Sexual jousting

January 17, 2023

This just in from PNAS: sexual combat in the Devonian!

In a new study, Alan Gishlick and Richard Fortey examine a genus of trilobites with trident structures protruding from their heads. They argue that the structures evolved for sexual jousting, which was big with trilobites back in the Devonian. Their key piece of evidence is a specimen that grew to maturity with a severely lopsided trident. This, the authors claim, is inconsistent with other functional interpretations of the structure. If the trilobite used the trident for feeding, it most likely wouldn’t have been able to reach maturity with a seriously deformed one. The same goes for defense. By contrast, animals often make it to sexual maturity with malformed “dueling equipment.” Here the authors enlist support from studies of mule deer and Rocky Mountain elk. Excellent.

For those who can’t get past the paywall, there is a nice write-up in the New York Times.

Sinosauropteryx turns 25, sort of

January 12, 2023

Earlier this week marked the 25th anniversary of this paper, which announced the discovery of Sinosauropteryx prima by Pei-ji Chen and colleagues. Sinosauropteryx was the first feathered dinosaur to be described in a scientific paper. (Or, if you’re a stickler for precision, it was the first non-avian dinosaur with a feather-like body covering to be described in a scientific paper.) So put on your party hats and read the commemorative piece by Kevin Padian if you can get past the paywall…

A sunburn for Gorgon

January 10, 2023

Breaking news from the latest Permian…

The end-Permian mass extinction, apart from being the largest extinction event in history, is one of the earth sciences’ greatest whodunits. Once thought to be a consequence of plate tectonic movement, it is now widely held that the main driver of the extinction was the magmatic event associated with the Siberian Traps large igneous province (but see this study from a couple years ago for an interesting wrinkle).

Now there’s this, from Science Advances; namely, “[in]direct evidence” of elevated UV radiation at the Permo-Triassic (P/Tr) boundary in Tibet. The evidence comes from pollen grains, which show a spike in the prevalence of ultraviolet absorbing compounds near the P/Tr boundary. This, in the words of the abstract, “suggest[s] a close temporal link between large-scale volcanic eruptions, global carbon and mercury cycle perturbations, and ozone layer depletion.” And this in turn supplies another potential cause of the environmental deterioration implicated in the land extinctions.

The article is open access, so you can read the whole thing by following the link, above.

A new addition to the stem bird aviary

January 9, 2023

An interesting article just appeared in Nature Ecology & Evolution. Here’s the short version. Researchers found a stem bird (a bird occupying an intermediate position in the phylogenetic tree between the oldest bird, Archaeopteryx, and the “true birds”) that helps bridge a large morphological gap in the fossil record. There’s a surface-level irony here given that Archaeopteryx is the OG intermediate form or “missing link.” But whenever you close a morphological gap you also create two new ones…

Anyway, the newly described bird, Cratonavis, is a mosaic of avian and non-avian characters, combining a relatively bird-like body with a more classically theropod-like skull. Don’t believe the news reports describing it as “bizarre”: I’m not even sure you could call it “unexpected.” Still, it is an interesting addition to a rapidly-filling aviary of stem birds. (Here’s a link to a non-technical write-up for anyone blocked by the paywall.)

Extinction: Death and Memory (TedX McMinnville)

February 28, 2020

In this gripping TEDx talk, Leonard Finkelman asks: is extinction like death, or is it like memory?

Book Symposium!

July 3, 2019

The folks at Extinct and friend of the blog Alison Wylie have just published a series of authors-meets-critics papers based on Adrian’s recent Rock, Bone and Ruin: an optimist’s guide to the historical sciences. (MIT, 2018) in the wonderful open-access journal Philosophy, Theory and Practice in Biology. Here they are:

Epistemic Optimism, Speculation, and the Historical Sciences (Currie)

Rock, Bone and Ruin: a Trace-centric Appreciation (Wylie)

Betting & Heirarchy in Paleontology (Finkelman)

Metaphorical Ripples (Havstad)

Speculation in the Historical Sciences (Turner)

Mary Anning Rocks: Pledges Needed!

May 28, 2019

There’s a campaign to build a statue of the geologist Mary Anning in Lyme Regis - can you help?

[Mary Anning was a] geological lioness … in a little dirty shop, with hundreds of specimens piled around her in the greatest disorder. She, the presiding Deity, [proved] a prim, pedantic vinegar looking, thin female; shrewd, and rather satirical in her conversation.

