Thylacine survival odds are 1 in 1.6 trillion

[oldrover 5,365]

20 hours ago, Timonthy said:

Yes of course, but all it takes is a bunch of low probability estimates compounded. 

Personally I think it's pretty definite they're gone, so 1 in 1.6 trillion is infinitely higher than my estimate! It is sad 

I agree, I'm sure they're extinct. I can see no way that they could have survived, but again that's not the private opinion of several of the top dogs, and by that I mean publishing scientists not cranks. I cannot understand why they think that. 

And yes it's bloody tragic. 

[zednuts 4]

The odds are laughable. A scientist friend swears she and her partner watched one for aprox five minutes in broad day light in the forest west of Eden.  Bite me but I give more cred to local eyewitnesses and wildlife experts than some californian shiny bum with a pocket calculator

[Black Monk 3,881]

I bet they said something similar about the coelacanth.

[oldrover 5,365]

1 hour ago, Black Monk said:

I bet they said something similar about the coelacanth.

I doubt they even entertained the idea before they came across it. 

But it's not comparable. Anyone who's ever actually studied the tiger's history will tell you there's a pretty clear narrative of going, going, gone. No getting away from that I'm afraid. Not that everyone in the know believes they're extinct, they don't. 

[oldrover 5,365]

22 hours ago, zednuts said:

The odds are laughable. A scientist friend swears she and her partner watched one for aprox five minutes in broad day light in the forest west of Eden.  Bite me but I give more cred to local eyewitnesses and wildlife experts than some californian shiny bum with a pocket calculator

I don't know how they arrived at this figure because I don't understand statistics. I do know the history of the thylacine's final years better than most though, and I agree with the crux of what they're saying. 

Dead by 1950, is my best estimate. 

[Black Monk 3,881]

3 hours ago, oldrover said:

I doubt they even entertained the idea before they came across it. 

But it's not comparable. Anyone who's ever actually studied the tiger's history will tell you there's a pretty clear narrative of going, going, gone. No getting away from that I'm afraid. Not that everyone in the know believes they're extinct, they don't. 

I bet they did - they thought it had been extinct for 66 million years, and they turned out to be wrong.

The coelacanth is just one of several species that the so-called experts assumed, wrongly, to be extinct. I'd not be surprised at all if the thylacine joins them.

Edited July 2, 2017 by Black Monk

[Matt221 4,579]

From birds  like the Taka-he to reptiles like the Lake Gomera giant lizard to tiny insects even large mammals like the Charoa Peccary have been rediscovered  when they were supposed to be extinct but as for the Thylacine if it is still alive it keeps a family low profile although it would be good to think somewhere one day ......

[oldrover 5,365]

2 hours ago, Matt221 said:

even large mammals like the Charoa Peccary have been rediscovered  when they were supposed to be extinct

They were subsequently found to have been being used by the U.S hat industry for years before that. It's not that no one knew they were there, they did, just they weren't recognised by as being distinct. No danger of that happening with a thylacine. 

[oldrover 5,365]

3 hours ago, Black Monk said:

I bet they did - they thought it had been extinct for 66 million years, and they turned out to be wrong.

The coelacanth is just one of several species that the so-called experts assumed, wrongly, to be extinct. I'd not be surprised at all if the thylacine joins them.

Let's just clear this up. It's not as if the 'so-called experts'  went swaggering round declaring it extinct only to be embarrassed when one turned up dead in 1938. It was they who realised the significance of the specimen when they saw it. 

The animal was, prior to '38, only known from fossils, why until one turned up alive should they have expected not to be extinct exactly? Yet it's still wheeled out time and again as an example of the hubris of the 'experts' who discovered it in Western terms in the first place?  

Edited July 2, 2017 by oldrover

[taniwha 1,482]

Did someone mention coelacanth? 

 

[BeastieRunner 550]

Well, here's hoping ...

[Matt221 4,579]

On 03/07/2017 at 1:10 PM, taniwha said:

Did someone mention coelacanth? 

 

Not dissimilar to this evolution of man lol

 

[qxcontinuum 980]

i always laugh when i heard such terrific scientific calculations with little to no evidence. Probability was one of my favorite subject in school and if i told my teacher about this calculation he 'll laugh too. is ridiculous. 

[Podo 7,735]

It's probably long gone, but it would be great to be wrong. Even if it is still alive, though, its numbers must be ridiculously low.