The claims come in a paper written by Dr. Myhrvold and published in scientific journal PLoS One this week. In the paper, Myhrvold says research led by Dr. Gregory M. Erickson — a professor of anatomy and paleobiology at Florida State University — includes major mistakes. According to the paper, certain graphs and curves in research led by Erickson don't match corresponding data, and his work incorrectly pegged dinosaur growth rates as much faster, and life-spans as much shorter than evidence suggests they were.

Erickson's papers have reportedly been influential in changing the paleontological community's concept of dinosaur growth, positing an apparently reasonable explanation for the question of why some dinosaurs were so much larger than their relatives. Myhrvold's revised estimates contradict Erickson's models. A 2001 paper led by Erickson suggested the plant-eating sauropod Apatosaurus would put on 12,000 pounds in one year as it grew into adulthood. Myhrvold used data taken from some of Erickson's co-authors — after Erickson himself said the computer the original data was stored on had been thrown out — to identify the dinosaur's maximum growth rate at a tenth of that speed.

In a letter to journals that published Erickson's work, Myhrvold did not directly accuse the paleobiologist of deliberately falsifying or manipulating data, but said "the problems also appear to be consistent with scientific misconduct," and that they "merit correction in the literature." Erickson himself refused an interview request with The New York Times, instead releasing a statement in which he defended the conclusions of his team and argued that despite "moderately different conclusions on a species by species basis," Myhrvold's work still "strongly supports the cardinal conclusions that we reached regarding how dinosaurs grew."