Monday, March 28, 2011

Week 9 RJA

Thesis Statement:
The extinction of the dinosaurs has been credited to many different theories including asteroids, volcanoes and climate change, but one claim, evolution, has been largely ignored.


Argument:

Research question: What killed the dinosaurs?
Thesis: Although it is almost impossible to discover the truth, I believe that evolution played an important role in the extinction of the dinosaurs.
   Reason #1: With carbon dating, scientists claim that the K-T extinction occurred between 65.5 and 66 million years ago. That is a window of 500,000 years in which the dinosaurs were killed off.
  Reason #2: A combination of evolution and climate change possibly could have eliminated 75% of the species of plants and animals on the planet.
  Reason #3: A mass extinction caused by a natural disaster would have taken much less time to destroy the flora and fauna on the planet.
  Reason #4: The claims that a large meteorite or volcanic eruptions caused the extinction of the dinosaurs does not explain how mammals were able to survive in a post-apocalyptic reality.

  Counterargument #1: Super volcanoes caused by the shifting of the tectonic plates caused the extinction of the dinosaurs
  Counterargument#2: A large meteorite or asteroid crashed into the Earth creating an explosion that wiped the plants and animals off the face of the planet.
  Counterargument#3: Climate change caused by either of the previous arguments or by greenhouse gases created a planet that was uninhabitable.

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