The "All Yesterdays Movement" and the Ghosts of Jurassic Park
Note: When I originally sat down to write this post I got carried away in my excitement and made it probably just a bit way too esoteric for some of my readers. I decided to remedy this by splitting the post into two parts; one where I could get down to the essence of what I really wanted to talk about, and another to give you a bit of a primer on the History of Dinosaur Paleontology. Click the link if you'd rather read that first (I'd recommend it: that way I can make all sorts of allusions down the line that might otherwise leave you scratching your head).
So apparently someone named Colin Trevorrow has been name as the director for Jurassic Park 4, and recently tweeted that feathered dinosaurs would not be appearing in the movie. This has become a rather polarizing issue among fans. I can understand the sentiment behind it if the basis of this decision had been to keep a consistent aesthetic for the movies, but considering that the production teams haven't shied away from some tweaking of the dinosaurs' appearances before, the rationale behind the decision appears more likely to be to pander to the unfortunately large number of people who think feathered dinosaurs are lame. Setting aside the question of whether we really need ANOTHER Jurassic Park movie, I feel as though this contradicts the entire point of the series in its original inception. The first movie was about two things (three if you count "life finds a way"): "Holy crap, real dinosaurs!" and "HOLY CRAP REAL DINOSAURS"! Yes, they're all popcorn flicks, but the first movie at least (and the second, I would argue) at least were dedicated to both convincing special effects, and introducing the public to the most realistic and current portrayal of dinosaurs yet seen on film. It's well known that the big names of the Dinosaur Renaissance were on hand to lend their expertise in making Jurassic Park scientifically credible. While it takes some good-natured but undeserved flak for what we have since come to recognize as inaccuracies, the fact is we'd probably still be dealing with Ray Harryhausen-style monstrosities in pop-culture were it not for Jurassic Park definitively banishing that outdated image.
Not that Harryhausen himself wasn't a special effects master; but the dinosaurs definitely show their age, so to speak.
Most of Jurassic Park's detractors really seem to be reacting more to the fact that the general public still seems to be stuck back in the '90's rather than truly complaining about the movie's outdated information. Sadly, Jurassic Park seems to have fallen victim to itself, content to float in the currents of pop culture rather than direct them as it once did.
Meanwhile, dinosaurs have continued to undergo a revolution every bit as significant as the Dinosaur Renaissance of the '70's-'90's that the original Jurassic Park triumphantly heralded. Building off of the work of Renaissance figureheads such as Dr. Bob Bakker, Dr. Jack Horner, and artist Gregory S. Paul, dinosaur paleontology is heading in all sorts of new I am positively bursting to go blabbering on about.
First of all, the big one. YES. DINOSAURS HAD FEATHERS. Most of the theropods (that's carnivores, to you) did at least, likely even Tyrannosaurus itself. There is much resistance to this idea in some circles. I've already mentioned the "chicken-o-saurs are totes lame, dude" crowd, but many creationist organizations of taken up the anti-feather banner as well (though to their credit, there are a few that have the right attitude). ICR put out an article a while ago desperately claiming that most of the purported examples of dinosaur feathers really just represent impressions of rotted, shredded skin. The bad news for all these people is that the evidence is undeniable, and they just look like fools for resisting it.
Caudipteryx: Note the flightless wings and tail feathers.
Achiornis: with a lovely wing and head crest.
Downy feathers on the tail of Yutyrannus, a half-sized relative of T-rex.
I understand why such people resist, but the good news is, these issues behind these objections should be easy to address (though it's always difficult to change one's perception on anything). For Creationists feathered dinosaurs represent a looming, frightful symbol of Evolution. But no good reason for this exists; if both fish and lizards have scales, does that prove evolution any more or less than feathered dinosaurs? Denying the evidence of feathers only appears to support the claims of evolutionists that creationists are anti-science, so if you hope to remain at all relevant in scientific spheres, get over it.
As for the bros in the feathers-are-lame camp, their opposition becomes understandable when you see some of the atrocious artwork that for whatever reason they always seem to run into.
GAH! It's scary, but not in a good way.
DERP.
The solution to this one is obvious: find better pictures! And if you work for a printing company, hire better artists for your publications that actually care about their work! Anyway, how about instead of over-sized turkeys, we think of dinosaurs more as angry killer ostriches, or better yet, giant birds of prey. Nobody thinks eagles are lame.
Just in case you need to see that in living color, here's a video of a secretary bird doing essentially the same thing. Just try to imagine it with saw blade teeth and giant sickle-shaped flensing knives for claws.
Starting to sound a little more respectable, right? Now, one of the coolest things about this whole feather revolution is that paleontologists have been able to analyze the feather remains and imprints for trace chemicals that can actually reveal what color these dinosaurs were! Here's an image of Microraptor, a four-winged dinosaur actually capable of limited flight (and yes, it's actually a raptor dinosaur complete with teeth and sickle-claws, not just a bird). Scientists have found pigment molecules suggesting that in life it was an iridescent black, like a blackbird or raven.
