God help us all.
Posted on 09/30/2005 9:17:27 AM PDT by bigmac0707
A scientist has described a spider that was trapped and preserved in amber 20 million years ago.
Palaeontologist Dr David Penney, of the University of Manchester, found the 4cm long by 2cm wide fossil during a visit to a museum in the Dominican Republic.
Since the discovery two years ago, he has used droplets of blood in the amber to reveal the age of the specimen.
It is thought to be the first time spider blood has been found in amber and scientists hope to extract its DNA.
Dr Penney, of the School of Earth, Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences, said he had used the blood droplets to trace how, when and where the spider died.
It is a new species from the Filistatidae family commonly found in South America and the Caribbean.
Dr Penney believes it was climbing up a tree 20 million years ago when it was hit on the head by fast flowing resin, became engulfed in the resin and died.
He claims the shape and position of the blood droplets revealed which direction the spider was travelling in and which of its legs broke first.
"It's amazing to think that a single piece of amber with a single spider in it can open up a window into what was going on 20 million years ago," he said.
"By analysing the position of the spider's body in relation to the droplets of blood in the amber we are able to determine how it died, which direction it was travelling in and even how fast it was moving."
He first saw the fossil during a visit to the Museo del Ambar Dominicano, in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic.
Dr Penney reports his findings in the latest issue of the journal Palaeontology.
It has evolved, if you read the article it is a distinct species. That the morphology is similar (although distinct and not identical) to what we find today suggests that spiders' fit well within their niches, that they have found a succesful and flexible model.
He's assuming it's dead. Big mistake. Never trust a spider. Nuke it now, while it's still trapped in the amber.
No, the failure of uninformed non-scientists to accept science is purely a fault of the American public education system.
As soon as I saw this headline, I immediately thought "Helen Thomas." Lo and behold, I only had to go 16 posts into it before her name was mentioned and 55 posts before her picture was posted. That is scary.
Or, OTOH, He has saved them from the agony of, e.g., dying in a ball of tree sap.
At that point, scientific education will be dumbed down enough that you can throw in the flat-earth and alien abduction theories and get a trifecta of ignorance!
Oh, I didn't realize they were going to toss physics, geology, etc. But I'm sure you know more about it than I do.
LOL - yeah.
Let's stop talking about the masses here, and let's talk about you. You made a positive statement -- that no transitional fossils exist to support existing models of hominin evolution.
I proved you wrong. And then you turned the argument back on me, saying that science and I aren't persuasive. Well, why aren't we? What is it that keeps you from accepting scientific evidence or the scientific method? How do you dismiss all this out of hand? You say you don't believe it because you don't believe it, but you don't say why.
Ah, a test. Supposing DNA can be sequenced from this dead spider (and that it's not contaminated and that the dating is accurate and so on), we can compare it to DNA of the spider you killed. Evolution, being a scientific theory, predicts there will be at least 20M years of difference.
Because I believe God created man in his image according to what the Bible says. And a bunch of other reasons but that is the main one. And I have yet to see proof where one species transformed into another one.
God help us all.
I've had employees who said were moving, but I never could detect it. Maybe if I enclose them in amber we can figure out if they actually were and at what speed.
Read Job 38. It is blasphemy to think you can understand Creation from Genesis. Genesis is not a scientific text, nor does it pretend to be.
[4] Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding.
[5] Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it?
[6] Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof;
[7] When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?
And I have yet to see proof where one species transformed into another one.
Then go back and look at my post again. I just gave you a list of transitional fossils. If you haven't read the list, read it.
Godless physics? That claims some knowledge of the universe and how it came about? Has to go! Cosmology too.
Geology, that keeps trying to say layers are older than 6000 years? They're out of here too!
This is what I worry about. Once the proponents of ID get control, where will it stop? You saw the news article that started this thread, where one of the folks burned a mural because it was sinful or some such (or was that the other thread--hard to keep them separate any more).
Are books next?
You will probably think I am an alarmist, but it has happened before.
I'd rather have a snake in my pocket than be in the same room with a creepy spider - YEOWW!!
It was my understanding the burning of the mural was in response to the genitals, not evolution. While I am not in favor of burning books (even those written by liberals), I believe some books are not acceptable for children.
It would make headlines if mainstream scientists didn't suppress information that runs counter to their precious theory.
Excellent point.
Oooooh, a vast scientific conspiracy. Are the Jews in on it? The Neocons? The Masons?
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