Quick quiz — Which one of these is a dinosaur? A, B, or C?
If you answered A or B, you are stupid and don’t know Science!. A is a flying reptile, B is an aquatic reptile, and only C is a dinosaur (of the avian variety).
So why aren’t pterosaurs or plesiosaurs not considered dinosaurs (even though they have the “saur” in their name)? It’s for about the same reason mathematicians decided the number 1 isn’t a prime number (Math!); scientists just decided things fit together better that way. Plus, they make the Science!, so they get to define things however they want.
But why are birds now classified as dinosaurs? That’s a bit more complicated.
Kids are fascinated with dinosaurs. They love playing with toy dinosaurs and reading simplistic books on them. Kids are also stupid. They’ll have a Tyrannosaurus fight a Stegosaurus even though they lived ten millions of years apart. Or have Fred Flintstone ride them. Or Turok fight them. And then they ask dumb and inane questions about them like did the Triceratops go to school too. Basically, they get their dumb all over dinosaurs. And anytime we don’t treat a scientific subject with reverence, we risk angering Science! and having it punish us with something scientific like space radiation.
Obviously, it was up to scientists to get children disinterested in dinosaurs — which is hard because they are pretty cool. Still, we came up with the brilliant idea: What if we dilute the awesomeness of dinosaurs by including within that label the most boring animal in all of Science! — birds.
Everyone is completely bored by birds. You’d think an animal that can fly would have to be interesting, but somehow birds just make it completely boring and uninteresting. No one cares anything about birds. Anytime we want to learn something about birds, we send the Science! interns to do it because it always a snoozefest. Never once has any bird ever done anything even remotely interesting. The closest were penguins, but that was just because they we narrated by Morgan Freeman.
But look at it this way: If a child sees this on the front of a book about dinosaurs, do you think he’ll want to read it?
Boring.
Of course not. And thus children’s interest in dinosaurs is crushed and scientists can continue their research unmolested by their misdirected enthusiasm.
Science!
I understand “Science’s” position on GlowBull Worming and the alarmist approach they take better now. Thanks
People have always called me boring. Now I know their reason; birds are my favorite animal to observe.
To heck with you, Frank.
Have you ever ever heard of the House Sparrow, Frank? The species is originally from England. A group of naive people decided to bring them here in the late 1800s. Ever since, they’ve been terrorizing Eastern Bluebirds, Tree Swallows, Chickadees, and several other species. They attack the nest of the Bluebird, kill the mother Bluebird and her eggs, and lay their own eggs atop the bodies. It’s a horror movie! To stop them, you must trap them and shoot them, and smash their eggs. Does this sound “boring” to you?
No, Frank, you’re wrong. Birds are not more boring than dinosaurs. If a male House Sparrow made contact with a T-rex, he would kill him with a beak to the eye. I can only imagine what a hawk or a Killdeer would do the poor T-rex.
My godson’s brother wept when, at age five or so, he caught on that he would never see a live dinosaur.
I can still see & hear Magnus Pyke shouting “Science!” in the old Thomas Dolby video (okay, I’m giving away my age–I remember when MTV played videos).
And no, a hummingbird doesn’t count. An inch long model of a Lamborghini Cheetah isn’t a Lamborghini Cheetah. A hummingbird isn’t a dinosaur.
I’m a crow lover and an old crow myself and any connection between me and dinosaurs is for the birds.
Charlos: not all dinosaurs were big. Some where small. They got there asses handed to them in a fight, but still, tiny dinosaurs were dinosaurs.
Just like a little tiny car like a SMARTcar, isn’t a Lamborghini, it’s still a car. Okay, bad example. Bottom line, a piss-ant dinosaur is a dinosaur; it’s just a piss-ant dinosaur.
How large a bird would you need, do you know, to use as a platform for a rocket-launcher?
Is it just me or does the bird in this picture have a small bird harpoon sticking out of it’s chest? is there a squirrel ninja behind the bird?
Or is this bird bait to catch dumb liberals?
So the LHC is actually being sabotaged by time traveling dinosaurs?
Can this be that far off? I don’t think so.
Obviously, it was up to scientists to get children disinterested in dinosaurs — which is hard because they are pretty cool. Still, we came up with the brilliant idea: What if we dilute the awesomeness of dinosaurs by including within that label the most boring animal in all of Science! — birds.
That’s similar to the technique that my high-school chemistry “teacher” used; he kept us from being interested by insulting us virtually every day.
OBVIOUSLY the bird isn’t a dinosaur. Where are the hardpoints and mounting rails for the missile launchers and laser cannons? Everyone knows God made dinosaurs so we could use them as platforms for advanced weaponry.
I agree that most birds are pretty boring. But I think eagles and hawks should be the only birds who get to go around bragging that they’re now classified as dinosaurs. But not parrots, even though they’re the only brids who could actually go around bragging about being a dinosaur.
Eagles and hawks are actually pretty cool for birds. Parrots are stupid. They sound like liberals, just repeating whatever stupid thing they hear on the liberal new outlets.
I think you’re avoiding the most obvious thing.
Can we put rocket launchers on them? I mean, for hummingbirds they’d have to be really small and therefore, not much boom.
But what about something like a bald eagle? Or even better, ostriches!
When the revolution starts and we all ride our ostriches into battle, now they’ll officially be dinosaurs with rocket launchers!
How cool is that?
Oh wait, was I not supposed to mention the ostriches?
