The Mass Extinction Debates: A Science Communication Odyssey

In which the dinosaurs go extinct and 66 million years later people get angry about it.

What killed the dinosaurs? Maybe you think you know.

Many others thought they knew. They saw hundreds of years of scientific progress, shifting paradigms, and explosive arguments behind them, and decided they were at the end. The K-Pg extinction was settled. Then it exploded again. And again. And it kept exploding way more than any layperson today really appreciates, revealing more about science and its communication than you ever imagined.

This is the story of the mass extinction debates.

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Special thanks to Alex Grab for the awesome rock arrangement of Fossils from Saint-Saens' Carnival of the Animals:

Special thanks to Dr Christopher Scotese for granting me permission to use maps from the PALEOMAP Project:

0:00 - Intro
5:17 - Part I: The End
28:40 - Part II: The Record of the Rocks
47:46 - Part III: A Sudden Violent and Unusual Event
1:18:29 - Part IV: Exterminate All Dinosaurs With This One Weird Trick!
1:46:42 - Part V: Confessions of a YouTuber
2:10:05 - Credits

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LINKS MENTIONED

Recent review about the dinosaurs' extinction:

Jefferson's mammoth cheese:

Darren Naish on another palaeontological paradigm dust-up:

Michael J. Benton on the history of the dinosaurs' extinction:

The Alvarez paper on asteroids:

The Vogt paper on volcanoes:

My Pythagoras video:

Neil Halloran's video on nuclear winter:

Kyle Hill's video on YouTube science spam:

Elisabeth S. Clemens on the debates:

Interview with William Glen:

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A full list of sources and credits can be found here:

Raw data from my survey is available here:

If you're looking for even more, I've written a blog post about the production, omissions and reception of this video:

[OliverLugg]

This video was reuploaded after an audio editing error that resulted in a crucial line being missed. Apologies to everyone who saw the previous version!

EDIT: There have been scammers impersonating me in the comments. If someone with my avatar asks you to speak to them on Telegram or similar, DO NOT contact them. I am NOT running giveaways.

EDIT: I've become quite disappointed by the number of comments that have warped this video's message to suit their own fringe scientific theories. So I feel the need to state this clearly: yes, the science and culture around it are wrapped in the same human subjectivities as those I've covered here, but human-caused climate change is a real and serious issue. If you aren't willing to reassess your own beliefs on this - the entire message of Part V - I don't want you in my comments section.

CORRECTIONS:

General - I cut it because it would have required yet another detour into many long-running arguments, but it should be noted that other mass extinctions have been attributed to volcanism. The consensus for the largest extinction of all time (the Permian-Triassic extinction) is flood basalt volcanism in Siberia. Note though this consensus is surprisingly recent and it took the upheaval of the K-Pg debates to make most researchers aware that a catastrophic event had even occurred at the boundary. One other mass extinction (the Triassic-Jurassic extinction) has wide support for volcanism. The others are, at least from the sources I've used, more mysterious.

14:12 - 'Marine reptiles' is the wrong term here, as turtles and co survived. I was referring to mosasaurs, plesiosaurs, etc. I've also been informed that there's some evidence that ammonites survived a short while into the Paleogene.

34:19 - Smith is more commonly called the father of *English* geology, with James Hutton (a Scot) usually referred to as the father of geology. It's likely I saw this, plus the fact Smith is also called the father of stratigraphy (a sub-field of geology) and misremembered.

45:21 - Some of these theories were intended as jokes - including, notably, AIDS - but the fact that the extinction of the dinosaurs was seen as a laughing matter by scientists still proves the point.

47:35 - It's a bit disingenuous of me to put the AIDS and cataracts cards in the 1970s as they were proposed in the 1980s. But I think it was necessary given how much I was about to fit in the 1980s...

50:40 - That phone is from 1984.

1:39:22 - I've been informed that the Dunning-Kruger effect is a bit of a misnomer and, perhaps not surprisingly, the true model of intelligence/confidence doesn't line up with popular perception. I Dunning-Kruger'd Dunning-Kruger.

NON-CORRECTIONS:

General - I don't know why so many people seem to think crocodilians are dinosaurs. Well-supported phylogenetic analysis tells us that crocodilians are not descendants of the last common ancestor of Triceratops and a sparrow (or any equivalent bracketing), and so aren't dinosaurs. They're archosaurs, a larger group which includes dinosaurs. So while closely related, crocodilians don't meet the scientific definition of dinosaurs, so there's no need to correct the question to, 'What killed the non-avian, non-crocodilian dinosaurs?' as some people are suggesting.

