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Dinosaurs in Science Education USC Rossier School of Education CTSE 507:Issues, History, and Rationale of Science Education November 13, 1997
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History of Science Education: Select a recent important development in science and chart its inclusion in textbooks through time Dinosaurs: fascinating to young and old, actors in science fiction films and monster movies but known only from fossil bones and imprints and unknown in physiology and biology. What did they look like, how did they behave, were they cold-blooded like lizards and snakes, and why did they become extinct? Barbara B. DeWolfe, professor of biology at UC Santa Barbara, expert on the white-crowned sparrow, and teacher of a graduate course in vertebrate physiology seemed to think that the dinosaurs became extinct because of the temperature effects of global warming trends on dinosaur sperm production. I was a graduate research assistant in her class, and I competently helped students capture, observe, expose to high temperatures, and sacrifice lizards. I helped remove testes, prepare and stain slides, and perform sperm counts, all in the name of trying to determine if exposure to high temperature would decrease the sperm counts in lizards. Decreased sperm counts in lizards exposed to high temperatures for varying time periods would support the climate change hypothesis for dinosaur extinction. I don’t actually remember the results of those experiments, but I do remember the announcement of the Alvarez asteroid impact theory for dinosaur extinction in the summer of 1980 (Alvarez, et al 1980). I, of course, ever loyal to Dr. DeWolfe and my personal experience, skimmed through the article with suspicion, even though it was published in Science. Of course, I was pretty much occupied in parenting at the time (my daughter was two and a half and my son but 6 months old) and really had no time to actually read anything but the article’s abstract in depth. The theory was obviously intriguing to paleontologists, and evidence in support of the theory gradually accumulated. The climatic change theory was not replaced, however; it was either incorporated into the theory (Archibald, 1996; Fastovsky, 1996) or maintained as an alternative dinosaur extinction theory (McGowan, 1991). The asteroid impact theory has been discarded by some palentologists/ geologists as an example of "pathological science" (Officer & Page, 1996). A sister dinosaur theory about dinosaur metabolism and warm-bloodedness had been around for a long time but had been revived by Baker in the early 1970's (McGowan, 1991). This theory seemed to contradict the main points of the climatic change theory, since ectotherms would be most affected by climatic changes. Obviously the lizard experiment referred to above could only provide support for the climatic change theory if ectothermic dinosaurs, like lizards, were susceptible to decreases in sperm count with increases in temperature. And further complication the issue is the theory that dinosaurs actually didn’t become extinct but are alive and well today with feathers instead of scales. The dinosaur "establishment" has proposed and studied and argued about reasons for dinosaur extinctions probably since the first dinosaur fossils were unearthed and will continue to do so. It is not only an interesting subject in itself but is also one full of controversy and creativity. What do the textbooks, the repositories of current paradigm and theory, say about the matter; and how soon after the proposal of the asteroid impact and warm-blooded theories did the textbook publishers decide to include them; and how much evidence, if any, in support of the theories is provided in the textbook. A survey of two middle school earth and life science textbooks, 13 high school biology textbooks, 6 college or high school advanced placement textbooks and 6 college level zoology textbooks showed that most textbooks published after 1985 included some form of information on the warm-bloodedness, the climatic change, and the asteroid impact theories, although the middle school textbooks did not treat dinosaurs at all. One group of high school and college textbooks (Starr, 1994; Starr, 1997; Starr & Taggart, 1995) also included information on volcanic plumes and global broiling hypotheses. One high school biology textbook published in 1992 (Kaskel) and one college textbook published in 1995 (Postlethwaite & Hopson) make no mention of either theory, one high school biology textbook published in 1991 (Miller and Levine) did not mention the asteroid-impact theory. An inquiry-based high school biology textbook published in 1998 ( Leonard et al) provides no direct information on either theory but instructs students to research the information. Interestingly, when I asked my students about why they think the dinosaurs became extinct, students in the regular class volunteered the Jurassic Park-inspired lesbian hypothesis while those in the honors class responded with the asteroid theory. The lesbian hypothesis inspired a lively class discussion about the effects of movies on scientific knowledge and on discrepancies. The students actually didn’t put much credence in their hypothesis, but had actually suggested the hypothesis because they didn’t understand how dinosaurs could breed if they were only female. Students in the honors class responded to the question with a version of the asteroid impact theory. When pushed as to whether or not they "believed" the hypothesis, several said "No, but the book says it, so that must be the answer you want." Another student defended the hypothesis based on evidence he remembered from a dinosaur special on television. This led to an interesting discussion on nature of science, coupled with my anecdotes from the lizard experiments. This class actually ended with a poster-making session on what the students knew about dinosaurs and what they wanted to know. It actually turned out to be a good way of getting at background knowledge, misconceptions, and ideas on how the textbook should be used. Ah, the teachable moment. Digression aside, I think that the inclusion of both the warm-blooded and asteroid-impact theories was relatively soon after the initial interest and controversy in the scientific community, possibly due to the "romantic" and intrinsically interesting nature of dinosaur theories and lore. This may not be the case with other controversial or more asbtract theories. |
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