So said Giddeon Mantell (the discoverer of Iguanadon) after visiting Mary Anning’s fossil shop in Lyme Regis. Anning (1799-1847) always left an impression and, squinting through Mantell’s 19th Century misogyny, we get a picture of someone who speaks their mind, knows what they’re talking about, and doesn’t abide fools. Anning was ill-fitted to the newly arising geological sciences: not only was she a woman, but she was working class - the sale of fossils was her main means of income for most of her life - an amateur disconnected from universities, and a religious noncnformist. Despite this, during her life she was a major figure. She made important fossil discoveries, discussed fossil interpretation with many of the main geological players, and her shop became a hub for both the sale of fossils and the dissemination of the fieldwork and fossil preparation techniques she had developed. At a time when natural history museums, and particularly collections dealing with geology and paleontology, were beginning to flourish across North America and Europe, Anning’s practical innovations and business activities were extremely important.

Anning with her dog Tray on the Dorset coastline…

Even before her death, Anning was mythologised. She survived a lightning strike as an infant, made one of her most spectacular fossil discoveries as a young girl, and her apparent lack of education was increasingly emphasized (apparently the idea that a working class person might educate themselves was something of a surprise in 19th Century Britain). By the turn of the 20th Century, Anning was often portrayed as something of an illiterate fossil savant.

But Mary was a scientist: her knowledge of anatomy was unparalleled, she was an excellent illustrator, she dissected extant critters to better understand her fossils, she engaged in debates over fossil-interpretation, and was a pioneer of paleontological fieldwork. She deserves more recognition and deserves more serious attention. If you’d like to know more about Anning, check out Adrian Currie’s recent article in The Conversation and interview on ABC.

Towards recognising Anning’s acheivements the town of Lyme Regis, where her fossil shop is now the site of an excellent museum, has agreed to put up a statue of Mary. But statues are expensive and the Campaign - Mary Anning Rocks - needs to crowdfund the money. And a succesful crowdfunding campaign needs sufficient support in the first place, with only a limited time to gather funds they need a bunch of pledges to be made before the campaign launches. So, if you’re interested in helping out, pop over to the Mary Anning Rocks website and make a pledge.

Special Issue: Paleobiology and Philosophy

February 24, 2019

Back in August 2017, a bunch of philosophers gathered for a few days in Dinosaur Provincial Park to read some papers and look at fossils. Those papers are now collected in a special issue Paleobiology and Philosophy, now forthcoming in Biology and Philosophy! We’ve collected the preprints here for your reading pleasure.

Paleobiology and Philosophy (editor’s introduction), by Adrian Currie.

Ancient Genetics to Ancient Genomics: Celebrity and Credibility in Data-Driven Practice, by Elizabeth Jones.

Contingency’s Causality and Structural Diversity, by Alison McConwell.

Crossed Tracks: Mesolimulus, Archaeopteryx, and the Nature of Fossils, by Leonard Finkelman

Evidential Reasoning in the Historical Sciences: Applying Toulmin Schemas to the case of Archezoa, by Thomas Bonnin

In Defense of Living Fossils, by Derek Turner.

Let Me Tell You ‘Bout the Birds and the Bee-Mimicking Flies and Bambiraptor, by Joyce Havstad.

Mass Extinctions as Major Transitions, by Adrian Currie.

Overcoming the Underdetermination of Specimens, by Caitlin Wylie.

Joyce Havstad captures the crew at the Philosophy of Paleontology in the Badlands meeting at Dinosaur Provincial Par — Joyce Havstad captures the crew at the *Philosophy of Paleontology in the Badlands* meeting at Dinosaur Provincial Par

Rock Bone & Ruin

February 16, 2018

Rock Bone and Ruin: An Optimist's Guide to the Historical Sciences, Adrian Currie's philosophical exploration of paleontology, archaeology and geology, has just been released by MIT Press. It is available in hardback and ebook. Adrian discusses the book here.

Endorsements

“Rock, Bone, and Ruin is an extraordinarily ambitious, provocative, and generative treatment of the epistemic predicament of the historical sciences. Adrian Currie trains his philosophical eye on the research strategies of ‘unlucky’ historical scientists—those who contend with messy, incomplete, and opaque traces of the past—and explains how, against the epistemic odds, they establish a robust understanding of seemingly inaccessible geological events, evolutionary processes, and cultural dynamics. This is a nuanced and richly illustrated account of scientists operating under non-ideal circumstances that demonstrates what can be accomplished by taking seriously the turn to practice. It has implications that will be of interest to practitioners and it is an incisive argument for doing philosophy differently: attentive to the epistemic challenges scientists actually face, resolutely local and contextual, and unabashedly normative.”
—Alison Wylie, Professor, Department of Philosophy, University of British Columbia

“The ‘historical’ sciences have been neglected by philosophers. Adrian Currie analyzes both the problems and the opportunities involved in reconstructing and understanding the unobservable deep past. His engaging discussion—ranging from the character of global ice ages through the habits of giant dinosaurs to the meaning of Mayan monuments—explores the surprising commonalities that underlie these superficially diverse sciences.”
—Martin Rudwick, University of Cambridge; author of Earth’s Deep History and Bursting the Limits of Time