
Forget Extinct: The Brontosaurus Never Even Existed - Pr0
http://www.npr.org/2012/12/09/166665795/forget-extinct-the-brontosaurus-never-even-existed?ft=1&f=1007
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fingerprinter
IMO, while this is old news, the outcome is something I think we can showcase
as why science is awesome. A mistake was found, and even though there was some
huge investment in the idea, it was corrected. It took time, sure, but it was
still corrected.

Had this been a religious idea, I'm afraid the new evidence would have been
buried and we'd still have the old, wrong idea.

~~~
pkulak
Religion has no use for evidence in creating or revising any idea. But I still
get your point.

~~~
politician
Let's try to be more tolerant then /r/atheism.

~~~
illuminate
It's not intolerance, it's an airgap. Religion is a supernatural matter, not a
tool by which one can gather objective evidence. To judge one by the standards
of the other would be unfair (no matter whether a theist or atheist is trying
to conflate one with the other.)

~~~
politician
Regardless, religion wasn't part of the article, and it's completely
irrelevant to the conversation. These two guys brought it up for no other
reason than open mocking. That's not tolerance, that's Reddit.

~~~
bunderbunder
Sadly, at least for Americans it's not irrelevant. In the USA paleontology,
especially dinosaur paleontology, plays a huge role in the continuing
political struggle over whether evolution should be taught in science classes.
As a result the sources from which people learn about paleontology can often
be quite partisan. A very large number of Americans learn their paleontology
from sources whose approach to the subject is markedly different, which does
play a part in the perpetuation of scientifically discredited ideas such as
this one.

So while many of us would agree that the comparison ideally _shouldn't_ be
relevant, certain cultural realities mean that it is. Though it's definitely
still tangential in this case.

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nshepperd
The article appears to be somewhat mistaken, judging by
[http://ehis.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?sid=5fc8615c-3e1a-48a...](http://ehis.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?sid=5fc8615c-3e1a-48ac-b123-ae43a468174a%40sessionmgr4&vid=1&hid=2&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#),
<http://www.unmuseum.org/dinobront.htm> and
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apatosaurus#History> (the latter two which are
barely more reputable). The artificial head wasn't put on the body of the
_Apatosaurus_ (the first skeleton), which apparently was never put on display
as a full skeleton at all. It was the second skeleton, which he named
_Brontosaurus_ and mounted in the Yale Peabody Museum with the wrong head.

This story is also more consistent with saying the _Brontosaurus_ "never
existed", since it was the _Brontosaurus_ that got given the wrong head.
(Though one could well argue that _Brontosaurus_ was just another name for
_Apatosaurus_ with the whole head thing just being an error in the visual
representation of the dinosaur referred to by _Brontosaurus_.)

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chernevik
Let's rename the thing a Plutosaurus. After the brontosauroid kicked out of
the planets.

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ahoy
This isn't remotely new information. I knew the brontosaurus was never a real
thing as a kid.

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artsrc
I enjoyed Stephen Jay Gould's books:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bully_for_Brontosaurus>

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mediocregopher
Relevant:
[http://www.ted.com/talks/jack_horner_shape_shifting_dinosaur...](http://www.ted.com/talks/jack_horner_shape_shifting_dinosaurs.html)

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panabee
"It was missing a skull, so in 1883 when Marsh published a reconstruction of
his Apatosaurus, Lamanna says he used the head of another dinosaur — thought
to be a Camarasaurus — to complete the skeleton."

Since the first Apatosaurus featured the skull of another dinosaur, meaning
Marsh named a non-existent animal, couldn't you argue that the Brontosaurus
was the right name since it was applied to a more accurate reconstruction?

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nash
I prefer the Peppa Pig version:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfMYw33jph0>

~~~
someperson
Here's an interesting article about the production side Peppa Pig that people
reading this might be interested in:

[http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/b7bcd9b6-9ab1-11df-87e6-00144...](http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/b7bcd9b6-9ab1-11df-87e6-00144feab49a.html#axzz2EdcCUJDJ)

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WalterBright
What I enjoy about dinosaurs is how simultaneously we know so much about them,
and yet so very little.

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robbrown451
Sure it existed. It just had two names.

~~~
nash
One of the points of the article is the head/skull usually associated with the
Brontosaurus was incorrect, as well as the body being a duplicate.

So with the usual headline sensationalism, it is fair to say "it never
existed". More accurately, one could say something like "the dinosaur
popularly known as brontosaurus, is actually a aptosaurus with a different
head..." But as a headline, it lacks punch.

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sabat
This isn't actually news. I think I knew about Apatosaurus (vs. Brontosaurus)
in the 1970s.

~~~
shardling
Heh, I remember learning about it and thinking, oh, I wonder when they figured
this out.

I was pretty ticked off when I learned it was the 70's, and yet I still was
taught about the brontosaurus in school a decade later. Makes me wonder if
kids today still get taught about the ninth planet Pluto.

~~~
Vivtek
I think Pluto got a whole lot more press in pop culture. Arguably a good thing
- pop culture has really improved in science coverage since the 70s.

~~~
illuminate
"pop culture has really improved in science coverage since the 70s"

Increased the amount, but has the quality really improved that much? We've
still got the latest free-energy, supplement/alt-med, cancer cure, and diet
quacks making the rounds under the guise of "science" reporting.

~~~
Vivtek
Granted.

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iamtherockstar
Related: There's apparently a similar thing happening with the
triceratops/toroceratops. It's likely that the former is just an young version
of the latter, not a different species.

[http://www.newser.com/story/97112/triceratops-never-
existed....](http://www.newser.com/story/97112/triceratops-never-existed.html)

~~~
Vivtek
My entire childhood is being retconned out of existence. First brontosaurs,
then Pluto, now Triceratops - what's next, Count Chocula will turn out to have
been a miscategorized lemur?

