page_title: Donald Prothero
section_title: Evolution
hierarchical_section_title: Donald Prothero / Work / Evolution
caption_attribution_description: English: Donald Prothero and Michael Shermer TAM 2013
context_page_description: Donald Ross Prothero is an American geologist, paleontologist, and author who specializes in mammalian paleontology and magnetostratigraphy, a technique to date rock layers of the Cenozoic era and its use to date the climate changes which occurred 30-40 million years ago. He is the author or editor of more than 30 books and over 300 scientific papers, including at least 5+ geology textbooks.
  Stephen Jay Gould cited Prothero's research on the lack of response to climate change in mammals from the Eocene, Oligocene and Pleistocene epochs to support the punctuated equilibrium model of evolution. He called Prothero “the best punctuated equilibrium researcher on the West Coast”.
context_section_description: Prothero was one of the earliest paleontologists to use the concept of palaeomagnetism in the study of Continental rocks. Palaeomagnetism uses the microscopic iron within sedimentary rock to read the alignment of the magnetic field and correlate that with the known history of the polarity reversals of the earth's magnetic field. The magnetic reversals are precisely dated and consistent worldwide which allows these rocks to be studied in climate science and evolution.
  In addition to his research in magnetostratigraphy, another area of Prothero's research is the evolution of hoofed mammals, especially rhinos, camels, peccaries, and horses.
  Prothero's work on documenting evolutionary history of fossil vertebrates was cited by Richard Dawkins in his book The Greatest Show on Earth: the Evidence of Evolution. Skeptic Society founder Michael Shermer called Prothero's 2007 book, Evolution: What the Fossils Say And Why It Matters,  "the best book ever produced on the subject."
  He has also been featured as a scientific consultant and was interviewed on several television documentaries, including the Are Rhinos Dinos? episode of TLC's Paleoworld, the History Channel's Prehistoric Monsters Revealed, the episodes of National Geographic's Prehistoric Predators covering the entelodon and hyaenodon, the series Walking with Prehistoric Beasts on BBC, and the amphicyon or Bear Dog episode of Monsters Resurrected.
  In October 2012, Prothero appeared in his capacity as a paleontologist on Conspiracy Road Trip, a BBC television documentary in which five individuals who self-identified as Creationists participated in a road trip along the western coast of the United States, meeting with various experts on the topic, exchanging views and questions with people holding differing views.
caption: Prothero and Michael Shermer at TAM 2013
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