The Dinosaur Thread

[Kahran Ramsus]

One only has to look at where Greece stands today and understand that during the Mesozoic era, most of Greece was in the ancient Tethys Ocean, so most of their references would come from marine specimens, which unsurprisingly, they did.

Same thing here. Florida was underwater until well into the Cenozoic. We only have land animals from the Miocene onwards.

 

[KevanG]

I don't get it...

By just dismiss it completely, you are being totally biased.
Or are you part of the gang that also believe in ancient aliens, alien crop circles and nibiru?

Like i said, i do not defend the theory that dinosaurs didn't exist, i just accept it because they are cool and it's way cooler to believe that they did that they didn't...but i don't know, not for a fact anyway.

Hey, C Lee was there. He beat down the kid T Rexs that wandered into his front yard.

 

[Midnyte_Sun]

Let's talk about the theory that dinosaurs never existed and it's all fake.
> An extinction-level event of this magnitude would have destroyed all life on Earth, not just the dinosaurs; this would be evident archaeologically
Premise: Consider that at one point the Earth was hit by a giant asteroid that obliterated the Earth and caused all dinosaurs to become extinct simultaneously. There are several problems with such a theory.
For an event of this magnitude to have occurred to wipe out all the dinosaurs, it would have to wipe out all the rest of life, too. There are major problems with this:

Except it didn't kill all life on Earth. It only killed roughly 75% of life. The Permian extinction killed more (over 90%). There were other mass extinctions as well.

> There would not have been enough food or fresh water for plant-based animals this big to have lived
> Dinosaurs were too big to have existed with the confines of the laws of physics

Comparing Elephants to Dinosaurs is a false equivalency fallacy of the largest magnitude. The body anatomy of elephants and dinosaurs are grossly different. Also, their metabolisms most likely are not the same at all. Sauropod food was less nutritious their metabolisms were more likely slower than modern Elephants. Sauropods did not chew their food. They simply swallowed their food whole. Their digestion system was also different than that of elephants.

Their size is easily explained thanks to their hollow bones, which elephants do not have. They, like other dinosaurs also had an air-sac system in general, allowing for a single-direction airflow through stiff lungs, made it possible for the sauropods to get enough oxygen. They also had 12 more cervical vertebrae (with air sacs) in their long light necks than elephants.

The largest mammal were the Paraceratheriums and they were also larger than African elephants and lived on Earth for over 10 Million years and had a low birth rate. In comparison, Sauropods laid dozens of eggs. This evolutionary strategy allowed much faster population recovery than in megaherbivore mammals. Sauropods produced numerous but small offspring each season while land mammals show a negative correlation of reproductive output to body size. This permitted lower population densities in sauropods than in megaherbivore mammals but larger individuals.

Also the Earth was a lot different back then and supported different ecosystems with different types of vegetation. Migratory patters were most likely different as well. Sauropods frequented waterways and preferred wet and coastal habitats. Sauropod footprints are commonly found following coastlines or crossing floodplains, and sauropod fossils are often found in wet environments or intermingled with fossils of marine organisms. Sauropods survived for 144 Million years, that's more than double the time elephants have been around (60 Million years).

> Lack of perpetual fossil evidence - everyone should be finding these bones in the backyards
Premise: If dinosaurs roamed the Earth and were everywhere, and these creatures were massive, gigantic beasts, then there should be overwhelming evidence everywhere we look. You would go gardening and find ten or twenty giant bones every time you tried to plant some seeds.

People would be building houses out of these bones because there was so many of them. Who needs bricks when you have fossils? Your kids would go play outside and occasionally come back with a petrified dinosaur bone. However, there has never once been an instance in which someone accidentally found a dinosaur bone.

This argument is grossly irrelevant and shows the lack of knowledge of history, geology and paleontology they possess. The mesozoic era in which the dinosaurs lived is split into 3 specific geological strata: The Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous, they are superimposed over other layers as well.

