Dinosaurs or God? Which is more real?

[tas8831]

My God, such rare ignorance.

But is it?

 

[tas8831]

What? Sculpted stones? This is all pure fantasy.

Or perhaps some projection.

'We do it, so them evilutionists MUST do it even more!'

Paluxy Man -- The Creationist Piltdown | National Center for Science Education

 

[tas8831]

It was found to be a hoax by other paleontologists.

Um, no....

"Archaeopteryx lithographica: The Ultimate Fraud"

Basically, about four "examples" of Archeopteryx were found, and each time it resembled the bones of another dinosaur. And there were no feather impressions which should be the case if the thing that fell in the mud had feathers.

And how it is that you can vouch for the accuracy and honesty of your heroes at that creationist propaganda outfit?

I mean, they rely on the shoddy work I referred to earlier - Spetner wrote a book in which he claimed 'directed mutations' were real and random ones were not. And he ignored publications that proved him wrong. In a discussions with biologist Gert Korthof, he admitted that beneficial mutations do occur. Then, when he realized he'd undercut his whole thesis, he tried to take it back.

Too late!

By the way - why were Spetner, Hoyle, and Wickramasingh looking at fossils, anyway? None of them have any relevant training or expertise.

That is why their garbage paper could only make it to print in a photography magazine:

Watkins, R.S.; F. Hoyle et al. Archaeopteryx: A Photographic Study The British Journal of Photography (London) March 8, 1985, Vol.132, p.264-266.

And a whopping 2 pages long! A real barn burner!



Oh - and there are 8 specimens, not 4.

Creationist groups with websites sure lie a lot. And the author of your linked essay is quite a character...

 

[tas8831]

I also got an education that encouraged QUESTIONING ideas. Many of you clearly didn't, because you read it in high school textbooks.

Says the person that thinks collections of ancient middle eastern tall tales are totally 100% true!

 

[tas8831]

I often wonder if people like you actually think or just regurgitate what other people tell you, until it's fixed in your mind.

Spectacular projection.

The ability to do critical thinking is the ability to challenge even your own past teachings if somehow the don't match up.

And you've applied your amazing 'critical thinking' skills to your creationist resources, have you?

A biology text book said "We used to believe in spontaneous generation but (after the findings of people like Pasteur) we now know that no life force exists."

Which biology textbook was that?
Googled the quote, got no returns.

Okay, two quick points. Pasteur's findings only disprove spontaneous generation - not "life force" and claiming to "know" something now is conceited - by showing that a sterilized broth will no longer produce bacteria (except that it will rot given enough time, implying heat-resistant bacteria, but one thing thar won't happen is flies spontaneously generating inside a closed glads container). Two, Pasteur actually found life generating under certain circumstances (I think mainly compost) but suppressed many of these results to defeat his rival Beauchamp and have a scientific monopoly. He also did so because he was a religious fanatic and believed only God can create life. It's all mentioned in The Dream And Lie of Louis Pasteur. Where it's not mentioned? Your high school science textbook. Hmmm, I wonder why that is? Maybe because if people started getting all the facts about their science leaders they might no longer consider them infallible?

The Dream & Lie of Louis Pasteur by R. B. Pearson
[/quote]
Did you read that book, or just get the citation from a creationist website?

Apparently, the author was a crackpot who "propounds the viewpoint that bacteria in the body are a result, not a cause of disease, that vaccinations are harmful or at best, ineffective, and that Pasteur did not realise the consequences of the vaccines he and his followers created".


For someone with such amazing critical thinking skills, you sure seem to get duped by charlatans a lot.

 

[tas8831]

I believe in Lamarck's idea of how plants and animals develop over Darwin (not quite, but I do tend to think evolution is according to need rather than competition), for instance.

Ah, there's that critical thinking in action!
You prefer a falsified hypothesis over an unfalsified theory. Good for you!

Do I have a doctorate in Paleontology? No. But I do think this is a BS degree. Not to be confused with a Bachelor Science degree.

SUPER clever - betting you think 'libtard' is a show-stopper, too, huh?

Credentials are given value by people who consider blindly accepting what they read in formal-looking books to be knowledge. It takes more research to find alternate opinions, especially those suppressed by time and intent.

Well... Unlike you, I've done research. And one has to do research to earn a PhD - didn't you know that? it seems not.

