The great icthyosaur flap.
Before this gets entrenched in pop culture mythology, I'd like you to hear about it from me.
There are certain demographics of people who are interested in science-y things but aren't satisfied with the "mundane" (though awesome) explanations of real science -- some stoners, lots of conspiracy theorists, the ancient aliens crowd. In a few years this little speculation about hyper-intelligent cephalopods is going to take its place with the Face on Mars, the Baghdad battery, and the Egyptian tomb gliders on the History Channel canon of Things Scientists Already Have Already Explained but We Still Tout as "Mysterious" to Get Ratings. And speculation is exactly what it is. It was a quick presentation at a conference, not peer reviewed; no hypotheses were tested, no new observations were made. Some geology professor presented this idea he had, generated some discussion, and got a brief bit of notoriety as the butt of jokes in other geology departments. In a year or two, what little serious discussion this generates will fade away and scientists will go back to their other studies. But this tidbit will undoubtedly catch on with the public, and two generations of geology professors will have to take the time during their lectures to explain to future freshmen why the scientific establishment doesn't believe in hyper-intelligent Triassic cephalopod civilizations.
This fascinates me because this is the first time I've seen the birth of one of these pseudo-science myths. (Oh, there was the History Channel hoopla over Darwinius a few years back, but that was based on an actual fossil find -- the myth there was that "Ida" was anywhere close to our own evolutionary ancestry, which it was not. It was merely an extremely well-preserved basal primate, a very important fossil in its own right but nothing revolutionary.) I know the facts of what was presented at the conference -- basically, "Hey guys, here's this cool thing we thought up." Over the coming months and years I can look forward to the privilege of watching this get twisted, distorted, and magnified through all the pop culture lenses as it gets picked up by science news, turns into History Channel specials, appears on "science" shelves at Barnes & Noble right next to The Mars Mystery. That process has already begun.
I have to admit that I don't find the idea of hyper-intelligent Triassic cephalopods implausible. Right now this planet has at least eight extant species demonstrating self-awareness and greater or lesser degrees of symbolic intelligence; in the recent past there were at least a dozen more. I see no reason why self-awareness or symbolic intelligence should be limited to the last eight million years of evolutionary history. Cephalopods would make good candidates for ancient intelligence because, unlike big-brained vertebrates, they were actually around for a good long chunk of Earth's history. Plus soft-bodied cephalopods don't tend to fossilize, which makes it hard to prove that gigantic "krake" geniuses didn't exist.
But here we run up against why this isn't good science. Science is not and has never been about "proving" that anything did not exist. Science is the process of observing what does exist, forming hypotheses, and testing them with new observations. In the case of the Berlin icthyosaur deposits, we have an observation -- a mysterious death assemblage of many large-bodied icthyosaurs, their bodies often disarticulated in odd ways. We also have multiple competing hypotheses -- poisoning by a red tide, an undersea slope collapse, a mass beaching, etc.
In paleontology (as in geology or archaeology or historiography or other event-specific sciences), most hypotheses are tested by going out into the field and collecting further data from comparable events, or by inference from modern events. We could go out and observe what happens to whale corpses after a mass beaching event, for example. Or we could find other examples of mass die-offs in marine predators in the fossil record. None of these have proved conclusive with the Berlin icthyosaur fauna, hence the proliferation of hypotheses to explain the event. This is normal, and good science.
Now, the hyper-intelligent "krake" hypothesis could also be tested the same way. If paleontologists discovered another assemblage of dead marine vertebrates, their bones laid out in unusual and potentially "patterned" arrangements, then I would be completely willing to accept this as a valid hypothesis. In fact, if additional "cephalopod self-portraits" were discovered, the hyper-intelligent Triassic cephalopod would quickly become an accepted scientific consensus.
Until such sites are found, unfortunately, the art-school octopus remains complete speculation. It pulls so many assumptions out of thin air: If a gigantic cephalopod three times the size of the largest known squid existed, and if such titantic cephalopods evolved hyper-intelligence, and if such titantic hyper-intelligent cephalopods developed uncharacteristic longevity, and if such long-lived titanic hyper-intelligent cephalopods developed and maintained a culture of extra-somatic symbolic communication, and if such symbolic long-lived titanic hyper-intelligent cephalopods slaughtered enormous icthyosaurs and used their bones for expression... then maybe that's what happened at the Berlin beds.
Or maybe it was a mass beaching or a poisonous red tide -- things we see every day in the modern world, and which require absolutely no extra assumptions, beyond "beaches or algae existed in the Triassic," which aren't so much assumptions as they are known quantities.
But you aren't going to hear that on your History Channel special. What you will hear is "Scientists have a provocative new theory that proves humans aren't the first to build civilizations on Earth!"
So, while this fascinates me, I know it will be frustrating as hell within a few years. Which is why this is such a great piece of snide paleontology humor.
