On Cynicism

     Unwarranted cynicism has always bothered me. It often appears as an unwillingness to try new things, but I find that by far its most irksome manifestation is criticism born of unfamiliarity.

     To begin unpacking this idea, let's start with an immediately accessible example: movie special effects (for the purposes of this article, I would regard video game graphics as interchangeable here). Now, no movie may be excused for not using the resources it has to their fullest effect. But did you catch the keywords there? There are two operating principles to keep in mind: available resources and fullest effect. You can pick on the ridiculous visuals in crappy man-in-suit monster movies all you like (and be fully justified in doing so), but anybody who regards a movie (especially a classic) solely on the merits of its special effects completely misses the whole point of the entire movie experience. At the end of the day, a movie's purpose is NOT to convince you that they took the camera out and filmed the whole thing exactly as it appears onscreen. We will always know that what we're seeing on the screen isn't real, no matter how good the effects get. A movie's purpose is to convey some truth (or at least an emotional experience) by way of an engrossing narrative. It fulfills the exact same cultural function as campfire stories of ye olden days; the pretty moving pictures are there as a visual aid, to help us keep up with the story. Stage theater buffs don't generally complain about lack of immersion if all they have are cardboard sets; when seeing a good performance, they meet the actors halfway and get caught up in the story anyway. You can also look at the differing pop culture receptions of the two Star Wars trilogies for the perfect example of the interplay between story and visuals.

     Let's go a little more abstract now. Stylistic differences present another major stumbling block to many movie goers. Now, I regard myself as having a relatively wide range of tastes in movies, so it astounds me to see people polarize themselves to the extent that a mere premise or even genre attached to a film can cause immediate disdain. (Admittedly I retain such biases in some arenas, though I'm doing my best to break of those remaining mental habits!) Oscar snobs will turn up their noses at what they see as "Big Dumb Movies", and action movie junkies will be bored to tears in the absence of explosions. Both these attitudes result from a failure to understand the actual intentions of the movies that exist on the opposite ends of the spectrum. On one end, some movies endeavor to examine the human condition, while on the other hand, some are about pure, simple, cathartic release. Some try for something in the middle, while some try to take you along the y-axis in a completely different direction. Ultimately, style and genre are exactly the same as special effects. It's not what you use, it's how you use it. If it's done in service to the narrative, and you make the absolute most of it that you can in service to the story, then you're justified in using whatever you want.

     I've mostly been discussing movies in this blog post, so I apologize if a sudden turn for the philosophic seems a bit jarring. It seems to me that certain common strains of cynicism can be addressed by simply coming to a better realization of how certain things are meant to work. Marriage, though rife with its periodic difficulties, really does not seem all that hard to get a grasp of, at least on a foundational level (and once you've got a solid foundation, dealing with the big blunders and daily annoyances seems almost a breeze, at least once you've worked through them!). One simply needs to keep a few simple things in mind when considering marriage: it is a personal and economic union that leads to a certain melding of lives, it is not a 50/50 but a 100/100 sort of affair (that is, both halves contribute as much as they possibly can to the relationship, whether it works out to be exactly equal or not), and above all, to remember that humans are complex sacks of emotions that don't necessarily think or act in an entirely logical or consistent manner. We all have reasons for doing things we that we can't quite explain. By all means, vent your frustrations (as kindly as possible), but let them flow through you and over you, like water off a duck's back. Don't let it stick. This all leads to a greater understanding of not only your partner, but also of how marriage in and of itself is supposed to work. In my experience, once you understand something, even if you can never quite fix it, cynicism has much less room to take hold.

     I apologize again if religion is a road you weren't expecting to go down here, but I'm going to talk about it anyway. I'm not arguing for anything in particular in any case, just a little understanding. One sees a lot of criticism of religion by those who don't understand it, and want to condemn it as illogical. To that I say, they've missed the point, and have adopted a position of cynicism out of ignorance. At its barest, most utilitarian core, religion is about bringing a sense of peace and order to the tangled mess that is the human mind. (Understand that I am discussing religion here, not the existence of the supernatural.) As much as it is capable of great feat of intellect, the human mind is not the most logically-based construct ever. Too much emotions jumbles up the thought processes. To an "evangelical atheist" like Richard Dawkins, I would say that this is the very purpose that religion evolved for. Yes, you can have morality without religion, and yes, you can explain the universe without religion, but a great many people need religion to achieve that sense of peace and order out of the tangled mess of human experience that we all share in to some extent. Some don't need it, but many do. What do we achieve in attempting to disenfranchise people of the spiritual? Remember, humans are complex beings. If religion must be kept out of the classrooms, individuals can compartmentalize, as long as they have those compartments to retreat to as need be!

     It may sound a little cliche to say "we just need a little more understanding", but it's true, dang it! If you prefer to state it in a somewhat less sappy and more analytical manner, you just need to learn the rules of the game. If you approach baseball with only an understanding of water polo, you're naturally going to run into your fair share of frustration. Once you understand generally how something is actually meant to work, you then get that little light in your head that potentially allow you to actually enjoy it, or at least appreciate it and properly evaluate it for what it's trying to do.

A Saurian Survey in Two Parts (Part 2)

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.

Anyway, as usual, xkcd has come to the rescue of us science lovers with this little comic strip:

Click the link up above if you're having trouble seeing this image.

Now, doesn't that sound like the Velociraptor we all know and love?  I like the way this painting illustrates the scene envisioned by that new paper:

Deinonychus Prey Restraint by Emily Willoughby

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!

Long Jurassic Nights, by Chasmosaur on Deviantart, featuring Cryolophosaurus, an Antarctic carnivore

Mark Witton's controversial fuzzy Pachyrhinosaurus herd

     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.

