapter 2, Kolbert dives into the idea of extinction more deeply and she looks at the origin of the word. She introduces a very interesting concept where “... children still in diapers can explain that there were once lots of kinds of dinosaurs and that they died off long ago”(23). We’re exposed to the idea of extinction at a very young age and such a complex topic seems simple. However, this wasn’t always the case and before scientist didn’t acknowledge that there was life before humans. To continue, the topic of extinct animals then transitions into Carl Linnaeus's introduction of binomial nomenclature. This system was used to classify animals into different species but there was no distinction between the living and dead because he believed that the only kind of animals were “those that exist”(23). The book then transitions into the discover of American mastodon bones by Charles le Moyne. The bones were presented to Louis XV and were later examined over and over again to figure out what the bones belonged to. Louis-Jean thought they may have been from two separate animals and Georges-Louis proposed that it may have been three animals. This was because at the time they couldn't comprehend that there are more species of animals that weren’t around anymore. 

It wasn’t until George Cuvier concluded the fossils they found “belonged to another species entirely”(29). This was the start to the idea of extinction and as more mysterious bones appeared, Cuvier discovered that there was a whole lost world of species. Cuvier did not stop here and he tried to understand how these species went extinct. Kolbert explains how fossils of the American mastodon shaped Georges Cuvier’s views on catastrophism. According to Cuvier, there was no reason the mastodon should have died out. The mastodon was large enough to avoid predators and had large enough teeth to consume an abrasive diet. Due to this, Cuvier concluded there must have been various sudden and violent natural catastrophes that caused mass extinctions. The discovery of extinction by Cuvier connects to the theme of  “Science is a process.” Cuvier didn’t just come up with the idea of extinction overnight. He had to look at the anatomy of animals and he followed a trial and error procedure. Before Cuvier, the concept of extinction didn’t exist. However, with the use of anatomy and going through various fossils, it was discovered that there are millions of species that existed before humans. When extinction comes to mind, I automatically think about where technology is going. The question of is it ethical to bring back extinct species comes to mind. Many people believe that in bringing back extinct species you’re playing God. It’s crazy to think that at one point we didn’t even know species before we existed and now we’ve made it far enough to bring them back.