Tiers of Time and Trials of Extrapolationism 1325
years ago and therefore cannot recur for almost another century. Raup freely admits
that the orderly and monotonic form of the kill curve does not specify any style of
causality by itself—and, most relevantly and especially, does not permit an inference
about random effects at lowest levels merely because we can advance a powerful case
for this style in one event at the highest level.
Nonetheless, the numerical specifics of Earth's particular curve does impose