Four Pachyrhinosaurus, by StygimolochSpinifer on DeviantArt. Inspired by Mark Witton's post, this image displays the same species of ceratopsian dinosaur with several degrees of featheredness and nakedness.

     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.

Troodon formosus under a Magnolia by John Conway

Yutyrannus by Brian Choo

In Which I Attempt to Write About Gender

This is almost certainly way over my head, but I'd like to share some general musings on gender roles in modern American culture. I freely admit that I am rather out of practice in the art of writing, and my own thoughts on this issue have not completely coalesced at this point, so forgive any inadequacies of this post, as I am attempting to make a habit of writing about random topics that flit through my mind. (I suppose I might have done better to stick to what I know and write about dinosaurs or something, but you never get better unless you push yourself, so here we are.)

Traditional gender roles have been in a state of transition for some time now, particularly over the course of the last century. Whatever its shortcomings, real or perceived, the feminist movement does in fact deserve much of the credit for balancing the fortunes of the two sexes. In fact, I have increasingly discovered that the current form of feminism that's in vogue amongst my generation conforms rather closely to my idea of gender equality (though of course no ideology is one-size-fits-all, and I am disappointed that the current-wave feminism seems to fail to recognize that most of its detractors are actually reacting previous, more extremist waves that they are too reluctant to distance themselves from).

In my own life situation, I have currently accepted the position of stay-at-home husband while my wife provides for us. Though this is partly due to circumstance, we have long taken it as a point of fact that even were I to have a steady income, it would likely always be supplemental to hers, as "medical professional" tends to trump many others careers. One seems to come across couples like us with increasing regularity these days. One of the inspirations for this piece was a series of TED talks I recently watched which dealt with these issues (and if you will indulge me, I will be freely referencing them from here on out. Make sure to click the links as I provide them!)

In Hannah Rosin's talk New Data on the Rise of Women, the speaker examines how the fundamental shift from a labor-based to a service-based economy has drastically altered the job market. Where once a strong body and a good work ethic were the extent of the qualifications for the average job, personal strength has been supplanted by education, networking, interpersonal social skills, and multitasking. On the whole, this shift has favored women while beginning to leave men lagging behind. With this shift in preferred workplace aptitude comes  a shift in the economic potential for young men and women, and thus a shift in attitudes towards their ideal home structure. According to Rosin, women are now more likely to expect to assume the role of primary wage earner while their husbands (if they even take on at all) work part-time or even stay at home.

Why are men lagging behind though? Why not a shift towards simple equality? While one can argue for (or against) inherent gender traits that affect aptitude, Philip Zimbardo (in The Demise of Guys?) argues that in any case, the aforementioned critical interpersonal skills required for the modern public sphere have declined to artificially low levels among young men. This group has seen a rise in social awkwardness: a basic lack of understanding of the verbal and nonverbal rules and skills that enable comfortable, healthy interaction with other people. Zimbardo attributes this to what he calls "Arousal Addiction", that is to say, addiction to empty novelty (not necessarily though certainly including sexual arousal). Arousal addiction is characterized by excessive consumption of video games, internet, and pornography, all of which offer easy reward with minimal effort. This "digital re-wiring of the brain" in favor of these cheap thrills desynchronizes young males from traditional social settings. Their predilection towards electronic, active, and immediate forms of consumption leaves them ill suited for traditional school classes, which are analog, static, and passive. Relationships (both romantic and otherwise) also suffer, as they tend to occur subtly and gradually, as opposed to the obvious and fast-paced entertainment they have acclimated themselves to.

How to deal with these changing climates? While there may be something to be said for changing classroom environments, I think the greatest good can be accomplished in the realm of popular media. While Colin Stokes' talk on How Movies Teach Manhood seemed a little disorganized, it touched on a few points I am passionate about, and got me thinking about other topics as well; so while I posted the link there, know that most of what I'm saying is more inspired by his talk than directly referencing it. In fact, much of what I'm going to mention is more aligned with Anita Sarkeesian's videos, the Lego series in particular (part 1 here and part 2 here). While gender roles have always had unequal portrayals in popular media, the case could be made that they at least tended to prepare one for the expectations of the time. With the changing social fabric, the pop culture seems to have some trouble in keeping up. While the portrayal of females has for the most part modeled good interpersonal interaction, that mostly sums up the extent their roles in many movies. Males on the other hand are allowed to do more, but are either portrayed as goofy and immature or gruffly serious, while portraying deeper social interaction as something to be regarded as awkward. Neither would seem to adequately prepare either gender for the current social & economic climate. (Note: while the "warrior princess" type character seems to be on the rise, she tends to be a gruff stoic, and thus essentially a man with boobs as far as characterization is concerned.) Popular media needs to re-evaluate its current definitions of manhood and womanhood to better suit modern times (and parents should do their best to expose their kids to more balanced portrayals of men and women). Colin Stokes offered the "Wizard of Oz" as an example a more well-rounded approach to personalities and group oriented problem solving, without falling back on stereotypes and "chosen one" plot lines (in direct contrast to films such as Stars Wars). I personally would point to "The Avengers" as possibly the best example from this year's crop of movies.

If you haven't clicked on any of those videos up there yet, shame on you for being lazy! Go watch them now! They all cover this topic much more effectively than I ever could. In fact, go ahead and spend the whole rest of the day just watching videos on TED.com if you have the time. It's packed full of fascinating lectures on pretty much every topic you could think of. Let me know what you think about this post! I would enjoy feedback on this stuttering attempt to get back into the practice of writing.