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Dinosaur Eggs and Deep Space Discovery ARE Practical Science
To fill the gaps in human knowledge, scientists have to look everywhere.
In many ways, the recent discovery of a perfectly-preserved baby dinosaur- feathered and fully formed, still enclosed in its ancient eggshell- has much in common with NASA’s recent launch of the the James Webb Space Telescope.
On the surface, both may seem to have little to do with humanity’s practical concerns; with human societies and the many challenges we face in a changing world. The modern age in which we find ourselves is heir to all of humanity’s oldest challenges- disease, poverty, violence- plus a few novel new ones like exponential innovation and explosive population growth.
“Growing pains,” some might name the 20th century, now grown well into the 21st and still straining against every stay. Advancements in human achievement- fire, the hand axe, the invention of agriculture, the written word, the printing press, the internal combustion engine, splitting the atom, the internet, mapping the human genome- are hitting societies at a breathless pace.
It hasn’t been all antibiotics and indoor plumbing, either.
The hand axe was humanity’s crowning technological achievement for over 70,000 years of anatomical modernity. It was a rock sharpened on one side and…