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Thomas Jefferson was one of the first real scientists – he found some big claws.  Turns out they were from a giant sloth.  We have one here at OSU!

Peale – started the first natural history museum.  Almost every picture of George Washington we have was a painting of his.

People didn’t really believe in extinction – why would God create an animal then let it die out?  Really there were 5 big extinction times.

There’s a place in Utah where over 8000 bones have been found.  I wonder how people know where the bones belong?  How do we know for sure the bones are in the right place?  How do we know what their fur/scales were like?

Cuvier – proved extinction. (How do you prove something doesn’t exist? Have we been able to prove mermaids don’t exist?)

Napoleon Bonaparte – discovered the Rosetta Stone, given to GB.

They gave the mastadon femur to Paris because there wasn’t really science going on in America.

Dr. Otter was an extremely helpful speaker as he has helped me understand the general concepts that Kuhn explores in his book and broke down some of his very important ideas that were hard to comprehend. Although I have only read three chapters, this book has been very hard for me to digest an is definitely something that I need broken down part by part. I find the idea that the history of science is not linear  but rather a truth that was once accepted is then replaced by another truth that is now accepted a very good way of explaining science. Although many of them may be extremely close to the real truth, which we may never know through science, they can not be the exact truth so it would make sense to not throw away or reject these ideas as they might carry some aspect of the actual truth. The most interesting part of this talk was the fact that so many scientists have committed suicide after a paradigm that they deeply believed in is moved pass and no longer accepted as the truth for that time. This is amazing to see how deeply connected and invested these scientist are in their work and studies, they truly believe in what they are doing. He also mentioned that paradigm shifts are usually brought on by people that tend to be younger and stand out side of the normal culture. I can see this as in almost all facets of life older generations have a much more difficult time adjusting to any type of change , which is very understandable, and for people that are constantly being taught what is right and what is to be believed they are going to have a more difficult idea defying these teachings to create another explanation.