Humans Killed the Dinosaurs

[herpguy]

First, I have no evidence to prove this. It it simply another explanation for the mass extinction 65 million yest ago.

 

As strange as it may sound, my idea is that humans killed the dinosaurs.

 

People still debate that time travel is impossible. However, physics have already proved that you can bend time.

 

What I am suggesting is that in the future, assuming we have the technology for time travel, a mad scientist will want to answer the question: What really killed the dinosaurs? This scientist will travel aprroximately 65 million years to into the past to find out.

 

The scientist could have a cold, and the cold could go to a dinosaur at the lower end of the food chain. The animals at the top of the food chain will eat the animals lower than them, and the cold could spread throughout the entire animal poulation. Most likely, the animals will not be immune to the cold, and will die off.

 

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Before you judge how stupid this thread is, just consider it. Remember, it's possible...

[herpguy]

Sorry, I just realized that I was probably not clear enough when I said "no evidence." What I mean is that there is no evidence that disease killed dinosaurs. However, there are some facts to support my idea:

 

• There was a mass-extinction about 65 million years ago.
  
• It is not proven that an astroid or comet wiped out the dinosaurs.
  
• Time travel is possible.
  
• Humans can make major mistakes.
  
• Dinosaurs and other creatures back then probably were not immune to diseases from today.
  

[AzurePhoenix]

okay, totally ignoring the whole time travel thing for now, you need to understand just how bizarre a disease this would have to be.

 

The concept is basically the same as that addressed in This Thread

 

A virus that can jump and spread across so many species would be unprecedented, especially the sheer number of species and families and even the range of Kingdoms that were effected by the "KT Event." Perhaps if it was somehow to make the enormously unlikely jump from human to dino or any other creature in the ancient landscape, it still very, very probably would NOT spread across the face of the Earth killing off everything it encountered, from plants to sea critters, and then somehow pick it's way along only leaving behind animal species smaller than fifty pounds. The Cretaceous extinction was simply too broad an event to have been caused by something of that nature.

 

* It is not proven that an astroid or comet wiped out the dinosaurs.

evidence for this is very strong, not that it was the definitive facotr, but that an impact certainly did occur around that time.

 

* Time travel is possible.

we know traveling forward in time is possible, but we still have no definitive idea as to whether or not past-travel is, and that opens an enormous realm of questions about paradoxes and such that makes my head hurt, then you have to consider that even if it could be theoretically possible whether or not it could ever be done.

 

* Humans can make major mistakes.

True, but I wouldn't say this lends any credence to the idea.

 

* Dinosaurs and other creatures back then probably were not immune to diseases from today.

The diseases wouldn't be adapted to the species either. The same thing with bird-flu today. We aren't immune to it, it simply can't NORMALLY make the jump to us because it's not adapted to us.

 

*edit* the same thing goes for countless species today. They don't get the cold, but that's because it isn't adapted to them rather than having anything to do with anti-viral immunity.

[Phi for All]

What I am suggesting is that in the future, assuming we have the technology for time travel, a mad scientist will want to answer the question: What really killed the dinosaurs? This scientist will travel aprroximately 65 million years to into the past to find out.

This is the part where it breaks down for me. Assuming time travel is not as difficult as assuming it wouldn't be regulated a hundred times more stringently than nuclear weapons. Given that the plans for a homemade time machine won't be available on the "solar-system-wide web", a mad scientist getting one is a tremendous assumption.

[Phi for All]

The diseases wouldn't be adapted to the species either. The same thing with bird-flu today. We aren't immune to it' date=' it simply can't NORMALLY make the jump to us because it's not adapted to us.

 

[b']*edit*[/b] the same thing goes for countless species today. They don't get the cold, but that's because it isn't adapted to them rather than having anything to do with anti-viral immunity.

This is a very interesting and enjoyable way of putting it. You definitely ARE one of the most interesting and enjoyable members we have here.

 

A single disease would be unlikely to kill off so many creatures. Some would develop an immunity.

[AzurePhoenix]

A single disease would be unlikely to kill off so many creatures. Some would develop an immunity.

Absolutely true in it's own right certainly, but the fact is that it would be very, very unlikely to ever spread so widely in the first place.

 

Keep in mind that the 'bird flu to human' reference I made should include that it isn't adapted to us yet

 

This is a very interesting and enjoyable way of putting it. You definitely ARE one of the most interesting and enjoyable members we have here.

The people have spoken, it's not my place to argue

[herpguy]

Let's say that the disease didn't spread throughout all dinosaurs, just a few species. The food chain would collapse anyway. Imagine if mosquitos became extinct or very rare. Spiders and other animals would have very little to eat and eventually die. Birds and other animals that eat spiders will also run out of food, and so on. As for plants, they will recieve less fertilizer and will also die off. That would completely destroy the rest of the food chain.

 

Let's say a few herbivore species caught the disease. The rest of the life on earth will be facing the same problem as it would now if the mosquito became extinct.

[AzurePhoenix]

A virus probably wouldn't pose a threat of extinction to most species, because as Phi pointed out, survivors would adapt, particularly on the insect scale. Pests today adapt to chemicals specifially designed to target and obliterate them, in a very short time I should point out. They reproduce too quickly to be taken out that way.