In order for a person to find one in his backyard, he woud have to live on a surface that has eroded other layers, or possibly on a slope where mesozoic era bones would be found. Archaeologists usually look for ancient river beds and valleys alongside riverbeds to find fossils. Fossils are not easily formed either. The specimen must have been buried soon after it died, usually through a flood or a landslide to preserve the entire specimen and mineralize all it's bones. Furthermore, there has been numerous spontaneous finds of dinosaur bones. Dinosaur bones are found every year, and many of them by accident. Here are two recent examples:

http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/19/health/dinosaur-new-species-trnd/

http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/21/asia/china-dinosaur-eggs-found/

> Radiocarbon dating, also known as Carbon-14 Dating, cannot date back longer than 40,000 years

Carbon dating is rarely applicable to fossils. Carbon-14, the radioactive isotope of carbon used in carbon dating has a half-life of 5730 years, so it decays too fast. It can only be used to date fossils younger than about 75,000 years. Potassium-40 on the other hand has a half like of 1.25 billion years and is common in rocks and minerals. This makes it ideal for dating much older rocks and fossils.

Dating is a lot more developed than simply carbon-14 dating. For example if you have a fossil trilobite and it was found in the Wheeler Formation. The Wheeler Formation in Utah has been previously dated to approximately 507 million year old, so we know the trilobite is also about 507 million years old. But, how can we determine how old a rock formation is, if it hasn’t previously been dated?

Scientists can use certain types of fossils referred to as index fossils to assist in relative dating via correlation. Index fossils are fossils that are known to only occur within a very specific age range. Typically commonly occurring fossils that had a widespread geographic distribution such as brachiopods, trilobites, and ammonites work best as index fossils. If the fossil you are trying to date occurs alongside one of these index fossils, then the fossil you are dating must fall into the age range of the index fossil.

Sometimes multiple index fossils can be used. In a hypothetical example, a rock formation contains fossils of a type of brachiopod known to occur between 410 and 420 million years. The same rock formation also contains a type of trilobite that was known to live 415 to 425 million years ago. Since the rock formation contains both types of fossils the ago of the rock formation must be in the overlapping date range of 415 to 420 million years.

Studying the layers of rock or strata can also be useful. Layers of rock are deposited sequentially. If a layer of rock containing the fossil is higher up in the sequence that another layer, you know that layer must be younger in age. If it is lower in sequence it’s of a younger age. This can often be complicated by the fact that geological forces can cause faulting and tilting of rocks.

> Dinosaurs did not exist in mythology in any culture before the 1800s
Premise: For a set of creatures that are supposed to have been so pervasive, so massive, and so populous to have never been seen in any culture's mythology at any time in known history (not even cave paintings), defies logic if the creatures had in fact existed. Instead, the mythology of dinosaurs did not spring up until around the 1800s. Since then, and especially since the 1900s when Charles Darwin's "Origin of the Species" (published in 1859) book became more popular, dinosaurs have become a pervasive part of society. However, before the 1800s, Dinosaurs were completely absent from mythology. We don't see it in Greek, Roman, or any other sort of mythology.

In ancient times Xenophanes (570-480 BC), Herodotus (484-425 BC), Eratosthenes (276-194 BC), and Strabo (64 BC-24 AD), wrote about fossils of marine organisms indicating that land was once under water. During the Middle Ages, fossils were discussed by the Persian naturalist, Ibn Sina (known as Avicenna in Europe), in The Book of Healing (1027), which proposed a theory of petrifying fluids that Albert of Saxony would elaborate on in the 14th century. The Chinese naturalist Shen Kuo (1031–1095) would propose a theory of climate change based on evidence from petrified bamboo. The scientific method has developed greatly since this time and so has our philosophies and understanding of the world.

