Pachy and disease

[Crpntr@ix.netcom.com (Kenneth Carpenter)]

  Since Ralph asked, I would buy the discoverer of a pachy skeleton a 
steak or vegetarian dinner at the resturant of their choise (but not to 
exceed $100.00).  Or, have me as the camp cook for 1 week (at Caqon 
City, I've made chicken cordon bleu, stuffed pork chops, etc. Needless 
to say, I NEVER have a shortage of volunteers).  Or, 12 episodes of 
Gilligan's Island.

  I am surprised that the disease arguement has appeared on the dinonet, 
as I have been discussing it with an immunologist on Usenet.  First, 
some history (and no, the disease issue is not a straw man).  First, the 
idea is not new, having been proposed by others before.  Bakker jumped 
onto this after reading (he's a history buff, especially war) about Lord 
Kitchner's cattle introducing renderpest into Africa during the Boer 
War.  The result did indeed have a major impact on the antelopes, 
reducing populations drastically.  Many antelopes still test serially 
positive for the antigens.  However, diseases are host specific or host 
limited.  Thus, I do not pass the flu onto my ferret, although I may 
spread it to my co-workers.  Yes, I know that some diseases do get 
transmitted from animals to humans (e.g. syphillis), but as I also said, 
host limited.  I have yet to hear of syphillus outbreaks among other 
farm animals.  It is also important to remember that ever the most 
virulent diseases always leave some individuals little affected.  This 
was true during the Black Plague of Europe and the present Aids cases.  
Part of this is due to a protein (who's initials I forget) that has 100 
variants in humans, about 4 of which are present in each of us (I got 
this from the immunologist).  It therefore, seems very unlikely that a 
disease could ever cause the complete extinction of a species.  
   Bakker also cannot explain the spread of the disease onto island 
continents (e.g. India).  Also, the arguement for the spread of disease 
could also be made when other continents connected during the Mesozoic 
(or any other time during the Phanerozoic for that matter).  Yet, we see 
only minor extinctions that may have other causes (e.g. when North and 
South America were connected during the Campanian.  Campanian 
turn over in the dinosaur fauna may be due to the spread of the seaway 
into North America forming bottleneck habitats - an idea I am not fully 
convinced of).  
   As a final aside, I wish to point out that India does not show a 
regression of a seaway at the end of the Cretaceous (it didn't have 
one).  Thus, any arguements about the loss of the epeiric sea as a cause 
of dinosaur extinction does not hold (nor for Asia for that matter 
because there was no major seaway across China or Mongolia). Such 
arguments really do show how North Ameri-centric North American 
paleontologists are.  Yet, both India and China seem to show that 
dinosaur extinctions occured about the same time as in North America.