Abstract
Explanation is a perennially hot topic in philosophy of science. Yet philosophers have exhibited a curious blind spot to the questions of how explanatory projects develop over time, as well as what processes are involved in generating their developmental trajectories. This paper examines these questions using research into the end-Permian mass extinction as a case study. It takes as its jumping-off point the observation that explanations of historical events tend to grow more complex over time, but it goes beyond this observation by scrutinizing the processes responsible for generating this pattern. Surveying several decades of research into the end-Permian extinction, I suggest that the principal “driver” of explanation in geohistory is non-explanatory work: work that is undertaken to increase our descriptive understanding of a phenomenon, not to test a particular explanatory claim. Non-explanatory work drives explanation by imposing or eliminating demands on explanation, and by furnishing new resources for constructing explanatory models. Explanations grow more complex because (1) the demands on explanation tend to increase with ongoing characterization of the target phenomenon, and (2) characterization tends grows the roster of explanatory resources. However, the fact that non-explanatory work sometimes eliminates demands on explanation means that this trend is not irreversible. I suggest that to achieve a more rounded view of the dynamics of explanation, philosophers should ask how research into complex phenomena is organized, as well as how explanatory progress depends upon the coordination of different kinds of material and epistemic resources.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
A third option is to regard explanations ontically: that is, as nonrepresentational physical entities as opposed to representations of those entities (Wright & van Eck 2018). The present discussion presumes a non-ontic—that is, a representational—view of explanation.
I do not mean to imply that the dynamics of explanation has received no philosophical attention. The vast literature on scientific reduction contains insights on how theoretical explanations change over time (see van Riel & Van Gulick, 2019). In addition, philosophers interested in mechanisms have gone to great lengths to explore the process by which mechanistic explanations are constructed and refined (e.g., Bechtel & Richardson, 1993; Craver & Darden, 2013). The latter is the kind of inquiry I have in mind when I speak of the dynamics of explanation.
The notion of complexity in focus for Currie is causal complexity: an explanation is complex in proportion as the causal structure it represents is complex. When I speak of the complexity of explanations in this chapter, it is this notion of complexity that I intend.
Some are. Erwin and Vogel, for example, tested the causal relationship between volcanic eruptions and mass extinctions by examining the temporal proximity of “the largest, best constrained pyroclastic events” and extinction levels, and found no correlation, ostensibly disproving an explanatory hypothesis (Erwin & Vogel, 1992, p. 893).
Currie (personal communication) suggests that he is giving an ontic account of the focal pattern: since history is causally complex it demands a complex explanation, which scientists come to realize when their attempts to confirm simple hypotheses end in failure. This may be; still, his account contains observations about the investigative practices involved in the explanatory process, and it is here that I find it wanting.
These projects count as “non-explanatory” for the simple reason that they have as their immediate aim the exploration or description of a subject domain, not the testing of an explanatory hypothesis (see Feest, 2017). In some cases, it may be hard to say whether a project’s aim is description, explanation or both. That is fine: all I wish to achieve with my category of “non-explanatory work” is to pick out a set of practices whose proximate aims are straightforwardly descriptive.
The evidence for a mass extinction among plants is more equivocal, with a recent study finding no evidence of a Late Permian mass extinction (Nowak et al., 2019; for a differing view, see Retallack 1995). Still, the Permo-Triassic boundary marks a major change in floral patterns, and no coal seems to have formed in the first 10 million years of the Triassic, suggesting a major impoverishment of the flora (Benton & Newell, 2014).
For example, new continental reconstructions indicated that the supercontinent Pangea formed during the Middle Permian, too early to have caused the extinction by drift-induced reduction in marine shelf area (Erwin, 2006). Still, the idea that the extinction owed to a reduction in marine living space held on (with falling sea-levels implicated in the real estate crash), and likewise the idea that Pangea had something to do with the extinction, especially on land.
This could have triggered an extinction by bringing about rapid global cooling, and perhaps influencing sea-levels (see Campbell et al., 1992).
*Spoiler alert.
