The Story of the Dinosaurs in 25 Discoveries: Donald Prothero *****

Two things worried me about this book. One was the title. Publishers love the 'topic in n chunks' style for some reason, but often such books feel too bitty and insubstantial. And then there have been quite a lot of palaeontology books recently, making dinosaurs seem old hat. But I needn't have worried. After a couple of pages, Donald Prothero had me hooked. As his easy style introduced the earliest fossil discoveries, from a giant salamander originally assumed to be an antediluvian man (even though he or she would have had a head shape more suited to a Dr Who alien) to the knee-end of a dinosaur thigh bone that briefly gave the first identified dinosaur (megalosaurus) the Latin name 'Scrotum humanum', learning about our gradually growing understanding of the dinosaurs with Prothero was like attending the best kind of dinner party, replete with entertaining stories.

Although Prothero does give us plenty of information about the various dinosaurs covered (the 25 chapters are based around 25 specific species, including all the old favourites, and some less well-known, such as cryolophosaurus and heterodontosaurus, there are plenty of other species introduced along the way), the reason the book works so well is that he drives his narrative from the individuals involved in making the discoveries and attempting to piece together what was represented from sometimes very fragmentary finds.

So, for example, in that first chapter on megalosaurus, we see how it was assumed that it walked on four legs, looking something like a giant armoured crocodile (hence the totally inaccurate representation amongst the Crystal Palace concrete dinosaurs). We discover the contributions of William Buckland (a renowned eccentric who famously tried to eat pretty well every living thing) and Richard Owen, while the second chapter, focusing on Gideon Mantell, includes the story of a dinner being hosted inside the shell used to cast an iguanodon figure. And so it goes through the 25 chapters with a whole host of eccentrics (palaeontology seems to attract more than few of these), and even a few normal scientists helping us to get a far better feel for how the discoveries were made and interpreted than a collection of dry information about dry bones would ever have achieved.

A must for any dinosaur-lover, or anyone who enjoys a history of science that has a distinctly human touch.

Hardback:

Kindle:

Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you

Review by Brian Clegg

Comments

Rakhat-Bi Abdyssagin Five Way Interview

Rakhat-Bi Abdyssagin (born in 1999) is a distinguished composer, concert pianist, music theorist and researcher. Three of his piano CDs have been released in Germany. He started his undergraduate degree at the age of 13 in Kazakhstan, and having completed three musical doctorates in prominent Italian music institutions at the age of 20, he has mastered advanced composition techniques. In 2024 he completed a PhD in music at the University of St Andrews / Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (researching timbre-texture co-ordinate in avant- garde music), and was awarded The Silver Medal of The Worshipful Company of Musicians, London. He has held visiting affiliations at the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge and UCL, and has been lecturing and giving talks internationally since the age of 13. His latest book is Quantum Mechanics and Avant Garde Music . What links quantum physics and avant-garde music? The entire book is devoted to this question. To put it briefly, there are many different link...

Should we question science?

I was surprised recently by something Simon Singh put on X about Sabine Hossenfelder. I have huge admiration for Simon, but I also have a lot of respect for Sabine. She has written two excellent books and has been helpful to me with a number of physics queries - she also had a really interesting blog, and has now become particularly successful with her science videos. This is where I'm afraid she lost me as audience, as I find video a very unsatisfactory medium to take in information - but I know it has mass appeal. This meant I was concerned by Simon's tweet (or whatever we are supposed to call posts on X) saying 'The Problem With Sabine Hossenfelder: if you are a fan of SH... then this is worth watching.' He was referencing a video from 'Professor Dave Explains' - I'm not familiar with Professor Dave (aka Dave Farina, who apparently isn't a professor, which is perhaps a bit unfortunate for someone calling out fakes), but his videos are popular and he...

Everything is Predictable - Tom Chivers *****

There's a stereotype of computer users: Mac users are creative and cool, while PC users are businesslike and unimaginative. Less well-known is that the world of statistics has an equivalent division. Bayesians are the Mac users of the stats world, where frequentists are the PC people. This book sets out to show why Bayesians are not just cool, but also mostly right. Tom Chivers does an excellent job of giving us some historical background, then dives into two key aspects of the use of statistics. These are in science, where the standard approach is frequentist and Bayes only creeps into a few specific applications, such as the accuracy of medical tests, and in decision theory where Bayes is dominant. If this all sounds very dry and unexciting, it's quite the reverse. I admit, I love probability and statistics, and I am something of a closet Bayesian*), but Chivers' light and entertaining style means that what could have been the mathematical equivalent of debating angels on...

Search This Blog