I'm confident many (read: three or four) people will want me to weigh in on today's exciting news about the maybe-reinstatement of Brontosaurus as a "real" dinosaur.
I'm not terribly thrilled.
"What?" I can hear you say. "But you love dinosaurs!"
Yes. Yes, I do. But I really love what's real about dinosaurs, and what's real is what's understood through a very meticulous process of the scientific method, analyses, and debates. One paper does not an improper classification change.
See, the Internet's deep love for Pluto and Brontosaurus (I've decided not to put it into quotation marks the way Brian Switek does throughout his incredible book, My Beloved Brontosaurus because that's a stylistic choice that I'm not super fond of) has given a disproportionate sense of science having 'robbed' childhoods and assumptions due to best guesses made off of insufficient data. This sense of victimhood--of deprivation--is a poor reason to revisit scientific classifications.
Additionally, until it can be clarified what could be considered a brontosaur as opposed to an apatasaur (the actual dinosaur that is correctly identified) through many different fossils, I'm not seeing an advantage. The whole problem was putting the wrong head on the wrong body. So is that what's being resurrected? Or is it just the name itself, given to a new genus? If that's the case, it isn't being restored, the name's being recycled--which means the childhood creature is still not what you thought it was.
Essentially, there are too many questions to justify the outpouring of euphoria. The greatest asset of the Internet--nearly instantaneous communication--is working against this case, it seems. There are some amazing claims in the new paper, but until it can be verified and carefully considered, I don't think that we can trumpet the return of the thunder lizard.
I should say, however, that my opinion isn't hard science. And hard science--like my opinion--can change.
I'm not terribly thrilled.
"What?" I can hear you say. "But you love dinosaurs!"
Yes. Yes, I do. But I really love what's real about dinosaurs, and what's real is what's understood through a very meticulous process of the scientific method, analyses, and debates. One paper does not an improper classification change.
See, the Internet's deep love for Pluto and Brontosaurus (I've decided not to put it into quotation marks the way Brian Switek does throughout his incredible book, My Beloved Brontosaurus because that's a stylistic choice that I'm not super fond of) has given a disproportionate sense of science having 'robbed' childhoods and assumptions due to best guesses made off of insufficient data. This sense of victimhood--of deprivation--is a poor reason to revisit scientific classifications.
Additionally, until it can be clarified what could be considered a brontosaur as opposed to an apatasaur (the actual dinosaur that is correctly identified) through many different fossils, I'm not seeing an advantage. The whole problem was putting the wrong head on the wrong body. So is that what's being resurrected? Or is it just the name itself, given to a new genus? If that's the case, it isn't being restored, the name's being recycled--which means the childhood creature is still not what you thought it was.
Essentially, there are too many questions to justify the outpouring of euphoria. The greatest asset of the Internet--nearly instantaneous communication--is working against this case, it seems. There are some amazing claims in the new paper, but until it can be verified and carefully considered, I don't think that we can trumpet the return of the thunder lizard.
I should say, however, that my opinion isn't hard science. And hard science--like my opinion--can change.
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