What's the big deal about Dinosaurs? (bug, chicken, bunny, look)
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Location: North of the Cow Pasture and South of the Wind Turbines
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Well dinosaurs are cool if you believe in such things. However I'm not a scientist, but I was wondering what if anything does mankind benefit from all this dinosaur stuff?
We have some of the smartest people in the world digging up bones and making all these hypotheses about what they ate, what they did, analyzing their poop for DNA, blah blah. Where does this science go to anything that helps the human race and use all this knowledge to some purpose? Or is it just a cool thing that (maybe?) a bunch of big lizards that became chickadees, and chickens?
Maybe I'm wrong and for some reason this has been bugging me, but where does all this knowledge and science transfer to anything worthwhile, but admission tickets to a museum, and some stupid shows on the discovery channel?
I am sort of interested when I see of T-Rex ate leaves and other T-Rex, wow!
Not to insult people that devout their lives to this endeavor, just curious.
Thanks
As a side note most of what I see about Bigfoot I find fascinating, and quite compelling.
Location: Mableton, GA USA (NW Atlanta suburb, 4 miles OTP)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BovinaCowHateWindTurbines
Well dinosaurs are cool if you believe in such things. However I'm not a scientist, but I was wondering what if anything does mankind benefit from all this dinosaur stuff?
In almost every field of study, useful things are discovered or invented along the way which also prove to be useful outside of that field of study.
NASA has discovered a lot of cool stuff, for example, as part of their pursuit of the space program.
Dinosaur researchers might learn things about biology or foresic techniques which eventually become useful to other scientists or even law enforcement or medical researchers, and they might develop processes of equipment that other disciplines could find useful.
If someone is interested in studying dinosaurs and can obtain the funding to do so, why does it matter?
Well dinosaurs are cool if you believe in such things. However I'm not a scientist, but I was wondering what if anything does mankind benefit from all this dinosaur stuff?
We have some of the smartest people in the world digging up bones and making all these hypotheses about what they ate, what they did, analyzing their poop for DNA, blah blah. Where does this science go to anything that helps the human race and use all this knowledge to some purpose? Or is it just a cool thing that (maybe?) a bunch of big lizards that became chickadees, and chickens?
Maybe I'm wrong and for some reason this has been bugging me, but where does all this knowledge and science transfer to anything worthwhile, but admission tickets to a museum, and some stupid shows on the discovery channel?
I am sort of interested when I see of T-Rex ate leaves and other T-Rex, wow!
Not to insult people that devout their lives to this endeavor, just curious.
Thanks
As a side note most of what I see about Bigfoot I find fascinating, and quite compelling.
On a smaller scale it's kinda like you devoting the time to ask and then read the responses. Chances are not much will come of it but you still did it - what you learn from it will amount to well..... anyway progress comes from curiosity and the knowledge gained from it can be applied as long as the imagination doesn't prevent it.
There is no useless knowledge, just as a jigsaw puzzle box contains no useless pieces---even the all-blue ones that just go in the sky somewhere. The entirety of human knowledge is less than revealing when there are pieces missing, no matter how irrelevant each piece looks when it is in the box.
So far, all we've done is complete the border, and put together the white kitten and half a bunny, but you can't just start throwign out pieces that are still in the box because you can't visualize yet where they will fit.
More seriously digging for dinosaurs has led to a better understanding of the planet. Learning about them led to the question of why they became extinct which led to a number of theories about it. In the quest to understand it they have discovered quite a bit about collisions with large bodies (asteroids, etc) and how they affect the planet when they hit.
Granted the same knowledge may have been pursed from other fields of exploration, but the dinosaur extinction sure gave it a shot in the arm.
Location: Sitting on a bar stool. Guinness in hand.
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I think that one of the most important things we learned so far from studying the dinosaurs and other even earlier eras of life. Is that Most lifeforms on this planet have become extinct by one process or another. In the case of the dinosaurs the KT barrier shows that an asteroid strike more than likely did in the dinosaurs.
This I think is important because it show that a top species that was around for millions of years can be quickly wiped out by a catastrophic event or series of Catastrophic events. This does have serious implications for us on a lot of different levels because it kind says that more than likely mankind (or whatever we evolve into) will as well go the way of the dinosaurs.
Of course as the OP stated in their post this is only important when:
That knowledge may no seem of any benefit to you, but millions of people love learning about dinosaurs because of intellectual curiosity. Sometimes learning for the sake of knowing is reason enough.
,,,,,Where does this science go to anything that helps the human race and use all this knowledge to some purpose? ,,,,,Maybe I'm wrong and for some reason this has been bugging me, but where does all this knowledge and science transfer to anything worthwhile, ,,,,.
When we know why dinosaurs went extinct, we can try and prevent our own extinction.
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. However I'm not a scientist, but I was wondering what if anything does mankind benefit from all this dinosaur stuff?
