So, as the human population grows and we consume resources needed by other species, we drive those species to extinction. The probabilistic causes (or random causes) of extinction in biological systems were first really stated by Mark Shaffer in 1978 in his Ph.D. dissertation on Minimum Viable Populations of Grizzly Bears. Those causes are usually listed as Demographic Stochasticity, Genetic Stochasticity, Environmental Stochasticity, and Catastrophes.

Genetic and Demographic Stochasticity are intrinsic to a population. They are random changes that are primarily affecting small populations. Environmental Stochasticity and Catastrophe are extrinsic to populations and they affect much larger populations over much larger areas. Environmental Stochasticity includes things like climate change. Catastrophes include things like asteroid impacts and things like that, that may have contributed to the mass extinctions in the past.

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