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Anonymous
If dinosaurs were allowed to continue their evolution, what would an intelligent, technologically capable descendant of dinosaurs look like?

Picture unrelated.
>> Anonymous
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Red star...fall!

Stain this Earth...red!
>> Anonymous
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They did. They're called "birds."
>> Anonymous
>>339146
which one is that called?
its so pretty!
>> Anonymous
>>339146

Birds can't create. They can only destroy.

I'm talking about a human-level intelligence. A dinosaur species capable of destroying itself and everything with it, space exploration, literature, and obesity.
>> Anonymous
>>339147
Australian King Parrot, male
>> Anonymous
>>339148
Well. Again, the answer is birds, or atleast birdlike animals. Raptors were likely the most intelligent dinosaurs and they were very birdlike. Something in between birds and dinosaurs would apply. A creature that looks like the OP probably fits the [spoiler]bill[/spoiler]. I would add kiwi-like feathers to some parts of the body.
>> Anonymous
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And you have to realize that intelligence isn't the evolutionary boon we think it is. We're on the verge of destroying ourselves.
>> Anonymous
>>339148
So making tools is not creating but destroying? Or building nests?

Was that the most obscure troll ever, or am I missing something?
>> Anonymous
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Easy.
>> Anonymous
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>> Anonymous
>>339143
I think picture might be more related than you realize.
>> Paleofag !/g8GX5p/sY
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How to put together a sapient dinosaur?

First, take the most likely clade to evolve sapience. Next pick the brainiest one for an ancestor. Then look at the smartest modern animals to see what is the likely course of evolution leading to sapience or near-sapience. Then adjust the chosen ancestor accordingly.

So, I started with a deinonychosaurian, something like Troodon or Bambiraptor, then assumed it evolves into a social omnivore. Next I looked at the necessary anatomical changes: a sapient dinosaur needs a large brain, preferrably about as large in relation to body mass as human brain. This requires adaptations. A group of bipedal dinosaurs that solved the heavy skull-problem with ease were pachycephalosaurs, so I used their example (no reason to assume that a dinosaur would switch from effective dinosaurian bipedalism to the highly ineffective humanoid bipdealism). Bambiraptor had already evolved a nice precursor for a grasping hand, so I only needed to adjust the proportions slightly.

The end result is this sketch. You'll need to imagine it covered in hair-like feathers from head to tail (which should be longer but I ran out of paper) to get a better idea, but the basic solution is here.
>> Anonymous
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>>339143
>>evolution
laughingelfman.jpg
>> Anonymous
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>>339179
Creationism troll spotted, brace for impact in 3... 2... 1...
>> Anonymous
well they'd been on the earth for a few hundred million years and best they could manage was a proto-bird, while primates produced us after a couple million
>> Anonymous
>>339198


Indeed. The dinosaurids were probably the most hugely successful class of vertebrates, ever, with more species than we'll ever know and their reign lasted hundreds of millions of years. Intelligence is not always a desired trait; big brains are extraordinarily inefficient and in the vast majority of situations, it's the most efficient body shape wins. Humans are unusually successful, this is true...but if you want a real success story try the common beetle. They're dumb as batshit and the most common type of animal on earth. They were here long before us and they'll be here long after we're gone.
>> Paleofag !/g8GX5p/sY
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>>339198
I think you are ignoring an important fact: mammals were also evolving all that time, and the best they could produce was essentially a tree shrew. At the time of the KT-extinction, it was the dinosaurs, not the mammals, that were at the peak of the intellectual molehill. Only after 65 million years of climatic turmoil and continent drift unlike anything seen during the Mesozoic driving evolution at an impressive speed, did our kind finally ascend to true sapience. But what of the dinosaurs? Well, if you have been reading the science news lately, you'll know that the species with the closest cognitive capabilities to man is in fact an a highly evolved maniraptoran dinosaur: an avian (image highly related).

To argue that dinosaurs could not evolve sapience because they had not done so before the KT, is essentially arguing that they should not be able to evolve it afterwards. Yet both corvids and psittacids are both among the closest contenders to the most intellectually advanced clade on the planet.

