Nathan Myhrvold accuses experts of serious errors in theory on dinosaurs
Hobby scientist alleges 'serious errors' in papersby top palaeontologists about reptiles' life cycles
A dinosaur hobbyist who made his name as a Microsoft multimillionaire has published a scientific paper alleging "serious errors and irregularities" in dinosaur research involving some of the world's top palaeontologists.
The research, some of it dating to the 1990s, analysed skeletons of different ages to estimate how quickly dinosaurs grew. For example, a 2001 paper, published in the journal Nature, estimates that the giant dinosaur Apatosaurus had a growth spurt of 5,500kg in a year.
The papers, particularly a 2004 paper in Nature on the growth of Tyrannosaurus rex, were influential in offering an explanation for why some dinosaurs were much larger than their relatives and slashed decades off the estimated life span of the creatures.
The accuser is Nathan Myhrvold, a former chief technology officer at Microsoft. The lead author of the papers in question is Gregory Erickson, a professor of anatomy and palaeobiology at Florida State University.
The problems … appear to be consistent with scientific misconduct
Myhrvold's article, published on Monday by the journal PLOS One, says Erickson's papers contained mistakes, including graphs that did not match the data and curves that did not match the reported equations. And Myhrvold's revised estimates put the maximum growth rate of Apatosaurus at about a tenth of what Erickson and his colleagues had reported.