May 18, 2022
The Bone Wars, also known as
the Great Dinosaur Rush,[1] was
a period of intense and ruthlessly competitive fossil
hunting and discovery during the Gilded
Age of American history, marked by a heated rivalry
between Edward Drinker
Cope (of the Academy
of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia)
and Othniel
Charles Marsh (of the Peabody
Museum of Natural History at Yale). Each of
the two paleontologists used
underhanded methods to try to outdo the other in the field,
resorting to bribery, theft, and the destruction of bones. Each
scientist also sought to ruin his rival's reputation and cut off
his funding, using attacks in scientific publications.
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