Common Misconceptions About Dinosaurs/Paleontology

[Gwangi]

Birds ARE feathered dinosaurs, though. It's just become very hard to determine exactly where Archaeopteryx lies on the theropod family tree now that it's known that dinosaurs other than avialans had 'advanced' feathers.

Thanks for the correction...because I didn't already know that.  No, all birds are dinosaurs but not all dinosaurs were birds. Where Archeopteryx is concerned it is a dinosaur but probably not a bird so it thus must be "just another feathered dinosaur". Is that better? 

[amargasaurus cazaui]

Birds ARE feathered dinosaurs, though. It's just become very hard to determine exactly where Archaeopteryx lies on the theropod family tree now that it's known that dinosaurs other than avialans had 'advanced' feathers.

Thanks for the correction...because I didn't already know that.  No, all birds are dinosaurs but not all dinosaurs were birds. Where Archeopteryx is concerned it is a dinosaur but probably not a bird so it thus must be "just another feathered dinosaur". Is that better? 

Lol, I think this is sorta what i was referring to about a month ago regarding labels and splitting hairs. Dinosaurs, birds, reptiles, all derived names.

[stoneage]

Stegosaurus had two brains!

[Metallisuchus]

Stegosaurus had two brains!

Well, not two 'proper' brains. So this theory has been debunked?

[Gryphoceratops]

I was doing a show with a bird (Luisa the cockatoo) one time and was explaining how she was a living dinosaur.  I noticed one mother in the back whispering in her kid's ear "The man just means that the bird is old its not really a dinosaur"

I stop mid sentance "AHEM!  Mam?  Yes you.  I mean exactly what I am saying.  Birds are dinosaurs and if you were paying attention to what I have been saying for the past few minutes instead of whispering in your kid's ear you would have learned why.  Lots of animals are old that are not dinosaurs.  Birds, however, are.  Thank you!"

She turned red with embarrassment and shut up for the rest of my show. 

[Himmapaan]

I have become very fond of Luisa. Just thought I'd mention that.   

[Gryphoceratops]

I have become very fond of Luisa. Just thought I'd mention that.   

She's a good girl (most of the time  )

[Sharptooth]

I was doing a show with a bird (Luisa the cockatoo) one time and was explaining how she was a living dinosaur.  I noticed one mother in the back whispering in her kid's ear "The man just means that the bird is old its not really a dinosaur"

I stop mid sentance "AHEM!  Mam?  Yes you.  I mean exactly what I am saying.  Birds are dinosaurs and if you were paying attention to what I have been saying for the past few minutes instead of whispering in your kid's ear you would have learned why.  Lots of animals are old that are not dinosaurs.  Birds, however, are.  Thank you!"

She turned red with embarrassment and shut up for the rest of my show. 

Hell yeah! Love they way you corrected her 

[Pachyrhinosaurus]

I was doing a show with a bird (Luisa the cockatoo) one time and was explaining how she was a living dinosaur.  I noticed one mother in the back whispering in her kid's ear "The man just means that the bird is old its not really a dinosaur"

I stop mid sentance "AHEM!  Mam?  Yes you.  I mean exactly what I am saying.  Birds are dinosaurs and if you were paying attention to what I have been saying for the past few minutes instead of whispering in your kid's ear you would have learned why.  Lots of animals are old that are not dinosaurs.  Birds, however, are.  Thank you!"

She turned red with embarrassment and shut up for the rest of my show. 

I wish I could say things like that to people at museums when I overhear them, which brings me to remembering another funny misconception. All small theropod dinosaurs were raptors.

[Metallisuchus]

I was doing a show with a bird (Luisa the cockatoo) one time and was explaining how she was a living dinosaur.  I noticed one mother in the back whispering in her kid's ear "The man just means that the bird is old its not really a dinosaur"

I stop mid sentance "AHEM!  Mam?  Yes you.  I mean exactly what I am saying.  Birds are dinosaurs and if you were paying attention to what I have been saying for the past few minutes instead of whispering in your kid's ear you would have learned why.  Lots of animals are old that are not dinosaurs.  Birds, however, are.  Thank you!"

