The Great Dying: Cosmic Catastrophe, Dinosaurs and the Theory of Evolution

by Kenneth J. Hsu

The author uses a discussion of the extinction of the dinosaurs to argue against the basic Darwinian evolutionary theory of natural selection and in favor of a chance and catastrophe theory drawn from the philosophy of China.

Genres: Palaeontology, Geology, Science, Biology, Nonfiction

292 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1986

Reviews

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've owned this book for a long time...and finally pulled it off the shelf to read. It's a terrific book about the extinction of the dinosaurs (and lots of other critters that became extinct at 66 mya), but also about mass extinctions with extra-terrestrial causes and how the geological/paleontological record of these events can tell us something about the evolutionary process. Hsu argues that the randomness of mass extinctions caused by asteroids or comets slamming into the earth- like the K-Pg extinction that killed the dinosaurs- suggests that natural selection has not played as large a role in the history of life as it is sometime thought. What I loved about the book was the very lucid explanations of how science is done in the context of explaining some really important concepts and research areas within the Earth Sciences. For example, Hsu explains plate tectonics and stable isotope geochemistry and the ecology of forams and the Nuclear Winter hypothesis with the proper historical detail and flawless and easy to understand science. It's a wonderful book that very thoroughly explains the origins and development and ultimate acceptance of the Alvarez Iridium hypothesis and extra-terrestrial impact theory for the K-Pg extinction. The writing is engaging and, while some knowledge of earth science certainly helps, the book is pitched towards a general reader interested in biology, geology and paleontology, and of course, the always fascinating question of why the dinosaurs became extinct.

[Sasha Alessandro Volpi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Davvero ottimo! Un libro che sconvolge alcuni assunti con i quali siamo cresciuti nel pieno rispetto della scienza.

[Katarina · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book I'd recommend to everyone interested in science to read. Easily read, written with a simple style and engaging. I definitely learned something new.

[隻眼簽到 · Rating 3 out of 5]

大滅絕：尋找一個消失的年代。請靖華著。任克譯。
本書作者是個華人，但原著是用英語寫的。作者的〈中文版序〉對達爾文主義及其提倡者如嚴復、梁啟超、毛澤東、西洋霸權等一通批評，認為「適者生存是毫無根據而且違反事實的假說」(引的是1945年諾貝爾生物獎得主Ernst Chain的話)。但不可否認的一個事實是，無論作者(許靖華)或是Ernst Chain，他們都是「適者」，是生存競爭下的得勝者。而且他們也都是「離開祖國者」。他們各都長時間離開祖國(中國、德國)，並且都成了外國移民。當然，不喜歡出生國我沒意見，有不同理念也正常。但是當別人在祖國救亡圖存的時候，你有機會在國外憑著你的優秀(或其他)，過關斬將，不知擠下多少本地人的工作機會。然後你再來說：「捷足未必先登，強者未必得勝，反而是謙遜者得到世界。地球的生命歷史上根本沒有生存競爭這回事」。當你在講捷足未必先登，強者未必得勝的時候，好歹看看你自己吧！實在太過諷刺。至於他的批評(就中文版序而言)，無論就科學還是哲學來看，他連名詞的涵義都還停留在皮相之論(例如他把共演解釋為互助共存，未免有些膚淺。應該是互相利用才是)根本不值一駁。對本書，我期待的是恐龍滅亡的真相。
本書的主題是「滅絕」。在思考過程中，我隨手抽出一本關於演化的書。書名為《演化：一個觀念的勝利》，作者叫卡爾‧齊默。裡面恰好有一章專談「滅絕」。有時是這樣，勞神苦思遠不如輕鬆閱讀。因此，我就簡單了。直接把書中的資訊記下，就可做為一篇心得：
「過去6億年的大部分時間，生物都在經歷穩定、低階的滅絕；這類『背景滅絕』(意指物種在演化過程中自然的滅絕)符合達爾文所謂物種漸次性的消失。大部分物種的生存期介於1百萬至1千萬年間。新物種出現的速率則和舊物種消失的速率大致相同。」
「然而所有的新資訊卻都顯示達爾文對滅絕的看法錯誤，一波波災難式的大滅絕是一項事實，殃及生命的整個結構，在地質學上的一瞬間，便摧毀了地球上90%的所有物種。」「自寒武紀以降，類似的情況便發生過幾次，『背景滅絕』突然變成大滅絕，每隔數千萬年便橫掃海洋及陸地。其中又以五次大災難特別突出，......這類滅絕的慘烈程度，超過達爾文的想像。」
「一旦大滅絕結束，演化又恢復正常運作。個體之間與物種之間的競爭再度展開，天擇開始創造新型態的特化。但萬一某個譜系在災難來臨時遭到殲滅，即便在正常遊戲規則下牠本可獲勝，也沒有用。」
綜合以上，結論就清楚了。作者挑了個好題目，暴露了達爾文對滅絕估計不足的缺失。但作者也錯了。他以為物競天擇，適者生存是謊言。有時所謂的適者就只是運氣好而已(或許作者自己就是)。但我要套一句玄幻仙俠小說常講的話：運氣也是實力的一種。他的實力扛得住他的運氣，那就是適者。

[terry · Rating 5 out of 5]

sono di parte perchè unisce (nel modo più catastrofico e più incredibile possibile) due dei miei argomenti preferiti: i dinosauri e le stelle.

sul contenuto non so giudicare: mi sentirei troppo imbecille! posso dire, però, che nonostante la complessità dell'argomento e nonostante abbia dovuto fare diverse ricerche integrative su wikipedia, il linguaggio è molto accessibile e il risultato finale particolarmente scorrevole.

unica nota dolente: nella traduzione italiana, di fronte ad ogni cognome di ricercatrice/esperta del settore c'è il famigerato articolo (i.e. LA McKenzie).

