You don’t hear much about this anymore, but some years ago, there was a mini-sensation in the World Of Science about a theory that “Homo erectus” “evolved” a thick skull because the lads were always pounding on each other’s heads with clubs.
They say the Bible’s full of silly stuff–but what could be sillier than this? How many generations of using each other’s heads as kettle-drums would it take to “evolve” thick skulls?
It’s starting to sound like a Three Stooges movie, isn’t it?
Not quite 20 years ago, Science was agog with a new theory that explained why Homo erectus (Them) had a thicker skull than Homo sapiens (Us).
If they were more hip to popular culture, they would’ve realized that cartoonists had beaten them to this theory by several decades. But read and enjoy the 2016 post (all you have to do is click it) to find out all about it.
You’d think that if blind Chance really did preside impotently over the development of life on earth, you’d find a lot of fossils of goofy animals that weren’t suited to survive. Snakes that can’t bend, legless rhinoceroses, birds with their heads on backwards, huge buky dinosaurs with dainty wings, a servant with two heads and a hand–isn’t that more Chance’s style?
The classic Marx Brontosaurus–hooray!
After years and years of lonely exile, reputation shot into disrepute, the Brontosaurus has returned as an official and bona fide dinosaur genus.
Studying the bones with new technologies, scientists have concluded that Brontosaurus was a real dinosaur, after all. A minority remain rather angrily unconvinced, and accuse the others of playing to the gallery.
For the past 20 years or so, they were rather adamant about calling the beast Apatosaurus. I’m afraid that for them, the word “Brontosaurus” conjured up distasteful images of the Flintstones, Sinclair gas stations, Alley Oop, and the beloved Marx Toy Co. Brontosaurus with the Camarasaurus head–which was not the toy company’s fault, but a conjecture by Prof. Henry Fairfield Osborn, the world-famous head honcho at the American Museum of Natural History, 100 years ago. He once identified a pig’s tooth as prehistoric “Nebraska Man.” That science didn’t stay settled very long.
The Apatosaurus crowd is still cheesed off, big-time, but their numbers are shrinking. As for me, I’m glad my Marx Brontosaurs, which I held onto through all the years of exile, obloquy, and shame, may now come back out from the shadows and once again hold high their Camarasaurus heads. They should probably have something more like a Diplodocus head, but no sure-enough skull of Brontosaurus has been found yet. It could be worse: they could’ve put a Smiley Face up there.
But who cares? Brontosaurus is back in the starting lineup! Calloo callay, oh frabjous day!
I wonder if there’s hope for “Trachodon.”