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"So, what's the relationship between material evidence and imagination in producing these illustrations? Why have our visual renderings of dinosaurs changed so much over time? I think the answer is neither just cultural -- artists are simply making it up as they go along -- nor is it just empirical -- artists are simply following the available evidence. Rather, the two interact with one another in a very deep way."
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In the comments section of the previous post, Hank, ST(res)S-ed out, and I have been arguing about Ian Hacking's ideas about "dynamic nominalism" -- the extent to which our interpretation of the world changes its material constitution. I don't want to suggest that dinosaurs are historically constituted in precisely the same way that Hacking thinks people are -- that is, I don't think that what we think about dinosaurs actually changes the material fossils buried underground -- but I do think that *something* comparable to Hacking's dynamic nominalism is going on here.
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If you read the Nature article carefully, and especially if you examine the Y. huali fossil (pictured above) closely, you'll see that it's not at all obvious, at least not at first glance, that this creature had feathers. So I could easily imagine someone preparing this specimen, trying to free the bones from the rock matrix, inadvertently destroying the fossilized traces of feathers. Perhaps the only reason Y. huali was recognized to have had feathers is because by now paleontologists are actively on the lookout for them. If that's right, then what's in your mind when you prepare a fossil for study and display may well have a significant impact on the material constitution of dinosaur bones.
Reports on reanalysis of 1950s classic Stanley Miller experiments that created amino acids in early Earth gas environments.
"Two intervals of the Phanerozoic stand out as times of biosphere-scale revolution in the sense that biogeochemical cycles came under increased control by organisms. These are the early Paleozoic (extending from just before the Cambrian to the Middle Ordovician, a duration of about 100 m.y.), characterized by the appearance of predators, burrowers, and mineralized skeletons, and by the subsequent diversification of planktonic animals and suspension-feeders; and the later Mesozoic (latest Triassic to mid-Cretaceous, a duration of somewhat more than 100 m.y.), marked by a great diversification of predators and burrowers and by the rise of mineralized planktonic protists. This paper explores the economic conditions that make such revolutions possible. I argue that opportunities for innovation and diversification are enhanced when raw materials and energy are supplied at increasing rates, or when organisms gain greater access to these commodities through rising temperatures and higher metabolic rates."
"According to the paleontologist Peter Ward..the earth's history makes clear that, left to run its course, life isn't naturally nourishing - it's poisonous. Rather than a supple system of checks and balances, he argues, the natural world is a doomsday device careening from one cataclysm to another."
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