The Dinosaur Thread

[dude stannis]

I'm a ****in' idiot! Flying lizards? I'm a moron. God was ****in' with me! It seemed so plausible, aaaaaahh! Enjoy the lake of fire, ****er!

 

[Reek]

Ooh, it must've been about seven, eight years ago. Me and the little lady was out on this boat, you see, all alone at night, when all of a sudden this huge creature, this giant crustacean from the paleolithic era, comes out of the water. It stood above us looking down with these big red eyes, and I yelled. I said, "What do you want from us, monster?!" And the monster bent down and said, "...Uh I need about tree-fitty." Three dollars and fifty cents. I said "I ain't giving you no tree-fitty you goddamn Loch Ness monster! Get your own goddamn money!" My lady gave him a dollar, thinking he'd go away. Well of course he's not gonna go away. You gave him a dollar, he's gonna assume you got more!

Then one time, I believe it was July-August. There's a knock on the door. I open it, and there's this cute little girl scout and she says to me, "How would you like to buy some cookies?" And I said "Well, what kind do you have?" She had thin mints, graham crunchy things, raisin oatmeal, and I said "We'll take a graham crunch. How much will that be?" And she looks at me and she says, "...Uh I need about tree-fitty." Well, it was about that time that I notice that girl scout was about eight stories tall and was a crustacean from the protozoic era.

 

[Perfect Cell]

 

[DarthSkywalker]

You are missing the part where i didn't come up with those premises, none of them.
And of course that no human lived with dinosaurs, that's is known.

But, to look at 9 theories and several premises and just dismiss one, doesn't deserve a "You're kidding....right?"

You can only use that expression when you dismiss every single one.
That was my point when i said "i don't get it", and not because i didn't actually understood you.
So, don't act all smart with the "Obviously".

To dismiss everything just because one is false is a fallacy.

So what have scientist been digging up for years if not dinosaur bones?

And when you post a bunch of ridiculous stuff, people will dismiss it as so.

 

[dude stannis]

But have fossil photos ever been leaked?

 

[DarthSkywalker]

But have fossil photos ever been leaked?

No, but the fossil's emails have.

 

[dude stannis]

We should get the FBI to investigate this right away.

 

[Guts]

I think we should get David Duchovny to investigate this. But that's if he finished his frog investigation.

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

Sigh...I must be a glutton for punishment. These will all be very basic, shortform answers as the explanations to some of these would require long essays. So if you want more information, I suggest you look it up. I'm not here to write a book.

> An extinction-level event of this magnitude would have destroyed all life on Earth, not just the dinosaurs; this would be evident archaeologically

Not true. There is no reason to believe that an object of that size (roughly about 10km in diameter) would have been large enough to wipe out all life on Earth. Indeed, it is nowhere near the largest object to hit us since the beginning of life even.

> 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

These two are really impossible to answer in a satisfactory detail without going into a long essay. But safe to say there a number of different hypothesis out there to explain this, from dinosaurs being significantly less massive than generally thought (notably birds have a very small body density in relation to their size and complicated respiratory systems) to them existing in a time with a much thicker atmosphere (of which there is some evidence of) that helped increase bouyancy. You can just look up the discussions.

But the big problem is that you are looking at this backwards. You are saying that physics say they can't have existed, therefore they didn't exist. Yet we have proof that they existed, therefore there has to be a reason they were able to.

> Lack of perpetual fossil evidence - everyone should be finding these bones in the backyards

Conditions have to be perfect for a bone to become fossilized. Only a tiny fraction of all dinosaurs would have undergone the process in the first place, and primarily in places like ancient seashores and swamps where the conditions would have been right.

> Dinosaurs did not exist in mythology in any culture before the 1800s

For most of history all we have is vague references for pretty much anything. It is only with the rise of modern science that these things were recorded in detail. The earliest detailed descriptions of prehistoric life (such as ichthyosaurs) were in the 1600s, right where we would expect them to be. Although they were very poorly understood for what they were for another few decades.

> A full skeleton or a dinosaur has never been found - not even close to one

This is just blatantly untrue. There are lots of full skeletons of dinosaurs around. Just not the largest ones, because they are so large it is extremely rare for them to become entirely fossilized and are usually scattered and scientists have to piece them together (often making mistakes). But there are plenty of complete specimens of some of the more well-known dinosaurs such as Coelophysis, Protoceratops, and Velociraptor.