Breaking News!! Dinosaur found alive in the U.S. Senate. Ancient ku klux klan grand dragon Robert “Sheets” Byrd was found still breathing today in the U.S. Senate. The fossil, born sometime prior to the fall of T-Rex but after the extinction of libertyasaurus is thought to be the oldest survivng communistosaur on the planet, and the oldest living fossil, after the death of the oldest drunkokillagirlosaur teddy kennedy.
“Plus, they make the Science!, so they get to define things however they want.” good but I’d of loved to have seen this, “plus, science speaks directly to them and then they tell us what science commands”
If you get a few liberal “scientists” together in a room and convince them it benefits their political agenda and the awarding of grants, you can get them to create a “consensus” and declare anything you want to be “settled science”. Cold becomes hot, up becomes down, factual data becomes irrelevent. So, you could realistically have a “consensus” of liberal scientists proclaiming that your golden retriever is really a T-Rex.
I think Frank is giving Science!the bird.
Check out “The Enormous Egg”, by Oliver Butterworth.
I think Frank is wrong, if scientists want to keep kids away from dinosaur books they should put Fred Thompson on the cover.
hwuu,
Kids love Teh Fred. Only terrorists and communists fear him.
Which one of these is a dinosaur? A, B, or C?
C, as in:
“You’re a dinosaur, Callahan!”
Good God, you really have no concept of how angels were created, do you.
Seraphim, cheribum. Bing em.
Birds are like dinosaurs ,
but French, sort of.
How can birds be boring if they invented the most awesome human hand gesture ever and then we named it after them? More research, ma’ boy!
My son tried to bring that “One is not a prime number” smack home from school. Nonsense. Prime numbers is number what can’t be broken down, and one can’t. Also, in the movie “Contact” the aliens used a number sequence that started with 1. So both space aliens and Carl Sagan believe 1 is a prime number.
Apparently, Math? doesn’t like 1 being a prime number. Science! doesn’t give a damn what Math? doesn’t like (which is why Science! doesn’t get too worked up over what the hell an electron is.) Math? is a big sissy who spends more time in Science!’s way than in helping it out.
PROFESSOR WAGSTAFF: IF BIRD’S NEAREST LIVING RELATIVE OF DINOSAUR THEN WHAT IS A BAT?
As agreed upon. Stopthepresses went to meet Professor Wagstaff, down at Navy Pier, for a day of boating on the professor’s rented boat. When we arrived we looked high and low for the professor, but without any luck. Finally we hear the professor’s voice. Not knowing where it was coming from, we eventually peered over the side of the pier and saw the professor sitting in a tiny row boat.
Stopthepresses: Professor you rented a row boat?
Professor Wagstaff: Yes I wanted a flat bottom, but the girl at the boathouse didn’t have one. Now hurry up and bring that beer down here, I could only afford to rent this ocean liner for 15 minutes.
(Entering the boat)
Stopthepresses: It’s good to see you professor.
Professor Wagstaff: You got them ten bucks?
Stopthepresses: Here’s your ten bucks professor.
Professor Wagstaff: Ah yes, it’s good to see you too. Now pass me a beer and one of those sandwiches you made. Oh, and get to rowing, I told you we only got 15 minutes.
Stopthepresses: That not much time I have many question for you.
Professor Wagstaff: You just row out about 100 yard then row right back. I am not paying that dollar late fee. Besides that’s plenty enough time for your 5 dollar questions.
Stopthepresses: But I really want to learn all about you.
Professor Wagstaff: We’ll save my life story for another time and another 5 bucks. Hurry now we got time for one quick question.
Stopthepresses: Professor I was just reading in a scientific journal, how scientists believe that birds are the nearest living relatives of dinosaurs. What do you think?
Professor Wagstaff: I think the scientists don’t think. Birds are the nearest living relatives to dinosaurs, they say? Did any of these so called scientists friends of yours, ever get a look at a bat? Did they ever get a look at my mother-in-law? Who has been called both an old bat and a young dinosaur. She’s that missing link. Wait do you plan on printing this?
Stopthepresses: Why yes
Professor Wagstaff: Then, I, I was only kidding, she’s really a lovely lady, here take a look at this picture of her. I carry in my wallet. See here’s the lovely lady taking a picture with a trained bear at the circus.
Stopthepresses: A trained bear?
Professor Wagstaff: Yeah she’s, she’s the one with the hat and purse. This will bear me out, although it wouldn’t do much for the bear. Quite a lovely lady wouldn’t you say?
Stopthepresses: Ah well ah…….
Professor Wagstaff: That’s alright, your right not to speak poorly of her. If you do, she’ll seek you out and find you, she has a nose like a bloodhound.
Stopthepresses: And the rest of her face don’t look so good either.
Professor Wagstaff: Hey I am starting to like you kid. You speak the truth; people won’t mistake you for the New York Times. You see, here’s the thing, it’s not really her fault, she tries real hard. In fact she always takes her pictures in the “Fine Arts” style.
Stopthepresses: The “Fine Arts” style?
Professor Wagstaff: That’s right if you show anyone her picture, they fine you. Our 15 minutes are almost up row boy, row
1 can’t be prime. If you took an upper division math course, then you would see the great significance. Just sit back and be happy using your prettily engineered toys like computers and cell phones- completely taking advantage of the fact that 1 isn’t prime. :-p
This finally answers the question of ‘what do dinosaurs taste like?’
They taste like chicken…EXACTLY like chicken