]There would have to be thousands, even millions of references that are very specific. For example, it's not like we think that references to a dragon might be references to say, a large bird. No, mythology is very clear about dragons being large, reptilian, flying, fire-breathing creatures; and dragons are extremely pervasive throughout mythology. Don't you think that if dinosaurs existed, myth-writers such as Homer would have capitalized on this in the "Iliad and the Odyssey" and other famous mythological writings and great stories? No, instead you find many mythical creatures like Cyclops, mermaids, and talking horses. But no references to dinosaurs.

One only has to look at where Greece stands today and understand that during the Mesozoic era, most of Greece was in the ancient Tethys Ocean, so most of their references would come from marine specimens, which unsurprisingly, they did.

> A full skeleton or a dinosaur has never been found - not even close to one
Premise: You go to a museum and you see dinosaur skeletons. At least, you think you do. You see, those dinosaurs are amalgams of various things ranging from chicken bones, to random bones, to straight plaster casts. Not even the teeth are real. Various bones have been found that have been claimed to be a part of a dinosaur. However, no dinosaur skeleton has ever been found.
As a result, the only way to make a dinosaur skeleton for a museum is to, quite literally make it. That is, they have to create what they think it might look like by filling in 99% of the bones with other things to make what they think the whole thing would look like.

We have fossil remains that are 98% complete so that point is moot again. Most museum specimens are replicas because actual fossilized {stone) bones are too damn heavy to put up for display in full form. Also, Paleontologists have many references to almost every dinosaur species from multiple specimens to come to a logical conclusion about body anatomy and recreate full size specimens. We also have dinosaur remains of their babies in their egg cases, juvenile dinosaurs, male and female dimorphic species, taxonomic transitional fossils, fossilized dinosaur poop, fossilized soft tissue, pigment impressions of their colored feathers, scale impressions, fossilized organs, fossilized blood vessels, intact soft tissue collagen, even fossilized brain tissue. All of their measurements and size distributions are based on math, modern day cousins (reptiles and birds), and the fossil record.

> There is more evidence for the presupposition of dinosaurs than the other way around
Premise: Presupposition is a philosophical term which means that you create the evidence based on an assumed premise. In philosophy, any presupposed arguments are usually dismissed.
To be more clear, the idea of dinosaurs was first imagined, and then scientists attempted to search for evidence that they existed. However, this is not how science works. The scientific method dictates that in order to assume a valid scientific notion, it must first be discovered, and only then create the theories based only on the scientific fact.

Maybe to someone who is ignorant of taxonomy, phylogeny, biology, history, geology, and scientific progress. This argument is akin to young earth creatonists whose claims are the definition of presuppositon with no evidence to back up their claims.

Instead, however, dinosaurs were first imagined, and then entire skeletons were designed by creative artists; and then after they had what they thought might exist, they went out and tried to find evidence that their theory existed.

Caught in the echo chamber again. Fortunately, individuals of the same species, as well as those of closely related species, tend to be similar. This allows scientists to combine information from different partial skeletons in order to understand how a complete skeleton would have looked.

Once all the bones are known, scientists arrange them in anatomically correct, lifelike positions. How do they judge what is lifelike for an animal no one has ever seen alive? Detailed studies of anatomy show that living animals with similarly constructed bones and joints hold their bodies similarly, so scientists model the stance of extinct animals on similar or related modern animals. This is reasonable because gravity would have constrained the stances, or postures, of extinct vertebrates just as it does for living animals. But bones alone do not tell the whole story. For example, cartilage discs between the vertebrae in an animal's backbone do not fossilize, but they do contribute to the animal's body length and range of motion. This creates uncertainty, and that means there always will be room for new ideas and debate about dinosaur stance.

Adding muscles is the next step in fleshing out a dinosaur skeleton. Fossil bones often contain muscle attachment scars that provide evidence about muscle location and size. But to know how to interpret these clues, scientists must first study similar features on the bones of modern animals. Because they observe that the massive muscles of large animals, such as elephants, leave larger muscle attachment scars than do the muscles of more lightly built animals, scientists and artists "add" more muscle to fossil bones with large muscle scars than to fossils that are more lightly scarred. It may help to estimate an animal's total body weight when doing a reconstruction. This is done by measuring skeletal features that correlate with weight in modern species, such as the diameter of the spinal canal in the vertebrae or the circumference of (distance around) the limb bones.

