@farmerman,
Oh great ! Now look what you've done ! Gomer's here with his rock collection and will never admit to being wrong, especially when he totally screws up the idea of a thread or post and it is obvious to everyone he is making a fool of himself . He will just assume no one reads his posts so they wont know .
On this occasion, he is correct . There is also a process of finding proteins that suggest certain DNA existed, but at the moment these are way too broad an suggestion to warrant attention . IF we knew all the DNA of a particular animal and IF we could manipulate its DNA to the skeletal structure of a dinosaur, we will still be at a loss as to all the soft tissue DNA .
This will probably always be based on assumption and we will have no way of knowing IF it is correct or not . So we might end up with something that LOOKS like what we think a dinosaur looked like, but how close is it really ?
Some examples : The Brachiosaurus was displayed with its head up . Then someone's experiments found it couldn't keep up the blood pressure to that height but this was full of assumptions and doesn't prove anything . Its circulation system may have had methods, such as a second "type of heart" half way up its neck, or it may have used capillary action, or any mechanism that we are not aware of . Another example is T-Rex being a tail dragger . This is how it was displayed in museums . Current opinion is that it walked with its head and tail in a straight horizontal line . Every generation things it has a handle on things, but the next generation always finds mistakes and then thinks it has a handle on things .