Politics killed dinosaurs?

Manas Gupta
28 March 2013, 01:37 PM IST

What really killed the dinosaurs? A comet, a meteor, a super volcano, or plain stupidity?

Weeks after a study found that dinosaurs were wiped out from the earth due to a massive meteor strike comes a new study that claims dinosaurs went extinct due to a comet crashing into the earth. Commenting on the development, our in-house expert, Professor Iknow Jackshit said: "Potato, potaa-toe, what's the difference? At the end of the day the dinosaurs are as dead as the dodo."

Members of the scientific community are incredulous at what this credible research by a credible institute published in a credible journal has thrown up, again. In light of this controversy, we decided to examine more studies on the matter.

Of course, we decided to put aside theories of a super volcano, or asteroid aside, as Prof Jackshit called them "silly drabbles of a drunk demented nincompoop".

One of the theories was 'terrorism'. A study, which comprised asking random questions from a sample of 20 people, concluded that the dinosaurs of one country probably trained and funded terrorist dinosaurs who caused massive bloodshed in a neighbouring country. (The most notorious name in this is the IDI or the Inter-Dinosaur Intelligence.) Both the dinosaur countries were armed with nuclear weapons and eventually a nuclear war exterminated all dinosaurs and dictators.

Another theory claims they discovered democracy. The major players included Politicosaurus and Corruptosaurus. It worked at first but slowly came a culture of weak coalition governments. Dinosaurs were constantly going to polls because some ally or the other kept pulling the plug. Some speculation also exists on the misuse of an anti-corruption watchdog (or watch-dinosaur) called CBID - Central Bureau of Investigating Dinosaurs. Eventually, the theory claims, the voting public got fed up of the massive corruption, scams and general idiotic behaviour evident from voting patterns, and the entire dinosaur civilization degenerated into chaos.

Of course, chances are some dinosaurs never died, they just got elected.

Then there is the oil theory. A small group of scientists —mostly from Iraq — believe a large group of dinosaurs, headed by a Tyrannosaurus-Rocks, invaded other dino territories in search of oil. Apparently, the dinos used massive amounts of oil in their hair and also ate deep-fried foods. This led to massive obesity, starting with the invading country —United States of Dinosaurs — even as foods chains like Kentucky Fried Dinos and McDinos did well. Eventually, all dinos had a heart attack and died. Surprisingly, this theory has few takers.

Meanwhile, as top scientists fight over comet and meteor theories, a number of other strong possibilities are being ignored. Experts feel pollution could be a dinosaur killer, or excessive consumption of alcohol... even moral policing, and of course the all-important one, brainless silly films.

But eventually, there was consensus among our panel of experts on the strongest theory behind dinosaur extinction: They discovered religion.