July 30, 2024 • 43 mins
Ever felt like the rug was pulled out from under your feet when a fact you held dear was debunked? That's the rollercoaster we're riding in our latest episode, where we tackle the towering tales and myths about dinosaurs that have shaped our understanding since childhood. Prepare to have your mind blown as we dissect the controversial claims against the existence of Triceratops, the identity crisis of the Brontosaurus, and the emotional whirlwind that comes with science's ever-evolving narrative.
Now, imagine a T-Rex paddling in your local lake – sounds absurd, right? Well, that's exactly the kind of contentious theory we're debating, thanks to Brian J. Ford's aquatic dinosaur hypothesis. From feathered velociraptors to the Spinosaurus's transformation from land titan to possible water dweller, we're peeling back the layers of paleontological evidence while dishing out a healthy dose of scientific skepticism. Prepare to have your preconceptions challenged as we discuss the powerful influence of cinema on public perception and the real science that paints a vastly different picture.
By the time we reach our final thoughts, you'll be questioning everything you thought you knew about these prehistoric giants. We delve into the cultural phenomenon surrounding dinosaurs, from the romanticism of rare discoveries to the ideological battles mirrored in paleontology. Amidst sharing nostalgic anecdotes and pondering the implications of contrarian views, we reaffirm the dynamic and sometimes tumultuous relationship between science, education, and the stories we tell about our ancient, reptilian predecessors. Join us for a conversation that's as deep and engaging as the fossils that inspired it.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Ron (00:15):
hello everyone and welcome back to the uncannery.
I am ron and I am joined herewith my two good friends.
Oh, I'm Don.
Doug (00:26):
I didn't forget.
Ron (00:27):
I'm Doug.
It's Ron, don and Doug together.
Again, thank you all forjoining us.
You could be anywhere in theworld right now, but you are and
you're listening to us, whichis cool.
I wanted to open up by askingyou guys have you ever had, did
you ever learn something thatshook you to your core?
Did you ever?
Have you ever had?
Did you ever learn somethingthat shook you to your core?
(00:47):
Did you ever?
You grew up you thought theworld operated one way and then
at some point probably somerapscallion, real, low-life,
quote-unquote scientist suddenlytells you that's wrong actually
.
Doug (00:59):
That's not how the world works.
Ron (01:01):
You ever been incensed in this way or had your heart
broken in this way?
Specifically a scientist.
I guess it doesn't need to be ascientist.
Maybe it could be aquote-unquote teacher or a
quote-unquote parent yeah,quote-unquote former lover, or a
quote-unquote lawyer who iswriting on behalf of that former
(01:22):
lover.
I don't.
Doug (01:24):
I was just thinking about some terrible junior high
relationships, yeah, and thosewere some of the worst.
Ron (01:35):
Any instances of I guess what, maybe what we could call
almost like Galileo moments,right?
Where the whole world thoughtat one point we're the center of
the universe.
Right where the whole worldthought at one point we're the
center of the universe.
And then some boring olditalian guy has to show up and
be like actually he has to pushhis glasses up his nose and then
we kill him I can't recall aparticular moment that I had
like that, but I feel like I wasoften the deliverer of that
(01:58):
news to others I am notsurprised in the slightest, yeah
, not surprised at all.
Doug (02:04):
What?
Ron (02:04):
about the big pluto controversy of 10 or 15 years
ago.
Did any of you have stakes inthat or care at all?
Doug (02:11):
didn't necessarily have stakes, but it did remind me of
how many things that you do takein and are subject to change.
That loosey-goosiness that youneed with you never know see how
did it change?
Don (02:22):
pluto has been there our whole lives.
It couldn't have changed it.
Just it always was one thing orthe other so it's a planet oh,
no don hate to be the bearer andI remember I had one of these
moments.
Ron (02:38):
I don't remember caring that much about the pluto thing,
but I do remember in around in2010, there was an article I
read.
It was a big popular article.
Maybe you guys read this onetoo.
Did you guys do?
Where were you when you foundout that Triceratops, the
probably the most famousdinosaur bar Tyrannosaurus Rex,
actually does not exist?
(02:58):
Do you remember this?
Don (03:01):
None of the dinosaurs exist .
They're all dead.
None of the dinosaurs exist,they're all dead.
Ron (03:09):
Damn your dedication to the hard-coded meanings of words I
do recall that I don't.
Don (03:17):
I never read the article, I think, I just dismissed it as
nonsense.
But I had the similar uhexperience with brontosaurus oh
yeah, yeah, brontosaurus was along time before that, I think
brontosaurus is back he is justrecently yeah, yeah, the theory
of the triceratops.
Ron (03:30):
Were you here, doug, do you ?
Doug (03:31):
remember this.
Can I just tell you that Inever read that article and I'm
still reeling a little bit, it'sbecause walk us through.
Ron (03:40):
What are you feeling right now?
Not good.
Doug (03:42):
Just poor feelings all around.
I cannot believe that.
Yeah, the young Jurassic Parkwatcher in me just fell a bit to
the wayside.
That is such a bummer.
Ron (03:56):
Everything you grew up believing turned out to be a lie
, and the world's a little lessmagical for you now Very much
Because dinosaurs are a magicalpart of childhood.
Doug (04:05):
I can't explain why.
Ron (04:08):
Yeah, I want to talk today a lot about dinosaurs.
I want to talk about theirmagic nature.
And I want to talk about why wefeel the way we feel about
dinosaurs as a sort of and Iguess just like how we view the
world and the way we've beentaught to view it and, when
that's challenged, why we feelthe way we feel, through today's
kind of case study, as it were.
But going back to theTriceratops, I was being a
(04:30):
little bit dramatic and so werethe articles in 2010.
Triceratops did exist, don,we're back, but there was a
debate about whether or not totake it out of the sort of
dinosaur taxonomy, whether ornot to take it out of the sort
of dinosaur taxonomy, becausearound 2010, a lot of
paleontologists two inparticular, jack horner, who's
probably like one of the most,if you, if you've heard of a
(04:51):
paleontologist, you've probablyheard of jack horner, he's like
the most famous paleontologistof the 20th century, probably um
, and another guy who's lessfamous, his name is john
scanella.
They were looking at andthey're like we sure have a lot
of dinosaur species, but youknow what we don't have?
We don't have a lot of juveniledinosaurs, right, anytime.
Someone found a fossil, theymade it a new species and they
(05:14):
started thinking there's aproblem with that methodology.
We're probably findingdinosaurs in different stages of
development and we're callingthem new species.
So they started going throughand trying to pick out species
that they thought probablyweren't distinct species, and
triceratops was one of them,because triceratops looks very
similar to another ceratopsiddinosaur called taurosaurus, and
(05:38):
taurosaurus and triceratopslived at the same time and they
lived in the same geographicalarea of north america or
prehistoric North America, andthey thought, oh, taurosaurus
just has a much larger frillthan the Triceratops.
Maybe Triceratops is anadolescent Taurosaurus.
Doug (05:54):
Okay.
Ron (05:55):
There is currently still debate about whether or not that
is correct.
There are scientists whoascribe to that theory.
There are scientists who thinkthey were still two distinct
species.
Either way, the scientific kindof news media ran with this in
2010 and all the articles weretriceratops is dead.
Kill your local scientist hewas like pluto for dinosaur
(06:15):
people, right?
so, anyways, though it was allkind of overgrown or overblown,
and whether or not you thinktriceratops was a juvenile
version of some other dinosaur,he's still there.
He was still there.
You can still love triceratopsthe triceratops.
Doug (06:30):
Correct me if I'm wrong.
Was that the first one that,like laura dern, went up?
Ron (06:33):
to put her hand on?
Doug (06:35):
yeah, I definitely whether .
Tara.
What was it?
Taurosaurus, taurosaurus.
Now we're getting into pokemonterms yeah, yeah taurosaurus
that's a whole other thing rightthere, taurosaurus yeah, I
definitely have a connectionwith that one, I think for that
memory especially.
Ron (06:51):
Yeah, and in case you are a listener who is a complete rube
and you don't know what aTriceratops is, it's a
four-legged herbivorous dinosaurthat has a giant frail on its
head and three horns coming outof its face.
Don (07:03):
It does, yes I haven't heard this story with
triceratops, but I have heardthe story with tyrannosaurus.
Ron (07:09):
The same thing that that, that there's a possibility that
some of smaller species wereactually juvenile tyrannosaurus
that that hadn't grown up yet,yeah, there's a lot of them like
albertosaurus, I think, ismaybe one of those or something
like that albertosaurus oh,there's a you name a state in
Canada and there's a dinosaurname.
That's exciting, but that's nottoday's case study.
(07:29):
I'm just saying this frequentlyhappens.
Don (07:31):
So you just wanted to destroy Doug's dreams of
trichotops?
I?
Ron (07:34):
wanted us all to watch a man melt in podcast.
Doug (07:39):
Why do you like doing that so much to me specifically?
Ron (07:43):
But like this is something that happens frequently
regarding scientific topics andissues.
Right, because science issupposedly evolving, right it's
our ideas and observations aboutthe world are supposed to
change as scientists receive newdata and amend old theories and
things like that.
I want to do that again, butagain, in the dinosaur realm we
need to now, on a much largerscale than the Triceratops
(08:07):
existing or not existing.
We need to actually rethinkeverything we know about
dinosaurs.
Doug, I'm taking it, based onthe fact that you didn't know
Triceratops didn't exist in 2010, that you are not super up to
date with paleontology.
Is that correct?
Doug (08:23):
You are not super up to date with paleontology, is that
correct?
Let's call me a guy who reallylikes Jurassic Park, and maybe
it's as far as it goes, but Ireally enjoy it Don?
Ron (08:34):
have you been a dino head for any part of your life, or do
you like cruise enoughscientific popular news outlets?
Don (08:43):
to keep up to date with this stuff the mr baldwin shout
out to mr baldwin, my thirdgrade teacher.
We had a pretty intensivedinosaur unit back in the third
grade so I I learned a bunch ofstuff back then and I wouldn't
say I stay on top of dinosaurnews, but but every once in a
while things pop up in my rathereclectic news feed that the
(09:03):
algorithm hasn't figured out yet.
Ron (09:05):
Okay, so then, it wouldn't be shocking to any of you to
learn that we now believe manydinosaurs were feathered.
Doug (09:12):
That is not shocking, that is shocking what I wasn't ready
for that we're talking Barn Owlfeathers.
