Did we mention that scientists seem to be starting to forget Darwin, and move on to more fruitful areas” Yesterday, I was at a Royal Ontario Museum exhibit “ Ultimate Dinosaurs: Giants from Gondwana” (presented by Raymond James). The exhibit was blessedly free of inappropriate homage to Darwin, who was identified only as the developer of natural selection theory. Pride of place went to Wegener and plate tectonics – the breakup and gradual movement of the continents to their present places around the globe.
The focus was on how the breakup of Pangaea into Laurasia and Gondwana (and related developments) separated groups of dinosaurs, who thereafter went their own way developmentally, while remaining quite obviously dinosaurs.
I was impressed by the (mostly) absence of just-so stories. They would only have been in the way. The exhibit of these long lost life forms was quite absorbing enough without ideologically motivated tales. We see some evolution but we don’t necessarily know the exact cause – other than separation from others of the same species – which is the message of plate tectonics.
Some dinos you maybe didn’t meet recently.
See also “Scientists are beginning to forget Darwin, whether they admit it or not.”