Last night the Discovery channel aired a special called Dinosaurs: Return to Life. I'd been anticipating this show since I first saw a promo for it a few weeks ago.

It was really informative and a lot of fun, and one of the many things it demonstrates is how scientists react when they see something that's almost unbeleivable--and that is, of course, with skepticism and a battery of tests and experiments, repeated over and over, to get them closer to the truth.

In 2005 researchers discovered soft tissue preserved inside the fossilized remains of a dinosaur. The discovery challenged everything they thought they understood about fossilization, and though they were clearly very excited about it all, their approach was skeptical, careful and thoroughly scientific. They did tests over and over and over again and did not jump to any conclusions.

They let physical evidence lead the way, and they only went as far as the evidence took them. It was a wonderful demonstration of scientific method.

Sure, later in the show there was some speculation and some dreaming, but it was clearly labeled as such. It was thought-provoking, to be sure, but I found the actual science--the real work of discovery, using physical evidence--much more interesting. Without a thorough grounding in science, speculation is just a campfire story.