Meet Maximilian Scott

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Maximilian Scott. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Maximilian, we’re thrilled to have you on our platform and we think there is so much folks can learn from you and your story. Something that matters deeply to us is living a life and leading a career filled with purpose and so let’s start by chatting about how you found your purpose.

I find purpose in the the beautiful world I live on, discovering its past, understanding its present, and most importantly protecting its future. When I walk outside I see an elaborate symphony of complex Earth systems, a gorgeous song in which each instrument – the rocks, the water, the air, the life and more – is integral to maintaining its serene harmonies. Whether I’m digging up a fossil, witnessing a bear trot wearilessly through the woods, or watching a monarch build its chrysalis to metamorphose into the next chapter of its life, I feel inspired to use the the scientific study of deep natural history of the world around me to steward its future and educate others about their part. Nothing is more important to me than this planet, and that’s what gets me out of bed every morning.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

My primary profession is in paleontology. Paleontology is the study of life in the past via fossils, which can be defined as any evidence of prehistoric life. I have been lucky enough to study a diversity of prehistoric animals, including dinosaurs such as Pachyrhinosaurus, massive Cretaceous sea lizards called Mosasaurs, long-necked fish-eating swimmers called Plesiosaurs, ancient feliforme mammals like Dinictis, and large Oligocene tortoises called Stylemys. I also have a history of working with conservation efforts on some of North America’s most endangered modern wildlife, including the desert tortoise, black-footed ferret, and Lake Valley tui chub. One of my major long term projects involves public education and outreach via social media science communication. I’m on Instagram as @NotoriousNaturalistMax and TikTok as @NotoriousNaturalist, and my goal is to give viewers like you two major things – knowledge and laughter! Along with my partner, Mattison Shreero (@GeoSplore), I use my “learn and laugh” strategy to make educational content desirable, accessible, and fun for multiple age groups. I approach both my educational and research efforts with a highly collaborative attitude, and I am always willing to partner up with other folks to work together to better the future for people, science, and wildlife. On commission I can also make guest appearances at events or in digital programs, give educational programming such as presentations, do voicework, assist in research, and more! Not sure? Feel free to reach out, and let’s chat!

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

The three qualities I’ve found most benefitted me on my journey include:

Resilience : My journey has been a rough ride. In addition to growing up in an abusive paternal situation, I also struggled with ADHD in a time when the disorder was still only beginning to be well-understood. Many of my teachers and parents within the community even went so far as believing the disorder doesn’t exist! These issues caused me to struggle socially, academically, and of course emotionally. It would have been so easy to give up, or to become the same kind of person as those who chose to do me harm. I chose the hard option. I chose to persevere, and to become my own person. One of my all time favorite quotes comes from John F. Kennedy – “Not because it is easy, but because it is hard.” While this quote was used to reference the space race, it can be applies to all matters of adversity. No matter how hard it gets, don’t quit. Decide your destiny, and be the person you want to be no matter how hard it gets.

Honesty : We definitely live in a time where lies are rampant, and cause real damage. While modern technology creates the opportunity to spread information at a rate and quantity never seen before, it also creates the opportunity to spread misinformation. Lies have always made me intensely uncomfortable. Almost every trauma I have ties back to some sort of dishonesty. Lies, gaslights, half-truths, manipulations, misinformation… it makes me as sad as it does angry. I see dishonesty as a prison for all parties involved. Obviously the lesser-thought-of prison is that of the person being dishonest, who thus has to work hard to keep up the lies. The more you lie, the more lies you have to tell to keep the first lie. You find yourself stuck in growing lies until the lie collapses under its own weight, and I think typically over time most of them eventually do. Until the lie collapses, you’ve got two options: stay stuck in the ever rampant growth of lies, or rip off the bandage and face the consequences all at once and choose to grow from it. The more obvious prison is that of the victim to dishonesty. Being lied to is definitely comparable to a prison, as you are not afforded the freedom to make informed decisions for yourself. Dishonesty becomes an invisible ball and chain for the people who are lied to because they don’t even know that they’re trapped, and it usually ends poorly. This goes for politics, personal relationships, and really I think most aspects of life. I think, by and large, even what is considered a white lie can devolve into something ugly. The number of unforeseeable problems every individual can avoid by just choosing to be honest instead of telling that lie they want to tell could never be quantified. The truth truly will set you free. And not just you, but also the people you care about. You can only protect someone for the short term with a lie, and the long term consequence may well be worse than the initial consequence of telling the truth. Just. Tell. The. Truth.

