Customer Reviews

How to Build a Dinosaur: Extinction Doesn't Have to Be Forever

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2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This is a new and refreshing look at paleontology. While the book is nominally about turning a bird into a dinosaur, it is really about exciting new developments in paleontology. Horner shows how paleontology is expanding beyond digging for dinosaurs and moving into molecular biology and evolutionary development (evo-devo). Horner weaves several different fields of biology and shows how inter-disciplinary studies have revolutionized the field. He chronicles the work of Mary Schweitzer, who discovered red blood cells and (perhaps) cartilage in a 68-million year old T-rex, and Hans Larson, who is investigating ancestral genes in chicken embryos. I had followed news from paleontology relatively closely for a lay observer, but even I was shocked at some of the evo-devo research currently being done.

Hopefully, this book will inspire more students to go into biology. Turning a chicken into a dinosaur might be just the right hook to stimulate interest in these exciting new developments in evo-devo.

My one suggestion for the book is that because it covers so many fields, Horner ends up summarizing or quoting the works of others. He tells their stories effectively. But at some point, I wonder if perhaps it would have been better to produce a joint book, with articles from several of the contributors in the field. However, it is also useful to have one voice to guide the reader through the science. Since Horner is not a native to molecular sciences (his expertise is traditional paleontology), he is perhaps better suited to explaining the complexities of genetics to lay readers.

P.S. - Be sure to check out the Discovery Channel's documentary (Dinosaurs: Return To Life?) on this topic. It is a nice complement to the book.

There is a recurring problem with American authors: apparently a writer must produce a minimum number of pages in order to publish a book, even when the core ideas can only fill half of them. In this case the mix is: 30% description of the great idea on how to test evolution by "recreating" a dinosaur starting from a chicken; 50% repetitions of the same idea over and over; 20% irrelevant and boring descriptions of marginal details.
IMHO reducing everything down to a 100 pages would make this a perfect book.
It's like mixing half a glass of Bordeaux with half a glass of water. You can't avoid thinking how much better would be enjoying the pure wine, without the water!

Let me preface this review by clarifying that this is not the first time I've been exposed to this body of research. Watching the Discovery Channel special in early 2008, I became so fascinated with the material that I dug up as much information as I could and wrote a paper about the possibility of bringing back dinosaurs, mammoths, sabre-tooth cats, etc. Since then, I've followed the research closely -- particularly that of Dr. Larsson -- and when I began editing the paper again this year "for fun" and stumbled upon this book for preorder by chance, I was ecstatic.

I am also a long, longtime fan and admirer of Dr. Horner, who I remember fondly on my tv set as a child, talking to me about dinosaurs while I listened raptly.

The book itself tends to meander every which way, although all in the scope of the fossil paleontology and microbiology community, charting efforts all across the board (and globe) until now. I suppose if you're looking for a very specialized sort of thing, it'll seem scatterbrained, and the real "meat" of what you're dying for is in the last 1/3 of the book. But pay close attention, and be patient; you'll be glad you did. Dr. Horner and Mr. Gorman are great writers, and storytellers. This is a treat to read.

It also makes quite a stirring case in the end regarding ethical, financial, and philosophical issues; I believe this is no mistake on the author's part, someone who is clearly reaching out to the public for both their interest, their awe, their faith in the value of the work, and their $$$ investment. No doubt, Horner is beginning to understand the gravity of the work being done here: if he doesn't push for it, no one will. And for a guy who consulted all three JP films (read: one of the many, but probably most fervent, who want nothing more than to see and touch and smell the hot breathe of a dinosaur in their own lifetime -- myself included!), a guy who is embedded in the public worldview of paleontology itself (along with Robert T. Bakker): he'll get it done. Surely. To say nothing of Dr. Larsson's work, itself a major focus of the book, although it's not being done explicitly for this purpose (at least, publicly). This kind of research is what drove me to change my major to evolutionary biology/genetics. This is the kind of research *I* want to do, someday. If there's anyone who's got Dr. Horner's back, it's me.

In short, since this has been so long: GOOD DAMN BOOK. (Neanderthal-ized for efficiency). Dinonerds everywhere, buy it. Read it. Love it. It's nothing truly revolutionary, but it's a good story. And a good pitch. And worth your money.

