Fossils
Several years ago, at a poetry reading, I said, by way of introduction,
“Children naturally love poetry and dinosaurs. Most of them grow out of it, in time, but those who don’t grow up to become poets and paleontologists.”
Later, I began to think that the two occupations might be the same thing. I certainly know several people who—like myself—exhibit those particular forms of arrested development, either alone or in combination.
I recently unearthed this exchange, which was found deeply embedded in layers of ancient e-mail that date back nearly to the Mesozoic. I believe I’ve been able to reassemble the fragments with reasonable accuracy.
Dialogue about Dinosaurs (ca. 1995)
Me: We went to the city yesterday (we’re grown-ups again, you know.) We went to see the dinosaurs. I told Karen more stuff about dinosaurs than she wanted to hear. I had Super Dinofries in the Dinersaurus and made bloody wounds with ketchup. It was cool. Then I spilled my juice all over my lap so, for the rest of the day, it looked like I peed my pants.
Karen was very tolerant, considering.
Then we went to a restaurant that had foreign food. I didn’t blow my nose at the table.
Karen seemed to like that.
My Much Put-upon Friend: Did Karen have to cut up your food at the Dinersaurus? We were at the dinosaur hall this weekend, too. Why did they change all the dinosaurs’ names?
Me: She did NOT have to cut up my food! I bit the heads off of the Super Dinofries by MYSELF!
Silly grown-up—they didn’t, exactly, change the dinosaurs’ names, it’s just that most grown-ups are incapable of understanding even the most basic facts about dinosaurs.
Actually, the science of taxonomy is more volatile than you might think. As new information about species is acquired, the names of species—which reflect a new understanding of the relationships between species—have to change. For example, the skeleton of what used to be called “brontosaurus” was originally displayed with the wrong skull and was missing a very long and delicate section of the tail. When these errors were discovered, paleontologists were forced to assign the animal to a different Genus; its name became “Apatosaurus.”
Simple?
This is, by the way, a very easy mistake to make. The fossils are usually found in the form of a scattered, jumbled, and incomplete mélange. Imagine being handed a large box containing the shredded pages of several books you have never read. What are the chances that you would be able to accurately reconstruct the text of, say, Troilus and Cressida?
Much Put-upon Friend: What are the chances, given the opportunity, that I would WISH to recreate Troilus and Cressida?
Me: Such blatant anti-intellectualism is unbecoming in one so academically elevated as yourself. “Pshaw,” I say, “Pshaw!”
Modern Sidenote: Since 1995, Apatosaurus has gone back to using her maiden name (perhaps as the result of a contentious taxonomic divorce proceeding?). She’s once again listed, in the phonebook, as “Brontosaurus.”
Here’s a pre-Apatosaurus lithograph of dino-vertebrae from the US Geological Survey. I received it as a gift from one of my paleontologically-addled (AKA, “like-minded”) friends, chef/scientist Bob DelGrosso.
It was served, Chicago-style, without ketchup.
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