(April 2, 2012 at 10:27 am)Chuck Wrote: Not true. We have no firm grounds to even count species for the 3.3 billion years before 540 million years ago. If average life span of a species is 5 million years, and did not simply change gradually into a daughter species, then only 95% ought to be extinct in 100 million years. If 10 million years, then 90%. if sizeable fraction of species are continuous evolving into daughter species and not just dying off leaving no descendants, then the rates would be lower.
Chuck,
You are confusing phyletic extinction (pseudoextinction) and extinction.
