Subject:
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Re: Was T-Rex a herbivourous animal?(was: Re: Why not Both?)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Sun, 11 Feb 2001 17:07:45 GMT
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Viewed:
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678 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Arnold Staniczek writes:
> > Just because an animal is
> > big doesn't mean it's scary mean and ferocious.
>
> Just because a certain species of primates shows a significant enlargement of brain doesn't mean it always uses it:
It's not the grey matter, it's how the grey matter is wired. The
last study I've seen (admittedly only in the mainstream) suggests
that it's the brain's ability to cool and warm itself--e.g., the
blood flow--that determines a species's (boy, that word looks funny
possessivized) cognitive ability compared to others of its species.
Between species, it's only one of many factors.
But yeah, I get your point. ;)
> > There is in fact
> > evidence that shows Trex might not have been such blood-starved monster
> > anyhow. Their legs and posture don't lend to very fast or agile
> > movement,
>
> As long as they can match in speed with their victims it's no problem -
> or do you want to tell me that the giant sauropods were very fast?
Now that we're fairly certain they were endotherms in general--
and tyrannosaurs and brachiosaurs were certainly bulk endotherms
at least--we can make some general statements regarding their
behaviour.
Have you ever made a hippo angry? They sure don't look fast,
but they're *fast*. The mistake's been made by many a Kenyan
safari tourist, and the result is that hippo deaths outnumber
deaths by all other animal causes in Kenya and Tanzania. Looking
and being are two very different things.
Now, if you take the birdlike construction (yes, that's right,
birdlike!) of T. Rex, you get an animal that's well-balanced,
topped by an enormous and well-articulated head, and standing
directly atop two gigantic kinetic-energy storage devices that
we quaintly call legs. If one can extrapolate from the large
carnosaur tracks found, an estimate of 70kph is not unreasonable
for short periods. We definitely know that sauropods could
gallop. I don't know how old the T. Rex sketches are that he's
working from, or if the "prey" he imagines are the Mantell
Iguanodons from 1820 (with the thumb spike on the nose...priceless!),
but the work I've seen shows a creature both fast and deadly.
Of course that hasn't stopped many palaeontologists from
wondering if they were huge carrion-eaters...but why? Nothing
that relative size today eats carrion, it's smaller and weaker
animals.
> > their teeth weren't rooted well for tearing apart animals,
>
> Sauropsids generally don't have rooted teeth. So what? Are teeth of crocodiles rooted? No.
> Do crocodiles feed on flowers?
Well, Wally Gator doesn't eat other cartoon animals, so maybe.
Re: the teeth being rooted, see the crocodile note below. When
you get perhaps 50 sets of teeth in a lifetime, losing one is no
big deal.
> > their front legs were tiny and weak, which doesn't lend itself gripping
> > things well.
>
> Do crocodiles need to grip things well? Do wolves strangle deer?
The head does all the gripping needed. To crack the crest of a
ceratopsian or flip an ankylosaur, that head is vital.
> > Adult dinosaurs that are supposedly meat eaters have also
> > been found with extremely little teeth wear compared to what it should
> > be.
>
> Do you have an authoritative source for these assumptions? What
> kind of dinosaurs are you talking about?
I'd like to know that as well. Besides, modern crocodiles--the
closest living toothed relatives of dinosaurs, and the only living
archosaur that isn't feathered--have only 60 teeth at one time, but
can have over 3,000 in a lifetime. They don't have a single deciduous
dentition like we do. Therefore it's not possible to make judgements
on tooth wear when we don't know--can't know--how often extinct
animals shed their teeth. But the evidence suggests that shedding
was done in carnosaurs--loose teeth found in strata, in the bones
(occasionally embedded in them!) of other animals, et cetera.
> > These 20
> > scientists (and obviously, this is just a sampling) don't agree with
> > your infinite wisdom:
> >
> > http://www.icr.org/creationscientists.html
>
> If there's a hell they will burn in it for sure. This is my firm belief.
20 out of a "supposed" thousands? And not one a palaeo-anything?
I noticed that 95% of the 20 are male, and 95% of European descent.[1]
(In the "ICR Faculty" subset, those numbers go up to 100%.) Granted,
SWEMs are overrepresented at most institutions, but this is a bit
much! Also interesting is that their publications have nothing
to do with evolution or processes of earth formation (the mantle-
convection guy comes closest). Creationists can still do science;
the blinders aren't necessarily universal, and some of these folks
are intelligent and well-spoken but misinformed (or wilfully
ignorant). I don't doubt that Hank Morris (founder of ICR) and
his son John (current President of ICR...hmmm) are competent in
their fields--but just as I don't want a Doctor of English Literature
taking out my appendix, I don't see how a hydraulics engineer has
any purchase on Evolution, especially when he gets the Second Law
of Thermodynamics wrong on such a regular basis. 20 isn't thousands,
and the very fact that a page of this nature is necessary ought
to tell critical thinkers they're being sold a bill of goods by the
ICR/CRS.
There's some irony, by the way, in the "thousands" unverifiable
reference and the suggestion that the movement is somehow growing.
You see, for all their hate of Godless communism, they've borrowed
one of Lenin's greatest tactics, the premature declaration. In
1917, with the Provisional Government in place, the Communists
were only a small (but vocal) minority. Lenin and Trotsky came up
with the simple yet brilliant idea to call themselves "Bolsheviks"--
the Majority Party--and label the actual majority the "Mensheviks",
or Minority Party. It stuck, and within six months, the Bolsheviks
*were* the Majority Party. We all know (or ought to!) what happened
over the next 74 years.
Scientists as a rule have ignored creationists and allowed them
to spout pseudoscience in the conviction that thinking people would
make a choice based on the evidence. Unfortunately, not challenging
Creationists has caused them to go on the attack, declaring that it
is a conspiracy of silence by "them" and that it must prove, somehow,
that they're on to something--and before too long, otherwise rational
people begin to sway under unanswered Creationist propaganda. Science
has dealt with pseudoscience by ignoring it before, but they've never
encountered it conflated with this kind of religious siege mentality
that only grows stronger unless confronted and bombarded with reason.
best
LFB
[1] No overlap though, so that's a plus.
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