Re: Dinosaur debate

["Norton, Patrick" <Patrick.Norton@state.me.us>]

Dinogeorge wrote:

<Trouble with the whole scavenger-predator debate is that there's
only one way to falsify any of the hypotheses, and that is to go back in   
time
and make copious field observations of living tyrannosaurs. Until this   
becomes
possible, the debate must remain unscientific. Anatomical features and   
fossil
data can prove or disprove nothing.>

A fossil record containing bone from hadrosaurs or other likely   
tyrannosaur prey that showed healed tyrannosaur teeth wounds or had   
tyrannosaur teeth embedded in bone that subsequently healed could go a   
long way towards falsifying the hypothesis that tyrannosaurs were   
strictly scavengers.  This would be particularly true if there were   
enough of that type of evidence to suggest a pattern rather than an   
isolated event or two. The fact that we don't have that record now (that   
I'm aware of anyway) doesn't mean we won't at some point in the future.

Patrick Norton