Talk:Dinosaur renaissance

Eugene Merle Shoemaker

The article on Dinosaur presents the "Dinosaur renaissance" only as a result of advances in the study of fossiles. Equally important in the popular interest in the dinosaurus is the work of Eugene Merle Shoemaker in establishing the theory of meteor impacts. -- Petri Krohn 19:12, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Yep, I think that would count. A lot could be written on this subject, which is why I've resurrected the article. John.Conway 13:53, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Particularly relevant in this context because the Alvarez impact theory helped to depose the previous idea of dinosaurs as a group doomed to extinction because of their physiological and mental shortcomings. Instead, non-avian dinosaurs were the victims of a very unusual catastrophe that was probably unsurvivable for any large land animal, and the group was not made extinct, simply reduced to a subset. This changes the perception that they were an obsolete group before the mass extinction, and is a caution against making assumptions about obsolescence for other groups wiped out by comparable events.Orbitalforam (talk) 08:36, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Mention Shoemaker if you like, but (a) Alvarez is far more relevant to this specific subject so mention his iridium spike and (b) Shoemaker didn't tell us we were constantly bombarded by meteorites, we already knew that, rather he emphasised that these bombardments were geologically and paleontologically important. I'll take a shot at this. David Bofinger (talk) 10:38, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

The subject matter of this article

While it seems to have been the view of some that the dinosaur renaissance is or was primarily a pop-culture matter (it was originally redirecting to dinosaurs in popular culture), it actually refers to a scientific revolution — the pop-culture elements are spinoffs. Bob Bakker and others who use the term in citeable contexts refer to a radical shift in scientific thought, and I think that's the way it should be treated in this article. —John.Conway 17:55, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Small grammar fix

I changed "a monophyletic group, comprised of animals with a common ancestor not shared by other reptiles" to "a monophyletic group, comprising animals with a common ancestor not shared by other reptiles." A whole is not "comprised of" its parts; it "comprises" them. 140.147.160.78 21:02, 30 May 2007 (UTC)Stephen Kosciesza

Ely Kish

I'm not sure Ely Kish's work counts as Dinosaur Renaissance--I certainly don't think she should be list first among artists mentioned here. Does anyone have any objections to removing her from the listed artists (or any suggestions as to how we delimit the artists?). John.Conway (talk) 12:12, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

I've got nothing against the removal. J. Spencer (talk) 23:20, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Broken link to image

In the first paragraph of the section "Changing portrayal of dinosaurs", the link to Bakker's illustration of Deinonychus is broken ("Page not found"). That illustration can still be found, however. A Google image search for "Bakker Deinonychus" (omit the quotes) produces many results, including http://kids.britannica.com/dinosaurs/dinosaurs/odeinon002p1a.html, which appears to be a copy of the illustration concerned.

Please note that I don't know the copyright status of the results found, so have not attempted to correct the link myself. --89.241.223.48 (talk) 15:11, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

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Revolution

I would like to point out that, given the fact that the three major ideas of the so-called Dinosaur Renaissance -- endothermy in dinosaurs, dinosaurs being directly ancestral to birds, and even feathered dinosaurs -- actually originated in the 19th century, the Dinosaur Renaissance was actually nothing special. In 1842, when he was naming the taxon Dinosauria, Richard Owen wrote that they made the nearest approach to mammals of all reptiles in their circulatory physiology. And then, in 1868, Edward Drinker Cope wrote the following referring to Dryptosaurus (which was, at the time, referred to as Laelaps): "If he were warm-blooded, as Prof. Owen supposes the Dinosauria to have been, he undoubtedly had more expression than his modern reptilian prototypes possess. He no doubt had the usual activity and vivacity which distinguishes the warm-blooded from the cold-blooded vertebrates."

Meanwhile, in 1876, Thomas Henry Huxley said the following about Compsognathus: "There is no evidence that Compsognathus possessed feathers; but, if it did, it should be hard indeed to say whether it should be called a reptilian bird or an avian reptile." Earlier on in the same lecture, he also said this: "I conceive that such linear forms, constituting a series of natural gradations between the reptile and the bird, and enabling us to understand the manner in which the reptilian has been metamorphosed into the bird type, are really to be found among a group of ancient and extinct terrestrial reptiles known as the Ornithoscelida. The remains of these animals occur throughout the series of mesozoic formations, from the Trias to the chalk, and there are indications of their existence even in the later Palæozoic strata." (Ornithoscelida is a term that Huxley used to refer to the Dinosauria at the time).

Then, in 1877, Othniel Charles Marsh wrote the following: "It is now generally admitted by those who have made a study of the vertebrates that birds have come down to us through the dinosaurs, and the close affinity of the latter with recent Struthious birds will hardly be questioned."

