RE: Is it snowing in Oregon?

["Stewart, Dwight" <Dwight.Stewart@VLSI.com>]

   Nothing dies a more protracted death than a cherished paradigm.  :-)
At least when we scientists use double talk, we use larger words & more
tortured
logic than politicians do, so even that can prove "educational".
   Even Albert Einstein wasn't above the "ole soft shoe".  Ahmmm
So, it appears that they did AND they didn't.  Impressive.

Cheers;
Dwight

        -----Original Message-----
        From:   luisrey [SMTP:luisrey@ndirect.co.uk]
        Sent:   Friday, January 22, 1999 2:51 AM
        To:     dinosaur@usc.edu
        Subject:        CNN:Is it snowing in Oregon?

        Finally news! The Oregon Team have back down and agreed that
dinosaurs were
        warm blooded! I just wish they would have done it in a more clear
way
        without boggling everyone's minds. Correct me if I'm wrong, but this
CNN
        thing  can be counted among the most complex array of rubbish and
        contradictory stuff that I have ever come about in the net... but
then it
        is just the Oregon Team in their inimitable style.

         >>Meat-eating dinosaurs may have been
        technically reptilian, but they could run fast enough and long
enough to
        chase down any prey they wanted, researchers said on Thursday.
        Studies on the fossilized remains of a baby dinosaur found in Italy
show
        it probably was cold-blooded like a reptile, but had the metabolic
        capacity of a  modern mammal or bird.

        Cold-blooded as a reptile with the metabolism of a mammal or a
bird??? One
        thing or the other or both? Technically speaking, having a mammal or
bird
        metabolism would imply just that: warmbloodedness, or if you prefer
        homeothermy or endothermy, no matter what 'type' or what strategy is
used,
        the inner temperature and metabolism are still controlled
internally, and
        NOT just regulated by the environment.


        >>John Ruben, who also worked on the study, noted that reptiles such
as
        crocodiles can move quickly in short bursts.
        >>"They can sprint," he said in a telephone interview. "The
difference is
        that warm-blooded animals (such as birds and mammals) can maintain
this
        for a lot longer. They have a lot more stamina. And that is what we
are
        saying the  theropod dinosaurs had."

        Here it is: finally the Oregon Team agree that dinosaurs were not
crocs or
        reptiles and were warm blooded, since they didn't have 'reptilian'
        metabolism and were much more like birds and mammals than
crocodiles.

        >>So they would be as quick and ruthless as a crocodile, with the
stamina
        of a modern-day carnivore such as a lion.

        Right, so we know now that dinosaurs were crocodiles that behaved
        metabolically like a lion. Dinosaurs were warm-blooded crocodiles.
        It seems that 'cold-blooded' is an empirically acquired
trascendental
        characteristic of any and all reptiles...dinosaurs are reptiles ergo
they
        should be cold-blooded. Keep the birds out of this... but didn't we
agree
        before that birds are 'reptiles'?

        >>"What you have is a turbocharged reptile," Geist said.
        The layout was like that of a creature that breathes with a
diaphragm,
        like humans and other mammals do. That implies a breathing capacity
much
        greater than that seen in most living reptiles.

        'Breathing like humans and mammals' (their words not mine), but hey,
STILL
        A REPTILE (Please note that the term is used here as an archaism).
        Dinosaurs were mammal-mimics. They just pretended to be warm
blooded.

        >>If dinosaurs were cold-blooded, that could explain why they died
out 65
        million years ago, Ruben said.

        They ceased to be 'turbos' when the environment went cold... what
happened
        with all the energetic mammal-like crocs stuff? And all despite that
        there's no evidence of immediate cooling of the climate from the
Cretaceous
        to the Paleocene (please can someone provide evidence for a
Paleocene Ice
        Age?) , and the fact that dinosaurs lived happily in the seasonal
North
        Pole for a very long time.

        And all this coming from the people that mistook fossil slab's glue
for
        Sinosauropteryx internal organ traces and combed dead sea snake
tissue to
        made it look like Sino's protofeathers.

        Fabulous fun!

        Luis Rey

        Visit my website on http://www.ndirect.co.uk/~luisrey