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Stephen Jay Gould Sex Drugs Disasters And The Extinction Of Dinosaurs

1128 Words5 Pages

Endless theories and hypothesis’ surround the disappearance of the dinosaur species. Comets, asteroids, disease, and volcanic eruptions are just some of the presumed causes of their extinction. Which one is to believe? In “Sex, Drugs, Disaster, and the Extinction of Dinosaurs,” Stephen Jay Gould presents three proposals for their extinction: Sex, Drugs, and Disasters. Gould explains the three theories on the extinction of dinosaurs by giving a biologic and scientific reason for each, with the purpose of showing that scientific discoveries come from testable theories. Gould’s work lacks credibility and fails to complete an accurate explanation for the extinction of dinosaurs. In order to have been completely wiped out from the face of Earth, …show more content…

Drugs did not exist 65 million years ago when the time of dinosaurs and dinosaurs definitely did not do drugs. The “drug” theory bases on the massive overdose of dinosaurs caused by Angiosperms (flowering plants). It states that these plants, “contain psychoactive agents, avoided by mammals today as a result of their bitter taste” (Gould 511). Gould expresses that, “dinosaurs had neither means to taste the bitterness nor livers effective enough to detoxify the substances” (511). Even if this proposal seems logical given the facts on angiosperms and their effects, it is not credible enough. It is nearly impossible to know how many of these flowering plants existed millions of years ago in order to feed millions of dinosaurs, hence making them extinct. Gould fails to build ethos throughout his essay in order to make his testable hypotheses realistic. He deliberately states, “It cannot be tested, for how can we know what dinosaurs tasted and what their livers could do? Livers don’t fossilize any better than testicles” (Gould 515). What could be tested, on the other hand, is the coincidence that no “non-avian dinosaur fossil” has been found at the impact layer of the asteroid, the Yucatan Peninsula (“What Killed Dinosaurs”). If the dinosaur fossils unrelated to birds have not been found in the presumed impact layer, then they must have gone extinct by the time of the impact. Schoene and his team have confirmed that earlier mass extinction were indeed caused by volcanic eruptions alone (“Dinosaur Extinction”). Instead of angiosperms, dinosaurs were drugged by the debris left in the air caused by volcanic

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