/sci/ - Science & Math

self bump for science

>>3580762
First you must define sapient.

>implying evolution is fact

>>3580772

Let's say a civilization technologically comparable to our own. They use tools beyond just spears and wheels and have at least a primitive understanding of physics, their own system of math, language, etc.

>>3580775

>implying it's not

>>3580880
>implying it's not
ever heard about the THEORY of evolution ?

>>3580907
The fact of evolution is that animals change over time. We see it both in recorded history and in the fossil record. The current theory of evolution explains how that happens.

Just like gravity. The fact of gravity is that objects attract, and more massive objects attract harder. The theory of gravity is about describing what's going on, and how. Our theory of gravity doesn't seem especially complete, but GR is working pretty well.

>>3580920
>>3580907
i'm going to jump around the attempted thread derailing here...

once again, OP, how would define "sapient"

>>3580930
>>3580930
He said "a sapient species comparable to us". How you'd determine whether a given species measures up is still a question, sure, but I'm sure it would involve tool use.

Seriously guys?
"How would you define sapient?"
Homo sapiens = Wise man
Sapient = adjective
Dinosaur sapient = Wise dinosaur = Sharing a similarity in intelligence/design of a homo sapiens.
In other words, since dinosaurs lived for so god damn long, would it have been possible that they developed intelligence, like a homo sapien would? and how likely?

Gosh, I swear. It's not that hard.

>>3580938
i don't think it's impossible that something like that existed but just didn't have time to build a civilization/leave a record. i bet there could be a viable set of mutations to bring, say, certain parrots or the dolphin to our level relatively quickly

>>3580950
i was just clarifying, guy

>>3580950
Very unlikely. There are no fossil records of a dinosaur with a large brain/body size ratio, and that seems to be a decent indicator of general intelligence between species.

You aren't getting human-level intelligence out of a stegosaurus, for example. It's massive, and yet has a brain the size of a dog. Very bad brain/body size ratio.

And T-rex, braincase mold in pic related. They likely had a good sense of smell, because their olfactory bulbs were large.

The old theories about all dinosaurs being drooling morons has been largely overturned, but there certainly isn't anything like the huge brain/body ratio of humans.

You must define dinosaurs

For some reason /sci/ hates the idea of something having a soul/consciousness/sentience/sapience and prefer to quibble over semantics than actually discuss the issue at hand.

Might be something to do with all the hipsters who love communism, determinism and nihilism and saying pseudo-intellectual shit like "consciousness is an illusion" *smugface*.

Anyway, it's not plausible, intelligent dinosaurs related to birds and some intelligent herbivores existed but they were the equivalent of wolves and buffalo, niches that are far more populous than the niches that our ancestors filled, so we can assume that since intelligent buffalos and wolves did not evolve before us that it is unlikely any dinosaurs ever did.

>>3580969
>And T-rex, braincase mold in pic related.
Dammit, attached.

>>3580970
yup. a 25 foot crocodile seems awfully dinosaur to me

>>3580971
Agree with your post, but brain-body ratio is not what determines intelligence per-sé. If that were the case, mice and many other small mammals would be superior to us with respect to intelligence.

>>3580972
we don't really know what we've missed, we're talking about millions of years of history that we have only grabbed small segments of. there have been entire (human) civilizations that existed only several thousand years ago that we missed out on for various reasons... i can't help to imagine that we haven't even begun to scrape the tip of the iceberg with paleontology. i am NOT saying that there is a "dino man"-- just throwing out the concept that we don't have the full picture in mind, yet.

OP here posting again. I would like to submit two more foods for thought: Scientists are learning that the brain-to-body ratio as a measure of intelligence is really not as important as they thought it was. But also, if you consider the fact that intelligence evolved out of necessity to help humans survive since they weren't huge or fierce predators, dinosaurs wouldn't really need to evolve intelligence beyond that of modern birds since they already dominated the planet.
I think it's highly unlikely, but I can't help but wonder about it considering how new we are as a species and the vast expanse of time behind us.

>>3581023
your last point expresses my feelings on the subject exactly.

>>3581007
for just one moment, clear your mind, and imagine that the world, the entire universe, is 6,000 years old.

do you see how that influences everything you think you know?

