The other night on BBC2, the corporation's premier science outlet Horizon began a new series with a programme about dinosaurs. As I've mentioned before in various posts, I had a serious dino phase as a youngster - in fact almost all seven year old boys love them, I think it's in the rules along with liking throwing stones in water, getting dirty, and being generally insufferable. Later on as a biologist I began thinking about fossils in a more complex light than "Wow! Fossils are COOL!" (although admittedly only slightly more complex), I started wondering about what it would be like today had some things not happened the same way. Like if we'd flopped back into the sea, instead of starting to shimmy up trees. Or begun feeding our young by regurgitating food like seabirds. But one of the outcomes I've pondered off and on over the years most of all was the subject of this Horizon documentary - what would it be like if dinosaurs hadn't become extinct, and we lived here in modern times alongside them?
It was done in a half-jokey fashion, much to the annoyance of some of the following day's TV critics (the perennial 'dumbing down' debate). But the lengthy assumptions made in the science meant it needed to be done in a light-hearted manner. It's all just conjecture, namely the examples given had dinosaurs present as we commonly imagine them alongside our evolved selves - e.g. the idea that small dinos might have developed a similar urban role to foxes and raccoons. There was a great clip of a woman shooing a couple of them out of her bins - she should follow my Grandad and weight the lids down with bricks. Of course, reptiles had a head start over us of several million years - so allowing for development at similar rates, maybe we should be rooting about in their bins?
This was also touched on at the end - the idea that adapting to the changing Earth would have prodded dinosaurs into even more of a bipedal, upright method of getting around, in short - would they now be humanoid? Wonderfully, the programme finished with a selection of what looked like Dr Who extras shopping in a supermarket alongside normal-looking humans, albeit strangely unclothed. Wouldn't they have evolved modesty, too? Anyway, forgetting the 'scaly humans' side, if dinosaurs were around today in their Jurassic Park-type forms, what kind of uses would we have for them? What kind of uses would they have for us? (Food, mostly). Could we live side by side with them? Eat Stegosaur omelettes, ride T-Rex's to work? (you'd always get a parking space, at least).
Imagine going for a lovely walk in the country. Well, you probably couldn't. Swimming in the sea is definately out, too. Just look at the terrifying Pliosaur. Although that particular picture looks like a giant crazed penguin, it would still puncture your lilo. So there'd be no days at the beach, no walking the dogs (more on them later), no picnics. Forgetting the cheese knife would be the least of your problems. Every day, people would be garishly rendered by terrible creatures just by stepping into the countryside. It would be like living in Australia, basically. Dino exterminators would make a fortune, as unwelcome giant lizards find their way into garden sheds. It would take a lot of boiling water to get rid of a nest of those things, I can tell you. They would be hunted remorselessly, blunder in front of trains, knock over power lines, eat fields of crops, and savage Tokyo with strangely blue breath.
So yes, on the one hand it would lead to untold misery and destruction, and death on a colossal scale. But it would be fun though. For a start, there's be no dogs or cats. Primitive humans wouldn't have bothered domesticating the wolf, when they could hunt using velociraptors. Pets would be a thousand times better. Forget horse racing - you could go to a sport where the mounts wouldn't just refuse to jump a fence, they'd eat the jockey. Dinosaurs were found on every ancient continent (including Antarctica), so there'd be no need to trek to deepest Africa to see some exciting large wildlife, you could just go to the local park with a frisbee and you'd hit something toothy and bad-tempered (probably not a good idea, actually). I have to say, if I co-existed on Earth with dinosaurs, I'd even start wearing Fred Flinstone-esque caveman gear - and for that reason alone, it would be fantastic.
Horizon Dinosaur Special