Ron (09:27):
Yes, a spectrum of feathers , from fully feathered, like a
barn owl, to proto feathered,like maybe having, I think, what
they call filaments right,which would be like the spine of
a feather without all the otherkind of if you took a folks at
home, you might be excited forthis podcast, but, trust me,
this is definitely the one I'mmost excited for up to this
(09:48):
point, because you're dropping,you start this off.
Doug (09:50):
You ever had your whole world changed and you're doing
it constantly.
Ron (09:54):
We're gonna change doug's world as many times as possible
tonight, do you know?
Don (09:57):
the closest living ancestor of a tyrannosaurus no wrong.
Ron (10:03):
Yeah, well, it's a chicken, it's a chicken.
Yeah, I'm glad you said I'm ajurassic park guy, because a lot
of this I think this isactually I'm also.
I love jurassic park.
If I would still probably sayjurassic park is probably my
favorite movie to watch if Iwant to have a fun time, that
first jurassic park it's.
It's a flawless film, I thinkfor entertainment.
But I think one of the reasonsthat film was so landmark was it
(10:25):
was pushing a lot of, at thetime, very progressive ideas
about dinosaurs the whole.
Dinosaurs are birds anddinosaurs can move and dinosaurs
are hot.
Doug (10:36):
I don't know who does this Life finds a way.
Ron (10:40):
Yeah, a lot of that was like new science at the time and
the portrayal of dinosaurs wasvery contradictory to how
they've been portrayed for along time before that.
But we now know that a lot ofdinosaurs we sign
paleontologists now groupdinosaurs into bird-like and
non-bird-like dinosaurs, and soyour bird-like dinosaurs are
predominantly the ones that kindof birds resemble most.
(11:03):
Today you're're walking on twofeet theropod dinosaurs, which
are your T-Rexes and yourvelociraptors and those kinds of
things.
Right, we now think almost allof those had some form of
feathers by the time thedinosaurs went extinct at the
end of the Cretaceous period.
Did you also know thatdinosaurs couldn't walk on land?
No, the idea that dinosaurs aretoo big to walk on land was
(11:32):
proposed first I get not first,but it was re-proposed in 2012
by an english independentresearcher named brian j ford
yeah, not t ford, brian j fordand he published an article in
Laboratory News that I think hetitled Prehistoric Revolution
and basically posited thistheory that dinosaurs actually
(11:53):
mechanically do not function theway we have previously thought,
and that they had to be aquaticcreatures because their bones
and their musculature could notsupport their massive weight if
they were strictly terrestrialcreatures.
Doug (12:08):
So there's a lot more validity in Nessie being a real
thing.
Ron (12:12):
He distinguished Nessie, which is, of course, the Loch
Ness monster, which has for along time been hypothesized to
be some sort of livingplesiosaur, right, which is not
a dinosaur.
The plesiosaurs are marinereptiles and dinosaurs are not
reptiles.
This is also part of the whatwe call the dinosaur renaissance
of the 1970s right, where theseguys were like everything about
(12:34):
dinosaurs is wrong.
Um, marine reptiles areplesiosaurs and dinosaurs are
dinosaurs.
They live on land.
But what ford has now informedus is that?
No, in fact, they weredinosaurs.
They were not marine reptiles,but they didn't live on land
because they simply couldn't.
It just wouldn't work that way.
Doug (12:52):
I think this has become a study in the power of how much a
film narrative will shape.
It's embarrassing, lisa, howmuch it will shape your
perspective, to say the least,because, yeah, this is all mind
blowing information.
Don (13:06):
So let's play this out though.
So pick a dinosaur, and howmuch did the dinosaur weigh?
So do we want to play with atwo-legged dinosaur or with a
sauropod?
Ron (13:16):
Let's start with a sauropod .
Right, the sauropods are thelargest dinosaurs.
They're your brachiosaurus,your brontosaurus, your
apatosaurus, the big long-neckeddudes, godzilla.
Godzilla is not a sauropod,okay.
Don (13:28):
Marine reptile, I think For folks at home Radioactive
marine reptile.
Doug (13:31):
I'm not that ridiculous with this, but it was a little
bit tempting.
I had to go for the low-hangingfruit.
Ron (13:36):
Ford said sauropods and theropods, almost all dinosaurs.
I think he said all dinosaurs,your Tyrannosaurus rex and your
brontosaurus.
None of them could walk on land.
But he predominantly uses thesauropods as his big example
because they're the biggest, thelargest dinosaurs that ever
existed, the largest landanimals that ever existed sorry
aquatic animals that everexisted.
(13:57):
The largest land animals thatever existed sorry aquatic
animals that ever existed werethese giant, long-necked
sauropod dinosaurs.
How much does one of thosepuppies weigh?
Don, 70 tons.
Don (14:04):
It says 120 feet long, 70 tons okay.
Ron (14:08):
So yeah, imagine you're on four, which he ford points out
when we look at the fossils ofsauropod legs and feet very
narrow, very small right.
They have, yeah, very narrow,very small right.
They have very narrow littlefeet.
They're walking up on theirtoes or tiptoeing around.
Don (14:23):
How could they do that?
That's 70 tons.
Ron (14:26):
Couldn't do it right, Couldn't?
No, of course they couldn't doit.
Blue whales.
Doug (14:32):
My favorite dinosaur.
Don (14:33):
Blue whales average 110 tons.
Okay.
Doug (14:36):
Yeah, okay, yeah.
Don (14:38):
So we're talking an animal smaller than the current largest
animal.
Ron (14:42):
But blue whales also.
Don (14:44):
Don't have legs, yes, so why would they have legs if they
weren't going to walk on them?
Ron (14:49):
Exactly, they did walk on them, but they walked on them in
the shallow seas of theMesozoic era.
Okay, walked on them in theshallow seas of the mesozoic era
.
Okay, because that's why wefind their footprints
predominantly in muddy shoals,because they were obviously
walking on these shallowwaterways so 70 tons will float,
(15:11):
but it can't walk, according tomr ford before dr ford uh, I
don't think he's a doctor.
Mr ford, yeah, uh, mr ford um,who is also a television
personality and has written manybooks, and you can also hire
him to lecture you on yourcruise we could have brought him
on as a special guest we couldhave, yeah, we could have flown
(15:33):
him out from the uk.
He charges fees which I thinkmight have been outside of our
yearly budget, Just assumingOkay.
Don (15:43):
So first of all, I think we need to decide if this makes
sense so it sounds like it makessense to you, Doug which part
they're floating 70 tons tons.
Doug (15:59):
Yeah, I'm thinking of the structure.
Again, this is all Spielbergdoing it for me.
I'm thinking of the structurethat I've seen up to this point
and, yeah, it's not reallymaking sense with how much, yeah
, how top heavy that would becompared to the very small legs.
Ron (16:10):
Yeah, and when I tell you other things, like dinosaurs,
massive tails were so huge thatthey would have been they would
have required half of theirmetabolic energy just to keep
them suspended in the air, andthat they make much more sense
as propulsion mechanisms throughthe water.
And that many dinosaurs havevery extended vertebrae fins on
top of their vertebrae, and thatwould make sense if they
(16:31):
actually had sails, much likemarlins have sails, in order to
help them navigate through thewater.
They actually had sails, muchlike marlins have sails, in
order to help them navigatethrough the water.
And then many dinosaurs areduck-billed and that would make
sense for eating aquatic plants,much like modern-day waterfowl
do.
Don (16:44):
And Tyrannosaurus has those little tiny arms which would
make sense to hold on to adinosaur life observer, so that
way he could keep his head up.
Ron (16:52):
Ford addresses the arms, he says they're there to catch
fish and to inspect them bypulling them up closer to the
animal's face so that they caninspect the fish before they eat
it.
Doug (17:00):
I can't even believe they get their arms close to their
face, though those things aresmall.
Don (17:04):
Have you seen Toy Story?
There's no way those arms.
Yeah, that's what I'm thinking.
It's him.
Doug (17:08):
That's it.
As long as you talk to me infilms, I can figure all this out
that's what I need.
So, yeah, very by a believableuh, argument by mr ford though
right, don you seem?
Ron (17:23):
skeptical, I'm skeptical.
Why are you so skeptical, don?
Why can't you just believe ascientist for once?
Don (17:30):
I'm skeptical because of mr ford's doubling down on his
theory in 2019.
So I don't know if you knowabout what happened in 2019.
Ron (17:38):
I don't think I know.
Okay, I do know that he hasdoubled down on his argument,
but go ahead and elucidate usall about what happened in 2019.
So in 2019,.
Don (17:47):
He told the Sun, the newspaper, the British newspaper
not the actual star in the skythat the reason the dinosaurs
went extinct was not because ofa comet or asteroid.
That's right.
It was because of the tectonicplates shifting and the
dinosaurs would lose the shallowwater in which they had sex.
So it all comes back todinosaur sex, because 70 tons
(18:12):
wouldn't be able to complete theact without crushing the
partner unless it was floatingin water, according to mr ford.
So when they sex lakes dry up,then no more little dinosaurs
come and and and they'recrushing each other.
That's the theory is they hadto have doug's face right now.
Ron (18:30):
It's like a man who's just found something very forbidden,
but he's glad to have stumbledupon one.
Doug (18:35):
No, it's sad.
His theory is they could onlyhave had sex in water because
otherwise they would crush eachother, but I'm guessing the
desire to procreate is greaterand I'm imagining the crushing
and it just makes me incrediblysad Just thinking of that's the
way that they went.
Don (18:54):
I don't think they died from crushing injuries.
I think they died from crushinginjuries.
I think they died from Sexualcrushing injuries.
What a terrible way to go.
Ron (19:07):
That's why all the dinosaurs are smiling in their
face.
Don (19:10):
That's true, that's true.
I hadn't thought of that.
You can always see their teeth.
Ron (19:15):
Yeah, yes, don.
What you're bringing up is thatford has several theories about
dinosaurs that fly in the faceof established paleontological
science.
Right, or you get it, but, don,how would you answer this claim
that paleontologists actuallyare just slavishly devoted to a
(19:38):
dogma that hasn't changed indecades and that really they're
being incredibly hostile to newinterpretations and theories of
organisms that we have veryscant evidence to back our
knowledge of anyways?
Don (19:54):
Good for them of.
Anyways, good for them.
That's how I would respond,because it's got to be one of
those sciences that does changeslowly because the evidence and
the record they're dealing withis so ancient.
So the when you're talkingabout quantum computing or dna,
like those things that we'relearning about rapidly because
(20:17):
it's present and we have samplesto deal with that are current,
but when you're digging in themud to find something that's
been buried for millions andmillions of years, like, of
course the evidence is going tocome slowly and slowly.