More precisely, the eruption of the Siberian Trap basalts is believed to have liberated vast amounts of carbon dioxide and sulfate aerosols, which led to runaway global warming and increased acid rainfall. It may also have liberated large amounts of methane (a potent greenhouse gas), either from contact metamorphism or from the destabilization of methane gas hydrates in underwater reservoirs. The combined effect of global warming and acid rain was to denude the landscape, causing massive erosion that flushed the shallow seas with nutrient rich soils and siliciclastic debris. This led (by an uncertain mechanism) to the spread of anoxic conditions in the sea, precipitating the marine extinction, while terrestrial extinctions “presumably resulted from aridity, acid rain, loss of soils, and perhaps short-term effects of wildfires and damage to the ozone layer” (Benton & Newell, 2014, 1314; see also Wignall, 2015).
China has a rich tradition of paleontological research in the descriptive tradition, and Chinese geologists had performed extensive work on P–Tr boundary sections prior to the warming of Chinese-western relations (Erwin personal communication). To say that China was “opened to western geologists” is therefore not to imply that the majority of knowledge of Chinese boundary sections was generated by western scientists.
This statement should perhaps be qualified to exclude Chinese geologists, whose views on the extinction were not widely known among western geologists prior to the 1990s (most articles and monographs were published in Chinese or Russian).
The end-Guadalupian mass extinction was not as severe as the end-Permian extinction, which continued to rank as “the most severe biotic crisis of all time” (Stanley & Yang, 1994, p. 1340).
The absence of complete boundary sections was in turn taken to indicate that the Tethys region had experienced a major regression, or sea-level drop, near the P–Tr boundary.
Conodonts are exclusively marine animals. They are therefore not useful for correlating (establishing a temporal correspondence) between marine and terrestrial rocks, except in rare cases where marine and terrestrial rocks interfinger.
This shift is evidently global—a fact that conodont biostratigraphy helped greatly to establish (see Erwin, 1993, Ch. 7). Because of this, the carbon swing can be used to mark the P–Tr boundary; something that is especially useful in sections that lack fossils.
Flood basalt eruptions are not like the eruption of Vesuvius that Pliny witnessed—an explosive event that blasted rock, ash and volcanic gasses high into the stratosphere. In a flood basalt eruption, runny lavas ooze out of fissures in the ground to form large sheets of igneous rock called basalt. The Siberian eruptions were particularly profligate of basalt, exuding enough lava to cover an area as large as the United States up to a kilometer deep (Erwin, 2006). Evidently there were Vesuvius-style (“pyroclastic”) eruptions happening at the time too: a nasty combination (Wignall, 2015).
In any event, it is clear from new techniques for studying ancient redox conditions that anoxia was widespread during the Late Permian, especially in shallow waters (Clarkson et al., 2016; Feng & Algeo, 2014). But here too, the picture is fast becoming more complicated. Instead of a gradual spread of anoxic conditions, the inferred pattern of redox changes now suggests a complex spatial and temporal dynamics, whose relationship to “both evolutionary dynamics and the global carbon cycle” remains unresolved (Clarkson et al., 2016, 2). Resolving these relationships will be critical to filling out new models for the end-Permian extinction (see, e.g., Schobben, 2020).
Euxinia is a condition whereby hydrogen sulfide (H2S) accumulates in oxygen-free waters, which can lead to deadly hydrogen sulfide poisoning or to hypercapnia (a buildup of carbon dioxide in biological tissues, which can be lethal).
There is also evidence for massive wildfires near the P–Tr boundary, which would have contributed to deforestation and, ultimately, to “catastrophic soil erosion” that exacerbated marine anoxia and euxinia (Shen et al., 2011, p. 1372).
Whether they will tend to be “one-shot hypotheses” is a separate matter, which I will consider below.
This is the “demand-side” of the story, at any rate. The “supply-side” concerns the provision of explanatory resources that support complexification, and here too non-explanatory work is often paramount (see, e.g., Novick et al., 2020 on the role of experiments in furnishing explanatory resources).
There remains a difficulty with justifying simple one-shot hypotheses for complex events, so Currie’s project in his (2019b) is not misguided. He just errs in saying that a special difficulty attaches to the justification of one-shot hypotheses if these are defined to include all explanations (simple or complex) featuring a single trigger.
By “features of the event,” I have in mind things like its temporal structure (what happened, when and for how long), patterns of extinction and survival, and elements of its geological context, including the behavior of earth systems and the environmental effects of massive volcanism.
