The Sixth Extinction: Chapter 2

In chapter 2, Elizabeth Kolbert takes the time to explain the complexity of the theory of extinction. This theory is widely accepted today and is seen with much simplicity, but in reality, how it came to be is far more complicated and absurd. To my surprise, this is a modern discovery since many past philosophists didn't consider the idea, such as Aristotle in his book of the history of animals. This all began with the discovery of fossils of the Mammut Americanum, by Charles Le Moyne in Ohio, and then was shipped to France. The fossil quickly became a phenomenon and was rumored to be the ones of a giant. Many scientists studied the fossil and came up with various theories. The first was that the fossil belonged to two species, followed by a theory that it belonged to an unknown new animal, followed by several other theories including one from the former president Jefferson who believed that it was a very large animal which was still around in the discovered parts of America. None of these theories were as right as the ones from Georges Cuvier, who studied the fossils, was able to conclude with the hypothesis of extinction. His theory was simple, the fossil belonged to a species that existed some time long ago but was killed off by a natural disaster. Despite being right on the nose on what happened to this long lost animal, many found this theory hard to accept. Through other philosophical findings, such as the ichthyosaur fossil, it became clear that Cuvier was right, many species existed long ago that don't anymore and that's called extinction. Through this extinction became widely accepted and today it’s even exposed to children. This chapter also touches on the theory of evolution, I wonder how scientists determine whether an animal is extinct or if it has just evolved into something so different that it only keeps a few traits inherited from its past state? 

Throughout this chapter, there is the repetition of the idea that science is a process to learn more about the world meaning that the way we see the world is always changing. This is shown when "Cuvier's most wild-sounding claims turned out to be surprisingly accurate." (Kolbert 45) This statement goes to say that even the wildest thoughts that people critic for seeming impossible can be proven correct and as these theories develop also does everything we though we knew about the world. I was awed by this idea because it means that everything we know may not be true and what today we see as impossible can be tomorrow. I wonder what theories we commonly see in movies could be possible in the future?