 

But, in the scenario that it wiped out a of the larger species, which is far more likely than any insects; while it would pose a threat to the survival of that species primary predators, IF those predator's depended solely on the species wiped out by the disease, onlt that particular region would come under any stress. And not every species chain within that very same range would likely suffer the same process, because once again, the disease would have to take out every herbivorous species.

 

Indeed, certain species would survive and thrive in the absence of competition. To put it simply, for this scenario to happen, the disease would have to jump very far, over a very broad range, again while somehow favorably biasing itself to not kill small species, and it would have to strike very hard and very fast. And that leaves the entire range of ocean life that went extinct at the same time.

[Phi for All]

Absolutely true in it's own right certainly, but the fact is that it would be very, very unlikely to ever spread so widely in the first place.

You have me there.

Let's say that the disease didn't spread throughout all dinosaurs' date=' just a few species. The food chain would collapse anyway. Imagine if mosquitos became extinct or very rare. Spiders and other animals would have very little to eat and eventually die. Birds and other animals that eat spiders will also run out of food, and so on. As for plants, they will recieve less fertilizer and will also die off. That would completely destroy the rest of the food chain.

 

Let's say a few herbivore species caught the disease. The rest of the life on earth will be facing the same problem as it would now if the mosquito became extinct.[/quote']Remember that you're talking about species that survived for hundreds of millions of years. I'm sure their ecosystems changed many times and they survived all but one.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

I believe many other threads on SFN have dismissed the possibility of time travel.

[ecoli]

I believe many other threads on SFN have dismissed the possibility of time travel.

 

meh, I'm not so convinced...

 

Of course that doesn't mean I think that dinosaurs were extictified by humans. We're good at killing species, but we're not THAT good.

[bascule]

Has someone been reading Ray Bradbury's "A Sound of Thunder"

[JohnB]

I had the same thought myself.

 

The other idea is Clifford Simak's "Our Children's Children."

[swansont]

Let's say that the disease didn't spread throughout all dinosaurs' date=' just a few species. The food chain would collapse anyway. Imagine if mosquitos became extinct or very rare. Spiders and other animals would have very little to eat and eventually die. Birds and other animals that eat spiders will also run out of food, and so on. As for plants, they will recieve less fertilizer and will also die off. That would completely destroy the rest of the food chain.

 

Let's say a few herbivore species caught the disease. The rest of the life on earth will be facing the same problem as it would now if the mosquito became extinct.[/quote']

 

Species go extinct all the time without a collapse of the ecosystem. Why would this be different?

[ecoli]

Species go extinct all the time without a collapse of the ecosystem. Why would this be different?

 

Possibly because it was a single or even a couple of species that went extinct. It must of been hundreds. that's a lot of niches suddenly becoming unoccupied.

[Phi for All]

Possibly because it was a single or even a couple of species that went extinct. It must of been hundreds. that's a lot of niches suddenly becoming unoccupied.

Even more evidence that it was probably something cataclysmic rather than a disease knocking out some kind of lynchpin dinosaur species and causing all the others to fail. I think that's what swansont was referring to.

[AzurePhoenix]

Possibly because it was a single or even a couple of species that went extinct. It must of been hundreds. that's a lot of niches suddenly becoming unoccupied.

Hell, look at how many species we've driven to extinction wihout causing a global collapse. It would take many tens of thousands of species across the entire face of the planet to make an impact of world-killing proportions, and not just any species, but must be widespread enough to take out countless key species important to the welfare of entire ecosystems. And just to restate what must be an irritatingly overstated detail by now it would have to strike the seas AND be biased against biggy animals too.

[Meh]

First' date=' I have no evidence to prove this. It it simply another explanation for the mass extinction 65 million yest ago.

 

As strange as it may sound, my idea is that humans killed the dinosaurs.

 

People still debate that time travel is impossible. However, physics have already proved that you can bend time.

 

What I am suggesting is that in the future, assuming we have the technology for time travel, a mad scientist will want to answer the question: What really killed the dinosaurs? This scientist will travel aprroximately 65 million years to into the past to find out.

 

The scientist could have a cold, and the cold could go to a dinosaur at the lower end of the food chain. The animals at the top of the food chain will eat the animals lower than them, and the cold could spread throughout the entire animal poulation. Most likely, the animals will not be immune to the cold, and will die off.

 

===================

 

Before you judge how stupid this thread is, just consider it. Remember, it's possible...[/quote']

 

 

Let's assume that did happen, wouldn't that open up just another parallel universe where dinosaurs were killed off by humans. I don't think it's possible to affect past and remain in the same universe.

 

Also, check this out.

 

We know that an asteroid hit earth 65 mil years ago

We know where

We know the size

We know the effects

 

I think that is enough eveidence.

[swansont]

Possibly because it was a single or even a couple of species that went extinct. It must of been hundreds. that's a lot of niches suddenly becoming unoccupied.

 

I don't see how this applies. I was addressing the contention that wiping out e.g. mosquitos would cause a widespread extinction event.