Dinosaurs Have Skyscrapers and Cellphones? Maybe.

reply to post by jimmiec

Only 5% of the ocean floors have been explored, none excavated. The iceage scrubbed the continents. There was once one big land mass that split apart. You can look at Google sattelite and see where continents were likely but are under water now. We don't have the technology to dig in the ocean depths. New discoveries are a daily occurence. We were unable to prove the existance of giant octupus until 2003. Ancient civilizations did not nescesarily use the same technology we have today. There is no reason to believe they did not have a better technology than electricity. Magnetics/sound waves/etc. Over half of North America was scrubbed by 1 mile of ice. Mountain ranges were created. We have not looked under those mountains. Nobody can say with any certainty that we have found all evidence of past civilizations. We can actually say with certainty that we have not excavated 95% of the planet. I doubt we had cellphones, but we could have been advanced.

1. The oceans is unexplored.
   
2. The most recent ice age only removed some areas in the north. Most of the land is intact.
   
3. Pangaea broke up before dinosaurs.
   
4. There are no sunken continents.
   
5. If ancients built anything we would have seen it. We find lithic tools. We find ancient art. We find bones. We have even found tracks.
   
6. The North American ice sheet ended in what is now the Northern US.
   
7. Mountains were not created by glaciation. There might be some moraines.
   

There is lots of evidence of ancient peoples, but everything we see shows an orderly procession to greater and greater advancement. There are no ancient places that show advanced technologies or even civilization before the Sumerians.

There is a certain hubris at work in the premise of the original question about why the dinosaurs didn't develop "technology" and why humans did and how that makes humans all smart and dinosaurs all dumb. The premise is arrogant and is the cause of the seeming insolubility of the technological development conundrum expressed as "why didn't the dinosaurs develop cellphones?"

The presumption is that "technology" as we understand it is a signifier of intelligence, and that the lack of one indicates the lack of the other. The simple fact is that our "technological" development is eating us alive. That our technologies are the source of our principal miseries is undeniable. Oil extraction and burning facilitates almost every human technology, and it is poisioning everything it touches. There is almost no place left on the planet that is not filthy and sick due to oil poisoning. That includes all derivatives of oil, principally plastic. Other materials are coupled with oil to make technologies like cell phones and F-150's and Nerf footballs and microwave ovens and F-35 fighter jets, basically all the stuff that makes you think humans are so cool, clever, and advanced beyond the dolphins and condors and cicada's we look down upon so derisively.

The dinosaurs were FAR superior to humanity in their ability to, for example, stay alive and happy in harmonic balance with their world. Basically, they did not "sh1t where they eat" like we do.

My personal opinion is that the one "technology" that is poisoning us the most is the one that we will hold onto the longest - money.

Money facilitatess the agrragation of more than a single person can use (live in, drive, wear, or eat). It facilitates differential "wealth" and therefore differential "power" and is the cause of war and misery because of it.

I am not saying a man should not be able to have "wealth" due to his own personal effort and creativity. But it would be better if that wealth was in the form of actuial stuff. If a millionaire had to take all his pay in the form of actual stuff, food, housing, vehicles, clothing, even jewelry or toys, he would be limited in his ability to force his will on others, and therefore to commit harm on those same others. He would live in a world of riches but not of power.

Since this isn't happening, I surmise that it is the power that is the objective and not the material "wealth" per se. And it is the money that gives that power.

The dinosaurs simply didn't do that. Instead, they ate and bred and ran around having dinosaur fun and making dinosaur babies and they lasted for eons, unlike we smart-ass monkeys with iPhones that are killing all the bees with microwave radiation (as an example of a suicidal "technology" we are all proud of, but that is in reality a poison) and that will eventually result in diminished food production that will cause us all, but for the uber rich who are immune from the results of their actions, to suffer.

Humans better than dinosaurss? Hardly.

reply to post by MarsSentinel


Excellent, excellent post.

Lets see if we as in the human race survive as long as the dinos..I agree that in terms of survival of a species, and life generally intelligence and technological advancement does not equate to superiority.