Currie makes a similar suggestion in his (2019a). Specifically, he suggests that research into mass extinctions can be analyzed as a problem agenda whose “central concerns involve characterizing, finding evidence of, and explaining both particular events in the fossil record, and patterns across it” (7). A difference between Currie’s analysis and mine is that Currie seems to regard the problem agenda of mass extinctions as primarily a paleobiological problem agenda, whereas I regard paleobiology as just one of many disciplines involved in a joint project of investigating mass extinctions.
This does not imply that explanatory hypotheses never provide important scaffolding for locating relevant evidence. What I deny is simply that explanatory hypotheses are required to fulfill this role.
Several recent studies of the experimental sciences have reached similar conclusions. For example, O’Malley, Elliott & Burian (2010) have argued that research into microRNA is best characterized in terms of an “iterative movement” between different types of investigation that involves “not only the proposal and testing of hypotheses but also exploratory, technology-oriented and question-driven modes of research” (407). Fagan (2011) argues that in stem cell biology research aimed at testing explicit hypotheses is “not the whole story,” and suggests that philosophers pay attention to the various activities involved in the construction of models, as well as to the way in which “the structure of models…reflects the organization of their respective communities” (259). Finally, Feest (2017) suggests that philosophers’ preoccupation with explanation has led them to overlook the fact that “objects of research” in the cognitive and behavioral sciences are seldom clearly delineated, and claims that “the research process is better analyzed as one that tries to construct adequate descriptions of epistemically blurry objects of research” (1175).
A reviewer points out that this claim is sensitive to how we delineate explanatory research. For example, a study with descriptive aims might nonetheless be regarded as “explanatory” if it makes a significant contribution to an explanatory project (adding or subtracting constraints on explanation, say). This strikes me as a perfectly sensible thing to say, and fully compatible with my thesis much “explanatory” research (in this sense) has proximate aims that are unrelated to the evaluation of explanatory hypotheses.
Feest is here talking about the cognitive and behavioral sciences, but her point applies with equal force to the sciences of geohistory.
References
Alvarez, W. (1997). T. rex and the crater of doom. Princeton University Press.
Bechtel, W., & Richardson, R. C. (1993). Discovering complexity: Decomposition and localization as strategies in scientific research. The MIT Press.
Benton, M. J. (1995). Diversification and extinction in the history of life. Science, 268, 52–58.
Benton, M. J. (2018). Hyperthermal driven mass extinctions: Killing models during the Permian-Triassic mass extinction. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A, 376, 20170076. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2017.0076.
Benton, M. J., & Newell, A. J. (2014). Impacts of global warming on Permo-Triassic terrestrial ecosystems. Gondwana Research, 25, 1308–1337.
Benton, M. J., & Twitchett, R. J. (2003). How to (almost) kill all life: The End-Permian mass extinction. Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 18, 358–365.
Bokulich, A. (2018). Using models to correct data: Paleodiversity and the fossil record. Synthese. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-018-1820-x.
Bowring, S. A., Erwin, D. H., Jin, Y. G., Martin, M. W., Davidek, K. L., & Wang, W. (1998). U/Pb zircon geochronology and tempo of the End-Permian mass extinction. Science, 280, 1039–1045.
Burgess, S. D., & Bowring, S. A. (2015). High-precision geochronology confirms voluminous magmatism before, during, and after Earth’s most severe extinction. Science Advances, 1(7), e1500470.
Burgess, S. D., Bowring, S., & Shen, S. (2014). High-precision timeline for earth’s most severe extinction. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, U.S.A, 111, 3316–3321.
Burgess, S. D., Muirhead, J. D., & Bowring, S. A. (2017). Initial pulse of Siberian Traps sills as the trigger of the End-Permian mass extinction. Nature Communications, 8, 164. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-017-00083-9.
Campbell, I. H., Czamanske, G. K., Fedorenko, V. A., Hill, R. I., & Stepanov, V. (1992). Synchronism of the Siberian Traps and the Permian-Triassic boundary. Science, 258, 1760–1763.
Clarkson, M. O., Wood, R. A., Poulton, S. W., Richoz, S., Newton, R. J., Kaseman, S. A., Bowyer, F., & Krystyn, L. (2016). Dynamic anoxic ferruginous conditions during the end-Permian mass extinction and recovery. Nature Communications. https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms12236.
