So the article says that things are quite possibly not as bad as some people claim but that the species count is being reduced due to human actions.

I would speculate that the species count is about to experience the greatest rate of increase the planet has ever experienced. The reason why is due to an event that happened about five years ago, ie. The first species designed and created directly on purpose by humans (all be it a bacterium, but a new species non the less). We can now create life and new species arbitrarily in the lab. If we industrialsed the process and threw heaps of money at it, we could create scores of species per hour. You can understandably believe that this is quite likely to happen since these new species will have new unique properties which gives them economic value and thus are desireable to create.

Fred has written a good article but I would take it one step further. the reason scientists concluded such high rates of extinctions from present events is because they have been carefully comparing apples with oranges. Past extinctions counts rely on the fossil record, which does not include many of the tiny creatures counted in the computer projections Fred mentions. If they subjected land clearance from, say, a giant missile strike to the same computer modelling then the count would be very much higher. The claim that the changes in recorded species in recent centuries counts as a major extinction event is obviously wild-eyed propaganda..

I think the perpetual warnings about extinctions might have something to do with the lust for taxpayers' money shared by obsessive university employees and volunteer groups trying to make names for themselves. It's not all false, of course: species do die out and, often there is absolutely nothing that can be done about that, apart from keeping humans away; but, if we cannot see or enjoy wild-life, what's the point. Many of things having money spent on them now have never been heard of by most people. We are an urban lot and, sadly, most of us are just not interested.

Assumptions based on "educated" speculation, which then in turn support wildly inaccurate for or against estimates, is the probable reason?

And just as computer modeling can overestimate the extinction rate and the risks, so also can the modeling underestimate the same?

Given computer modeling is used to estimate the probable rate of climate change, is also vulnerable to the same kind of formulated results.

Hence some are on the record saying that the predicted changes have happened far faster than the computer modeling?

As is obvious by the widely reported tundra melt and the consequent plethora of brand new summer lakes in Alaska.

Historical records are a far better guide in some cases; than the modeling, that has largely replaced reliable historical evidence?

The real global extinction rate to worry about is our own possible one!

Given the way we act or not, on climate change, which for some is a head buried somewhere warm and comfortable (She'll be right mate) approach?
Rhrosty.

Rhrosty
The modeled extinction rate depended on land clearance as the article says. More land clearance more extinction. The article notes that a count of known species extinctions might be higher than background but how anyone could say its accelerating is beyond me..

Yes Curmugeon, but it remains in all cases educated guesses,hopefully, occasionally, some of which have proven wildly inaccurate? i.e., the rate or reef destruction, say as mile wide swathes destroyed by recent cyclones?

Countered by a very robust reef's ability to regenerate or relocate?
Rhrosty.