OK, last night I seriously came out (no, not that way), unveiling the big project I’ve been working on the last several years: a high fantasy novel called The Dinosaur Lords.
Remember that name. You will come to know it well.
I read a couple of chapters to the Albuquerque Science Fiction Society, to a gratifyingly enthusiastic response. (The able assistance of the museum-replica dino toys I brought, with additional sound effects by yours truly, helped a lot.) The book’s half done; I’m rockin’; and rollin’ on it; it’ll be great.
Expect to see lots more about it here and on my Forum in weeks to come.
Anyway, I was gonna go on about the reading - thanks so much to Craig and Steve and Kathy and Roslee and the rest for being a wonderful audience and supportive friends, and a particular shout out to Kevin for the suggestion about executions - heh, heh - but then this intervened.
According to the UK’s Times Online, scientists at the Royal Veterinary College, University of London, assure us that Tyrannosaurus rex was “A slow, clumsy beast.”
Really?
(Time out. Note: when I write something like that, please envision me doing the Mr. Spock, “You’re not so freaking bright, are you, Dr. McCoy?” eyebrow raise. I practiced for hours in front of a mirror as a kid to perfect it. You might as well get the visual.)
Like so much of what’s called “debunking” today, the article’s assertions don’t seem to make much actual sense.
T. rex is alleged to be slow because it maxed out, at least in the study, at 25 mph. To prove its slowness, they compared Rexy to a cheetah - world’s fastest predator - and a marlin. That’s, yes, a fish.
How does that differ from saying the T. rex couldn’t have been an effective predator because it couldn’t swim fast and stay submerged for long periods of time . . . like a shark? Or for that matter, that the shark can’t be an efficient predator because it can neither move nor breathe on land?
According to Infoplease.com, a lion can charge at 50 mph, twice as fast. If T. rex maxed out at 25, it is slow . . . relatively. Yet an elephant also charges at 25 mph. So how slow is that really?
Also: we are assured Rex was not agile because “it would have been hampered by its long tail.” Then later we are told the dinosaur “would have been front-heavy.” Do those two things add up? Doesn’t the long tail counterbalance the heavy front? If it doesn’t, how much could it hamper Rexy?
“The findings were reached after researchers used computer modelling and biomechanical calculations to work out the dinosaur’s speed, agility and weight.”
Ah. We all know if it’s shown on a computer, it must be true, right? We know from first person-shooters, for example, that if you shoot someone with a normal small arm, a rifle or a shotgun, they either fly twenty feet through the air (”rag-doll physics”) or disintegrate in a shower of bloody gibs (Doom.) So that must be how it works in the real world, too . . . right?
Apparently, you can always get headlines - which can readily translate by not very arcane processes into increased funding - by dissing the Big T.
The study’s assertions may be true; I don’t deny that. What does the study show, at least as represented through the article, which would lead a rational person to buy it? Keeping in mind the scientists can be presumed to have used their most compelling case to cadge free pub, they showed nothing that impressed this one.
A computer game isn’t science. A computer “simulation” isn’t necessarily a simulation of anything real. And “scientists say” has the same rational weight as “witch doctors say.” Assertion is not science. Neither is appeal to authority.
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Subject line: Mott the Hoople reference, ladies and gentleman. Yes, I am obsessed with referencing late 1960s-early 1970s rock songs. Thank you for noticing.