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hello everyone and welcome to video
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number five in the history of
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paleontology where we're going to be
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looking at some key developments in the
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last century of this science I wanted to
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start off though by highlighting a quote
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from a play that I rather like by Alan
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Bennett called The History Boys because
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I think it reflects well the process of
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having to write this kind of lecture and
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especially this particular video for
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this lecture so that quote is but this
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is history distance yourselves our
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perspective on the past altars looking
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back immediately in front of us is just
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dead ground we don't see it and because
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we don't see it that means there is no
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period so remote as the recent past and
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one of the historians jobs is to
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anticipate what our perspective of that
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period will be and I think that is very
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much what I've had to do here I would
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say that in the last century work in the
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field of paleontology has become more
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collaborative it's groups of people and
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a bit less iconic clastic there are less
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individuals necessarily driving
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particular Fields forward and that means
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that that accompanied with the the kind
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of the ever increasing number of people
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working within this and Associated
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subfields makes charting a clear history
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very very difficult things are more
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about the appearance of fields as you
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will see than they are about particular
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individuals and so when I've written
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this what I've done is just chosen some
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particular topics that I think are
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probably important and they make a nice
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narrative other people may choose other
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things that have happened happed in the
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last 100 years to illustrate um the
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developments in paleontology so do bear
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that in mind as I go through these
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examples the first example of an
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important Discovery um is the um
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discovery of DNA and I think this is
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really really valuable because DNA um
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has allowed us to have insights um to uh
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the dates of the origins of groups for
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example using an approach called the
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molecular clock and have provided
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complimentary um forms of data to um
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fossils and morphology to understand
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macro
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Evolution and indeed up until this
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discovery occurred in the 1950s this was
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a really obvious problem people knew
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heredity happened and had known that for
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quite a long time but the exact
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structure of the informational molecules
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that did it was not known all that was
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known by the 1950s was that whatever
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these were they were found in the
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nucleus there were two competing teams
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that were studying this question in the
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late 40s and early 50s one is from
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King's College in London led by morus
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Wilkins shown on this slide here um with
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his colleague Rosland Franklin um shown
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here the other was uh Watson and Crick
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who were two scientists at the
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University of Cambridge and the
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discovery is really quite well known and
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charted in in the history books so
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essentially what happened is rosin
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Franklin who was collecting data with
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her PhD stud student Raymond goling um
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asked Raymond to give Wilkins this
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gentleman here the image of an x-ray um
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defraction pattern um was collected from
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analyzing DNA that you can see on the
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the right hand side here it's a very
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very famous image Wilkins showed this
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image to Watson and
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Crick and trick and Watson were
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mobilized into building the model of DNA
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that you can see here and which we now
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know to be the structure of this very
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very important
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molecule Watson and Creek proposed that
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double helix model for DNA and with
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Wilkins they won the Nobel Prize um for
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the discovery of DNA in
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1963 by this point uh Rosman Frankton
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had died of cancer um and was thus not
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eligible for that PhD because um she had
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a habit of standing in the way of X-ray
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beams during her work which probably
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contribut treated the ovarian cancer
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that she ultimately died from but this
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was a really singular discovery that
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unlocked lots and lots of mysteries um
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in as to how um life evolves in deep
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time it has given rise to a fill that we
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may want to call molecular paleobiology
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so looking at the molecular remains of
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either ancient DNA proteins or amino
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acids and of course using DNA to
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understand evolution in deeper time and
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gave birth to entire other fields in
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life sciences such as biomatics so
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really really important
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stuff I think another important um kind
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of uh development in the last 100 years
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is a move towards quantitive approaches
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in paleontology an example of this um
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builds off the work of j John seosi Jr
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shown on the right hand side here with a
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fantastic dog whose name I don't know I
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can only apologize sincerely for that um
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but I'm sure they're very famous as well
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and David round shown on the left hand
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side here and what these two guys did
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for my example is they counted up
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occurrences of different forms of
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fossils and then map them through
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geological time and do quantitative
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analysis of that showing for example big
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dips in the diversity of fossils
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representing our important mass
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extinctions and helping us to understand
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some of the sources of biodiversity and
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indeed this thing that you can see here
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is now called a sepkoski
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curve this was just one example of a
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movement towards using analytical
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statistical approaches to understand
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fossils and this is ultimately the
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source of quite a lot of um kind of
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paleo infatic type work that you may
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come across today and it was also kind
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of reflected in a paper by Steph J gold
