“Fallacy of the T-Rex” - How Harmless Debates Can Cultivate Our Next Generation of Science Minds

Wade Templeman

For the better part of my childhood, I was a dinosaur fanatic. This fact alone would not help me stand out in a crowd from most elementary schoolers. What did set me apart was my memory, middle school reading level, and knack for absorbing information. During a great deal of my elementary school education, I was stuck in the back of the room on a computer so I would not distract my peers from valuable instruction. I promise this first anecdote wasn’t just to brag, and I also ensure that the random dinosaur mention also holds merit.

See, when I was home I sought academic stimulation that I could not find in the classroom. So when it came to my precious dinosaurs, I watched every single program, special, and documentary I could get my hands on. One fateful afternoon I decided to watch “Valley of the T-Rex” off of one of my DVD collections. 

This single documentary completely reshaped how I interacted with science. 

That is not an exaggeration. The premise of this 2001 documentary is that T-Rex, your favorite dinosaur’s favorite dinosaur, was nothing more than a glorified vulture based on anatomical data and scientific conjecture. Any 8 year old like myself would scoff at such a ridiculous notion; how could something like that possibly be true? Little did I know, Jack Horner, one of the most famous paleontologists of our time, was going to do a pretty damn good job at convincing me.

The documentary tries to prove its point with four main claims: the anatomy of T-Rex’s leg bones does not enable it to run at predatory speeds, its small arms are a sign of an evolutionary trend away from predation, it probably had bad eyesight, and its teeth are very similar to hyenas (a scavenger by today’s standards). From my perspective, Horner did a good job articulating these points (the leg bones in particular I remembered to this day). 

As a kid, who was I to argue? Jack Horner was one of the first paleontologists to document dinosaur parenthood, was responsible for finding some of the most complete T-Rex skeletons ever, and had served as a scientific director for five Jurassic Park films. (The main scientist in the first few movies was even lightly based on him with a comically striking resemblance!)

Safe to say, once the documentary ended I was downright floored. I was just given a quite convincing 50 minute argument about how a universal childhood truth was completely false. This wasn’t unsimilar from an older cousin ruining Santa or the Tooth Fairy for you at some family get together. Little did I know, this was somehow what Jack Horner had planned all along…

Only until I started doing more research for this piece, I learned that “Valley of the T-Rex” is one of the most infamous dinosaur documentaries of all time. It is a one-sided, biased mess that is absolutely riddled with inaccuracies. I even watched it again to see if the critics were too harsh and I can confirm they aren’t lying.

Essentially, all four of those major claims listed prior are shaky at best:

1. Legs: T-Rex’s prey was already slow and it had no predators to run from. It wasn’t necessary for it to run fast to begin with.

2. Arms: Plenty of predatory therapods at the time also had small arms similar to T-Rex and there have been zero debates if they were a scavenger or not.

3. Eyes: It is fact that dinosaurs are the ancestors of modern birds, which have fantastic eyesight.

4. Teeth: Just because hyenas primarily scavenge, that does not mean they don’t also hunt. In fact they are great pack hunters.

So why was a supposedly bright 8 year old like myself unable to pick up on this? Most children that age lack that level of additional logical reasoning no matter how smart they are, and Jack Horner knew this. In response to the backlash this documentary received, Horner publicly stated that the piece was supposed to “teach children the dangers of making assumptions in science without evidence.” Although I’d now experienced these dangers first hand, that still didn’t answer my question. 

What were the gaps in my education at the time that let me fall for this?

When I began this piece, I intended on using this anecdote to try and understand how formative scientific experiences could help shape childhood enthusiasm and awareness for the sciences. Improving science education is something I am extremely passionate about and something I think would be a great benefit for society. But, learning about Horner’s motivations for this documentary sent me in a different direction. I began thinking about the gifted and talented program I was in at the time (another humble brag I know). Even as an elementary school student, I could recognize that it really was not all too useful. Instead of abstract concepts and harmless debates that challenged our thinking, we were merely just being introduced to advanced topics we would be learning later in middle school anyway. Looking back, I still agree that it really was a waste of time and resources.

Thanks to my blissful childhood ignorance, I had now found direction to help contribute to one of my biggest passions. Not only could I help shed light on childhood science education, but also propose a different direction for our current gifted education system. 

Are the current gifted programs not as effective as the resources they demand? Even if they are, why are the resources limited to only gifted children? 

So into the rabbit hole I went.

