Kolbert opens up Chapter 5 with an experiment conducted in the late 1940’s that contributed to the argument that humans are capable of adapting to their changing environments. This connects to the theme that science is a process because the experiment that was conducted provided an explanation to the potential of human beings in the natural world. Therefore, this experiment is a perfect example that science really does constantly change the way we see the world and its inhabitants.
Kolbert meets stratigrapher Jan Zalasiewicz and explores the different theories of how most of the oceans’ life went extinct at the end of the Ordovician Era. Such theories include that the ocean’s amount of carbon dioxide decreased, lowering the water temperature and causing species to die off. Others include that the oceans’ CO2 levels skyrocketed which ended up suffocating most of the life in the ocean in that period. This once again touches on the theme that science is a process because the investigation of the mass extinction gave multiple possible explanations to what actually happened, thus, changing the way we understand the world.
Zalasiewicz suggests that rats will most likely take over the world after humans because rats have been following humans around the world and have become adaptive to all sorts of environmental circumstances. Therefore, the term “preservation potential” is brought up because rats are common across the world, so they would be able to survive a cataclysmic event. This reminds me of the common idea that cockroaches can survive a nuclear war. Since they are so prevalent among all corners of the world they are the most likely to survive when humans destroy themselves.
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