Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day. The good writers are the ones who see five or six of them. Most people don't see any.
Orson Scott

Comment preview: I'm speaking here as a palaeontologist who has written several papers on the subject. Not that I'm sure all my colleagues would agree with everything here (indeed I suspect not all of them would agree with anything!) but here goes. First off, it's complica ....