Palaeontology in Public: Popular Science, Lost Creatures and Deep Time, available as an open-access pdf.

Since the establishment of concepts of deep time in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, palaeontology has been one of the most high-profile sciences. Dinosaurs, mammoths, human ancestors and other lost creatures from Earth’s history are some of the most prominent icons of science, and are essential for our understanding of nature and time. Palaeontology and its practitioners have had a huge impact on public understandings of science, despite their often precarious and unsteady position within scientific institutions and networks. Palaeontology in Public considers the connections between palaeontology and public culture across the past two centuries. In so doing, it explores how these public dimensions have been crucial to the development of palaeontology, and indeed how they conditioned wider views of science, nature, the environment, time and the world.

The book is based on the discussions of the Popularizing Palaeontology: Current & Historical Perspectives network.  You can see more details about the network here: www.poppalaeo.com ===The event will be chaired by Professor Adrian Currie, and will feature responses from:

• Professor Mike Benton: Palaeontologist and emeritus professor of vertebrate palaeontology in the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol.
• Riley Black: Author of Written in Stone (2010), My Beloved Brontosaurus (2013), The Last Days of the Dinosaurs (2022), and When the Earth Was Green (forthcoming 2025).
• Dr Natalia Jagielska: Palaeontologist, science communicator and artist. Currently Collections Curator at the Lyme Regis Museum, and soon to be Researcher at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
• Dr Alison Laurence: Historian of science and Lecturer at University of California, Santa Cruz.

There will also be discussion with several of the chapter authors, including Richard Fallon, Lukas Rieppel, Will Tattersdill and Mark Witton.

To attend, just enter your name and email address below.  You will receive an invitation link to the meeting about 24 hours before the start.

The book is available as an open-access pdf through the UCL Press website (linked above).  Attendees will also receive a 30% discount code if they want to purchase a hard-copy of the book.

There will be an in-person launch for the book at King's College London on Saturday 22 March, c.14:30-19:30.  Stay tuned for more information on this if you would like to attend.