Dr. Spencer Lucas Curator of Paleontology at the New Mexico Natural History and Science Museum in Albuquerque, speaks to an audience of all ages June 19 at Fuller Lodge. Photo by Maire O’Neill/losalamosreporter.com

New Mexico Consortium CEO John R. Engen makes introductory comments Thursday prior to Dr. Spencer Lucas’s lecture on ‘Rethinking Mass Extinctions’. Photo by Maire O’Neill/losalamosreporter.com

The 2025 ScienceFest kicked off in Los Alamos Thursday (June 19) with a public lecture by Dr. Spencer Lucas, Curator of Paleontology at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science, entitled “ Rethinking Mass Extinctions”. The lecture drew a large audience of all ages who wanted to hear Dr. Lucas’s radically different perspective on one of Earth’s most dramatic biological events.

Dr. Lucas began his lecture by telling the audience that he was going to tell them something that runs contrary to mainstream paleontological thought. Most of his colleagues will tell you there were five great mass extinctions in the history of life. I’m going to tell you that’s nonsense – hyperbole at best. There were two great extinctions in the history of life, and whether were living in one of them – that’s a whole other issue.

Dr. Lucas noted that a colleague in Britain actually said, “Lucas is outside the mainstream. If the mainstream is wrong, the only person who’s going to see that is a person outside the mainstream.”

He has been working on the issue for almost 40 years.

This event was presented by the New Mexico Consortium, Zia Credit Union, ScienceFest, and the J. Robert Oppenheimer Memorial Committee. The lecture was recorded and will be added to https://jromc.org/video-recordings/

Scene from Dr. Spencer Lewis’s lecture at Fuller Lodge. Photo by Maire O’Neill/losalamosreporter.com