Stephen Jay Gould Sex Drugs Disasters Summary

“My greatest unhappiness with most popular presentations of science concerns their failure to separate fascinating claims form the methods that scientists use to establish the facts of nature” (McQuade 402). Fact or fiction, scientists are often quick to announce “fascinating claims” or observations rather than do the work necessary to make them useful. As scientifically opinionated as could be, Stephen Jay Gould’s Sex, Drugs, Disasters, and the Extinction of Dinosaurs mentioned three common theories about the extinction of dinosaurs accurately, defined his way of determining if a theory is useful, and gave his own scholarly, scientific opinion about each theory. His input informs an oblivious reader into the logic of said theories and provides …show more content…
“Journalists, and the public, thrive on controversial and stunning statements” (McQuade 402). Too often I have seen the media misuse their power by over-exaggerating situations. I think it’s hypocritical for broadcasting stations to ignore the facts just to grasp their viewers’ attention. Likewise, Gould feels the same would apply to scientific theories, especially something as unexplainable as the extinction of dinosaurs. The above mentioned theories did grab my attention, like all scientists would hope. However, Gould made some points in his writing that would make me reconsider some of the theories as accurate or useful. For instance, he explains that the theories of the male testes and drug overdose are merely foolish because they have yet to be acted upon. Throughout decades, the hypotheses have yet to bring any evidence to the table. They lead nowhere and do not aide in any more experimentation than what they have already been tested on. On the other hand, the theory about an asteroid striking the earth has left room for experimentation. Iridium, a metal found in the fossil record from the era of dinosaurs, has sparked new experiments and investigations between numerous geochemists. According to Gould, the disastrous event of an asteroid strike is the kind of theory that is useful because there is proof found in the iridium record. I have to agree with Gould that physical proof is easier to trust than just a theory. Personally, the experiments on alligators and their temperature tolerance cannot be accurate because they aren’t able to test specifically on a dinosaur. We do not know what is different and therefore, cannot assume a dinosaur would react the same way. Gould favored the asteroid theory, and I do too, because of the facts that are still influencing experiments