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My son is a dinosaur enthusiast to say the least. At some point, well into his accumulation of Dino facts we read an old book I had as a kid (mid 80s) and the

My son is a dinosaur enthusiast to say the least. At some point, well into his accumulation of Dino facts we read an old book I had as a kid (mid 80s) and the book says all kinds of weird stuff I forget but abruptly ends with “they went extinct and we may never know how” and my son (age 4 at the time) is at a loss for words, “it was a asteroid dad, what dummy wrote this book?” For weeks he’d randomly look at me, “hey dad, remember that book that didn’t even know how dinosaurs went extinct? Sigh with disappointment.” I hadn’t realized this was such a contemporary discovery that it wasn’t even part of my own initial understanding and education on the topic.

zamadatix 1y ago
This led to finding a fun easter egg Googling "Chicxulub Crater" https://www.google.com/search?q=Chicxulub+Crater https://www.google.com/search?q=Chicxulub+Crater
ender341341 1y ago
I started school in the 90s and mostly remember it as "we're pretty sure it was a meteor but it's really hard to know for sure", but looks like 1980 was when it was first seriously theorized. Its definitely one of those things where every once in a while I'll be reading about some historical figure and remember that they'd never been able to hear of dinosaurs.
vel0city 1y ago
It might be more complicated than that. While the Chicxulub impact probably played a big role in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, there are potentially other sources of why it was as bad as it was. The eruption of the Deccan Traps may have also played an important part in the mass extinction event. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deccan_Traps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deccan_Traps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretaceous%E2%80%93Paleogene_extinction_event https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretaceous%E2%80%93Paleogene_e...
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- IAmBroom 1y ago
  Sure, but if a cancer patient gets shot, "he was already sick" isn't a legal defense.
  - vel0city 1y ago
    Which one is the gun and which one is the cancer in this scenario? Would the cancer patient survived the gun shot if they weren't already weakened from cancer treatments and disease progression? Would they have survived the cancer if they didn't experience the trauma of the gunshot wound? I don't think we definitively have the answers to that question IRT what killed the dinosaurs.
heikkilevanto 1y ago
They are not extinct. There are a few making noises in the trees in my backyard now, and I dined on some dino-meat today!
- skrebbel 1y ago
  omnom gonna get me some Kentucky Fried Dinosaur!
pests 1y ago
Fantasia gets this wrong, depicting the dinosaurs dying from lack of water.
- IAmBroom 1y ago
  But there were blonde centaurs, right? Right?
nicce 1y ago
I thought that it still isn’t really known? Is is one common theory, but we have just probabilities to play with.
- zamadatix 1y ago
  Descartes would like a word as well, I'm sure. The big difference in the impact theory story is it's the first time we had enough evidence about any of the possibilities that widespread consensus (but not universal agreement it is the sole possible cause) was reached. Prior to that we weren't really sure if we'd even be able to get to that level about it. At least if the theory is replaced it'll be about something we see even clearer evidence of instead of "I dunno, could possibly have been...".
- adastra22 1y ago
  It'll be settled when the generation of researchers who fought over it retire/die off. The short TL;DR is that the guy who came up with the asteroid theory knew basically nothing about paleontology and paleoclimate, was way outside of his depth (he was a physicist that worked on the Manhattan project). He then made some pretty wild claims given the evidence that was available. When criticized by people who actually knew the field, he would personally attack them and drive public support against them as dinosaurs in a field of dinosaur research. Then the Chicxulub crater was found and dated to basically the exact same time as the K-T extinction event to within experimental error. So I guess the asshole was right? Except science doesn't work by smoking guns, as appealing as that would be. There are a lot of contradictory evidence. Better instruments and more careful data collection shows that in some places the fossil record stops prior to the impact layer. Also the fossils are of animals you would expect of an extinction event already ongoing. Oh, and coincidentally right before the Chicxulub impact India hit the continent of Asia and the Deccan Traps started spewing CO2 and other gasses into the atmosphere in volumes that put human-caused climate change to shame. The ocean was acidifying and ecosystems collapsing. Is it really fair to say an asteroid impact killed the dinosaurs, when they were already on the way out? IMHO the current best theory is the "one-two punch" that the Deccan traps eruptions basically put every large species on extinction watch, then the asteroid impact happened and finished the job. But it has become so political within that research community that people just aren't rational about the evidence, on either side.
codeduck 1y ago
I remember the first time Brontosaurus was Brontosaurus.
aimor 1y ago
When I was a kid I loved "Dinosaur Time" by Peggy Parish (and illustrated by Arnold Lobel). Originally published in 1974 it ends, "Dinosaurs lived everywhere for a long time. Then they died. Nobody knows why. But once it was their world. It was Dinosaur Time." There was a revision to the book (not sure the date) with changes to the text and an expanded author's note at the end that talks about the new things we understand about dinosaurs including how Brachiosaurus are no longer believed to have spent their time in water to support their weight and how it's now believed an asteroid killed off the dinosaurs. Original: https://archive.org/details/dinosaurtime00pari https://archive.org/details/dinosaurtime00pari
carlosjobim 1y ago
Nothing new was discovered, there is no better evidence now than when that book was written in the 80s. We're just living in a new era of scientific understanding where it is taboo to say or write that any question is not answered.
kbelder 1y ago
I remember way back when I was in the 5th grade, I read an old book my school had about the planets, and it talked about how some astronomers are looking for a ninth planet, one even further away than Neptune. Kind of funny, that now due to astronomer's shenanigans, we're back in the same position.

