Customer Reviews

The Great Dinosaur Extinction Controversy (Helix Books)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is a book debunking, sucessfully in my opinion, the popularly accepted idea that a asteroid hit the earth 65 million years ago. The asteroid impact theory actually consists of two parts,one that a comet hit the earth 65 million years ago and the other that this caused a mass extinction of life on earth. Most professionals knew the second part was nonsense from the get-go, the mass extinction took place over a two million year long period and could not have been caused by an asteroid strike. However there was always the coincidence of the timing of the impact. Officer and Page summarized data that points out that there is no evidence for an impact that cannot be better explained by other sources or indicates that evidence is being contorted (to say the least), i.e. volcanism is shown to have been the source of the iridium layer, the Chicxulub crater the wrong age, etc. The authors may have written a more important book than they intended, in debunking a popular psuedo-scientific theory (there is simply no non-debatable evidence of an impact) they show how nonsense is turned into fact by repetition and politics. Note; the book is written for laymen and not professionals. Then again professionals do not need it.

The Great Dinosaur Extinction Controversy is a well-written book containing interesting theories with scientific data & charts galore. The book succeeds in driving home the point that the Alvarez theory, as currently accepted, is probably not the answer for the extinction of the dinosaurs. However, Officer and Page don't fully explain a couple of their own theories. For example, much of their data is speciously based on the fossil record, which is scarce and not necessarily indicative of all the species present at any time. Also, they mention the sea level lowering dramatically, which would go hand-in-hand with massive global climate changes as the water collected (possibly) at the polar ice caps (this is not explained). The book does a good job, however, of debunking the pseudoscience and mystique of the Alvarez hypothesis. Although Officer & Page have some gaps in their theory, it is better explained than the "impact idea". Unfortunately, massive volcanism is not as exciting as extraterrestrial doomsday objects hurtling toward earth. This book is definitely food for thought, and it shows how certain theories, when promoted by powerful individuals within the scientific community, can be accepted as truth with very little proof.

In 1980, Nobel Prize winning physicist Luis Alvarez suggested (see "T. rex" and the Crater of Doom (Princeton Science Library)) that a gigantic meteorite striking the earth 65 million years ago had caused the extinction of the dinosaurs, by causing a cloud of dust around the earth which suppressed photosynthesis and plant growth, and the dinosaurs finally died of starvation. There are lots of books discussing the controversy (e.g., The Dinosaur Heresies: New Theories Unlocking the Mystery of the Dinosaurs and Their Extinction, Mass-Extinction Debates: How Science Works in a Crisis). This 1996 book argues forcefully against this theory.

The authors state in the Preface, "Indeed, most of the 'science' performed by the Alvarez camp has been so inexplicably weak, and the response to it so eagerly accepting by important segments of the scienitific press (never mind the popular press and the tabloids), that some skeptics have wondered if the entire affair was not, on the impact side, some kind of scam... We have instead confined ourselves largely to addressing the scientific merits of the case."

They write, "There was no paleontological evidence for an instantaneous extinction event for those species--in all, 50 percent of all extant species--around K-T times. Not for dinosaurs, nor flying reptiles.... There was no big dinosaur bone pile... Not only that, such a 'lights out' scenario hardly accounted for the K-T survivors--crocodiles, turtles, snakes, lizards, insects, birds, and mammals, not to mention some fish and other marine forms. The whole thing seemed absurd..." Why was the Alvarez theory accepted so quickly? They note, "It is not at all surprising that (punctuated equilibria theorists like Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge) looked upon the meteorite impact theory with favor ... the effects it is alleged to have had would make punctuated equilibrium all the more plausible..."

They admit, "No one would deny that the extinctions that occurred around K-T time were extraordinary ... Some 50 percent of all species globally disappeared, a proportion that is yet to be equaled in the many millions of years since. Extraordinary events of a global nature must have been the cause. In fact, several such events had been evident in the geological record for some time." The major argument against the Alavarez theory is the absence of a massive impact crater: "They have searched far and wide around the world for evidence of even one such crater, but sadly for them, they have come up wanting."

An excellent, well reasoned book with plenty of data to support the volcanic-theory of the KT extinctions. A good example of how a reasoned apporoach to a popular scientific theory is important to read.

This book is more interesting as an unintended study of human nature than it is as a scientific work.

When initially proposed as an explanation of the Cretaceous Mass Extinction in 1980, the meteor impact theory of Alvarez et al was greeted with widespread "howls of rage and laughter" (to use the words of Gould). Over the ensuing years data after data has accumulated till now it is the reigning paradigm. People don't give up their cherished beliefs, their hard earned intellectual positions easily and without good evidence. Some never do. As Kuhn has pointed out some never do accept a new paradigm and we must wait for a generation to die out.

The case in point here is Officer and Page who are still in a state of denial. Their book, THE GREAT DINOSAUR EXTINCTION CONTROVERSY can be viewed as a last gasp attempt to "just say it isn't so". It is not a fairly written book. They leave out data. (example: the results of core drilling at the Chixulub Crater site). And without the hard data to back their position, they fall back on polemics -- They simply deny that there was a meteor impact at all.

One would be annoyed by this, if one did not realize that Officer has left the realm of science and entered that of religion where beliefs must be accepted on faith.

For a comprehensive review of the data that has won over the bulk of the scientific community see NIGHT COMES TO THE CRETACEOUS by James Lawrence Powell, or T. REX AND THE CRATER OF DOOM by Walter Alvarez himself.