A note before we start: Please read your colleagues’ discussion submissions. I encourage you to reply to their thoughts; you will earn points just the same. This helps us engage in a more conversation-like environment and will avoid a lot of repetitive statements.

Use at least 5 sentences to express your thoughts for potential full credit.

This week we will learn about the diversification of species. We will learn that there are three particular periods in which we see above-average speciation, also referred to as adaptive radiation. One of these three events is mass extinction, defined as the extermination of at least 50% of all species on Earth. The diversification that follows is explained by all the unclaimed resources originally used by the recently extinct species. Scientists now agree that we are quickly heading towards the 6th mass extinction, supposed to occur during our lifetime. Rates of extinction have increased significantly since the 15th century and sky-rocketed following the Industrial Revolution.

For this week’s discussion, I would like to ask you: knowing that new species will arise in hundreds of thousands to millions of years from now, can we then say that the anthropogenic (man-caused) 6th extinction is justified?