Review of the book “The Great Giants” – Spectrum of Science

A race for feelings

Schmidt describes the rivalry between American fossil hunters Othniel Charles Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope as a historical example. According to Schmidt, this competition, which Marsh and Cope harmed science because they published their research results in a hurry to outdo each other and even destroy bone fragments, was not at all necessary: ​​both would have had the time and financial resources to work hard.

Today is different. “Research is moving so quickly that hundreds of articles are published and up to fifty new species of dinosaur are described each year,” Schmitt writes. Scientists often compete for scarce research funds and have to do groundbreaking and pioneering work in order to be able to publish in popular specialized journals, for example. And movies like the “Jurassic Park” series and “Jurassic World” have featured more stunning images than ever of dinosaurs.

Is that necessary? Anyone who reads Schmidt’s book might come to the same conclusion that extinct lizards are fascinating even without spectacular theatrical performance – precisely because so many of them are still in the dark. However, the end of the book is a bit abrupt and the timeline and glossary in the appendix, where some technical terms are repeated from the info boxes, would have been better at the beginning of Fantastic Giants.