#2580 - Kenneth Lacovara

The Rise of Dinosaur Skepticism and Its Causes

Dinosaur denial has seen a noticeable increase in recent years, not due to ongoing scientific debate but due to the amplification of misinformation on public platforms. Kenneth Lacovara attributes this modern skepticism mainly to the rise of social media and other vehicles that allow any view to find an audience, rather than to new evidence or genuine controversy among scientists. He notes that although he personally does not encounter dinosaur denial often, its visibility online is growing.

This skepticism often connects with young earth creationism, which holds that the Earth is only 6,000 years old—a figure that contrasts sharply with the scientifically established age of 4.567 billion years. Lacovara explains that, historically, even the most educated figures in Europe, such as Isaac Newton, believed in a young Earth. When Darwin began his famous voyage aboard the HMS Beagle, he too was a young earth creationist, but exposure to new geology shifted his understanding.

Denying dinosaur existence would require the fabrication of evidence across centuries, continents, and among countless unconnected scientists—a scenario that strains credibility far beyond any plausible coordinated effort. Lacovara finds it implausible that people with no connection to one another, in different eras and places, could conspire so extensively.

Fossil Formation and why Complete Specimens Are Rare

Skeptics often claim that dinosaur fossils are rare or complete skeletons are never found, using this as evidence for a hoax. However, the realities of fossilization and museum practices provide a clear explanation.

Fossilization must occur quickly, typically within months to years, or the organism decomposes entirely. This process requires an organism to be rapidly buried in sediment-rich settings such as mudslides, floodplains, or marine deposits. The transition from biosphere to geosphere is rare; scavenging, decomposition, weathering, and destruction mean most organisms never fossilize. Lacovara illustrates this with a simple experiment: if a deer or raccoon died in a modern backyard, the chance of it becoming a fossil is nearly zero.

Despite this, the abundance of dinosaurs and the immense stretch of geological time mean that improbable events—like fossilization—become likely. Dinosaurs that lived in sediment-accumulating lowlands are more likely to be known to science, while species from erosional environments like mountains are almost never found. This helps explain why the fossil record is full of gaps and why not all species are represented.

In museums, most large dinosaur skeletons on display are reconstructions, often composites of real bones and replica pieces. Mounting actual giant bones is discouraged to avoid damage and facilitate ongoing study. Best practices now involve using different colors for replica bones and real ones, a method not always followed in earlier times. Smaller, more complete real skeletons are displayed when practical, but museums should always label when something is a replica or an original. Some “filler” parts are, by necessity, speculative reconstructions—a fact that fuels some conspiracy theories but is standard and well-documented scientific practice.

Fossil hoaxes have occurred, especially in recent decades, but paleontologists uncover these fabrications through careful study. The discovery and debunking of forgeries further demonstrates the healthy functioning of the scientific process.

Historical Development of Paleontology and Early Fossil Interpretation

Before the development of geology, people who discovered fossils tried to explain them through folklore. Ancient peoples, unaware of deep time or geological processes, interpreted fossils as remains of mythical entities such as dragons or griffins. For instance, in the Mediterranean, the single large opening in extinct dwarf elephant skulls was interpreted as evidence for cyclopes, and megalodon teeth discovered by Sicilian farmers were called “serpent tongues” (glossopetre).

The birth of modern geology began with Nicholas Steno in the 17th century. Steno recognized that shark teeth found on land must have belonged to ancient sharks, not to mythical creatures, and proposed principles foundational to geology: the oldest strata are beneath younger ones, and similar rocks separated by valleys were once continuous. Steno’s relentless reasoning marked the transformation of geology into a science.

James Hutton revolutionized geology in the late 1700s, introducing the concept of uniformitarianism—the idea that present geological processes explain Earth’s past. His observations of ancient, twisted, and layered rock formations convinced him that Earth was immensely old, an idea initially rejected by a scholarly community used to thinking of a 6,000-year-old earth.

These principles reached Charles Darwin through Charles Lyell’s writings. Darwin’s exposure to Lyell’s “Principles of Geology” during his Beagle voyage transformed his view of Earth’s age and set the intellectual stage for developing evolutionary theory. Observ ...