Colaço, D. (2020). Recharacterizing scientific phenomena. European Journal of Philosophy of Science, 10, 14. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13194-020-0279-z.
Craver, C. F., & Darden, L. (2013). In search of mechanisms: Discoveries across the life sciences. Chicago University Press.
Currie, A. M. (2014). Narratives, mechanisms and progress in historical science. Synthese, 191, 1163–1183.
Currie, A. M. (2018). Rock, bone and ruin: An optimist’s guide to the historical sciences. The MIT Press.
Currie, A. M. (2019a). Mass extinctions as major transitions. Biology & Philosophy, 34, 29. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-019-9676-0.
Currie, A. M. (2019b). Simplicity, one-shot hypotheses and paleobiological explanation. History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences, 41, 10. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40656-019-0247-0.
Currie, A. M., & Sterelny, K. (2017). In defense of story-telling. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, Part A, 62, 14–21.
Erwin, D. H. (1993). The great paleozoic crisis: Life and death in the Permian. Columbia University Press.
Erwin, D. H. (1994). The Permo-Triassic extinction. Nature, 367, 231–236.
Erwin, D. H. (1996). The mother of mass extinctions. Scientific American, 275, 72–78.
Erwin, D. H. (2006). Extinction: How life nearly ended 250 million years ago. Princeton University Press.
Erwin, D. H., Bowring, S. A., & Jin, Y. G. (2002). End-Permian mass extinctions: A review. Geological Society of America Special Papers, 356, 363–383.
Erwin, D. H., & Vogel, T. A. (1992). Testing for causal relationships between large pyroclastic volcanic eruptions and mass extinctions. Geophysical Research Letters, 19, 893–896.
Fagan, M. B. (2011). Social experiments in stem cell biology. Perspectives on Science, 19, 235–262.
Feest, U. (2017). Phenomena and objects of research in the cognitive and behavioral sciences. Philosophy of Science, 84, 1165–1176.
Feng, Q., & Algeo, T. J. (2014). Evolution of oceanic redox conditions during the Permo-Triassic transition: Evidence from deepwater radiolarian facies. Earth-Science Reviews, 137, 34–51.
Fortey, R. A. (1997). Life: An unauthorized biography. HarperCollins Publishing.
Gould, S. J. (1977). Ever since Darwin: Reflections on natural history. W.W. Norton & Co.
Hacking, I. (1983). Representing and intervening: Introductory topics in the philosophy of natural science. Cambridge University Press.
Hallam, A. (1981). A revised sea-level curve for the early jurassic. Journal of the Geological Society, 138, 735–743.
Hallam, A. (1984). Pre-quaternary sea-level changes. Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences, 12, 205–243.
Hallam, A. (2004). Catastrophes and lesser calamities: The causes of mass extinctions. Oxford University Press.
Hallam, A., & Wignall, P. B. (1997). Mass extinctions and their aftermath. Oxford University Press.
Holser, W. T., & Magaritz, M. (1987). Events near the Permo-Triassic boundary. Modern Geology, 11, 155–180.
Holser, W. T., & Magaritz, M. (1992). Cretaceous/tertiary and Permian/Triassic boundary events compared. Geochimica Et Cosmochimica Acta, 56, 3297–3309.
Holser, W. T., Schönlaub, H. P., Attrep, M., Boeckelmann, K., Klein, P., Magaritz, M., Orth, C. J., Fenninger, A., Jenny, C., Kralik, M., Mauritsch, H., Pak, E., Schramm, J. M., Stattegger, K., & Schmöller, R. (1989). A unique geochemical record at the Permian/Triassic boundary. Nature, 337, 39–44.
Holser, W. Y., Schönlaub, H. P., Boeckelmann, K., & Magaritz, M. (1991). The Permian-Triassic of the Gartnerkofel-1 core (Carnic Alps, Austria): Synthesis and conclusions. Abhandlungen Der Geologischen Bundesanstalt, 45, 213–232.
Jin, Y. G., Wang, Y., Wang, W., Shang, Q. H., Cao, C. Q., & Erwin, D. H. (2000). Pattern of marine mass extinction near the Permian-Triassic boundary in South China. Science, 289, 432–436.
