Wikipedia:Talk:Holocene extinction

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Holocene extinction event/Archive 1

Contents 1 Overhunting 2 Split: New World Pleistocene Extinction 3 blog speculations 4 Name 5 Possible errors? 6 Lack of citations and bias 7 Anthropocene extinction event redirect and renaming of this article 8 Anthropocene extinction section 9 Proposal to merge Quaternary Extinction Event here 10 Recent IP edits

Overhunting

Why does it read like overhunting hypothesis advocates wrote the "objections to overhunting" section? Every single point, except the last one mentioning that the Clovis hunter as the first North American humans is controversial, has a long (most cases, longer) section rebutting the objection. There's a huge POV bias. Couldn't the objection-handling statements be given their own list under it (and maybe shortened a little?). It's annoyingly didactic to read the way it is. 69.94.192.147 (talk) 13:19, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Icaruspassion (talk) 06:09, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

I added the refimprovesect template to the "Ongoing Holocene Extinction" section. As a specific example, the statement, "Most biologists believe that we are at this moment at the beginning of a tremendously accelerated anthropogenic mass extinctions," is overly broad. However, if is true, it needs a reference.

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Should that list be sticking to genera (rather than specific species)? Also - is that "39 genera of mammalian megafauna" accurate? Or is this number possibly just for North America?

Also, why are we including only mammals? The teratorn birds appeared to be Holocene extinction victims also, even if they're also described in extinct birds.

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Copied from extinction event:

Some people claim that we are living in the middle of another, man-made extinction event right now. However, humanity's effects are trivia compared with the extinction events shown in the fossil record.

Is that a fact? I've seen estimates on damage that are comparable to the smaller or intermediate sized mass extinctions, if nothing like the boundaries that end the Mesozoic and Palaeozoic eras.

If those are the same estimates that I've seen -- that something like 50,000 species a year are dying out -- they are not particularly reliable. The ones I've seen have all been created by organizations like the Sierra Club and people like Al Gore and Paul Ehrlich who have large, flaming political agenda that such figures are constructed to support. Over the past 500 years, almost 90 per cent of the forest along the Atlantic coast of Brazil has been cleared. However, no one has found a single known species that could be declared extinct. According to the "mass extinction" figures, about half the known species in that Brazilian forest should have been lost.

But if you can cite figures commonly accepted by paleontologists -- figures that, say, appeared in a peer-reviewed journal -- feel free to enter them! --The Epopt

Do a search for something like "current mass extinction" in google, and you will find a great number of hits, including articles in Nature and Science. It looks to me like the mass extinction view is closer to a consensus than to a minority of politically motivated views. At the very least there is enough here to remove the sentence from the article, which I'm doing.

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This is obviously a controversial topic -- there is nothing like "consensus" in the scientific community -- and I am strongly on the side that says calling what's happening at present an "extinction event" to be listed with the Permian-Triassic extinction event is like calling a domestic quarrel a genocidal holocaust. It's bad, and should be stopped, but blowing it out of proportion is ludicrous. I will fully support and cooperate with presenting both sides of this issue, but please don't try to make it sound like "everyone (who is a true scientist) knows that we're murdering Mother Gaia."

I said that it would be more accurate to say it is a consensus (why quotation marks?) then to pretend the data uncontroversially indicated the converse, as was done, not that it would be entirely accurate. We have had entire families of organisms (not mammals, things like molluscs) mostly depopulated over large areas if not actually rendered extinct, but I'm not interested in debating the point. Simply note that I never said we should make it sound anything like your terrible strawman, I simply said the partisan statement should be removed.

Point taken. I am over-sensitive on this point, and I apologize for my stridency.

