Scientific Dogma Blasted: Thou shalt beleive that Dinosaurs are Giant Lizards!

[GuzzyBone]

All we have is the fossil record of skeletal remains of what we call "Dinosaurs" and through time we have attributed them to have scaled skin and lizard-like features, bringing the eternal dragon mythology to life... despite flying in the face of all collected evidence.

1. It is a physical impossibility for Dinosaurs to have been cold-blood creatures:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2370365/Dinosaurs-NOT-cold-blooded-physically-weak-claim-scientists.html

(a simple internet search reveals this same claim repeated over and over and over)

From the very top of Wikipedia's "Physiology of Dinosaurs":
 

 

The physiology of dinosaurs has historically been a controversial subject, particularly thermoregulation. Recently, many new lines of evidence have been brought to bear on dinosaur physiology generally, including not only metabolic systems and thermoregulation, but on respiratory and cardiovascular systems as well.

During the early years of dinosaur paleontology, it was widely considered that they were sluggish, cumbersome, and sprawling cold-blooded lizards. However, with the discovery of much more complete skeletons in western United States, starting in the 1870s, scientists could make more informed interpretations of dinosaur biology and physiology. Edward Drinker Cope, opponent of Othniel Charles Marsh in the Bone Wars, propounded at least some dinosaurs as active and agile, as seen in the painting of two fighting "Laelaps" produced under his direction by Charles R. Knight.^[1]

In parallel, the development of Darwinian evolution, and the discoveries of Archaeopteryx and Compsognathus, led Thomas Henry Huxley to propose that dinosaurs were closely related to birds.^[2]Despite these considerations, the image of dinosaurs as large reptiles had already taken root,^[1] and most aspects of their paleobiology were interpreted as being typically reptilian for the first half of the twentieth century.^[3] Beginning in the 1960s and with the advent of the Dinosaur Renaissance, views of dinosaurs and their physiology have changed dramatically, including the discovery of feathered dinosaurs in Early Cretaceous age deposits in China, indicating that birds evolved from highly agile maniraptoran dinosaurs.

2. The closest living relatives are BIRDS

From Wikipedia on "Dinosaurs":
 

 

The fossil record indicates that birds evolved from theropod dinosaurs during the Jurassic Period and, consequently, they are considered a subgroup of dinosaurs.^[1] Some birds survived the extinction event that occurred 65 million years ago, and their descendants continue the dinosaur lineage to the present day.^[2]

Through the first half of the 20th century, before birds were recognized to be dinosaurs, most of the scientific community believed dinosaurs to have been sluggish and cold-blooded. Most research conducted since the 1970s, however, has indicated that all dinosaurs were active animals with elevated metabolisms and numerous adaptations for social interaction.

The discovery that birds are a type of dinosaur showed that dinosaurs in general are not, in fact, extinct as is commonly stated.
 

"Dinosaur renaissance"

Main article: Dinosaur renaissance

Paleontologist Robert T. Bakker with mounted skeleton of a tyrannosaurid (Gorgosaurus libratus)

The field of dinosaur research has enjoyed a surge in activity that began in the 1970s and is ongoing. This was triggered, in part, by John Ostrom's discovery of Deinonychus, an active predator that may have been warm-blooded, in marked contrast to the then-prevailing image of dinosaurs as sluggish and cold-blooded. Vertebrate paleontology has become a global science. Major new dinosaur discoveries have been made by paleontologists working in previously unexploited regions, including India, South America, Madagascar, Antarctica, and most significantly China (the amazingly well-preserved feathered dinosaurs in China have further consolidated the link between dinosaurs and their living descendants, modern birds). The widespread application of cladistics, which rigorously analyzes the relationships between biological organisms, has also proved tremendously useful in classifying dinosaurs. Cladistic analysis, among other modern techniques, helps to compensate for an often incomplete and fragmentary fossil record.^[182]

 

This same article on WIkipedia routinely reaffirms the myth that "Dinosaurs" are "Reptiles" yet this thesis is never evidenced or supported in any way. However it does contain an entire section detailing the vast discoveries linking the biology of BIRDS to Dinosaurs.

3. The word Raptor itself is an avian term for Bird of Prey.

4. The question of gimpy little arms (vestigial wings) on Dinosaurs and the beak-like mouths of species like Triceratops is easily answered in comparison with species of birds on earth, particularly the skeletons of Emus and Ostrich.

I could link pictures of Ostrich and Emu skeletons or you could continue this research yourself. I could show you numerous studies and evidence that supports my claims or you can research this further yourself.

You could also call me a heretic and continue believe the batshit mythology that is taught to you in public school and thus accepted wholesale by the establishment of Big Science despite all contradiction within the evidence.

Conclusion: Dinosaurs were likely flightless and flightful species of prehistoric and gigantic birds. All evidence suggests the likely-hood of feathers. There is no evidence to support the myth of cold-blood or reptilian scaled dinosaurs in any way shape or form, but regardless the Dogma of Science refuses to adapt and change cultural perception.

