In the middle of the 19th century, with the expansion of the Western United States, a large number of people poured into the West, setting off a boom in the search for dinosaur fossils. A large number of prehistoric fossils have been excavated at an unprecedented rate, and dozens of new dinosaur species have been discovered. In this dinosaur fossil craze, there are two central figures who are most notable, and they are Ossenel. Othniel Marsh and Edward. Edward Cope. The two men fought fierce fossil wars over several decades, and their competition has promoted the progress of paleontological science to some extent, but also caused serious damage to fossil artifacts on the other hand.
The growth experiences of Marsh and Kopp are in stark contrast. Born into a wealthy family, Kopp was a typical amateur naturalist. Marsh came from a relatively poor background, but his uncle George W. Marsh was born into a poor background. Peabody was a wealthy philanthropist who spared no effort to guide Marsh into academia. Marsh later became Yale's first professor of paleontology, and the irritable Popular Science worked at the Natural Sciences Society in Philadelphia. Marsh was a Darwinian, but Popularop was not.
Edward. Science
At first, the two men got along well and had a friendly relationship, until the 1860s, when the two men worked together in the fossil-rich Great Plains region, that the relationship broke down. In 1869, Marsh pointed out that Popular science had mistakenly placed one of the dinosaur skulls in the position of the tail. Popular was furious and tried to buy all the journals that mentioned the mistake, but Marsh was not at all merciful and chased after the mistake. After tearing their faces, two people no longer care about each other's feelings, attack each other's writings, denigrate each other's reputation, and even bribe third-party personnel to obstruct each other's work progress. They hired "fossil hunters" to monitor each other's movements, and verbal arguments often escalated into violent clashes. More seriously, they sometimes steal each other's fossils, either blow up each other's fossils with explosives or blow up each other's discoveries with explosives. All in all, in order to prevent the other side from touching the specimens, they destroyed a large number of valuable paleontological specimens or discarded them. Such selfish behavior is really breathtaking, and it is even more a blatant contempt for academic rules.
Ossenell. Marsh
Kopp died in 1897, as did Marsh two years later. During their lifetime, 56 new dinosaur species were discovered, while Marsh discovered 80. However, more than three decades of academic struggle have cost them a lot of wealth and their reputation has plummeted. However, the most unforgivable thing is that the two deliberately destroyed a large number of precious prehistoric artifacts in this fossil war. Although they discovered many new species, the damage they caused was immeasurable.