She turned red with embarrassment and shut up for the rest of my show. 

I wish I could say things like that to people at museums when I overhear them, which brings me to remembering another funny misconception. All small theropod dinosaurs were raptors.

I know exactly what you mean. When I was at a museum, I heard a mother telling her kid, "oh this is a Gi-GANT-tosaurus" and I wanted to correct her so bad. I also wanted to point out to the whole room that the Megaraptor claw was probably not from a large dromaeosaur, but I figured "ah these people don't care - they'd just snicker at me".

And great job Grypho. She probably thought you were nuts though, haha.

[Horridus]

Birds ARE feathered dinosaurs, though. It's just become very hard to determine exactly where Archaeopteryx lies on the theropod family tree now that it's known that dinosaurs other than avialans had 'advanced' feathers.

Thanks for the correction...because I didn't already know that.  No, all birds are dinosaurs but not all dinosaurs were birds. Where Archeopteryx is concerned it is a dinosaur but probably not a bird so it thus must be "just another feathered dinosaur". Is that better? 

Yes. Sorry for being patronising, I blame The Sauce (the cause of, and solution to all of life's problems).

[Gryphoceratops]

I was doing a show with a bird (Luisa the cockatoo) one time and was explaining how she was a living dinosaur.  I noticed one mother in the back whispering in her kid's ear "The man just means that the bird is old its not really a dinosaur"

I stop mid sentance "AHEM!  Mam?  Yes you.  I mean exactly what I am saying.  Birds are dinosaurs and if you were paying attention to what I have been saying for the past few minutes instead of whispering in your kid's ear you would have learned why.  Lots of animals are old that are not dinosaurs.  Birds, however, are.  Thank you!"

She turned red with embarrassment and shut up for the rest of my show. 

I wish I could say things like that to people at museums when I overhear them, which brings me to remembering another funny misconception. All small theropod dinosaurs were raptors.

I know exactly what you mean. When I was at a museum, I heard a mother telling her kid, "oh this is a Gi-GANT-tosaurus" and I wanted to correct her so bad. I also wanted to point out to the whole room that the Megaraptor claw was probably not from a large dromaeosaur, but I figured "ah these people don't care - they'd just snicker at me".

And great job Grypho. She probably thought you were nuts though, haha.

She can think i'm as nuts as she wants.  I was right is all that matters lol.  (aren't I modest???)

[CityRaptor]

In the same vain, all large Theropods are Tyrannosaurus rex! Seriously, I have heard it with Giganotosaurus, Allosaurus and also Carnotaurus. Carnotaurus was an especially bad case as Dinosaur King was airing in TV at that time.  And that show features Carnotaurus rather prominently...

[Gwangi]

Birds ARE feathered dinosaurs, though. It's just become very hard to determine exactly where Archaeopteryx lies on the theropod family tree now that it's known that dinosaurs other than avialans had 'advanced' feathers.

Thanks for the correction...because I didn't already know that.  No, all birds are dinosaurs but not all dinosaurs were birds. Where Archeopteryx is concerned it is a dinosaur but probably not a bird so it thus must be "just another feathered dinosaur". Is that better? 

Yes. Sorry for being patronising, I blame The Sauce (the cause of, and solution to all of life's problems).

That's alright, I can be patronizing too even without the sauce. 

[Pachyrhinosaurus]

In the same vain, all large Theropods are Tyrannosaurus rex!

All ceratopsians are triceratops, the same goes for stegosaurs, sauropods, and, well... the general public has probably never heard of any ornthopods.
I also saw people thinking that the sinornithosaurus and cauipteryx in the carnegie museum were early birds. 

