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To: aculeus
You know, I'm all for fossil research and I love reading about this stuff, but I loathe when scientists and the press puff up finds that can't possibly indicate everything they claim with any certainty.

"...his team found a jaw bone and an inch-long fang from what they estimate was a 200-pound creature. 'They look something like a large pit bull,' Stewart told the San Francisco Chronicle. 'They're very tough customers.'"

I cannot buy that with a jawbone and a tooth alone you can in any way shape or form predict that a creature "looks something like a large pit bull" or is a "very tough customer" without engaging in a lot of far-too-speculative hypothesizing. Science can't be well served by the use of extremely hypothetical comments like this from very small pieces of data.

23 posted on 02/24/2005 4:42:45 PM PST by LibertarianInExile (The South will rise again? Hell, we ever get states' rights firmly back in place, the CSA has risen!)
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To: LibertarianInExile

Thank you very much for reminding the gullable of that which should be blindingly obvious.


52 posted on 02/24/2005 8:03:01 PM PST by WillRain ("Might have been the losing side, still not convinced it was the wrong one.")
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To: LibertarianInExile

Has it not occurred to you that there were previous finds of the same critter, which allowed these paleontologists to identify the jawbone fairly quickly? And, that those previous finds showed other portions of the animal -- enough to be able to describe it for the reporter?


67 posted on 02/25/2005 3:03:58 AM PST by Junior (FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC)
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