The Guardian view on the public’s dinomania: passion for palaeontology endures through the ages | Editorial

ODiscussions on the screen on DNA and off -screen scientific consultants despite seeing a film Jurassic Park for its realism. However, one of the least convincing moments of Jurassic World Rebirth, the last of the franchise, is not linked to oversized veloiraptors. He is the paleontologist, Dr. Henry Loomis, complaining to reduce the public interest in his field.

This spring, the BBC has revived its 1999 Walking With Dinosaurs. Not a week does not go without the headlines announcing the discovery of a new species or new theories on the way they behaved. The publishers produce an endless flow of facts and fiction linked to dinos, especially for children. Paleontology – at least when it is focused on the dinosaurs of the mesozoic, or our hominin ancestors – has long exercised an extraordinary grip on public imagination.

However, it is a marginal field in terms of academic prestige and scientific financing, as Dr. Chris Manias, a science historian, in the paleontology of the public test collection, underlines last year. (The dinosaurs are themselves a small part of the discipline; the vast mass of fossils are invertebrates, microorganisms or plants. Good luck to have a film on stromatolitis).

The spectacular scale and the formidable nature of creatures such as Spinosaurus, the magic of warding off extraordinary life from a handful of rocks of tens of millions of years, and the mirroring of myths on dragons and other old animals can all play a role in its attraction. Entertainment has always helped: Crystal Palace dinosaurs were created in the 1850s to encourage interest in recent discoveries (Richard Owen, who invented the term dinosaur, provided advice.) The 1912 novel by Arthur Conan Doyle represented a South American set where prehistoric creatures were still in the process of traveling. Some of today’s paleontologists were attracted to the field watching the first film Jurassic Park when he was a child.

But science itself has also been central. In the 19th century, American paleontologists, Othniel Charles Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope, have been rich to surpass themselves in bitter “bone wars”, with academic rigor and an ethics taking second place for the glory of the head of the phase. In the “Renaissance of dinosaurs” of the 1960s, experts showed that creatures were more sophisticated, active and interesting than we imagined before. The feathered dinosaurs found in the Liaoning, China, in the 1990s, revolutionized our understanding – even if the manufacturers of Jurassic franchises and many fans of dinosaurs still trace the line in a tyrannosaurus rex. In recent years, experts have identified a new dinosaur every week. The new technology unlocks the details of their appearance and their behavior.

The original Jurassic Park was a tourist resort inhabited by the dinosaurs brought back from the extinction. In the latest film, the plot is motivated by hunting at Big Pharma for prehistoric DNA which could lead to a medical breakthrough. This is parallel to the tension that Dr. Manias notes around the paleontology itself: is it mainly a “luxury”, which entertains more than it illuminates, or “useful”? Breathtaking giants like Patagotitan still captivate adults and, in particular, children. But there are also lessons here. In the past, the area seemed to offer a story of progress, because the creatures of the exercise have given way to mammals and finally – Tada! – The triumph of humans. Now, it is an instructive story of uncertainty, offering powerful information on time, nature and the way life resulted in enormous and rapid changes in climatic conditions.

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