Dinosaurs: how we know what we know

This textbook introduces research on dinosaurs by describing the science behind how we know what we know about dinosaurs. A wide range of topics is covered, from fossils and taphonomy to dinosaur physiology, evolution, and extinction. In addition, sedimentology, paleo-tectonics, and non-dinosaurian Mesozoic life are discussed. There is a special opportunity to capitalize on the enthusiasm for dinosaurs that students bring to classrooms to foster a deeper engagement in all sciences. Students are encouraged to synthesize information, employ critical thinking, construct hypotheses, devise methods to test these hypotheses, and come to new defensible conclusions, just as paleontologists do.

How Do We Understand the Natural World? The Nature of Science and the Field of Paleontology -- How Do We Know When Dinosaurs Lived? Interpreting Earth's History from Rocks -- How Do We Explain Variation among Past and Present Organisms? Evolution and Evolutionary Mechanisms -- How Do We Know Who Is Related to Whom? Systematics and Phylogenetic Relationships -- How Do We Know When and How Life Began and Evolved? The Origin of Life and Evolution through Time -- How Do We Use Anatomy of Living Animals to Understand Dinosaurs? Bones and Anatomy -- How Do We Know What a Dinosaur Is? Diagnosing and Defining Dinosauria -- How Do We Name and Group Dinosaurs? Part I: Ornithischian Dinosaurs -- How Do We Name and Group Dinosaurs? Part II: Saurischian Dinosaurs -- How Do We Name and Group Mesozoic Animals That Are Not Dinosaurs? Pterosaurs, Marine Reptiles, Mammals, and Others

How Do We Know How Dinosaurs Became Part of the Fossil Record? Taphonomy and Fossilization -- How Do We Interpret the Ecology of Dinosaurs? The Relationship of Dinosaurs to Their Physical and Biological Environments -- How Do We Know How Dinosaurs Moved? Dinosaur Functional Morphology -- How Do We Know What Dinosaurs …