/sci/ - Science & Math

I was thinking about doing paleontology. But unless you do micro paleo for oil companies, you make absolute shit.

Sure OP, there's a thread or two every week.

What interests you? I'm currently working on revising Sereno's Tyrannosauroidea because almost all of the diagnostic traits are still convergent or synapomorphic with contemporaries outside the clade.

Comments are welcome, but I have no real intention of publishing. Probably hand it off anonymously to Sereno, Holtz, Carpenter, Chatterjee and Rauhut and see what they do with it, if anything.

As the anon above pointed out, vert paleo is a great hobby, mostly soft science, and a terrible career choice. It is fascinating though...

>>2083462
If the evidence does not fit with the "Theory" it is discarded, or you'll be fired/discredited. True story bro.

>>2084197
Bullshit. Heaping steaming pile of ignorant bullshit.

Check Chatterjee and Feduccia's work in paleornithology. Questioning prevailing theory is what science is all about.

>>2083943
>money

well there's your fucking problem buddy, who gives a shit about money. As long as you do something you enjoy, then what the fuck ever.

Paleontology isn't science, it's manchild Pokemon bullshit.

>>2084207
shh

don't tell the politicians that

>>2084224
FUCK YOU

>>2084226
FUCK YEAR, DINOSAURS

No seriously, is there ANY more useless science?

Especially since most of what we "know" about dinosaurs was dreamed up by some autists based on a single bone?

lulzy trolls bumping the thread... keep it going boys, I'll be back after I sleep to see if it hasn't 404'd.

were the sails on dimetrodon a precursor to warmblooded animals??? the prof says it isnt and i called him out and he ignored my email

>>2084230
>were the sails on dimetrodon a precursor to warmblooded animals???

Not really. Warmbloodedness evolved repeatedly and separately in fish, mammals and dinosaurs (birds). None of those animals used sails.

Dimetrodon was in the ancestral line for mammals, but wasn't itself warm blooded. Also later mammals didn't have sails, and the animals between dimetrodon and mammals didn't have sails... so dimetrodon wasn't so much a precursor as it was probably a dead end in a strategy that later worked with other organs.

>>2084227
well, personally, I'd say Astrophysics. At least paleontology is about things actually ON our planet.

>>2084227
>Especially since most of what we "know" about dinosaurs was dreamed up by some autists based on a single bone?

learn2comparativeanatomy

"...the number, direction, and shape of the bones that compose each part of an animal's body are always in a necessary relation to all the other parts, in such a way that - up to a point - one can infer the whole from any one of them and vice versa." ~ some truth from the original comparative anatomist.

>>2084265
>>2084230
sorry i meant hte prof said IT WAS a rational adapation for the warm bloodedness later on, i DIDNT ~_~ what do i do just take it as a loss?

>>2084322
Well it would be fun to argue the point, and you might learn something from his argument...

but it doesn't sound like he wants to debate.

I'd just drop it, you aren't in a win/lose situation. I had a professor who's a creationist, and seriously you can't get much more wrong than that. I learned tons from him, and he is well known and respected in his field. I don't see any point in arguing eccentric beliefs. Unless you're into that, in which case most paleontologists already agree with you on the subject of dimetrodon's sail.