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New Analysis Shows Dinosaurs Not As Heavy As Previously Believed.
Cognitive Dissident writes "Discovery.com has an article on a new study using computer modeling to estimate the actual amount of flesh needed to cover the skeletons of dinosaurs. Based on a comparison with modern animals, it indicates that these animals could have weighed dramatically less than has been previously estimated. 'A huge Brachiosaur, once thought to weigh 176,370 pounds, is now believed to have weighed 50,706 pounds.' That's only about two-and-a-half times the weight of a modern African elephant. If other evidence can be reconciled with this, many estimates of the ecosystems dinosaurs lived in will also have to be revised."
Dinosaurs. Not heavy, just big boned.
Back when I was a kid, I wondered if the weight attributed to dinosaurs was inflated. It's good to know that someone thought the same and followed through with it.
there's a problem with the previous apparent heaviness of Dinosaurs, namely that in the current gravity it would have been impossible! My point is that since this a yet another computer model study, there is more chance for built-in bias. ie, they had a very strong motivation to downsize them.
Wouldn't the buoyancy reduce their weight even more? Really, is there any reason they can't?
Is enough known about footprint formation to estimate the mass of the creature that made them?
[Sorry if this is a repeat. I do not see my first attempt.]
Their they're doing there hair.
pounds? for a minute there I thought we were talking sience...
Let's make the African elephant unit a standard.
This write-up gives reasons for doubting that the new technique does show dinosaurs were significantly lighter than previously thought.
Even without computer simulations, I imagine they'd compare dinosaur skeletons to that of elephants, horses, giraffes, rhinos and even birds (which are supposed to be descended from the dinosaurs) to develop some reasonable bone mass or skeletal girth to weight ratios, no? Off by a factor of 3 1/2 seems ridiculous, even if we're talking research that was done in the 60s.
And in response to myself... According to the article (which I just skimmed), a common method was to take an artist’s reconstruction sculpture of the animal, measure its volume and multiply by the density to get its weight.
So rather than using animals we know as a guideline and performing some basic math, they let an artiste eyeball it by building some completely arbitrary model that happened to envelop the skeleton and then used that model as a guide to dinosaur weight, which in turn had sweeping impacts on virtually every aspect of our understanding of dinosaurs.
And you wonder why people don't trust science...
"A huge Brachiosaur, once thought to weigh 176,370 pounds, is now believed to have weighed 50,706 pounds."
Those figures seem to imply they knew the weight to an accuracy of a few pounds, why don't they 175,000 and 50,000 pounds?
Did they measure the depth of the footprints?
While we are mentioning dinosaurs, a sad farewell to the Author of "A Sound of Thunder" Rest in Peace Ray
When you converted 80,000 kg and 23,000 kg to pounds, it was swell of you to convert 1-2 significant digits to 5. I for one enjoy the round-off noise in the last 3 decimal places - it has premium aesthetic value. I bet those dinos probably thought the same way; losing weight must have been less depressing in terms of losing 2 pounds rather than 0.001%. On second thought, I barely know my own weight to 3 digits...
This is just like all other science. The most sensation, impressive sound stats that's backed by "real sounding" science wins. Impossibly heavy lizard vs reasonably, logically sized lizards. Let's go with the freaking lizo-tank. Mathematical error or magical substance we can't see or measure = entire 1 hour specials on dark matter. One of millions of things we have flying around up there vs careless aliens visiting...well that's alien UFOs of course. I think that might even have its own channel actually. This really needs to stop.
Dinosaurs. Not heavy, just big boned.
T-Rex just has to realise that these low carb diets are just a fad, and that it cannot get by on just one brontosaurus a week.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
80 tonnes versus 23 tonnes. Looks like someone just ran "80 tonnes in lb" through Google.
That is a hell of a long time to miss that concept. We wasted a lot of time
and resources predicting a lot of things that are off by several magnitudes
believing that they were of a different weight.
There will be a flood of new data from related sciences following this. And
probably a number of other studies trying to disprove it.
-AI
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion
I mean, it must be very difficult for a brachiosaur to make itself throw up, with the huge neck and all.
Was it a european or an african brachiosaur ? Do you think it could carry coconuts ?