Jin, Y. G., Wardlaw, B. R., Glenister, B. F., & Kotlyar, G. V. (1997). Permian Chronostratigraphic Subdivisions: Episodes, 20, 6–10.
Jin, Y. G., Zhang, J., & Shang, Q.H. (1994). Two phases of the end-Permian mass extinction. In A. F. Embry, B. Beauchamp, & D. J. Glass (Eds.), Pangea: Global environments and resources (pp 813–822). Canadian Society of Petroleum Geologists memoir 17.
Jurikova, H., Gutjahr, M., Wallman, K., Flögel, S., Liebetrau, V., Postenato, R., Angiolini, L., Garbelli, C., Brand, U., Widenbeck, M., & Eisenhaur, A. (2020). Permian-Triassic mass extinction pulses driven by major marine carbon cycle perturbations. Nature Geoscience, 13, 745–750.
King, G. M. (1991). Terrestrial tetrapods and the end Permian event: A comparison of analyses. Historical Biology, 5, 239–255.
Knoll, A. H., Bambach, R. K., Payne, J. L., Pruss, S., & Fischer, W. W. (2007). Paleophysiology and end-Permian mass extinction. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 256, 295–313.
Labandeira, C. C., & Sepkoski, J. J., Jr. (1993). Insect diversity in the fossil record. Science, 261, 310–315.
Love, A. C. (2008). Explaining evolutionary innovation and novelty: Criteria of explanatory adequacy and epistemological prerequisites. Philosophy of Science, 75, 874–886.
Love, A. C. (2014). The erotetic organization of developmental biology. In A. Minelli & T. Pradeu (Eds.), Towards a theory of development (pp. 33–55). Oxford University Press.
Love, A. C. (2015). Explaining the origin of multicellularity: Between evolutionary dynamics and developmental mechanisms. In K. J. Niklas & S. A. Newman (Eds.), Multicellularity: origins and evolution (pp. 277–295). The MIT Press.
Nowak, H., Schneebeli-Hermann, E., & Kustatscher, E. (2019). No mass extinction for land plants at the Permian-Triassic transition. Nature Communications, 10, 384. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-07945-w.
Novick, A., Currie, A., McQueen, E. W., & Brouwer, N. L. (2020). Kon-tiki experiments. Philosophy of Science, 87, 2. https://doi.org/10.1086/707553.
Olson, E. C. (1982). Extinctions of Permian and Triassic nonmarine vertebrates. In L. T. Silver & P .H. Schultz (Eds.), Geological implications of impacts of large asteroids and comets on the earth (pp. 501–511). Geological Society of America Special Paper 190.
O’Malley, M. A., Elliott, K. C., & Burian, R. M. (2010). From genetic to genomic regulation: Iterativity in microRNA research. Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 41, 407–417.
Pitrat, C. W. (1973). Vertebrates and the Permo-Triassic extinction. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 14, 249–264.
Potochnik, A. (2017). Idealization and the aims of science. University of Chicago Press.
Raup, D. M. (1979). Size of the Permo-Triassic bottleneck and its evolutionary implications. Science, 206, 217–218.
Renne, P. R., Zichao, Z., Richards, M. A., Black, M. T., & Basu, A. R. (1995). Synchrony and causal relations between Permian-Triassic boundary crises and Siberian flood volcanism. Science, 269, 1413–1416.
Retallack, G. J. (1995). Permian-Triassic life crisis on land. Science, 267, 77–80.
Rhodes, F. H. T. (1967). Permo-Triassic extinction. In W. B. Harland, C. H. Holland, M. R. House, N. F. Hughes, A. B. Reynolds, M. J. S. Rudwick, G. E. Satterwaite, L. B. H. Tarlo & E. C. Willey (Eds.), The Fossil Record (pp. 57–76). Geological Society.
Salmon, W. (1989). Four decades of scientific explanation. University of Minnesota Press.
Schobben, M., Foster, W. J., Sleveland, A. R. N., Zuchua, V., Svensen, H. H., Planke, S., Bond, D. P. G., Marcelis, F., Newton, R. J., Wignall, P. B., & Poulton, S. W. (2020). A nutrient control on marine anoxia during the end-Permian mass extinction. Nature Geosciences, 13, 640–646.
Schopf, T. J. M. (1974). Permo-Triassic: Relation to sea-floor spreading. The Journal of Geology, 82, 129–143.
