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Summary: one of the greatest books ever written on the subject
Review: This book brings out often overlooked facts that challenge orthodox paleontology. bakker displays his view of warm-blooded dinosaurs with several theories that orthodoxy refuses to beleive.his extensive research has put forth such an amazingly crafted book that anyone who enjoys dinosaurs should read it.
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Summary: Exciting and revolutionary!
Review: This book is so interesting, it's a non-stop reading. Bakker's views are controversial. But if you are armoured with needed background information, you will enjoy in reading this book, whether agree or not. Even if you don't know anything about dinosaur, this book still shows you how to think scientifically that you can always apply to other fields as well.Don't be afraid this book could be wrong. Every piece of information about dinosaurs are from educated guesses. Nothing is the whole truth. So far you're not a teacher or a professional, you can always benefit from this book as it shows you how to think logically and scientifically. Even if you're one, you know when to be skeptical. I suggest everyone to read this book.
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Summary: Excellently written. Clear, consise arguments.
Review: This book puts forth many theories that go against the orthadox beliefs about dinosaurs. But the way the author supports these theories, there is no way the reader can go away believing anything else.
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Summary: Great, Great, Great
Review: This is a great dinosaur information book. It's NOT a bunch of classic drawings and grade school text for 5th graders. It's the grown up version complete with controversy and insight that only Bob can come up with. His artwork is top notch. Bakker has done his homework and makes logical sense about how dinosaurs ate, mated, gave birth and led social lives. He needed a sequel to this book, instead of writing the awful and fictional "Rapter Red."
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Summary: The Bible of Modern Paleontology
Review: This is the single greatest reference on current paleonotology for the layperson out there. Bakker presents a detailed step-by-step description both of the creation of these modern theories and the steps that were taken to prove them. In the end, it seems like a text-book of a fascinating science presented with the same aura of awe and mystery that is so characteristic of the great beasts themselves. And not only that...Bakker also advances beautifully concised ideas on nearly all prehistoric periods.
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Summary: Great fun to read - but eventually problematic
Review: This was one of the first 'serious' dinosaur texts I ever read. The second in fact, after Adrian Desmond's 'The Hot-Blooded Dinosaurs'. Bakker writes engagingly and spiritedly, and eloquently (although sometimes with more than a hint of pedantry) guides his reader through a host of problems involving dinosaurs and his ideas about them. From the beginning, Bakker makes clear that a lot of them are controversial. What becomes less clear is how outrageous they sometimes are - this is, above all, a propaganda pamphlet. That detracts little from its entertainment, but don't mistake it for mainstream science or a sum-up of generally accepted theories. What is more objectionable is that he portrayal of evidence sometimes fails to mention contrary or nuancing evidence that was well known at the period the book was written (e.g., the hot-blooded dinosaur part), thus suggesting that Bakker keeps a lot of crucial aces up his sleeve.
Finally, it has to be pointed out that a lot of the text in this book (which was written during the first half of the 80s) has now become rather antiquated. The chapter on bird evolution, for instance, now has little more than historical value.
On the flipside, there is no denying that Robert Bakker is deeply committed to his theories. It would have been nice, though, if this presentation had been less one-sided.
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Summary: The book that ignited the dinosaur renaissance
Review: With his heretical views on dinosaurian (and other paleo-species) lifestyle, Bakker's Heresies has helped change the view of dinosaurs in both the public and the scientific community's eyes. But, for all the good Bakker's book did, it still has its flaws. Since the majority of reviews here have been extremely positive, I thought it might be best to focus on the less accurate parts of the book. First there is the nomenclature. Bakker generally avoids using scientific jargon in the book. This is good as it opens the market for more people to read his book. Names like duck bill and horned dinosaurs are easier to remember than hadrosaur and ceratopian. Still some of Bakker's actual scientific terms are horribly inaccurate and hurt paleontology more than help it. I am talking about a certain term in particular; Brontosaurus. This name has been defunct for over 50 years and it is only in popular culture that it has lived on. Bakker uses it because it's more descriptive and because he believes that the fossil Brontosaurus excelsus is different enough from _Apatosaurus_ to warrant an entire generic distinction. Modern paleontology on the other hand, did not see the distinction then and still does not now. While I commend Bakker's paradigm altering view of how dinosaurs were, I wish that he didn't have to make them warm-blooded in order to do it. Today's "cold-blooded" animals have a wide range of energetic behaviours that Bakker never really gives mention to. And while he does devote an entire chapter to reptilian diversity (chpt 3, which is by far the most ironic chapter in the book), the final page of that chapter, featuring a _Pristichampsus_ taking out a _Hyracotherium_, has at the end of it a caption that reads that due to its rarity, this was positive evidence that "...cold-bloodedness was a great disadvantage." It was almost as if he was saying "Reptiles are an amazingly diverse group of animals with a wide range of lifestyles and body plans. Now I will show you why dinosaurs could not possibly be reptiles." This pretty much sets the tone for the rest of the book. The following chapters deal with changing the popular view of dinosaurs while simultaneously removing them from the realm of "cold-bloodedness." In order to show how dinosaurs could