It didn’t take me long until I found the National Center for Research on Gifted Education. Their motto, “Every child has the right to learn something new every day,” stood out to me immediately. Even more, the two main issues they are trying to eradicate are along the lines of what I’d wanted to help answer:

1. Underrepresented populations continue to be under-identified as gifted and underserved by programs for the gifted.

2. Research on best-practice interventions for gifted students and outcomes of gifted programs and services is sparse.

The rationale behind their research is that: 

“Failing to answer these questions has resulted in inconsistent and often ineffective programming services for gifted and talented students and the under identification of some populations that result in low performance of underrepresented groups. What results is a condition in which many gifted students’ talents are unrecognized and underdeveloped.”

A nation’s overall success as a whole is typically attributed to its brightest minds in all fields. If we are consistently coming up short in nurturing our youth at a young age, there is so much untapped potential being wasted (especially in disadvantaged backgrounds). From 2014-2020, the NCRGE executed research to attempt to unearth some key pitfalls in our current system.

The first phase of this project “examined the extent of gifted programming using school and district survey data [...] to identify and serve gifted students.” The schools and districts of three states were surveyed on these criteria. The surveys were then merged with student achievement and demographic data to create a three-year cohort of gifted education students under this phase. 

In terms of identification, underserved populations were not identified at the same rate as white students, identification methods vary, and students are rarely reidentified. For instruction, the study showed that gifted programs are actually beginning to prioritize critical and creative thinking as opposed to common core curriculums yet gifted students’ achievements seem to plateau around grade 5. 

For the second phase, the study “examined the effect of attending dedicated gifted classes in core content areas on students’ academic achievement in reading/ELA and mathematics in a large, ethnically, economically, and linguistically diverse urban school district.” Students were tiered based on their degree of gifted education and a qualitative study was also conducted to see how these classes differed from the general education classes.

This more targeted study identified the major pitfalls that are preventing gifted education from really taking off. It showed that grouping gifted children with each other did not directly correlate to increased growth. Furthermore, this differentiated work is typically used as a way to occupy the gifted students while instructors can focus on those that need extra attention (remember I was stuck at that damn computer all day). Organizationally, teachers are mainly limited by their administration and only utilize their autonomy when they feel they have been provided with the means to do so.

So, what have these studies taught us and where do we go from here?

For starters, Phase 1 shows the premise of gifted education is not something to abandon, but Phase 2 proves it is not properly implemented in our current system. Not only are we struggling to properly identify diamonds in the rough, but we are also struggling to properly nurture the students we do identify. Even so, separation from the herd does not seem to be benefitting the students to a considerable extent as shown in Phase 2. This is where my frustrations in the system lie and what allowed me to find the breaking point that can shift it in a positive direction.

Eliminating identification and separation from the class is frankly the first step to solving this puzzle. By extending the education to all students, resources can be better accounted for and districts will naturally be less wasteful. It only took a 50 minute dinosaur documentary to get me to passively ponder an insightful debate. So, it stands to reason that a well designed 30 minute lesson once or twice a week will surely inspire the future scientists in the classroom while simultaneously being light on resources. Continuing to advertise creative and critical thinking will help to not alienate and discourage students not yet capable of grasping advanced concepts. At the very worst, a system predicated on these concepts will be a formative experience for the brightest minds and a simple afterthought for those still too immature for more advanced education.

I never really thought my past dinosaur obsession and my mishandled elementary education would find themselves becoming so intertwined. But, as someone who wants to become a research professor and advocate for better science education among our next generation of bright minds, I could not be happier to end up at this conclusion.

While I may disagree with Jack Horner’s points today, I have still never shaken the feeling of intrigue and passion I got from watching that documentary the first time. To think a better designed way to introduce creative scientific concepts to children was hidden behind such a harmless debate excites me for the future of science education. I hope that same feeling can be evoked in classrooms around the world one day.

Stay curious.

Valley of the T-Rex Criticisms and Jack Horner:

https://dyslexia.yale.edu/story/jack-horner/​

https://dinopedia.fandom.com/wiki/Valley_of_the_T._rex​

https://theworldofanimals.proboards.com/thread/3675/valley-rex-retrospective-review​

https://www.ldonline.org/your-stories/personal-stories/jack-horner-intellectual-autobiography​

NCRGE Website and Studies:

https://ncrge.uconn.edu/about/partner-universities/​

https://ncrge.uconn.edu/resources/research-findings/