Fossil finds shake up dinosaur theories

The Mercury News ^ | July 19, 2007 | Betsy Mason

[DaveLoneRanger]

Dinosaur fossils found in New Mexico are challenging the idea that when dinosaurs appeared on the scene some 235 million years ago, they quickly rose to dominate the landscape.

Buried among the dinosaur bones, a team led by UC Berkeley paleontologists discovered the remnants of the dinosaurs' predecessors, dinosauromorphs, that lived 15-20 million years after the first dinosaur showed up.

"It was very exciting because we knew this was a type of animal that no one thought you'd find anywhere at any time in North America," said paleontologist Randall Irmis, a graduate student at UC Berkeley and lead author of the study which appears today in Science.

The discovery means that dinosaurs didn't simply replace their ancestors. Instead, the two types of animals lived side-by-side and competed for resources for millions of years.

"It has shaken up the old theory," said Bill Parker, a paleontologist at Petrified Forest National Park who also studies dinosaurs. "Everything was nice and neat before."

Scientists thought dinosaurs evolved from the dinosauromorphs in South America. Then, they may have driven their predecessors to extinction by outcompeting them with their bigger, faster and stronger bodies. Or, their ancestors and other animals suddenly went extinct for another reason, and the dinosaurs took advantage of the newly empty ecological niches.

Either way, the belief was that by the time dinosaurs were roaming North America, the dinosauromorphs were long gone.

"Everybody thought those animals had gone extinct," Parker said. "I think people are going to be surprised."

[MichiganMan]

“There is nothing in this science article that supports creationism.”

Maybe, but do it change facts? Is there nothing left to learn?

Not according to the creationists in this thread who appear to maintain that a theory must be complete and unalterable upon its creation, and any modification or addition to it PROVES that its false.

[Hacksaw]

It is religious dogma that can't change to accommodate new data: new data such as the age of the earth (ca. 4.5 billion years) or the lack of a global flood about 4350 years ago.

Complete bullshit. Speaking for my own faith, we accept avolutionary processes, etc, etc... (and we don't say "hey, religion is self correcting!" as an excuse if something turns out to be incorrect).

[ndt]

"Then how did they differentiate enough to become two distinct species if they shared the same environment? The initial genetic changes should not have been enough to prevent inbreeding for several generations, at least. So how DID they differentiate?"

The same ways ANY two species differentiate ( look up, allopatric, peripatric, parapatric and sympatric speciation).

If you accept that wolves and coyotes have a common ancestor, you should be able to answer your own question.

[TheBattman]

A better headline:

Scientists wrong yet again...

[Southack]

"Scientific theories are always modified if the data changes or if additional data is found. If the theory can't accommodate the new data, the theory has to be scrapped and a new theory developed. In this case, this is a very minor detail and does not change anything in the underlying theory of evolution." - Coyoteman

That's difficult to corroborate. The Theory of Evolution lacks any peer-reviewed falsification criteria in any established, recognized scientific publication...so whether or not new evidence changes (or falsifies) Evolutionary Theory is an open question.

[Southack]

"The same ways ANY two species differentiate ( look up, allopatric, peripatric, parapatric and sympatric speciation). If you accept that wolves and coyotes have a common ancestor, you should be able to answer your own question."

Any two species? Nope.

That doesn't hold true for the very first two species of life. Impossible, mathematically, for the first species of life to cross-breed.

[ndt]

"That doesn't hold true for the very first two species of life. Impossible, mathematically, for the first species of life to cross-breed."

Not that I said anything about the first two species of life cross breeding (let me look.... nope never said that), but I'd love to see that mathematical proof you have. Please post.

So to recap

1) We aren't talking about the first to species

2) Differentiate is not a synonym of crossbreed

3) I'm waiting for your mathematical proof that shows what I never said is mathematically impossible

[ndt]

"Scientists wrong yet again..."