The masses given equate to 80000 kg and 23000 kg respectively. Or 80 and 23 (metric) tons. Two significant figures. Not more. No doubt those were the numbers originally supplied by the scientists, and the author of TFA converted it to pounds for the typical American reader without understanding how precision works. This happens all the time in the popular press. Clearly you can't estimate the weight of a creature you've never seen to within 1 lb. Your standard human's weight fluctuates by more than that over the course of a day.
I mean, their bones were made of stone!
In that case, why not believe in the same unchanging orthodoxy that your family, friends and coworkers do instead of one that keeps on changing.
because it's patently bullshit?
He ain't heavy....
...he's my brachiosaur....
Just fluffy.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
10/10 for using the ol' "science is like Religion because they claim to have Truth and banish those who disagree with their Orthodoxy" line in an article about scientists at a major research university up-ending the "orthodoxy" and publishing their "heresey" in a Royal Society publication. I love this kind of irony.
The enemies of Democracy are
You want to know how heavy 50,706 lbs is? FUCKING HEAVY. Is 30000 kg really more meaningful to you than 50000 lbs? Great job being a pedantic douchebag though.
What's so wrong with a changing belief anyway? Why this fixation on having an unchanging and un-adaptable view of the world?
I've changed a lot since I was born. My home town has too (though not as much some other places!). Very little in nature stays the same over a lifetime; rivers get different flow paths; lizards stop laying eggs and go placental. How I knew the world to work when I was seven is very different to how I knew the world to work at age 21 or how I know the world works at age 35. Things I knew to be true in the past turn out to be wrong or incomplete, and no doubt some of the things I hold to be absolute in my life now will turn out to be less than that in the future.
So why is it so bloody bad that theories and scientific understandings of the world change over time? Why do those choose to believe in system they profess hasn't changed in 2000 years (even though it clearly has changed and is still changing) get to be all "AHH! I CAUGHT YOU!" every time science discovers something that changes our view of the world? All modern science is built on the idea of falsifying the results of others, so off course some things are going to be found to be not true. All good scientists should be able to say "of course, I could be wrong - and this is how". AND THIS IS A GOOD THING.
I don't see many religious people willing to say that same thing... and I would guess that's why they feel it is so incompatible with their world view.
A view of the world that claims to be unchanging and immovable is clearly lying, and is clearly a faulty and unnatural way to be. It is for that reason that it should be expunged from the system.
Or our otherwise capable childrens inability to do a unit ratio conversion will stop there future hard sciency careers. They might have to take up management science instead and live ever deprived of there true fullfillment.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
because it's patently bullshit?
Which is why I do not believe it. But *lots* of people do, and they hold the reins of power; thus, we can't just dismiss them as unimportant.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
I do not think that Science is like Religion. Like I said, this article is a Good Thing. The only reason that the West has advanced stupendously in knowledge and (besides Capitalism) wealth is Science.
However, you can't deny that scientists are imperfect and sometimes act that way. (Well, you *can*, but then you're deluding yourself.)
In order to overcome growing public growing, rationalists must be like Avis and "Try Harder" at being humble and not so dogmatic.
Penn Jillette is who I admire, not Richard Dawkins.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
No way. They were heavy, dudes & dudettes
While we're at it, are they closer to an explanation on why birds tweet and chirp,snakes and lizards hiss and their dinosaur ancestors are always shown in movies roaring like lions?
“The 23 tonne weight (50,706 pounds) is quite low, but I think it reflects the fact that all dinosaur weights are getting lower,” Sellers said, explaining that the estimated weight for this dino, along with other species, has been dropping since about the early 1960’s."
OK, that explains a lot. We can conclude that what ultimately killed them was too much Aspartame.
Evolution and AGC.
I'm truly glad that some paleontologists aren't accepting received wisdom, but scientists affirm as Truth (dinosaurs evolved into reptiles, dinosaurs are all green, caffeine is bad for you, "too much" salt causes strokes, cyclamates and saccharin cause cancer, the continents are unchanging, you must drink 8x8oz of *water* per day, etc, etc) topics with the barest research behind them, doing their best to banish those who disagree with Orthodoxy.
In that case, why not believe in the same unchanging orthodoxy that your family, friends and coworkers do instead of one that keeps on changing.
Well, I can't wait for the day a study finds correlation between exposure to bad science reporting and disbelief in science... should make for some interesting headlines at least.