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I've put on this slide um that was
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trying to move paleontology towards a a
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discipline where we Define universal
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laws and then we test those and we test
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hypotheses so I think this this movement
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um is a really interesting and an
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important one for us and it has G of
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course gone hand inand with some of the
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other developments I'm about to talk
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about another thing I thought was worth
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mentioning is the Advent of kind of like
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a a more um distinctive form a
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well-defined subfield called
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paleobiology now the phrase paleobiology
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is quite an old one it's been used for a
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long time however my feeling looking
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back at the papers and science from the
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60s and70s
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is that this
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label gained popularity and gained a
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stronger identity of its own as a
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subfield during those
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decades as the name might suggest this
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paleobiology stresses the biology
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sometimes that would be the physiology
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or the Ecology of fossil organisms and
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also their
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ecosystems the latest 1960 through the
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1970s definitely did see an active push
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people who wanted to understand fossils
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not just as things in a rock but as
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living breathing animals a really
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obvious example of that is a movement
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that's sometimes termed the dinosaur
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Renaissance this was a movement in which
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a number of pale oologist pushed for a
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rethink of how we considered dinosaurs a
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famous member of this movement was John
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ostram who argued very strongly that
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birds that we see today wandering around
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outside and flying as well had evolved
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from within the dinosaurs another key
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player was his p PhD student Bob Becka
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who pushed for people to think of
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dinosaurs as warm-blooded highly active
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animals as opposed to I suppose The
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Reptilian cold lizardy creatures that
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people tended to think about them as
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before that point these developments in
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dinosaurs were paralleled in a whole
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range of other areas and I think that
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momentum built up to the point where
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there was a um a journal that was
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launched called paleobiology on the one
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of the early issues shown on the left
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hand side here in the 1970s showing the
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kind of solidification of this field and
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a textbook um with the name Paley was
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first published in the 1990s so it was a
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a real um kind of um a change in the
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Zeitgeist kind of a change in how people
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viewed paleontology in this subfield of
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paleo biology and if you want to get a
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feel of the state of the this field in
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the late 1980s that kind of reflected
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these shifts and how it revolutionized
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how we view fossils you can look no
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further than the Lost worlds and
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vanished lives um documentary that David
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aten did in 1989 and if you're based in
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the UK and have a TV license you can
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watch this for free it's only four
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episodes it's pretty cool I rather enjoy
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it um on BBC player so if you are able
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to and you you are interested in this
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particular period of history of penology
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do check that out another subfield I
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think is of note is tonomy so I've kind
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of pictorially represented this here
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tonomy is basically the study of the um
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preservation of fossils and the the the
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mechanisms by which that occurs and
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indeed the impact this has on our
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picture of past life as represented by
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this um famous painting of Pope Innocent
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I 10th and the Francis Bacon on the
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right hand side here so tonomy has
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really been studied for as long as we
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have thought about fossils but the name
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itself was con coined I should say in
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the 1940s and I think in most
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it solidified into its own subfield
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arguably um most obviously in the
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1970s a famous proponent of it is Adolf
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cacer who I've whose name I've put on
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the slide here he undertook a systematic
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effort to formalize this field and add
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some structure to it and to um make it
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into the scientific field that it is
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today that was accompanied and has been
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built upon slightly later by the
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increasing use of experimental
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approaches at looking at things as they
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Decay um some obvious players in this
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were Derek Briggs who I will mention in
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the next slide as well and a Gentleman
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called Peter Allison who's now based at
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Imperial College in London so tonomy
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today is a rich and varied field that
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looks at how fossils
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form another important development that
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happened I I guess in the 1970s and the
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80s was the work of this Trio here at
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the top here you could see Harry
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Blackmore wittington who was a professor
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of paleontology
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based in the University of Cambridge
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bottom left you can see Derek Briggs who
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I mentioned um just a short while ago
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who was his PhD student and in the
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bottom here you can see Simon Conway
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Morris who was also um Harry's PhD
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students and this this Trio led to a
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Renaissance in the study of the burger
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Shale an early Cambrian um series of
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rocks that are found in Canada with some
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amazing fossils such as those ones that
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are shown on the right hand side here
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found inside them this Renaissance and
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the study of those fossils was very much
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couched in development of the time um
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and as a result they very much focused
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on what this event can tell us about
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Evolution broadly and indeed what this
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event tells us about the history of
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animals but it led to this renewed
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interest in in vertu paleontology about
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these major events and led to a number
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of um kind of long running uh debates I
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will say which weren't as kind of um as
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strongly fought possibly as those 19
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sorry those 1800s ones but are are very
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similar in other