ONLY be "warm-bloods" Bakker relies a variety of circumstantial evidence. In the fossil record he uses predator to prey ratios to determine how active the creatures are. Besides having to deal with fossil record bias, Bakker's "control" is a living survey of a wolf spider to its prey. While Bakker knocks off interesting numbers (Wolf spiders making up 15-20% of the predator/prey population) he gives no mention of the prey themselves, so no one knows what kind of prey he was comparing the spiders to. Luckily Bakker does have a reference section that is divided up into the various chapters so one can go looking for it if one really wants to. Then there is the use of haversian canals, stating that they indicate warm-bloodedness, when in reality all they indicate is a high level of activity (one can see these same haversian remodeling in varanid lizards). While the above was only found out recently, one of Bakker's "proofs" of warm-bloodedness is a dangerous use of taxonomy. Using the rules of punctuated equilibria Bakker states that species turn over is greater among warm-bloods than "cold-bloods." He shows this with fossil record evidence from Como Bluff Wyoming showing the average life of a species of dinosaur compared to a crocodilian (_Leidyosuchus_) and a chelonian (_Aspideretes_). Now in this modern era taxonomists have a hard enough time as it is to tell what is a new species and what is not; to use this criteria as evidence for warm-bloodedness is dangerous and a tad sloppy. This is especially so when one considers the fact that being "cold-blooded" crocodilian and chelonian fossils are less well studied than other fossils and there are bound to be more than a few taxonomic blunders in there. Bakker does voice other ideas, such as the thought that sauropods had trunks, a thought that is OK to entertain but probably not worth serious consideration. Bakker's view of the gizzard style digestive system of a variety of dinosaurs is eye opening for those who ever wondered how a sauropod could feed itself with a mouth so small. Then there are the contradictory parts of the book. In Bakker's haste to remove the dinosauria from the Reptilia, he unwittingly removes a group of animals that he himself admits to be real reptiles. Bakker believed (though histological and predator/prey evidence) that the pseudosuchian "crimson crocs" (beautiful name) showed the same warm-blooded evidence that dinosaurs show and should therefore be removed from the basal Reptilia on this and other shared derived characters. The problem inherent with this is that in order to do it, Bakker would also have to remove another pseudosuchian descendant, the crocodylians. These are the same creatures that in previous chapters he had been calling "cold-blooded" reptiles. All in all the book is a good. Bakker provides his own illustrations, all of which show his creatures as dynamic animals, regardless of warm or cold-bloodedness. The ideas themselves are actually the resurrection of older ideas from the 19th century and not so much new ways of thinking, and much of Bakker's examples of warm-bloodedness should be taken with a grain of salt. I give this book a higher ranking than I normally would, because of the uproar that it caused in the area of reptilian paleontology and especially metabolism. Thanks to Bakker's book we now know that the arbitrary lines of warm and cold-blooded are not as black and white as we thought. In fact there is an increasingly growing amount of creatures that don't easily fit either definition. For that reason alone, the book is a worthy purchase, even if most of the text is of more historical value than anything else.
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Summary: Perhaps the best book on evolution I have ever read!
Review: You must read this if you are interested in animal evolution and paleontology. The arguments are strong, and the style of writing is exceptional. I would love to be in Dr. Bakker's lectures or classes if the book illustrates the way he conveys his thoughts and ideas to an involved audience. I would not mind reading this book again!
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Summary: A lesson in re-thinking
Review: You needn't be a dinosaur addict to enjoy this book and benefit from it. Robert Bakker has become a major name linked with the resurgence of attention given these [almost] extinct animals. This book shows why Bakker's elevated position is deserved - and why his assertions are resented by some of his colleagues. His observations challenge lazy thinking - by his colleagues and the rest of us also. Holding to dogma is easy. Bakker knows that challenging conventional' judgment requires innovative thinking backed by solid evidence. It's precisely the problem Darwin faced when introducing evolution through natural selection. The evidence is there, it simply takes a perceptive eye and logical thinking to clarify its meaning. Bakker is able to perform those feats, bringing fine writing in to use vigorously presenting his onclusions . Much of the fossil data has an extensive history. He has an uncanny ability to make field research understood by a wide spectrum of readers. No arcane ivory-tower scientist here; evidence and conclusions are clear and unambiguous. Supporting his prose are fine illustrations ranging from serious reconstructions to clever speculation. Bakker has contributed useful concepts to anyone wishing to nderstand evolution's processes. His discussion of predator/prey relationships, old news to biologists, is demystified for the rest of us. The ratio of hunters to hunted, strategies of attack and defense, solitary or pack hunting or defense all mark the guerrilla warfare life's been involved in over the eons. By stretching the definition, predator and prey may also include plant eaters and their fodder. We normally view predation as shedding blood and providing meat, but Bakker demonstrates the war of herbivores and plants to be just as dramatic, if slower. All these elements combine in the ecological environment in evolution's drama. If there is a flaw here, it's in Bakker's acceptance of Gould and Eldredge's 'punctuated equilibrium' thesis. It's anomalous that a researcher so fastidious about assessing evidence can accept an idea lacking supporting data. Bakker's heretical outlook makes him a logical associate of iconoclasts like Eldredge and Gould, so perhaps he may be forgiven this lapse. It certainly doesn't detract seriously from what this book has to offer.
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