To the editor

From: Natural History | Date: December 1, 1998| Author: | Copyright information

Casual Mentor

Eugene Odum, the "father of ecology" interviewed in "Whole Earth Mentor" ("Natural Selections," October 1998) is mistaken to dismiss mass extinctions so casually. We recognize mass extinctions in the geological record because groups of dominant organisms die out. And look who's dominant going into this mass extinction! Although Odum correctly notes that diversity returned after previous mass extinctions, he does not mention that this evolutionary process took millions of years-not a humanly meaningful time frame.

Jamie E. Thompson, Ph.D.

Edwardsville, Illinois

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