The Posture of Tyrannosaurus rex and the Clash of Air Masses
Two postures of T. rex.
“Today’s students were born well after the dramatic scientific reinterpretations of theropod dinosaur stance and metabolism of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Yet, if asked to draw a picture of Tyrannosaurus rex, most of these students will likely draw an animal with an upright, tail-dragging posture, remarkably like the original 1905 description of this famous dinosaur.”
They conclude,
…popular books, while slow to change, cannot entirely account for this pattern. The erect T. rex stance continues, however, to dominate other areas of popular experience, such as toys and cartoons, which most American children encounter early in life. We hypothesize that older-style images long embedded in pop culture could lead to cultural inertia, in which outdated scientific ideas are maintained in the public consciousness long after scientists have abandoned them.
This study shows how persistent some types of old scientific conclusions can be in the public consciousness.
This got me thinking about persistent myths in meteorology such as the “clash of air masses” in the central United States leading to tornadoes (warm air from the south colliding with cold air from the north). Google ‘Moore tornado 2013 “clash of air masses”‘ to get dozens of links. (I got 38 at the time of this posting.) Here’s a twitter snap from the BBC Science Editor.
Sigh.
I was recently interviewed about the Moore tornado, and it was forefront in my mind not to say that the tornadoes were a result of the clash of the air masses. If anything, the clash was likely along a dryline (warm air from the south colliding with dry air from the southwest) or the clash was in the vertical (warm air from the south underneath dry air from the southwest aloft).
Next time you have the opportunity to correct this type of error in the public discourse, please do all you can to correct these wrongs.
Source: Robert M. Ross, Don Duggan-Haas, and Warren D. Allmon, 2013: The Posture of Tyrannosaurus rex: Why Do Student Views Lag Behind the Science? J. Geoscience Education, 61, 145–160.