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Can someone clarify what the rate of extinction needs to be in order to be comparable to something like the Permian-Triassic extinction event? That event, according to the article, lasted on the order of 900,000 years (give or take 600,000 years), with some 70-85% of species dying out. Assuming there were something like 10 million (wild guess!) species at the time, this is an extinction rate of between 4 and 29 species a year, on average. This seems so low that it would barely be detectable if you were in the middle of it. --Zundark, 2001 Nov 29

Your wild guess is right on the money. About one million species of animals have been described. (86% are insects, including about 300,000 species of beetles.) Some biologists estimate that up to 50 million more remain to be discovered. Most estimates put the number of plant species at somewhere between 10 million and 30 million, with tentative consensus around 14 million. I have no idea how many more plants they think have not been found yet. So your point is very well-made -- if humanity continues its current rate of eliminating species for another million years or so, we will be as bad as whatever clobbered Earth at the end of the Permian.

Though this is a case of the apparent support for one side being rather more destructive of the argument than helpful :) A million years at our current pace...wow, I'd never have guessed. I plan on filing this away in my cranium for future (currently vague) use. Probably "Want to know how bad the Permian extinction was" not "We humans aren't so bad", though.

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I removed

• the Dodo
• the Great Auk

from the list of Holocene extinction victims only because they are already included under extinct birds.

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So far as extinction of megafauna is concerned, the climate change hypothesis is becoming less and less tenable as time goes by. It's not too difficult to make a reasonable case for climate change as the primary factor if you look at any particular instance, but looked at as a whole, it doesn't make sense.

• Almost all the American megafauna went extinct about 13,000 years ago, three others survived perhaps a couple of thousand years longer.
• The Australian megafauna, on the other hand, didn't survive anything like that long: there are still nagging issues with claimed exceptions here and there (as there always are in issues of this kind) but the weight of evidence decisively favours an extinction date of ~ 50,000 years ago.
• New Zealand megafauna, on the other hand, survived right up until ~ 400 years ago.
• The giant birds of Mauritius also survived all the warmings and the coolings, only to perish within historical times.

And so on.

I am not suggesting that climate change be ignored as a factor (far from it: it still has many proponents), nor that it has not been an enormously significant factor in many things, simply advocating that the entry on this question more accurately reflect the current state of knowledge. Tannin

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from wikipedia:pages needing attention - "Holocene extinction event - more species are needed, and some help with NPOV" - unsigned, undated comment - probably ignorable. Martin

It does need work, and is on my to-do list - alongside 14,978 other things, at last count - but the POV problems were pretty much dealt with three or four months back. It's a bit wish-washy now, but broadly OK.

BTW, Martin, don't let my reverting you on this one POV warning put you off - I think your working through the old notices and lists is a really, really useful thing. There is no harm in being bold when (as is your habit) you are happy to accept the odd disagreement in good spirit. Better, for a job like that one, to just go ahead and make some wholesale decisions on the theory that 90% of them will be right, and someone else will pick up on the 10% of retail errors and deal with them appropriately. Tannin 13:15 May 12, 2003 (UTC)

Thanks Tannin - always nice to have some positive feedback :) Martin

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Evidence exists for a large, possibly multiple meteor or comet strike at 7640BCE, with a smaller one at 3150BCE. The evidence include stratigraphic studies of tektites, dendrochronology, and ice cores containing nitrates caused by extreme heating of air. This evidence is consistent with the dates of formation of a number of salt flats and lakes still extant in dry areas of N. America and Asia, suggesting that the strikes may have occurred in oceans, causing multiple-kilometer-high waves that penetrated deeply into continents. Incursions of salt, sand and oceanic fossils in this period were classically explained by "depression" of continents by the weight of Pleistocene ice, but these explanations are inconsistent with countervailing observations of a 30-120m rise of ocean levels at the same time. Can someone come up with a suitable title where we can put this? It's connection with the Holocene extinction event is minimal. Wetman 07:00, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Here is a link that explains one of these "references": Tollmann, Alexander and Edith, Terra Nova 6, pp. 209-217, 1994:" "Giant Comet launched Noah's Ark"

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Terra Nova is a perfectly respectable peer-reviewed European academic journal of geology. See www.blackwell-synergy.com. Just because its not popular to believe in the Noah's Flood doesn't make it false. Stodgy references to tektites and acid in ice cores are pretty persuasive, actually.

