Were dinosaurs more evolutionarily advanced than humans???

a reply to: bphi1908

The smartest, perhaps. But there are plenty of species which have been around for a lot longer than we have, species which are more numerous, so I'm not sure intelligence is any more an indication of being "evolutionary advanced" than the ability to fly is.

Actually, I am sure that it isn't. Because the term itself is meaningless.

a reply to: JoshuaCox

Picky, picky, picky

Speaking in general, referring to Therapods, which came in all sizes. Tyrannosaurus for instance had hollow bones and three toed limbs just like a bird does. When you use the term dinosaurs, you are describing animals that came in all sizes. There are alpha predators in all size groups and obviously some Therapods did survive, the birds.

a reply to: Phage

Quite.

Some of the most evolutionarily successful families of animals are crocodiles and sharks. "Successful" in as much as they had evolved tens of millions of years ago in a form that can survive environmental changes to the world around them without really needing to make additional drastic evolutionary changes.

They've reached a pretty high point in their biological success without the need to evolve advanced intelligence. That (to me) is an indication that intelligence is not necessarily the pinnacle of evolution. Intelligence may help mid-sized primates became the master of their domain, but that may not be necessarily true for crocs and sharks.

Who's to say their not zooming around in UFOs as "Reptilians"? Ancient Civilizations depicted Lizard Men in carvings, figurines, and histories. They were described as advanced, powerful, and as gods. Soooo.... It's funny I was just thinking about this the other morning. Gotta love those cell towers!
a reply to: JoshuaCox

a reply to: Soylent Green Is People

Intelligence may help mid-sized primates became the master of their domain, but that may not be necessarily true for crocs and sharks.

Unless they figured out how to put frickin laser beams on their heads.

a reply to: bphi1908

A) not every trait improves sucsessivly, but some traits do improve..

We can watch a turtles shell garden and get more armored, but we watch his run speed decline..

The value of the armor obviously trumped his original run speed. So as other traits are discarded . Process is made..

In DND terms their agility drops 10 points but their armor raises 12..


So I think it is fair to say things get better at surviving in their environments and that “getting better” stacks..


Sure nothing progresses in everything at once, but progress is obviously made.

B) I didn’t say one species survived and stayed the same.. I specifically said one species became another, but obviously you can trace a family line that made it through the whole thing..


Maybe sauropods started small and got bigger becoming a new species.. you can still trace them back parent to child all the way throughout the periods..

Your kinda acting like there is a definitive line between species and there isn’t .. it’s a grey area.

C) no they were just 18 inches below ground at the time..

An extinction event isn’t like normal evolution.. where the strongest survive..

It is throwing a monkey wrench in the process.


D) yes and he fact all the things at the top of the food chain died in the Dino extinction.

If being at the top of the food chain is the measure of advancement.. and I agree it is as good a metric as we have.

All the tops of the food chain died in that extinction event..


Thus all the most advanced species died..


That’s what I mean by pooping on your theory..

If we are the most advanced and a meteor wiped us out.. then the most advanced species got wiped out.

a reply to: Phage

Very true


But in reality they are starting to think dolphins are fairly close behind us in mental processes.. they just don’t have opposable thumbs to “prove it”.

a reply to: Phage

Right. They would do great out on the ice. Swimming around. Catching seals.

So what you mean is...

death will find a way!

a reply to: Soylent Green Is People

I think an argument could be made the other way since we catch them, eat them and make nice luggage out of them. We are the most dangerous predator on the planet and no animal exists we can't kill or control. In that sense, intellect is a powerful survival tool.

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: Soylent Green Is People

Intelligence may help mid-sized primates became the master of their domain, but that may not be necessarily true for crocs and sharks.

Unless they figured out how to put frickin laser beams on their heads.

Let us not forget Sharknado!

a reply to: JoshuaCox

But in reality they are starting to think dolphins are fairly close behind us in mental processes

They have large brains, but apparently most of it is occupied by "signal processing" circuitry.

There's a Hawaiian heron (aukuu), a large bird and quite attractive. There's a colony of them in a marsh near my home. I once took my daughter there to feed the ducks some stale bread. An aukuu swooped in, grabbed a piece of bread, and flew away to perch on a branch over the water.

