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Comment by salgernon | Hacker News Reader

Congratulations, you are front row center to a mass extinction event. There was not time for the dinosaurs to react to the meteor either.

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Don't underestimate natural selection, specialization is more common than not. Most animals are so specialized to their environment it would be impossible for them to survive without these inborn essential traits. We can't demonstrate how they could survive while evolving these essential traits.

The theory that dinosaurs died due to a meteor is already outdated.

Is it? Are you being pedantic about the term "meteor" or is consensus behind something other than a collision? Asking honestly and aware that Wikipedia isn't always going to be correct. From Wikipedia:

"It is generally believed that the K-Pg extinction was triggered by a massive comet/asteroid impact and its catastrophic effects on the global environment, including a lingering impact winter..."

Same page then suggests volcanic activity, etc is a less popular theory.

You probably won't read this, but:

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/animal_fore...

It's not enough that an asteroid hit the Earth, but it's such a simple theory that everyone can remember, it has been popularized by everyone.

I thought it was a given (for anyone keen to read more than a headline) that the impact implied a long period of changes and involved more than just the strike itself?

I did assume however that volcanic activity could've been as a result of the impact.

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