Where was Myrmecophagus rex when you really needed him?
Posted on 05/03/2011 9:41:13 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
Almost 50 million years ago, ants the size of hummingbirds roamed what is now Wyoming, a new fossil discovery reveals. These giant bugs may have crossed an Arctic land bridge between Europe and North America during a particularly warm period in Earth's history.
At about 2 inches (5 cm) long, the specimen is a "monstrously big ant," said Bruce Archibald, a paleoentomologist at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia who reported the discovery today (May 3) in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Though fossils of loose giant ant wings have been found before in the United States, this is the first known full-body specimen.
The fossil ant is from a well-known fossil site in Wyoming called the Green River Formation, but it had been sitting in a drawer at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, Archibald said. When a curator showed him the fossil, Archibald said, he knew he was looking at something exciting. ..
"I immediately recognized it and said, 'Oh my god, this is a giant ant and it looks like it's related to giant ants that are known from about this time in Germany.'"
...
Monster ant
Archibald dubbed the new ant Titanomyrma lubei -- "titan" for its size, "myrma" for the Greek, "myrmex," or ant, and "lubei" for the fossil collector who discovered the specimen, Louis Lube. ..
Ants are tough bugs -- some can even create rafts out of their own bodies to survive floods. But a look at modern large ants showed Archibald and his colleagues that T. lubei very likely needed a warm climate to live, similar to modern-day giant ants. ..
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
I always love it when the evos “hand wave” around the little problem with origins... especially when their bible has that little word in its title.
That is another unscientific statement. Science is about observing phenomena accurately. Evolutionary scientists do not make any claims about how life originated but you have failed to observe that very simple and easily observed fact. There is no “hand waving” involved. That is a straw man of your making akin to accusing the plumber of claiming to be the maker of water.
uh huh... pull this one and it plays "Jingle Bells".
Logic fallacy of “equivocation” alert:
“Science has given us computers, medicine, the space program, and so much more. Why then do you deny the science of evolution?”
Where was Myrmecophagus rex when you really needed him?
If Young Earth Creation science provides better answers than conventional physics and geology, then what answers does it provide to the question of where to build those storage facilites, and by what methodology does it arrive at that conclusion?
Operational science works fine. What’s your problem again?
See, that’s the whole deal, you’re saying operational science works in the present, so it MUST be able to determine, definitively, the past.
Apparently your problem is a poor understanding of the English language. A little etymology would quickly reveal that the word "evolution" basically means "change" not "origin." Very similar to the way the word "climate" is inherently about change and your deliberate ignorance of that is very similar to the way the Glowbull Warmers/Climate Change people ignore that fact.
You also ignore words like "theory" and "processes" and impute your own meaning by substituting words like "proof" and "claims" to make a false straw man from which to launch your accusations such as the "extreme orthodox" premise.
It would probably help if you didn't try to conflate spiritual understanding with material knowledge of observed phenomena but your thinking isn't evolved enough to discern the difference or the reason that the two can't be mixed. Undoubtedly many scientists don't get that either but most don't try to force them together in a unified theory or view of the two.
How can the operational science work fine if the entire premise that it's based on is wrong?
We’ll all know more, by and by.
Where did you come up with that? Science is the reason I believe in the established age of the Earth and in evolution. It is also the reason I believe that planes can fly and pigs can’t.
Not sure why that is even germaine to anything here.
Yes, I do. The reason being it is safer for storage in one place, out of view, than a hundred places in the open.
Do you agree with baseball not having profit sharing like football? Why or whynot?
Some extra study on your part, too much to detail here, would show you that this statement is a belief, not a truism.
How can the operational science work fine if the entire premise that it's based on is wrong?
What "entire premise" do you refer to? If I read this right, you're saying that Creation science study somehow refutes the scientific method, or somehow refutes the observations and repetition that we're doing today? How so?
Zany Misfits!
Young Earth Creation science says the world is only 6000 years old.
The physical evidence present and the observed physics of the radiometric decay of long half-life radioisotopes says that’s not possible.
Creation scientists don’t deny the fact that creatures have the built in ability to change within their “species”. This is adaptation, a wonderful ability the Creator put in His creation.
It’s still funny that you have to stomp your feet so hard to avoid having to address the question of origins but ride right up to that line with the claim of common descent from a common ancestor.
Mauling flamingos.....
That site was chosen because it was determined to have been geologically stable for the last 12 million years.
There's lots of places that are "out of view". Many of them are on geological fault lines or show evidence of having been volcanically active in that last few thousand years. Given that the recorded history of geological events on this contintinent only goes back a few hundred years, all we have is physical evidence - nobody actually saw it happen and wrote about it.
If the physical evidence is not admissible, then there's no reason not to build it on one of those sites.
Does it really?
Are you aware of the unverifiable assumptions necessary to come to the conclusion that you just stated?
assumption of the initial state of the measured sample (initial amounts of parent/daughter elements present),
assumption of constant rate of decay (shown recently to be not constant),
assumption of non-contamination and no leaching of elements from other sources.
Different elemental decay measurements on the same sample can give wildly varying "ages" - do you know how they determine which one is right? By the assumed age of the fossils "near" the sample. Circular reasoning.
Are you aware that "new" rocks from Mt St Helens dated to "millions of years" when they were only a few months old? (The "clock" is assumed to start ticking when the rock cools from molten state, on new and "old" rocks.)
Of course, even though this method doesn't work on known age rocks, we have to assume that it works on rocks of unknown age.
Stable is stable. It is a mountian. If age is as important to you as you say, it must have been raised up (due to instability) at some point.
12 million? Just using the same ‘dating methods’ used for all other ages guessed at.
The presence of faults is easy to determine. It is also easy to see that such a site would be preferable to located in a fault-less location.
Nice try at an ambush. You may try again.
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