Grasping the AI Nettle (but, like, maybe don't)
http://www.extinctblog.org/extinct/2026/9/1/grasping-the-ai-nettle
Published: September 2, 2026 09:07
In which Max shouts about AI from his rocking chair on the porch
🦜 Thoughts — Extinct
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From the archive: Dinosaur Time
http://www.extinctblog.org/extinct/2026/8/21/dinosaur-time-redux
Published: August 21, 2026 07:26
An old one whose time has come again: in which Max complains about how prevalent the language of political domination is in popular writing about dinosaurs
Of limeless seas and listless animals
http://www.extinctblog.org/extinct/2026/8/11/limeless-seas-and-listless-animals
Published: August 11, 2026 11:34
In which Max explores some wacky (and not-so-wacky) attempts to explain the abrupt appearance of the Cambrian fauna (vintage 1895-1960)
All the better to catch you with, my dear
http://www.extinctblog.org/extinct/2026/7/30/all-the-better-to-catch-you-with
Published: July 31, 2026 07:21
In which Max presents a lost picture from the history of paleontology: Charles Walcott’s “Sidney crab” complete with massive claws (actually the appendages of a large radiodont)
From the Archive: Minnesota Gneiss
http://www.extinctblog.org/extinct/2024/8/17/minnesota-gneiss-again
Published: June 5, 2026 13:39
A farewell to Minnesota: in which Max hits the road to see the second-oldest surface rocks in the United States
"Long live Lyell and his doctrine of uniformitarianism!"
http://www.extinctblog.org/extinct/2026/5/2/long-live-lyell
Published: May 2, 2026 21:23
In which Max finishes wrestling with a question that has always bugged him: how did uniformitarianism come to be associated with the view that nature’s laws are invariant in time and space? —Part 2 of 2
Lyell, interrupted
http://www.extinctblog.org/extinct/2026/4/24/lyell-interrupted
Published: April 24, 2026 15:34
In which Max wrestles with a question that has always bugged him: how did uniformitarianism come to be associated with the view that nature’s laws are invariant in space and time? (It’s interesting, I promise!) —Part I of II
From the Archive: The Importance of Background Theory, or Why James Hall Left Mountains out of his Theory of Mountain Building
http://www.extinctblog.org/extinct/2023/1/31/the-importance-of-background-theory-p5w5w
Published: March 31, 2026 13:41
In which Max asks whether James Hall really left mountains out of his theory of mountain building (as J.D. Dana famously alleged)
Terrible uniformitarian poetry
http://www.extinctblog.org/extinct/2026/3/23/terrible-uniformitarian-poetry
Published: March 23, 2026 17:15
In which Max shares some terrible scientific poetry from the 1940s. Just because
Beyond "Rocks versus Clocks": Glimpses of a New Philosophy of Molecular Clock Dating
http://www.extinctblog.org/extinct/2026/3/14/beyond-rocks-vs-clocks
Published: March 15, 2026 17:00
In which Max Dresow and Katherine Valde glimpse a new philosophy of molecular clock dating