Microraptor, by Mick Ellison
More impressive perhaps is Anchiornis, which had enough lingering pigment molecules that paleontologists were able to obtain a reasonably complete picture of the full pattern of colors in its feathers. Take a look at this picture and let it sink in: this is probably the most accurate representation of a dinosaur you will ever see until the invention of time travel.
Quick plug: Julius Csotonyi's Anchiornis appears on page 15 of Dinosaur Art: The World's Greatest Paleoart. Go buy it now.
Feathers also help explain another little dinosaur mystery: the existence of Arctic and Antarctic Dinosaurs. While global temperatures were indeed higher during the Mesozoic Era than they are today, it was still cold enough at the poles to snow and ice over during the winter months. Seasonal migration offers one solution to how dinosaurs might have survived at these latitudes, but scientists have reason to believe several species remained at the poles year-round. Hibernation might also provide some survival benefit, but large species likely found it difficult to locate any shelter large enough to hide in. Now that we know that most theropods and at least some other types of dinosaurs had some degree of feathers, the existence of Arctic dinosaurs begins to make more sense. A nice feather coat does wonders to keep you warm!
At this point, it's tempting to think that we might be at a point where we can know with absolute certainty what a dinosaur looked like and maybe even how it behaved. Alas, the truth is that paleotology is the ultimate cold case, and there will always be unknowns, forever outside our scope. Oddly enough, however, this is where an exciting new trend picks up. Past generations have always had a somewhat tenuous relationship with the idea of what we can and can't know. I remember plenty of dinosaur books that would say something along the lines of "Maybe dinosaurs could have had/done X. We'll never know", and then they'd promptly forget this token acknowledgement of the unknown and continue aping all the old paleoart memes as if they were definitive. Over the last decade or so, though, there has been increasing engagment with concepts that are not just hypothetical, but often inherently unknowable. But that's OK! By seriously entertaining such hypotheticals, it opens our minds to new lines of inquiry, and sometimes those unknowables become a little more tangible after all. Last year, artist John Conway released a book entitled All Yesterdays: Unique and Speculate Views of Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Animals, which directly engages in this type of thought, portraying dinosaurs in unusual (even outlandish) yet not necessarily inaccurate ways. In a similar vein to the speculative portrayals, Conway also has taken a unique approach to the artwork itself.
"I felt like the writing was on the wall when I saw Jurassic Park. If we can make dinosaurs that look one hundred percent real, where does that leave artists? Well, it leaves them in the realm of art, strangely enough! So I've alway felt moving towards super-realism is contrary to what I do and strategically a dead end."
John Conway, Dinosaur Art, p. 148
A family of Protoceratops climbs a tree despite having no obvious adaptations to do so, similar to goats of today.
(EDIT: I have it now and it is awesome!) As of this writing, I myself do not yet have the book (though I am desperate to get my hands on it), and yet it has made such a splash among dinosaur enthusiasts that I have been converted to its ideals. In fact, such has the impact been among dinosaur enthusiasts that many have retroactively applied the term "the All Yesterdays Movement" to the growing paradigm that has come into being since the latter days of the Dinosaur Renaissance. Mark Witton can be counted among this group, having caused a bit of a stir with that picture of the fuzzy Pachyrhinosaurs up there. With ceratopsians, we have skin impressions, but for the most part they show only scales. However, we do have some specimens that have preserved a row of quills along the tail. In addition, Witton argues in the blog post accompanying the image that feathers could have easily fallen out of the skin before preservation, again playing into the "All Yesterdays"-style notion that there may not be a single definitive image we can make of any dinosaur species.
Incidentaly, I've managed to keep up with all this thanks to another wonderful development in the world of dino-nuts: the Rise of the Paleoblog. Not only stuff for mere enthusiasts like the fantastic Love in the Time of Chasmosaurs, but the scientists themselves are directly engaging with what can only be described as their fans through sites such as Dave Hone's Archosaur Musings, Pseudoplocephalus, and Sauropod Vertebra Picture of the Week. Oh, and John Conway happens to have a website of his own. And if you happen to be worried about whether that dinosaur toy you're buying for your kid is scientifically acceptable or not, don't worry, the reviewers on The Dinosaur Toy Blog will make sure you never buy another horrendously inaccurate dinosaur toy again! Also, I love that the niche-creating powers of the Internet allow for this awesome 9-year-old's blog to exist. How cool is that?
Well, this certainly turned out to be a big post. Sorry if this nerd-o-rama made your brain hurt, but if you know anything about me, you should have known what you were getting into the moment you saw the word "Dinosaur" on your screen! Paleontology is in a really cool place right now (not only with dinosaurs, but since they're the most well known, we'll leave things here for now), and I'm disappointed that the "All Yesterdays Movement" has yet to make much headway into pop culture and banish the ghosts of Jurassic Park (aside from a few so-so documentaries). If I could have it my way, rather than dragging outdated models into the domain of the new paradigm, we would have new fantasies on screen every bit as fresh and rigorous as the art of John Conway and all the other dedicated people helping to usher in the new era.
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