You Are Using the Word “Dinosaur” in the Wrong Way
The association of dinosaurs with failure and obsolescence could not have been more inaccurate.…
Dinosaur (n): someone or something that has not adapted to changing circumstances — Oxford English Dictionary
Dinosaurs are frequently used as a pejorative to describe obsolescence and are commonly portrayed as an example of evolutionary failure. Crack open any major English dictionary and you will find that a dinosaur is “someone or something that is impractically large, out of date, and obsolete”. Do a quick search in the Medium platform and you will stumble across results echoing the aforementioned definition.
But, do dinosaurs really deserve this fame? Are they rightfully a metaphor of incompetence and an epithet to invoke an evolutionary failure?
Let’s try to answer these questions by looking at the facts.
A long-lasting reign
Our species appeared on the planet a mere 250.000 years ago and we could claim to be the dominant life form in our ecosystem for a handful of centuries. Yet, non-avian dinosaurs were the undisputed rulers on land for more than 150 million years. This immense…
