What is the answer to the Fermi Paradox?

[Razgovory]

 

[The Brain]

If there are in fact many civilizations out there in the galaxy with technology to interact physically then the galaxy is pretty dangerous. Hiding seems a good strategy. I suggest we relocate to vast underground cities powered by fission.

[Queequeg]

The common ancestor of pterosaurs and dinosaurs was lithe, small, fast, bipedal and agile. It wasn't a fucking tuatara. These were active animals well on the way to being completely warmblooded, if not already there.

[Viking]

Yep, the pterosaur line split off right before the most recent common ancestor of dinosaurs. That's why people who object to calling them 'flying dinosaurs' come off as so goddamn pedantic.

flying "dinosaur" is ok, "flying dinosaur" isn't. It's a bit like calling synapsids like gorgonopsids, dimetrodons and lystrosaurus dinosaurs. Colloquially they are, technically they are not.

edit: and spellus is right, which makes us synapsids too, in addition to being apes, monkeys, primates and mammals.

[Queequeg]

I wouldn't make that argument tbh. Synapsids are way different from dinosaurs.

[Viking]

I wouldn't make that argument tbh. Synapsids are way different from dinosaurs.

Dimetrodons were always in my fancy dinosaur books when I was little. Other non-dinosaur creatures like the pterosaurs and ichthyosaurs were not dinosaurs but are colloquially lumped in with them.

[Queequeg]

I probably would correct someone who called a pterosaur a flying dinosaur but that's because 1) a flying dinosaur is a bird 2) I'mnot comfortable with dinosaur meaning all big aanimals from before 65.5 MYA 3) I'm super pedantic

[Queequeg]

I wouldn't make that argument tbh. Synapsids are way different from dinosaurs.

Dimetrodons were always in my fancy dinosaur books when I was little. Other non-dinosaur creatures like the pterosaurs and ichthyosaurs were not dinosaurs but are colloquially lumped in with them.

I don't think the icthyosaurs were archosaurs so there's a lot of problems there. An alligator is a dinosaur more than an icthyosaur, let a lone a dimetrodon, which doesn't even come close to looking like one.

[Razgovory]

The common ancestor of pterosaurs and dinosaurs was lithe, small, fast, bipedal and agile. It wasn't a fucking tuatara. These were active animals well on the way to being completely warmblooded, if not already there.

And people and snakes all have a common ancestor in some lobed fish, who was on his way to becoming bipedal, big brained and warmed blooded but people aren't snakes.

[Queequeg]

A gorgonopsid is a good example. It just doesn't look like a dinosaur. At all. There's maybe some vague resemblance to later pre-Dinosaur Triassic Crocodilomorph predators but one look at it's teeth and you know you're dealing with something different. By comparison the first pterosaurs and dinosaurs probably looked like shrews and bats. Obvious relationship.

[garbon]

I wouldn't make that argument tbh. Synapsids are way different from dinosaurs.

Dimetrodons were always in my fancy dinosaur books when I was little. Other non-dinosaur creatures like the pterosaurs and ichthyosaurs were not dinosaurs but are colloquially lumped in with them.

[Razgovory]

A gorgonopsid is a good example. It just doesn't look like a dinosaur. At all. There's maybe some vague resemblance to later pre-Dinosaur Triassic Crocodilomorph predators but one look at it's teeth and you know you're dealing with something different. By comparison the first pterosaurs and dinosaurs probably looked like shrews and bats. Obvious relationship.

I'm trying to see what your point is here, but you are missing me here.

[Queequeg]

The common ancestor of pterosaurs and dinosaurs was lithe, small, fast, bipedal and agile. It wasn't a fucking tuatara. These were active animals well on the way to being completely warmblooded, if not already there.

And people and snakes all have a common ancestor in some lobed fish, who was on his way to becoming bipedal, big brained and warmed blooded but people aren't snakes.

I love you Raz but you're completely impervious to reason here. If you were to be transported to the Triassic the moment pterosaurs began to grow wing membranes you would not have the expertise to differentiate between the future Quetzalcoatlus and the future Utahraptor. Maybe one was arboreal and one was terrestrial, but it's the difference between baboons and chimps, not snakes and people. The basal pterosaur form looks like a basal dinosaur with wing flaps.

[Razgovory]

Simply because something looks like something else doesn't mean it is that thing.  Ichthyologists look like fish, but aren't fish.

[Queequeg]

A gorgonopsid is a good example. It just doesn't look like a or an onosaur. At all. There's maybe some vague resemblance to later pre-Dinosaur Triassic Crocodilomorph predators but one look at it's teeth and you know you're dealing with something different. By comparison the first pterosaurs and dinosaurs probably looked like shrews and bats. Obvious relationship.

I'm trying to see what your point is here, but you are missing me here.

Common sense in classification? If a neurologically complex creature had been around in the Triassic he would have called a primitive pterosaur a word related to dinosaur just like in Russian a bat is a flying mouse or an orangutang is a "forest person" in Malay.