[Bowhead Whale]

Ha!Ha!Ha! Yes, it's funny to see the misconceptions people have when they don't know the subject. But misconceptions are not just about dinosaurs. Many popular misconceptions thrive all around us on many subjects, yet not many people actually know they are misconceptions. Let me give you an example: the RMS Titanic. Everybody knows that ship and its sinking! Or do they? Here are misconceptions I have been hearing through years about it:
1- The Titanic was the only ship with not enough lifeboats on it in 1912.
     WRONG! No ship had enough lifeboats on board in 1912, because the law that asked for 16 lifeboats on board dated from 1896. So, in other words, if the Mauretania sank instead of
     the Titanic, the terrible result would have been similar...
2- The Titanic hit an iceberg and everyone heard "BOOM".
    WRONG! The Titanic just grazed the iceberg, but that was enough to break rivets and that created the gashes.
3- The Titanic was the first ship to have four funnels.
    WRONG! And that is a ridiculous one. The Titanic (and the Olympic) was built to compete with Cunard's Lusitania and Mauretania, which both had four funnels. Not only that, but only
    three funnels were functional, the fourth one being for air circulation. And it was like that for every four-funnel ship of that era.
4- The Titanic was said to be unsinkable.
     WRONG! This Rumor comes from the fact that the Cunard's Lusitania and Mauretania had for a slogan: "As Unsinkable As a Ship Can Be". But the White Star never claimed the Titanic
     being unsinkable, they just said the ship was able to sail with four floating compartments floaded.. Yet it's true that Captain Edward Smith thought that the technology of his time
     made shipwrecks very unlikely...

See what I mean, now? It's easy to laugh at the misconceptions that spread around us about a subject we know well. But it's a lot less easy to recognize that we DO spread misconceptions about other sujects OURSELVES. Just by curiosity, how many of you knew those facts about the Titanic? Maybe not that many. So, now, let's stop ourselves from laughing at funny misconceptions... and let us start laughing at ourselves. We are not proptected from having misconceptions either.

[Daspletotyrannus]

Ha!Ha!Ha! Yes, it's funny to see the misconceptions people have when they don't know the subject. But misconceptions are not just about dinosaurs. Many popular misconceptions thrive all around us on many subjects, yet not many people actually know they are misconceptions. Let me give you an example: the RMS Titanic. Everybody knows that ship and its sinking! Or do they? Here are misconceptions I have been hearing through years about it:
1- The Titanic was the only ship with not enough lifeboats on it in 1912.
     WRONG! No ship had enough lifeboats on board in 1912, because the law that asked for 16 lifeboats on board dated from 1896. So, in other words, if the Mauretania sank instead of
     the Titanic, the terrible result would have been similar...
2- The Titanic hit an iceberg and everyone heard "BOOM".
    WRONG! The Titanic just grazed the iceberg, but that was enough to break rivets and that created the gashes.
3- The Titanic was the first ship to have four funnels.
    WRONG! And that is a ridiculous one. The Titanic (and the Olympic) was built to compete with Cunard's Lusitania and Mauretania, which both had four funnels. Not only that, but only
    three funnels were functional, the fourth one being for air circulation. And it was like that for every four-funnel ship of that era.
4- The Titanic was said to be unsinkable.
     WRONG! This Rumor comes from the fact that the Cunard's Lusitania and Mauretania had for a slogan: "As Unsinkable As a Ship Can Be". But the White Star never claimed the Titanic
     being unsinkable, they just said the ship was able to sail with four floating compartments floaded.. Yet it's true that Captain Edward Smith thought that the technology of his time
     made shipwrecks very unlikely...

See what I mean, now? It's easy to laugh at the misconceptions that spread around us about a subject we know well. But it's a lot less easy to recognize that we DO spread misconceptions about other sujects OURSELVES. Just by curiosity, how many of you knew those facts about the Titanic? Maybe not that many. So, now, let's stop ourselves from laughing at funny misconceptions... and let us start laughing at ourselves. We are not proptected from having misconceptions either.

Funny thing is the Olympic and Titanic had more lifeboats then the law asked for at the time. The max at the time was 16. The Olympic and Titanic had 20.  They had four extra lifeboats for emergency.