The Dinosaur Renaissance was not anything new. It was merely a rehash of the ideas that had already been proposed in the 19th century, but had since fallen out of favor in the intervening time. SuperHero2111 (talk) 22:33, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

The thing is, those ideas were later suppressed and did not become accepted and proven until the dinosaur renaissance. Many theories float around for years before being commonly accepted, the "breakthrough" point is what's important. See for example flat earth theory. Yes, the idea that the earth was round had been proposed a thousand years ago before it was proven, and the idea was likewise long suppressed, but that doesn't exactly make the time it was proven or commonly accepted any less important. FunkMonk (talk) 22:47, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

Well, I can see your point, but the thing is, if you think about it, there's only one development I can think of after the 19th century that would be as important as its 19th century predecessor, and that is the discovery of the first fossils of non-avian dinosaurs preserved with feathers, because it confirmed the theory that some non-avian dinosaurs possessed feathers. However, if you think about it, for the other two, endothermy and ancestry to birds, what really changed? In the 19th century, paleontologists hypothesized that dinosaurs were endothermic, and used fossil evidence (erect limbs, etc.) to back it up. In the 20th century, paleontologists, led by John Ostrom and Robert T. Bakker, resurrected the theory, and used fossil evidence to back it up again. Same with the dinosaurian ancestry of birds. The only thing that would be really important here is, once again, the discovery of feathered non-avian dinosaur fossils, but, besides that, as with the endothermy issue, paleontologists in the 19th century hypothesized that birds descended from dinosaurs using fossil evidence (similarities in pelvic and leg structure, etc.), as did paleontologists in the 20th century. For the endothermy and the dinosaur-bird link, what happened during the Dinosaur Renaissance was the exact same process that happened 100 years earlier in the 19th century, repeated. The discovery of feathered non-avian dinosaur fossils was the only "breakthrough" point that occurred in the 20th century following the Dinosaur Renaissance. All of the other "breakthrough" points had already occurred back in the 19th century. SuperHero2111 (talk) 23:13, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

No, the theories didn't have their breakthroughs until the "renaissance" because they were soon rejected and therefore did not become commonly accepted. The theories were later "rediscovered", and that is what the term renaissance (revival, rebirth, renewal) refers to: "The intellectual basis of the Renaissance was its own invented version of humanism, derived from the rediscovery of classical Greek philosophy". No one ever claimed these ideas were "new", so the premise of this argument is non-existent. By your logic, the post-Medieval renaissance was not important either, because it was based on old ideas. FunkMonk (talk) 23:20, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

Alright, fair enough. However, based on this logic, it is entirely possible that, if these ideas ever become rejected again (which is highly unlikely, but this is all theoretical), and come back again, then we could refer to that as yet another Dinosaur Renaissance. SuperHero2111 (talk) 23:28, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

Also, the theories were not immediately rejected. The dinosaur-bird link, for example, actually lingered on for quite a substantial period of time as a respectable idea among the scientific community until 1926, when Gerhard Heillmann's book on the origin of birds was published. And the framing of dinosaurs as moribund, sluggish, unsuccessful ectotherms seems to have been a result of their link to modern-day birds being discredited in the eyes of the scientific community after 1926. So, from 1876/1877 to 1926, a period of about 50 years, the idea of active, successful, endothermic avian dinosaurs was highly-regarded among the scientific community. Just look at what was going on in dinosaur paleontology in this time period, ranging from art, as reflected in artwork such as Charles R. Knight's 1897 drawing, drawn under the supervision of Edward Drinker Cope, portraying two agile Dryptosaurus engaged in active combat, to speculative ideas such as William Plane Pycraft's 1906 writing on and drawing of Proavis, a hypothetical feathered dinosaur ancestral to birds. So I do not concur that the ideas were soon rejected. It took 50 years for that to happen. That's pretty comparable to the length of time elapsed between the Dinosaur Renaissance and today. So, actually, between 1876-1877 and 1926, those ideas had, indeed, made breakthroughs within the scientific community, in the sense that they were widely accepted. So the Dinosaur Renaissance marked a resurgence of that acceptance after an approximately 40-year hiatus. What I would like to stress here is that the Dinosaur Renaissance was a continuation of this previous time period, after a 40-year interruption. I guess you could say the interruption that punctuated it was really the noteworthy event, as it is what creates the illusion of two distinct revolutions, when, in fact, the revolution had already occurred back in the 19th century, and had already inaugurated a new time period in which these ideas were accepted, only to be interrupted by a hiatus and later picked back up and continued, which is what we refer to as the Dinosaur Renaissance. SuperHero2111 (talk) 01:19, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

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