This technique is also the first step and also used in forensics to identify human remains of unidentified missing persons. The fact of the matter is, we'll never know fully how it sounded like, looked like, or even what their behavior was. The good thing about scientific evidence is that it's okay to be wrong and revise and reform their understanding of paleontology. One only has to look at 19th century depictions of dinosaurs and modern ones to see how far our analysis and accuracy has gone.

> Even an extinction-level event would not have destroyed the dinosaurs who lived in the deep-ocean
Premise: An extinction-level event, such as a giant comet crashing into Earth, or perhaps a disease that wiped out all the dinosaurs, would only have impacted the land dinosaurs and shallow-water dinosaurs, not the ones in the deep ocean. If such an event occurred as the reason for why dinosaurs "went extinct", it would not have applied to the deep ocean dinosaurs which would still be there today.

Again, the asteroid did NOT wipe out the dinosaurs, also there is NO SUCH THING as a deep ocean dinosaur. Saying there is a deep ocean dinosaur shows the lack of understanding of the diversity of species that existed during the Mesozoic era. I think what you're referring to are marine reptiles, which all went extinct minus turtles, lepidosaurs (lizards and the tuatara) and one choristoderans (they died off in the Miocene). Within cartilaginous fish, approximately 7 out of the 41 families of Neoselachian, modern sharks, suffered during this event and Batoids, skates and rays, lost nearly all the identifiable species, while more than 90% of teleost fish (bony fish) families survived. Avian dinosaurs surived to present day. Some species were already in decline before the KT extinction, like Pterosaurs.

Furthermore, all major Cretaceous mammalian lineages, including monotremes (egg-laying mammals), multituberculates, marsupials and placentals, dryolestoideans, and gondwanatheres survived the K–Pg extinction event, although they suffered losses. In particular, marsupials largely disappeared from North America, and the Asian deltatheroidans, primitive relatives of extant marsupials, became extinct. In the Hell Creek beds of North America, at least half of the ten known multituberculate species and all eleven marsupial species are not found above the boundary.Multituberculates in Europe and North America survived relatively unscathed and quickly bounced back in the Paleocene, but Asian forms were decimated, never again to represent a significant component on mammalian faunas.

The reasons why some species survived and others didn't is because some were omnivorous and could get access to food and the specialized ones could not. The atmospheric particles blocked sunlight and reduced the solar energy reaching the Earth's surface. This plant extinction caused a major reshuffling of the dominant plant groups. Omnivores, insectivores and carrion-eaters survived the extinction event, perhaps because of the increased availability of their food sources. No purely herbivorous or carnivorous mammals seem to have survived. Rather, the surviving mammals and birds fed on insects, worms, and snails, which in turn fed on dead plant and animal matter. Scientists hypothesize that these organisms survived the collapse of plant-based food chains because they fed on detritus (non-living organic material). There is a lot of evidence to support this.

 

[Midnyte_Sun]

Same thing here. Florida was underwater until well into the Cenozoic. We only have land animals from the Miocene onwards.

Young earth creationists think the world looked exactly the same as it does now when the non-avian dinosaurs walked the Earth. That explains why they are grasping at straws when proposing the argument that the Greeks couldn't find T-rex's.

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

Young earth creationists think the world looked exactly the same as it does now when the non-avian dinosaurs walked the Earth. That explains why they are grasping at straws when proposing the argument that the Greeks couldn't find T-rex's.

Of course in reality it is a changing world even now, even within our own lifetimes. That's not even going into plate tectonics. A strong storm, such as Hurricane Matthew, can change the shoreline and standard erosion changes things over time.

