Hamza Habib 02755.docx

Hamza Habib 02755

Article Review : ‘What Killed the Dinosaurs’ Scientific Methods

Publication

The article, ‘ what killed the dinosaurs’ was published in December 2015 issue of the Scientific American magazine. This article was written by Stephan Brusatte who is a paleontologist at the school of geosciences at Edinburgh University. Brusatte researched on anatomy and evolution of dinosaurs together with his colleague Richard Butler. This article, therefore is an adaptation of their research and study.

Introduction

Skeptics of the well-known and prominent theory formed a few decades ago that the dinosaurs went extinct due to the collision of an asteroid, argue that there were other facets at play which were the cause the demise of these species. They put forward this new theory on the basis of the findings that dinosaurs were endangered before the crash of the asteroid. This article is aimed at finding out what could be the closest plausible reason for the destruction of the great dinosaur species.

General Analysis

In my opinion, this article presents a well-built analysis that is easily comprehensible. The author, I believe assumes to target a diverse audience mainly one that has no scientific background therefore he advances the readers in layman terminology. Scientific terms have only been used where it was unavoidable but even then Brusatte has made sure to give an explanation of such terms. However, at some points a little more description was required to get a fairer understanding, like for example if the word ‘asteroid’ was defined more clearly one would get a better insight.

Moreover, the research is very basic for someone who is looking for a detailed research, as there is a lack of qualitative and quantitative data. The article should have contained more empirical evidence in order for it to be more credible and to add more value to the content. Brusatte, also lacked in terms of explaining the new theory as he did not clearly explain the other factors in detail like the sea level fluctuations which could have had an impact on the species’ demise.

The relation between the research topic and the authors life mentioned at the beginning of the article is what makes it an interesting read. The article is well structured as it is divided into three different parts with subheadings and any monotony in the reading is avoided by the use of visual diagrams. Though the hypothesis and some additional details about the initial theory could have been mentioned more explicitly, the article flows in right direction avoiding any confusion between the incidents that have been linked to each other.

The author manages to smoothly expand upon the discussion of whether the extinction of the dinosaurs was solely because of the asteroid that hit the surface of the earth or were there any other factors involved by clarifying both of the speculations being referred to and by exhibiting the research that he carried out during that time period. Nonetheless, the research findings that have been proposed in the article are not adequate and it appears to not have a convincing answer leaving somewhat of a confusion in the readers mind towards the end. In spite of the fact that the article has a story line going on in regard to Brusatte’s research, it in general tends to take away the concentration from the fundamental subject of the article. Like for example the authors experience in Italy and with Alvarez, may distract the reader from the initial topic of interest.

Conclusion

Despite the fact that there seems to exist no confirmation bias, Brusatte does not stick to one of the speculations as his final verdict and continuously speaks about both the theories, there still remains a bias since the studies talked about are mostly the ones that Brusatte himself carried out and therefore I feel that more information from other findings could have been put forward to understand the topic and theories better.

References

Stephan Brusatte. “What Killed the Dinosaurs’’ Scientific American (December, 2015) : 54-59 doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0916-30.

Dinosaur-Killing Asteroid Hit At Just The Wrong Time ...." Web. 26 Jan. 2018.