Volume 38, Number 8 · April 25, 1991
Dinosaur Dilemmas
By John Maynard Smith
The Dinosauria
edited by David B. Weishampel, edited by Peter Dodson, edited by Halszka Osmólska
University of California Press, 733 pp., $85.00
Dinosaurs, Spitfires, and Sea Dragons
by Chris McGowan
Harvard University Press, 365 pp., $29.95
When, as often happens, I find myself dissenting from something written by Stephen Jay Gould, I remind myself that we share a common childhood experience. We were both dinosaur nuts, at a time when to be interested in dinosaurs was to be an oddball. For both of us, that early passion has led to a life spent thinking about evolution, although in my case a world war, and a false start as an aircraft engineer, meant that I did not become a professional biologist until I was thirty; However, our paths diverged earlier. When I was eight, my father died, and we moved away from London to the country: for me, visiting the Natural History Museum was replaced by watching birds. I suspect that this switch may help to explain the disagreements between us, to which I shall return below. It also explains why I can review two books about dinosaurs only as an interested outsider, and not as an expert.
Review, 3705 words
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