Dinosaurs, early relatives coexisted

sfgate.com ^ | Friday, July 20, 2007 | David Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor

[my_pointy_head_is_sharp]

UC Berkeley scientists, digging deep into a remote New Mexico hillside, have discovered a trove of fossil bones that they say is evidence that dinosaurs and their early relatives lived side by side for tens of millions of years before the relatives slowly died off and left the dinosaurs to dominate the ancient world.

Until now many scientists had thought that dinosaur "precursors" -- perhaps their ancestors -- disappeared suddenly long before the dinosaurs themselves rose to prominence, but the bones dug up by Berkeley paleontologists show evidence of a different story.

The discovery of a wide variety of creatures all mingled together in layer upon layer of rocks dating from Earth's late Triassic period between 235 million and 200 million years ago, they say, shows that the strange relatives of the dinosaurs remained on the scene while the dinosaurs evolved into truly dominant creatures during the Jurassic period, between 120 million and 200 million years ago.

[GunRunner]

It has been proven over and over again balistically that the craters could only have been created by objects origionating from earth. I'm not about to hash over all that with you, serves no purpose.

Of course not, its a ridiculous point. The Aitken crater on the far side has one of the largest impact craters in the solar system; 1400 miles wide and 7 miles deep. Let me again post a scale picture of how far the earth is from the moon:

Even if all of the large impact craters were on the near side of the moon (they're not), and even if all impact debris originated from Earth (it didn't), what exactly does this prove to you? That God created the Earth 6,000 years ago? How would those incredibly dubious points disprove evolution?

[GunRunner]

The Earth has an ice cream core topped with Oreos.

[FixedandDilated]

Oh, pshaw. Oreos aren’t green and blue. :D

[Trteamer]

[ejonesie22]

I know, but of course if you go on the 4350, you’d have to also go with the 6000-9000 year old earth theory also, which is bupkis. So exactly what happened. Well we don’t know except that there was some flood at some time. That is what it says. Not that the world was flooded at 8:43 AM, Monday, March whatever 2250 BC.

It’s the same as the guys with the painted stars and 6000 year old Earth, they want to tear away the mystery of God because without proof, the ability to sound “Scientific” about everything some how he is not real. That’s why it’s a belief system, not a fact system. It seems contradictory I know, but even as much as I love science myself, it fails to answer the really big questions. One of my favorite pieces from that Val Kilmer Mars Movie was the older scientist who had faith. That was his take and it was a good one. Science has limits, after that there seems to be just a little bit more that can’t be easily explained.

That is the beauty of faith.

[ejonesie22]

Stop, your killing me.

Looking at the picture for a minute I though NASA/USGS had replaced LandSat 7 with a unit from ACME...

[FixedandDilated]

It’s a nice, colorful little cartoon, isn’t it? I still haven’t figured out what it’s supposed to be.

[higgmeister]

It is obvious Rosie actually has Ed Zachary disease!

I believe that is what turned her gay.

[ok_now]

YEC DUMBTREP

[ejonesie22]

Lord knows, either the end of the world, the beginning of it, or the cover of a Boston or ELO album...

[SlowBoat407]

But maybe you'll explain why the moon only has deep craters on it facing earth that could only have been created by objects originating from earth.

Actually, the moon has far more craters on the far side, where it's not protected by the earth from meteoric impacts. The near side has impacts mostly at the poles, where objects came in from outside the moon's orbital plane.

And by the way, the moon is moving away from the earth over time. Astronomers have traced the movement back in time, backtracking the rate of its expanding orbit, and found that the moon probably was split off from the earth by a huge impact... several billion years ago.

[BuckeyeForever]

“Another bogus story designed to test our faith. The earth is only 9,000 years old.”
_______________

It’s OK to post that something like that on an internet board, since no one knows who you really are, but in real life, you should keep that to yourself. Otherwise, the people you know will think you are a fool and laugh at you behind your back. Unless, of course, you hang only with fundamentalist kooks.

[SlowBoat407]

There is plenty of reason to suspect bits of the earth's crust were blasted out of earths atmosphere and formed comets and debri and either collided with other bodies in this system or returned home to rest.

And on a 6,000 year old earth, the holes blasted out of the earth would still be evident, as would the stories of such cataclysmic events.

By the way, the remnants of the meteor that formed Barringer Meteor Crater in Arizona were found under the rim of the crater, not in the center. It came in at an angle. Most of them do. Direct, straight-in hits are probably the least likely scenario.

[SlowBoat407]

[ejonesie22]

Yes, I knew I had seen that before...

Must be getting old...

[xc1427]

Doesn’t that take place every year in Ireland?

[null and void]

*ouch*

[Greg F]

What are the transitional fossils? Show one thing becoming another, not a horse “changing” into a horse or same species or genus changes but at the level of family.

[Greg F]

I also know that to some, any new discovery that fits in a spot where a rational person would say there was a missing link creates in the mind of the True Believer nothing more than TWO gaps, one on either side of the former gap.

True. 150 years of looking and the theory isn't proven by the bones, and the paleontologists argue against it whenever the biologists pull them into a conference. Something about the evidence not being there . . .

[Greg F]

It looks like his arms are hanging limp at his side. And his legs have nothing to do.

In our future incarnation as purple robed supermen our brains will be so strong they will hold us up, no legs needed.