The Commons Spring 2017 | Page 10

BOOK REVIEW Drawing Out Leviathan, A Review by Peter Escalante Drawing Out Leviathan: Dinosaurs and the Science Wars by Keith M. Parsons Indiana University Press, 2001 T HIS BOOK DEALS largely with the question of dinosaurs in the human past. But it is not a cre- ationist treatise; Dr Parsons holds the main- stream evolutionary account. It is rather a study in how fossil remains were, and are, imaginatively reconstructed, and thus a case study in scientific research and the role of interpretation. The titular theme of “draw- ing out Leviathan” is a reference to both the artist’s pencil and to the original textual les- son of the limits of human knowledge.   As recently as the 70s and 80s, one could see clunky, grey-green tyranno- saurs lumbering upright through swampy jungles with peculiarly tiny arms outstre- ched, but now, due to the imaginative revolution of Robert Bakker, we now see depictions of brilliantly colored, birdlike- sometimes even feathered- beasts speed- ing through ancient forests. The change is 10 THE COMMONS dramatic, nearly as dramatic as the recent academic promotion of Neanderthals to fully human status. This might suggest that natural science is a more a matter of inventive speculation than sober discovery of fact. But Parsons argues that in and through- out all the paradigm shifts of the disci- pline’s vision of its objects, palaeontolo- gists continued to essentially have real and stable objects in view. However fragmen- tary the conditions of animal relics- and even if the whole skeleton were found, this is nevertheless a fragment of what was once a whole animal- the goal was to configure the traces such that the best guess would be arrived at. In doing so, Parsons says, the rules of reason were normally in force, such that however much imaginative recon- struction might be required to tentatively recreate the whole animal, arguments had to made for such reconstruction and good reasons given, and guesswork was not nor- mally allowed to go beyond what the data themselves suggested. The “science wars” between what might be called positivism and constructivism are waged, according to Parsons, between two extremes, both of whom have some- thing of the truth about natural science: that it is a method of investigation of given objects following rational rules, but which is also inseparable from imagination and skillful interpretation. The conclusions he draws for philosophy of science are of in- terest to anyone concerned with the topic, regardless of one’s view of origins. PETER ESCALANTE is the Director of Wenden House and teaches freshman Rhetoric as well as classes on the history of art and architecture.