Understanding Earth's Age Through the Geological Timescale

Kenneth Lacovara uses the analogy of Earth's history mapped onto a single calendar year to illustrate the vastness of geological deep time. If Earth formed on January 1st, complex life similar to trilobites doesn't appear until Thanksgiving. Dinosaurs make their entrance in the second week of December and reign for 165 million years, vanishing the day after Christmas. This reign constitutes only about 2% of Earth's history. Humans, by contrast, appear a mere 20 seconds before midnight on New Year's Eve.

This compressed timeline helps explain why dinosaur fossils, despite the low odds of fossilization, are relatively abundant: dinosaurs existed very recently in geological terms. Using a party analogy, Lacovara remarks that referencing the dinosaurs is akin to saying you saw someone at Christmas just before New Year's Eve—they were "just here" on the Earth's timeline.

Mass Extinction Events and Climate Change

Lacovara explains that about 202 million years ago, at the end of the Triassic period, Earth experienced its fourth mass extinction event. This crisis was triggered when the supercontinent Pangaea began to rift apart, initiating the formation of the Atlantic Ocean. The process, described as the Atlantic "unzipping" from both top and bottom, caused extensive volcanic activity—not explosive eruptions, but continuous lava oozing through fissures. This activity released vast amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, causing rapid and dangerous climate change.

The resulting climate crisis "knocks back the crocodiles," greatly reducing their populations. Dinosaurs, in contrast, faced the extinction event but were able to recover rapidly. With many ecological niches left vacant, dinosaurs diversified and grew in size, coming to dominate the Mesozoic Era. By the Cretaceous, dinosaurs had reached their peak diversity, spread across every continent—even Antarctica—in a wide array of forms.

The fifth major mass extinction, at the end of the Cretaceous period about 66 million years ago, was triggered by a massive asteroid impact that created a 110-mile-wide crater on the Yucatan Peninsula. This event marks the boundary between the Cretaceous and the Paleogene periods.

The K-Pg Extinction Event and Survival Mechanisms

The asteroid impact 66 million years ago caused radiative heating that dramatically increased surface temperatures, making survival impossible for most species. Dinosaurs, primarily surface nesters, were rapidly wiped out during the impact event. In contrast, small mammals, crocodiles, turtles, lizards, and some birds survived by taking refuge underground or in water, where they avoided the worst of the extreme conditions.

Birds are the closest living relatives of theropod dinosaurs and represent an unbroken 66-million-year evolutionary lineage from these ancient creatures. Thus, while non-avian dinosaurs went extinct, their descendants still live among us today.

Magnetic Reversals and Geological Markers

Lacovara describes how Earth's magnetic poles flip approximately every 800,000 years, a process geologists term magnetic reversal. Transition durations and the precise effects of these flips remain unclear. The movement of the poles is always ongoing, yet the underlying causes and consequences, especially during the transition period, are not fully understood.

The Earth's magnetosp ...

Scientific Methodology in Paleontology

Paleontology operates as a predictive science rooted in the scientific method. According to Kenneth Lacovara, paleontologists can forecast fossil locations using knowledge about rock age and type. For example, rocks must be of the appropriate era—such as 237 to 66 million years old for non-avian dinosaurs—and must be sedimentary with exposed outcrops to make fossil discovery possible. This explains why dinosaur fossils are not found in places like upstate New York, where rocks are too old, or Florida, where rocks are generally too young.

Lacovara emphasizes the importance of hypothesizing and testing predictions through fieldwork and observation. He notes that progress in the field is made when scientists embrace the overturning of ideas, though ego can sometimes interfere. Following the philosophy that we don’t “prove” hypotheses but instead “fail to falsify” them, paleontologists maintain openness to new evidence or discoveries that may overturn current understanding.

Locating and Excavating Fossils

Successful fossil prospecting requires identifying rocks of the correct age and type, locating sedimentary exposures, and often searching areas where few other paleontologists have worked. This increases the chance of finding new species. Badlands and deserts are prime sites, not because dinosaurs preferred these environments, but because erosion exposes relevant rock layers.

Lacovara points out that the most exciting promise lies in unexplored regions, such as ancient, forested Antarctica from the Mesozoic era. During the time of the dinosaurs, Antarctica—though at the South Pole—was not glaciated but covered in boreal forests with unique half-year periods of darkness, a setting with no modern analog. Most of this continent remains unexplored beneath the ice, leaving countless unknown dinosaur species undiscovered.

