Mass extinction is box office, a darling of the popular press, the subject of cover stories and television documentaries, many books, even a rock song... At the end of 1989, The Associated Press designated mass extinction as one of the "Top 10 Scientific Advances of the Decade." Everybody has weighed in, from the Economist to National Geographic.

Extinction: Bad Genes or Bad Luck?, Chapter 4 (p. 64)