For example, Matanzas Inlet in Florida has shifted southward over the last couple of hundred years. The Spanish fort built to guard the entrance is now pointed at dry land.

Florida itself was a part of Africa until the Triassic period.

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

This is obviously just guess work, but I have little doubt that if an asteroid the size of the K-Pg impactor hit us today that we as a species would survive. We basically live everywhere and there is little we can't eat. Things wouldn't be pleasant and we would lose millions, perhaps billions. But we are extremely adaptable, so I don't think we would go extinct.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

With Bruce Willis around, why would we ever have to worry about being hit by an asteroid?

 

[Perfect Cell]

Yeah, but that only works once. And Deep Impact taught us that these things happen almost back-to-back, inexplicably in the same year.

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

It haven't seen Deep Impact since it came out, but I don't remember two comets in the film. From what I remember, there was one comet which they sent astronauts led by Robert Duvall to blow up partway through the film and it ended up just splitting it into two pieces, one of which hits the Earth and the other (larger) one that they end up sacrificing themselves to destroy.

 

[Teelie]

As I recall that is the plot to Armageddon. But they were both so nearly identical I can't remember if Deep Impact had that too or not.

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

Armageddon I can't remember as well other than I thought it was horrible. I even liked Asteroid with Michael Biehn better, and that's setting the bar real low.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

Pretty sure it was a joke about Armageddon and Deep Impact coming out so close together.

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

Pretty sure it was a joke about Armageddon and Deep Impact coming out so close together.

Well that went right over my head.

 

[C. Lee]

I would like to thank Kahran Ramsus and Midnyte_Sun for their informative posts about dinosaurs. What they posted is what I was thinking when I first read Isuldier's Heir's post....but had neither the time nor the inclination to write it or research it for clarity and the correct wording. You guys are better researchers than I and can compose sentences way better than I can. Thank you for the time you spent on your posts.

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

I would like to thank Kahran Ramsus and Midnyte_Sun for their informative posts about dinosaurs. What they posted is what I was thinking when I first read Isuldier's Heir's post....but had neither the time nor the inclination to write it or research it for clarity and the correct wording. You guys are better researchers than I and can compose sentences way better than I can. Thank you for the time you spent on your posts.

You're quite welcome.

I'd like to thank Midnyte_Sun as well for going into more detail than I was willing to.

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

Just one more thing I want to comment on for a moment.

Most museum specimens are replicas because actual fossilized {stone) bones are too damn heavy to put up for display in full form.

While it is certainly true that this happens, it is a misconception that all or the vast majority of mounts are entirely casts. That is generally the case if the originals aren't available, for many smaller museums and travelling road shows and the like. Larger museums as well as those with well-established dinosaur exhibits often have plenty of real fossils on display in their collections.

Take the famous Sue mount in Chicago, for example. It is the most complete T. rex that has been found at roughly 80% complete. The missing and broken bones are fake as well as the head (because as you said, casts are much lighter than the real rock). The rest is real. The real head is also on display behind the mounted skeleton.

Museums are generally very open about what is a cast and what is real. It isn't like they are trying to pull one over on the visitors.

Once in a while, you will also see metal statues instead of casts, but it is less common. The Florida Museum of Natural History has one of Titanis in their display. Wikipedia uses it as the page image for Titanis. Wiki says it is a reconstructed skeleton, but it is actually steel.

 

[Midnyte_Sun]

Just one more thing I want to comment on for a moment.



While it is certainly true that this happens, it is a misconception that all or the vast majority of mounts are entirely casts. That is generally the case if the originals aren't available, for many smaller museums and travelling road shows and the like. Larger museums as well as those with well-established dinosaur exhibits often have plenty of real fossils on display in their collections.

Take the famous Sue mount in Chicago, for example. It is the most complete T. rex that has been found at roughly 80% complete. The missing and broken bones are fake as well as the head (because as you said, casts are much lighter than the real rock). The rest is real. The real head is also on display behind the mounted skeleton.

