Of limeless seas and listless animals
In which Max explores some wacky (and not-so-wacky) attempts to explain the abrupt appearance of the Cambrian fauna, ca. 1895-1960
Thoughts - Extinct
Latest posts
All the better to catch you with, my dear
In which Max presents a lost picture from the history of paleontology: Charles Walcott’s “Sidney crab” complete with massive claws (actually the appendages of a large radiodont— a relative of Anomalocaris)
From the Archive: Minnesota Gneiss
A farewell to Minnesota: in which Max hits the road to see the second-oldest surface rocks in the United States (originally posted on August 18, 2024)
"Long live Lyell and his doctrine of uniformitarianism!"
In which Max finishes wrestling with a question that has always bugged him: how did uniformitarianism come to be associated with the view that nature’s laws are invariant in space and time? —Part 2 of 2
Lyell, interrupted
In which Max wrestles with a question that has always bugged him: how did uniformitarianism come to be associated with the view that nature’s laws are invariant in space and time? (It’s interesting, I promise!) —Part 1 of 2
From the Archive: The Importance of Background Theory, or Why James Hall Left Mountains out of his Theory of Mountain Building
In which Max explores one of the most famous zingers in the history of geology: that James Hall left mountains out of his theory of mountain building
Terrible uniformitarian poetry
In which Max shares some terrible scientific poetry from the 1940s. Just because
Beyond "Rocks versus Clocks": Glimpses of a New Philosophy of Molecular Clock Dating
In which Max Dresow and Katherine Valde glimpse a new philosophy of molecular clock dating
From the Archive: Comparisons with Teeth
A deep cut: in which Max examines the durability and challenges of actualistic reasoning in paleontology
Burgess Beasties and Ediacaran Enigmas
In which Max finally concludes two earlier posts with a double-duty post-a-ganza on the interpretation of Ediacaran macrofossils
From the Archive: Lords of Marble and the Spear
In which Max asks what an argument for repatriating a fossil might look like in the absence of demonstrable illegality in the acquisition of that fossil
What the Actual Hell is Going On (Or, the Great Reg Sprigg Nature "Rejection" Mystery...)
In which Max blows your little mind
A History of Geology Reading List, Part 2
In which Max has finally completed his two-part reading list for people interested in learning more about the history of geology
For the love of Fortey
Problematica #40: In which Max pays tribute to the late paleontologist Richard Fortey by assembling some of his favorite Fortey-an sentences
American Primordial: remembering the Great Taconic Controversy
In which Max remembers the biggest American geological brouhaha of the nineteenth century
Troubling Times at the Tar Pits: Mark Dion’s Excavations Amidst Other Historical Mischiefs
In which Alison Laurence looks to La Brea's past and present during dire times
From the archive: What evidential role should (ancient) DNA play in paleoanthropology?
Evidence from DNA is extremely powerful: but what role should it play in reconstructing the evolutionary history of hominids? (By Helen De Cruz, 1978–2025)
From Stromatolites to Martian Leopard Spots: Circumstantial Traces and the Reconstruction of Early Life
In which Franziska Reinhard analyzes early life research by developing the concept of a “circumstantial trace”
Ode to Opabinia, or Why You Don't Hear as Much About Problematic Fossils as you Used to
In which Max examines the history of research on that Burgess oddball, Opabinia regalis, and asks why this problematic fossil is less problematic than it used to be
Why the Yanks whiffed on drift... was uniformitarianism to blame?
In which Max considers the question on everyone’s mind: whether uniformitarianism was a factor in Americans’ rejection of continental drift in the 1920s