Re: Origins (was: Re: Sharovipteryx)

[NJPharris@aol.com]

In a message dated 5/26/00 11:21:30 AM Pacific Daylight Time, 
Dinogeorge@aol.com writes:

>  Maybe not, but the point is that it was still a logical possibility. >>
>  
>  That's what I said. It was a logical possibility before the paper, and it 
is 
>  a logical possibility after the paper. What we gained in the debate that 
>  followed was some insight into thermoregulatory properties of plates, but 
>  whether or not stegos actually used plates in this way remains an open 
>  question.

No; perhaps I need to be clearer.  Before the paper was written (and I 
haven't even read the darn paper; I'm just using it as a rhetorical device 
[sorry, Jim!]), there were two possibilities: a) stegosaur plates could 
potentially have functioned as thermoregulatory devices; b) stegosaur plates 
could not possibly have functioned as thermoregulatory devices.  Farlow et 
al. allowed us to dismiss possibility (b) and have thereby increased (however 
marginally) the certitude with which we can speak about the function of 
stegosaur plates.

Nick P.