Shubin's description of his first expedition and how his first discovery of a tooth led to a spike in his awareness capabilities are like a life changing experience, with the first discovery being the experience and the awareness being the renewed perspective that is attained afterwards. It's quite interesting how one event changed his ability to find fossils and his new realization of the "fossil rules". Also interesting is that the biggest fossil discoveries come in the lab, rather than on the field. The lab is where the real discoveries happen.
Going back to the idea of jewel's vs. fool's gold, Shubin's first expedition leadership role turned out to be fruitful, for his tritheledont, "half mammal, half reptile" shows a transition phase between the two animal subgroups due to the traits of both mammals and reptiles found in tritheledont's teeth. It's amazing how so much information can be attainted just by the observation of an animal's teeth.
Also intriguing is that the variation of teeth in our mouth allow us humans to eat a wider variety of delectables than the average herbivore or carnivore.
-- Abdel Albakri
I agree that it is fascinating how the major fossil discoveries occur in the lab rather than on the field. This is ironic because out in the field is where the heavy duty work is done and cool action takes place. But from another point of view I could also see that you need high-tech equipment to dissect the fossils and find out what's the connection between fossils and that can only be done inside a lab.
ReplyDeleteYour first sentence sums up my initial thoughts while reading through the first part of the chapter. This definitely was the most boring chapter so far. Let's hope the rest of the book is more like the first couple.
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