Shen, S. Z., Crowley, J. L., Wang, Y., Bowring, S. A., Erwin, D. H., Sadler, P. M., Cao, C. Q., Rothman, D. H., Henderson, C. M., Ramezani, J., Zhang, H., Shen, Y., Wang, X. D., Wang, W., Mu, L., Li, W. Z., Tang, Y. G., Liu, X. L., Liu, L. J., … Jin, Y. G. (2011). Calibrating the end-Permian mass extinction. Science, 334, 1367–1372.
Song, H., Wignall, P. B., Chu, D., Tong, J., Sun, Y., Song, H., He, W., & Tian, L. (2014). Anoxia/high temperature double whammy during the Permian-Triassic marine crisis and its aftermath. Science Reports, 4, 4132. https://doi.org/10.1038/srep04132.
Stanley, S. M., & Yang, X. (1994). A double mass extinction at the end of the Paleozoic Era. Science, 266, 1340–1344.
Teichert, C. (1990). The Permian-Triassic boundary revisited. In E. G. Kauffman & O. H. Walliser (Eds.), Extinction events in earth history (pp. 199–238). Springer-Verlag.
Turner, D., & Currie, A. M. (2017). Scientific knowledge of the deep past. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, Part A, 55, 43–46.
Valentine, J. W., & Moores, E. M. (1970). Plate-tectonic regulation of faunal diversity and sea level: A model. Nature, 228, 657–659.
Valentine, J. W., & Moores, E. M. (1973). Provinciality and diversity across the Permian-Triassic boundary. In A. Logan & L. V. Hills (Eds.), The Permian and Triassic systems and their mutual boundary (pp. 759–766). Canadian Society of Petroleum Geologists.
van Riel, R., & Van Gulick, R. (2019). Scientific reduction. In E.N. Zalta (Ed.) The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (Spring 2019 Edition). https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2019/entries/scientific-reduction.
Walsh, P. G. (Ed.). (2006). Pliny the younger: Complete letters. Oxford University Press.
Ward, P. D. (2004). Gorgon: Paleontology, obsession and the greatest catastrophe in earth’s history. Viking Books.
Waters, C. K. (2004). What was classical genetics? Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, Part A, 35, 783–809.
Wignall, P. B. (1996). The timing of palaeoenvironmental changes at the Permo-Triassic (P/Tr) boundary using conodont biostratigraphy. Historical Biology, 12, 39–62.
Wignall, P. B. (2015). The worst of times: How life on earth survived eighty million years of extinctions. Princeton University Press.
Wignall, P. B., & Hallam, A. (1992). Anoxia as a cause of the Permo-Triassic mass extinction: Facies evidence from Northern Italy and the Western United States. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 93, 21–46.
Wignall, P. B., & Hallam, A. (1993). Griesbachian (Earliest Triassic) paleoenvironmental changes in the salt range, Pakistan and Southeast China and their bearing on the Permo-Triassic mass extinction. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 101, 215–237.
Wignall, P. B., & Twitchett, R. J. (1996). Oceanic anoxia and the end Permian mass extinction. Science, 272, 1155–1158.
Wood, R., & Erwin, D. H. (2018). Innovation not recovery: Dynamic redox promotes metazoan radiations. Biological Reviews, 93, 863–873.
Woody, A. (2015). Re-orienting discussions of scientific explanation: A functional perspective. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, Part A, 52, 79–87.
Wright, C., & von Eck, D. (2018). Ontic explanation is either ontic or explanatory, but not both. Ergo, 5, 38. https://doi.org/10.3998/ergo.12405314.0005.038.
Acknowledgements
This paper has benefitted greatly from the generous feedback of several people. Adrian Currie and Douglas Erwin read the manuscript at an advanced stage and provided extensive and useful feedback. Scott Lidgard and Alan Love read the manuscript somewhat earlier, and provided insightful comments on a range of issues. My thanks as well to the “Love Lab”—in particular, to Yoshinari Yoshida, Amanda Corris, Lauren Wilson and Kelle Dhein—for carefully reading and commenting on an early version of the paper.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Dresow, M. Explaining the apocalypse: the end-Permian mass extinction and the dynamics of explanation in geohistory. Synthese 199, 10441–10474 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-021-03254-w
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-021-03254-w