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Prehistory's Brilliant Future
An anonymous reader writes Senior Vice President and Provost of Science at the American Museum of Natural History Michael J. Novacek has written an op-ed piece about the glut of new dinosaurs recently discovered, including a fish fossil with flexible limbs which documents the transition from life in the water to life on land. In addition to the new species, a team has recently published its work on new skeletal remains of Spinosaurus, a 100-million-year-old carnivore. From the article: "As with any frontier of new knowledge, there are challenges as well as opportunities. Certain regions of the world, like North Africa, may hold the key to understanding the evolution of major groups, but remain poorly explored. Even as some regions become accessible thanks to political change, others can turn into conflict zones. Illegal fossil poaching is rampant in many areas and needs to be controlled before it does untold damage to our future knowledge. It is all the more important to deal with these challenges when we consider the unique contribution of paleontological evidence to human knowledge. From our study of living species, we could not have been predicted the existence of dragonflies as big as sea gulls or dinosaurs with the bulk of large whales that could support themselves on land. Such discoveries provide insights about the capacity of organisms to evolve, adapt and survive."
I was a great fan of paleontology as a child. I was in awe of the creatures and the dedicated scientists that discovered them. Now, not so much.
After many decades of exploration and documentation of discoveries, how much useful information has been uncovered? These new discoveries are mildly interesting to an adult.
Biology in the past, as biology today is not built upon awesome organisms that prey on giant creatures; it is far more about microscopic organisms. These often determine the fate of the glamorous plants and animals, and are far more important.
As an adult, I'd like to learn about the less visibly impressive creatures that truly formed the world we have now. Funding for the study of ancient amoeba, fungi and bacteria may be hard to find, but should honest research take second fiddle to spectacular showmanship?
...omphaloskepsis often...
Most countries have strict regulations on what can be pulled out of the ground - this is primarily to govern the mining / oil & gas industries.
Because palaeontological and archaeological finds come under a similar "shite pulled outta the ground" ruling, yes, there's concessions and regulations governing fossil finds, including a licence to do so. For someone who just wants to walk for a few days looking for fossils, I believe it's the same as an amateur gold prospecting licence.
That's how it works here in Western Australia, anyway. YMMV.
In China a lot of dinosaur fossils are sold in medicine shops. For some reason most Chinese still believe eating them cures disease and give you manly vigor.
One of the first things paleontologists do when they go to China is check out the pharmacies. Some good discoveries have been made by buying dino bones from pharmacies.
In China a lot of dinosaur fossils are sold in medicine shops. For some reason most Chinese still believe eating them cures disease and give you manly vigor.
Whereas in fact manly vigor comes from driving a dinosaur-sized truck that guzzles fossil fuel.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
It is not forbidden to discover fossils or gold. It is forbidden to excavate them or mine it without a license. That's quite a difference.