>>3581032

>>3581040
OP here again
pic related

>>3581049
do it. 6,000 years old. the oldest thing in the universe.

>yfw

>>3581049

>OP here again

>OP here

>OP here
>OP here
>OP here
>OP here
>OP here
>OP here
>OP here
>OP here
>OP here
>OP here
>OP here
>OP here
>OP here
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>OP here
>OP here

Christ, just put 'OP' in the name field, you insufferable faggot.

If you're paranoid about samefags, use a temporary trip-code, because, you know, that's what they were INTENDED for, not just e-recognition.

>>3581083
OP here again.
>mfw I have no idea how to tripcode
also u mad

>>3581102

>implying the picture didn't make it obvious that I'm mad

Tripcodes: put a "#" before any random sequence of numbers and letters in the name field after your actual name.

e.g "OP #1234" results in the name and tripcode displayed.

>>3581077
That makes the universe pretty scary. With supernovas, black holes, asteroids and all that all compressed into the span of about 6,000 years, the universe is an extremely volatile place.
Also light can travel faster than light because fuck the physics police.

>>3581109
amidoinitrite? I am sincerely not a newfriend, but I just never got around to learning how to tripcode because I'm not on here very often

There were no asteroids.

The dinosaurs were lost in the great war. It started during the first space race, and finally, everything was lost. Atomic bombs, the whole world destroyed along with all the dinosaurs.

>>3581119
I DID IT changing it tho to avoid confusion.

>>3581111
exactly! the universe is a MUCH scarier place if it is only 6,000 years old; we haven't even kicked the fucking tires on it yet!

>>3581122
You know that's actually the reason I started this thread. I want to write a sci-fi novel along those lines dealing with interstellar human colonization and humankind's discovery of some ancient relic of sapient space-faring dinosauroids. I was just curious what people thought about the idea of sapient dinosaurs.

>>3581111
oh, and a light year is a distance, not a time

people get so confused about that

especially people that don't get why Han Solo could do the Kessel Run in under 12 parsecs

>>3581133
i smell Ender's Game meets Jurassic Park

>>3581133

If you're going to write a book, for the love of Richard Owen, don't call them dinosauroids.

The term is 'saurian'

>>3580970

>>3581147
are the saurians making you say that???

>>3581156
ZOMG THE WORD BIBLE ISN'T IN THE BIBLE EITHER!!!1!

>>3581156
oh, and behemoth, dragons, and leviathan

three words that are in the bible

>>3581162

>>3581166
lol@filename

also, OP, the bugs in Starship Troopers were basically intelligent dino..er, saurians

Surely there are no Creationists in /sci/ who aren't trolls. I am not a newfriend to 4chan but I am a bit of a newfriend to /sci/.

>>3581194
young earth creationist here

the label doesn't matter

only the truth

>>3581194
http://www.christianforums.com/t7526306/

What about velocipedes, they can open doors.

but seriously,>>3581023 dinosaurs may have dominated the planet, but it was a small group of them, and many other smaller dinosaurs were included in the group of the dominated.

>>3581138
A parsec is a distance, and the reason that is acceptable to go by is that to make the run in the shortest distance you need to go near black holes, and han's ship can go closer to them because it has wicked good thrusters or something.

>>3581214
now that's funny

thank you

>>3581194
Theistic Evolutionist

>>3581214
*Velociraptors*

Many species of birds are super smart, and are the descendants of a particular lineage of dinosaurs (which currently escapes me and I am too lazy to look it up at the moment).
Ever heard of Alex the African Grey parrot? He's a very famous example of bird intelligence, although he never progressed beyond the scope of a 3-4 year old in terms of ability to learn things. This is quantifiable; I'm sure he had trouble with more abstract subjects (like 3-4 year olds are) and I am also certain he'd probably be missing the idea of conservation of volume (which eludes children up to 7 years old).
Additionally, Corvids (the Crow family) are hella smart. They're very good mimics and are extremely good problem solvers who also exhibit tool use depending on the situation.

So, I would argue that there already are "sapient" 'dinosaurs'.

>>3581252
Are those the crows that crack nuts using cars and eat them during the red lights and then leave when they see the lights change?