Altruism : When life gets tough, its easy to forget about the most important trait each of us have; our ability to care. While it can be tempting, and even feel like a suit of protective armor, to take car of only #1, this benefits nobody. Not even yourself! We evolved as a social animal, and as such we need each other in order to survive. In a world with far too many bullies and cheats. choose kindness, compassion, and cooperation. Only when everybody cares about doing the right thing for all of us will we all see a better future. The future really can be good for everybody! All it takes is for each person to choose to do good, whether the benefit is immediately visible or not.

How would you spend the next decade if you somehow knew that it was your last?

I’m currently staring down the barrel of a very large and often difficult to see problem that impacts all of us equally. Not just the eight billion human beings we share the world with, but every single life form on this little blue marble. The most important issue of all right now is that of planet Earth’s sixth mass extinction. Our planet is chemically dated by its oldest rocks to be about 4.6 billion years old. The first evidence of life shows up in the rock record about 3.7 billion years ago. It was not until 542 million years ago, during an event called the Cambrian Explosion, that life really became complex and began to diversify rapidly. In that 542 million years, there have been five mass extinctions, most of which took millions of years. The quickest, obviously, being that at the end of the Cretaceous which took out about 76% of life on Earth (including the dinosaurs). It’s hard to kill things quicker than with a giant rock from space. The second quickest, and by far most devastating, mass extinction was the Permian-Triassic extinction event (roughly 252 million years ago), which wiped out a staggering 90% of species over a few million years, with the sharpest blow being in the final 100 thousand years of the Permian. Today species are declining far quicker than they did at the end of the Permian, indicating that we are facing the sixth mass extinction in the last 542 million years. Is there a clock near you? What time does it say? By some current estimates, an average of three species go extinct every hour. How many species have gone extinct since 8 o’clock this morning? How many so far this year? Currently, fewer than two million species have been identified. Most estimates show the likely total number of species on planet Earth ranging somewhere near 11 million. There are 8760 hours in a year, meaning about 26 thousand species go extinct per year. At the current estimated rate of species extinction, it will take less than 400 years for us to rival the extinction seen at the end of the Permian. Between climate change, habitat destruction, overhunting, pollution, and more it’s hard to deny that the current high rates of extinction are a direct result of human activity. But hope is not lost, and the battle is not won. There’s still a chance, and not a small one. It just takes everyone working together to make a change.

So what’s my challenge? Put simply, my challenge is to inspire enough people to make that change. My challenge is, through science and education, to help enough people to care enough to save the world.

Contact Info:

Image Credits

Photo 1 (long sunset silhouette) taken by Nickie Tait Wheeler and featuring myself and Mattison Shreero

Photo 2 and 3 (featuring horseshoe crab and frog) taken by Mattison Shreero

Photo 4 (featuring scanning of plesiosaur fossil) taken by Emily Bamforth at the Philip J. Currie Dinosaur Museum

Photo 5 (featuring myself holding tyrannosaur tooth in a river) taken by Emily Bamforth at the Philip J. Currie Dinosaur Museum

Photo 6 (featuring myself speaking) taken by Three Minute Thesis (3MT) staff

Photo 7 (featuring myself holding mosasaur skull) taken by social media staff at the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology

Photo 8 (featuring myself with a Velociraptor puppet made by TRX Dinos) taken by Mattison Shreero

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