> There is more evidence for the presupposition of dinosaurs than the other way around

Sorry, but that's bull. The prevailing theory until the last couple of centuries was that all the life that ever existed exists right now. It was these discoveries that changed it. While there was some shoddy science work, especially during the bone wars of the late 1800s, for the most part the evidence was there first and the theories were based off of the evidence. Not the other way around. And indeed new evidence has radically changed how dinosaurs have been viewed when groundbreaking discoveries are made, such as us now knowing that many of them were covered in feathers.

> Even an extinction-level event would not have destroyed the dinosaurs who lived in the deep-ocean

Dinosaurs didn't/don't live in the deep ocean, although some can dive pretty deep. The Emperor Penguin is the current record holder as the deepest diving dinosaur at about 1,850 feet.

 

[Isildur´s Heir]

Sigh...I must be a glutton for punishment. These will all be very basic, shortform answers as the explanations to some of these would require long essays. So if you want more information, I suggest you look it up. I'm not here to write a book.

> An extinction-level event of this magnitude would have destroyed all life on Earth, not just the dinosaurs; this would be evident archaeologically

Not true. There is no reason to believe that an object of that size (roughly about 10km in diameter) would have been large enough to wipe out all life on Earth. Indeed, it is nowhere near the largest object to hit us since the beginning of life even.

> 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

These two are really impossible to answer in a satisfactory detail without going into a long essay. But safe to say there a number of different hypothesis out there to explain this, from dinosaurs being significantly less massive than generally thought (notably birds have a very small body density in relation to their size and complicated respiratory systems) to them existing in a time with a much thicker atmosphere (of which there is some evidence of) that helped increase bouyancy. You can just look up the discussions.

But the big problem is that you are looking at this backwards. You are saying that physics say they can't have existed, therefore they didn't exist. Yet we have proof that they existed, therefore there has to be a reason they were able to.

> Lack of perpetual fossil evidence - everyone should be finding these bones in the backyards

Conditions have to be perfect for a bone to become fossilized. Only a tiny fraction of all dinosaurs would have undergone the process in the first place, and primarily in places like ancient seashores and swamps where the conditions would have been right.

> Dinosaurs did not exist in mythology in any culture before the 1800s

For most of history all we have is vague references for pretty much anything. It is only with the rise of modern science that these things were recorded in detail. The earliest detailed descriptions of prehistoric life (such as ichthyosaurs) were in the 1600s, right where we would expect them to be. Although they were very poorly understood for what they were for another few decades.

> A full skeleton or a dinosaur has never been found - not even close to one

This is just blatantly untrue. There are lots of full skeletons of dinosaurs around. Just not the largest ones, because they are so large it is extremely rare for them to become entirely fossilized and are usually scattered and scientists have to piece them together (often making mistakes). But there are plenty of complete specimens of some of the more well-known dinosaurs such as Coelophysis, Protoceratops, and Velociraptor.

> There is more evidence for the presupposition of dinosaurs than the other way around

Sorry, but that's bull. The prevailing theory until the last couple of centuries was that all the life that ever existed exists right now. It was these discoveries that changed it. While there was some shoddy science work, especially during the bone wars of the late 1800s, for the most part the evidence was there first and the theories were based off of the evidence. Not the other way around. And indeed new evidence has radically changed how dinosaurs have been viewed when groundbreaking discoveries are made, such as us now knowing that many of them were covered in feathers.

> Even an extinction-level event would not have destroyed the dinosaurs who lived in the deep-ocean

Dinosaurs didn't/don't live in the deep ocean, although some can dive pretty deep. The Emperor Penguin is the current record holder as the deepest diving dinosaur at about 1,850 feet.

First, i would like to congratulate you on the first intelligent post since mine.

Second, like i said before, i didn't wrote those, i didn't came up with those, i didn't came up with the theories or the premises; i just wrote them down for a better discussion than the 1000 pages of "dinos are cool".
I do not defend that they didn't exist, in fact, i like the idea that they did, but it's funny to argue this stuff.

Third, like i also said before, i'm not going to argue about those since i have no information to do so. Once again, i just pasted them here for discussion purposes.
I'm just going to address some:

> "There is no reason to believe that an object of that size (roughly about 10km in diameter) would have been large enough to wipe out all life on Earth."

