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Hi Felix
Yes, I know Jack Horner's work, of course. He is right in some points, but he is overdoing it a bit. There is no way that Torosaurus and Triceratops are nothing but the same species. The large Triceratops specimens are fully adult, and their skulls differ fundamentally from those of Torosaurus in several significant respects, particualrly the construction of the neck frill. He is right, in my opinion, in some other cases, however, like in the pachycephalosaurids and hadrosaurids.
As I said before, we are probably overestimating the diversity of known and described dinosaurs by 20-30% ( a very conservative estimate), because things like ontogenetic changes, sexual dimorphism and individual variation are not sufficiently taken into account.
This is, however, not the case in most of the well-known North American dinosaurs, because they are both unusually well-representeed by good fossils and have been extensively studied now for 150 years. We once had more than a dozen different species of Triceratops, e.g., descibed in the 19th and early 20th century, these have since been reduced to only two, Triceratops horridus and Triceratops prorsus.
It is also a sad fact that the large majority of dinosaur species are only known from very few or even only a single specimen, and mostly incomplete ones, so there isn't even a way to do a meaningful analysis of factors such as ontogeny or variation.This can only be done with large samples of more or less complete individuals, which are not available in 95% (or more) of known dinosaur species.
Whenever we had such large samples, it was usually the case that the numerous species described in the literature could be reduced to a much more sensible number. An example from Germany is Plateosaurus, which also had more than a dozen described species which are now reduced to two, Plateosaurus trossingensis and Plateosaurus gracilis. This was possible because literally dozens of complete or at least halways complete skeletons are available and allowed for studies on ontogeny and variation, even to apply statistic methods.
Sp principally Jack Horner's methodology is sound and is widely applied in palaeontological taxonomy nowadays, although you will always have some disagreement in specific cases, like Triceratops and Torosaurus. Some palaeontologists believe he is right on this one, others, incldung me, don't
Important practical implications otherwise of providing fuel for Steven Spielberg blockbusters? Well , yes, there can occasionally be something of practical use, for example the German palaeontologist Wolf-Ernst Reif studied the hydrodynamic properties of the scales in the skin of fossil and extinct sharks and thereby found the "shark skin effect" in cooperation with some physicists. His findings have found a lot of applications, from swimsuits to specific drag-reducing technologies in aircraft
Exciting New “Shark Skin” Technology To Cut Aircraft Fuel Usage
If you think so this 890 pages volume by Karl Afred von Zittel, considered the finest palaeontologist of the 19th century by many, might be of interest. Published in 1899 it provides the most exhaustive accuont of the history of the disciplines of geology and apaleontology up to the end of the 19th century ever published.
Geschichte der Geologie und Paläontologie bis Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts : Karl Alfred von , Zittel : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
Unfortunately it was never translated into English. It is an absolute treasure-trove and easily debunks any idea that fossils are a 19th century invention, even if you don't believe that we are provided with the correct timeline or told truth about our history.
It however also clearly shows that both disciplines, geology and palaeontology, like so many other technologies/scientific disciplines/inventions really only started appearing in their modern form from 1790 to 1820, which is highly suspicious!
As I said before the funny thing about palaeontology is that we are made belive it all started in the 19th century, whereas there is plenty of evidence that it was a serious science long before. I rather assume that much of the early palaeontological work was deliberately suppressed/destroyed. It ties in well into the general idea upheld by many in this forum, including myself, that soemthing exceedingly fishy was going on between roughly 1790 and 1820, and even later throughout the 19th and part of the 20th century.
If you read through Zittel you see, that practically everything written about fossils before far into the 18th century was ridiculous bullshit. Only the occasional "genius" like Leonardo da Vinci, who is said to have exactly known what they are and how they formed 200 years before anyone else had the mind-blowing idea that a shell of a snail found in the ground maybe just the shell of a dead snail (!!!!) is allowed. There is no way that people who built the great cathedrals were too dumb to recognize a f..ing fossil snail for what it was. To me it is, as if everything except those works which were particulalry unscientific/ridiculous from today's point of view was erased. Imagine a reset today, and everything that is preserved of previous science officially is the most outrageous and most stupid bullshit, deliberately creating the impression that previous cultures and ciliizations were far below the intellectual level of the new one. It does not fit for me.