The title is misleading. There are some interesting things in this book about evolution and the development of embryos - also called evo-devo.
But there isn't very much on actually building i.e. recreating a dinosaur. This isn't the authors fault. Nobody has got anywhere near doing it. There is one interesting bit on how one scientist decides he wants to create a bird with a long tail like archaeopteryx only to find out that is a lot more difficult than he thought. In fact that scientist reckons he'll need another 10 or 20 years.
Perhaps Horner and Gorman should have waited that long to publish this book. At least they would have had something to write about.
The facts would have been sufficient for a longish article in a scientific magazine (Scientific American or similar) but not nearly enough for this book.
The word rip-off springs to my mind.

What happens when Paleontology converges with Molecular Biology? Advances in molecular biology now allows us to make changes to the genetic code - the 'language of life'. Paleontology gives us glimpses of extinct animals. The authors of this book challenges the reader to consider the possibility of changing the genome of an existing embryo say that of a chicken and enticing it to 'remember' its past and develop characteristics of its ancestors - such as teeth, tail etc. And since birds are descendent from Dinosaurs, theoretically you can now go back in time step by step and slowly but surely create a Dinosaur.

It is an intriguing concept and the authors do an excellent job of asking the right questions - can we do it? should we do it? what are the benefits? What are the disadvantages? The book also covers the basic science very well and in simple terms explains the principles involved.

The title of the book is slightly misleading since we are far away from actually being able to create a Dinosaur. Many challenges still remain but the possibility of being able to do this in the next 10 to 20 years is very real. More importantly the book will give the reader a better idea of the various possibilities, that a proper understanding of the genetic code will provide humanity.

As science reads go, How to Build a Dinosaur is a summer read, a great beach book: way fun, some exciting moments, not meant to turn your view of the universe on its head. Some previous reviewers have noted that the book could have been way shorter, that the length versus content ratio is out of whack. Here's my proposal: the title of the book is the problem. If you're expecting a highly technical exploration of an all out assault on how to construct a living dinosaur (which the title suggests the promise of), you're in for a let down. But if the title of Horner and Gorman's highly entertaining book was the admittedly unwieldy "The Life of a Paleontologist in the 21st Century, and By the Way, I Want to Build a Dinosaur" anyone tempted to pick the book up would feel that truth in advertising had been vindicated, and would have a truly enjoyable trip between the front cover and the back.

How to Build a Dinosaur DOES, eventually, gets around to discussing how we might build a dinosaur, more on that in a minute. Before we get to dino-replication, though, we are treated to a wide-ranging, good-humored, engaging and intelligble description of what the life of a modern day paleontologist consists of. From sparsely populated digs in Montana (if Manhattan had the same population density of the described section of Montana, it would have four people in it) to the rowdily competitive halls of paleontological academe, the book is a romp through the lives of those that want to know about animals that died a very, VERY long time ago. Throw in some encounters with Christian white supremacists, PETA, Young Earth advocates and creationists, and you have a concoction that is more like jambalaya than chicken soup. Funny I should mention "chicken" though: if we ever ate a dinosaur that the authors build, it will, um, taste like chicken. And for good reason.

The heart of building a dinosaur, it turns out, beats with the same heart that powers Colonel Sander's favorite food: the chicken. Rather than recovering DNA from (per Jurassic Park) an amber-ensnared mosquito that feasted on Velociraptor blood, Gorman and Horner propose mining a far more accessible source of dinosaur DNA: the barnyard chicken. Any bird (birds ARE avian dinosaurs, the authors emphatically state) would do, but chickens are cheap, relatively cooperative, and might be the only research animal that has millions of recipes for how to cook and eat your research subject when you're finished with your experiment. In an aggressive approach to ontogeny recapitulates philogeny, the authors propose that the dinosaur DNA is largely intact in the chicken. Genes haven't disappeared, they've been down regulated. Unregulate those still existing genes, and a real tail (instead of tail feathers) and grasping claws (instead of wings) will re-express themselves. The fox in the hen house would be in for the surprise of his life: dinosaur versus mammal, round two. The authors describe the project in terms much less flippant, and far more interesting, than mine, and their proposal is serious and reasonable: we can make a dinosaur.