I often think our intelligence is actually unique to us and us alone, not just on earth but the universe. There may be life elsewhere in the cosmos, and before us on earth, but none with the 'intelligence' we posses and what ultimately does us more harm than good.

Regards whether dinos had the know how to build skyscrapers and ipads...no chance, even after millions of years we would still see the evidence I think.

Interesting thought: given enough time most of our structures would decay away, however I still think it would be apparent to some degree, just due to the sheer scale we've built at.

Plus, even if the surface were wiped out, we still have tons of junk traffic in space, not all of it would fall out of orbit. The moon has left over remnants of our expeditions there, rovers on mars, etc.

Technology comes in many forms. It provides for better housing, longevity, and improved lifestyle. It's not all pros; it does have its cons as pointed out. Dinosaurs show no evidence of technology. They did not construct places for eggs other than mounds on the ground. They did not construct better dwellings to protect their eggs. All sorts of claims can be made about alternative methods, but the fact remains that dinosaurs did not do anything other than what is seen in reptiles today. The behavioral signs left by dinosaurs shows nothing other than what we expect of herd animals. They traveled at times in herds. They sometimes raised their young in large groups. Some appear to have stamped their feet. It is expected that they would have an intelligence level no greater than other animals we see today.

iPhones that are killing all the bees with microwave radiation

That is simply not true.

Humans better than dinosaurss? Hardly.

That's really off topic and your line of reasoning is really poisoned with negative issues that might be considered over the top representations of what is actually happening.

I like this thread and you are correct that we only have hypothesis on the behaviour and actual intelligence level of these ancient species, it is more likely though that if a sapient race evolved at that time and that it had a comparative civilisation (that we could recognise) then structure or artifact remain's would turn up (OOPORTs) but how about this,.

There is a theory that about 2.5 billion years bc the earth froze over completely for about 500 million year's except in the deepest ocean's near the hydrothermal vent's, it is called the snowball earth theory (it nearly happened again during the carboniferous when tree's evolved and there was no species that could break down the celulite in the wood so the carbon was being stripped from the atmosphere but then a fungus finally evolved that could metabolise it and saved the day) and though it has been contradicted by some there is growing support for it, the earth is over 4 billion year's old and we are only 5 hundred thousand year's old including neanderthal man, now all known complex life on earth has only existed for about 500 million year's starting in the sea, yet the chemical trace's - not fossil's indicating life go far further back in the history of the earth to nearly 4 billion year's, through resurfacing , geological activity and errosion very nearly the entire surface of the earth is replaced every 650 million year's and this destroy's any fossil naturally, now what if a previouse age of evolution had occured before the snowball earth event over 2.5 billion year's ago and what if sapient intelliegence had evolved, the genetic's would be nearly alien to us except the endron's those part's called junk DNA, your thread is valid and may hold the key to many mysterie's, who know's maybe a sapient dinosaur eveloved but we simply have not found any trace yet.

reply to post by stereologist

way to avoid the responsibility of explaining how you know it didn't or isn't happening. can you explain the different features of the Starchild brain? obviously you don't even know what that is about either so are we going to now try and swing for strike three?

It is definitely true that life has been on Earth for a long, but that multicellular life is less than 1By. There have been several snowball or near snowball Earth's. One was just 800Ma.

en.wikipedia.org...

There are signs of multicellular life around that time, but it did not have a model similar to our current life. It did not appear to have the sort of anatomy of known life forms. It has been dubbed the fractal life forms due to its simple branching into a feathery structure.

Despite finding such things there is little evidence of anything large and complex before the Ediacarian. I have not heard more about the old macrofossils reported from Africa last year or the year before. Not sure what was decided on that issue.

reply to post by bottleslingguy

keep talking and the foot just goes deeper. you are a typical Pye detractor. you guys think that by making jokes and nit picking superfluous (how's that big word?) issues that you are making a valid point. Well so far none of you has a reasonable argument against any of what has been done with this subject. You obviously haven't got a clue what's going on with the brain model, so much for sounding like you know what you're talking about

The onus is on Pye to support his claim and no one else.
The lab studies that have been done show clearly that the skull is human. Two studies and 2 human findings.

