Fossil 'Suggests Plesiosaurs Did Not Lay Eggs'

thebchuckster writes "Scientists say they have found the first evidence that giant sea reptiles — which lived at the same time as dinosaurs — gave birth to live young rather than laying eggs. They say a 78 million-year-old fossil of a pregnant plesiosaur suggests they gave birth to single, large young."

upsetting science

[macraig]

It's not good science unless it upsets somebody who dislikes having their gospel (or canon, for the more sociologically correct) challenged. Good science always bruises egos.

I don't personally get it, though. Do the authors of buggy code that gets patched by others also get upset? They should be happy the code finally works.

Still, why on earth would it ever upset someone who didn't discover/propose/create what's being challenged?

Re:Nice

[SilverHatHacker]

Perhaps it's a microcosm of the scientific world at large, but most of our dinosaur knowledge is based on "this is the first idea that popped into my head when I saw the thing, so we'll call it true until proven otherwise". The iguanadon, for example, was thought to have horns on its nose until a full skeleton was discovered and it was revealed that they were thumbs. Don't get me wrong, I don't care that we're creating imperfect theories based on limited knowledge which are expanded when more is discovered; that's how science works and how it should work. What I find to be particularly annoying is when these theories are taught as unchallenged fact. There was one species of dinosaur that was "discovered" in the form of a single bone, but sketches of the full animal were showing up in textbooks. If all you have is a single bone, at least put an asterisk beside the picture please! Maybe our knowledge would advance faster if we knew what exactly we knew and what we don't know.