Evolution has no goal, that much is true. While it often leads to complexity, it need not do so if an alternative solution can be tapped. But we have seen that evolution leads in a consistent way to the same kinds of solutions to the same kinds of problems. We know this as convergence. Within the last 65 million years the solutions have more and more often involved hyper-advanced brains combined with tool use. It is no accident of nature that humans are here now. If it wasn't us, it would be some other species a million or five million or ten million years from now. With enough time, with the right circumstances, anything not only can but WILL happen.
>> Anonymous
>>339145
OP pic is what they were based on you know.
>> Anonymous
what would furries look like if we were dinosaur-people?
>> s
>>339199
why do faggots like you assume humanity is just going to disappear? If we go down it is because the entire earth went down, and even then we will have probably moved to another galaxy

sage for failing to recognize humans as the dominant species
>> Anonymous
they would be dragons
>> Anonymous
>>339278

average lifespan of a species is only a few million years bro
>> Anonymous
>>339176
That's a good guess.
Me likey.
>> ?úmïhô
In theory, something else could have already evolved, and we just haven't realised it yet. Humans didn't start talking and using tools the second the first ones apeared, and we only learned to rely on tools because our own bodies can't do much of anything without them. How would we even recognize they were speaking? To a bushman, our English sounds little different from the chittering on monkeys.

>>339278
If we manage to not kill ourselves, then evolution is likely to happen in one way or another. It's inevitable. Genetic drift is happening constantly, so while we're relatively the same now as the people who lived in the Stone Age, our decendants a million years from now may not be.
>> Anonymous
>>339283

Thankfully, we aren't an average species.
>> Anonymous
>>339293

>If we manage to not kill ourselves, then evolution is likely to happen in one way or another. It's inevitable. Genetic drift is happening constantly, so while we're relatively the same now as the people who lived in the Stone Age, our decendants a million years from now may not be.

If we manage not to kill ourselves, biological evolution won't play much of a factor in human evolution. We'll take control of that shit and twist it how we want.
>> Anonymous
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Just like Pantasaurus Rex! They would evolve to have pants.
>> Anonymous
>>339373
your comment made me smile, it's so sweet
>> Anonymous
>>339373
Truly, the most advanced of species. We are but simpletons compared to these magnificent beasts.
>> Aro !!tth/tv+hsYe
>>339373
D'AWWWWWWWWWWWWW
>> Anonymous
>>339199
This. The idea that intelligence is the goal and end of all evolution, and that an intelligent species is necessarily more fit than an unintelligent one, is short-sighted anthrocentrism.
>> Anonymous
>>339283
except the average species can't clone / genetically engineer / make a computer run off of 100 different sources of energy / make a computer / should I go on?

Humanity is even aspiring to create black holes at the moment, stop comparing us to a beetle that rolls dung or a lizard that can't survive a meteor... did you not see Armageddon? Humans fuck up meteors
>> Anonymous
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/thread
>> Anonymous
>>339404
>Humanity is even aspiring to create black holes at the moment

Are you talking about the LHC? Well, then no, they aren't trying to make black holes. It's an attempt at finding proof of the Higgs Boson.

>stop comparing us to a beetle that rolls dung or a lizard that can't survive a meteor...

The funny thing is how the beetle has survived an extinction event, and certain bacteria would have the capability of surviving radiation that would kill many human beings.

>did you not see Armageddon? Humans fuck up meteors

No, I don't watch shit.

You are an incredible faggot.
>> Anonymous
>>339400

No one mentioned that it was the "goal" of evolution. The question was what a dinosaur would look like if it evolved a similar intelligence to humans and was technologically capable.
>> Anonymous
>>339435
and the question is invalid as a dinosaur does not need to become intelligent and use tools like the human to survive

a dinosaur is happy being a fruity lizard with feathers
like how a whale is happy swimming around being fished by japanese people, etc
>> Anonymous
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>>339143
IQ of a dinosaur, opposable thumbs.
Think about it.
>> Anonymous
>>339278
Humanity will disappear after technology gradually consumes their bodies and they migrate to new planets and evolve to meet the requirements of exotic environments.
>> Anonymous
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A long long time ago, the Earth was ruled by dinosaurs. They were big, so not a lot of people went around hassing 'em. Actually, no people went around hassling 'em cuz there weren't any people yet. Just the first tiny mammals. Basically, life was good. Then something happened: a giant meteorite struck the Earth. Goodbye dinosaurs! But what if the dinosaurs weren't all destroyed? What if the impact of that meteor created a parallel dimension where the dinosaurs continued to thrive and evolve into intelligent, vicious, and aggressive beings... just like us? And hey, what if they found a way back?
>> Anonymous
>>339458
I don't care what anyone else says, I love this movie
>> Anonymous
>>339458

