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Re: Cold or Hot?

From: Mickey Mortimer <Mickey_Mortimer111@msn.com>
Reply-To: Mickey_Mortimer111@msn.com
To: dinosaur@usc.edu
Subject: Re: Cold or Hot?
Date: Sun, 05 Jun 2005 17:00:34 -0700


Why the defeatist attitude?  It's not like we're anywhere close to
completely understanding the physiology of living animals yet.

Bingo. . .I think you've hit the nail precisely on the head. In fact, this is probably one of the biggest problems facing dinosaur science at the moment. . .we're trying to run too far with too little evidence, without ever doing the background work in extant taxa. Fortunately, much of this is changing (more slowly in some aspects of paleo than others). I think the swiftly changing field of paleohistology is a good case in point--the field has grown (and improved) by leaps and bounds since the days of simple Haversian vs. non-Haversian bone. Of course, 10 years from now half of what we "know" about dinosaur histology is going to be thrown out as more comparative work gets done in more extant taxa, but oh well. . .

Andy