Re: The dinosaur papers - now available

["Jaime Headden" <ja_headden@qilong.8m.com>]

Tim Williams (twilliams_alpha@hotmail.com) wrote:

<(1) It was my understanding that the "dinosaur bone" in question (distal femur 
of a megalosaur?) was regarded by
Mr Plot not as a "leg bone", but the petrified remains of another part of the 
human anatomy.  (So little wonder
that Mr Plot thought this extinct giant to be a man - a BIG man.)>

  While I, too, have seen historical reference to this bone as being the 
petrified scrotum of some human, it was my
understanding that it was originally referred to as a gigantic human femur, and 
the joke applied by its peculiar
appearance being lent to the Latin appellation of *Scrotum humanum.* Yet it 
seems the anatomists at the time were
aware it was a femur. Gould made a few notes on this during his time as 
_Natural History's_ paleo writer, and he
seems to have forwarded this interpretation (original consideration as a femur) 
whereas the press ran with the
"giant human balls" idea.

  Cheers,

  Jaime A. Headden

  Little steps are often the hardest to take. We are too used to making leaps 
in the face of adversity, that a
simple skip is so hard to do.  We should all learn to walk soft, walk small, 
see the world around us rather than
zoom by it.

  "Innocent, unbiased observation is a myth." --- P.B. Medawar (1969)