Are Dragons Real?

Instinct for Dragons | The First Fossil Hunters | Fundamentalist dragons | Other

Instinct for Dragons

Amazon. Instinct for Dragons by David E. Jones, anthropology prof. at the University of Central Florida. Also available in hardcover. (Publisher's blurb.) As described by Library Journal.

"Guided by the tenets of biocultural anthropology, Jones postulates that the dragon is a construct of the three predators that most threatened humankind in its infancy: the raptor, the snake, and the large cat."

"From Many Imaginations, One Fearsome Creature" review by Donaldd G. McNeil, Jr. New York Times (April 29, 2003). Doesn't cover the book very much, but interesting nevertheless. See also the sidebar Dragons, a Brief History Long in Miles.

Review in Western Folklore by Paul Jordan-Smith, Spring 2002. Devestating.

David Jones ... should have known better than to tangle with dragons, bereft as he seems to be of a much-needed arsenal of data, clarity, and logic."

"One is tempted to say, as Dorothy Parker once did, that this is a book not to be tossed aside lightly but thrown violently. But no, it is not worth spending even that much energy on.

Reivew by Gordon Strasenburgh, "Journal of Scientific Exploration" (Fall 2003) — PDF contains all that issue's reviews. The publisher, the Society for Scientific Exploration, appears to be a pseudo-science think tank. Sure enough, the reviewer's tack in cryptozoological:

"From a dragonological perspective, however, what stands out are the issues Jones fails to satisfactorily address: the implications of the aquatic nature of dragons in the context of a two-thirds-wet world; whether Mesopotamian representations of all manner of chimera are dragons or metaphors; whether pre-Colombian North American representations of the plumed serpent (mentioned in passing in Appendix B; not in the index) are relevant to dragonology; and what we are to make of eyewitness reports and multicultural representations that suggest biological reality rather than imperial metaphor."

In light of all the unresolved issues and immaturity of the field, Strasenburgh suggests the Society for Scientific Exploration "encourage the formation of a College of Dragonology under its aegis."

Where Do Dragon Legends Come From? Summary of the NYT review from Whitley Strieber's Unknown Country "Daily News of the Edge."

Reviewed by Marion W. Copeland for H-Nilas, the "The Nature in Legend and Story Society" (August, 2001), finds the primary thesis "both convincing and appealing"

The First Fossil Hunters

Amazon. The First Fossil Hunters: Paleontology in Greek and Roman Times by Adrienne Mayor. (Princeton UP detail page, with TOC and description.) Mayor connects Greek descriptions of griffins and dragons with ancient fossil findings. Griffins are the star here, but explanations are offered for dragons and dragon-like creatures as well.

Reviewed by Steve Brusatte, Dino Land Book Reviews, with description of the Mayor's hunt for the griffin solution. Dino Land also holds an excellent collection of short excerpts.

Adrienne Mayor's Homepage, on The First Fossil Hunters. Her resume lists many of the scholarly and popular articles written on the topic.

Reviewed by Norman Macleod, Palaeontologia Electronica (Nov 2000), calls Mayor's griffon analysis a "stunning triumph of comparative folklore/anatomy/paleontology."

Review "Explaining Giant Bones" by Tim Tokaryk, American Scientist (Nov/Dec 2000)

Negative review from 2think.org.
"... I think she goes too far in some of her conclusions and too far in making the pieces fit rather than letting them fall where they may. It's the old method problem where one forms the answer/conclusion first and then works backwards to find the "proof". We will never know with certainty whether finding Protoceratops sticking out of the ground created the myth of the griffin or not, but Mayor makes it sound as if the case is closed. It is certainly possible that she is correct. A little scientific uncertainty on her part may have left a more objective impression on the reader though."

Reviewed by Jack Kallmeyer, from "Jack's Stacks" on drydredgers.org.

Reviewed by Todd A. Hanson, Journal of Folklore Research. Short.

Short review by Steven Schimmrich, from "THE NEWS!" ("Newsletter of the Affiliation of Christian Geologists), Summer 2000. Although the ACG is devoted, in part, to investigating "the ways in which Christian faith and geology bear upon one another," Schimmrich's short review doesn't grind any anti-evolution axes.

National Geographic: "They Might Not Be Giants: Reading the bones of a mythic race" by Joshua Korenblat, "Geographica" section of August 2004 issue.

NYT Profile of Adrienne Mayor by Felicia R. Lee (June 12, 2004)

Fundamentalist dragons

Dinotopia by Do-While Jones. Creationist dissects Mayor's work from his perspective:
"The point we are trying to make is that Adrienne Mayor is typical of so many people who, when faced with undeniable evidence that dinosaurs were reported alive from 1200 B.C. to 600 A.D. by respected historians, they reject the evidence because of evolutionary prejudice."
After all:
"The scientific evidence is overwhelmingly against evolution, but evolution is still held by many simply because of prejudice. "

All About Creation: Dragon History, an inept creationist review of dragon legends, with head-scratching errors[1] and relying upon such mighty scholarship as the 1973 World Book Encyclopedia. It is bracing to see Fundamentalist Christians walking hand in hand with credulous fantasty-heads.

ChristianAnswers.com: Is there any possible connection between dragons and dinosaurs? by Paul S. Taylor, from their The Great Dinosaur Mystery . Blech!

The Bible and Science: Are Dinosaurs Mentioned in the Bible?

Komodo dragons

Komodo Dragon Central. The web's best site about Komodo dragons, coincidentally by yours-truly.

Other

Rampaging reptiles, from the magazine Muse (Nov/Dec 2003), and excellent summary of the paleontological explanation. Muse is apparently for kids (10 and up).
"Mayor even has an explanation for one curious bit of dragon lore: the gems the dragons are said to carry in their foreheads. When minerals seep into bones, turning them into fossils, they sometimes form large crystals as well. The first scientist to excavate the Siwalik hills reported that glittering crystals were attached to many of the bones."

The Realism of Dragon Existence from The Circle of the Dragon. Concludes eastern dragons might be like snakes, western dragons would be smaller and warm-blooded, sea dragons are the most likely, hydras the least, and wyverns—well you can read it yourself. See also Dragons and Dinosaurs and Flight, that is the question.

Dinosaurs and Dragons from Strange Science: The Rocky Road to Modern Paleontology and Biology, on Athanasius Kircher's Mundus Subterraneus and early paleontology.

Do mythological creatures stem from the idea of dinosaurs? from the Illinois State Geological Survey.

Notes:
The author claims "Dragon" is "derived from the Latin dracon (serpent), which in turn was derived from the Greek Spakov (serpent), from the Greek aorist verb, Spakelv (to see clearly)." Have some Greek? Figured it out? ! Evidently the author saw the Greek ''drakon,'' δρακων (omitting accent because most can't see it), and thought the delta looked like an s and the rho like a p, etc. (back)

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Mermaids on the Web. Similar site, with over 1,320 pictures .

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Griffins in Art and on the Web. Like this site, but Griffins.