Sure, but that is one of the theories for dinosaurs to have disappeared, that an asteroid hit the Earth.
"(...) Debris from the explosion was thrown into the atmosphere, severely altering the climate, and leading to the extinction of roughly 3/4 of species that existed at that time, including the dinosaurs."

The idea that they killed all the dinosaurs but not everything makes no sense, imo. Either it didn't happen (the asteroid, not the dinosaurs) or it killed everything.

> "But the big problem is that you are looking at this backwards. You are saying that physics say they can't have existed, therefore they didn't exist. Yet we have proof that they existed, therefore there has to be a reason they were able to."

Not only i didn't said they didn't existed (once again, are not my theories), to say that we have proof ergo it exists is a fallacy.
By that logic, alien abductions are true because many people say so, or the Roswell Incident was factual as described. Or Atlantis, since many scientist vow for it. Or the bible, because...it's the foundation to western civilization.

The point is, there is "proof". A "proof" is something that you can verify as such. What you have are evidences that are given to you and you accept as true.
I'm not saying that is not true (i can't stress this enough), but you need to look at how things are.

 

[BrollySupersj]

Could we get some actual scientific articles talking about the possibility of dinosaurs not existing?

Is that even a thing btw?

 

[DarthSkywalker]

Could we get some actual scientific articles talking about the possibility of dinosaurs not existing?

Is that even a thing btw?

Its the internet. Everything is a thing, no matter how insane.

 

[Kyle]

I didn't even know this was a thing. There are actually people who look at fossil records and go "nope, didn't exist." Is it a conspiracy and fossils, evidence, and records are actually manufactured or something?

 

[Isildur´s Heir]

I didn't even know this was a thing. There are actually people who look at fossil records and go "nope, didn't exist." Is it a conspiracy and fossils, evidence, and records are actually manufactured or something?

You go to a alien lecture and people will say the exact same thing, that is insane to say they didn't came to Earth and abducted people.

As for the "no dinos theory":

http://thetechreader.com/top-ten/top-ten-scientific-flaws-in-the-theory-of-prehistoric-dinosaurs/

Think that just recently, the idea that dinosaurs were covered in feathers came to be.
Just recently, the Tyrannosaurus Rex went from this:

to this

From a giant monster to a giant.....chicken

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

First, i would like to congratulate you on the first intelligent post since mine.

Second, like i said before, i didn't wrote those, i didn't came up with those, i didn't came up with the theories or the premises; i just wrote them down for a better discussion than the 1000 pages of "dinos are cool".
I do not defend that they didn't exist, in fact, i like the idea that they did, but it's funny to argue this stuff.

Third, like i also said before, i'm not going to argue about those since i have no information to do so. Once again, i just pasted them here for discussion purposes.

You're welcome. If you are legitimately interested in learning about the science of it than I apologize. It is just there are a lot of anti-science religious nuts out there and it results in the rest of us being short-tempered when dealing with these sort of questions.

In short, their existence is not in doubt.

I'm just going to address some:

> "There is no reason to believe that an object of that size (roughly about 10km in diameter) would have been large enough to wipe out all life on Earth."

Sure, but that is one of the theories for dinosaurs to have disappeared, that an asteroid hit the Earth.
"(...) Debris from the explosion was thrown into the atmosphere, severely altering the climate, and leading to the extinction of roughly 3/4 of species that existed at that time, including the dinosaurs."

The idea that they killed all the dinosaurs but not everything makes no sense, imo. Either it didn't happen (the asteroid, not the dinosaurs) or it killed everything.

Well, first of all it didn't kill off all the dinosaurs either.

But there is no reason it believed it would kill everything. A lot, absolutely, especially in areas closer to the impact (ie. North America). But animals come in all sorts of widely ranging shapes and sizes and habitats. In a case of massive global climate change like would have accompanied an asteroid strike, it would have disproportionately affected large animals that have larger food and water requirements and a lack of shelter. If it happened today, elephants would be hit a lot harder than mice. And the same was true then.

> "But the big problem is that you are looking at this backwards. You are saying that physics say they can't have existed, therefore they didn't exist. Yet we have proof that they existed, therefore there has to be a reason they were able to."

Not only i didn't said they didn't existed (once again, are not my theories), to say that we have proof ergo it exists is a fallacy.
By that logic, alien abductions are true because many people say so, or the Roswell Incident was factual as described. Or Atlantis, since many scientist vow for it. Or the bible, because...it's the foundation to western civilization.

