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Were these birds bigger than dinosaurs? https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/the-birds-are-not-dinosaurs-movement/ https://blogs.scientificame
by nonbel 8y ago
Were these birds bigger than dinosaurs?
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/the-birds-are-not-dinosaurs-movement/ https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/the-bi...
- nine_k 8y agoAccording to the modern taxonomy, birds are dinosaurs, with a pretty straight lineage.
- nonbel 8y agoThats what I meant to imply. Dinosaurs are a type of bird that were bigger than "elephant birds", so the headline is (most likely) wrong.
- throwaway2048 8y agoDinosaurs are not a type of bird, just as a rectangle isn't (necessarily) a square.
- wavefunction 8y agoYou have the direction of the time vector descriptor backwards.
- nonbel 8y agoI've never heard of a "time vector descriptor", so what do you mean?
- close04 8y agoBirds are a type of dinosaur called recently avian dinosaur. The other dinosaurs (non-avian dinosaurs) are definitely not a type of bird. So no, the title is not really wrong unless there is a yet undiscovered bird that's even larger. The elephant bird was the biggest bird (or avian-dinosaur) that ever existed. It was smaller than other non-avian dinosaurs but these were not birds so no point comparing. The confusion you are making is sometimes described as politician's syllogism. [0] 1) All birds are dinosaurs 2) All land dinosaurs are dinosaurs 3) Therefore, land dinosaurs are birds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politician%27s_syllogism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politician%27s_syllogism
- nonbel 8y agoApparently some people think birds are dinosaurs and other people (sometimes even the same person) think dinosaurs are birds: 'There has been a recent revival of interest in the famous Early Triassic thecodont Euparkeria, and Welman (1995) has discovered a suite of avian-like anatomical features in the basicranium. Paul (2002:179), an ardent advocate of the “birds-are-dinosaurs,” and more recently, “dinosaurs-are-birds” school, admits that, “Euparkeria is a suitable ancestral type for birds … and … Euparkeria is a good ancestral type for all archosaurs.”' https://doi.org/10.1642/0004-8038(2002)119[1187:BADSAT]2.0.CO;2 https://doi.org/10.1642/0004-8038(2002)119[1187:BADSAT]2.0.C... I still don't see what this has to do with a "time vector descriptor".
- patient_zero 8y agoAs long as we're on the topic, not all of what we (the laymen) think of as dinosaurs were dinosaurs! Maybe you knew that already but I only recently discovered that fact and now I'm sharing it. From the wikipedia page: "Other prehistoric animals, including mosasaurs, ichthyosaurs, pterosaurs, plesiosaurs, and Dimetrodon, while often popularly conceived of as dinosaurs, are not taxonomically classified as dinosaurs. Pterosaurs are distantly related to dinosaurs, being members of the clade Ornithodira. The other groups mentioned are, like dinosaurs, members of Sauropsida (the reptile and bird clade), with the exception of Dimetrodon (which is a synapsid)."
- avip 8y agoI really enjoy the everchanging Dino-taxonomy. I have a book about Dinosaurs that I read to my kids, and I think most of it would currently be considered wrong.
- close04 8y agoUnless someone enjoys this subject there's no reason they'd know about the different classifications. I read a lot about this stuff but still need to freshen up my knowledge every time I have a conversation about this for two reasons: the topic is too complex for an amateur and it also tends to be relatively fluid, changing based on new discoveries or theories. Always keep Wikipedia handy :). If you ever look at different "artist's depiction" drawings about "dinosaurs" you might notice plenty of misconceptions: anatomically incorrect (and impossible) positions, strange mixes of species living in vastly different time periods, animals that aren't actually dinosaurs, etc.
- wavefunction 8y agogoogle the constituents of the phrase and build it up from there birds are dinosaurs and dinosaurs aren't birds you've reversed the vectored direction of time in your claim
- nonbel 8y agoWhat does a classification have to do with time? Edit: And what does "vector" add to your sentences?
- rejectedalot 8y agoI think since a vector has a direction, he’s suggesting that the direction of the vector is pointed “the wrong way” with respect to time
- nonbel 8y agoWhat is the difference in meaning between: A: "you've reversed the vectored direction of time in your claim" B: "you've reversed the direction of time in your claim"
- wavefunction 8y agotime has multiple vectors downvote me if you will but you were the one claiming dinosaurs are birds
- nonbel 8y agoI'm not downvoting anything, just trying to figure out what you are trying to say. Can you give names to the multiple vectors of time?
- ComputerGuru 8y agoThe scientific consensus is that while there are significantly many dimensions to the time space continuum, time makes is only one of those dimensions. Whether or not it is a strictly unidirectional component may be under some debate, but even in quantum mechanics and hypotheses like string theory, there aren’t multiple vectors to time, as it has only one axis and no start or end (that we know of). A vector necessarily has a start, end, and direction.
- chongli 8y agoPerhaps you're thinking of the creatures we saw in Jurassic Park? Yeah, those are somewhat inaccurate. Velociraptor, for example, was the size of a turkey and covered in feathers, with its long tail held upwards, like this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velociraptor#/media/File%3AVelociraptor_Restoration.png https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velociraptor#/media/File%3AV... Yeah, basically a weird bird.
- pvaldes 8y ago> Dinosaurs are a type of bird The opposite. Birds are a type of dinosaurs, but the biggest dinosaurs like Triceratops weren't birds. I'm not wrong, feathers were found in small or middle sized dinosaurs, smaller than the elephant birds.
- Pica_soO 8y agoYes, we at them- and thousand mammalian ancestors, trampled by T-Rexes and eaten for snacks- cheered when we made the last omelette of victory. Mammals first!
- jtolmar 8y agoCapybaras are the largest rodent but not the largest mammal. Elephants birds were the largest bird but not the largest dinosaur.
- lostlogin 8y agoMoa, from New Zealand, were considerably taller (3.5-4m tall versus 3m tall) but much lighter (230kg versus 500kg). https://hubpages.com/animals/Comparing-the-Moa-and-The-Elephant-Bird-Two-Large-Extinct-Flightless-Birds https://hubpages.com/animals/Comparing-the-Moa-and-The-Eleph...
- ksherlock 8y agoI'm not a dinosaur expert (but this is hacker news, so...). You know who else wasn't a dinosaur expert? All those people back in the 1800s who lumped theropods, sauropods, and everything else together and called them dinosaurs. So now the definition of dinosaur is, paraphrased from wikipedia, "anything from descended from the most recent ancestor of all the stuff we want to call a dinosaur". I can believe ostriches and elephant birds and small theropods are related. Can you believe the possibly imaginary Brontosaurus and T Rex are related? Is there an intellectually honest reason to lump them together?
- avip 8y agoBrontosaurus was rebranded as Apatosaurus.
- stan_rogers 8y agoSort of. Apatosaurus was first, so Brontosaurus lost out as a junior synonym (first to name the things get to name the things, which gives us a silly name meaning "hyrax-like beast" - hyracotherium - for something that's obviously the dawn horse - eohippus)... except that there's very good reason now to believe that they weren't the same species.
- quadrangle 8y agoSure, there's an intellectually sound reason for the lumping: There was a long period of earth's history where enormous reptiles were prominent, and almost all but the crocodile family died out. So, it makes sense to have a word for all the age-of-reptiles reptiles we see in fossils. "Dinosaurs" works great. As such, it includes pterosaurs and sea reptiles even.
- ksherlock 8y agoplesiosaurs and pterosaurs aren't currently considered dinosaurs.