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Originally Posted by Mr Mephisto
The actual statistic is 99.9%. That is, 99.9% of all species that have ever existed are now extinct.
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I thought it was something like that, but didn't want to go to the trouble of digging up the exact figures or having somebody scream "SOURCE???" at me. Now that figure is your problem.
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Extinction is not evolution. I think you may have got your terms mixed up.
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Nope, I didn't mix them up. Extinction is the flip side of evolution. If an organism doesn't evolve, it runs a very real risk of losing it's niche due to the evolution of it's competition for that niche. It's the old "running as fast as you can just to stay even" scenario. If you stay put, you're most likely going to lose. There are exceptions to this (diatoms, sharks, alligators, opossums spring to mind) but by and large, the competition is "fro'cious", and if you don't evolve you risk losing your spot, which can easily lead to extinction.