At field sites such as Patagonia, logistics can be formidable. Lacovara recounts how his team rafted down glacial streams, transported supplies and fossils across rivers, jacketed bones in burlap and plaster, and used sleds and local gauchos with horses to tow fossils out of deserts inaccessible to vehicles. Eventually, they hired someone with a road scraper to construct a makeshift 15-kilometer road to enable continued work. Collaborations with local communities proved invaluable, both for knowledge of terrain and logistical support.

Reconstructing Extinct Organisms From Incomplete Evidence

Phylogenetic Bracketing Infers Anatomy in Incomplete Specimens

When fossils are incomplete, paleontologists use phylogenetic bracketing to infer missing anatomy. By comparing close relatives on either side of the evolutionary tree, scientists deduce likely shared features. For example, in reconstructing Dreadnoughtus, whose skull was missing, the skull of a close Patagonian relative, Sarmientosaurus, stood in for visualization. For neck vertebrae, bones from the related Futilognosaurus substituted what was not recovered. While most of the body and tail of Dreadnoughtus were known, elements like the neck and skull carried uncertainty.

Uncertain Visual Features of Fossilized Animals' Soft Tissues

Paleontologists acknowledge that many external features, especially those made of soft tissue, remain speculative. As Joe Rogan notes, a skeleton alone can be deceptive, with reconstructions potentially ranging from “shrink-wrapped” to very blubbery, with many aspects—like coloration, display structures, or bladders—left to creative interpretation. In some cases, for instance, a show depicted Dreadnoughtus with exaggerated neck bladders inspired by living grouse for dramatic effect, a feature with no direct fossil evidence.

Reconstruction Art Uses Living Animals to Estimate Ancient Appearance

To lend plausibility, scientists compare extinct animals to modern analogs when reconstructing visual appearance. Herd animals like hadrosaurs might be modeled after modern species such as the baby tapi ...

Feathering In Theropod Dinosaurs and Modern Birds

Paleontologist Kenneth Lacovara explains that theropod dinosaurs—like T. rex and Velociraptor—had feathers, as shown by the presence of quill insertion knobs on the ulna of Velociraptor fossils, similar to those on modern birds such as turkeys and vultures. This evidence means Velociraptor, although often depicted as scaly and reptilian, was feathered.

The Jurassic Park films contributed to outdated dinosaur images by using the name "Velociraptor" for a much larger, more fearsome creature based on the real Deinonychus. The choice was for dramatic effect, but as a result, the films ignored the scientific consensus that these animals were feathered, which was already known before later movies were released.

Lacovara emphasizes that birds are literally dinosaurs, descended from feathered theropods. Modern birds continue to display the legacy of their Mesozoic ancestors through features such as hollow, honeycombed (pneumatized) bones and specialized, bird-style lungs. Birds possess beaks instead of teeth—an adaptation for weight-saving that began in the Cretaceous. Chickens and eagles alike are direct descendants, bridging the Mesozoic to the present, with chickens demonstrating dinosaurian behaviors like aggression and pecking order.

The Hoatzin Bird and Living Dinosaur Characteristics

Lacovara highlights the hoatzin, a bird whose chicks possess wing claws—a throwback to non-avian dinosaur anatomy. This evolutionary relic preserves a physical trait from ancient lineages. In another example, high-speed video of chickens running reveals movements strikingly similar to those seen in Jurassic Park, reinforcing the evolutionary link between living birds and their prehistoric ancestors.

Hadrosaurs and Exceptionally Preserved Specimens

Hadrosaurs, or duck-billed dinosaurs, are among the best-known dinosaurs thanks to their frequent occurrences in wetland environments favorable to fossilization. One extraordinary example is Leonardo, a hadrosaur discovered in 2000. Leonardo preserves fossilized skin, a 3D skeletal structure, gut contents (including pollen, showing plant diet), and even internal parasites. Such specimens allow paleontologists to reconstruct not only the appearance but also the diet and habits of these ancient animals before fossilization.

