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this post was submitted on 29 May 2025
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Science Memes
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What is the purpose of the "fin" then?
Display and / or temperature regulation. What’s the ‘purpose’ of any exterior adornment?
jorking peanits
kronk shoulder angel: "no no he has a point"
time to compare mass/cooling appendage area for dinosaurs and elephants (they use their ears for cooling).
problem.
Weren't spinosaurs aquatic? cooling surfaces like those aren't needed if you're in the water.
I’m not an expert on these, just pointing out they aren’t made for attaching large neck muscles
This is such a paradoxical statement that it becomes like an answer to a puzzle on how to use 17 words to say nothing then.
He's not an expert doesn't equal he lacks any knowledge whatsoever. He might lack the knowledge to theorise what the bones are used for but has enough knowledge to know that it doesn't work as a muscle attachment point. How is this paradoxical?
That's such a fine point to be that knowledged but just shy of being able to actual speak confidently on the matter. It means they don't have the knowledge to speak confidently on the matter that they just did. Paradoxical.
They don't speak for their own credentials and it's unwise to trust a confident statement made right after saying:
I'm not an expert but...
Its pretty common to be that level of knowledgeable. A lot of people are casually interested enough about animals and biology to have heard discussions about muscular structures that they can determine when something doesn't work. It doesn't mean they can form their own hypothesis on what a spinosaurus skeletal structure is used for, especially if he knows that even experts are still arguing about it until today.
It's wiser to trust the words of someone who knows his own limitations and admits to it than someone who confidently uses a word without knowing the meaning. You can't seem to grasp that people can have a varied level of knowledge about different things within the same subject.
You're basically saying that someone being confident about your car having a puncture is being paradoxical if he also doesn't have the confidence to say what punctured it.
No. Vastly different levels of complexity and specialization.
You just want to believe Wikipedia deep dives account for actual self knowledge. It just makes them a ke to repeat the arguments of others, not add their own opinion. They didn't say that experts agree it wasn't for muscle attachment they made their own statement regurgitating the words of others.
I'm just not willing to hold undue faith because it makes me feel better.
Usually weird protrusions on dinosaurs have to do with sexual distinction, rather then function.
Even the horns and neck shield on the triceratops are more about sex than about offense/defense
As continued in modern male birds having the more extravagant displays.
Part of the evidence for dinosaurs being birds is that female dinosaur bones show the same changes that female birds during their reproductive cycle - they build up like extra blood structures for support iirc.
Some recent evidence suggests the Spinosaurus may or may not be semi-aquatic. We've got a super limited fossil record from this region of Egypt.