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.