Bjorn Lomborg opens his chapter on biodiversity by citing my 1979 estimate of 40,000 species lost per year. He gets a lot of mileage out of that estimate throughout the chapter, although he does not cite any of my subsequent writings except for a single mention of a 1983 paper and a 1999 paper, neither of which deals much with extinction rates. Why doesn’t he refer to the 80-plus papers I have published on biodiversity and mass extinction during the 20-year interim?
In this respect as well as others, Lomborg seems to be exceptionally selective. As my 1979 book emphasizes, the estimate of 40,000 extinctions per year was strictly a first-cut assessment, preliminary and exploratory, and advanced primarily to get the issue of extinction onto scientific and political agendas. If Lomborg had checked my many subsequent analyses (totaling one quarter of a million words) in the professional literature instead of taking me to task for providing “no other references or argumentation,” he would have found more documented, modified, refined, and generally substantiated estimates.
Lomborg is equally sloppy in his analyses of the utilitarian benefits of species ... Read more