Wait, is this Super Mario Brothers?
>> Anonymous
>>339435
It would have to be a small dinosaur, even smaller than us, in order for the need for intelligence to have arisen.
>> Anonymous
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yes, and full of modern dinosaurs
>> Anonymous
>>339444
According to your logic, the following species have failed to evolve: human, chimpanzee, bonobo, gorilla, capuchin monkey, bottlenose dolphin, New Caledonia crow, green heron.

Seriously, if you know that little about zoology and evolutionary biology, why do you even bother to reply to this thread?
>> Paleofag !/g8GX5p/sY
>>339467
Most of the smartest dinosaurs in the Mesozoic were smaller than people. Troodon weighed maybe 60 kg, Bambiraptor only a couple of kilograms (though it was probably a juvenile). Just because dinosaurs have a reputation as big animals doesn't mean there weren't a plenty of small species too. Mahakala, a close relative of the two deinonychosaurs mentioned earlier, was only the size of a small raven.

I'm not so sure about your argument about size, though. Elephants are some of the most intelligent animals alive, some even pass the mirror test of consciousness, and they are as big as some large dinosaurs. (No, I'm not saying it's likely that elephants would reach a technological civilization, just pointing out that a complex environment that requires a lot of brainpower to succeed in is more important than size.)
>> Anonymous
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This
>> Anonymous
>>339145
<3
>> Anonymous
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>No, I'm not saying it's likely that elephants would reach a technological civilization
>> Anonymous
>>339580
>>339674
The biggest issue is the lack of Opposable thumbs
>> Anonymous
>>339580
how do you know what the smartest dinosaurs were?
>> Anonymous
>>339685
Elephants DO have a pretty dexterous trunk.
>> Paleofag !/g8GX5p/sY
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>>339685
No opposable thumbs, but opposable "trunk fingers". Both African and Asian elephants have fingerlike protrusions at the tip of their trunks that function essentially like thumbs. Asian ones only have one, but they could easily evolve another. But there's a long way from having opposable fingers to making tools and building fires. And of course some animals make tools without opposable anything...

>>339686
Well, I don't, obviously. Bad choice of words. I should have said the smartest ones we know of. And I'm going by the rough rule that so far hasn't failed in either mammals or archosaurs: biggest brain relative to body size = smartest.

You could of course always suppose there was a clade of dinosaurs smarter than deinonychosaurs, but you'd have no data to back it up. None whatsoever.
>> Anonymous
also look at crocks

evolution has no reason to develop int
>> Anonymous
>>339774

And that proves that humans were created and did not evolve, amirite?
>> Anonymous
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>> Anonymous
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>>339444
Lizards are something else entirely. In fact, they broke off of a completely different branch of reptiles many millions of years after dinosaurs found Avialae amidst their number.

tl;dr look at picture, OP.
>> Anonymous
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>> cichlid !!WhOQyKVA829
>>339774

Excellent point.
Intelligence =/= Successful species.

Why would a raptor need to make tools? It's got fucking knives for hands. The reason our ancestors came up with such objects is because were were not blessed with agility or sharp claws/teeth.

I don't think dinosaurs would end up looking like us at all, if given the chance to continue. They'd look like dinosaurs. A little different, maybe, but still fucking dinosaurs.

Look at insects, reptiles and fish. They really haven't changed all to much, despite how long they've been around.
>> Anonymous
>>340466
mainly because Humanity does not allow other species to evolve

a fish just needs to have more babies to sustain fish sticks

a cow just needs to get fatter to sustain big macs

a wolf turned into a pet, as did the feline, birds, rabbits, etc

all evolutions have been to please humans, as we are and will always be superior to them, and they know it
>> Anonymous
>>339176
Tiina Aumala, is that you?