So I think it's one of thosesciences that should be changing
slowly.
Doug (20:35):
So, yeah, that's what I think all right and doug, you're
here for whatever thepaleontologists want to throw
your way it's dangerous with mebecause I'm just having too much
fun, and more because you'rethrowing so much stuff at me
that I'm like just sitting witha funnel my mind is now a funnel
of just fill me up with all thefacts before I can even start
to process okay, I think it'snow time to reveal that
(20:58):
dinosaurs almost assuredly did100% did walk on land and that
actually Brian Ford is a loser.
Don (21:07):
Allegedly, allegedly.
Doug (21:10):
Okay, yeah, I was having fun.
Ron (21:11):
I know I always say that and this is a big this was a big
deal in 2012 for no one excepta number of popular periodicals
that thought this would be areally good.
Don (21:24):
This story will generate clicks and it'll grab eyes and
it did the sun is known for itshard-cutting.
Ron (21:31):
When we got to there, and went oh yeah places like uh um,
daily motion and fox news andsky news and all these kinds of
more sensational news outletsreally had a field day running
this theory and publishing itwith very few sort of dissenting
opinions, just saying, hey, didyou know?
Actually dinosaurs couldn'twalk.
(21:52):
This was immediately receivedwith a lot of actual dissent and
evidence by the paleontologicalcommunity that immediately in
their separate kind ofperiodicals wrote to say this is
all complete.
This is just not true andprobably the captain of that
kind of dissent is apaleontologist who's another
english paleontologist nameddarren nash and he's he's like
(22:13):
the leading paleontologist rightnow.
He's like the.
He's the big guy at.
Currently there's a.
There's an apple tv show calledprehistoric planet which is
like his baby.
It's like the new walking withdinosaurs.
It's got richard attenboroughand a bunch of cgi dinosaurs.
We now know that this dinosaurcould swim.
He and a bunch of other peoplehave addressed brian ford's kind
(22:34):
of argument there.
There have been debates hostedby universities in which Brian
Ford has.
When Brian Ford debates I'veseen one of these on YouTube he
goes up, he's got a slideshowand he says everyone's being a
complete ass to me and he getsso incensed and acts like he's
got this beautiful and dangerousview of paleontology and that
(22:58):
the establishment is holding himback and won't let him change
and that he's being attackedneedlessly.
And then he says that dinosaurscan't walk on land and he gives
very poor evidence for this,and then the paleontologists
lambast him and make fun of himand then it kind of fuels this
cycle where then he can say see,look, they hate me, but it's
(23:20):
like.
It's like walking into a partyand calling everyone a racial
slur and then being like I toldyou they'd hate me.
Doug (23:29):
Absolutely Good analogy yeah.
Ron (23:31):
So, for instance, let's address some of the claims real
quick.
So like the idea that dinosaursare too heavy to walk, that
their bones just won't supportthat Most dinosaurs have very
like hollow bones they have.
They're predominantly air, likea lot of the sauropod bones-.
Don (23:45):
So they would float?
Yeah, they would float.
Ron (23:48):
That is the theory that even if a sauropod was in the
water, it wouldn't really beable to maneuver because it
would float and its center ofgravity.
Don (24:02):
Yes, they did it first the Jesusaur.
Ron (24:06):
Yeah, there is the lizard.
There's the Jesus lizard.
Doug (24:10):
You guys ever seen the Jesus?
It's got really long feet.
Ron (24:13):
It does walk on water, it runs across the water, anyway.
But yeah, it's like up to 89%of dinosaur bones is air usually
right.
So they're very heavy right,but their bones are designed to
reduce that weight as much aspossible.
Some bird bones are like thatright yeah, exactly and this is
something people have knownabout dinosaurs forever his big.
(24:34):
He goes on and on about thetail.
The tail is too big, it's awaste of metabolic energy.
But, like the paleontologistssay, like dinosaurs have giant
hip bones right and they haveinterlocking vertebrae and they
have.
They have muscles.
Much like dinosaurs have gianthip bones right and they have
interlocking vertebrae and theyhave.
They have muscles, much like wehave muscles in our neck that
can hold up a lot of weight butthey're non-tiring right right
like they don't actually expendthat much energy.
(24:54):
They're just designed in such away to spend things without
actually having to use all thatmuch metabolic energy.
Sure, and so this has all beenproven for like 100 years now.
Almost like this is likebizarre to go back and make.
And then also, dinosaur tailsaren't shaped like the tails of
an animal that would movethrough the water are right,
water tails are very verticalrather than like horizontal.
(25:15):
Dinosaur tails can be veryround and whip, like it's not
gonna generate that much force.
Right, he picks on one dinosaurin particular.
Doug, did you watch jurassicpark 3?
Doug (25:26):
I did.
I probably have the leastmemories of that one yeah, it's
not, it's like the worst oneit's not the one to remember is
that the one where that they goto attack san diego, or is that
two?
Ron (25:35):
that's, that's two jurassic park yeah in jurassic park 3,
they bring a new bad, meandinosaur yeah to kill the t-rex
and it's spinosaurus.
Yeah, it has a big giant frillon its back.
Doug (25:46):
I just remember unbelievably long scenes of.
I want to say that they werelike rope, bridges and fog, and
that was what they were reallyselling is like he could be
anywhere and I watched it in thefront of the theater and just
was craning my neck like tryingto see where is the sucker,
where, where is he?
Ron (26:05):
The Spinosaurus is a real dinosaur.
It lived in Egypt and at thetime of Jurassic Park 3, it was
basically portrayed as like abig T-Rex.
that just had a frill on itsback and like a crocodile face.
We've changed our view of theSpinosaurus a lot based on new
fossil evidence in the last 15years and we now think it was
like had really short legs, itmostly, it was mostly aquatic.
(26:25):
It had a really long kind ofcrocodilian tail and it had a
big sail and then it lived inmarshes and mostly swam through
the water.
And then this is the dinosaur.
That that Ford takes is likehis poster dinosaurs.
See, I told them theSpinosaurus swam and look now
they all say it swims and sothey were saying it swam before
you were.
He's piggybacking off of actualresearch that real
(26:48):
paleontologists have done.
Also important to note Ford hasno history, no paleontological
background.
He does have degrees in likebotany and zoology and he's
predominantly like a microscopeguy.
He's like very important in themicroscope community.
He says everyone should have amicroscope in their house, the
same way they have a tv, which Iguess is cool.
Don (27:08):
Yeah I don't you ever like actually look at a microscope
and you're like I don't want toknow what's living in my house
at the microscopic level.
Ron (27:14):
I think I'm happy imagining that it's not I used to teach
science to elementary schoolkids and we had a couple really
nice microscopes and every yearI'd put some slides in there and
the kids would be like, oh, Ican't wait to see this flea
under this microscope.
And then they'd see it and belike, oh, it's a bug.
Yeah.
Don (27:29):
Yeah, it's not that cool Blood is, though Blood is very.
Doug (27:34):
I would show them blood.
Ron (27:35):
They didn't care about blood, there's just circles,
yeah, yeah.
Doug (27:38):
But the fresh check it out Wow.
Ron (27:41):
It's all squirming around.
Yeah, these are like yeah,maybe I need it to stab myself
in class and be like check itout.
Doug (27:48):
Smear the lens of a microscope.
You do that.
They're not focused on themicroscope, they're like this is
already a spectacle.
Ron (27:55):
Yeah, they now just have trauma.
My science teacher stabbedhimself in front of me once.
So, anyways, this is like justa number of things that he says.
He focuses on duck billdinosaurs, but it's like the
shape of the bill.
It looks like a duck if you'relooking at it from above, but if
you looked at it like from theside, it's clearly hooked so as
to assist with grazing.
(28:16):
We find terrestrial plants anddinosaur stomachs all the time.
There's just it sounds cool,right?
I could tell you hey, did youknow?
You were wrong?
Actually, dinosaurs are reallyheavy, bro.
How could they walk on land?
Right?
And you could be like, yeah,you're right, I've never thought
about it Because you haven'tright.
Who would think about it?
Most of the time, if someonetells us something and we say
(28:39):
there's a scientist who said it,we're inclined to believe them.
Right, because again, they havea position of authority.
We are schmucks.
What do we know?
Okay, we're still.
We're so wrapped up talking withthe lawyer of our former lover
that we don't have time toactually piece these things
together and it's like this kindof went further than a lot of
(28:59):
paleontologists would have likedit to have.
In fact, when I was trying toget back into dinosaurs a few
years ago, I was like I need togo find a dinosaur book, I need
to read what's up with dinosaursnow?
And the first book I saw atlike Barnes and Noble, with its
cover turned outward so that youcould see it, was Brian Ford's
book, which was called Too Bigto Walk and it just has a
(29:21):
picture of a dinosaur with likewater up to his chest and I was
like what?
Doug (29:27):
Is that?
Ron (29:27):
what we think now.
And I was smart and I wentonline.
I was like, is this real?
And then I saw all thepaleontologists being like no,
this is a terrible book.
This is not backed up by anyscience.
But if I didn't know that Icould have just bought that book
?
Don (29:40):
How do you know those paleontologists were telling the
truth?
Ron (29:49):
And they're not just part of the paleontology deep state.
Trying to keep the truth fromyou, because paleontology does
change all the time.
Doug (29:53):
Actually, paleontology is always evolving.
The feather thing is real right.
Ron (29:54):
And god, you said something I've been wondering the whole
time we've found yes, the otherthing you can believe in,
because we found fossils andthey got feathers and they have
filaments and they have thesepores, large holes in their skin
where feathers would have gone,and so, like, these kinds of
new discoveries do happen andthey do change and even our
understanding of dinosaurs, likein the 20th century, changed a
lot from our understanding ofthem.
(30:21):
Brontosaurus in the swamp righthe's sitting there submerged in
the lake, he's eating the moss.
And the dinosaurs at thedisneyland train, all that kind
of swampy where their tails arelike laying on the ground and
being dragged behind thembecause they're too heavy.
All that stuff changed in the20th century and then ford's
kind of being like no, actuallythat was right, but it's yeah,
(30:42):
but we have science, we havelike computer models and we have
physics and we have microscopesto check the density of bones,
like all that evidence has beendone, all these people have put
in that work.
So that's why Don.
Doug (30:58):
I do like thinking about the paleontological,
paleontology deep state.
That's very funny to thinkabout.
Ron (31:05):
And that's the other thing, which is, this is a safe topic
to say that kind of stuff,because, you're right,
paleontology doesn't matter,right it's wow man, we just
alienated our whole paleontologyfollowing.
