RE: Sinosauropteryx filament melanosomes challenged

[tholtz@geol.umd.edu]

>
> Can someone explain this "bandit" thing to me? As a layperson that is now
> hoping to be a scientist someday, I'm doing my best to understand the the
> inner politics of different fields, but so far Googling "science bandit"
> has not been much help. Also, is there still significant resistance among
> ornithologists to the general  consensus among paleontologists that birds
> are a subset of dinosaurs?

BAND = Birds Are Not Dinosaurs

BANDit (preferred orthography is to capitalize the"BAND" part) = one who
promotes the BAND hypothesis.

And while there are some in the ornithology community to resist it, it was
never a large organized resistance (part of the BANDit myth is to claim
that it was). Instead, it was largely indifference on the part of research
ornithologists: they cared about as much for bird origins as your average
practicing neo-mammalogist cares about therapsid research.

The main BANDits are all themselves paleontologists, not neontologists.
Some specialize on paleornithology, others are paleontological
physiologists, and Lingham-Soliar is most a marine reptile guy.