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Re: Who Killed the Australopithecines?
JoeBeaver (joebeaver@aol.com)
23 Apr 1995 02:08:36 -0400
BARD writes:
> Inasmuch as Homo sapiens are responsible for the extinction or
> near extinction of several species, why, as you put it, is it
> "more reasonable to assume genocide is the exception to the
> rule of `natural' extinction"?
>
>
> BARD
This is an easy one. Extinction has been occurring for a couple
billion
years. Homo sapiens has been causing extinctions for not more than
400,000
years (less depending on which date you accept for the emergence of H.
sapiens) and probably as few as one to ten thousand years. Let's see,
that
means H. sapiens has been working at it for only 1/50,000 or so of the
time
extinctions have occurred. Please note that I used the longest possible
time
for H. sapiens and the shortest plausible time for all extinctions--the
ratio
could easily be more along the lines of 1/200,000. Thus, extinctions
caused
by H. sapiens are clearly the exception to the rule. Since none of those
extinctions caused by H. sapiens could be legitimately referred to as
genocide, I think my statement is quite safe.
Joe Beaver
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