[Deane Rothenmaier · Rating 5 out of 5]

Got this book, ultimately, from a high school library, but boy oh boy, did it turn many of my notions on their heads--and I'm seventy. I'm going to call this a spoiler, but according to the author, the legendary Darwin was, gasp, wrong. Read the book to find out why...

[Teemu Öhman · Rating 4 out of 5]

If somebody writes briefly about the history of the quest to understand the demise of the non-avian dinosaurs (remember, birds are dinosaurs so the dinos are still among us) and the K/T-extinction (nowadays called K/Pg, but I’m old-school, and K/T just sounds so much better) in general, they just mention that the Alvarez team solved the puzzle in their 1980 Science paper. Well, that’s of course true, in a way, but there’s so much more to the story. They were the first to present their data in a conference and, thus, they do deserve the credit, but their Science paper actually appeared later than the equally important paper by Smit & Hertogen in Nature. And in the same issue of Nature there was also another K/T impact paper by Chinese-American-Swiss Kenneth Hsü. All of those three papers are definitely worth reading, by the way.

In his 1986 book The Great Dying – which, confusingly enough, here refers to the K/T extinction and not to the P/Tr extinction as it usually does – Hsü discusses much of this which at the time was very recent history. He readily admits that he got lots of things wrong. His preferred projectile was a comet, and in his scenario it would’ve killed the sea creatures in the surface waters with cyanide that many comets contain. Terrestrial creatures would have died by some sort of a heat pulse. However, he was soon afterwards told that his hypothesis is impossible because the heat of the impact would dissociate the cyanide and therefore it couldn’t poison the seas. Nevertheless, he was partially on the right track, and should get his due credit for that.

Obviously Hsü has done a lot of other interesting things, the most famous one being that he was a key player in proving that the Mediterranean Sea dried some 5.5 million years ago. Hsü tells about this and his other scientific adventures while mostly dealing with the different aspects of the K/T extinction. This includes the history of extinction theories and geology in general, so the giants like Lamarck, Lyell and Darwin pop up quite often in the text.

The thing that somewhat bothered me about the book was Hsü’s fixation on Chinese philosophy and that Lyell and Darwin were somehow “wrong”. To me (and I’m very much an anti-philosophy and anti-religion person) it seems obvious that Hsü gets stuck on words and their definitions – which have been given afterwards – and refuses to see the main ideas that Lyell and Darwin presented and how they ought to be seen a) at the time they were presented and b) with the clarity provided by hindsight. So those bits annoyed me, especially as Hsü has otherwise proven that he is a very smart guy.

Another minor problem with the book is that Hsü gets names wrong terribly often. Richard Grieve becomes Robert Grieve and Jay Melosh becomes Bill Melosh. If they were just some random dudes it would be sort of understandable, but as Grieve and Melosh, who sadly passed away far too young five years ago, are among the biggest names in impact cratering research, it’s quite embarrassing. There were other examples too but I just can’t find them now.

This is certainly not the best book about the history of the K/T extinction studies. For example, James Lawrence Powell, Charles Frankel and Walter Alvarez himself have written better ones. However, as it’s by one of the main figures in the field and written after the Alvarez et al. and Smit & Hertogen papers were published but before the discovery of the Chicxulub crater, it offers a unique perspective. Thus, I’m very happy to have read it and to have it on my extinction shelf.

So if you’re into the history of extinction studies or geosciences in general (or some boring philosophical mumbo jumbo about how Darwin and Lyell were “wrong” but the ancient Chinese were “right”), The Great Dying is a rewarding read. However, it is advisable to read some other books about the topic as well.

[Luen]

It was this book that I learned we can deduct earth changes from layers of soil buried millions of years. It does not, however explain the actual mechanism of evolution. It takes the book by Francis Collins to do that.

[S.J. Lewis · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit talky in places, but it does provide an inside look at paleontology from point of view of a paleontologist. the

[Luca Marescotti]

A book of great interest for many reasons. Written by an openminded geologist, this book is construct as a police book, to investigate the causes of the dinosaurs dying. The reasons for reading it or studying it are many and do not only concern the history of life on Earth, ecology and species change, or the influences of major physical events on the biosphere, geology, and geological analysis. Here are the main reasons why I recommend it: because it is an interdisciplinary book; because it tries to explain to everyone using a transdisciplinary language; because he is humble, and not only admits his mistakes, but also how his suppositions or professional commitments have made him underestimate other researchers.
However, for me, I am urbanist, there are other reasons: urban planning is understood in ecology and ecology and it is right, because urban planning concerns the use of soil in a regional or vast area (cities and surrounding lands, metropolises and urban regions, built resources and natural resources), and our urbanisation is changing the biosphere; because we should -above all- use the strategic environmental assessment (science is not a linear path) with interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary skills; because humans are changing the biosphere; because humans influence the reduction of biodiversity; because Hsu is a Chinese author who has worked abroad (in Switzerland, in the US) and traveled and held conferences all over the world. So in his knowledge of nations and people, he learned to share many cultures.