I take that back - creationist diploma mills will sell you a 'doctorate' for a fee and an essay about how great Jesus is.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

At least I've never fallen off a limerick when hit by a drunk driver.
(Long story.)

We may have discussed that story.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Or perhaps some projection.

'We do it, so them evilutionists MUST do it even more!'

Paluxy Man -- The Creationist Piltdown | National Center for Science Education

Sounds like both to me.

Thanks for the link. I enjoyed the article. I'm familiar with these famous tracks. They were recycled--rather the story was--in the late 70's or early 80's. The National Enquirer ran it. I used to have a vopy, but it was lost over the years. I was much more successful at holding onto the Cheryl Tiers photos. If a paper with prestige of the Enquirer gets the story, you know it is legit.

 

[Audie]

Childish op

MAYBE SO, but for childish, howabout positng sush a thing
and then paying exactly no attention to any efforts made
to show how maybe there could be a more mature way to
look at things.

Last time I will make that mistake.

 

[Audie]

Our distant ancestors also found fossils.

Lucretius had a very interesting explanation for them.

Here are some fun hoaxes

Eleven of the greatest scientific hoaxes

 

[Ayjaydee]

MAYBE SO, but for childish, howabout positng sush a thing
and then paying exactly no attention to any efforts made
to show how maybe there could be a more mature way to
look at things.

Last time I will make that mistake.

Childish

 

[dianaiad]

Our distant ancestors also found fossils.

yes. And?

I still think that the world would be a more magical place with dragons in it.

....though I'm, at present, delighted enough with the idea that dinosaurs had feathers.

Please don't forget that I'm a dyed in the wool evolutionist, and have no problems whatsoever in believing in God as well.

Religion is WHY God 'did it,' and science is starting to figure out "how." The two ideas do not interfere with one another.

 

[Audie]

Ah, there's that critical thinking in action!
You prefer a falsified hypothesis over an unfalsified theory. Good for you!

SUPER clever - betting you think 'libtard' is a show-stopper, too, huh?


Well... Unlike you, I've done research. And one has to do research to earn a PhD - didn't you know that? it seems not.

I take that back - creationist diploma mills will sell you a 'doctorate' for a fee and an essay about how great Jesus is.

Mine only asked for 20 dollars and satement
that I felt I had earned

 

[TracyDrake]

Dinosaurs laid lots of eggs.. They must have been prolific.

They never became extinct. The bigger species vanished.

Even when they are not viable, iguanas still lay eggs. In actuality, after they achieve sexual maturity, females will lay between 20 and 70 eggs annually. After mating, the female iguana will build tunnels and lay pale, cream-colored eggs into them after 65 days.
Reference:
cockroaches eggs

 

[gnostic]

Well, the Archaeopteryx turned out to be a hoax, but we can trust our other fossils right? Well...

People have been finding fossils for millennia, but there were no attempts to identify what they were, nor were there any research conducted until the 19th century. But paleontology in the 19th century was a new field of study, the study of fossils, and not just of dinosaurs, so you need to understand that people can and have made mistakes, and all natural sciences are learning processes.

For example, people have been gazing at stars for millennia, but they never knew what stars really are until the 20th century to the present. Even though the telescope was invented in very early 17th century, the telescopes were really not all too powerful. People like Charles Messier, like William & Caroline Herschel (bother & sister), and John Herschel (William‘s son), and John Louis Emil Dreyer, have all identified astronomical objects, like Andromeda, Triangulum, Virgo A, etc as nebulae. It is only from 1919 and onwards did, did Edwin Hubble correctly identify these as galaxies, not nebulae. Those astronomers I have named have only misidentified what they observed, none of their discoveries were hoax, they just didn’t have telescopes powerful enough to correctly identify what they were observing. And decades following Hubble observations, even more powerful telescopes, including the development of radio telescopes, which allow these new technology to learn more about stars and galaxies that are not possible with optical telescopes alone.

Astronomy is science that go though long learning processes. Likewise it have been for biology and paleontology.

Mind you, I am not a paleontologist, nor a biologist…but i do like researching historical events, even though technically I am also not a historian…I don’t have the qualifications.

What can I tell you, is when discovered and identified the Archaeopteryx, as well as a single feather, for the first time 1860-1861, by Hermann von Meyer. This 1st Archaeopteryx was discovered from limestone deposits in Germany, but 11 more specimens were found later. Along with English biologist & paleontologist, Richard Owen, they thought these Archaeopteryx species could be the ancestors of all modern birds.

