Blogging isn't catastrophic, but the opposite could be.

Ken and I just had an article published in Evolutionary Anthropology:

Catastrophes in evolution: Is Cuvier's world extinct or extant?

It's open access, so no need for a subscription to read it.

It's the second one we've done (first one is here). The piece is largely the product of many discussions we've had, mainly over email, and these discussions were sparked by posts we had each written for the MT.

Beyond how satisfying it was to have these discussions with Ken and to write this paper with him, it was a great excuse to read Elizabeth Kolbert's articles in The New Yorker (here and here) as well as her wonderful book that accompanies them:

Although the subtitle's irksome if you're not keen on separating human behavior from nature, the book's incredibly insightful. And, it's captivating if you just love tales of exploration and discovery, and if you eat up details about kit, gear and extraordinary travel conditions. It was sometimes difficult to read through my jealousy, and I consider that reason alone to recommend this read, regardless of the compelling scientific history, the exciting albeit depressing cutting-edge knowledge, as well as the important political message that only peeks out, from under the enormous pile of scientific evidence, in her final paragraphs.

It's because of our ongoing discussions and writings and then also Kolbert's, that Ken and I got to thinking about whether and how extinction, background and mass extinctions, and especially Cuvier's pre-Darwinian notions of "catastrophism" are playing out in paleoanthropology right now. This is the overall theme of our piece linked above.

Kolbert deals briefly with Neanderthals near the end of her book. However, Ken and I weren't so much concerned with what happened to the Neanderthals as whether, for instance, we could fairly consider what happened to them to be "extinction" given what we know about their DNA living on inside, probably, billions of us today. And, because of those genetic circumstances, it naturally made us wonder whether anything we call "extinct" truly is and if it is, how could we know? This of course begs for a thoughtful consideration of species and adaptation and, seemingly, all the ol' evolutionary chestnuts that are terribly difficult to crack.

I don't think that what Ken and I contributed in Evolutionary Anthropology was far different from anything that could have occurred before blogs were invented, but blogging certainly did facilitate it. What's more, if I didn't have The Mermaid's Tale, if I wasn't routinely reading it and writing for it, I probably wouldn't be thinking this regularly and this deeply about many of these marvelous things in the first place, especially not with the unimaginably wonderful benefit of engaging with Anne and Ken.  What a catastrophe that would be.