What is a dinosaur?

["King, Norm" <nking.ucs@smtp.usi.edu>]

Typology?  Touchy, feely?  Give me a break!

What is a dinosaur?  Ask anyone, and he/she will describe it (provide a 
sort of diagnosis).

What is a table?  We need a diagnosis for that one, too.  Ok, not the 
same thing--I agree.  People want to know a dinosaur when they see one.  
And if they do, doesn't that mean they know what a dinosaur is?  

Now we could launch into a really abstruse academic debate, but it would 
be lost on most people (i.e., the general public), and I don't have the 
time.

If you tell people that a mosasaur isn't a dinosaur, they will respond by 
wanting to know why not.  They are sincerely interested.  But you will 
lose them by saying that it's not a dinosaur because it isn't descended 
from the common ancestor of _Megalosaurus_ and _Iguanodon_.  People want 
information they can do something with, rather than impractical 
theoretical stuff:

    Mosasaurs aren't dinosaurs because they don't have an erect posture.
    Furthermore, they're not dinosaurs because they were specialized for
    swimming.  In fact, they were big, aquatic lizards!  

Now that's a story people can follow.  It makes perfect sense, even to 
someone who has never studied any kind of science.

Of course, in dinosaur paleontology we need exactly the kind of 
definition Dinogeorge supplied.  I'm working on a user-firendly interface 
with the public.  I'll tackle cladistic classifications AFTER I get 
people to understand what a dinosaur is (read that "how it's built=what 
it looks like). And I'll keep my mouth shut for awhile about the 
bowlegged prosauropods and early ornithischians.  I explain readily 
understood generalizations first.  When "everybody" is comfortable with 
those, I can THEN go back and pick up the exceptions where necessary to 
make the whole story consistent with the latest science.  It works.




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Norman R. King                                       tel:  (812) 464-1794
Department of Geosciences                            fax:  (812) 464-1960
University of Southern Indiana
8600 University Blvd.
Evansville, IN 47712                      e-mail:  nking.ucs@smtp.usi.edu