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All Those New Dinosaurs May Not Be New — Or Dinosaurs
2016-03-26 15:49:21 Post No. 34124
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All Those New Dinosaurs May Not Be New — Or Dinosaurs
Anonymous
2016-03-26 15:49:21
Post No. 34124
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It's a long post, so I'm highliting some parts:
>Michael Benton, professor of vertebrate paleontology at the University of Bristol in England, says a new dinosaur species is named about once a week, on average. Another paleontologist, Thomas R. Holtz Jr. of the University of Maryland, keeps a running tally of new dinos each year for an encyclopedia he is in the process of updating. He’s up to 14 this year. In 2015, he hit 45.
>But while that rate of discovery might delight 8-year-olds, it’s not necessarily an accurate reflection of the ancient world. Eight years ago, Benton published two papers on the error rate in dinosaur species identification and found that 48.2 percent of “new dinosaurs” are eventually cast aside, deemed invalid for a variety of reasons. That’s far above the rate for living species, which is only 20 percent.
>Facts like this make paleontology seem hopelessly flawed. But there are good reasons to think that we’re getting better at naming dinosaurs, not worse, Benton said. Compared with 50 years ago, dinosaur names are now based on larger quantities of fossil evidence, and that evidence is evaluated in far more detailed, scientific ways. The theropod-herbivore imbalance suggests there is still something deeply wrong, but it’s not unfixable.
>What’s that mean for amateur dino fans? It’s crucial context. New dinosaurs aren’t a rarity, and when they happen they may not last. It’s easy to hype a new dinosaur. It’s harder to prove that dinosaur actually existed.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/all-those-new-dinosaurs-may-not-be-new-or-dinosaurs/
