Overkill Hypothesis Essay

The reading by Paul S. Martin, Twilight of the Mammoths: Ice Age Extinctions and the Rewilding of America, explores the idea that extinction is a phenomenon that could be explained by human arrival. Humankind has an impact on animal extinction. He says: “based on the concept that animal populations could have sustained some additional predation, but not as much as took place after human arrival, this explanation has come to be known as overkill “(Martin, 48). In this passage Martin is explaining that humans are predators and upon their arrival many animals died. Martin also goes on to say that meteor strikes and climatic

     The Paleolithic Period is the earliest time period man has been alive, and the longest of the Stone Age's. It dates from 2,000,000 B.C to 10,000 BC The people of the Paleolithic Period lived simple lives, which consisted primarily of survival. Man's life was simply to hunt, eat, and survive, while the woman’s job was to gather and watch over the children.

The scale and pace of change is dramatic; for example, the extinction of species is occurring at around 100-fold pre-human rates4. The population sizes of vertebrate species have, on average, declined by half over the last 45 years5. More than 2.3 million km2 of primary forest has been felled since 20006. About

S. 969). In order to prove the viability of an overkill theory, Martin constructed a model that would consider both the expanding population of an invading people and the population of megafauna that they are hunting throughout their colonization. He determined that even a very large biomass (in this case the megafauna) of 2.3 X 10^ 8 metric tons could be overkilled within just 1,000 years by a biomass of no more than 10^6 metric tons of Clovis hunters (Martin P. S. 972). Additionally, Martin argued that carnivores that Clovis hunters were not hunting such as the saber-tooth tiger would have become extinct around this time because of the removal of their herbivore prey (Grayson and Meltzer 586).

Humans played a major role in the extinction of large mammals because hunters possibly killed them off. They were also slaughtered with knives and stampeded over cliffs at that time at which their species became less and less. to extinction in a period already providing great stress due to the receding ice sheets as the last glacial maximum came to an end. Later, this would mean a lack of analogues

Defenders indicated that the lack of killing site was a result of the fast speed and early time of the extinction. They also called question into the plausibility of the alternative theory. Sprawling the continent for tens of million years, these animals prospered, and successfully endured all serious droughts during that time period. It would be such a coincidence for them to be exterminated almost at the same time, in different habitats ranging from the middle desert areas to the humid south-eastern, just after the point of human’s arrival. Here the author is illustrating the theory he supports through logical

Quality health care is an issue in America for everyone, despite our numerous tests and advances in technology. In his article, “Overkill,” Atul Gawande argues against a common assumption that our healthcare system is the best because of these medical advances. In fact, Gawande claims that our health care provides much unnecessary care that often causes harm and that costs a lot . He follows that claim by redefining “low-value care” as “no-value care” and provides considerable scientific data along with his own experience with his own patients to support his claim. He also states logical reasons by referring to expert authorities who critique our health care by viewing it from an economic perspective: like talking about information asymmetry where a doctor is more informed than the patient, thus the doctor has more power over the patient. All of these emphases strongly defend his controversial claim. But what stands out most is how Gawande uses several stories showing vastly different outcomes, depending on how informed the patient and doctor are including offering non invasive treatments. We need to explore how his unusual storytelling strategy exposes how surgeons and patients should care more about quality than the mere quantity of tests and what alternatives are available to change the unnecessary over testing and over-diagnosis which prevent good health care.

The concept of species going extinct was not always accepted as fact. It wasn’t until the discovery of the American mastodon that the concept of extinction was even considered. With the discovery of the bones, When the bones were discovered, many theories were constructed, such as that the bones were actually from multiple creatures, or that this was simply an undiscovered species and hadn’t been found. The discovery of other mysterious, lost species led to the concept of extinction, and the idea that the mammoth was indeed a species that, while it once was prevalent, no longer roamed the Earth. In chapter three, Kolbert writes about her visit to Iceland in which she learned about the loss of the great auk, a three foot tall bird reminiscent of a large penguin or puffin. She then proceeds to write the tragedy of the great auks, that being that they were regularly hunted and killed. The final moments of the great auk’s species can be tracked down, as they were captured and sold and their only egg was broken. The concept of human-caused extinctions wasn’t new, as Darwin wrote about how the Galápagos tortoises were dying out very rapidly due to overhunting. The extinction of species stems from events that drastically affect them, be them environmental changes to human

Between the scientists and the environmentalists, the theories continue. Let’s face it; no one or no thing will live forever. Big animals eat little animals; little animals eat bugs and plants. The Indians were noted to be a “super-predator” disrupting the normal ecosystem and ultimately causing the extinction of the megafauna. There is no concrete evidence to support this theory yet

The overkill hypothesis stresses the fact that people were the main technicians behind the late pleistocene extinction of fauna in Northern Eurasia and North and South America. Paul Martin of the University of Arizona and others see a subsequent and spontaneous connection between the presence of people and the vanishing of numerous species of large mammals. According to the overkill hypothesis, the spread of humanity correlates to the extinction of mammals at the same precise location they migrated to. The humans got to be big game

Gawande’s (2015) article “Overkill,” suggests that physicians overprescribe drugs and tests which are ultimately unnecessary for patients. To eradicate such behavior, I would implement an electronic health record (EHR) with the following functions: Computerized provider order entry (CPOE) with a clinical decision support system (CDSS) to assist physicians/clinicians (stakeholders) in their medical practice or at hospitals. These functions will help to alleviate redundant tests and make suggestions about treatment. According to HealthIT.gov (2014), CDSS caters chiefly to drugs, laboratory testing, radiology procedures, and helpful clinical literature (HealthIT.gov, 2014).

In this paper, I will be summarizing the theory of overkill in chapter two of ‘’Twilight of the Mammoths’’, by Paul Martin. Before, I get into this started a little background information about who the author is. Martin was a scientist that studied forms of life existing in prehistoric times that was represented by the fossils of plants and animals. His overkill theory was that he argued, that humans were very much responsible of over hunting for the Late Pleistocene extinction of megafauna of mammoth, slots and Neanderthals in northern Eurasia and North and South America in the last thousands years ago. ‘’ to me the core piece of evidence for human involvement is that when viewed globally, near time extinctions took place episodically, in a pattern not correlating with climatic change or any known factor other than the spread of species. Extinctions followed prehistoric human colonization’s in a ‘’deadly syncopation’’ to use the words of mammalogist Ross MacPhee. (Martin, 51) It was also stated that when humans moved into different areas of the world that’s when huntable animals were wiped out. The archaeological

In a summary, Kolbert explains the extinctions of a variety of different major animal species that became extinct. She also explains that if trends in the environment continue that the biggest extinction in history will occur soon. If global warming, deforestation, and glaciers continue to melt she says that more and more species will continue to become extinct. She explains how humans need to be more conservative and careful with what they’re doing to prevent extinction.

"Over-thinking ruins you. Ruins the situation, twists things around, make you worry and just makes everything much worse than it actually is". This quote reflects my high school journey because I am always stressing over the small things and over-thinking every situation that pops in my head and all my assignments that were given to me I use to freak when I procrastinated and I thought I was going to fall behind. Also, I had many projects and they were all a final grade and I worried so much and was so stressed out when I felt stuck or had no idea how to start them. Over-thinking has really been a problem for me and affected my grades and attitude towards class.

It’s clear that a great extinction is coming from the evidence of the destruction of other species around us. The choices made by the human race have too often negatively affected the surrounding species. Tracy Wilson, the site director for HowStuffWorks.com, in an article for Animal Planet, states that