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Dave Hone

What Dave Hone thinks about evolutionary biology

@dave-hone · 24 positions · On ppll ↗

Palaeontologist and reader in zoology at Queen Mary University of London, who studies the behaviour and ecology of dinosaurs and pterosaurs and co-hosts the Terrible Lizards podcast.

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Only Dave Hone on evolutionary biology. See everyone on evolutionary biology

4 dated positions, 2025, in their own words. Our reading of what Dave Hone has said — not written or endorsed by them.

4 positions so far — this page is not yet offered to search engines.

  1. Our readingBeing big pays off every day and is punished in extinctions, which is why body size keeps getting reset rather than climbing forever.

    Their wordsYou're dominant in contests, particularly with conspecifics. If you're trying to win a territory or win mating rights, bigger things usually beat up smaller things. So there's going to be selection favoring them. But then big things don't usually do well in extinction events, so that tends to reset the clock by killing off the big stuff, and then smaller stuff does better again.

    ↗Dave Hone: T-Rex, Dinosaurs, Extinction, Evolution, and Jurassic Park | Lex Fridman Podcast #480youtube.com 8th of 24 in this recording

  3. Our readingWhether an animal hunts in groups cannot be read off its close relatives, so pack-hunting Velociraptor does not follow even if Deinonychus hunted in packs.

    Their wordsThere are various canids that all hunt in groups, but then you've got things like maned wolves, which are effectively solitary. The hyenas. Spotted hyenas are, yeah, these super social animals, but the brown hyena, the striped hyena, and the aardwolf are solitary. So you just can't do group versus solitary off close relatives or anything like that.

    ↗Dave Hone: T-Rex, Dinosaurs, Extinction, Evolution, and Jurassic Park | Lex Fridman Podcast #480youtube.com 13th of 24 in this recording

  5. Our readingEvolution does not perfect anything; organisms are bodge jobs, which is why the human eye has a blind spot and a squid's does not.

    Their wordsI think people think evolution is, like, perfecting things in some way. And they're not. They're bodge jobs, you know? That's why we have a blind spot in our eye, but things like squid don't.

    ↗Dave Hone: T-Rex, Dinosaurs, Extinction, Evolution, and Jurassic Park | Lex Fridman Podcast #480youtube.com 22nd of 24 in this recording

  7. Our readingBirds did not rise from the dinosaurs' ashes: they lived alongside the dinosaurs for a hundred million years before the extinction.

    Their wordsSo birds did not appear as a result of the dinosaurs going extinct. Birds lived alongside the dinosaurs for 100 million years. The birds were not new on the scene, and it's not like, "Oh, the dinosaurs died, and from the ashes rose the birds." No, they've been knocking around forever.

    ↗Dave Hone: T-Rex, Dinosaurs, Extinction, Evolution, and Jurassic Park | Lex Fridman Podcast #480youtube.com 23rd of 24 in this recording