If you're looking for chapters dense with genetic and biological terminology and theory, you'll find How to Make a Dinosaur a let down. If, however, you're looking for an entertaining and very plausible narrative, rather than a scientific treatise, you're in for a very pleasurable experience. With some good discussions regarding the nature of scientific inquiry and the ethics of using animals in scientific experiments thrown in for free, the upshot shot is: One Fun Book.

I agree with user Franco Folini-- this book fell short of my expectations by a fair margin. A few problems:

1. Spent the first half of the book defending the findings of Mary Schweitzer, the paleontologist who discovered blood cell-like structures in T. Rex fossil. I'm sure there's controversy in the scientific world, but it's not the reason I bought this book. It was irrelevant and repetitive.
2. Repeatedly stressed that religion and science can coexist peacefully, and defended it with rather pathetic examples. Again irrelevant, and again repetitive.
3. Was self-contradictory with regards to the ethics involved in making a chickenosaurus.
4. His tone made it feel like he was begging the reader for funding to make this dino.

Overall, it's a cool idea, but it would make a far better magazine article, or a book of perhaps 100 pages.

I have to say I was rather disappointed after reading this book. It was nowhere near as in depth on the techniques and principles of how going about such a project could be accomplished. It took until the last three chapters of the book to actually get going on what the book was supposed to be about. I was rather irritated reading in the beginning to the book about Sacagawea, Louis and Clark, and bison. What? This book was supposed to be about evolutionary developmental biology, why was any of that in this book? There's barely any more information (and plenty of irrelevant information) in this book than what can be found from watching the "60 minutes" story with Horner on this subject or the Discovery Channel show that was also made about it. I was expecting a lot more from a book written by the near legondary the Jack Horner.

This is a fascinating look at some groundbreaking work on a Tyrannosuarus fossil that may contain preserved soft tissue as well as fossilized bones.

The book recounts the story of Mary Schweitzer finding what might be cartilage, blood vessles and red blood cells in a T. Rex skeleton found by Dr. Horner (one of the book's authors). Additionally, Mary Schweitzer believes that she can tell us that this particular T. Rex was female and pregnant at the time of its death. This claim is based on Ms. Schweitzer having found what might be medullary bone, which is found only in pregnant birds.

This work also discusses the possibility of reverse engineering a dinosaur. By this I mean taking the DNA of a bird and manipulating its DNA in such a way as to "bring back" traits that were present in Dinosaurs, but which modern birds no longer have. Scientests have apparantly done enough work in this area to create birds with teeth! This is coming at the possibility of "cloning" a dinosaur from the opposite direction of the one Michael Crichton took in Jurasic Park.

This book does a good job of explaining the various, highly complicated tests used on the fossil in ways that a laymen can readily understand. The book's one weakness is that it meanders into topics that add interesting color to the story, but which are not directly related to the topic at hand.

Over all, this is a delightful read and recommended to anyone interested in Dinosaurs.

The enticing title and graphic cover for "How to build a dinosaur" by Jack Horner certainly captivated by attention. If you choose to buy this book or borrow one from a friend you should lower your standards. This book digresses early on in semi-relevant stories and descriptions of paleontology. The final two chapters focus on the books promise...to discuss the possible way of creating a dinosaur called (seriously) a "chickenosaurus" based on the evolutionary pedigree of this modern-day favorite low fat food. The author states that the way to do the bioengineering is to expose an embryo to timed growth factors and genetic feedback sequences in development. He states he needs lots of grant money to do the project, which hasn't been funded apparently. The publisher is clearly complicit in the unrefined effort...only a few and poorly selected black and white illustrations are randomly placed in this book. Why? Are there not multiple possible images that would enhance the proposed project? The editor also was quite AWOL on his job...numerous times the author states "as I said before" and so forth, which is distracting and could be easily eliminated on a needed additional edit or two. This book is short on substance, was poorly edited and should have been lavishly illustrated, even if color and photo plates were eliminated. I could write more, but need to go eat my roasted chickenosaurus...and watch Jurassic Park, which of course is science fiction, but more credible in its scientific storyline than this book!