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Post by theropod on Mar 12, 2019 2:41:26 GMT 5
What? That humans encountered Moas, Haast’s eagles and large Dromornithines and Aepyornithines isn’t disputed. They show up in rock paintings and mythology and there is skeletal evidence of butchery and radiometric dates demonstrating vary late survival for these taxa. The youngest known phorusrhacids may be a bit more contentious, there’s evidence of at least one purported specimen from a Late Pleistocene assemblage dated at ~18Ka. Especially considering the recent evidence of pre-Clovis cultures in the Americas pushing back the estimated human settlement considerably, it’s not implausible that they too were encountered by humans.
Humans did live alongside a surprisingly diverse dinosaur fauna (ecologically speaking, i.e. including megaherbivores and apex predators) in many parts of the world.
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Post by dinosauria101 on Mar 12, 2019 4:16:25 GMT 5
I meant whether birds are dinosaurs or not. It is a popular theory though
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Post by Infinity Blade on Mar 12, 2019 7:19:25 GMT 5
That's hardly disputed either. I can literally count on one hand the number of paleontologists alive today who don't support the idea that birds descended from theropods (those I know of, at least).
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Post by dinosauria101 on Mar 12, 2019 7:32:24 GMT 5
Odd, I have seen multiple conflicting sources, everywhere from books to websites to videos and whatnot. I honestly don't know what to think.
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Post by creature386 on Mar 12, 2019 15:53:08 GMT 5
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Post by dinosauria101 on Mar 12, 2019 15:56:15 GMT 5
So it's agreed on, then? My mistake.
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Post by theropod on Sept 9, 2019 22:37:55 GMT 5
On a related note (not sure if that warrants its own thread, lots of them are basicaly compilations of conspiracy theories), does anyone have any particularly entertaining conservapedia articles they would recommend?
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Post by creature386 on Sept 9, 2019 22:43:32 GMT 5
Their counterexamples pages are always the go-to cringe sources. Of course, they are also the low-hanging fruits which I'm sure you've already plucked. Just about anything written by Conservative/Ken DeMeyer ( here and here is a good place to start) related to evolution, atheism and homosexuality is also recommendable (although, if you know three of his articles, you already know them all). Otherwise, there's also RationalWiki. If you have a lot of time to kill: rationalwiki.org/wiki/Conservapedia:Best_of_ConservapediaIf you have less time to kill, just read some of their more general articles on CP. Darn, it's been a long time since I've occupied myself with that website. Good ol' times.
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Post by dinosauria101 on Sept 9, 2019 23:39:22 GMT 5
Say, that's a pretty interesting website!
On topic, the conspiracy theory of the big UCMP T rex (15 tons) really needs to die. You wouldn't believe the amount of supporters I've seen on DV, Quora, and Discord
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Post by creature386 on Sept 9, 2019 23:45:54 GMT 5
That's not a conspiracy theory. A conspiracy theory assumes that a (usually very powerful) group of people has created an evil plan which they refuse to share with the rest of the world.
If anyone accused paleontologists of lying or covering up the evidence, that'd be a conspiracy theory.
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Post by dinosauria101 on Sept 10, 2019 2:53:11 GMT 5
Ah, okay. Makes sense. I did go searching for creepy conspiracies, and found this: www.creepypasta.com/camp-22/Not sure if it's popular among only creepypasta enthusiasts or more than that but it's all I found. Scary nonetheless!
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Post by theropod on Sept 10, 2019 2:53:38 GMT 5
UCMP 13whatever’s giant size was a hoax based on a (presumably honest) misunderstanding of a measurement. Granted, certain people on the internet were and are overly willing to believe in it, something that I already advised against long before we had clarity on the real identity of the measurement. But it doesn’t become a conspiracy theory unless they claim some sort of influential network of people (in this case, scientists) tried to cover up its existence, which they did not, in fact the opposite is the case, measurements explicitly reported by scientists were what created the hoax in the first place. If anything, it’s an anti-conspiracy-theory, those who subscribed to it were overly ready to accept what they read unquestionably, and were unwilling to consider alternative hypotheses (such as that one measurement could have been articular length while the other was maximum length).
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Post by dinosauria101 on Sept 10, 2019 2:57:50 GMT 5
That's pretty ironic; I posted an anti-conspiracy!
But if we're going to have this discussion, shouldn't it be in the T rex discussion thread?
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Post by creature386 on Sept 10, 2019 3:06:04 GMT 5
I don't think we have to be that strict with off-topic conversation, unless they get out of hand.
My explanation of what a conspiracy theory is reminds me of something important: I have never defined the term concisely, even though the term is often accused of being a snarl world. Emil Karlsson has a very good definition on his blog "Debunking Denialism" and how to distinguish conspiracy theories from justified suspicion of conspiracies. I'll find it tomorrow.
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Post by theropod on Sept 11, 2019 0:10:27 GMT 5
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