Replies

captain_dave: "Paleontology is not science - it's story telling."

Nonsense, unless you consider all of science "story telling".
In fact, Paleontology is as much science -- natural-science -- as is geology, biology, astronomy or any other earth science.

captain_dave: "There is no way we can know why a species died off millions of years ago, or even hundreds of years ago.
The only thing for certain these people can tell you is that fossils of a creature of a size and shape where found in a certain rock layer assumed to be of a certain age."

No, not "assumed", found to be of a certain age based on many different quantitative methods, including dozens of different radiometric dating techniques, plus comparisons with other examples of known ages.

As for the "whys" of extinctions, obviously we're talking about educated guess-work here, meaning scientific hypotheses which can be tested against known and future discovered data.
In this particular example, they're only saying data supports more that megalodon died out from changing prey & predators than from effects of globull warming.
That's an interesting hypothesis, we'll see how well it stands the tests of time.

So, call that "story telling" if you wish, but it is based on careful evaluation of evidence, and can be falsified by future evidence.
That makes it science.

Thanks BroJoeK.

Megalodon: The Monster Shark Lives -- Monster Week -- Animal Planet

Evidence of a 50-Ton Megalodon? -- Shark Week -- Discovery

Watch Prehistoric Predators Videos Online -- National Geographic Channel -- Canada

Megalodon Sharks still lives!! Evidence that MEGALODON is not extinct

Megalodon Shark Caught On Camera 62 Feet Long Shocking

Megalodon Shark Caught on Tape -- Up-Close Footage by Scared Fisherman

I disagree. There is experimentally verifiable science like physics, which uses the scientific method, and there is science which cannot be experimentally verified, like paleontology. In this sense "science" means a body of knowledge of the world around us. All the sciences make assumptions. Established geology assumes the uniformitarian theory of how the layers of the Earth formed. The other geological theory is Catastrophism, which posits that the Earth "has been affected in the past by sudden, short-lived, violent events, possibly worldwide in scope" (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catastrophism).

Paleontology will forever be educated guess work, at least until a time machine is invented. I don't see how any sort of hypothesis can be tested when the only evidence is fossilized bone and tissue. Especially when the only evidence is a tooth or bone fragment from which a whole creature is imagined.