Some times it’s surprising how life and Hollywood come together to give you deep insights into life. For instance, I have known that dinosaurs evolved into birds since 1993. This is significant because Archaeopteryx the first feathered dinosaur, was discovered in 1996 in the western Liaoning Province of China. Now for those amateur or professional paleontologists, in 1993 I did not know that this theory already existed since the time of Darwin and I most certainly did not have access to dinosaur fossils making this realization about something I had only seen in books even more impressive. To make matter yet more impressive, in 1993, the internet was basically non-existent by modern day standards and I was only thirteen. Getting back to the point, how does a 13 year old know that dinosaurs evolved into birds without exposure to any material that could have hinted on this issue? Simple, in 1993 the blockbuster movie Jurassic Park was released and in 1992 my younger sister adopted a pet chick which by the time Jurassic Park came had become a Rooster.
So I had a rooster, the mild mannered chick we once bought had evolved into a mean spirited rooster that was a widower and fiercely territorial. So much so that it would stalk anyone who stood in our yard. Needless to say that my sister had long abandoned this rooster as it was too vicious for most of us to handle. Later on in life, I noticed that the behavior of this rooster when it staked people was surprisingly similar to that of the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park. However, this story goes further back in time. When I was eight, we lived in an apartment building on the outskirts of the city. Our neighbors had a son who shared the same name as I did and he happened to have a pet chick. We mostly fed these chicks dough and uncooked rice. Thinking back, this is probably the reason most of them didn’t survive very long. One fine day, we saw the chick dash across the floor, peck at an ant and swallow it. Needless to say that for an eight year old who thought chicks were vegetarians, this was quite a shock. Perhaps the chick was sick of processed foods. Roughly 3 years later, I would see the same battle between insect and fowl played out one fine day as I was going downstairs with my family to the dinner table. Except, this time we had a full grown chicken at home and the insect in question was a cockroach. Needless to say, that day at dinner, no one touched the chicken.
All this came together in one moment of zen for me in 1993 when I was being stalked by my rooster. It was abundantly clear to me that this chicken for all the taboos that society had placed on it had the heart of something far more vicious that we had previously realized. The rooster went on to live very happily for 10 years and was a widower of three.
My case for the dinosaurs evolving into birds only grew stronger in time when I saw the footprints on an ostridge on television. I watch a lot of television; it’s almost a miracle I got time to write this book. To be fair, this particular documentary I was watching related to the discovery of some dinosaur foot prints and the paleontologist in this documentary was talking about how the footprints left behind were similar to those of an ostridge. At this point I still did not know about the theory which suggested that dinosaurs evolved into birds, as a matter of fact, this theory has only come into light for me in the last few years. However, this is a good example of how our imagination can provide us with insight to the truth even before the evidence is present to support it.
The world of animals has always been interesting to me, for one thing, why aren’t there any mammals with six legs? Six legs have worked great of insects and they have become perhaps the most successful of any species on this planet considering the great consistency with which six legs appear in the animal kingdom, surely there must be some ecological advantage to having six legs so why aren’t there any mammals with six legs? Where there ever any mammals that existed on this planet with six legs that failed so miserably that the rest of the mammals swore off the six leg strategy for survival? Also, why weren’t there any dinosaurs with six legs? This brings us to another important point, what do scientists have to say about how humans evolved? I'll discuss this when Chapter 1 continues!