Sorry guys, I'm sorry, I loveyou guys keep digging in the mud
but unlike that you brought upwhat were you talking about
earlier?
algorithms or ai or quantummechanics yeah unlike those
(31:28):
things which, like, do have alot of immediate people are
putting money into those becausethey're going to be what churns
out the next wave oftechnological advancements.
Right, both commercially andmilitarily and whatnot.
Dinosaurs aren't right, it justdoesn't.
It doesn't matter, but it isalways fascinating because
people love dinosaurs, rightit'll always sell a newsweek
(31:50):
magazine, but it doesn't have alot of I don't know, am I wrong?
It doesn't have a lot of realbearing on how people behave or
act or change or sure thingslike that I've never been moved
by a dinosaur.
Don (32:02):
That's true.
Yeah, to change my behavior,but does mr ford?
How is it just him?
Was he just like solo, goingout on stage saying they all
hate me?
Or does he have a following?
Ron (32:13):
to the best of my knowledge , he has no following.
This is and I think this ispart of what I find so
interesting about this isbecause and a lot of his of his
Darren Nash points out in anarticle that, like the mere fact
that Brian Ford is alone iswhat sells the story, is what
makes the story.
It's a story of one man defying, you know, expectation, defying
(32:36):
a structure, defying a deepstate right, we love that kind
of underdog story.
He's the one man railingagainst truth.
It creates a Galileo framework.
That we're all we've beentaught to some degree, right.
Sometimes the establishment isreally bad and dumb and you need
someone with a big telescope tofigure out what the world is
really right, and I think that'swhy it got picked up and ran
(32:58):
with right and because it alsowho who stands to benefit
whenever some of these likeparadigm shifting theories get
made, darren nash well, the soapple tv plus I think it's not.
Darren nash represents the.
He's the establishment, he'sthe machine they got to keep
(33:20):
churning out new stuff to keepthe relevancy of dinosaurs at
the surface of modernconsciousness but if you look at
like dinosaur articles that getpublished by like real
scientists, it's usually likethey found a new dinosaur and
there's maybe an artist sketchand it looks like the other
dinosaurs.
There's not that much new.
Like the feather thing I thinkwas the last really big thing
(33:42):
there's also.
I think a couple years ago theyfigured out the color of a
dinosaur's feathers they wereactually able to like based on
the size of the skin cells orwhatever cells create the
structure.
It was red, right, yeah thesinusoropteryx I think it was
just this dinosaur with the bigred raccoon-like tail.
It had rings of like red andwhite right and so, based on a
(34:05):
single discovery like that, thenlike that reshapes how we view
dinosaurs, instead of being likebrown and green now they can be
any color right, yeah, it couldbe like really vibrant and cool
but, like a story like thatcomes along very rarely.
Rest of the time it's like hey,they found another half of a
skull of a something that mysandra said yeah, so is that why
(34:26):
, like this, seems like a safescandal?
Doug (34:29):
if that makes sense.
Don (34:30):
Yeah, I agree brian ford can pitch what he's pitching and
someone can believe it for aminute or not, or until, dare
nature, his cronies come alongand say it's not.
But at the end of the day, likewhether or not you believe that
Patasaurus was swimming orwalking like you say, it doesn't
change what I'm doing tomorrowat work.
(34:51):
It doesn't change what I'mhaving for dinner.
It doesn't change the politicsof our nation.
This one man is standingagainst an establishment and the
one man has been proven wrongover and over again.
But everyone who follows thatone man wants to believe him so
(35:11):
badly that they don't care thatthe evidence says one thing or
the other.
How, that sounds like afamiliar story to me where it's
not as simple as just one crazyguy.
He's harmless.
Ron (35:23):
Yeah, I agree, and I think that's why I think it's fun to
see enough.
it's interesting because youfind this kind of archetype of a
figure even in something asinconsequential as paleontology
right and I think there's alwaysbeen con men and people who set
themselves up asanti-establishment or contrarian
for their own personal benefitand the benefit of the
(35:44):
publishers who will publish themand make a book off of their
crazy theory and whatnot likethat.
But it is definitely somethingI think we see more of now and
it is inconsequential when itoccurs in the field of
paleontology and it's obviouslymuch more consequential when it
takes place in national politicsor even universities, right.
You always have some sort of acelebrity professor who's not
(36:06):
really someone who shouldprobably be listened to, but he
sure does bring attention to theuniversity and things like that
.
Don (36:12):
I'm sure the scandal is consequential to those in
paleontology.
I'm sure it's just notconsequential to those of us who
are not in paleontology.
No, no.
Ron (36:23):
And I'm sure an actual paleontologist would be like no,
actually, this is reallydangerous because I think
dinosaurs are so interestingculturally and Doug and I, we
consider dinosaurs magical.
Were dinosaurs ever magical foryou as a kid, Don?
Were you ever a dinosaur kid?
No, or were you just always aShakespeare kid?
Don (36:43):
No, I remember making my dinosaur diorama for my third
grade class.
That hung on the wall but butno, I wouldn't say they were
magical, they were just cool,yeah.
Ron (36:53):
But I feel like dinosaurs frequently get dragged into I
don't know for lack of a betterword like culture wars, right,
cause I remember when I was akid, dinosaurs were under attack
again, right, and it was verymuch.
The creation museum was openingup in Alabama or Missouri or
wherever that was, and it waslike, oh, the dinosaurs either
didn't exist or they did, butthey were with people and there
(37:13):
was again.
People wanted to attach acertain ideology to dinosaurs
and dinosaurs were key to that.
Right, dinosaurs were key toeither drawing people's
attention to those theories, orwrestling with dinosaurs was key
to disproving counter claimsagainst their theories, or
whatever it was, I don't know.
Dinosaurs always wind up inthis kind of weird space and I
think it is actually a littlebit important what people think
(37:36):
and believe about dinosaurs,because I think it's almost like
the canary in the coal minewhat people are willing to
believe about dinosaurs, right.
Then what else are they goingto believe about Extrapolates?
Don (37:46):
Yeah, that makes sense.
Yeah, I was at a naturalhistory museum in Lubbock, texas
, of all places, at Texas Tech,and they have some dinosaur
fossils on display and, quiteliterally, there was a family
just ahead of me, walked intothat room and turned around and
left and tried to explain totheir like probably seven, eight
(38:08):
years old that we're not goingin there because that's all just
nonsense and and just thecomplete rejection of
paleontology as a science, right, or that dinosaurs even existed
ever.
So I didn't, I didn't askquestions, I don't know what the
actual issue was, and a lot ofthat is conjecture on my part,
but I was just struck by that'snot something that would have
(38:29):
happened where I grew up.
Right, I was not in a placethat was home to me and I was a
stranger in a strange land, andthat was a behavior that was new
.
Was the?
No?
This can't be true.
Because, yeah, because theBible doesn't say that there are
dinosaurs.
Yeah, yeah.
Doug (38:43):
Because the Bible doesn't say that there are dinosaurs.
Yeah, speaking of Jurassic,have either of you heard of the
Museum of Jurassic Technology?
Yeah, that's in Culver City,right Venice Boulevard.
Ron (38:55):
Yeah, yeah.
Doug (38:59):
I used to live very close to it and I think I never
visited it.
This is jumping ahead a bit.
Ron (39:14):
It would be interesting to do a little connection on.
Maybe we take a trip there andhave an interesting podcast
talking about it.
Ironically, almost nothingabout dinosaurs there, but just
putting a pin in that.
Doug (39:19):
Can you summarize the sort of project of that museum real
quick?
I will just say that it almostis.
You'll be debating whetheractually, if it is an actual
museum or not, I can at leasttell you that I'm sorry, I'm
derailing us a bit no, but I dothink there's a connection,
right, because eventually, yeah,there's a little bit, because
it talks about what the jurassicperiod is in general, and the
reason I was thinking of that isbecause, yeah, this person
(39:41):
basically created thisinstitution, uh, based on
misfounding on what we think isJurassic, and it is that
important that there's an entireplace that's dedicated to this.
That is almost a portal intoanother world and, yeah, there
seems to be something in ourbrains and maybe this is
everything that is ancientJurassic that we don't have.
I guess we're not in touch with, necessarily.
(40:05):
That seems so ancient, but yeah, yeah, I think it's.
Ron (40:09):
I have no easy answer to why people love dinosaurs and,
like you said, don, because itis such a slow moving field,
relatively, because the evidenceis so scant and it's scattered
all over the world and it'sfrequently we have to make
massive conclusions off ofscrutinizing the same kind of
pieces of bones over and overagain.
(40:30):
I think it's just part ofthey're just cool.
Like it's cool.
You, we love fantasy, we lovemonsters, we love beowulf and
the green knight and all thisstuff, and we have like evidence
that something like that kindof happened actually once.
There once was the world wasonce covered in big old lizards.
Isn't that crazy?
(40:52):
and in fact, you wouldn't bewrong for assuming the world was
more of a dinosaur world than ahuman world, based on just the
sheer time frame that they spenton it.
Right, the dinosaurs were themain characters.
Actually, we were like this funaddendum.
There's something like alwaysgoing to be thrilling and
fascinating about that, whetheryou're a kid or an adult and
it's the gateway for kids toscience and to history and to
(41:17):
literature, like dinosaurs fit alot of those keyholes.
Doug (41:20):
Yeah, exactly exactly what is your favorite dinosaur
literature?
That's the one, because all I'mthinking is film again and
cartoon.
Land before time is justJurassic Park.
What do we have?
Don (41:34):
before time has a really important civil rights message
um sure does, and the sequelsare garbage, dinosaur property
like it would be that, orjurassic park sound of thunder
by bradbury?
There's not.
But I think what ron is sayingit's the idea that it's this
(41:54):
monstrous creature, and monsterspervade literature and that's
very much so, in human form andin monstrous form, and that's
yeah.
That taps into the imaginationof a kid.
It's why we say them in thethird grade.
It makes science and historycool in the third grade because
you get to learn about monsters.
Doug (42:14):
And I think I remember being fascinated as a kid with
the idea of I instantlyattributed, and again, probably
Jurassic Park doing its business.
But there are ones that arebenevolent and eat plants, there
are very scary ones that couldeat you, and again, the Jurassic
Park doing its business.
But there are ones that arebenevolent and eat plants.
There are very scary ones thatcould eat you, and again, the
monsters in the closet are theones that can protect you.
I thought about them that way.
So, yeah, they're incredible.
