Last month, we spoke with Scott just prior to his visit to Utah to launch his new book Dinosaur Odyssey: Fossil Threads in the Web of Life.I followed up with Scott to see how the launch of his book and his new blog are going:
JF: How did your lecture in Salt Lake City go month?
SS: It was a terrific experience for me! It was certainly fitting that my book tour was launched in Utah, given my involvement with dinosaur paleontology there over the past decade. And it was particularly heart-warming to be surrounded by friends and long-time supporters of paleontology, including numerous volunteers who have put in long hours in the field and the lab. I had a great time, in particular, interacting with all those kids who are getting even more hooked on dinosaurs from watching [Jim Henson's] Dinosaur Train. The question & answer period was fun and surprising, and, as usual, the kids asked the best questions!
JF: What has the initial response to the book been?
SS: Although we are still in the early days (the formal release date of the book was last week, November 30th), Dinosaur Odyssey has had some extremely positive reviews. An author never knows how a book is going to be received, so it feels great to see one’s writing described with words like “engaging”. I am particularly excited that so many readers are picking up not only on the web of life approach, which aims to make diverse connections, but also on the fact that we humans still have a lot to learn from dinosaurs.
JF: Tell us about the blog that you have just launched?
SS: I launched The Whirlpool of Life on Tuesday, November 24, the sesquicentennial anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species. Posts will encompass a wide range of topics, spanning paleontology, evolution, ecology, education, sustainability, philosophy, and psychology. The thread that I will use to weave these topics together is science education in general, and nature literacy more specifically.
JF: How is the work of Darwin relevant today, 150-years later?
SS: Darwin triggered an intellectual revolution, with effects that have cascaded through science and society. Yet, one hundred and fifty years later, a portion of Darwin’s legacy, the foundational concept of common descent through deep time, remains virtually untapped outside academia. In particular, this concept has not been communicated in such a way as to shift our relationship with nature.
JF: When did Charles Darwin first enter your consciousness?
SS: As I recall, Darwin first entered my consciousness as a 14 year-old student in ninth grade biology class. But this introduction was anything but inspiring, and it really wasn’t until my undergraduate years at the University of British Columbia that I truly began to plumb the depths of evolutionary thinking.
JF: As a paleontologist, what contribution do you feel museum collections make to science and culture?
SS: Museums are the storehouses of living and ancient life. Fossil collections are used by researchers to conduct science. Some of the greatest “aha!” moments in paleontology occur in the bowels of museums when one is surrounded by the bones of ancient creatures.
Of course, museums also spark the imaginations of non-scientists too, and this is another of their crucial roles. Now it is time for natural history museums to enter the 21st century and define their place in helping the general public connect more deeply with the natural world.
Natural history museums were founded by people with a true love of nature, people who understood the plants and animals of their region, people who were naturalists. Today there are all too few naturalists around. Indeed the skill of knowing one’s place and communicating it to others might be regarded as a disappearing art. Yet this skill is more needed now than ever before. Natural history museums need to go back to their roots and foster a world of naturalists!
JF: What attracted you to paleontology as a field of study?
SS: I was the classic 5 year-old with a fascination for dinosaurs. Without any exaggeration, paleontology was one of the first words I learned how to spell. For me, one of the most attractive aspects of paleontology is that it requires mental time travel to places from the distant past. Imagining those worlds excited me as a youngster, and that excitement is still there today.
JF: With a book and a blog both geared for people like me (not a professional scientist) and involvement in popular, almost mass media television shows, you seem to have moved beyond a life of traditional academic work. Can you tell us about that, ahem, evolution?
SS: In short, I felt that the pressing issues facing us today required that I move beyond the narrow domain of paleontology research and education within a university. My underlying contention is that the current sustainability crisis is not merely an external crisis of the environment. More fundamentally, it is an internal crisis of worldview rooted in a dysfunctional relationship between humans and nonhuman nature. Thus, any meaningful resolution to the eco-crisis will require not only more and “greener” technologies, but also a fundamental shift in awareness and understanding, particularly within industrialized nations.
Since worldviews are built upon a lifetime of experience, it’s highly doubtful that the necessary transformation will occur solely among adults. Rather we must rethink, indeed reinvent, education, placing less emphasis on upward mobility and more on living well; less on generating consumers and more on serving communities, including communities of nature. Surprisingly, perhaps, I am convinced that the concept of evolution has a pivotal role to play in this gargantuan effort of “schooling for sustainability”.
JF: Tell us more about “schooling for sustainability”....
SS: Schooling for sustainability should be rooted in three intertwined elements, each of which informs the other two:
- new metaphors that augment the dominant “life-as-machine” and “web of life examples, enabling us to perceive reality in new and instructive ways;
- the Great Story encompassing the evolution of cosmos, life, and culture, which provides a universal origin myth and anchors us in the deep time evolution of life on Earth; and
- a strong emphasis on place.
JF: How can public education organizations — like natural history museums and public television — play a role in “schooling for sustainability”
SS: I see two fundamental roles for natural history museums and other natural science institutions in this redefinition of education. First, museums of natural history—home to both extensive collections and scientific expertise--are better positioned than perhaps any other institutions to communicate the nature of place and reconnect people to their local environs. Second, museums can communicate the Great Story, linking the origin of the universe, of life, and of humanity into a single story, and related that story back to their home regions. In particular, great potential exists for museums to help school teachers access the information and resources necessary for them to feel comfortable teaching these big ideas to their students.
However, both of these efforts will require that museum get beyond their four walls and guide visitors in direct experiences with nature. Television, on the other hand, is currently much more a part of the problem than the solution. To turn this situation around, public television in particular has potential to generate even more programming that helps viewers reconnect with the natural settings around their homes. And television too needs to do a much better job of communicating the Great Story at age-appropriate levels.
JF: One last question: Since the Museum's blog is a community exchange of ideas and books, what book is on your nightstand these days??
SS: I am currently reading a marvelous, though frighting, book by Lester Brown called, Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization (Norton, 2009). If ever there was a succinct description of our current ecological predicament, together with necessary steps that must be taken, this is it. Highly recommended!
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