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ways so uh one of these is based on the
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work of these debates about the cam
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explosion was based on the work work of
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stevenh J gold who's shown here in the
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middle who also worked on the burges
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Shale forer and he wrote a series of
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popular science articles defining these
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things as weird wonders or kind of I say
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defining them that's not really the
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right word he kind of made the case that
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these aren't are just weird animals that
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um reflect very much this time period uh
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this Cambrian forer he used as an
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example of the role of contingency in
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the broader pattern of evolution it just
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so happens that things that are alive
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today are here by chance and they are
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very much the pattern of what survived
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through the cion in contrast Simon con
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Conway Morris who I mentioned on this
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slide here um wrote another Popular
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Science book this one called The
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Crucible of creation that stressed that
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those members of C fora that resemble
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modern taxa and probably were precursors
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of the modern taxa and it's one example
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of how um these these kind of debates
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about the nature of evolution the nature
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of fossils have continued to this day
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but the reason that I wanted to
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highlight Stephen J gold is because also
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he made important contributions to our
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pictures of macro Evolution one of his
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most famous was done alongside Nars
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Eldridge who's shown on the left hand
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side of this here slide here and this um
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their idea was this idea of punctuated
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equilibrium that's represented by these
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two evolutionary trees up here up until
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um the work of Eldridge and gold um
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people viewed Evolution through the lens
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of this thing that we could call ftic
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gradualism it's slow and it's steady and
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morphologies gradually change Through
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Time in response to drivers and nothing
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happens really very very
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fast there's a slight sting in the tail
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of that in that some biologists did have
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an idea of rapid changes um in response
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to things but generally this show on the
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top right was the pervasive view these
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two gentlemen um came up with this idea
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called punctuated equilibrium where they
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made the case that actually the
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evolution is the majority of the time
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defined by stasis no changes of
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morphology is represented by these l
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lines if you look there's time on the y
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axis here and morphology on the x-axis
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these lines that are almost vertical
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represent long periods with very little
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change right um and then they made the
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case that these long periods of stasis
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are punctuated um by rapid changes that
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reflect evolutionary Innovations or um
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or other um events happening and so this
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is a very um different view of evolution
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which is very much BL based around um
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sudden Chang es in groups splitting and
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it has led to a long debate amongst
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paleontologists about the nature of
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evolution over deep time um I think in
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the world of biology um it's quite hard
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to test these ideas and so um the idea
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of punctu equilibrium does not
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necessarily hold um hold its own
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nowadays in the world of um kind of
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biological studies of evolution but when
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we're looking at the fossil record we do
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see lots of stasis and lots of sudden
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changes so paleontologists still talk
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about this quite a lot maybe I'm doing
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them a disservice there because I
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suppose there is still quite a lot of
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debate about the nature of punctuated
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equilibrium so let's move on to the my
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final slide so most recently and this is
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so recent I've generally avoided naming
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names or indeed giving you much more
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information I would say that computers
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and computational approaches have
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revolutionized
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paleontology these revolutionary um
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changes include the development of
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digital tools that have impacted upon
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quantitive paleobiology often for
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example as you can see in other um
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videos that I've created about say
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paleoecology these use the programming
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language are to do analysis of fossil
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occurrences in a big scale to look at
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the patterns and the processes of
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evolution so computational approaches
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have revolutionized or expended extended
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expanded the scope of these quantitive
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paleontology
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approaches similarly computers have
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allowed us to use both morphology and
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DNA to build evolutionary trees as you
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can learn about in the philogyny
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videos so this computational approach is
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really good when it comes to trying to
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understand how organisms are related to
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each other using whatever kind of data
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you're interested in doing
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that and also in recent years the
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development of X-ray techniques such as
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high resolution CT scanner or computed
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tomography alongside digital
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visualization and this book is all about
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these things um has allowed us to see
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fossils in three dimensions using X-rays
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and digital technology in more detail
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than we ever could in the past that has
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really allowed us when it comes to
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paleobiology to better understand the
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physiology of long dead organisms and
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all of that is represented by Sandra
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buck and this 1990s movie the net which
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is available on Netflix at the moment if
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you so wish to watch it
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and all of that brings me to the end of
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my videos on the history of paleontology
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I hope you found them interesting and
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that you've uh learned some stuff from
00:17:08
them um there's lots more out there if
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you want to learn about how paleontology
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of science has built up today but this
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was I hope a worthwhile introduction
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over the course of um just under two
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hours to get you started so thank you
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for watching all the videos if you got
00:17:24
this far and yeah see you around