Ron (42:34):
Yeah, that's dinosaurs.
Dinosaurs are under attack.
Folks, grab your pitchfork,grab your wife.
It's time to move to highground.
But also, they're fine, they'redoing fine.
This is one attempt for what?
I'm sure this has workedactually very well for ford.
People know his name now and hesold books and sure, apparently
, he's making a movie.
(42:55):
So about his experiences andwe'll have to revisit once the
film comes out.
Yeah, maybe we can do.
Don (42:59):
Uh, we can watch or a mystery science theater, yeah.
Doug (43:05):
All right everyone.
Ron (43:08):
Thank you so much for being here.
Thank you, don, thank you Doug,thank you, thank you, and we
will see you next time in noother place than the uncannery.
Doug (43:34):
Thank you.
hello everyone and welcome back to the uncannery.
I am ron and I am joined herewith my two good friends.
Oh, I'm Don.
Doug (00:26):
I didn't forget.
Ron (00:27):
I'm Doug.
It's Ron, don and Doug together.
Again, thank you all forjoining us.
You could be anywhere in theworld right now, but you are and
you're listening to us, whichis cool.
I wanted to open up by askingyou guys have you ever had, did
you ever learn something thatshook you to your core?
Did you ever?
Have you ever had?
Did you ever learn somethingthat shook you to your core?
(00:47):
Did you ever?
You grew up you thought theworld operated one way and then
at some point probably somerapscallion, real, low-life,
quote-unquote scientist suddenlytells you that's wrong actually
.
Doug (00:59):
That's not how the world works.
Ron (01:01):
You ever been incensed in this way or had your heart
broken in this way?
Specifically a scientist.
I guess it doesn't need to be ascientist.
Maybe it could be aquote-unquote teacher or a
quote-unquote parent yeah,quote-unquote former lover, or a
quote-unquote lawyer who iswriting on behalf of that former
(01:22):
lover.
I don't.
Doug (01:24):
I was just thinking about some terrible junior high
relationships, yeah, and thosewere some of the worst.
Ron (01:35):
Any instances of I guess what, maybe what we could call
almost like Galileo moments,right?
Where the whole world thoughtat one point we're the center of
the universe.
Right where the whole worldthought at one point we're the
center of the universe.
And then some boring olditalian guy has to show up and
be like actually he has to pushhis glasses up his nose and then
we kill him I can't recall aparticular moment that I had
like that, but I feel like I wasoften the deliverer of that
(01:58):
news to others I am notsurprised in the slightest, yeah
, not surprised at all.
Doug (02:04):
What?
Ron (02:04):
about the big pluto controversy of 10 or 15 years
ago.
Did any of you have stakes inthat or care at all?
Doug (02:11):
didn't necessarily have stakes, but it did remind me of
how many things that you do takein and are subject to change.
That loosey-goosiness that youneed with you never know see how
did it change?
Don (02:22):
pluto has been there our whole lives.
It couldn't have changed it.
Just it always was one thing orthe other so it's a planet oh,
no don hate to be the bearer andI remember I had one of these
moments.
Ron (02:38):
I don't remember caring that much about the pluto thing,
but I do remember in around in2010, there was an article I
read.
It was a big popular article.
Maybe you guys read this onetoo.
Did you guys do?
Where were you when you foundout that Triceratops, the
probably the most famousdinosaur bar Tyrannosaurus Rex,
actually does not exist?
(02:58):
Do you remember this?
Don (03:01):
None of the dinosaurs exist .
They're all dead.
None of the dinosaurs exist,they're all dead.
Ron (03:09):
Damn your dedication to the hard-coded meanings of words I
do recall that I don't.
Don (03:17):
I never read the article, I think, I just dismissed it as
nonsense.
But I had the similar uhexperience with brontosaurus oh
yeah, yeah, brontosaurus was along time before that, I think
brontosaurus is back he is justrecently yeah, yeah, the theory
of the triceratops.
Ron (03:30):
Were you here, doug, do you ?
Doug (03:31):
remember this.
Can I just tell you that Inever read that article and I'm
still reeling a little bit, it'sbecause walk us through.
Ron (03:40):
What are you feeling right now?
Not good.
Doug (03:42):
Just poor feelings all around.
I cannot believe that.
Yeah, the young Jurassic Parkwatcher in me just fell a bit to
the wayside.
That is such a bummer.
Ron (03:56):
Everything you grew up believing turned out to be a lie
, and the world's a little lessmagical for you now Very much
Because dinosaurs are a magicalpart of childhood.
Doug (04:05):
I can't explain why.
Ron (04:08):
Yeah, I want to talk today a lot about dinosaurs.
I want to talk about theirmagic nature.
And I want to talk about why wefeel the way we feel about
dinosaurs as a sort of and Iguess just like how we view the
world and the way we've beentaught to view it and, when
that's challenged, why we feelthe way we feel, through today's
kind of case study, as it were.
But going back to theTriceratops, I was being a
(04:30):
little bit dramatic and so werethe articles in 2010.
Triceratops did exist, don,we're back, but there was a
debate about whether or not totake it out of the sort of
dinosaur taxonomy, whether ornot to take it out of the sort
of dinosaur taxonomy, becausearound 2010, a lot of
paleontologists two inparticular, jack horner, who's
probably like one of the most,if you, if you've heard of a
(04:51):
paleontologist, you've probablyheard of jack horner, he's like
the most famous paleontologistof the 20th century, probably um
, and another guy who's lessfamous, his name is john
scanella.
They were looking at andthey're like we sure have a lot
of dinosaur species, but youknow what we don't have?
We don't have a lot of juveniledinosaurs, right, anytime.
Someone found a fossil, theymade it a new species and they
(05:14):
started thinking there's aproblem with that methodology.
We're probably findingdinosaurs in different stages of
development and we're callingthem new species.
So they started going throughand trying to pick out species
that they thought probablyweren't distinct species, and
triceratops was one of them,because triceratops looks very
similar to another ceratopsiddinosaur called taurosaurus, and
(05:38):
taurosaurus and triceratopslived at the same time and they
lived in the same geographicalarea of north america or
prehistoric North America, andthey thought, oh, taurosaurus
just has a much larger frillthan the Triceratops.
Maybe Triceratops is anadolescent Taurosaurus.
Doug (05:54):
Okay.
Ron (05:55):
There is currently still debate about whether or not that
is correct.
There are scientists whoascribe to that theory.
There are scientists who thinkthey were still two distinct
species.
Either way, the scientific kindof news media ran with this in
2010 and all the articles weretriceratops is dead.
Kill your local scientist hewas like pluto for dinosaur
(06:15):
people, right?
so, anyways, though it was allkind of overgrown or overblown,
and whether or not you thinktriceratops was a juvenile
version of some other dinosaur,he's still there.
He was still there.
You can still love triceratopsthe triceratops.
Doug (06:30):
Correct me if I'm wrong.
Was that the first one that,like laura dern, went up?
Ron (06:33):
to put her hand on?
Doug (06:35):
yeah, I definitely whether .
Tara.
What was it?
Taurosaurus, taurosaurus.
Now we're getting into pokemonterms yeah, yeah taurosaurus
that's a whole other thing rightthere, taurosaurus yeah, I
definitely have a connectionwith that one, I think for that
memory especially.
Ron (06:51):
Yeah, and in case you are a listener who is a complete rube
and you don't know what aTriceratops is, it's a
four-legged herbivorous dinosaurthat has a giant frail on its
head and three horns coming outof its face.
Don (07:03):
It does, yes I haven't heard this story with
triceratops, but I have heardthe story with tyrannosaurus.
Ron (07:09):
The same thing that that, that there's a possibility that
some of smaller species wereactually juvenile tyrannosaurus
that that hadn't grown up yet,yeah, there's a lot of them like
albertosaurus, I think, ismaybe one of those or something
like that albertosaurus oh,there's a you name a state in
Canada and there's a dinosaurname.
That's exciting, but that's nottoday's case study.
(07:29):
I'm just saying this frequentlyhappens.
Don (07:31):
So you just wanted to destroy Doug's dreams of
trichotops?
I?
Ron (07:34):
wanted us all to watch a man melt in podcast.
Doug (07:39):
Why do you like doing that so much to me specifically?
Ron (07:43):
But like this is something that happens frequently
regarding scientific topics andissues.
Right, because science issupposedly evolving, right it's
our ideas and observations aboutthe world are supposed to
change as scientists receive newdata and amend old theories and
things like that.
I want to do that again, butagain, in the dinosaur realm we
need to now, on a much largerscale than the Triceratops
(08:07):
existing or not existing.
We need to actually rethinkeverything we know about
dinosaurs.
Doug, I'm taking it, based onthe fact that you didn't know
Triceratops didn't exist in 2010, that you are not super up to
date with paleontology.
Is that correct?
Doug (08:23):
You are not super up to date with paleontology, is that
correct?
Let's call me a guy who reallylikes Jurassic Park, and maybe
it's as far as it goes, but Ireally enjoy it Don?
Ron (08:34):
have you been a dino head for any part of your life, or do
you like cruise enoughscientific popular news outlets?
Don (08:43):
to keep up to date with this stuff the mr baldwin shout
out to mr baldwin, my thirdgrade teacher.
We had a pretty intensivedinosaur unit back in the third
grade so I I learned a bunch ofstuff back then and I wouldn't
say I stay on top of dinosaurnews, but but every once in a
while things pop up in my rathereclectic news feed that the
(09:03):
algorithm hasn't figured out yet.
Ron (09:05):
Okay, so then, it wouldn't be shocking to any of you to
learn that we now believe manydinosaurs were feathered.
Doug (09:12):
That is not shocking, that is shocking what I wasn't ready
for that we're talking Barn Owlfeathers.
Ron (09:27):
Yes, a spectrum of feathers , from fully feathered, like a
barn owl, to proto feathered,like maybe having, I think, what
they call filaments right,which would be like the spine of
a feather without all the otherkind of if you took a folks at
home, you might be excited forthis podcast, but, trust me,
this is definitely the one I'mmost excited for up to this
(09:48):
point, because you're dropping,you start this off.
Doug (09:50):
You ever had your whole world changed and you're doing
it constantly.
Ron (09:54):
We're gonna change doug's world as many times as possible
tonight, do you know?
Don (09:57):
the closest living ancestor of a tyrannosaurus no wrong.
Ron (10:03):
Yeah, well, it's a chicken, it's a chicken.
Yeah, I'm glad you said I'm ajurassic park guy, because a lot
of this I think this isactually I'm also.
I love jurassic park.