From the timing, the comet strike initiated the Holocene, and probably has a better claim to the title than the information about species. The loss of species is significant, and deserves its own article, not tied to the current geological age- after all, it's a recent historical process. User:Ray Van De Walker

But it is popular to believe in the Flood. And it's very popular to attribute everything to bolide events. We shall see. They laughed at Alvarez. But as for the evidence Tollmann is all over the map! Wetman 08:08, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Guilt by association is an ad hominem argument. As a real skeptic, you can do better. Falsify it. User:Ray Van De Walker

I've given this its own entry, Tollmann's hypothetical bolide with a reference at Bolide. Wetman 17:39, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Is the "Holocene extinction event" a scientific expression at all? I could not find any single article that includes "Holocene extinction" in its title nor abstract in 61 journals including Nature, at the following search form. http://www.nature.com/dynasearch/app/dynasearch.taf?

There are many articles that scientific articles that include "Holocene extinction", just search with http://scholar.google.com Another name often used is the "Sixth extinction event". Peter Maas 18:58, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Split: New World Pleistocene Extinction

I have created a page New_World_Pleistocene_Extinctions and linked it to the Holocene extinction event page. My specialty is New World others with other specialties might want to do pages on other parts of the world. Then an overview - Pleistocene extinction event page would be appropriate. Oct 25, 2006. User:ElinWhitneySmith

blog speculations

I've removed some stated blog speculations from the Magnitude and rate of loss for current extinction section. Blogs aren't normally reliable sources and there was not even a link to the blog, just Vreugdenhil's blog ?? Google returned some German language links... Maybe we're all supposed to know who Vreugdenhil is, but I haven't a clue. Most of the rest of the Magnitude and rate of loss for current extinction section is unsourced and thus questionable. Vsmith 04:05, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Section removed to talk see above. Vsmith 14:27, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Name

I would prefer the name Pleistocene extinction event, since the major amount of the extinctions was not in the Holocene. Therefore I would move the article to that topic and fuse it with the article Pleistocene extinctions. Does anyone not agree?--Altaileopard (talk) 18:09, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

There is a great deal of overlap between Holocene extinction event and Pleistocene extinctions, and I think there is a case for merging them. However, as far as I can see, the more significant extinctions were in the Holocene, so perhaps that ought to be the name of the article. Another problem is that an article containing all the material from both would be too long – any ideas on how else to split them? Richard New Forest (talk) 19:46, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

I do not think, that it would be too long (something could be placed into Pleistocene Megafauna or is redundant anyway). But the first problem is the name: Most of the species in North America and Northern Eurasia died out at the Pleistocene-Holocene boarder, but in Australia and partly Southern Eurasia (also in Africa) most species died out already in the Pleistocene. Regarding that some very important species, like Mammoth and Irish elk survived well into the Holocene, and that the extinctions on some islands, like Madagaskar happened in the Holocene, I would use the Name Quaternary extinction event. (See Quaternary).--Altaileopard (talk) 15:10, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Possible errors?

From the page Holocene extinction event "In broad usage, the Holocene extinction event includes the notable disappearance of large mammals, known as megafauna, starting 100.000 years ago as humans developed and spread- (poul s. martin)."

I think there are two errors here, probably both typos.

If I'm not mistaken 100,000 BP is a little early for the start of the Holocene extinction event. I believe most sources would cite a date between 40 and 10 thousand years ago. For example see 2004. Foreman, D. Rewilding North America. Washington DC. Island Press. And the University of California Museum of Paleontology's description of The Holocene at [[1]] Also see the wikipedia article, Holocene which states that "The Holocene is a geological epoch, which began approximately 10,000 years ago (about 8000 BC)."

Also, I believe that the name is Paul S. Martin, not poul s. martin. I don't know a reference for that quote, if that's what it is, but there should be a reference there, and there isn't.

I am not any kind of an expert on this, so I did not want to edit the article myself in case I was grossly mistaken, but please check these two details.

Foxi tails (talk) 05:55, 3 October 2008 (UTC)Angela

Lack of citations and bias

"Megafaunal extinctions continue into the 21st century. Modern extinctions are more directly attributable to human influences. Extinction rates are minimized in the popular imagination by the survival of captive trophy populations of animals that are "merely" extinct in the wild (Père David's Deer, etc.), by marginal survivals of highly-publicized megafauna that is ecologically extinct (Giant Panda, Sumatran Rhinoceros, the North American Black-Footed Ferret, etc.) and by unregarded extinctions among arthropods."