[Bowhead Whale]

Ha!Ha!Ha! Yes, it's funny to see the misconceptions people have when they don't know the subject. But misconceptions are not just about dinosaurs. Many popular misconceptions thrive all around us on many subjects, yet not many people actually know they are misconceptions. Let me give you an example: the RMS Titanic. Everybody knows that ship and its sinking! Or do they? Here are misconceptions I have been hearing through years about it:
1- The Titanic was the only ship with not enough lifeboats on it in 1912.
     WRONG! No ship had enough lifeboats on board in 1912, because the law that asked for 16 lifeboats on board dated from 1896. So, in other words, if the Mauretania sank instead of
     the Titanic, the terrible result would have been similar...
2- The Titanic hit an iceberg and everyone heard "BOOM".
    WRONG! The Titanic just grazed the iceberg, but that was enough to break rivets and that created the gashes.
3- The Titanic was the first ship to have four funnels.
    WRONG! And that is a ridiculous one. The Titanic (and the Olympic) was built to compete with Cunard's Lusitania and Mauretania, which both had four funnels. Not only that, but only
    three funnels were functional, the fourth one being for air circulation. And it was like that for every four-funnel ship of that era.
4- The Titanic was said to be unsinkable.
     WRONG! This Rumor comes from the fact that the Cunard's Lusitania and Mauretania had for a slogan: "As Unsinkable As a Ship Can Be". But the White Star never claimed the Titanic
     being unsinkable, they just said the ship was able to sail with four floating compartments floaded.. Yet it's true that Captain Edward Smith thought that the technology of his time
     made shipwrecks very unlikely...

See what I mean, now? It's easy to laugh at the misconceptions that spread around us about a subject we know well. But it's a lot less easy to recognize that we DO spread misconceptions about other sujects OURSELVES. Just by curiosity, how many of you knew those facts about the Titanic? Maybe not that many. So, now, let's stop ourselves from laughing at funny misconceptions... and let us start laughing at ourselves. We are not proptected from having misconceptions either.

Funny thing is the Olympic and Titanic had more lifeboats then the law asked for at the time. The max at the time was 16. The Olympic and Titanic had 20.  They had four extra lifeboats for emergency.

Exactly! But not that many people know that. Yet, they continue to affirm that Titanic was the only ship with not enough lifeboats on board and continue to say: "But everybody knows that!" Ha!Ha!Ha!

[stargatedalek]

See what I mean, now? It's easy to laugh at the misconceptions that spread around us about a subject we know well. But it's a lot less easy to recognize that we DO spread misconceptions about other sujects OURSELVES. Just by curiosity, how many of you knew those facts about the Titanic? Maybe not that many. So, now, let's stop ourselves from laughing at funny misconceptions... and let us start laughing at ourselves. We are not proptected from having misconceptions either.

No one is going to know everything about everything, and I think most people commenting here realized this. There is nothing wrong with discussing and even teasing misconceptions so long as it doesn't become strictly inflammatory.

Even besides that point most of the things having been discussed in this thread were in fact common knowledge things that anyone in a first world country should at least be generally aware of, such as birds being dinosaurs, and not just things that enthusiasts would know of.

For the record I think more people than you might expect know most of those Titanic facts, or at the very least know not to trust what comes from the movie. But this is Nova Scotia so maybe the actual science of the Titanic just has more exposure here (what with two museums having large sections dedicated solely to it).

[Bowhead Whale]

See what I mean, now? It's easy to laugh at the misconceptions that spread around us about a subject we know well. But it's a lot less easy to recognize that we DO spread misconceptions about other sujects OURSELVES. Just by curiosity, how many of you knew those facts about the Titanic? Maybe not that many. So, now, let's stop ourselves from laughing at funny misconceptions... and let us start laughing at ourselves. We are not proptected from having misconceptions either.

No one is going to know everything about everything, and I think most people commenting here realized this. There is nothing wrong with discussing and even teasing misconceptions so long as it doesn't become strictly inflammatory.

Even besides that point most of the things having been discussed in this thread were in fact common knowledge things that anyone in a first world country should at least be generally aware of, such as birds being dinosaurs, and not just things that enthusiasts would know of.

For the record I think more people than you might expect know most of those Titanic facts, or at the very least know not to trust what comes from the movie. But this is Nova Scotia so maybe the actual science of the Titanic just has more exposure here (what with two museums having large sections dedicated solely to it).

I'm aware of that, of course! I never intended to "Attack" anyone, I just wanted to tell poeple to take dinosaur misconceptions with a grain of salt. We all have misconceptions about one subject or another.