At work this morning, we were debating the purpose of the Tyrannosaurus Rex's forearms.
"They're for holding their food!"
"No, they don't need to hold their food. They just chomp it down."
"Their food is probably dead already - they were scavengers, not predators."
"What? They were totally predators! Didn't you see 'Jurassic Park'?"
I was going to end the debate once and for all. I googled "What is the purpose of..." and again, before I could finish my query, Google tried to help me out by autopopulating. "What is the purpose of male nipples." No, that is not what I'm looking for (although it would be an interesting fun fact).
"What is the purpose of Tyrannosaurus Rex's forearms?"
The first site was a wikipedia entry. I have a healthy skepticism of the veracity of Wikipedia, as it is Communistic. The idea behind the content on the user-generated encyclopedia site is that as a collective, we are smarter than individuals. For example, being a Beatles-freak, I could write an entry on anything Beatles-related, and Sir Paul himself could access the entry and edit facts I might have gotten wrong (not that that would happen - I'm just saying. I used to look forward to the days when the local 7-11 had a Beatles question on their trivia board. We know what that meant - free Slurpy for Katie!)
School teachers are conflicted about whether or not to allow students to use Wikipedia as a resource in their research papers. Yes, the majority of the content is true and almost academic in nature. But if just anyone can post and edit postings, what's to stop someone from putting blatantly false information in there?
"Here it is, guys," I called out to my coworkers. I read them the article. "The T-rex has short, but strong forearms. They are used mainly to grasp the T-Rex's partner while copulating." I turned around in my chair, proud of my discovery.
Amid guffaws, one of my coworkers asked, "Where did you get that? Wikipedia?"
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