But more dinosaur fossils have been found, giving the scientific communities to learn more about the avian dinosaurs and non-avian dinosaurs, and they have learned that the modern birds (class Aves) weren’t descendants from the genus Archaeopteryx, but from another line of dinosaurs of avian dinosaurs - the Maniraptora a clade of theropod dinosaurs.

The Maniraptora were only identified in the mid 1980s.

the genus Archaeopteryx is real, the fossils are real…but the birds didn’t come from that group of dinosaurs. We just have to find more fossils to learn more, like where did birds come from. The Archaeopteryx are not hoax...they simply weren’t what thought they were.

 

[Subduction Zone]

They never became extinct. The bigger species vanished.

Even when they are not viable, iguanas still lay eggs. In actuality, after they achieve sexual maturity, females will lay between 20 and 70 eggs annually. After mating, the female iguana will build tunnels and lay pale, cream-colored eggs into them after 65 days.
Reference:
cockroaches eggs

Iguanas are not dinosaurs. Birds are dinosaurs.

 

[gnostic]

It was found to be a hoax by other paleontologists.

"Archaeopteryx lithographica: The Ultimate Fraud"

Basically, about four "examples" of Archeopteryx were found, and each time it resembled the bones of another dinosaur. And there were no feather impressions which should be the case if the thing that fell in the mud had feathers.

Personally, I could technically agree that dinosaurs exist (mainly that they're cool) or dismiss them as nonsense (that it's a giant con game is somehow also cool) with about equal amounts of interest.

But I generally draw the line and say NO WAY, when people start to tell me "dinosaurs are birds". Not only do 100% of them look completely dorky switching scaled creatures to feathered ones, but even a basic examination of dinosaurs reveals reptilian anatomy.
Reptiles have cervical, dorsal, sacral, and caudal vertebrate. So do dinosaurs. Birds do not even have the same bone anatomy!

Dinosaurs if they lived, died out. What it means to die out, is that their genes hit a dead end and something killed them off. Birds and mammals grew out of OTHER evolutions. The nearest relative of a dinosaur is clearly an iguana. Not a parakeet.

Ah…yes…iguana…dinosaurs…

…No. ️

There are no conspiracy theory among the paleontologists..the only conspiracy theory comes from science-illiterate creationists like yourself. Creationists like yourself don’t have the education (qualifications) and experiences (expertise) to judge what are in evidence.

I don’t think you understand the paleontological evidence (that included morphological analysis, of the extinct species against the living species), and more importantly genetic evidence (between living species).

It isn’t just fossils they are working with. Genetic evidence are just vital, when grouping organisms into their respective phylogenetic and cladistic taxon.

Reptiles have been divided into 2 (and possibly 3) main groups. The reptile class (or class Reptilia) belonged to a group of tetrapod vertebrates (hence it belonged to the groups - phylum Chordata for vertebrates and the superclass Tetrapoda) that the amniotic development resulted in animals laying their fertilised eggs on dried land, which make it belonging to clade Sauropsida.

The Sauropsida is a clade of the clade Amniota. There is another clade to Amniota, called Synapsida, where the amniotic development, where the fetus developed inside of female’s womb, before giving live birth. In this group, the synapsids are ancestors of “most” mammals and extinct mammal-like amniotes.

This clade Sauropsida is one of the features that birds have in common with other reptiles, laying their eggs on dry lands. These eggs are encompassed by shells.

Anyway, all reptiles (order Reptilia) belonged to the Sauropsida.

As I said earlier, there are 2 main groups of reptiles, recognised by biologists and paleontologists:

1. Lepidosauria (it is either subclass or superorder of class Reptilia), which included 2 orders:
   1. the order Rhynchocephalia. There used to be many families & species of the rhynchocephalians, but today there only one living species Sphenodon punctatus, better known in New Zealand as tuatara.
   2. the order Squamata. Squamata included all living families, genera & species of lizards and snakes. Your “iguana” example is a lizard, therefore it belonged to the Squamata group.
2. Archosauria (clade of class Reptilia). There are two main clades to the archosaurs:
   1. clade Pseudosuchia, in which all crocodilian belonged to (eg crocodiles, alligators, etc)
   2. clade Avemetatarsalia, in which pterosaurs (flying reptiles, order Pterosauria), the 2 marine reptiles - plesiosaurs (order Plesiosauria) & ichthyosaurs (order Ichthyosauria), and the dinosaurs (clade Dinosauria).