Pye is known for claiming that there are 4 hominids: bigfoot, yetis, agogwes, and almas. That is where he starts. So if the skull didn't fit his categories he simply placed it off the planet. Good thinking there Lloyd. Maybe the problem is with the original 4-way split?

reply to post by bottleslingguy

way to avoid the responsibility of explaining how you know it didn't or isn't happening. can you explain the different features of the Starchild brain? obviously you don't even know what that is about either so are we going to now try and swing for strike three?

If you had something to say about this you would have. You can't as evidenced by your contentless posts.

Choosing to pretend that a typical hydrocephalus skull is evidence of aliens, Pye thinks greys, is actually quite ridiculous. Pye chooses to claim that a search for nuclear DNA ending being unresolved suggests not deterioration of DNA, but alien DNA. That is ridiculous. An unclear test is an unclear test. The one thing we do know is that the skull provided both X and Y chromosomes.

For those interested in learning about the fractal animals here is a lnk to a place they were found in Newfoundland.

www.cbc.ca...

It states that the dates are 540 to 635Ma so I was wrong thinking they were older, up to 800My old.

Dinosaur's brains were smaller than human brain, although there is not single dinosaur brain to study. That's for sure that human never uses all the capacity of their brains. Who could say that dinosaurs couldn't?

Not having read the entire barrage of replies to the Original Post (OP) I think we must re-consider for a while, our 'theories' for, that is what they are, after all, about "evolution" or "Evolution".
We as a species are quite frankly an evolutionary disaster, looking from a strictly survivalist viewpoint. We don't do well in large packs, we don't do well on our own, we aren't particularly strong and we aren't particularly fast either.
In fact, our intelligence, or better yet, our ability to make up for our disabilities with tools and knowledge is what ensures we survive to see tomorrow. Without this ability, we would make an excellent meal for a pack of wild animals. Even raccoons might easily take down an unintelligent human.

So, why would a giant lizard who is genetically designed to hunt or forage with maximum efficiency need to use tools? Tools are for WEAKLING species. Why would a giant lizard need a sky scraper? To file his T4s? Do his taxes? Regulate inventories? Maybe as a storage unit for the different types of carcass meat?

I could see a lizard with a fridge, I suppose, as that would minimize the amount of work a lizard would have to do in order to eat, but realistically, I don't think lizards leave all that much for left-overs anyway.

Now, having said this, lets take another step back from where I (apparently) stand on this issue.
Why aren't humans better as a species then? We've not been around for long enough. We aren't really all that 'smart' either. We might be 'intelligent' but we are pretty stupid. Smart and Intelligent sound like the same thing, but are they really?

Here's a hypothetical:
A lion is hunting, lets say... a gazelle. These are quite fast. Definitely faster than a lion. However, as the lion is 1) Genetically designed for this kind of scenario and 2) Smart and skilled (in this scenario), the lion is able to do this.
Now, without changing the genetic make up of the lion, we shall put the brain of the average working class, caucasian office-worker (male or female doesn't really matter, but for arguments sake, lets say male) inside the body of the lion. Starving also. I can't say for certain, but I would have to say, as this is an impossible situation to test in reality, that the human-in-a-lions-body could not get much in terms of prey. We aren't smart enough. We can, I suppose, given enough time have the human-in-a-lions-body study the ways of the lions and eventually come to a suitable strategy to hunt gazelle, but by the time the subject is able to perform this task would have surely starved to death or at least starved enough not to be ABLE to hunt. These are the ways in which we are not smart.

In conclusion, dinosaurs may or may not have had advanced technologies. Arguments for why maybe are that they had a very long time to adapt and become intelligent. Arguments for not are that they simply did not require them for their long-term and short-term survival and thus never developed the kind of intelligence required to use tools.

reply to post by veritascaudex

We as a species are quite frankly an evolutionary disaster, looking from a strictly survivalist viewpoint.

The reality is that we are not an evolutionary disaster. That would be a failed species unable to adapt. From an evolutionary point of view we are a success.

Tools are for WEAKLING species.

I disagree. Tools are useful to get a job done.

Why would a giant lizard need a sky scraper?