zamadatix 1y ago

This led to finding a fun easter egg Googling "Chicxulub Crater" https://www.google.com/search?q=Chicxulub+Crater https://www.google.com/search?q=Chicxulub+Crater

ender341341 1y ago

I started school in the 90s and mostly remember it as "we're pretty sure it was a meteor but it's really hard to know for sure", but looks like 1980 was when it was first seriously theorized. Its definitely one of those things where every once in a while I'll be reading about some historical figure and remember that they'd never been able to hear of dinosaurs.

vel0city 1y ago

It might be more complicated than that. While the Chicxulub impact probably played a big role in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, there are potentially other sources of why it was as bad as it was. The eruption of the Deccan Traps may have also played an important part in the mass extinction event. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deccan_Traps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deccan_Traps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretaceous%E2%80%93Paleogene_extinction_event https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretaceous%E2%80%93Paleogene_e...

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
IAmBroom 1y ago
Sure, but if a cancer patient gets shot, "he was already sick" isn't a legal defense.
- vel0city 1y ago
  Which one is the gun and which one is the cancer in this scenario? Would the cancer patient survived the gun shot if they weren't already weakened from cancer treatments and disease progression? Would they have survived the cancer if they didn't experience the trauma of the gunshot wound? I don't think we definitively have the answers to that question IRT what killed the dinosaurs.

heikkilevanto 1y ago

They are not extinct. There are a few making noises in the trees in my backyard now, and I dined on some dino-meat today!

skrebbel 1y ago
omnom gonna get me some Kentucky Fried Dinosaur!

pests 1y ago

Fantasia gets this wrong, depicting the dinosaurs dying from lack of water.

IAmBroom 1y ago
But there were blonde centaurs, right? Right?

nicce 1y ago

I thought that it still isn’t really known? Is is one common theory, but we have just probabilities to play with.

zamadatix 1y ago
Descartes would like a word as well, I'm sure. The big difference in the impact theory story is it's the first time we had enough evidence about any of the possibilities that widespread consensus (but not universal agreement it is the sole possible cause) was reached. Prior to that we weren't really sure if we'd even be able to get to that level about it. At least if the theory is replaced it'll be about something we see even clearer evidence of instead of "I dunno, could possibly have been...".
adastra22 1y ago
It'll be settled when the generation of researchers who fought over it retire/die off. The short TL;DR is that the guy who came up with the asteroid theory knew basically nothing about paleontology and paleoclimate, was way outside of his depth (he was a physicist that worked on the Manhattan project). He then made some pretty wild claims given the evidence that was available. When criticized by people who actually knew the field, he would personally attack them and drive public support against them as dinosaurs in a field of dinosaur research. Then the Chicxulub crater was found and dated to basically the exact same time as the K-T extinction event to within experimental error. So I guess the asshole was right? Except science doesn't work by smoking guns, as appealing as that would be. There are a lot of contradictory evidence. Better instruments and more careful data collection shows that in some places the fossil record stops prior to the impact layer. Also the fossils are of animals you would expect of an extinction event already ongoing. Oh, and coincidentally right before the Chicxulub impact India hit the continent of Asia and the Deccan Traps started spewing CO2 and other gasses into the atmosphere in volumes that put human-caused climate change to shame. The ocean was acidifying and ecosystems collapsing. Is it really fair to say an asteroid impact killed the dinosaurs, when they were already on the way out? IMHO the current best theory is the "one-two punch" that the Deccan traps eruptions basically put every large species on extinction watch, then the asteroid impact happened and finished the job. But it has become so political within that research community that people just aren't rational about the evidence, on either side.

codeduck 1y ago

I remember the first time Brontosaurus was Brontosaurus.

aimor 1y ago

When I was a kid I loved "Dinosaur Time" by Peggy Parish (and illustrated by Arnold Lobel). Originally published in 1974 it ends, "Dinosaurs lived everywhere for a long time. Then they died. Nobody knows why. But once it was their world. It was Dinosaur Time." There was a revision to the book (not sure the date) with changes to the text and an expanded author's note at the end that talks about the new things we understand about dinosaurs including how Brachiosaurus are no longer believed to have spent their time in water to support their weight and how it's now believed an asteroid killed off the dinosaurs. Original: https://archive.org/details/dinosaurtime00pari https://archive.org/details/dinosaurtime00pari

carlosjobim 1y ago

Nothing new was discovered, there is no better evidence now than when that book was written in the 80s. We're just living in a new era of scientific understanding where it is taboo to say or write that any question is not answered.

kbelder 1y ago

I remember way back when I was in the 5th grade, I read an old book my school had about the planets, and it talked about how some astronomers are looking for a ninth planet, one even further away than Neptune. Kind of funny, that now due to astronomer's shenanigans, we're back in the same position.