[timeshark]

Now that I think about it, the asteroid at the end of the Cretaceous was the highest number of birds killed with one stone in the history of the world.

[whajtohdlsdkfn]

"for those asking what if the volcanos caused the asteroid, you are officially beyond science" gave me a real good chuckle

[THELASTMASTA]

Can we all agree that the person who answered "Big Rock cause Big Boom" is truly the most enlightened? Whether you're a volcanist or and impactist, it is factually certain that a big rock caused a big boom.

[Hungry_Burger]

Hi there. I'm a recent college grad/geology major. One of my professors was a grad student under Walter Alvarez at berkely at the time the impact theory was being introduced and debated. My professor spent a few days of lectures explaining to us what happened between the physists/chemists and the paleontologists from his own first hand perspective. You did a good job presenting that story here and I figure I would let you know!

[kormagogthedestroyer]

My main takeaway from this video is that, not 40 years ago, an actual scientist proposed in an actual scientific paper that the dinosaurs were killed by AIDS

[SausageOwnage]

Oh, did you get the asteroid ending? The asteroid ending was my favourite

[povvercrazy]

As a normal person who grew up in the 70's 80's with a big interest in dinosaurs and science, watching this video, the first time I heard asteroids killed off all the dinosaurs it just seemed the only solution, just sounded right, I didnt realise the full impact of the actual history of this theory and that I grew up during it. Amazing well thought out and presented video!!

[ibs_haver]

An amazing meta-analysis of the current trend of "high quality, " science channels popping up. There are some like Lemino that cite all their sources, but so many just expect their viewers to take what they say as fact, no matter how controversial. I hadn't even really realized the trend occurring until this video, thank you for reminding us that science is dictated by people with biases and that sometimes even theories that seem set in stone may not be as concrete as the media tell us. You have really conveyed this all in a way that doesn't encourage skepticism in science itself, but rather the way media presents it.

[pubfries]

It amazes me every day that scientists don't get into conference-wide brawls more often, given how stubborn and righteous they can be at times.

[bozimmerman]

In college, my geology professor, presenting a model of the Earth's layers, stated flatly "This is not what I learned in college. I wonder what your kids will be taught about it."
That broke me, forever.
I feel Mr. Lugg's pain/

[Vorlagenjager]

I didn't know I wanted a 2 hour video about the nuances of mass extinction, but this is fantastic!

[kallekula]

This video is a youtube Magnus Opus. We need more from you like this! I remember i loved dinosaurs as a kid and even back in '91 when I was 7 that anyone that didn't believe in the impact hypothesis was a crackpot. I was heavily influenced by my dad who was very well educated in science debates and would explain things like that to me very well but still let me make my own conclusions.

[JoeVannoy]

I think what really killed the dinosaurs was the friends we met along the way.

[fraserbrown]

Hi Oliver!
Speaking as a vertebrate palaeontologist, this is a well-made, thoroughly researched, and entertaining exploration of both the K-Pg extinction debate, and science communication more broadly. You dove deep where time permitted, but also pointed out when and where glossing over was needed. I should add that my own expertise is not in dinosaurs, and that my understanding of the topic has, unquestionably, been shaped by popular media and popular science. However I cannot, at a cursory viewing, see any noteworthy errors.

In my own experience, I completed my undergraduate and higher degree learning in a state of perpetual terror, awaiting the moment that the penny would drop for my supervisors that I really knew nothing at all, and that I'd been clinging on by the skin of my teeth. I recall vividly my final thesis viva, wherein the people I respected for years pointed out carefully and unwavering every error they could find. I wrote them all down, every one, promising to correct them all, even when I knew it would have no effect on my grade. To my surprise, I received high marks and praise, errors and all. I admitted to my supervisor before graduating that, still, I felt like I knew nothing. They looked at me and said, "You know what? I feel the same way whenever I'm about to give a lecture."
Self-doubt is not just a natural part of being an scientist. In a way, self-doubt *is* science.

Congratulations on this monumental piece of work.

[hannahnordby]

This is such a high quality video. I was wondering how I wasn’t already subscribed and saw you haven’t hit 100k yet and that baffles me. The length and quality makes me think you should have way more

[itried]

This is one of my favorite video essays ive seen in a while. Also it made me question all the video essays ive seen. Well done

[PitterPatter]

It's interesting to me how many content creators are concerned they might be going insane after an extensive research project.

[talus]

As a scientist myself, you’ve given me a lot to reflect on in terms of how I engage the public with the science I’m doing, how I’m engaging with my colleagues and how I sometimes am not as critical as I should be when engaging in new scientific information.

[banjoman]

your data analysis of the survey was absolutely phenomenal! please keep this up <3