Uploaded June 2023 | Updated September 2026, 3 days ago
In which the dinosaurs go extinct and 66 million years later people get angry about it.
What killed the dinosaurs? Maybe you think you know.
Many others thought they knew. They saw hundreds of years of scientific progress, shifting paradigms, and explosive arguments behind them, and decided they were at the end. The K-Pg extinction was settled. Then it exploded again. And again. And it kept exploding way more than any layperson today really appreciates, revealing more about science and its communication than you ever imagined.
This is the story of the mass extinction debates.
Join my Discord server to discuss this video and more:
discord.gg/AVcU9w5gVW
Get music to use in your videos with Epidemic Sound (use this referral link to support me):
epidemicsound.com/referral/cnceag
Special thanks to Alex Grab for the awesome rock arrangement of Fossils from Saint-Saens' Carnival of the Animals:
youtube.com/watch?v=IIIgUV8hw7A&t=754s
Special thanks to Dr Christopher Scotese for granting me permission to use maps from the PALEOMAP Project:
youtube.com/@cscotese
0:00 - Intro
5:17 - Part I: The End
28:40 - Part II: The Record of the Rocks
47:46 - Part III: A Sudden Violent and Unusual Event
1:18:29 - Part IV: Exterminate All Dinosaurs With This One Weird Trick!
1:46:42 - Part V: Confessions of a YouTuber
2:10:05 - Credits
----------------------
LINKS MENTIONED
Recent review about the dinosaurs' extinction:
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/brv.12128
Jefferson's mammoth cheese:
youtube.com/watch?v=0RSR78RHm24
Darren Naish on another palaeontological paradigm dust-up:
web.archive.org/web/20120705194937/http:/blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/2012/07/03/world-must-ignore-reptileevolution-com
Michael J. Benton on the history of the dinosaurs' extinction:
bpb-eu-w2.wpmucdn.com/blogs.bristol.ac.uk/dist/5/537/files/2019/07/1990KT.pdf
The Alvarez paper on asteroids:
jstor.org/stable/1683699
The Vogt paper on volcanoes:
nature.com/articles/240338a0
My Pythagoras video:
youtube.com/watch?v=EdYzqLgMmgk
Neil Halloran's video on nuclear winter:
youtube.com/watch?v=KzpIsjgapAk
Kyle Hill's video on YouTube science spam:
youtube.com/watch?v=McM3CfDjGs0
Elisabeth S. Clemens on the debates:
jstor.org/stable/285026
Interview with William Glen:
youtube.com/watch?v=u7JNssOvy14
----------------------
A full list of sources and credits can be found here:
oliverlugg.com/the-mass-extinction-debates-credits
Raw data from my survey is available here:
docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1IfIdfAmzN-wQ0T5MIDZM9dFC2leKVp9EZ2T6K8t-n6c/edit?usp=sharing
If you're looking for even more, I've written a blog post about the production, omissions and reception of this video:
oliverlugg.com/further-confessions-of-a-youtuber
In which the dinosaurs go extinct and 66 million years later people get angry about it.
What killed the dinosaurs? Maybe you think you know.
Many others thought they knew. They saw hundreds of years of scientific progress, shifting paradigms, and explosive arguments behind them, and decided they were at the end. The K-Pg extinction was settled. Then it exploded again. And again. And it kept exploding way more than any layperson today really appreciates, revealing more about science and its communication than you ever imagined.
This is the story of the mass extinction debates.
Join my Discord server to discuss this video and more:
discord.gg/AVcU9w5gVW
Get music to use in your videos with Epidemic Sound (use this referral link to support me):
epidemicsound.com/referral/cnceag
Special thanks to Alex Grab for the awesome rock arrangement of Fossils from Saint-Saens' Carnival of the Animals:
youtube.com/watch?v=IIIgUV8hw7A&t=754s
Special thanks to Dr Christopher Scotese for granting me permission to use maps from the PALEOMAP Project:
youtube.com/@cscotese
0:00 - Intro
5:17 - Part I: The End
28:40 - Part II: The Record of the Rocks
47:46 - Part III: A Sudden Violent and Unusual Event
1:18:29 - Part IV: Exterminate All Dinosaurs With This One Weird Trick!
1:46:42 - Part V: Confessions of a YouTuber
2:10:05 - Credits
----------------------
LINKS MENTIONED
Recent review about the dinosaurs' extinction:
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/brv.12128
Jefferson's mammoth cheese:
youtube.com/watch?v=0RSR78RHm24
Darren Naish on another palaeontological paradigm dust-up:
web.archive.org/web/20120705194937/http:/blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/2012/07/03/world-must-ignore-reptileevolution-com
Michael J. Benton on the history of the dinosaurs' extinction:
bpb-eu-w2.wpmucdn.com/blogs.bristol.ac.uk/dist/5/537/files/2019/07/1990KT.pdf
The Alvarez paper on asteroids:
jstor.org/stable/1683699
The Vogt paper on volcanoes:
nature.com/articles/240338a0
My Pythagoras video:
youtube.com/watch?v=EdYzqLgMmgk
Neil Halloran's video on nuclear winter:
youtube.com/watch?v=KzpIsjgapAk
Kyle Hill's video on YouTube science spam:
youtube.com/watch?v=McM3CfDjGs0
Elisabeth S. Clemens on the debates:
jstor.org/stable/285026
Interview with William Glen:
youtube.com/watch?v=u7JNssOvy14
----------------------
A full list of sources and credits can be found here:
oliverlugg.com/the-mass-extinction-debates-credits
Raw data from my survey is available here:
docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1IfIdfAmzN-wQ0T5MIDZM9dFC2leKVp9EZ2T6K8t-n6c/edit?usp=sharing
If you're looking for even more, I've written a blog post about the production, omissions and reception of this video:
oliverlugg.com/further-confessions-of-a-youtuber
