T.Rex and Footballers

Underneath that exterior, Hattie Jacques was really a Top Sprinter

Tyrannosaurus Rex would have been able to outrun a footballer, according to computer models used to estimate running speeds of dinosaurs. The work used data taken directly from dinosaur fossils, rather than referring to previous work on modern animals. The University of Manchester study published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, shows T. Rex had a top running speed of 8m/s (18mph).

Now normally I don't have a problem with scientific pronouncements, a lot of the reports published these days could have been compiled by a 7 year old who has just graduated from the University of the Bleedin' Obvious, must this one makes you stop and think. It's data used directly from a fossil, yes not contemporary records or evidence but a fossil. Now forgive the old sceptic in me but surely the point of a fossil is that you can interpret it to fit any model you like.

When I discussed this with Magoo at work she made the point that a few years ago we were told that dinosaurs had little arms, then we were told that they had big arms. I told her there was a Monty Python sketch where a dinosaur expert explained that dinosaurs could be described thus: "They are thin at one end, much, much bigger in the middle and thin again at the other end." That for me sums it up.

Surely basing a theory on a skeleton is open to all sorts of theoretical abuse. I mean can you imagine in two million years time a scientist coming up with the theory that man could run up to 25 m.p.h based on the skeleton of Michael Johnson whilst another, some two planets away on a floating space station, pronounces that based on the skeleton he has just discovered man was a sluggish creature, prone to spending hours in front of the television, eating crisps and breaking wind whenever a Sheila's Wheels commercial came on television.

I mean once all the flesh has decayed how could you tell how the skeleton performed?