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panlives![]() Inner circle 2087 Posts ![]() |
"Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?"
"To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time." "The dog did nothing in the night-time." "That was the curious incident," remarked Sherlock Holmes. |
Magnus Eisengrim![]() Inner circle Sulla placed heads on 1064 Posts ![]() |
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The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.--Yeats |
LobowolfXXX![]() Inner circle La Famiglia 1191 Posts ![]() |
Gotta love the classics. It's the furtive look of the one holding the match that really makes this one work. Clearly scouting for a recess supervisor.
"Torture doesn't work" lol
Guess they forgot to tell Bill Buckley. "...as we reason and love, we are able to hope. And hope enables us to resist those things that would enslave us." |
ed rhodes![]() Inner circle Rhode Island 2750 Posts ![]() |
Quote:
On 2011-09-01 09:36, panlives wrote: Everybody wants "one" cause! Is it possible that climate change and volcanic action had the dinosaurs reeling and then the big rock came along and pushed it over the edge?
"There's no time to lose," I heard her say.
"Catch your dreams before they slip away." "Dying all the time, lose your dreams and you could lose your mind. Ain't life unkind?" |
critter![]() Inner circle Spokane, WA 2551 Posts ![]() |
Professor Plum, in the library, with the candlestick.
"The fool is one who doesn't know what you have just found out."
~Will Rogers |
Woland![]() Special user 680 Posts ![]() |
What appears to have occurred in a virtual instant was probably a long, drawn-out process, in which the competitiveness of the dinosaurs was incrementally eroded by a variety of seemingly independent events. The emergence of diseases, loss of habitat, changes in patterns of competition, and perhaps most improtantly the appearance of more resourceful competitors led to their inexorable decline. Such a pattern can be seen in history, and the ultimate collapse of what appeared to be an eternal feature of the social landscape can take place with surprising sudden swiftness. But the rot within had been steadily destroying the edifice for far longer.
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Dannydoyle![]() Eternal Order 20525 Posts ![]() |
Cholesteral.
Danny Doyle
<BR>Semper Occultus <BR>In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act....George Orwell |
Chessmann![]() Inner circle 4015 Posts ![]() |
Quote:
On 2011-09-01 13:11, Woland wrote: Diseases weren't already present? When/how did these diseases emerge, and what were they? Is anything truly known about this? Quote:
loss of habitat How? How do we know this? Quote:
changes in patterns of competition How do we know this? Quote:
and perhaps most improtantly the appearance of more resourceful competitors led to their inexorable decline. Are there any ideas as to who were the more resourceful competitors were? Quote:
Such a pattern can be seen in history... When you say 'can be seen' do you mean 'in general, these types of things occur' or 'these things have been noted in the history/extinction of dinosaurs' ? I hope I'm not coming across rudely (that is not at all my intention!), but these points - to me - seem to be only speculation. A few theories about their extinction are around. I don't embrace any particular one. I do remember once thinking, "How could a meteor strike cause a cloud that would cover much of the earth?" After seeing the size of the 'cloud' during the 9/11 disaster, I adjusted my thinking a bit.
My ex-cat was named "Muffin". "Vomit" would be a better name for her. AKA "The Evil Ball of Fur".
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GlenD![]() Inner circle LosAngeles, Ca 1298 Posts ![]() |
I'm going with the worldwide flood explanation and subsequent domino effect.
Glen
"A miracle is something that seems impossible but happens anyway" - Griffin
"Any future where you succeed, is one where you tell the truth." - Griffin (Griffin rocks!) |
Woland![]() Special user 680 Posts ![]() |
Chessmann,
My suggestions regarding disease and competitors are only conjectures. On land, the competitors would have been the early mammals. In the sae, I'm not sure; perhaps that's why Nessie and her ilk appear to have survived in small numbers. Diseases are always emerging and changing. The AIDS virus, HIV, had been present in Africa for many decades before infection became widespread enough to be transmitted to other continents. And if the virus had become as contagious as, say, measles, hundreds of millions, even billions might have died. But it may be that the dinosaurs simply stopped reproducing. Just as today human fertility rates are falling below the replacement level. In most of the advanced countries, and some that are not-so advanced, populations will fall dramatically, and the proportion of the population that will be aged and infirm will be far more significant than it is even today. The small number of young, healthy workers will be unable to support the much larger number of pensioners, and as the economies collapse, fertility rates will fall even more drastically. This phenomenon is I think historically unprecedented on the scale we are observing today. The extinction of the human species due to a failure to reproduce might seem astounding, but if the paleontological record is correct, then the dinosaurs were around for a lot longer than we have been. |
landmark![]() Inner circle within a triangle 5017 Posts ![]() |
True that fertility rates for humans are dropping, but then dinosaurs never spent the majority of their time snacking on Pringles.
I'm with the Stephen Jay Gould and the punctuated equilibriests--the big changes happen in relatively brief spurts of time as the environment rapidly changes, faster than species can evolve to adapt.