There are certain demographics of people who are interested in science-y things but aren't satisfied with the "mundane" (though awesome) explanations of real science -- some stoners, lots of conspiracy theorists, the ancient aliens crowd. In a few years this little speculation about hyper-intelligent cephalopods is going to take its place with the Face on Mars, the Baghdad battery, and the Egyptian tomb gliders on the History Channel canon of Things Scientists Already Have Already Explained but We Still Tout as "Mysterious" to Get Ratings. And speculation is exactly what it is. It was a quick presentation at a conference, not peer reviewed; no hypotheses were tested, no new observations were made. Some geology professor presented this idea he had, generated some discussion, and got a brief bit of notoriety as the butt of jokes in other geology departments. In a year or two, what little serious discussion this generates will fade away and scientists will go back to their other studies. But this tidbit will undoubtedly catch on with the public, and two generations of geology professors will have to take the time during their lectures to explain to future freshmen why the scientific establishment doesn't believe in hyper-intelligent Triassic cephalopod civilizations.
This fascinates me because this is the first time I've seen the birth of one of these pseudo-science myths. (Oh, there was the History Channel hoopla over Darwinius a few years back, but that was based on an actual fossil find -- the myth there was that "Ida" was anywhere close to our own evolutionary ancestry, which it was not. It was merely an extremely well-preserved basal primate, a very important fossil in its own right but nothing revolutionary.) I know the facts of what was presented at the conference -- basically, "Hey guys, here's this cool thing we thought up." Over the coming months and years I can look forward to the privilege of watching this get twisted, distorted, and magnified through all the pop culture lenses as it gets picked up by science news, turns into History Channel specials, appears on "science" shelves at Barnes & Noble right next to The Mars Mystery. That process has already begun.
I have to admit that I don't find the idea of hyper-intelligent Triassic cephalopods implausible. Right now this planet has at least eight extant species demonstrating self-awareness and greater or lesser degrees of symbolic intelligence; in the recent past there were at least a dozen more. I see no reason why self-awareness or symbolic intelligence should be limited to the last eight million years of evolutionary history. Cephalopods would make good candidates for ancient intelligence because, unlike big-brained vertebrates, they were actually around for a good long chunk of Earth's history. Plus soft-bodied cephalopods don't tend to fossilize, which makes it hard to prove that gigantic "krake" geniuses didn't exist.
But here we run up against why this isn't good science. Science is not and has never been about "proving" that anything did not exist. Science is the process of observing what does exist, forming hypotheses, and testing them with new observations. In the case of the Berlin icthyosaur deposits, we have an observation -- a mysterious death assemblage of many large-bodied icthyosaurs, their bodies often disarticulated in odd ways. We also have multiple competing hypotheses -- poisoning by a red tide, an undersea slope collapse, a mass beaching, etc.
In paleontology (as in geology or archaeology or historiography or other event-specific sciences), most hypotheses are tested by going out into the field and collecting further data from comparable events, or by inference from modern events. We could go out and observe what happens to whale corpses after a mass beaching event, for example. Or we could find other examples of mass die-offs in marine predators in the fossil record. None of these have proved conclusive with the Berlin icthyosaur fauna, hence the proliferation of hypotheses to explain the event. This is normal, and good science.
Now, the hyper-intelligent "krake" hypothesis could also be tested the same way. If paleontologists discovered another assemblage of dead marine vertebrates, their bones laid out in unusual and potentially "patterned" arrangements, then I would be completely willing to accept this as a valid hypothesis. In fact, if additional "cephalopod self-portraits" were discovered, the hyper-intelligent Triassic cephalopod would quickly become an accepted scientific consensus.
Until such sites are found, unfortunately, the art-school octopus remains complete speculation. It pulls so many assumptions out of thin air: If a gigantic cephalopod three times the size of the largest known squid existed, and if such titantic cephalopods evolved hyper-intelligence, and if such titantic hyper-intelligent cephalopods developed uncharacteristic longevity, and if such long-lived titanic hyper-intelligent cephalopods developed and maintained a culture of extra-somatic symbolic communication, and if such symbolic long-lived titanic hyper-intelligent cephalopods slaughtered enormous icthyosaurs and used their bones for expression... then maybe that's what happened at the Berlin beds.
Or maybe it was a mass beaching or a poisonous red tide -- things we see every day in the modern world, and which require absolutely no extra assumptions, beyond "beaches or algae existed in the Triassic," which aren't so much assumptions as they are known quantities.
But you aren't going to hear that on your History Channel special. What you will hear is "Scientists have a provocative new theory that proves humans aren't the first to build civilizations on Earth!"
So, while this fascinates me, I know it will be frustrating as hell within a few years. Which is why this is such a great piece of snide paleontology humor.