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Science and Exploration:
Dinosaurs, Fossils and The Origins of Life
Student Handout
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PROGRAM GUEST
STEPHEN JAY GOULD
At the time of this program, Stephen Jay Gould was Professor of Geology at Harvard University's Museum of Comparative Zoology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Dr. Gould was an eminent paleontologist and evolutionary theorist. As historian of science, field scientist, teacher, and author, he was the "most articulate advocate of the controversial amendment to Darwin's theory of evolution." He was acclaimed as a "general who has helped transform the entire landscape of evolutionary theory, pushing back by a few inches the frontiers of knowledge." Professor Gould was the recipient of the National Book Award, the MacArthur Foundation prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the "Scientist of the Year" Award. He died in May, 2002, at the age of 60.
JOHN R. HORNER
John Horner is Professor of Paleontology at Montana State University. He has unearthed more dinosaur fossils than anyone in history. Professor Horner discovered his first dinosaur fossil at age eight, became interested in science, but felt that science courses were nearly impossible to pass. He flunked out of college seven times. At age 31, he discovered that his academic problem was a severe case of dyslexia. Two years later, discovered the first intact dinosaur eggs ever found in North America, then was the first to find fossils of baby dinosaurs in their nests. He later uncovered the largest deposit of fossilized bones of a single species of dinosaur to be discovered anywhere in the world, in one of the most remarkable finds in the history of vertebrate paleontology. Professor Horner's interpretive insights have revolutionized our understanding of dinosaurs.
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BACKGROUND
What's behind the great dinosaur mania that's been sweeping the country during the past few years? by Stephen Jay Gould
I offer no definitive answer to the cause of this mania, but I can at least document a fact strongly relevant to the solution. Perhaps dinosaur mania is intrinsic and endemic, a necessary and permanent fact of life (once the fossils had been discovered and properly characterized); perhaps dinosaurs act as a trigger for a deep Jungian archetype of the soul; perhaps they rank as incarnation of primal fears and fascinations, programmed into our brains as the dragons of Eden. But these highfalutin' suggestions cannot suffice for the simple reason that dinosaurs have been well documented throughout our century, while few people granted them more than passing notice before the recent craze hit.
I can testify to the previous status of dinosaurs among the arcane of our culture, for I was a kiddie dinosaur nut in the late 1940s when nobody gave a damn. I fell in love with the great skeletons at the American Museum of Natural History and then, with all the passion of youth, sought collateral material with thoroughness and avidity. I would pounce on any reinforcement of my greatest interest - a Sinclair Oil logo or a hokey concrete tyrannosaur bestriding (like a colossus) Hole 15 at the local miniature golf course. There sure wasn't much to find - a few overpriced brass figures and a book or two by Roy Chapman Andrews and Ned Colbert, all hard to get anywhere outside the Museum shop. Representations in pop culture were equally scarce, ranging little beyond King Kong versus the pteranodon and Alley Oop riding a brontosaurus.
I once asked my colleague Shep White, a leading child psychologist, why kids were so interested in dinosaurs. He gave an answer both elegant and succinct: "Big, fierce, and extinct." I love this response, but it can't resolve the question that prompted this essay. Dinosaurs were also big, fierce and extinct 20 years ago, but few kids or adults gave a damn about them. And so I return to the original question: What started the current dinosaur craze?
The optimistic answer for any intellectual must be that public taste follows scientific discovery. The past 20 years have been a heyday for new findings and fundamental revisions in our view of dinosaurs. The drab, lumbering, slow-witted, inefficient beasts of old interpretations have been replaced with smooth, sleek, colorful, well-oiled, and at least adequately intelligent revised versions. The changes have been most significant in three subjects: anatomy, behavior, and extinction. All three have provided a more congenial and more interesting perspective on dinosaurs. For anatomy, a herd of brontosauruses charging through the desert inspires more awe than a few behemoths so encumbered by their own weight that they must live in ponds. For behavior, the images of the newly christened "Maiasauria," the good mother lizard, brooding her young, or a herd of migrating ornithopods, with vulnerable juveniles in the center and strong adults at the peripheries, inspire more sympathy than a dumb stegosaur laying her eggs and immediately abandoning them by instinct and ignorance. For extinction, crashing comets and global dust clouds surely inspire more attention than gradually changing sea levels or solar outputs.