Click here to get Gerald Deutsch's Perverse Magic: The First Sixteen Years
All proceeds to Open Heart Magic charity. |
Woland![]() Special user 680 Posts ![]() |
Gould's notion is interesting, but the adverb "relatively" leaves a lot of wiggle room, doesn't it? What is a "relatively brief" spurt of geological time - a million years? A hundred thousand?
Moreover, my confidence in Gould's work has been shaken by the finding that he must have deliberately falsified the cranial measurements he made in order to discredit Samuel Morton's work: http://content.usatoday.com/communities/......ispute/1 |
Magnus Eisengrim![]() Inner circle Sulla placed heads on 1064 Posts ![]() |
Quote:
Moreover, my confidence in Gould's work has been shaken by the finding that he must have deliberately falsified the cranial measurements he made in order to discredit Samuel Morton's work: Nothing in the link or any of the support links within it suggest "deliberate falsification" by Gould. In fact, if you read the original 1978 Gould article he does not accuse Morton of misconduct, but suggests that Morton's alleged methodological errors were likely due to preconceived (yes, racist) notions. Lewis, et. al. claim that Morton's results were not skewed, as Gould suggests. They conclude Quote:
That Morton's data are reliable despite his clear bias weakens the argument of Gould and others that biased results are endemic in science. Gould was certainly correct to note that scientists are human beings and, as such, are inevitably biased, a point frequently made in “science studies.” But the power of the scientific approach is that a properly designed and executed methodology can largely shield the outcome from the influence of the investigator's bias. Science does not rely on investigators being unbiased “automatons.” Instead, it relies on methods that limit the ability of the investigator's admittedly inevitable biases to skew the results. Morton's methods were sound, and our analysis shows that they prevented Morton's biases from significantly impacting his results. The Morton case, rather than illustrating the ubiquity of bias, instead shows the ability of science to escape the bounds and blinders of cultural contexts. BTW, it is worth noting that Gould was second author in the original Punctuated Equilibrium article. It should be called Eldridge and Gould's theory. But fame does funny things to public consciousness. John
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.--Yeats |
LobowolfXXX![]() Inner circle La Famiglia 1191 Posts ![]() |
Quote:
On 2011-09-02 11:12, Magnus Eisengrim wrote: It's good that Gould acknowledged his own bias. We all would like to think that we look at the world free of presuppositions.
"Torture doesn't work" lol
Guess they forgot to tell Bill Buckley. "...as we reason and love, we are able to hope. And hope enables us to resist those things that would enslave us." |
Dannydoyle![]() Eternal Order 20525 Posts ![]() |
High blood preassure?
Danny Doyle
<BR>Semper Occultus <BR>In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act....George Orwell |
GlenD![]() Inner circle LosAngeles, Ca 1298 Posts ![]() |
I thought we had an over-population crisis to be concerned about, now it's extinction due to fertility rates? Really? Classic dammed if you do and dammed if you don't. Although the fertility rate leveling off situation (not declining yet) is primarily in "developed" countries and regions, is it not? So, it's not really a species extinction kind of issue, but whatever. I think these investigations and studies are interesting and somewhat noteworthy but they typically end up being touted as the latest crisis that's gonna get us all! The next thing you know, new laws, bans and all kinds of other crap follow so we can be saved.
"A miracle is something that seems impossible but happens anyway" - Griffin
"Any future where you succeed, is one where you tell the truth." - Griffin (Griffin rocks!) |
Woland![]() Special user 680 Posts ![]() |
The "population bomb" described by Paul Ehrlich was supposed to lead to mass starvation by the 1980s . . . it was just the apocalypse du jour, as you say . . . like the current AGW histrionics . . . but the disappearance of the (big) dinosaurs is certainly factual . . . I say "big" dinosaurs because the little dinosaurs are . . . birds. And there are still quite a lot of them walking around.
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Erwin![]() New user 56 Posts ![]() |
Cavemen done ate them.
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Dr. Solar![]() Special user Citrus Heights, Ca. 526 Posts ![]() |
You are in the midst of finding out yourselves. As for the reproductive decline, nature's way of not having to say good bye to your offspring. Something you never heard, deforestation, the voracious appetites of the over extended populations of large plant eaters and large feet of all the others that trampled the once fertile landscapes over time thinned the oxygen,reduced the food stuff and as the animals made their way back to the now Equator zone from the North and South that they ate their ways towards, they were met with nothing but parched arid lands. Oh, please don't argue. Just look around, it's what they say, "history repeats itself". Take out another forest for your Starbucks coffee plantation, another thousand areas for cheap IKEA furniture while opening up the land for another million Mc Burgers. What? Another tornado in tornado town, strip another forest to rebuild only this time, make them bigger. You get the picture, caveman.
"look for me in all things forgotten"
www.drsolar.com |
critter![]() Inner circle Spokane, WA 2551 Posts ![]() |
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"The fool is one who doesn't know what you have just found out."
~Will Rogers |
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