Thinking Citizen Blog — Dinosaurs — Seriously? For Real? No Way!
Thinking Citizen Blog — Wednesday is Climate Change, the Environment, and Sustainability Day
Today’s Topic: Dinosaurs — seriously? for real? No Way!
Last week, the third and final part of a series on the magical creature called the owl. Today, a journey back in time.
Did dinosaurs really once rule the world? for like 165 million years? from like 252 million years ago to 65 million years ago? Do you really believe that? And do you believe the story of an asteroid hitting the earth about 66 million years ago and wiping them out?
And do you believe the story of the ferocious Tyrannosaurus Rex and the mild-mannered Brontosaurus?
And the flying Pterodactyl with a wingspan of up to 36 feet?
Aren’t we the most gullible species that ever lived?
If you ever got seriously into dinosaurs, please share the coolest thing you ever learned about the Giants that once ruled the earth.
And, by the way, what are the most important three facts about dinosaurs that every 3rd, 5th, 8th, 12th grader should know? How about college graduate?
Experts — please chime in. Correct, elaborate, elucidate.
DINOSAUR FOSSILS HAVE BEEN FOUND ON ALL SEVEN CONTINENTS!!!!
1. But not all dinosaurs lived at the same time.
2. Stegosaurus appeared during the Jurassic (200 to 250 million years ago) and went extinct 66 million years before Tyrannosaurus Rex showed up during the late Cretaceous (70 million years ago).
3. During the Triassic, almost all the Earth’s land mass was concentrated into a single supercontinent, Pangea. This supercontinent was more-or-less centered on the equator and extended between the poles, though it did drift northwards as the period progressed.”
NB: Do you really believe in Pangea? How about heaven? ghosts? the Land of Oz? On a more serious note, the story of plate tectonics is to me one of the coolest stories in the history of science. See second and third links below. The “father of plate tectonics” was Alfred Wegener (1880–1930), but the guy who first noticed that Africa and South America fit together was Abraham Ortelius, a Flemish cartographer (1527–1598) the creator of the first modern atlas.
THERE ARE ROUGHLY 700 SPECIES OF EXTINCT DINOSAURS !!!!!!
1. If you could go back in time, how far back would you go? why?
2. What do you imagine earth looking like half a million years from now?
3. How about five million years? ten? hundred?
NB: Did you have a favorite stuffed dinosaur? is the 1993 film “Jurassic Park” (starring Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Sam Neill, and Richard Attenborough) on your top ten list?
BIRDS ARE A KIND OF DINOSAUR — DESCENDANTS FROM THEROPODS
1. When I was at Harvard in the early 1970s, this “birds are dinosaurs” thing was a wacko theory of marginal lunatics.
2. It is now the scientific consensus.
3. Will the consensus last?
NB: Perspective matters. What is the right time horizon to take as you live day to day?
What long term goals should be ever in the front of your mind, heart, and soul? Or should there always be a special part of every day dedicated to remembering those long term goals?
And writing down in your journal a few notes on the day’s progress on that pilgrimage?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinosaur
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plate_tectonics
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Wegener
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Ortelius
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triassic
Pterodactyl | Description, Size, Wingspan, Skeleton, & Facts | Britannica
Dinosaur Facts | American Museum of Natural History
QUOTE OF THE MONTH
“Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
My spin — then periodically review, re-rank, and exchange your list with those you love. I call this the “Orion Exchange” because seven is about as many as any human can digest at a time. Game?
A LINK TO THE LAST FOUR YEARS OF POSTS ORGANIZED BY THEME:
PDF with headlines — Google Drive
ATTACHMENT BELOW:
#1 A graphic guide to justice (9 metaphors on one page).
#2 “39 Songs, Prayers, and Poems: the Keys to the Hearts of Seven Billion People” — Adams House Senior Common Room Presentation, (11/17/20)
NB: Palestine Orion (Decision) — let’s exchange Orions, let’s find Rumi’s field
(“Beyond all ideas of right and wrong, there is a field. Meet me there” Rumi, 13 century Persian Sufi mystic)
YOUR TURN
Please share the coolest thing you learned in the last week related to climate change or the environment.
Or the coolest, most important thing you learned in your life related to climate change that the rest of us may have missed. Your favorite chart or table perhaps…
This is your chance to make someone’s day. Or to cement in your own mind something that you might otherwise forget. Or to think more deeply than otherwise about something dear to your heart.
