Paleontologists: valuable members of the scientific community, or cruel enemies of wonder and imagination? I raise this question as a person who, once upon a time, showed up as a paleontologist during Career Day in my elementary school years. (And if that seems kinda bizarre to you, my schoolteacher wife tells me that last time she did Career Day, three kids dressed up as paleontologists… which basically means repurposing the Indiana Jones costume kit. I conclude that “Paleontologist” has risen to the upper echelons of “The Kid’s Career of Choice,” which includes nostalgic favorites like “Doctor,” “Policeman,” and “Fireman.”)
One the one hand, paleontologists have provided us an invaluable basket of discoveries, giving us a window into a world of giant lizards before the dawn of humans. It’s a fantastic reality that’s so enormous we take it for granted: that Earth existed long before the first human breathed his first breath, and the caretakers were gigantic beasts.
On the other hand, many of the discoveries have been as soul-crushing as when their pals, the astronomers, decided that Pluto was no longer worthy of planet status. The Brontosaurus did not actually exist? The Ultrasaurus is basically an overgrown Brachiosaurus, and also probably did not exist? That the mighty Tyrannosaurus Rex was probably too heavy to be anything but a scavenger?
These sourpuss paleontologists have been ruining things from the beginning, ever since they decided that cavemen and dinosaurs did not actually live side by side. This is a reality that anyone with a bone of imagination seems to want to work around. Heck, if Sir Arthur Conan Doyle thinks that men and dinosaurs need to coexist side by side, who am I to argue?
Oddly enough, this dilemma between fantasy and reality rears its head in the subject of today’s Webcomic Overlook, Michael Stearns’ fun and light-hearted Dawn of Time. The comic references at least one real life controversy that proves that paleontologists can get pretty humorless sometimes.
