Something Is Missing

Movie Monday does not really exist for many scientists. Biographies for scientists do exist as documentaries, but most of them are for scientists more well known to the general public and, generally, for centuries old scientists. Modern scientists bestowed with this sort of honor are typically those that even the least scientifically interested person in the world can identify rather easily (I know there are exceptions to that rule). However, paleontologists tend to slip through the cracks of the documentary lens. The most that we see of paleontologists in documentaries is as "talking heads" rather than as subjects of discussion; notable exceptions do exist. Romer does not appear as the subject of a documentary or as a talking head in a documentary; the popularity of dinosaur documentaries did not spike until more than a decade after his passing. Despite all of the massively useful and popular works of Romer not even a written biography appears to exist. A 20 page biographical sketch does exist in the Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. Very little is actually recorded about Romer's life and images of Romer are few and most often subject to copyright laws as they belong to universities and magazines. These are some of the reasons why there are no documentaries or biographies written about Romer. There is information out there and someone must remember him well to this day. However, no books or movies are coming out as yet, as far as I can find. The best thing we can do is spread the word about Romer and hope that more people become educated about what he did for paleontology and all of science.