Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Thats what I meant to imply. Dinosaurs are a type of bird that were bigger than "elephant birds", so the headline is (most likely) wrong.


Perhaps you're thinking of the creatures we saw in Jurassic Park? Yeah, those are somewhat inaccurate. Velociraptor, for example, was the size of a turkey and covered in feathers, with its long tail held upwards, like this:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velociraptor#/media/File%3AV...

Yeah, basically a weird bird.


The velociraptors in the book, and to a lesser degree the movie, were modelled after Deinonychus.

Michael Crichton thought, correctly, that Velociraptor was a better name.


No doubt. I still preferred the name Raptor to Gecko, too bad it couldn't stay that way.


> Dinosaurs are a type of bird

The opposite. Birds are a type of dinosaurs, but the biggest dinosaurs like Triceratops weren't birds. I'm not wrong, feathers were found in small or middle sized dinosaurs, smaller than the elephant birds.


Dinosaurs are not a type of bird, just as a rectangle isn't (necessarily) a square.


You have the direction of the time vector descriptor backwards.


I've never heard of a "time vector descriptor", so what do you mean?


Birds are a type of dinosaur called recently avian dinosaur. The other dinosaurs (non-avian dinosaurs) are definitely not a type of bird.

So no, the title is not really wrong unless there is a yet undiscovered bird that's even larger. The elephant bird was the biggest bird (or avian-dinosaur) that ever existed. It was smaller than other non-avian dinosaurs but these were not birds so no point comparing.

The confusion you are making is sometimes described as politician's syllogism. [0]

1) All birds are dinosaurs

2) All land dinosaurs are dinosaurs

3) Therefore, land dinosaurs are birds

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politician%27s_syllogism


As long as we're on the topic, not all of what we (the laymen) think of as dinosaurs were dinosaurs! Maybe you knew that already but I only recently discovered that fact and now I'm sharing it. From the wikipedia page:

"Other prehistoric animals, including mosasaurs, ichthyosaurs, pterosaurs, plesiosaurs, and Dimetrodon, while often popularly conceived of as dinosaurs, are not taxonomically classified as dinosaurs. Pterosaurs are distantly related to dinosaurs, being members of the clade Ornithodira. The other groups mentioned are, like dinosaurs, members of Sauropsida (the reptile and bird clade), with the exception of Dimetrodon (which is a synapsid)."


Unless someone enjoys this subject there's no reason they'd know about the different classifications. I read a lot about this stuff but still need to freshen up my knowledge every time I have a conversation about this for two reasons: the topic is too complex for an amateur and it also tends to be relatively fluid, changing based on new discoveries or theories. Always keep Wikipedia handy :).

If you ever look at different "artist's depiction" drawings about "dinosaurs" you might notice plenty of misconceptions: anatomically incorrect (and impossible) positions, strange mixes of species living in vastly different time periods, animals that aren't actually dinosaurs, etc.


I really enjoy the everchanging Dino-taxonomy. I have a book about Dinosaurs that I read to my kids, and I think most of it would currently be considered wrong.


Apparently some people think birds are dinosaurs and other people (sometimes even the same person) think dinosaurs are birds:

'There has been a recent revival of interest in the famous Early Triassic thecodont Euparkeria, and Welman (1995) has discovered a suite of avian-like anatomical features in the basicranium. Paul (2002:179), an ardent advocate of the “birds-are-dinosaurs,” and more recently, “dinosaurs-are-birds” school, admits that, “Euparkeria is a suitable ancestral type for birds … and … Euparkeria is a good ancestral type for all archosaurs.”' https://doi.org/10.1642/0004-8038(2002)119[1187:BADSAT]2.0.C...

I still don't see what this has to do with a "time vector descriptor".


google the constituents of the phrase and build it up from there

birds are dinosaurs and dinosaurs aren't birds

you've reversed the vectored direction of time in your claim


What does a classification have to do with time?

Edit: And what does "vector" add to your sentences?


I think since a vector has a direction, he’s suggesting that the direction of the vector is pointed “the wrong way” with respect to time


What is the difference in meaning between:

  A: "you've reversed the vectored direction of time in your claim" 
  B: "you've reversed the direction of time in your claim"


time has multiple vectors

downvote me if you will but you were the one claiming dinosaurs are birds


I'm not downvoting anything, just trying to figure out what you are trying to say. Can you give names to the multiple vectors of time?


The scientific consensus is that while there are significantly many dimensions to the time space continuum, time makes is only one of those dimensions. Whether or not it is a strictly unidirectional component may be under some debate, but even in quantum mechanics and hypotheses like string theory, there aren’t multiple vectors to time, as it has only one axis and no start or end (that we know of). A vector necessarily has a start, end, and direction.




Consider applying for YC's Winter 2026 batch! Applications are open till Nov 10

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: