Lies Sleeping

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What do you mean by "unwilling to peer-assess"? Do you mean there are people who refuse to review a manuscript even if they have the time necessary for it? We might speculate that brain tissue may be repurposed from managing physical processes, temporarily, for thinking. Or, we might speculate that some percentage of brain tissue might be stolen from physical-process management to think with, instead. But brain tissue is used as much for more-or-less passive sensory processing (visual, auditory) as for managing the body, for which body size should make little or no difference. That is, a body of size X reasonably needs nervous system tissue in quantity kX (not all intra-cranial, necessarily) to manage it, plus some constant amount Y for sensory evaluation, and further amount Z to think with. Y and Z ought to be independent of body mass X. Moving on, here we come to the next coincidence as, while working with Jeff Liston in Glasgow's Hunterian Museum during November 2007, I learnt that views essentially identical to those expressed by John had managed to get into the non-fictional literature elsewhere, thanks to an obscure little 1993 tome by one Mike Magee, titled Who Lies Sleeping: the Dinosaur Heritage and the Extinction of Man. Thanks to Jeff, I've since gotten hold of this book. The easiest way to get cited is to solve a problem in a new way without breaking the overall paradigm, that then catches on in the general media.

And I haven't even got to the anatomy of the theropod pelvis yet. It is simply not possible to make the thighs parallel to the tail, because this would overshorten several muscles so they wouldn't work anymore and would give other muscles a very unfavorable angle of insertion. Moreover, if you load such a tortured construction with weight, something breaks; the weight-bearing part of the pelvis is simply elsewhere than where it would be needed for a vertical body. It’s witty, fun, and full of vivid characters, and the plot twists will keep even seasoned mystery fans guessing.”— Publishers Weekly The nuclear war that finished off anthroposaur society explains the evidence for global wildfires, the bits of stressed quartz and the tektites interpreted by others as evidence for asteroid impact. Mummified dinosaurs - like Sternberg's famous Edmontosaurus from Wyoming [shown here] - surely owe their remarkable preservation to this global nuclear conflict: I think my favourite sentences in the whole book are 'Dinosaur mummies are rare, but when found they are usually late Cretaceous hadrosaurs. Why should they have died so perfectly and been preserved? Because they died of gamma radiation and neutrons which preserved them as surely as it would preserve strawberries in a plastic bag?' (Magee 1993, p. 148). My book or some other book said the judge. What is to be deviates no jot from the book said the judge. What is to be deviates no jot from the book wherein it's writ. How could it? It would be a false book and a false book is no book at all. [...] Whether in my book or not, every man is tabernacled in every other and he in exchange and so on in an endless complexity of being and witness to the uttermost edge of the world.The US is the exception, not the rule. In many other countries, scientists get a fixed salary from their institution. They don't depend on grants for a living, and their institutions don't gain anything if the scientists bring in more money (except a bit of reputation maybe -- but they don't compete with each other in the first place). Scientists who work in the US complain regularly about how much time they have to invest in writing grant proposals -- a grant proposal is like a fairly big paper. There have been other big strikes, and no mass extinction. Attempts to match up earlier mass-extinctions with previous big strikes have pittifully, embarassingly failed. As a side issue: feathers are fine, but there's a argument that they could have lost them, at least in part, like we did with a lot of hair. All apes can adopt a bolt-upright stance when walking on land; and many do it all the time (the several species of gibbons, both species of orang-utan, us, and the extinct Oreopithecus).

This isn't a rhetorical question: why would body mass have anything to do with those bits of brains used for thinking? and they watched the fire which does contain within it something of men themselves inasmuch as they are less without it and are divided from their origins and are exiles. For each fire is all fires, the first fire and the last ever to be. Weird carbon spheres and metals"? They're not just any weird carbon spheres and metals. They're exactly the ones that are found in asteroids, plus the ones that are produced by really large wildfires and the like. Since we already know there was a huge impact (or how else do you explain that hole in Mexico, and why it's a bit elliptic rather than circular?), we don't need any other explanation, do we. While the protagonists and supporting cast are great characters, I really liked the antagonists in this story. The main villain of the story is Martin Chorley, also known as the Faceless Man. He is an excellent antagonist who is built up as a master planner, master magician and crazy villain before you even see him in the book. His master plan was fairly complex, and the character’s overall arc in this book featured some massive twists that I did not see coming. Lesley May is another really complex character who is a great addition to the series. Her relationship with Peter is one of the best parts of the book, as even after her betrayals earlier in the series, he is still trying to save her from herself. The way this works out in the end is quite dramatic, and it will be interesting to see where it goes from there. Only nature can enslave man and only when the existence of each last entity is routed out and made to stand naked before him will he be properly suzerain of the earth.His among the clouded faces seemed unperturbed. He looked over the Americans, their gear. In truth they did not look like men who might have whiskey they hadnt drunk. You're saying we shouldn't make the assumption that our form is a good one? In that case, what can you say about evolution whatsoever? What statements about anything can you ever make??? Did evolution make a mistake and went all wrong and bad, just in our case???? Do you honestly think it is unreasonable to suggest that our evolutioanry form is a successful one? BY DEFINITION IT IS!!!! The paper on the island dwarfs of Palau is very interesting in this respect: it suggests that some "primitive" features could be a result of dwarfing, so that the hobbits (sorry, I love that name -- perhaps because I haven't read Tolkien) could actually be H. sapiens rather than (derived from) H. erectus. But the scientists of a certain era just cave and accept--and then vigourously defend the old outdated 'truth.' I have to say that scientists are the most precious of all people about ideas!!!! Their lives, careers, livelihoods and reputations depend on it.

A would say the measure of a good scientist is how much funding they can bring in. The easiest way to get cited is to solve a problem in a new way without breaking the overall paradigm, that then catches on in the general media. Scientific publications refuse to publish anything that they feel will make them look bad and devalue their own credibility, and others are unwilling to peer-assess.

And on the Spain/Portugul/China thing--OBVIOUSLY I was saying that the two Europeans were in a race with each other, where as the once vastly more advanced and powerful China lost out. That was the comparison. You seemed unable to follow an inference? Are you autistic/mentally challenged/suffering from Alzimers? SEE, I can call names. How dare you call me bipolar! (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) When you talk about a 'better design' what do you mean for? You mean for being a ground bird. Obviously the best design for being a bird is a bird. BUT AS A SIDE ISSUE: why does anyone this a Troodon would have evolved to be like a ground bird? That is an argument as far fetched, or from my opinion, more far-fetched, as the Dinosauroid. Troodontids were doing very well as Troodontids. So much so that some people seriously suggest that they could have become more humanoid and had a civilisation! (That's why we're debating this.) So why would they become just like a bird as we know them now? THAT is a stretch of the imagination. Humans have centred weight, AND arms for maximum range of motion and power, AND well distributed weight when carrying things, and good design for travelling long distance or climbing, all with a eyes on top of a frame as high as it can go for good eyesight. You can't beat it!!!! I also don't like the use fo the name 'hobbit' for 'Homo floresiensis', which remains an unproven taxon as far as I am concerned. At the moment the jury is out until we have substantially more material, but it seems to me the best fit with the overall evidence is that poor little 'Ebu' (LB1) was probably an abberrent individual in a population of either pygmy Homo sapiens or pygmy Homo erectus. If we follow your argument, you have no authority to make any statements on evolution at all, as you cannot say what is good at all or not.

Regarding the possibility of an intelligent dinosaurid, I note that a goodly number of our own artifacts probably will survive to the next geological age, but a lot of that is plastics, and the hypothetical dinosaurids presumably wouldn't have had nearly as much access to crude oil. (Modulo theories about inorganic/geological sources....) Oh - and when I said Spec's birds were lame, I did not have carpos and nerds of paradise in mind, rather things like the tweety-birds. Why? It already happened before -- just not with the whole world. I'm again talking about Oreopithecus, which is 10 million years old.

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On the other hand, the Great Extinction we've been causing depends more on our voraciousness and wanderlust than high technology -- between forest clearance, ocean "harvesting", and scattering exotic species, we'd be getting into trouble Real Soon Now, even without the CO2 overload. Expanding (sorry!) on this linear mass ratio (body::brain) common among avian and non-Homo hominid species...