I thought the bird was going to eat the bread. I was wrong. He dropped the bread into the water and waited. A few small fish started nibbling on the bread. He waited. Until good sized fish showed up. Mr. Aukuu nailed him. He had learned to use bread for fish bait.

a reply to: JoshuaCox

No because they're dead and we're not. Birds are in some ways though. They're excretory system for example is more efficient than ours and they evolved from dinosaurs...so maybe yes? Though fish have been around longer than both and they have the least efficient excretory system...

a reply to: JoshuaCox

C) no they were just 18 inches below ground at the time..

An extinction event isn’t like normal evolution.. where the strongest survive..

It is throwing a monkey wrench in the process.

I think you are over thinking this. Or maybe under thinking. Whatever, you haven't quite got the idea.

Extinction events don't wipe out every individual member of a population. Not all 'dinosaur' species went extinct, it was mostly just the big ones, certainly the ones that evolved into modern birds survived. Of those species that did go extinct, not every individual died at once, survivors probably starved to death as they ran out of food, and any of those who managed to keep feeding would have had more and more problems finding mates. The food issue would have affected the largest species the most, obviously.

The meteor strike that is hypothesised to have caused the K-Pg extinction would have caused localized fires (not global) for sure, maybe even the 1200 degees F you assert. Magma and dust would have blocked out sunlight and slowed or stopped photosynthesis for perhaps years, and perhaps imposed an "impact winter" that would have been hard on cold-blooded species. It wasn't just that the survivors were '18 inches underground' at the time, it was that they could survive on fewer resources and recover more quickly than the big guys.

The survivors weren't 'the evolutionary trash' as you have characterized them. Evolution is NOT about the survival of the 'strongest', or even the 'fittest'. Evolution is about survival of the most able to reproduce. The survivors of the strike were superbly evolved to fit into the niche that they filled before the strike, and that just happened to leave them in a position to take advantage of the new environment. After the strike there a lot of niches became available for 'new residents' and since nature abhors a vacuum those niches.

In other words, the environment changed drastically, in geologic and evolutionary terms it was instantaneous, but in calendar time it may have been over a few hundred years for the old order to disappear altogether.

Well, dinosaurs were as evolutionarily advanced as they were. In evolutionary terms, being advanced is being able to survive and reproduce, thus enabling the continuity of your species. I am sure the apex predators were sufficiently able to survive in their environment, which of course they were.

Comparing dinosaurs to humans, or loins, or cows is (I'm afraid) comparing apples and oranges.

a reply to: SecretsoftheBlueApples

Because that’s retarded lol...


Now I am a big fan of the thought that maybe there was a reptilian Stone Age culture that died out in the past.. but no way they survive or reach space age tech without leaving a mark.

But no telling how many Stone Age people’s history has forgotten.

a reply to: paraphi

Well if course ... I said as much in the OP, but hypothetically if you have all the data and assign every trait a number value. Then as I think a metric could be created to compare 2 seperate species..

a reply to: rnaa

No the present theory is that the particulates vaporized and went up into the atmosphere . Then turned into sphrereicals and fell back to earth like shooting stars.

Appearently all that particulate heated the atmosphere to 1200 degrees EVERYWHERE..

That would INSTANTLY kill anything at surface level.


The nuclear winter theory has been revised since someone did the math on how much ejecta went up and how much heat that would cause on the way back down..


Assuming that is the case the surface Dino’s had no chance to adapt..


Think about it like people...


Are mice as evolutionarily advanced as people?


If the same thing happens today, mice survive and people die out.

a reply to: JoshuaCox

I think they were more advanced when you consider where they started from. I also believe a dog's tongue is cleaner than our own.

As to whether we would all be speaking dinosaur today if they still existed, I would say no. Mammals in general are higher on the evolutionary scale. We all have been evolving for the same amount of time. You leave out the evolution of everything before us that lead to humans.

originally posted by: Blaine91555
a reply to: Soylent Green Is People

I think an argument could be made the other way since we catch them, eat them and make nice luggage out of them. We are the most dangerous predator on the planet and no animal exists we can't kill or control. In that sense, intellect is a powerful survival tool.

Individual sharks and crocs, maybe. However, as a species they are extremely successful.

Plus, I think it is likely they will remain successful (and generally have little need for further evolutionary change) long after humans are extinct.

originally posted by: toms54
a reply to: JoshuaCox

I also believe a dog's tongue is cleaner than our own.

I dunno, i've seen what dogs eat....and where they lick themselves... I mean i've watched dogs #, eat their own #, puke up their # then proceed to eat said puke...Mmmm come on scruffy how bout a kiss..