Sheldon? Is that you?
Nonsense, unless you consider all of science "story telling".
In fact, Paleontology is as much science -- natural-science -- as is geology, biology, astronomy or any other earth science.
captain_dave: "There is no way we can know why a species died off millions of years ago, or even hundreds of years ago.
The only thing for certain these people can tell you is that fossils of a creature of a size and shape where found in a certain rock layer assumed to be of a certain age."
No, not "assumed", found to be of a certain age based on many different quantitative methods, including dozens of different radiometric dating techniques, plus comparisons with other examples of known ages.
As for the "whys" of extinctions, obviously we're talking about educated guess-work here, meaning scientific hypotheses which can be tested against known and future discovered data.
In this particular example, they're only saying data supports more that megalodon died out from changing prey & predators than from effects of globull warming.
That's an interesting hypothesis, we'll see how well it stands the tests of time.
So, call that "story telling" if you wish, but it is based on careful evaluation of evidence, and can be falsified by future evidence.
That makes it science.
Riiiight, and there’s never been any other isotope decay rates applied to geology. We just have no idea how anything happens without carbon involved!