Talk:Extinction

Article Checklist for "Extinction"

Workgroup category or categories	Earth Sciences Workgroup [Categories OK]
Article status	Developing article: beyond a stub, but incomplete
Underlinked article?	Yes
Basic cleanup done?	Yes
Checklist last edited by	Aleksander Stos 13:05, 6 August 2007 (CDT)

To learn how to fill out this checklist, please see CZ:The Article Checklist.

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Hi folks, there appaers to be some concern about this article on the english wikipedia. Apparently there are some issues concerning the lack of italics in the nomenclature of the various genera, furthermore there appears to be misspelling of certain geological periods. And finally they seem to disagree with the story about Edmontosaurus. I say we turn the generic names italic and maybe somebody from the Earth Sciences workgroup can check the geological periods? Whether or not the Edmontosaurus story is correct I've got no idea, maybe someone can check this out too. I havent got too much time today, but I will look in to it when I do. Here's the link to the wikipedia discussion, you can find it in the subsection called Citizendium dinosaur articles. Thought I let you all know, cheers Jasper Wubs 06:59, 30 August 2007 (CDT)

Thanks Jasper Wubs, I took a quick look at the article and will "soon" work on it. A good start could be to clean parts which are not essential, as the example of the Edmontosaurus, in order to add them back later, when the stories will be checked on scientific literature. But see what Thomas Simmons says - he did most of the job here. Cheers, --Nereo Preto 10:25, 2 September 2007 (CDT)

Not sure I understand the bit about 'not essential'. Given that we have a reader friendly approach for CZ, with which the article is written, I think the use of such an example for the concept presented is essential and I think the Edmontosaurus-diet hypothesis does a good job of a specific example. We do have evidence that the Edomontosaurus did coexist with angiosperms and possibly consumed them (see Form, function and environments of the early angiosperms: merging extant phylogeny and ecophysiology with fossils. page 20) --Thomas Simmons 20:46, 2 September 2007 (CDT)

Thomas, thanks for the link, which is indeed a nice reference. However, what Feild and Arens say is that Dinosaurs and plant co-evolution is unlikely, which is at odds with the statement that Edmontosaurus died out for shortage of conifers. They give this reference: Barrett PM, Willis KJ. 2001. Did dinosaurs invent flowers? Dinosaurangiosperm coevolution revisited. Biology Reviews 76: 411–447. I'll check out soon. At the moment, however, either we find a reference for the extinction of the Edmontosaurus, or we drop the example.

More generally, as the topic is difficult to handle, I suggest we should let apart unnecessary sentences as examples, until we get citations for them which make us super-positive. Cheers for now --Nereo Preto 08:27, 3 September 2007 (CDT)

No, what it says is 'a theoretical example': we have not got more than supposition. Any statement of fact about a period 230 to 65 million years ago will be problematic. However, what example would you suggest since the concept of background extiction is the topic. This may be a language problem but without an example the concept is itself nothing more than supposition and an example is necessary. --Thomas Simmons 17:05, 3 September 2007 (CDT)

But let me address a much more serious issue here. To begin with, quite few people on the WP are barely literate. It says "theoretical example". There is no way of proving one way or another. It could have been a disease, it could have been a temperature change that meant their eggs either hatched all female or male. It could have been a lot of things. For another thing, the issue for them, if you read the WP entries, is emotional, they would not care to actually read the article with an eye to holding their work to the same standard. And three, they have people controlling articles in the medical genre who have never heard of Mayo Clinic or the Centers for Disease Control. They have people editing articles on US history who have never heard of the Monroe Doctrine. The article on Lincoln says nothing about the Cooper Union Address. Let's not go there again. WP is synonymous with clueless. If the seriously disturbed individuals running amuck on WP are now editing CP, then I am out of here. Fortunately, this is not the case. However, if they think they can lambast CZ there and someone will come over here pushing for editorial changes then we will have truly lost the plot. So this is very simple, they join CZ, they use their real names just like we do or they have zip influence here. I can not tell you how very much against the spirit of the CZ this anonymous nitpicking is Jasper Wubs. To act on it is to allow WP editing here by proxy. There are some very disturbed people over there and others who are just plain liars and frauds. I care not for their opinions and will not consider them in future.

The italics is not an issue. It is a style agreed upon and it has been converted.

Oh, by the way, the Edmontosaurus example is from the Singapore Science Center. It is not signed however. I think it should be pulled for that reason. --Thomas Simmons 17:49, 3 September 2007 (CDT)