I see no citations for this quote whatsoever. A reference showing how modern extinctions are attributable to human influences would be nice.

In addition, I think the words "are merely" should be removed, and the quotations around merely are definitely evidence of bias. Removing the words makes the sentence say exactly the same thing without sounding like a PETA advertisement.

I've also removed the work "unregarded" from the sentence about arthropods - the extinction is clearly not "unregarded" if someone is noting it in an enclyclopedia. The phrase "by low regard for extinctions among arthropods" might be better, but I'd still like to see a citation for it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.100.129.195 (talk) 17:31, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Anthropocene extinction event redirect and renaming of this article

Please discuss this at Talk:Anthropocene_extinction_event#Redirect Polargeo (talk) 14:21, 5 August 2009 (UTC) Just to expand I think this article should probably be renamed either 'Holocene extinction' or 'Holocene extinctions' to make it more general and cover extinctions throughout the Holocene. The use of 'event' ties it to the transition into the Holocene and it is quite clear that this article covers much more than that. Polargeo (talk) 14:26, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

AfD: Anthropocene extinction event: Closer's statement: "The result was no consensus to delete. It's not clear whether there's consensus for a merge, but that's a conversation that can continue at the article talk page. Skomorokh 14:01, 5 August 2009 (UTC)" - added by Anarchangel (talk) 11:37, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

I like either suggested name change; our ability to have a high time resolution here would stretch most common (non-geological) definitions of event, and geologists use "event" often because the work with rather poor temporal resolution. Also, there are only 11 papers on Google Scholar that I got as hits for "holocene extinction event", versus 100+ for "holocene extinction". Awickert (talk) 16:30, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

So 'Holocene extinction' is a more inclusive name for this article? Any more ideas? Polargeo (talk) 22:35, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm OK with renaming to "Holocene extinction" too. It's consistent with the Aptian extinction and End-Ediacaran extinction article titles. --Explodicle (T/C) 13:43, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Tried to move,but there's already a page up. Admin to fix, pls. BTW, Polargeo et al please not the difference between 'merge' and 'redirect'. The Anthro. article should be merged. Please fix it! Andrewjlockley (talk) 15:38, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

I did merge the articles[2][3]. The other material you've added falls into 2 categories. 1)The first paragraph was already merged, see diff above. 2) The second and third paragraphs are original researh.[4] You don't get to redefine the Anthropocene to include the late Pleistocene. If you do, then we should delete Holocene. The third paragraph contains citation from before the word Anthropocene was even coined. If you want to talk about extinction in the Pleistocene, it belongs in Quaternary extinction event#The Pleistocene or Ice Age extinction event. -Atmoz (talk) 16:46, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

I've submitted the request. --Explodicle (T/C) 16:38, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Anthropocene extinction section

A few other editors have been discussing whether or not we should create a new section for the Anthropocene extinction or instead expand on existing sections first. I'm leaning towards the latter because that would allow for more gradual, incrimental improvement, but if there's disagreement we should discuss it here. --Explodicle (T/C) 16:25, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

No I'm fine with the soft incremental approach. I only suggested AJL create a section because I thought this would limit damage to the rest of the article caused through his extensive editing. Polargeo (talk) 17:32, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Because AJL has added a new section anyway I felt compelled to put it into a better position in the article, for perspective and WP:OR reasons, particularly WP:Synthesis. I believe that anthropocene extinction event and anthropocene mass extinction no longer need to be in the lead section as this gives far too much prominance to terms that have never even been published in a peer reviewed paper. I believe there is a place in this article for these terms and they should not be removed entirely but I think we have a duty to properly balance the article. Polargeo (talk) 09:04, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree, and they certainly should not be in the lead. Dougweller (talk) 10:23, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Agree and removed. Vsmith (talk) 12:15, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

