Earth_Magazine_October_2017

that that did not work; males and females
showed the same variation. So, that’s one
of the biggest mysteries — not knowing
the sex of an animal.
The second biggest question is how
they got so big. And the third is, why
aren’t they around anymore? I’ve spent
my career trying to figure out anything I
can learn from bones and teeth, and what
they can tell you about biology. I always
try to find something in a modern animal
that I can carry over to paleontology, like
the replacement rates for teeth or how
they grew from growth lines in their
bones. It’s like forensic science: We are
very limited by what material is in front
of us. Many questions are intractable
given what we have to work with.

BA: You give a lot of talks to ele-
mentary school students. Why is
communicating science, particularly
to kids, important to you?
GE: Dinosaurs are often children’s
first introduction into science, and it’s
actually an important field in that sense.

It’s dinosaur paleontology’s most redeem-

ing quality, in my opinion. When I talk

to kids, I don’t tell them that we already

know everything about dinosaurs. The

problem with that message is you’re tell-

ing kids that everything has been done

and there is nothing for a kid to do if they

grow up and want to be a paleontologist.

The bottom line is that we know hardly

anything about dinosaurs relative to ani-

mals that live today.

What I try to do when talking to kids

is get them excited about the scientific

method. I teach them how we figured

something out. I find that kids are more

excited about how we learned something,

rather than what we learned. I think it is a

good life skill for young people to ask for

the data in support of things they are told.

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