Re: OCCAM'S RAZOR & THERIZINOSAURS

["Thomas R. Holtz, Jr." <th81@umail.umd.edu>]

At 12:11 AM 7/29/98 +0100, John "High Priest of Olsvhevsky-ism" Jackson wrote:

>[snip]
>> However, I honestly would not have expected the presence of a
>therizinosaur in the Lower Jurassic. Does everyone advocating a
>bullatosaurian or oviraptorosaurian affinity of therizinosaurs really
>appreciate what this means? <   [snip]
>
>Yup.  Three wierd discoveries within twelve months, and only George
>"Cassandra" Olshevsky's theories predicted them all.  Spooky eh?
>

Very curious statement...

The feathered nonavians had long been predicted by non-BCFers: you should
have seen Ostrom strutting around at the press conference (and correctly so).

The supposed Early Jurassic therizinosauroid (which may be what they say it
is, but some non-dentary material would be nice to confirm this isn't some
wierd non-therizinosauroid sauropodomorph, especially as this dentary lacks
some features shared by therizinosauroids, troodontids, etc.) was a bit of a
surprise, but is equally explained by the Colbert-Chatterjee hypothesis
(i.e., all major lines of dinosaurs originated in the Triassic).

Don't know what the third discovery is...

Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
Vertebrate Paleontologist     Webpage: http://www.geol.umd.edu
Dept. of Geology              Email:th81@umail.umd.edu
University of Maryland        Phone:301-405-4084
College Park, MD  20742       Fax:  301-314-9661