I wish that I could locate the current craze in these exciting intellectual developments. But a moment's thought must convince anyone that this good reason cannot provide the right answer. Dinosaurs might not have been quite so jazzy and sexy 20 years ago, but the brontosaurs weren't any smaller back then, the tyrannosaurs were just as fierce, and the whole clan was every bit as extinct. You may accept or reject Shep White's three categories, but choose any alternate criteria and dinosaurs surely have the capacity to inspire a craze at any time - 20 years ago as well as today. (At least two mini-crazes of earlier years - in England after Waterhouse Hawkins displayed his life-sized models at the Crystal Palace in the 1850s, and in America after Sinclair prompted a dinosaur exhibit at the New York World's Fair in 1939 - illustrate this permanent potential.) We must conclude, I think, that dinosaurs have never lacked the seeds of appeal, that the missing ingredient must be adequate publicity, and that the key to "why now?" resides in promotion, not new knowledge.
Dinosaur names can become the model for rote learning. Dinosaur facts and figures can inspire visceral interest and lead to greater wonder about science. Dinosaur theories and reconstructions can illustrate the rudiments of scientific reasoning. But I'd like to end with a more modest suggestion. Nothing makes me sadder than the peer pressure that enforces conformity and erases wonder. Countless Americans have been permanently deprived of the joys of singing because a thoughtless teacher once told them not to sing, but only to mouth the words at the school assembly because they were "off key." Once told, twice shy and perpetually fearful. Countless others had the light of intellectual wonder extinguished because a thoughtless and swaggering fellow student called them nerds on the playground. Don't point to the obsessives - I was prone - who will persist and succeed despite these petty cruelties of youth. For each of us, a hundred are lost - more timid and fearful, but just as capable. We must rage against the dying of the light - and although Dylan Thomas spoke of bodily death in his famous line, we may also apply his words to the extinction of wonder in the mind, by pressures of conformity in an anti-intellectual culture.
The New York Times, in an article on science education in Korea, interviewed a nine-year-old girl and inquired after her personal hero. She replied: Stephen Hawking. Believe me, I have absolutely nothing against Larry Bird or Michael Jordan, but wouldn't it be lovely if even one American kid in 10,000 gave such an answer. The article went on to say that science whizzes are class heroes in Korean schools, not isolated and ostracized dweebs.
English wars may have been won on the playing fields of Eton, but American careers in science are destroyed on the playgrounds of Shady Oaks Elementary School. Can we not invoke dinosaur power to alleviate these unspoken tragedies? Can't dinosaurs be the great levelers and integrators - the joint passion of the class rowdy and the class intellectual? I will know that we are on our way when the kid who names "Chasmosaurus" as his personal hero also earns the epithet of Mr. Cool.
Text from: Bully for Brontosaurus: Reflections in Natural History. 1991.
PLACES
The following places are important to any discussion about dinosaurs, fossils and the origins of life. Use this assignment as a geography quiz by locating the places on a map and describe their significance below:
Badlands, Montana:
The Burgess Shale:
Gobi Desert:
Hadar, Ethiopia:
Niaux & Les Eyzies, France:
Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania:
QUESTIONS FOR THE PROGRAM GUESTS
Think of two questions to ask the guests during the program. Write them below. (Possible questions: How did Louis and Mary Leakey influence the search for human origins? Can humans save or destroy the planet?)
CAREER CORNER School to Work Transition
Studying Dinosaurs, Fossils and The Origins of Life may not seem relevant to your future today, but they represent stepping stones to a meaningful career. A knowledge of these subjects will help you decide what is most interesting to you. This is very important because most people spend one-half of their waking time on the job. Investigate the following careers related to science and exploration. Find out what the person does on a daily basis; the educational and work experience required and where the work must be performed.
Anthropologist
Archeologist
Author
Biologist
Documentary Filmmaker
Field Scientist
Geologist
Gemologist
Lab Technician
Paleontologist
Photographer
Teacher
Zoologist
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