You know how....

[ZEGH8578]

Speaking of Neanderthals, just saw this today: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24031-first-bone-tools-suggest-neanderthals-taught-us-skills.html#.UgpmPpKThAo

And yes, humans are animals. I think most people accept that now, but still seem to have this weird idea that, while we ARE animals, we're somehow at the top of some evolutionary ladder. Which is not how it works. We're just as much animals as any other animal.

This view is quite common, and is just most people's need to categorize thing, and list it "from bad to good". It is true that we are not some kind of "evolutionary pinnacle". In fact, in terms of "taxonomical nodes" (that is, the ammounts of defined "steps" in evolution) primates, along with humans, are much less derived than many other mammal types, such as felines or whales. We just have a very bloated brain, in an otherwise pretty basic body.

[MLA]

in an otherwise pretty basic body.

Speak for yourself

["couldbecousin"]

Octapuses are very intelligent

       I'm declaring a quadruple major at Yale this fall; with eight tentacles, why not?

[ZEGH8578]

Dinosaur intelligence is also a recurring topic here and there, and the truth here is that they were likely quite dumb.
As with most popular science, media likes to blow things out of proportion, to the point of door-opening raptors in Jurassic Park.
If it takes a dog weeks to figure this out, it would probably take a raptor weeks, or forever to come to the same conclusion. Of course, we cannot know for sure, but the pattern is similar. According to cranial cavity scans the small predatory dinosaurs had intelligences similar to the simplest of birds or mammals. This still makes them able to coordinate, and think complex enough thoughts for a horse or a to be able to follow.

Plant eating dinosaurs were probably on a par with crocodiles or something on that level. Automatic eating, sleeping, walking, fighting patterns, and short moments of attention span, little compared to a horse or a raptor, and less compared to a dog, but still smarter than, say, fish.

Among the smartest fish are mantis/rays. And they aren't even all that smart. They're capable of some basic curiousity, which is impressive enough for a fish - curiousity being itself the ability to "pause" automatic behaviour for a moment, and feed your brain with new information.

[conlang returns]

Dinosaur intelligence is also a recurring topic here and there, and the truth here is that they were likely quite dumb.
As with most popular science, media likes to blow things out of proportion, to the point of door-opening raptors in Jurassic Park.

<pedantic>There is a lot in the books that did not make it to the movie.  For instance the dinosaurs are not real dinosaurs, but fully modern GMO's with a dinosaurian base.  The DNA extracted from the amber was far too damaged to create real dinosaurs, so they looked at other genomes and matched the "holes" with "patches"--lines of DNA from modern species that could be lined up on either end with the edges of the "hole" in the dinosaur genome.  I think the movies might mention this, but I'm sure we don't hear about anything except frogs.  There is also a process of trial and error in the production of a neo-dinosaur species.  All throughout the book we have little episodes where "dinosaur" behavior is seen as analogous to the behavior of modern animals, even animals not in their lineage.  Going back to the raptor example, one of them near the end wipes its mouth like a human does.  </pedantic>

[ZEGH8578]

Dinosaur intelligence is also a recurring topic here and there, and the truth here is that they were likely quite dumb.
As with most popular science, media likes to blow things out of proportion, to the point of door-opening raptors in Jurassic Park.

<pedantic>There is a lot in the books that did not make it to the movie.  For instance the dinosaurs are not real dinosaurs, but fully modern GMO's with a dinosaurian base.  The DNA extracted from the amber was far too damaged to create real dinosaurs, so they looked at other genomes and matched the "holes" with "patches"--lines of DNA from modern species that could be lined up on either end with the edges of the "hole" in the dinosaur genome.  I think the movies might mention this, but I'm sure we don't hear about anything except frogs.  There is also a process of trial and error in the production of a neo-dinosaur species.  All throughout the book we have little episodes where "dinosaur" behavior is seen as analogous to the behavior of modern animals, even animals not in their lineage.  Going back to the raptor example, one of them near the end wipes its mouth like a human does.  </pedantic>

I know :] Got the book :]

And yeah, that's what I mean, it's easy for us to think raptor = dog, brachiosaur = cow, both references are done in the movie (door opening, like a dog. grant telling lex "it's like a big cow"), it makes sense also, cus, what else do we have to compare with?
But, in entertainment it's okay. We dont want to leave the audience totally confused either. In reality tho, we must accept that things are not narratively convenient.

For example - Raptor dinosaurs evolved from birds. How narratively inconvenient is this? Peoples brains explode.
But it's true, well, depending on how you define things. But the big, scary, toothy, clawy raptors evolved from tiny, poofy, flying dinosaurs (that are techically "not yet" birds, but that are also the ancestors of birds, as well as troodontid and oviraptorid dinosaurs). This is a very recent idea, and refers to "secondary flightless dinosaurs".

There are more secondary flightless avians during the dinosaur age, such as Argentinean Patagopteryx, which was a bipedal running... dinosaur... that would traditionally be considered a bird, "not" a dinosaur, but since birds are dinosaurs, its a dinosaur - that can't fly! Like most dinosaurs! But one that descends from birds (dinosaurs) that CAN fly! *brainmelt*

Galliformids (chicken) were also allready present at the end of the cretaceous. Meaning you would be able to spot small, feathered dinosaurs, with toothed beaks, and small claws on their wings, run alongside small, feathered dinosaurs, with toothless beaks, and clawless wings. Both are dinosaurs, but one is traditionally not counted as a dinosaur, while the other is. It's all very brain-twisting - unless you just accept that nature goes back and forth like that

[conlang returns]

I know you have the books, but I want to say something else.  The way they sterilized the dinosaurs was to bombard them with radiation.  Which doesn't necessarily sterilize and might've induced mutation.  Just saying. 

Also, you're really talking about the problems that inspired the use of cladistics.  Archosaurus is the most recent common ancestor of all dinosaurs, including birds, and of crocodiles, but we consider crocodiles to be reptiles as we do lizards, though the most recent common ancestor of archosaurians and of lizards in much further in the past.  Of course, the old line of thought is still current, although I'm sure eventually most of the brain melting will be left to historians of science. 

[ZEGH8578]

That is correct, but I am more specifically refering to this:

common perception

dinosaurs -> feathered dinosaurs -> raptor-dinosaurs -> birds

which in reality is more like

dinosaurs -> feathered dinosaurs -> flying dinosaurs (not yet birds) -> raptor-dinosaurs + birds

The latter explanation helped solve the "mystery" of the much more primitive appearing Velociraptor existing long after the much more bird-like Archaeopteryx.
Archaeopteryx-like critters gave rise to both small flying birds, but also heavy-footed non-flying Velociraptor and such.

To most normal people, this looks counter-intuitive: Why would evolution first evolve flight, which is considered advanced, for then to remove flight again, considered a step backwards? (Because evolution doesn't "think" in terms of good or bad, it just reacts)