Re: "But What About The..." arguments (long!)

[John Bois <jbois@umd5.umd.edu>]

On Tue, 4 Jun 2002, philidor11 wrote:

>> <I do think that when there's that huge impact, there should be a huge
>> catastrophic mass extinction. Such a mass extinction is present. So it
>> should IMNSHO be the null hypothesis that everything that dies out then
does
>> so because of the impact, and the burden of proof is on those that want
to
>> take something out of this picture, as HP John Bois apparently tries
to.>

> Your hypothesis might be restated as:  nothing but the bolide caused the KT
> extinctions.  If any factor other than the bolide produced a substantial
> portion of the extinctions, then your hypothesis would be falsified.

Things the bolide "null" hypothesis has yet to refute: Neornithine birds
outcompeted enantiornithine birds; marsupial extinctions were due to
competition/predation from eutherian invaders; pterosaurs were barely
hanging on (i.e., diversity was lowest ever _before_ K/T); marine
extinctions happened at a different time from terrestrial
extinctions; some non-avian dinosaurs lived past the K/T and should have
had to re-establish populations.  I'm sure there are others.