Then those lots of people are idiots, and should never be allowed to rise to positions of power or decision making. Probably best if they don't breed, as well.
Here it is for people that can't make sense of that pound unit, which value depends on country and time period:
New study estimates that the Brachiosaur, once believed to weigh about 80 tons, may actually have only weighed 23 tons.
Revisionists are trying to put forth the notion that obesity is a modern construct, due in no small part to globalclimatewarmingchange ®. A grant from the Yourtaxdollarsatwork Foundation is vital to the continuation of this 'research.'
without mankind trying to wipe them out......there must have been a shitload of those big bastards wandering around happily eating grass and leaves, shitting and farting all day......what effect did all the farts have on the climate? The noise and smell must have been awesome. Maybe fartification wiped them out!
A closed mouth gathers no foot.
I do not think that Science is like Religion. Like I said, this article is a Good Thing.
You made it sound like this is the exception to the rule ("I'm glad that some..."), rather than the rule itself.
However, you can't deny that scientists are imperfect and sometimes act that way.
The scientific method is premised on the idea that scientists are imperfect.
In order to overcome growing public growing, rationalists must be like Avis and "Try Harder" at being humble and not so dogmatic.
I'm not sure that's so. Look, you point at this article saying "Is it any wonder people don't trust science?", then point out how science is always changing its mind. You said it's Dogmatic when as a rule it isn't, but then again the people you're talking about don't have a problem with Dogma, do they? They just don't like it when it admits it was wrong and changes.
The unspoken implication, which I think is more correct, is that Joe Fundamentalist Six Pack would be more likely to believe in science if it was more dogmatic, and didn't change hypothesis in light of new data. "Don't worry folks, Brachiasurus weighs 80 metric tonnes and egg whites are bad for you, always and forever."
Which is why we should never, ever change how science is done to win over people whose fundamental issue is that they don't understand science, don't want to understand science, and thus can't be arsed to try.
The enemies of Democracy are
Honey, does this velociraptor make me look fat?
My ultimate point is that I think there should be more public assertions by scientists of scientific uncertainty (especially in the non-hard fields of study). But who -- especially if you're an expert in your field -- wants to be perceived as not knowing what you're talking about?
Maybe, though, the real problem is with journalists, textbook authors and University press offices.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
But if they were lighter they should have survived Noah's Flood and they would still be alive today, no?
My ultimate point is that I think there should be more public assertions by scientists of scientific uncertainty
Like all the "estimate", "could", and "suggests" lines from TFA?
There are plenty such assertions. People just tend to ignore or forget them -- particularly because all the caveats won't fit in the headline, and our soundbite ADD culture can't handle that. See how many people complain on /. that the headline -- not the summary, but the headline -- is "misleading" because it doesn't fully explain the entire story?
Maybe, though, the real problem is with journalists, textbook authors and University press offices.
Primarily the first. It was the article (and thus summary) that chose to compare this new estimate with the highest estimate ever that was about 3.5 times higher than this one. And also extremely outdated. You might as well compare a new estimate of the earth's mass to when it was thought the earth was a plate resting on a turtle. But comparing to the second-most-recent estimate, which was only about 25% larger than this, doesn't make it sound as revolutionary -- even though the key part, the technique for doing the estimate, is.
Now watch the large number of people whose take away from this was that the mass of Brachiasaurus dropped by 70% overnight.
This is not the fault of science.
The enemies of Democracy are
I have mod points now, and frequently, and I can tell you that I do not give one crap about your opinion as to whether a post should be modded up. It has become commonplace here, and is almost shorthand for "if I had points, I would mod you up, but instead I'll add marginally more value by restating your comment more concretely".
Read the parent post, and then your own, and ask yourself what specifically you added? A formatting suggestion?
I came in to post essentially this post linked below, and the logic behind figuring this out is something I try to encourage. Why did they post that number? It was a conversion for a US audience. Slashdot is not a US audience (though I believe it is hosted there), and even the US readers prefer metric more than the average US citizen due to being more scientifically literate.
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2899899&cid=40241949
It's all about writing for your audience. And as a reader, you should be aware that professional writers try to consider their audience, and if you aren't their audience, try to understand as if you were the intended audience. And as a poster, you should consider that most people reading will not have mod points available, and leave that part out.