Religion and Ethics Forum
General Category => Science and Technology => Topic started by: Nearly Sane on August 13, 2018, 09:24:13 AM
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On dinosaur extinction, though I suspect there could be a nasty feud about what is the nastiest feud in science. Fascinating article though.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/09/dinosaur-extinction-debate/565769/
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On dinosaur extinction, though I suspect there could be a nasty feud about what is the nastiest feud in science. Fascinating article though.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/09/dinosaur-extinction-debate/565769/
A fascinating article. For the record, I'm sceptical about the asteroid theory too because of what I read in Robert Bakker's The Dinosaur Heresies (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dinosaur_Heresies).
Science abounds with feuds, though they're usually personal. For example, Newton famously feuded with Robert Hook and Leibniz too IIRC. The feud between the Big Bangers and the Steady Staters probably cost Fred Hoyle a Nobel prize.
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A fascinating article. For the record, I'm sceptical about the asteroid theory too because of what I read in Robert Bakker's The Dinosaur Heresies (http://www.religionethics.co.uk/wiki/The_Dinosaur_Heresies).
Science abounds with feuds, though they're usually personal. For example, Newton famously feuded with Robert Hook and Leibniz too IIRC. The feud between the Big Bangers and the Steady Staters probably cost Fred Hoyle a Nobel prize.
Good point about The Dinosaur Heresies. Have you read anything since that addresses the problems it causes for the asteroid theory?
I think that as you note there is a personal element in all such 'feuds'.
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Good point about The Dinosaur Heresies. Have you read anything since that addresses the problems it causes for the asteroid theory?
Well obviously the article you have posted. Also, a palaeontologist on the TV (Jack Horner, I think) once admitted there were a few non avian dinosaur fossils above the iridium layer.
For those who haven't read the book, Bakker argues that the dinosaurs were clearly in trouble for hundreds of thousands of years before the asteroid hit. He points to a reduction in diversity over that period and conjectures that the sea level dropped allowing previously isolated populations to mingle and disrupt each other. His idea also explains why a lot of the aquatic reptiles like plesiosaurs also got wiped out - they generally lived in shallow seas that disappeared.
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I hate non-fiction articles that start with a twee, patronising anecdotes ("Gerta Keller was waiting for me..."), so I'm afraid I didn't read on.