Titanosaur Discoveries and Size Estimates

Lacovara discusses the titanosaur Dreadnoughtus, a dinosaur from Patagonia featured in Jurassic Park: Dominion. Dreadnoughtus is the most massive dinosaur for which scientists can confidently calculate a weight—about 65 tons (as much as 13 African elephants or 9 T. rex)—from the dimensions of its humerus and femur bones, which tightly correlate to body mass. Despite this immense size, bone tissue analysis shows that the specimen was still growing at death, suggesting even larger titanosaurs existed but are yet undiscovered due to fossil incompleteness.

Sauropods like Dreadnoughtus also had comically small brains; two Dreadnoughtus brains could fit in a pint glass. Their cognitive abilities were likely limited, with existence revolving primarily around eating and reproduction.

Recent Human Ancestor Discoveries

Rogan and Lacovara discuss the striking 21st-century discovery of Homo floresiensis (“the Hobbit people”) on Flores island. Initial skepticism held that remains must represent a pathological individual, but further fossil finds established Homo floresiensis as a distinct, diminutive human species that survived until about 50,000 years ago. Eyewitness accounts on Flores persisted into contemporary times, with some locals claiming sightings even shortly before fossil discovery.

The find illustrates the complexity of the hominid family tree, which now resembles a branching bush rather than a linear progression. Numerous fossil discoveries—such as the Denisovans and finds in the Philippines, China, and Africa—highlight recent human evolution’s diversity and the likelihood that, unt ...

The Case For Reviving Recently Extinct Species

Kenneth Lacovara argues in favor of reviving species that have gone extinct within human history, emphasizing that these animals existed in ecosystems that are still present today. He notes that the last woolly mammoths disappeared only about 3,000 years ago, on Rangual Island off Siberia—a time when the world already had pyramids, written stories, and beer. Lacovara points out that, since these species went extinct largely due to human activity, restoring them is both an act of conservation and a form of recompense. Their absence is recent in geological terms, and their ecosystems remain largely suitable for their reintroduction.

Support Revival Tech For Cheetah Extinction: Ethics Unchanged by Time

Lacovara maintains that the ethical justification for using technology to revive recently extinct species like the cheetah remains consistent over time. If we can use revival technology today to conserve or return a species impacted by human activity, the underlying ethical considerations have not changed merely because time has passed.

De-extinction of Recent Species Is Conservation and Recompense For Human-Driven Extinction, Justifying Technological Intervention

He believes the application of de-extinction technology to recently extinct species is both practical and morally justified. Since humans are largely responsible for these extinctions, utilizing advanced genetic tools to resurrect them can help restore balance in ecosystems and atone for past actions. This approach distinguishes itself from speculative or sensational projects by grounding itself in conservation science and ethical responsibility.

De-extinction Companies and Modern Approaches

Colossal Biosciences, led by Ben Lam—with Lacovara as an advisor—focuses on de-extincting species like the woolly mammoth, thylacine, dodo, and blue buck using genetic technologies. Lacovara describes the experience with Colossal as feeling like being in a movie because of the remarkable advances they are making. He emphasizes that these creatures are recently extinct and that their absence is owed to human intervention, reinforcing the scientific and ethical motivation to bring them back.

Moreover, efforts to de-extinct these species drive important advances in genetic research and techniques. The resulting innovations can aid conservation of species that are currently threatened or at risk of extinction, providing broader benefits beyond the specific de-extinction projects.

Ethical Distinctions Between Extinct Species

There are significant ethical differences in attempting to resurrect different extinct species. Lacovara and Joe Rogan observe that there is widespread support for bringing back animals like the mammoth or thylacine, with little public controversy, because these creatures lived recently and their return poses minimal ethical concerns. However, reviving Neanderthals would invite substantial ethical objections, primarily concerning issues of consent and quality of life. Lacovara describes such a project as "wildly unethical" and emphasizes that no one he knows supports it.

If researchers were to uncover Denisovan DNA and establish that Denisovans possessed cognitive abilities surpassing modern humans, the moral issues surrounding their resurrection would be even greater. Creating sentient beings with complex minds and subjecting them to captivity or novelty status would raise deep concerns about inherent inequality and suffering. The prospect of reviving hominins blurs lines of scientific curiosity ...