Re: Big = Old = Advanced?

[John Bois <jbois@umd5.umd.edu>]

On Tue, 26 Aug 1997, Jeffrey Martz wrote:
>      What makes you think it is?  Species lay as many eggs as is needed to
> keep the population stable under thier environmental conditions.  What
> makes you think the dinosaurs were not laying exactly as many eggs as they
> needed to make up the difference?

It would be nice if this is the way populations worked.  Apparently,
though, _individuals_ work for their own selfish needs.  The needs of the
group are "considered" only inasmuch as they forward the needs of the
individual.  

> > But my point with dinosaurs is that they could not have as big a skill
> > differential as modern prey and their predators.  Sorry to repeat, but a
> > goose can leave its home predators in the dust, while, for all we know,
> > hadrosaurs brought every single predator with them.  
> 
>      I'm afraid I don't know what "skill differential" means.  I have been
> out of the loop for a while and this discussion may have gone in new
> directions.  Could you please explain a little more?

Birds can fly away to places of reduced predator density (and swamp the
few predators that are there).  Dinosaurs had no particular skill
differential which would enable them to put such huge distances between
themselves and those other dinosaurs which would eat them.
That is birds ahve a skill differential (wings) between themselves and the
mammals (for example).