That's like asking why an elephant needs a skyscraper. Dinosaurs were not all huge. Some were as small as large lizards. Not all were fierce. Part of survival is defense.

Why aren't humans better as a species then? We've not been around for long enough. We aren't really all that 'smart' either. We might be 'intelligent' but we are pretty stupid. Smart and Intelligent sound like the same thing, but are they really?

We are smart. We can learn to accomplish complex tasks and invent new ideas such as constructing defenses, agriculture, and writing.

A lion is hunting ...

Put a lion's mind into the body of a human and they starve as well.

I have no idea what the point of that is. Lions teach their young to hunt. They create strong family ties in their prides. Humans do as well. Each teaches their young how to survive. Leave a human baby or a lion cub to fend for themselves and both are dead.

In conclusion, dinosaurs may or may not have had advanced technologies. Arguments for why maybe are that they had a very long time to adapt and become intelligent. Arguments for not are that they simply did not require them for their long-term and short-term survival and thus never developed the kind of intelligence required to use tools.

Dinosaurs did not have advanced technologies. We haven't found anything and what we have found suggests a behavior not including advanced or even simple technologies. Have we ever found a dinosaur burial? No. Ever found a dino-house? No. But we sure have found simple nests. Would a dinosaur need tools? Animals use tools today and they come in handy.

I'm just not buying your claims.

I think that there are many things we have created today that will last for millions of years, and those things could be found much further into the future. Whenever someone tries to say that the ancients had technologies rivalling what we have today, I always make the point that the evidence would be in the ground if that were true, yet we haven't found any. It probably is not there, considering we have found the strata and depths of these civilizations.

As far as dinosaurs being advanced...Hmm. It is quite unlikely that they possessed the necessary brainpower. Look at a dinosaur like a brachiasaurus. Looking at the size of its cranium, this animal was, pound for pound, the dumbest animal that has ever lived. Looking back through evolution, I think that it is adequately explained that the brainpower necessary to develop high technology did not originate until long after the dinosaurs were wiped out.

Of course someone can always argue, for the reason that we have NOT found these things. You can never prove a negative. I say this about bigfoot all the time, having seen one of these animals. To those who say they don't exist I always ask "how do you know they don't exist? because you haven't seen one?" Doesn't make much sense does it. Looking back through history, science at one time believed that there were no direct human ancestors, which we now know to be false. This was because no one had yet to find the remains of the many apelike and manlike beings that lived at one time. So anything truly is possible, I personally however doubt dinosaurs had the hands necessary to hold a cell phone.

reply to post by JiggyPotamus


I would also point out that we can determine some times of behavior from the available discoveries. Those discoveries include nesting areas which show no pole holes or other structures in the area. This suggests open nesting which is done by many animals today.

If we think about ancient peoples we can think of the sorts of things we find with them which range from burial positions, to jewelry, to tools, to metal pieces. We find gastroliths, but not ancient carvings.

You are correct to state that lack of evidence does not mean it does not exist, but what we do find suggests that dinosaurs were not smart or intelligent.

reply to post by stereologist


Yes. From an "evolutionary" viewpoint we are a success. Put a human in a strictly survival situation and all of a sudden our genetics aren't really hard-wired for success.

i can find many cases where people survive against impossible odds, maybe your perception is just skewed.

rather then attacking stereologist, try understanding why these ideas succeed or fail peer review, not everything that fails peer review is a conspiracy.

I believe hes provided sufficient evidence to several of these arguments, and has been patient enough to deal with some of these absolutely ridiculous ideas, if it were me id be telling you to stop getting your basic education from conspiracy websites and try not to have children.

Some of you get mad when someone doesnt agree with "your" theory, when really the problem isnt the status quo but your complete lack of understanding of even the most simple concepts.

really this argument is rehashing pseudoscience that detracts from good questions,

Why didn\'t dinosaurs evolve more considering the massive amount of time they had?
Where are the divergence species and subspecies within our group and others?

There are alot of good questions on this topic and most of you haven\'t even touched them, alot of you have no interest in opposing ideas or accepting facts unless it supports your theory,

I prefer to wait until i see one of you try to peddle that # in public so i can make you look retarded.