What distinguished archosaurs and the lizards and snakes of the Sqamata, are their skulls.

Archosauria is classified as diapsid sauropsids, diapsida meaning the a skull has 2 holes (upper and lower holes) behind each eye socket, called temporal fenestrae. These 2 temporal openings exist in all crocodilians and dinosaurs, and guess what, Samantha, birds have such holes behind their eye sockets.

Lizards only have one hole behind (and above, or upper hole) each eye sockets (Euryapsida), whereas snakes and turtles lost these holes (Anapsida). Synapsids (including mammals), also have a single hole behind the each eye sockets, but only the lower holes exist.

But is is the only that distinguish lizards and dinosaurs. Lizards like iguanas, have cold-blooded metabolism, where dinosaurs, including avian dinosaurs (which birds evolved from), have warm-blooded metabolism. Lizards have 3-chamber heart, whereas as crocodiles have 4-chamber heart like birds.

While crocodiles seemed to look like lizards, like the iguanas and the Komodo dragons, because of their legs and locative gaits, crocodiles are genetically fall under the same group of the Archosauria, which make them more alike, than that of the Lepidosauria lizards.

You say that the fossils of dinosaurs and birds are nothing alike, and yet some of the dinosaurs, particularly the theropod (suborder Theropoda), do walk on their hind limbs like birds, hence they are both bipedal. Where lizards have their 4 limbs sticking out from their sides, dinosaurs and birds have legs below their bodies.

For you to say dinosaurs and birds are nothing alike, I would say you haven’t researched their biology (anatomy and genetics) hard enough.

Anyway, iguanas and other lizards have never evolved from dinosaurs.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Why do people find it so hard to create rational polls?

 

[Watchmen]

I'm watching The Land Before Time, parts 1-7 or so, on account of missing my cat, and needing something mindless. And yes, I can definitely tell you that it is cute and entertaining. I can also tell you that the series is probably not good food for impressionable young minds, since along with dinosaurs, along with talking/singing dinosaurs, along with in at least one episode dinosaurs coexisting with simple mammals like squirrels, the message of the story is the same trite multiculturalism that is so sickening 2010 or so onward. "We can all live together in harmony" even though some of the group are legit meat eaters, and the story ends before adulthood for a good reason. Their sharptooth buddy Chomper would quickly find bugs aren't enough, and eat all of his "friends."

But it got me thinking, just how real are these dinosaurs?

Well, the Archaeopteryx turned out to be a hoax, but we can trust our other fossils right? Well...

When did dinosaurs live?

Dinosaurs lived about about 245 to 66 million years ago.

The thing is, these fossils are made of bones, but the oldest of these are only 2.8 million years old, not 66 million.

Why Don't Bones Decay Even After So Many Years?

The problem with these mineralized bones is that they are no different from stones that have been sculpted into the shape of skulls or teeth or whatever else. The other problem is that even fossils eventually get ground to dust meaning that tens or hundreds of millions of year pass and there is not even bone-shaped stones remain.

So then, if there aren't real fossils, what exactly is this?

In simplest terms, a moneymaking scheme. After all, these "bones" which are at best only able to be dated with carbon dating up to 95000 years (not even 1 million), after which it is impossible to find either intact genetic material or a sufficient about of carbon. So they're paying for plastic casting, and bits of rock, or strung together bones of more recent animals cobbled together through sketchy techniques.

So which are more real? I mean, we have at least anecdotal accounts of miracles and stuff, but we can't see God typically. But we have "fossils" of dinosaurs, which are possibly fake.

Also, everyone here must do a Land Before Time marathon. Yup yup yup.

Impressed that a 1988 movie could be so full of post-2010 sickening multiculturalism. *sarcasm*

 

[gnostic]

I wrote earlier that “most mammals” keep their growing foetuses in the female bodies, before giving birth.

Nature have some oddities, because platypuses and echidnas, lay their eggs, like reptiles, and yet their other features are still that of mammal.

Echidna and platypus fall under the taxon of Monotremata, an order in the class Mammalia, because of the amniotic development type of laying eggs. Other physical feature is that platypuses have duck-like beak.

Strange animals. It would seem nature has sense of humour.