If I would still probably sayjurassic park is probably my
favorite movie to watch if Iwant to have a fun time, that
first jurassic park it's.
It's a flawless film, I thinkfor entertainment.
But I think one of the reasonsthat film was so landmark was it
(10:25):
was pushing a lot of, at thetime, very progressive ideas
about dinosaurs the whole.
Dinosaurs are birds anddinosaurs can move and dinosaurs
are hot.
Doug (10:36):
I don't know who does this Life finds a way.
Ron (10:40):
Yeah, a lot of that was like new science at the time and
the portrayal of dinosaurs wasvery contradictory to how
they've been portrayed for along time before that.
But we now know that a lot ofdinosaurs we sign
paleontologists now groupdinosaurs into bird-like and
non-bird-like dinosaurs, and soyour bird-like dinosaurs are
predominantly the ones that kindof birds resemble most.
(11:03):
Today you're're walking on twofeet theropod dinosaurs, which
are your T-Rexes and yourvelociraptors and those kinds of
things.
Right, we now think almost allof those had some form of
feathers by the time thedinosaurs went extinct at the
end of the Cretaceous period.
Did you also know thatdinosaurs couldn't walk on land?
No, the idea that dinosaurs aretoo big to walk on land was
(11:32):
proposed first I get not first,but it was re-proposed in 2012
by an english independentresearcher named brian j ford
yeah, not t ford, brian j fordand he published an article in
Laboratory News that I think hetitled Prehistoric Revolution
and basically posited thistheory that dinosaurs actually
(11:53):
mechanically do not function theway we have previously thought,
and that they had to be aquaticcreatures because their bones
and their musculature could notsupport their massive weight if
they were strictly terrestrialcreatures.
Doug (12:08):
So there's a lot more validity in Nessie being a real
thing.
Ron (12:12):
He distinguished Nessie, which is, of course, the Loch
Ness monster, which has for along time been hypothesized to
be some sort of livingplesiosaur, right, which is not
a dinosaur.
The plesiosaurs are marinereptiles and dinosaurs are not
reptiles.
This is also part of the whatwe call the dinosaur renaissance
of the 1970s right, where theseguys were like everything about
(12:34):
dinosaurs is wrong.
Um, marine reptiles areplesiosaurs and dinosaurs are
dinosaurs.
They live on land.
But what ford has now informedus is that?
No, in fact, they weredinosaurs.
They were not marine reptiles,but they didn't live on land
because they simply couldn't.
It just wouldn't work that way.
Doug (12:52):
I think this has become a study in the power of how much a
film narrative will shape.
It's embarrassing, lisa, howmuch it will shape your
perspective, to say the least,because, yeah, this is all mind
blowing information.
Don (13:06):
So let's play this out though.
So pick a dinosaur, and howmuch did the dinosaur weigh?
So do we want to play with atwo-legged dinosaur or with a
sauropod?
Ron (13:16):
Let's start with a sauropod .
Right, the sauropods are thelargest dinosaurs.
They're your brachiosaurus,your brontosaurus, your
apatosaurus, the big long-neckeddudes, godzilla.
Godzilla is not a sauropod,okay.
Don (13:28):
Marine reptile, I think For folks at home Radioactive
marine reptile.
Doug (13:31):
I'm not that ridiculous with this, but it was a little
bit tempting.
I had to go for the low-hangingfruit.
Ron (13:36):
Ford said sauropods and theropods, almost all dinosaurs.
I think he said all dinosaurs,your Tyrannosaurus rex and your
brontosaurus.
None of them could walk on land.
But he predominantly uses thesauropods as his big example
because they're the biggest, thelargest dinosaurs that ever
existed, the largest landanimals that ever existed sorry
aquatic animals that everexisted.
(13:57):
The largest land animals thatever existed sorry aquatic
animals that ever existed werethese giant, long-necked
sauropod dinosaurs.
How much does one of thosepuppies weigh?
Don, 70 tons.
Don (14:04):
It says 120 feet long, 70 tons okay.
Ron (14:08):
So yeah, imagine you're on four, which he ford points out
when we look at the fossils ofsauropod legs and feet very
narrow, very small right.
They have, yeah, very narrow,very small right.
They have very narrow littlefeet.
They're walking up on theirtoes or tiptoeing around.
Don (14:23):
How could they do that?
That's 70 tons.
Ron (14:26):
Couldn't do it right, Couldn't?
No, of course they couldn't doit.
Blue whales.
Doug (14:32):
My favorite dinosaur.
Don (14:33):
Blue whales average 110 tons.
Okay.
Doug (14:36):
Yeah, okay, yeah.
Don (14:38):
So we're talking an animal smaller than the current largest
animal.
Ron (14:42):
But blue whales also.
Don (14:44):
Don't have legs, yes, so why would they have legs if they
weren't going to walk on them?
Ron (14:49):
Exactly, they did walk on them, but they walked on them in
the shallow seas of theMesozoic era.
Okay, walked on them in theshallow seas of the mesozoic era
.
Okay, because that's why wefind their footprints
predominantly in muddy shoals,because they were obviously
walking on these shallowwaterways so 70 tons will float,
(15:11):
but it can't walk, according tomr ford before dr ford uh, I
don't think he's a doctor.
Mr ford, yeah, uh, mr ford um,who is also a television
personality and has written manybooks, and you can also hire
him to lecture you on yourcruise we could have brought him
on as a special guest we couldhave, yeah, we could have flown
(15:33):
him out from the uk.
He charges fees which I thinkmight have been outside of our
yearly budget, Just assumingOkay.
Don (15:43):
So first of all, I think we need to decide if this makes
sense so it sounds like it makessense to you, Doug which part
they're floating 70 tons tons.
Doug (15:59):
Yeah, I'm thinking of the structure.
Again, this is all Spielbergdoing it for me.
I'm thinking of the structurethat I've seen up to this point
and, yeah, it's not reallymaking sense with how much, yeah
, how top heavy that would becompared to the very small legs.
Ron (16:10):
Yeah, and when I tell you other things, like dinosaurs,
massive tails were so huge thatthey would have been they would
have required half of theirmetabolic energy just to keep
them suspended in the air, andthat they make much more sense
as propulsion mechanisms throughthe water.
And that many dinosaurs havevery extended vertebrae fins on
top of their vertebrae, and thatwould make sense if they
(16:31):
actually had sails, much likemarlins have sails, in order to
help them navigate through thewater.
They actually had sails, muchlike marlins have sails, in
order to help them navigatethrough the water.
And then many dinosaurs areduck-billed and that would make
sense for eating aquatic plants,much like modern-day waterfowl
do.
Don (16:44):
And Tyrannosaurus has those little tiny arms which would
make sense to hold on to adinosaur life observer, so that
way he could keep his head up.
Ron (16:52):
Ford addresses the arms, he says they're there to catch
fish and to inspect them bypulling them up closer to the
animal's face so that they caninspect the fish before they eat
it.
Doug (17:00):
I can't even believe they get their arms close to their
face, though those things aresmall.
Don (17:04):
Have you seen Toy Story?
There's no way those arms.
Yeah, that's what I'm thinking.
It's him.
Doug (17:08):
That's it.
As long as you talk to me infilms, I can figure all this out
that's what I need.
So, yeah, very by a believableuh, argument by mr ford though
right, don you seem?
Ron (17:23):
skeptical, I'm skeptical.
Why are you so skeptical, don?
Why can't you just believe ascientist for once?
Don (17:30):
I'm skeptical because of mr ford's doubling down on his
theory in 2019.
So I don't know if you knowabout what happened in 2019.
Ron (17:38):
I don't think I know.
Okay, I do know that he hasdoubled down on his argument,
but go ahead and elucidate usall about what happened in 2019.
So in 2019,.
Don (17:47):
He told the Sun, the newspaper, the British newspaper
not the actual star in the skythat the reason the dinosaurs
went extinct was not because ofa comet or asteroid.
That's right.
It was because of the tectonicplates shifting and the
dinosaurs would lose the shallowwater in which they had sex.
So it all comes back todinosaur sex, because 70 tons
(18:12):
wouldn't be able to complete theact without crushing the
partner unless it was floatingin water, according to mr ford.
So when they sex lakes dry up,then no more little dinosaurs
come and and and they'recrushing each other.
That's the theory is they hadto have doug's face right now.
Ron (18:30):
It's like a man who's just found something very forbidden,
but he's glad to have stumbledupon one.
Doug (18:35):
No, it's sad.
His theory is they could onlyhave had sex in water because
otherwise they would crush eachother, but I'm guessing the
desire to procreate is greaterand I'm imagining the crushing
and it just makes me incrediblysad Just thinking of that's the
way that they went.
Don (18:54):
I don't think they died from crushing injuries.
I think they died from crushinginjuries.
I think they died from Sexualcrushing injuries.
What a terrible way to go.
Ron (19:07):
That's why all the dinosaurs are smiling in their
face.
Don (19:10):
That's true, that's true.
I hadn't thought of that.
You can always see their teeth.
Ron (19:15):
Yeah, yes, don.
What you're bringing up is thatford has several theories about
dinosaurs that fly in the faceof established paleontological
science.
Right, or you get it, but, don,how would you answer this claim
that paleontologists actuallyare just slavishly devoted to a
(19:38):
dogma that hasn't changed indecades and that really they're
being incredibly hostile to newinterpretations and theories of
organisms that we have veryscant evidence to back our
knowledge of anyways?
Don (19:54):
Good for them of.
Anyways, good for them.
That's how I would respond,because it's got to be one of
those sciences that does changeslowly because the evidence and
the record they're dealing withis so ancient.
So the when you're talkingabout quantum computing or dna,
like those things that we'relearning about rapidly because
(20:17):
it's present and we have samplesto deal with that are current,
but when you're digging in themud to find something that's
been buried for millions andmillions of years, like, of
course the evidence is going tocome slowly and slowly.
So I think it's one of thosesciences that should be changing
slowly.
Doug (20:35):
So, yeah, that's what I think all right and doug, you're
here for whatever thepaleontologists want to throw
your way it's dangerous with mebecause I'm just having too much
fun, and more because you'rethrowing so much stuff at me
that I'm like just sitting witha funnel my mind is now a funnel
of just fill me up with all thefacts before I can even start
to process okay, I think it'snow time to reveal that
(20:58):
dinosaurs almost assuredly did100% did walk on land and that
actually Brian Ford is a loser.
Don (21:07):
Allegedly, allegedly.
Doug (21:10):
Okay, yeah, I was having fun.