Museums are generally very open about what is a cast and what is real. It isn't like they are trying to pull one over on the visitors.

Once in a while, you will also see metal statues instead of casts, but it is less common. The Florida Museum of Natural History has one of Titanis in their display. Wikipedia uses it as the page image for Titanis. Wiki says it is a reconstructed skeleton, but it is actually steel.

Yeah it's a mixture of both, but in terms of T-rexes, most displays are fake because most Museums would love to have a full size Sue for display and there aren't many full size or nearly intact specimens being found.

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

Yeah it's a mixture of both, but in terms of T-rexes, most displays are fake because most Museums would love to have a full size Sue for display and there aren't many full size or nearly intact specimens being found.

Oh yeah, certain popular animals (Archaeopteryx is another) are in high demand, so replicas are going to be common.

 

[Midnyte_Sun]

I would like to thank Kahran Ramsus and Midnyte_Sun for their informative posts about dinosaurs. What they posted is what I was thinking when I first read Isuldier's Heir's post....but had neither the time nor the inclination to write it or research it for clarity and the correct wording. You guys are better researchers than I and can compose sentences way better than I can. Thank you for the time you spent on your posts.

No problem, but I take no credit since I did not provide my sources. I basically scoured a few wikipedia, archaeology, peer-reviewed journals, summarized, copied and pasted, and because I was too lazy, I did not cite any of it. Grammar and spelling was not checked too thoroughly, either.

I just wanted to respond to him as fast as I could since I was a little late into the conversation.

 

[TheDreamMaster]

Look I see it like this: If there were dinosaurs, which I believe, they were a prototype or test run form God. Things were refined, and then humans came.

If not, we all die, go to blackness, and that is it. Nothing more or less. Either way, dinosaurs were a thing. That seems rather obvious. Even as a religious person, I've never assumed dinosaurs were not a thing.

 

[Midnyte_Sun]

Look I see it like this: If there were dinosaurs, which I believe, they were a prototype or test run form God. Things were refined, and then humans came.

If not, we all die, go to blackness, and that is it. Nothing more or less. Either way, dinosaurs were a thing. That seems rather obvious. Even as a religious person, I've never assumed dinosaurs were not a thing.

Where in the Bible does it say that Dinosaurs were a prototype for Humans? If you can believe things were refined then humans came, this is basically a simplistic way of explaining the mechanism behind human evolution. Because the dinosaurs were wiped out, it contributed to the reshuffling in the biosphere for the eventual creation of the Hominid line 20 Million years ago.

 

[Breogan]

Look I see it like this: If there were dinosaurs, which I believe, they were a prototype or test run form God. Things were refined, and then humans came.

That does help explain the Sleestaks.

 

[Greens]

Where in the Bible does it say that Dinosaurs were a prototype for Humans? If you can believe things were refined then humans came, this is basically a simplistic way of explaining the mechanism behind human evolution. Because the dinosaurs were wiped out, it contributed to the reshuffling in the biosphere for the eventual creation of the Hominid line 20 Million years ago.

I can't think of one reason why God would need a test run of anything in the first place.

 

[Midnyte_Sun]

I can't think of one reason why God would need a test run of anything in the first place.

Good point, God being omniscient and all...

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

Where in the Bible does it say that Dinosaurs were a prototype for Humans? If you can believe things were refined then humans came, this is basically a simplistic way of explaining the mechanism behind human evolution. Because the dinosaurs were wiped out, it contributed to the reshuffling in the biosphere for the eventual creation of the Hominid line 20 Million years ago.

Sort of. Dinosaurs were still tops into the mid-Eocene. Just not to the degree they were in the Mesozoic. It was really the separation of Australia and Antarctica and the resulting cooling of the Earth that led to mammalian dominance at the top of the food chain.

Although going by pure numbers, even today dinosaurs outnumber mammals in both population and number of species. Of course, nothing compares to arthropods on that front.