What killed the mammoths and other behemoths?

FR Post 6-6-2 | Interview with Ross MacPhee

[another cricket]

Uh, you do know who he was, don't you? Mind you, he could have been spinning a yarn but I doubt he would have put it in the offical report in that case. Big Business tends to have no sense of humor about such things.

Of course he could have made a mistake or the local tribe could have been pulling his leg.

a.cricket

[Kermit]

Hmmm, have you ever seen Gerold Nadler in the same room as Hussein Ibish? Would they fit in the same room?

[Carry_Okie]

Even if it were a disease, there's no evidence that humans introduced it.

Interesting article. Although I don't buy it all, there is reason to think that a human population chasing a food source whose population has been depleted by disease could easily extirpate a species. IOW, why not "All of the Above"?

All sorts of critters came over from Asia with humans. I am certain that not a few bore parasites. Birds would spread them fast (as they did Brucellosis (Lyme's disease) for example). That being true, however, one would think the worldwide distribution would have already been attained.

For the theory to hold, whatever family of pathogens MacPhee suspects must all be terribly lethal, but not lethal to birds or spread by birds, or insects that parasiticize birds (such as ticks and fleas), because they would have already been here. That is a pretty narrow band of possibile carriers but not out of the question (soft-tissue worms for example). One then wonders about the vector or transmission mechanism and how it could have been so efficient and whether looking in bone marrow will yield anything.

Still, an interesting article and a thought provoking and possibly useful hypothesis.

[RightWhale]

Never heard of him. Let me guess. Hudson Bay Company.

[SERE_DOC]

Socialism, brought on by the queen mother of all sloths....

Hillary,

IMHO, just a guess.

[Carry_Okie]

This one is for fun.

[Stavka2]

So let me get this straight...this disease could jump across so many species as to wipe out Mammoth, Wolly Rhinos, Giant Sloths, Saber Tooth Tigers, Dire Wolves, Mega Elk...but their cousins, smaller elk, mountain lions, wolves and elephants did not die out? How is this possible? If this disease is so deadly and jumps animal families so easily, why wipe out the big ones and not the little cousins?

[Junior]

Over 100 specie of flora and fauna go extinct everyday.

And the empirical evidence for this is? The "100 species go extinct per day" claim was an off-the-cuff comment by some environmentalist whacko back in the '70s that has been taken as gospel by an credulous media ever since. Truth be told, there is no way to determine the number of species that may go extinct at any given time, and the 100-per-day claim means that 36,500 species go extinct each year (36,600 each leap year). There are between 1 million and 4 million species extent on the Earth right now. If the claims of the whackos were correct, in the last 30 years (since the claim was first made) somewhere between 25 percent to 100 percent of all species on the planet would now be extinct -- this is something not supported by the empirical evidence.

[Black Agnes]

I meant 'early' Spaniards. The pox plague that killed most of the indigenous people of Mexico occurred around 1500-1515 or so. Way before any real exploration of the continental US.

[AndrewC]

If the claims of the whackos were correct, in the last 30 years (since the claim was first made) somewhere between 25 percent to 100 percent of all species on the planet would now be extinct -- this is something not supported by the empirical evidence.

Well, "Howdy Doody", I guess that means that speciation is not happening to replenish the losses. Darwin would be unhappy about that empirical evidence.

[Liberal Classic]

A plague? Wow, I was always taught that we humans were the plague that wiped out the mammoths. :P

[Junior]

You are a master at reading that which is not there. Speciation, as has been stated before on these threads (though I don't expect you'd admit to seeing such) does not occur overnight -- and would therefore be incapable of keeping up with the supposed level of extinction referred to by Miss Barbara.

[gilor]

It was probably the Gun Show Loophole that did them in! IMO

[Ahban]

What caused the extinctions? The Flood is my guess. DNA tests show that the people that were in North America 13,000 years ago are not related to American Indians. They were wiped out too. The species that were not wiped out were Old World Species that came over and re-populated after the Flood. Examples :the Moose and Musk Ox (and man). Other suriveors included species that lived high in the Andes mountains like the Llama. Every place man lived was wiped out, along with every ground-dwelling species that lived there.

[AndrewC]

and would therefore be incapable of keeping up with the supposed level of extinction referred to by Miss Barbara.

Please enlighten us on the empirical evidence, i.e. the numbers to establish the facts one way or the other. Extinction, except in rare cases, does not occur overnight either.

[AndrewC]

You are a master at reading that which is not there.

I find that rather ironic considering the source, a Darwinian - who are champions of the just so stories.

[another cricket]

Correct. Professional Explorer to be exact. I always thought that had to be the coolest profession.

a.cricket

[Junior]

Extinction, except in rare cases, does not occur overnight either.

Which is exactly what I said in response to Miss Barbara's claim that 100 species go extinct daily. Are you having problems following the discussion, or do you like to argue with evolutionists for the sake of arguing with them?

[AndrewC]

Which is exactly what I said in response to Miss Barbara's claim that 100 species go extinct daily.

No it isn't. You made no claim other than that empirical evidence, whatever you mean by that, does not support 100 species per day loss. I do not put any particular credence to that number as it is unsubstantiated and thus to be considered in the same light as many Darwinians claims. However, the fact is that " overnight" and "100 losses per day" are not the same. In light of the definitions used by Darwinians to justify speciation, it is not difficult to imagine the production of the required numbers hourly.

[RightWhale]

I guessed Hudson Bay Company because they were trapping all over the wilds of Canada trying to exterminate the beaver in those days and on into Alaska as well even though Alaska was Russian territory then. Fort Yukon was a Hudson Bay Company outpost on Russian territory, and the Russians didn't care since the Czar didn't venture far inland.