Ron (21:11):
I know I always say that and this is a big this was a big
deal in 2012 for no one excepta number of popular periodicals
that thought this would be areally good.
Don (21:24):
This story will generate clicks and it'll grab eyes and
it did the sun is known for itshard-cutting.
Ron (21:31):
When we got to there, and went oh yeah places like uh um,
daily motion and fox news andsky news and all these kinds of
more sensational news outletsreally had a field day running
this theory and publishing itwith very few sort of dissenting
opinions, just saying, hey, didyou know?
Actually dinosaurs couldn'twalk.
(21:52):
This was immediately receivedwith a lot of actual dissent and
evidence by the paleontologicalcommunity that immediately in
their separate kind ofperiodicals wrote to say this is
all complete.
This is just not true andprobably the captain of that
kind of dissent is apaleontologist who's another
english paleontologist nameddarren nash and he's he's like
(22:13):
the leading paleontologist rightnow.
He's like the.
He's the big guy at.
Currently there's a.
There's an apple tv show calledprehistoric planet which is
like his baby.
It's like the new walking withdinosaurs.
It's got richard attenboroughand a bunch of cgi dinosaurs.
We now know that this dinosaurcould swim.
He and a bunch of other peoplehave addressed brian ford's kind
(22:34):
of argument there.
There have been debates hostedby universities in which Brian
Ford has.
When Brian Ford debates I'veseen one of these on YouTube he
goes up, he's got a slideshowand he says everyone's being a
complete ass to me and he getsso incensed and acts like he's
got this beautiful and dangerousview of paleontology and that
(22:58):
the establishment is holding himback and won't let him change
and that he's being attackedneedlessly.
And then he says that dinosaurscan't walk on land and he gives
very poor evidence for this,and then the paleontologists
lambast him and make fun of himand then it kind of fuels this
cycle where then he can say see,look, they hate me, but it's
(23:20):
like.
It's like walking into a partyand calling everyone a racial
slur and then being like I toldyou they'd hate me.
Doug (23:29):
Absolutely Good analogy yeah.
Ron (23:31):
So, for instance, let's address some of the claims real
quick.
So like the idea that dinosaursare too heavy to walk, that
their bones just won't supportthat Most dinosaurs have very
like hollow bones they have.
They're predominantly air, likea lot of the sauropod bones-.
Don (23:45):
So they would float?
Yeah, they would float.
Ron (23:48):
That is the theory that even if a sauropod was in the
water, it wouldn't really beable to maneuver because it
would float and its center ofgravity.
Don (24:02):
Yes, they did it first the Jesusaur.
Ron (24:06):
Yeah, there is the lizard.
There's the Jesus lizard.
Doug (24:10):
You guys ever seen the Jesus?
It's got really long feet.
Ron (24:13):
It does walk on water, it runs across the water, anyway.
But yeah, it's like up to 89%of dinosaur bones is air usually
right.
So they're very heavy right,but their bones are designed to
reduce that weight as much aspossible.
Some bird bones are like thatright yeah, exactly and this is
something people have knownabout dinosaurs forever his big.
(24:34):
He goes on and on about thetail.
The tail is too big, it's awaste of metabolic energy.
But, like the paleontologistssay, like dinosaurs have giant
hip bones right and they haveinterlocking vertebrae and they
have.
They have muscles.
Much like dinosaurs have gianthip bones right and they have
interlocking vertebrae and theyhave.
They have muscles, much like wehave muscles in our neck that
can hold up a lot of weight butthey're non-tiring right right
like they don't actually expendthat much energy.
(24:54):
They're just designed in such away to spend things without
actually having to use all thatmuch metabolic energy.
Sure, and so this has all beenproven for like 100 years now.
Almost like this is likebizarre to go back and make.
And then also, dinosaur tailsaren't shaped like the tails of
an animal that would movethrough the water are right,
water tails are very verticalrather than like horizontal.
(25:15):
Dinosaur tails can be veryround and whip, like it's not
gonna generate that much force.
Right, he picks on one dinosaurin particular.
Doug, did you watch jurassicpark 3?
Doug (25:26):
I did.
I probably have the leastmemories of that one yeah, it's
not, it's like the worst oneit's not the one to remember is
that the one where that they goto attack san diego, or is that
two?
Ron (25:35):
that's, that's two jurassic park yeah in jurassic park 3,
they bring a new bad, meandinosaur yeah to kill the t-rex
and it's spinosaurus.
Yeah, it has a big giant frillon its back.
Doug (25:46):
I just remember unbelievably long scenes of.
I want to say that they werelike rope, bridges and fog, and
that was what they were reallyselling is like he could be
anywhere and I watched it in thefront of the theater and just
was craning my neck like tryingto see where is the sucker,
where, where is he?
Ron (26:05):
The Spinosaurus is a real dinosaur.
It lived in Egypt and at thetime of Jurassic Park 3, it was
basically portrayed as like abig T-Rex.
that just had a frill on itsback and like a crocodile face.
We've changed our view of theSpinosaurus a lot based on new
fossil evidence in the last 15years and we now think it was
like had really short legs, itmostly, it was mostly aquatic.
(26:25):
It had a really long kind ofcrocodilian tail and it had a
big sail and then it lived inmarshes and mostly swam through
the water.
And then this is the dinosaur.
That that Ford takes is likehis poster dinosaurs.
See, I told them theSpinosaurus swam and look now
they all say it swims and sothey were saying it swam before
you were.
He's piggybacking off of actualresearch that real
(26:48):
paleontologists have done.
Also important to note Ford hasno history, no paleontological
background.
He does have degrees in likebotany and zoology and he's
predominantly like a microscopeguy.
He's like very important in themicroscope community.
He says everyone should have amicroscope in their house, the
same way they have a tv, which Iguess is cool.
Don (27:08):
Yeah I don't you ever like actually look at a microscope
and you're like I don't want toknow what's living in my house
at the microscopic level.
Ron (27:14):
I think I'm happy imagining that it's not I used to teach
science to elementary schoolkids and we had a couple really
nice microscopes and every yearI'd put some slides in there and
the kids would be like, oh, Ican't wait to see this flea
under this microscope.
And then they'd see it and belike, oh, it's a bug.
Yeah.
Don (27:29):
Yeah, it's not that cool Blood is, though Blood is very.
Doug (27:34):
I would show them blood.
Ron (27:35):
They didn't care about blood, there's just circles,
yeah, yeah.
Doug (27:38):
But the fresh check it out Wow.
Ron (27:41):
It's all squirming around.
Yeah, these are like yeah,maybe I need it to stab myself
in class and be like check itout.
Doug (27:48):
Smear the lens of a microscope.
You do that.
They're not focused on themicroscope, they're like this is
already a spectacle.
Ron (27:55):
Yeah, they now just have trauma.
My science teacher stabbedhimself in front of me once.
So, anyways, this is like justa number of things that he says.
He focuses on duck billdinosaurs, but it's like the
shape of the bill.
It looks like a duck if you'relooking at it from above, but if
you looked at it like from theside, it's clearly hooked so as
to assist with grazing.
(28:16):
We find terrestrial plants anddinosaur stomachs all the time.
There's just it sounds cool,right?
I could tell you hey, did youknow?
You were wrong?
Actually, dinosaurs are reallyheavy, bro.
How could they walk on land?
Right?
And you could be like, yeah,you're right, I've never thought
about it Because you haven'tright.
Who would think about it?
Most of the time, if someonetells us something and we say
(28:39):
there's a scientist who said it,we're inclined to believe them.
Right, because again, they havea position of authority.
We are schmucks.
What do we know?
Okay, we're still.
We're so wrapped up talking withthe lawyer of our former lover
that we don't have time toactually piece these things
together and it's like this kindof went further than a lot of
(28:59):
paleontologists would have likedit to have.
In fact, when I was trying toget back into dinosaurs a few
years ago, I was like I need togo find a dinosaur book, I need
to read what's up with dinosaursnow?
And the first book I saw atlike Barnes and Noble, with its
cover turned outward so that youcould see it, was Brian Ford's
book, which was called Too Bigto Walk and it just has a
(29:21):
picture of a dinosaur with likewater up to his chest and I was
like what?
Doug (29:27):
Is that?
Ron (29:27):
what we think now.
And I was smart and I wentonline.
I was like, is this real?
And then I saw all thepaleontologists being like no,
this is a terrible book.
This is not backed up by anyscience.
But if I didn't know that Icould have just bought that book
?
Don (29:40):
How do you know those paleontologists were telling the
truth?
Ron (29:49):
And they're not just part of the paleontology deep state.
Trying to keep the truth fromyou, because paleontology does
change all the time.
Doug (29:53):
Actually, paleontology is always evolving.
The feather thing is real right.
Ron (29:54):
And god, you said something I've been wondering the whole
time we've found yes, the otherthing you can believe in,
because we found fossils andthey got feathers and they have
filaments and they have thesepores, large holes in their skin
where feathers would have gone,and so, like, these kinds of
new discoveries do happen andthey do change and even our
understanding of dinosaurs, likein the 20th century, changed a
lot from our understanding ofthem.
(30:21):
Brontosaurus in the swamp righthe's sitting there submerged in
the lake, he's eating the moss.
And the dinosaurs at thedisneyland train, all that kind
of swampy where their tails arelike laying on the ground and
being dragged behind thembecause they're too heavy.
All that stuff changed in the20th century and then ford's
kind of being like no, actuallythat was right, but it's yeah,
(30:42):
but we have science, we havelike computer models and we have
physics and we have microscopesto check the density of bones,
like all that evidence has beendone, all these people have put
in that work.
So that's why Don.
Doug (30:58):
I do like thinking about the paleontological,
paleontology deep state.
That's very funny to thinkabout.
Ron (31:05):
And that's the other thing, which is, this is a safe topic
to say that kind of stuff,because, you're right,
paleontology doesn't matter,right it's wow man, we just
alienated our whole paleontologyfollowing.
Sorry guys, I'm sorry, I loveyou guys keep digging in the mud
but unlike that you brought upwhat were you talking about
earlier?
algorithms or ai or quantummechanics yeah unlike those
(31:28):
things which, like, do have alot of immediate people are
putting money into those becausethey're going to be what churns
out the next wave oftechnological advancements.
Right, both commercially andmilitarily and whatnot.
Dinosaurs aren't right, it justdoesn't.
It doesn't matter, but it isalways fascinating because
people love dinosaurs, rightit'll always sell a newsweek
(31:50):
magazine, but it doesn't have alot of I don't know, am I wrong?
