[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index][Subject Index][Author Index]
Re: As the kids say, *facepalm*... [Scanned]
That would be preferable, and seems plausible. Unfortunately, I happen to know
that there is another individual (by the name of David Esker) with a similar
sort of odd, looney background that has made similar suggestions on the web (in
his case, that the air was super dense like water). That makes me think that
they have rubbed off on one another and that this is not a hoax (Esker has
previously done the web rounds heckling Mark Witton and myself, among others).
Trying to pull some kind of useful information out of this travesty, we might
take note that the knee-jerk "X animal must be too big to Y" has plagued
paleontological inquiry for over a century. It has been particularly applied
to Mesozoic vertebrates (dinosaurs and pterosaurs, especially), and while this
bit of facepalm worthy thinking is thankfully more or less gone from the
professional paleontological community, it does crop up from time to time among
those without specialized training. In short the "general public" is very bad
at understanding the biological consequences of size, which is something I
suspect most of us in the professional and advanced amateur community forget.
--Mike H.
On Apr 3, 2012, at 8:57 AM, Mike Taylor wrote:
> It is possible that the Aquatic Dino story start out that way, then
> blew up out of control?
>
> -- Mike.
Michael Habib
Assistant Professor of Biology
Chatham University
Woodland Road, Pittsburgh PA 15232
Buhl Hall, Room 226A
mhabib@chatham.edu
(443) 280-0181