Re: Bob Bakker lecture in Phoenix

[Tom Holtz <tholtz@geochange.er.usgs.gov>]

>        However, I must say that I was annoyed by the write-up in the
>paper.  Here's a short excerpt from an article in today's Arizona
>Republic:
>        "'We now see dinosaurs through the eyes of Bob Bakker,' said Ron
>Ratkevich, a paleontologist at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum in
>Tucson. 'There are very few paleontologists who can dispute his findings
>and come up with any hard evidence.'"
>        I'm not exactly sure just what Ratkevich is saying in this quote,
>but the fact that Bakker's credibility has to be defended apropos of any
>suggestions to the contrary in this newspaper makes me wonder.  Are his
>ideas viewed as so outlandish, even to the lay-public, that he has to be
>set up beforehand as someone who needs defense?  Maybe I'm reading too
>much into it, but most non-paleontologist people I know have only ever
>heard of just Robert Bakker in the field of dinosaur paleontology and
>have no reason to doubt what he says about dinosaurs.

Ratkevich himself has published some rather outlandish ideas which few
(okay, no) other paleontologist agrees with - regeneration in dinosaur
limbs and tails, skin and muscles covering ceratopsian frills so that they
did not stick out from the rest of the body, etc.

And, in rebuttal, I would say that we now see the world of dinosaurs
through John Ostrom's eyes, not Bakker's.  As "Buffalo" Bob himself admits
in Dinosaur Heresies, many of the major changes in thinking about dinosaur
paleobiology (ceratopsid and hadrosaurid jaw mechanics, hadrosaurids as
terrestrial and not swamp dwellers, the dinosaur origin of birds, the 1970s
version of the dinosaur endothermy debate, etc.) stem from Ostrom's work.

(It REALLY irritates me when I hear people say "Bakker's theory that birds
evolved from dinosaurs".  They should reread the book - the chapter on bird
origins states pretty clearly whence the theories came).

                                
Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.                                   
tholtz@geochange.er.usgs.gov
Vertebrate Paleontologist in Exile                  Phone:      703-648-5280
U.S. Geological Survey                                FAX:      703-648-5420
Branch of Paleontology & Stratigraphy
MS 970 National Center
Reston, VA  22092
U.S.A.