It doesn't have a lot of realbearing on how people behave or
act or change or sure thingslike that I've never been moved
by a dinosaur.
Don (32:02):
That's true.
Yeah, to change my behavior,but does mr ford?
How is it just him?
Was he just like solo, goingout on stage saying they all
hate me?
Or does he have a following?
Ron (32:13):
to the best of my knowledge , he has no following.
This is and I think this ispart of what I find so
interesting about this isbecause and a lot of his of his
Darren Nash points out in anarticle that, like the mere fact
that Brian Ford is alone iswhat sells the story, is what
makes the story.
It's a story of one man defying, you know, expectation, defying
(32:36):
a structure, defying a deepstate right, we love that kind
of underdog story.
He's the one man railingagainst truth.
It creates a Galileo framework.
That we're all we've beentaught to some degree, right.
Sometimes the establishment isreally bad and dumb and you need
someone with a big telescope tofigure out what the world is
really right, and I think that'swhy it got picked up and ran
(32:58):
with right and because it alsowho who stands to benefit
whenever some of these likeparadigm shifting theories get
made, darren nash well, the soapple tv plus I think it's not.
Darren nash represents the.
He's the establishment, he'sthe machine they got to keep
(33:20):
churning out new stuff to keepthe relevancy of dinosaurs at
the surface of modernconsciousness but if you look at
like dinosaur articles that getpublished by like real
scientists, it's usually likethey found a new dinosaur and
there's maybe an artist sketchand it looks like the other
dinosaurs.
There's not that much new.
Like the feather thing I thinkwas the last really big thing
(33:42):
there's also.
I think a couple years ago theyfigured out the color of a
dinosaur's feathers they wereactually able to like based on
the size of the skin cells orwhatever cells create the
structure.
It was red, right, yeah thesinusoropteryx I think it was
just this dinosaur with the bigred raccoon-like tail.
It had rings of like red andwhite right and so, based on a
(34:05):
single discovery like that, thenlike that reshapes how we view
dinosaurs, instead of being likebrown and green now they can be
any color right, yeah, it couldbe like really vibrant and cool
but, like a story like thatcomes along very rarely.
Rest of the time it's like hey,they found another half of a
skull of a something that mysandra said yeah, so is that why
(34:26):
, like this, seems like a safescandal?
Doug (34:29):
if that makes sense.
Don (34:30):
Yeah, I agree brian ford can pitch what he's pitching and
someone can believe it for aminute or not, or until, dare
nature, his cronies come alongand say it's not.
But at the end of the day, likewhether or not you believe that
Patasaurus was swimming orwalking like you say, it doesn't
change what I'm doing tomorrowat work.
(34:51):
It doesn't change what I'mhaving for dinner.
It doesn't change the politicsof our nation.
This one man is standingagainst an establishment and the
one man has been proven wrongover and over again.
But everyone who follows thatone man wants to believe him so
(35:11):
badly that they don't care thatthe evidence says one thing or
the other.
How, that sounds like afamiliar story to me where it's
not as simple as just one crazyguy.
He's harmless.
Ron (35:23):
Yeah, I agree, and I think that's why I think it's fun to
see enough.
it's interesting because youfind this kind of archetype of a
figure even in something asinconsequential as paleontology
right and I think there's alwaysbeen con men and people who set
themselves up asanti-establishment or contrarian
for their own personal benefitand the benefit of the
(35:44):
publishers who will publish themand make a book off of their
crazy theory and whatnot likethat.
But it is definitely somethingI think we see more of now and
it is inconsequential when itoccurs in the field of
paleontology and it's obviouslymuch more consequential when it
takes place in national politicsor even universities, right.
You always have some sort of acelebrity professor who's not
(36:06):
really someone who shouldprobably be listened to, but he
sure does bring attention to theuniversity and things like that
.
Don (36:12):
I'm sure the scandal is consequential to those in
paleontology.
I'm sure it's just notconsequential to those of us who
are not in paleontology.
No, no.
Ron (36:23):
And I'm sure an actual paleontologist would be like no,
actually, this is reallydangerous because I think
dinosaurs are so interestingculturally and Doug and I, we
consider dinosaurs magical.
Were dinosaurs ever magical foryou as a kid, Don?
Were you ever a dinosaur kid?
No, or were you just always aShakespeare kid?
Don (36:43):
No, I remember making my dinosaur diorama for my third
grade class.
That hung on the wall but butno, I wouldn't say they were
magical, they were just cool,yeah.
Ron (36:53):
But I feel like dinosaurs frequently get dragged into I
don't know for lack of a betterword like culture wars, right,
cause I remember when I was akid, dinosaurs were under attack
again, right, and it was verymuch.
The creation museum was openingup in Alabama or Missouri or
wherever that was, and it waslike, oh, the dinosaurs either
didn't exist or they did, butthey were with people and there
(37:13):
was again.
People wanted to attach acertain ideology to dinosaurs
and dinosaurs were key to that.
Right, dinosaurs were key toeither drawing people's
attention to those theories, orwrestling with dinosaurs was key
to disproving counter claimsagainst their theories, or
whatever it was, I don't know.
Dinosaurs always wind up inthis kind of weird space and I
think it is actually a littlebit important what people think
(37:36):
and believe about dinosaurs,because I think it's almost like
the canary in the coal minewhat people are willing to
believe about dinosaurs, right.
Then what else are they goingto believe about Extrapolates?
Don (37:46):
Yeah, that makes sense.
Yeah, I was at a naturalhistory museum in Lubbock, texas
, of all places, at Texas Tech,and they have some dinosaur
fossils on display and, quiteliterally, there was a family
just ahead of me, walked intothat room and turned around and
left and tried to explain totheir like probably seven, eight
(38:08):
years old that we're not goingin there because that's all just
nonsense and and just thecomplete rejection of
paleontology as a science, right, or that dinosaurs even existed
ever.
So I didn't, I didn't askquestions, I don't know what the
actual issue was, and a lot ofthat is conjecture on my part,
but I was just struck by that'snot something that would have
(38:29):
happened where I grew up.
Right, I was not in a placethat was home to me and I was a
stranger in a strange land, andthat was a behavior that was new
.
Was the?
No?
This can't be true.
Because, yeah, because theBible doesn't say that there are
dinosaurs.
Yeah, yeah.
Doug (38:43):
Because the Bible doesn't say that there are dinosaurs.
Yeah, speaking of Jurassic,have either of you heard of the
Museum of Jurassic Technology?
Yeah, that's in Culver City,right Venice Boulevard.
Ron (38:55):
Yeah, yeah.
Doug (38:59):
I used to live very close to it and I think I never
visited it.
This is jumping ahead a bit.
Ron (39:14):
It would be interesting to do a little connection on.
Maybe we take a trip there andhave an interesting podcast
talking about it.
Ironically, almost nothingabout dinosaurs there, but just
putting a pin in that.
Doug (39:19):
Can you summarize the sort of project of that museum real
quick?
I will just say that it almostis.
You'll be debating whetheractually, if it is an actual
museum or not, I can at leasttell you that I'm sorry, I'm
derailing us a bit no, but I dothink there's a connection,
right, because eventually, yeah,there's a little bit, because
it talks about what the jurassicperiod is in general, and the
reason I was thinking of that isbecause, yeah, this person
(39:41):
basically created thisinstitution, uh, based on
misfounding on what we think isJurassic, and it is that
important that there's an entireplace that's dedicated to this.
That is almost a portal intoanother world and, yeah, there
seems to be something in ourbrains and maybe this is
everything that is ancientJurassic that we don't have.
I guess we're not in touch with, necessarily.
(40:05):
That seems so ancient, but yeah, yeah, I think it's.
Ron (40:09):
I have no easy answer to why people love dinosaurs and,
like you said, don, because itis such a slow moving field,
relatively, because the evidenceis so scant and it's scattered
all over the world and it'sfrequently we have to make
massive conclusions off ofscrutinizing the same kind of
pieces of bones over and overagain.
(40:30):
I think it's just part ofthey're just cool.
Like it's cool.
You, we love fantasy, we lovemonsters, we love beowulf and
the green knight and all thisstuff, and we have like evidence
that something like that kindof happened actually once.
There once was the world wasonce covered in big old lizards.
Isn't that crazy?
(40:52):
and in fact, you wouldn't bewrong for assuming the world was
more of a dinosaur world than ahuman world, based on just the
sheer time frame that they spenton it.
Right, the dinosaurs were themain characters.
Actually, we were like this funaddendum.
There's something like alwaysgoing to be thrilling and
fascinating about that, whetheryou're a kid or an adult and
it's the gateway for kids toscience and to history and to
(41:17):
literature, like dinosaurs fit alot of those keyholes.
Doug (41:20):
Yeah, exactly exactly what is your favorite dinosaur
literature?
That's the one, because all I'mthinking is film again and
cartoon.
Land before time is justJurassic Park.
What do we have?
Don (41:34):
before time has a really important civil rights message
um sure does, and the sequelsare garbage, dinosaur property
like it would be that, orjurassic park sound of thunder
by bradbury?
There's not.
But I think what ron is sayingit's the idea that it's this
(41:54):
monstrous creature, and monsterspervade literature and that's
very much so, in human form andin monstrous form, and that's
yeah.
That taps into the imaginationof a kid.
It's why we say them in thethird grade.
It makes science and historycool in the third grade because
you get to learn about monsters.
Doug (42:14):
And I think I remember being fascinated as a kid with
the idea of I instantlyattributed, and again, probably
Jurassic Park doing its business.
But there are ones that arebenevolent and eat plants, there
are very scary ones that couldeat you, and again, the Jurassic
Park doing its business.
But there are ones that arebenevolent and eat plants.
There are very scary ones thatcould eat you, and again, the
monsters in the closet are theones that can protect you.
I thought about them that way.
So, yeah, they're incredible.
Ron (42:34):
Yeah, that's dinosaurs.
Dinosaurs are under attack.
Folks, grab your pitchfork,grab your wife.
It's time to move to highground.
But also, they're fine, they'redoing fine.
This is one attempt for what?
I'm sure this has workedactually very well for ford.
People know his name now and hesold books and sure, apparently
, he's making a movie.
(42:55):
So about his experiences andwe'll have to revisit once the
film comes out.
Yeah, maybe we can do.
Don (42:59):
Uh, we can watch or a mystery science theater, yeah.
Doug (43:05):
All right everyone.
Ron (43:08):
Thank you so much for being here.
Thank you, don, thank you Doug,thank you, thank you, and we
will see you next time in noother place than the uncannery.
Doug (43:34):
Thank you.
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