>>3581260
Corvid is the family name containing all crow species, so it would include those crows.
It also includes crows which bend wires to obtain whateverthefuck from narrow areas. There's a video of this somewhere.
They also exhibit "hoarding" behavior. This means they will hide food when they've got more than they can eat at one time. They also pretend to hoard things if they observe another crow watching them.

>>3581260
Also, this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corvidae

Second paragraph:
They are considered the most intelligent of the birds, and among the most intelligent of all animals[3][4] having demonstrated self-awareness in mirror tests (European Magpies) and tool making ability (Crows, Rooks[5])—skills until recently regarded as solely the province of humans and a few other higher mammals. Their total brain to body ratio is equal to that of great apes and cetaceans, and only slightly lower than in humans.[6]

>>3581260
that's awesome

saw a raven once drop marbles into a glass of water to bring the level of the water up so he could take a drink

What is everyone's opinion on measurements of sapience though? Do you think it's possible that very intelligent dinosaurs, perhaps even smarter than us, evolved but left no record of their existence? Is it possible that they wouldn't build elaborate shelters, vehicles, and tools like we do? Is that uniquely primate or is that something that any sapient being will inevitably do?

>>3581298
why don't you just set them up on their own world, and have the two societies clash upon expansion?

like, every other sf story?

>>3581298
you have to remember that if we all died off right now, the only thing remaining of our civilization in even a few thousand years would be the depletion of fossil fuels

if a dinosaur culture grew up in the waning years of their reign then they would have left nothing we could see, even if they did have a thriving culture, 65 million years at least is certainly long enough to replenish most resources

>>3581328
>pyramids
>great wall of china
>manhattan
>mfw

>>3581328
I guess I'm basically proving myself wrong here, but we still have little stone tools made by hominids from tens of thousands of years ago. Things as fragile as actual dinosaur bodies have been preserved for millions of years. While those incidents were pretty rare considering how many dinosaurs must have lived and how many fossils we have today, it still begs the question why no artifacts have been recovered yet.

just throwing that out there for further discussion

>>3581328
Also, there's no way we could tell if there were more fossil fuels before humans began to tap them.

OP is a summerfag. That doesn't please me

>>3581369
you are a no fun allowed autistic faggot

>>3581328
We have scrapyards with huge amounts of metal in them. If we died off right now, it would be much easier for any future civilization to mine for metals, because it would all be in the same spots. When we get metal, we mine it from small veins in natural formations.

thats not how evolution works

>>3581375
qft

Humanities' Sentience is something of a fluke.

>>3581407
Which species first hit the strong feedback cycle of increasing intelligence under natural selection was something of a fluke, but the existence of that strong selection was not. I think we agree though.

>>3581380
>mfw

OP, of course it's possible. just like it's possible that bigfoot and unicorns and invisible intelligent sky fairies exist. It just isn't fucking likely.

Your argument that we're recently discovering the inutility of encephalization quotient is crap, we've understood it and studied it for over 100 years and it does correlate well with intelligence. the rare exceptions have been noted, not recently but in the 1800's. No dinosaur has yet been found with an e.q. of even a dog. They really weren't that bright.

in speculating about their behavior we compare them to lizards and fish, not birds. Birds have a MUCH higher e.q. A bird has a much larger forebrain used in navigating.

In addition to lacking the brains for it, there is as you say a complete lack of artifacts. When evidence for a thing is lacking, it may still be possible, but after looking for evidence all over and not finding it we start to consider it really damn unlikely.

>>3581214
>>3581138
Can we talk about the millennium falcon some more guise?

>>3581694
same guy, I'll start
>>3581214
Yeah the thrusters matter a lot, especially since it would be traveling in hyperspace.

Has anyone here read The Science of the Discworld? The first book has Rincewind travelling through the history of Earth, and at several points he comes across proto-civilizations, since wiped out. The last of these is a group of small raptors, who wear face-paint, jewelery and herd smaller dinosaurs, but get annihilated by the KT event.

Fiction, obviously, but I love the idea of Earth supporting intelligent life long before we arrive.

>>3581783

That does sound interesting. If you're still there, do you happen to remember what other proto-civilizations there were before those raptors?