We aren't talking about something dependent on a handful of eyewitnesses or vague evidence that could easily be misinterpreted. There are hundreds of thousands of specimens of Mesozoic life, much of it complete that can be easily verified. The evidence is overwhelming. If there were verified alien bodies on public display at the Smithsonian, that would be proof too. But there isn't.

 

[Kyle]

Heir, whether covered in feathers or not they're still dinosaurs. We're just finding out more information about them due to the evolution of science and technology. Feathered dinosaurs and non feathered dinosaurs have always just been called dinosaurs, I don't see why that should change upon finding out more than originally suspected had feathers. Just like the land dwellers and aquatics are both called dinosaurs, despite their vast differences from one another. It's a generalized term. We have the bones. Everything else is hard to pinpoint and will continue to evolve.

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

Heir, whether covered in feathers or not they're still dinosaurs. We're just finding out more information about them due to the evolution of science and technology. Feathered dinosaurs and non feathered dinosaurs have always just been called dinosaurs, I don't see why that should change upon finding out more than originally suspected had feathers. Just like the land dwellers and aquatics are both called dinosaurs, despite their vast differences from one another. It's a generalized term. We have the bones. Everything else is hard to pinpoint and will continue to evolve.

The marine reptiles are not called dinosaurs. Neither are pterosaurs, although they at least are closely related.

Don't confuse what popular culture calls a "dinosaur" and what scientists do. Some people also call animals like Dimetrodon dinosaurs even though they are more closely related to us than any dinosaur.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

That is right, feathers means you can't be a dinosaur. I can't wait for the children's book series about the poor feathered dinosaur who couldn't fit in here with the "actual", featherless dinosaurs or with Zuul in another dimension.

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

That is right, feathers means you can't be a dinosaur.

I hope you are being sarcastic, because feathers evolved in dinosauria. It is actually the opposite. If an animal has feathers, it is a dinosaur. At least as far as we know. Maybe in the future we find it in pterosaurs or some other animal, which would change things.

 

[Kyle]

I know not "scientifically" and that they all have separate classifications. However, under pop culture terms - they're all basically clumped together. Is it that someone's saying there should be more classifications because of feathers or that dinosaurs as a whole never existed (which is how I originally took it)?

 

[Cobblepot]

It's amazing to me that there are still people that do not believe dinosaurs, pterosaurs, or giantic marine reptiles were a real thing.

-Why would anyone fake this? If it was fake, why does it have such a huge 'following'. Crop circles, UFO's or Nessie sure doesn't have that much science bakcking it up.
-Where do all the fossils come from? You can't fake giantic bones, teeth etc that imbedded in the soil. The eggs, the footprints etc. There's even partial DNA to be found.
-What about the huge mammals? Mastadont, Sabretooth tigers etc?

(that whole article above is just a comprise of giant lies).

Anyway what to me is the most amazing thing is that I have a aviary in my backyard full of decendants of the prehestoric theropods like T-rex. Off course that thing would have feathers! Can you imagine going outside without your coat all the time?

 

[DarthSkywalker]

I hope you are being sarcastic, because feathers evolved in dinosauria. It is actually the opposite. If an animal has feathers, it is a dinosaur. At least as far as we know. Maybe in the future we find it in pterosaurs or some other animal, which would change things.

The rest of my post did not indicate the sarcasm?

 

[KevanG]

> 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.

I used to find them all the damn time. I used to go to the beach with my mother and sister for vacations. We had a trailer and it was maybe 300 meters from the beach. All along the beach we'd find small rocks with fossil imprints of various shell life.

There's places in my neck of the woods where they section off people from going because people were climbing walls to pull out fossils. Have you heard of fossil walls along the costal regions? It's where the sea has eroded the earth and you literally find fossils hanging out. It's dangerous to go there climbing but if you go at low tide where there's beach and not sharp rocks then you can grab some kick ass stuff.

So yeah, the whole 'no one found fossils' theory is complete bull****.

 

[TheDreamMaster]

So I'm a somewhat religious person, and yet I believe dinosaurs existed. How can people really think this is some sort of conspiracy? And I come across more silly conspiracy nonsense everyday, but really, this is a thing?

 

[Midnyte_Sun]

Moved my post to the next page. In it's stead, I'll just leave this