Tag: Science in action

A March 29, 2019 New Yorker article titled “The Day The Dinosaurs Died” describes the discoveries of a palaeontologist, Robert DePalma. In the article, DePalma claims to have found fossils from the first hour after the asteroid strike that ended the era of the dinosaurs (here’s the link to that article: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/04/08/the-day-the-dinosaurs-died).

DePalma’s first scientific paper describing his discoveries fails to describe many of the claims made in the New Yorker article. Needless to say, this has the palaeontology community more than a little riled up for at least a couple of reasons – that failing to describe some of the discoveries in scientific terms makes it very difficult for other palaeontologists to vet the claims, and announcing scientific discoveries in non-scientific media is just not done.

Here’s the link to a Macleans’s article describing the controversy: https://www.macleans.ca/society/science/why-this-stunning-dinosaur-fossil-discovery-has-scientists-stomping-mad/