Re: Die Me, Dichotomy (was For you T. Rex addicts out there! - Part 2)

[Daniel Bensen <dbensen@bowdoin.edu>]

>>>This seems like the Paleontological Civil War.

A fairly one-sided one.  Apart from Dr John Horner, what other vertebrate 
paleontologists regard _Tyrannosaurus_ as an obligate scavenger?<<

To me, that's the crux of the matter.
Dr. Horner is not defending his theory in any rational way, but simply stating 
his idea over and over to media people who listen to it (because good science 
stories are usually based around 'you thought X was true, but So-and-So says 
that Y is more likely).  

It seems that every famous paleontologist has their idiosyncrasies, probably 
because they are under so much more stress to defend their ideas than the rest 
of us are.  What might have been an interesting paper (say 'A Re-Evaluation of 
Hunting and Feeding in Tyrannosaurus rex'), which would have lead to discussion 
and eventual agreement ("It appears Tyrannosaurus rex, like large predators 
today, was well adapted for both scavenging and active hunting") rather than 
the holy-war of the past decade.

That's why I like this listserve as a forum for ideas.  It's all emails, so we 
don't feel like our ideas have to be written in granite.  There's a lot less 
ego involved, here, which is the way it should be.  

Dan