Dinosaurs Rediscovered: The Scientific Revolution in Paleontology (The Rediscovered Series)

Dinosaurs Rediscovered is a fascinating look at how paleontology has become more scientific over the past forty years, along with a review of the most recent understanding of dinosaurs. Ernest Rutherford is quoted as saying that “Science is either physics or stamp collecting”, and paleontology does more stamp collecting than most fields. But systematization over Benton’s career has reversed that trend.

Some of the extensions are rather natural. Finite element analysis, a standard computer modelling technique in engineering, can be applied to dinosaur skulls to estimate the bite strength of a Tyrannosaurus rex and the locomotion of a Brontosaurus. Studies of stride length and biomechanics can give numbers for how fast dinosaurs moved, and leads towards their metabolism. We now know that dinosaurs are feathered, and we even know what color some of those feathers were. My favorite factoid was that we know that the Chicxulub impact happened in the month of June, because fossilized ponds show lilies as they would be blooming in June, followed by a layer of iridium rich dust, followed by 1000 years of ash. Pretty cool! Benton doesn’t quite manage to explain the cladistics revolution, despite being deeply involved in it, though a data and algorithm driven approach to deriving past patterns of evolution is perhaps a little abstruse for a popular science book.

Benton’s love of the field and appreciation for his fellow paleontologists shine throughgh. This book pulls back the curtain, and is an interesting read.