 

[WasatchMan]

ummm... what scientific dogma are you talking about? It was only because of the discipline known as science that we know that dinosaurs are not lizards....

 

I think you have confused lizards for all reptiles... Dinosaurs were (are) reptiles (birds are reptiles under the phylogenetics classifications system).

 

From the Smithsonian website (can't get much more "big science" than this):

 

4. The word dinosaur means "terrible-lizard."

 

Actually it was originally defined to mean "fearfully-great lizard", by Richard Owen in 1842. The greek word "deinos", when used as a superlative, means "fearfully-great" (as used by Homer in The Iliad). It became simplified over time, as a simple adjective, to mean "terrible". Dinosaurs are neither terrible nor are they lizards!

 

Where did you get this idea that science claims that dinosaurs are lizards?  How can you claim that scientific institutions "refuses to adapt and change cultural perception"?

 

Did you even read the stuff you quoted?? The first quote you provide lays out the scientific progression of the discovery of dinosaurs not being lizards...

[Wuzzums]

Disproving science using science. Surely the irony must not escape you.

[WasatchMan]

Disproving science using science. Surely the irony must not escape you.

 

My thoughts exactly...

[shirgall]

[ParaSait]

Isn't it the case that dinosaurs weren't birds, but birds did evolve from dinosaurs? At least that's what I always thought.

[GuzzyBone]

 

Reptiles, the class Reptilia, are an evolutionary grade of animals, comprising today's turtles, crocodilians, snakes, lizards and tuatara, their extinct relatives, and some of the extinct ancestors of mammals. Due to their evolutionary history and the diversity of extinct forms, the validity of the class is not universally supported in scientific circles, though in practice, it remains in use by some biologists and more laymen, especially in mass media. The study of reptiles, historically combined with that of amphibians, is called herpetology.

Science doesn't necessarily fully agree on things any more than Religious sects fully agree on anything, just as definitions of words themselves can vary and differ in cultures and textbooks.

 

Regardless the larger part of the scientific community, the media, public education, and cultural conditioning has taught people to accept with very little question, the idea that Dinosaurs share the traits of the traditional definition and perception of a "reptile" (cold blood, scaley skin, lizard-like tongues and movements). This is where dogmas of past misconceptions and assumptions overrides all evidence and example.

 

Are you going to deny that despite all evidence to the contrary, the Scientific community continues to portray Dinosaurs with these physical properties?

 

The majority portrayal and description of Dinosaurs with these classical reptilian physical properties defy all reasonable assumption and theory based on reason and evidence, yet somehow it persists through an unwillingness to abandon or challenge the dogma of the past that we have taken for granted as "truth".

 

When scientific community at large is saying through their actions that "The evidence indicates Dinosaurs are technically like birds in nearly every way, but we will continue to call them "Reptiles" and portray them with Repitilian features that have very little resemblance to birds at all, despite no evidence to support this portrayal." Ladies and gentlemen, we have Dogma. This is the same kind of dogmatic faith that refused to change perception of the Sun's revolutions, and ostracized or attacked contrary models and theories. You many not see that, but it's true. People have held the mythology of scaley cold-blood dinosaurs for so long that they have an emotional resistance to admitting it's unreasonable to portray Dinosaurs this way, and so, refuse to portray it accurately with what has been learned.

 

I can't use minority or differing theories/opinions of within the Scientific community to point out contradiction and misconceptions in the beliefs of a majority or establishment? I guess you should tell Richard Dawkins he can't do that either for Religion, or do I have to play by different rules?

[GuzzyBone]

This is an edit of an above post that has yet to be moderator approved:

Birds have scales and lizards/reptiles have scales in different types and different ways. The Dinosaur fossil record is in-line with bird-like scales with also variations of some reptile-like scales, however the presense of feathers is found in conjunction with scales in the most well-preserved specimens. This drastically conflicts with modern portrayal and reconstruction of Dinosaurs in scientific media, entertainment, and museum.

[shirgall]

http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/diapsids/summarythermy.html

[GuzzyBone]

Good article. Thank you. Would love to see the establishment, particularly the media, be more willingly to let go misconceptions of the past in favor of newer evidence.

The worst example of dogmatically refusing to let go and evolve is the case of Pangea, which is almost theological in it's mythical qualities of 1 single special island on a vast ball of water. This deserves a thread of it's own, but the gist is that Expanding Earth/Growing Earth theory clicks perfectly. It answers so many questions of the chronology of the Earth, why fossils and artifacts are buried so deep, the beginning of water, contintents fitting together like a puzzle (on ALL sides), fossil locations accross continents, and human migration patterns without the need for bandage theories like Ice/Land Bridges.

[shirgall]

Good article. Thank you. Would love to see the establishment, particularly the media, be more willingly to let go misconceptions of the past in favor of newer evidence.

 

The same media that is ushering in the coronation of the next Demoautocrat?