Most of us are familiar with at least the broad strokes of the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, wherein an asteroid the size of Mount Everest smashed into the Yucatan Peninsula, causing one of the planet’s greatest catastrophes, including a mass extinction event that saw the end of the non-avian dinosaurs, along with the great marine reptiles and the great pterosaurs that ruled the skies.

There are still dinosaurs around, mind you. There are more species of dinosaurs alive today than there are mammals. We call them birds.

But the other day I stumbled across an interesting little piece on what Earth may have looked like if the C-P event hadn’t happened – if that asteroid had missed. And, even more interesting, is the piece’s author – Newt Gingrich.  I know, right?

As a thought experiment to get my mind off the presidential race, the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, and all the other reasons to worry, I asked scientists what would have happened if the asteroid had missed.

I was surprised at how many serious scientists had thought about this question and took it quite seriously.

One of my favorite paleontologists is Steve Brusatte. I have talked with him multiple times on my Newt’s World podcast about dinosaurs and the rise of mammals.

In response to my question, Brusatte wrote:

“I’m sure a fairly nice diversity of non-avian dinosaurs would still be here. If there was no sudden, catastrophic shock of the asteroid, I really dont see anything thats happened since – whether it was the spread of grasslands; changing ocean currents; the separation of Antarctica from South America, which caused a cold snap; or the more recent Ice Ages – that would have knocked off the dinosaurs.”

While I’m just as glad that I only have to keep an eye peeled for a bear or a fractious moose when I walk from house to office and not, say, a Nanuqsaurus or a small pack of hungry dromeosaurs, the flaw in that reasoning is that if the C-P event hadn’t happened, neither would we have happened; the chain of events that led to the rise of larger mammals, then primates, then apes, then us, would have been cut off at the start. Maybe some other intelligence would have arisen – and maybe not.

Further, Canadian Paleontologist Dale Russell made one of the most interesting attempts at thinking through a dinosaur survival sequence. He proposed that an intelligent “dinosauroid” might have evolved if the asteroid had not ended dinosaur evolution. Russell suggested that the carnivorous dinosaur Troodon had an unusually large brain and might have been the lineage from which higher thinking dinosaurs evolved.

I’m skeptical about that, although the possibility isn’t without some modern corroboration; some birds, which are theropod dinosaurs like the Troodon genus mentioned above, are pretty damn smart; ravens in particular show evidence of problem-solving smarts, like being able to understand displacement in water. But any intelligent dino wouldn’t have looked even remotely like us; instead, picture how a raven uses its feet and beak to manipulate objects in its environment, and you’ve got a better idea as to how that might work.

I will tell you this, though: If you want to see Speaker Gingrich’s imaginings given much larger, more detailed form, check out Taylor Anderson’s Destroyermen series.  It’s a time investment – fifteen books in the primary series – but it’s a neat look at what a world where the asteroid missed might look like.