I really enjoyed this section on dinosaur fossil hunting and the stories behind these discoveries. Specifically, the battle between Marsh and Cope for fossils reminded me of so many other similar stories within the science world, specifically Sputnik and the race between the Russians and the Americans to reach outer space. It’s interesting that discoveries are only motivated by competition for fame and not the actual discovery itself. Marsh and Cope seemed more concerned with trying to sabotage each other’s work than the actual intrigue behind this type of archaeological work. This is true in lots of science labs where self-preservation over shadows the work itself. Honestly, collaboration would probably speed up scientific discovery if people stopped creating competition amongst each other.
The other aspect of this section that I really liked was the ways in which the Museum completed skeletons that had missing parts. Until now, I was aware of the fact that some parts of the skeleton are artificially created to make it appear complete, but the transfer of parts from one skeleton and adding it to another seems strange. Also, at this time, dinosaur fossils were new discoveries and not much was known about their anatomy, so in response, many assumptions were made about the proper bone structure for any particular dinosaur, like the confusion surrounding the skull of the Brontosaurus.