Is there any way to know how smart dinosaurs were? Secular scientists are currently in the midst of a battle of words on this topic. Those who think it might be possible to estimate the intelligence of certain dinosaurs are not at all in agreement on how smart they were.
This is an interesting field of study to biblical creationists I suppose. It is to me. But we must first remember that all of these secular scientists believe in millions of years of evolution and totally reject the historical narrative of the book of Genesis in God’s Word. Secular paleontology is committed to the idea that life sprang from inorganic material billions of years ago, and all of life evolved from that single common ancestor. The law of biogenesis is not on the side of the secularists on this count. And the study of homology has been misunderstood by them to assume atheistic evolution instead of intelligent design. Secular paleontologists say that birds evolved from dinosaurs or birds are dinosaurs. That is not biblical since birds were created according to kinds on Day 5, and dinosaurs were created according to kinds on Day 6. This means that all of their foundational presuppositions concerning their studies of dinosaurs are going to be incorrect.
ENDOCASTS:
Brain endocasts are used in this study of the intelligence or cognitive capabilities of dinosaurs. For extant animals the actual brains can be studied to gain information on the topic, but for extinct animals that is not possible because soft brain tissues are seldom preserved in the fossils. An endocast is either a natural infilling of the endocranial cavity where the brain resided in the fossil skull, an artificial cast of the endocranial cavity in the skull, or some sort of virtual estimate of the endocranial cavity determined digitally. Figures 1 and 2 show brain endocasts of an Allosaurus dinosaur and a Tyrannosaurus dinosaur.
Figure 1. Allosaurus Brain Endocast (From Fossils: Description & Interpretation).
Figure 2. Tyrannosaurus Brain Endocast (From Fossils: Description & Interpretation).
The two endocasts in Figures 1 and 2 are quite similar and that can be expected since they are both from dinosaurs that could be of the same created kind. The animals are both categorized as theropod dinosaurs that were bipedal with large heads and scary teeth. With the assumption that dinosaurs were reptiles and with a study of extant crocodilian brains, experts had for years hypothesized that these theropod dinosaur brains were similar to crocodiles and alligators. There are other physical similarities seen between the theropods and the crocodilians. From that it has been common to think that an extinct Tyrannosaurus rex (for example) was about as smart as a modern-day crocodile (See Hurlburt et al, 2013; Rogers, 1998; Witmer & Ridgely, 2009).
Figure 3 is an image of a computer model of a T. rex brain based on the endocranial cavity, and Figure 4 is an artistic rendition of that brain in the skull of a T. rex.
Figure 3. Computer Model of a T. rex brain (By Wimerlab).
Figure 4. Proposed Location of a T. rex Endocast in a Skull (By Popsci).
Endocasts of extinct animals are sometimes not good examples of the actual size of the brain of the animal, but most experts believe that the size of the endocast of many vertebrate animals is often a close approximation to that of the brain. That is the assumption usually conjectured for T. rex. Notice that these estimates are based on assumptions, and any real understanding of how the dinosaur brains worked cannot be determined from endocasts, unless one believes that macro evolution is true and evolutionary relationships can explain how they worked. The biblical creationist would assume that the brains of all animal kinds including dinosaurs would have been engineered to match the needs of each animal within variations allowing for adaptations to situations foreseen by the Creator in the beginning.
THE CONTROVERSY:
Suzana Herculano-Houzel is a Brazilian neuroscientist known for her work in comparative neuroanatomy. She had developed a method of counting neurons in human and various animal brains. In 2023 she stepped into the field of paleoneurology with a paper entitled, “Theropod Dinosaurs Had Primate-like Numbers of Telencephalic Neurons.” The paper was published in The Journal of Comparative Neurology January 05, 2023. In the paper she claimed that fossil endocasts and comparative neurological data from current animals allowed her to reconstruct telencephalic neuron counts in dinosaurs and pterosaurs which might act as proxies for behaviors and life history traits in these animals. According to her analysis, large theropods like Tyrannosaurus rex were long-lived, exceptionally intelligent animals equipped with baboon-like cognition. This paper seemed to support the sensational depictions of T. rex and other dinosaurs in the Jurassic Park and Jurassic World movies.
Figure 5. Jurassic Park Theropod Advances!
The conventional paleontology alliance was not convinced. Eleven scientists from Germany, Czech Republic, Canada, Spain, and the USA collaborated and quickly responded with a paper in April 2024 refuting pretty much all of her claims. This paper by Caspar, Kai R. et al has the title, “How smart was T. rex?” and was published in The Anatomical Record.
As I said earlier, I cannot accept conventional paleontology in general due to their standard consortium of presuppositions, and I am not an expert on brains, but I can accept some of what is presented in the Caspar et al response. In Figure 6 is the cladogram that Caspar et al used in their analysis. Please pay no attention to anything in the cladogram except for the colored depictions of brains along the right-hand side.
Figure 6. Cladogram from Caspar et al Paper.
In Figure 6 please notice the similarity between the croc brain depiction (row 2) and the Tyrannosaurus brain depiction (row 5). Also please notice how different the bird brain morphology depictions (rows 7 and 8) are from those of the croc and the T. rex. I think these morphological differences support the creationist idea that birds and dinosaurs are not the same kinds. Much of the other information presented by Caspar et al supported the position that the T. rex and crocodilians could be engineered in a similar pattern and that made sense to me.
Here is the first portion of the conclusion of the Caspar et al paper:
“The dinosaurian neuron count and relative brain size estimates presented in Herculano-Houzel are inaccurate due to methodological shortcomings, in particular for T. rex. Accordingly, the biological inferences drawn from them are implausible. As we show here, there is no compelling evidence that relative brain size in large-bodied theropods differed significantly from that of extant non avian sauropsids, and their telencephalic neuron counts were likely not exceptional, especially for animals of their size.”
The bottom line is that I agree that there is no reason to believe that T. rex had a step up in cognitive capability to the crocodilians. We can leave Jurassic Park sensationalism in the movies and not move it to science. There is nothing in any of the papers that would convince a reader with a biblical worldview to accept millions of years of evolution or believe the concept that birds are dinosaurs.
J.D. Mitchell
References:
Caspar, K.R. et al, (2024) “How smart was T. rex? Testing claims of exceptional cognition in dinosaurs and the application of neuron count estimates in paleontological research,” The Anatomical Record, 307(12), 3685-3716.
Clarey, Timothy (2015) Dinosaurs: Marvels of God’s Design (p. 130), Master Books.
Herculano-Herzel, S., (2023) “Theropod dinosaurs had primate-like numbers of telencephalic neurons,” The Journal of Comparative Neurology, 5 January 2023.
Hurlbert, G.B. et al, (2013) “Relative size of brain and cerebrum in tyrannosaurid dinosaurs: An analysis using brain-endocast quantitative relationships in extant alligators,” In Parrish et al, Tyrannosaurid Paleobiology (pp. 134-154), Indiana University Press.
Mitchell, J.D., (2017) Fossils: Description & Interpretation Within a Biblical Worldview (pp. 122-123), CEC Publications.
Rogers, S.W., (1998) “Exploring dinosaur neuropaleobiology: Computed tomography scanning and analysis of an Allosaurus fragilis endocast,” Neuron, 21(4), 673-679.
Wilmer, L.M. et al (2009) “New insights into the brain, braincase, and ear region of tyrannosaurs (Dinosauria, Theropoda), with implications for sensory organization and behavior.” The Anatomical Record, 292(9), 1266-1296.