Except that the discovery was made by scientists so the title would be "Scientists make yet another discovery" or maybe "Scientists 186,282 creationists 0"

[John Valentine]

The facts of the article fully support what one would expect in a specially created world..

This is so amazingly stupid that no reply I could make is fully up to the task.

I would only point out that ANY cobbled together "facts of the article" or ANY science fiction, ANY fantasy from "Lord of the Rings" to "The Courts of Amber", or indeed ANY description of ANY world or worlds with ANY conditions unlimited by anything but imagination could be expected in a specially created world.

[MacDorcha]

More-

http://www.casperstartribune.net/articles/2007/07/22/news/r
egional/b5e31a410ba6d7418725731e0070435f.txt

Yahoo news search reveals about 84 related articles. (Search term: “dinosaurs” “lived” “together”

[MacDorcha]

http://www.casperstartribune.net/articles/2007/07/22/news/regional/b5e31a410ba6d7418725731e0070435f.txt

How did that happen???

[vpintheak]

Amazing, the more things change the more they stay the same. We humans still don’t know anything, while many, mostly the secular darwinist humanists claim they know almost everything. When something arises to challenge their thinking, you get a whole lot of packpeddling. Meanwhile, there has yet to be any proof that the Bible has been wrong on anything, end of story.

[taxesareforever]

Instead, the two types of animals lived side-by-side and competed for resources for millions of years.

Probably went shopping together for alligator shoes. They must have had "Smart Growth" back then too. Didn't want dinosaur sprawl.

[SunkenCiv]

Dinosaurs’ Rise Was Slow, Not “Lucky Break,” New Fossils Suggest
National Geographic News | July 19, 2007 | Susan Brown
Posted on 07/20/2007 4:20:19 AM EDT by indcons
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1868851/posts

[SunkenCiv]

Just adding this to the GGG catalog, not sending a general distribution.

To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. Thanks.

Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on or off the
"Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list or GGG weekly digest
-- Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)

[John Valentine]

Meanwhile, there has yet to be any proof that the Bible has been wrong on anything, end of story.

Well, I may or may not be a "secular darwinist," I don't know what that is, but I know there are a lot more things I don't know besides that.

But one of the things I DO know is that you wouldn't be persuaded that your statement as reproduced above is wrong, even if you were given locked-down, no-questions, bomb-resistant, angel-endorsed, carved-in-stone-by-bolts-of-lightning proof. Which I am sure there is.

The Bible has never been literally true. It's more like poetry. And that's the end of MY story.

[coincheck]

Evolution is an impossibility, when will science give up trying to prove something that, no matter how much time is given, did not happen, period.

The probability that a single celled life form even started on its own is about 1:10 to the 40,000th power. Anything at or above 1:10 to the 50th power is no chance at all. Even given all the time and concessions science wants to give to evolution, at best the probability is 1:10 to the 132nd power, still an impossibility.

Then to suggest that a human evolved, the probability is 1:10 to the 1,000,000,000,000th power. Again, impossible. Evolution is just a Theory with no evidence to back it up.

It is science that can not change when its religious dogma to evolution can not be supported, either by the fossle record or existing life.

Its time to get over this evolution fairy tale.

[SaltyJoe]

You two are both wrong.

It was the aliens that are messing with us. They turned the nearest generation of dinosaurs into paleontologist that dig up old bones. That’s why there are two sets of bones there.

[ari-freedom]

Well, there’s one thing evolution is good for. Without it, we wouldn’t have all these sci fi books and movies about all these aliens from outer space. Comic books wouldn’t be the same without all those mutant superheroes. Evolution may be an unfalsifiable conjecture that doesn’t make much sense but it makes for some great entertainment!

[ari-freedom]

The more time you have, the more chances things will get worse, not better. The con game is in thinking that you can come up with everything you need with an idea that deals with tiny undetectable changes over unobserved ridiculously long amounts of time.

or in other words...The Darwin business plan:
1) start with a penny
2) wait a few billion years
3) ???
4) profit!