Re: Dinosaur "Arthritis" Revisited.

[Joe Daniel <jdaniel@aristotle.net>]

Sorry for the delay in the response.  I took some time off for Mardi 
Gras.  (My first one and I nearly froze to death, bummer)

First the criticism:  you did a good job of demonstrating my point that 
arthritis is not found in most animals.  All your examples showed that 
the numbers with arthritis were significantly smaller than those without 
it.  Second, "middleaged" like both of us said is a relative term and 
will vary amongst populations.  As for the moose, they are rather 
atypical in that they only really fall prey to predators once they get 
old as they are just too big when healthy for wolves to attack even in 
packs. Young healthy moose are pretty predator-free, except for man. 
Thus, they aren't real good examples as they would be expected to have 
elevated incidences of elderly-specific problems.  Note that only 30% of 
them had arthritis according to your post.

Now for the bene:  your mention of monospecific bonebeds are quite 
justifiably evidence to support your statements and fill in the 
"negative evidence" problem to a degree, so I bow to your greater 
knowledge.  Thank you for the references.  However, your view would be 
better supported by comparing dinosaur monospecific bonebeds to similar 
bonebeds of other animals known or expected to have arthritis.  Does 
anyone know of any beds like this that could help or hinder Mr. Tanke's 
statements?  I don't unfortunately.

Joe Daniel