The consensus was for a merge of Anthropocene extinction event. There has been no merge, despite repeated attempts. The choice is simple - re-create the soft-deleted article or merge the content properly. I don't mind which way consensus goes, but this issue needs to be resolved. Continually deleting the content is a clear breach of consensus. Andrewjlockley (talk) 16:02, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Andrew. The problem I see here, is that you desire the merge on your terms. I suggest we follow the advice of Explodicle and keep additions gradual and verifiable and don't unbalance or slant the article by over-emphasising neologistic terms such as 'Anthropocene extinction event'. As I see it the reason for the merge was to merge the content because it was under a poor name in the article you had created (e.g. 'Anthropocene extinction event'). You seem to want to merge the article name of your soft deleted article and don't really seem to be bothered about the content, except in using it to back up your prefered name. However, it was the name that was the most problematic thing so plastering it all across this article is disruptive to say the least. Polargeo (talk) 16:14, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Merge doesn't mean take the entire old article and copy it into the new one. I agree with Polargeo and Explodicle. Dougweller (talk) 16:24, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Tell me what you guys think of this process:

• Someone adds in content.
• If anyone disagrees with anything added, they can tag it, preferably inline with the text.

• If someone disagrees with or does not understand the tag, bring it up on this talk page. Be sure to use diffs so we're all on the same page.

• If the issue isn't resolved after 7 days, the content is removed.

That way we can look at these disagreements on a case-by-case basis. --Explodicle (T/C) 16:39, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

outdent - The point of a merge is that the content is 'merged', hence the name. Removing all reference to the original article's title, despite the various academic references to it, is clearly not a merge. This is NOT what was agreed. Could those interested, for whatever reason, in excising the phrase 'Anthropocene extinction event' (or variations thereon) from WP specifically, and the English language in general, please note that there is no consensus to do so. I am quite happy for the article to explain differing nomenclature, but I simply don't care if people don't like the wording used by 3rd parties. We're not here to re-write history, journals or anything else. The phrase is in use, and needs to go in this article. Andrewjlockley (talk) 00:33, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Nobody, well not myself anyway, is saying that the phrase "Anthropocene extinction event" cannot be in this article. The phrase, as it is used in sources, can be outlined. That is completely different from the phrase being bold in the lead section or poorly reinterpreted by original research as you have done. You have been advocating an article or section on the phrase itself rather than the science. Why? Polargeo (talk) 00:51, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

The phrase should be in because it's widely used. If you don't like how I did it, pls do it yourself. Andrewjlockley (talk) 01:14, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

A Google search for the phrase without the word Wikipedia gives 37 hits. No mentions in Google books, one in Scholar,so where do you get 'widely used' from? Dougweller (talk) 05:54, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

See the AfD for Anthropocene extinction event. The phrase Anthropocene mass extinction is also applicable.Andrewjlockley (talk) 01:23, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

That's not really an answer. I've seen no evidence for 'widely used' for either phrase. Dougweller (talk) 05:07, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

This is tiresome. Do a proper merge or recreate the article which was deleted. I don't give a monkey's, but please get on with it. Andrewjlockley (talk) 09:37, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

You haven't answered my question, which is relevant to what we actually include in this article from the old one (and you have the wrong idea about what a merge is). What's your evidence for 'widely used'? Dougweller (talk) 11:03, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Proposal to merge Quaternary Extinction Event here

Recent IP edits

I just want to say that I don't necessarily disagree with all of the recent IP edits that I have reverted. It is just that after the name change battles we have had on this article I feel that these sort of changes should be discussed or taken more slowly first. I think just going through and removing the word "event" or "mass" is not the way to do this. It is better to get the sources and put these words into the proper context within the article (as not completely accepted but sometimes used). The same goes for Anthropocene events. Also adding in stuff on the little ice age here with no sources into the lede of an extinction article was a strange edit. I would like to see this added with a source giving its relevence to extinctions, it is such a small part of the Holocene I don't really think it is that relevent but I may be wrong. Polargeo (talk) 07:09, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

The paragraph in ongoing extinction, starting "most biologists" should be removed because it has no proper references and is largely synthesis. Any thoughts? Polargeo (talk) 17:02, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

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