Chapter 5 Abudul Gaku

Chapter 5 starts with an experiment conducted by two Harvard psychologists. They recruited 24 undergraduates about perception. Essentially the students were showed playing cards and asked to identify them. Most of the cards were normal, but a few were altered. The pace of the experiment fastened and many were unable to identify the cards in their correct manner. The results were published on a paper called The Perception of Incongruity: A Paradigm. The experiment revealed how people were able to process disruptive information. Thomas Kahun, a science historian, argued that humans are forced to adapt to changing environments. We initially respond by using tactics we are accustomed to and when those fail, we learn new strategies. Kolbert travels to Dob's Linn and meets Jan Zalasiewicz, a stratigrapher. Zalasiewicz shows Kolbert rock layers dating back to 445 million years ago, the Ordovician Era. In this era there was rapid growth of sea life, but most life in the oceans became extinct at the end of the era. Zalasiewicz studied graptolite, which used to be a very common marine animal, but it became extinct. Graptolite had strong bodies that adjusted to temperature and pressure, but their evolutionary advantages became disadvantages and resulted in them becoming extinct. This really made me wonder about us human beings. Even though we are causing the sixth extinction, is there a time that we will become extinct? Just as the graptolite had the advantage, us humans adapt to almost anything, but the graptolite ended up becoming extinct. What will cause us to go extinct?