The Double Dinosaur Brain Myth (2012) | Hacker News Reader

The Double Dinosaur Brain Myth (2012)

smithsonianmag.com

I just read this to my kid while going through the “Golden Book” Dinosaur book. It was not the only persistent misconception that appeared in the book, and I found myself offering a lot of commentary while I read. My kid is 3, and didn’t seem to mind.

It’s a reminder how much we really didn’t know, and don’t know. I’m reminded of the relatively recent Triceratops/Torosaurus paper, and the downstream effects its had on non-paleontologist people.

I also have a small son currently into dinosaurs and now I'm curious what this recent paper is that you mentioned.

The essence of it is that some paleontologists think Triceratops might actually be the juvenile form of Torosaurus, rather than a distinct species.

The Wikipedia entry is pretty decent[1] and the actual paper can be found here [2]

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torosaurus

[2] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02724634.2010.48...

Thing is, getting these details "right" and their changing in light of new research don't matter to anyone except paleontologists. Dinosaurs may as well be a science fiction franchise.

The most important thing to actually know is that... We don't actually know and many areas of science are largely guesswork, not ultimate truth.

It matters in many other things. Let's day, nutrition. Hence for process reasons it is useful to learn about myths about dinosaurs.

The article consistently says that there’s no brain back there, but then continuously says that we don’t know what filled the gap. I’m finding it a very unconvincing way to debunk someone’s hypothesis.

Do any contemporary animals have a second brain to draw a comparison?

(genuinely curious, I'm certainly no biologist)

Not really multiple brains, but there are animals that dont have all control centrilized in their head, instead more distributed throughout their body with local controlling "nerve clusters": Insects have "ganglia" and I thought octopusses have nerve centers in each arm to control their movement.

The article notes (and the linked article particularly does so[0]) that it was likely a "glycogen body", similar to what is found in birds.

However, they have no idea what the hell it does in birds, so even less so what it'd do in a dinosaur.

[0] https://svpow.com/2009/12/15/lies-damned-lies-and-clash-of-t...

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