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New Dinosaur Species Found in India
AP ^ | August 13, 2003 | RAMOLA TALWAR BADAM

Posted on 08/13/2003 9:02:05 PM PDT by nwrep

New Dinosaur Species Found in India
2 hours, 55 minutes ago
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By RAMOLA TALWAR BADAM, Associated Press Writer

BOMBAY, India - U.S. and Indian scientists said Wednesday they have discovered a new carnivorous dinosaur species in India after finding bones in the western part of the country.

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The new dinosaur species was named Rajasaurus narmadensis, or "Regal reptile from the Narmada," after the Narmada River region where the bones were found.

The dinosaurs were between 25-30 feet long, had a horn above their skulls, were relatively heavy and walked on two legs, scientists said. They preyed on long-necked herbivorous dinosaurs on the Indian subcontinent during the Cretaceous Period at the end of the dinosaur age, 65 million years ago.

"It's fabulous to be able to see this dinosaur which lived as the age of dinosaurs came to a close," said Paul Sereno, a paleontologist at the University of Chicago. "It was a significant predator that was related to species on continental Africa, Madagascar and South America."

Working with Indian scientists, Sereno and paleontologist Jeff Wilson of the University of Michigan reconstructed the dinosaur skull in a project funded partly by the National Geographic (news - web sites) Society.

A model of the assembled skull was presented Wednesday by the American scientists to their counterparts from Punjab University in northern India and the Geological Survey of India during a Bombay news conference.

Scientists said they hope the discovery will help explain the extinction of the dinosaurs and the shifting of the continents — how India separated from Africa, Madagascar, Australia and Antarctica and collided with Asia.

The dinosaur bones were discovered during the past 18 years by Indian scientists Suresh Srivastava of the Geological Survey of India and Ashok Sahni, a paleontologist at Punjab University.

When the bones were examined, "we realized we had a partial skeleton of an undiscovered species," Sereno said.

The scientists said they believe the Rajasaurus roamed the Southern Hemisphere land masses of present-day Madagascar, Africa and South America.

"People don't realize dinosaurs are the only large-bodied animal that lived, evolved and died at a time when all continents were united," Sereno said.

The cause of the dinosaurs' extinction is still debated by scientists. The Rajasaurus discovery may provide crucial clues, Sereno said.

India has seen quite a few paleontological discoveries recently.

In 1997, villagers discovered about 300 fossilized dinosaur eggs in Pisdura, 440 miles northeast of Bombay, that Indian scientists said were laid by four-legged, long-necked vegetarian creatures.

Indian scientists said the dinosaur embryos in the eggs may have suffocated during volcanic eruptions.


TOPICS: Front Page News; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: acanthostega; antarctica; australia; catastrophism; crevolist; dino; dinosaurs; godsgravesglyphs; ichthyostega; india; madagascar; narmadabasin; narmadensis; paleontology; rajasaurus; rino
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To: Junior
Evidence that humans and dragons existed at the same time:
1. stories of humans interacting with such beasts proliferate throughout all cultures on the earth - from China to Europe and to Americas.
2. The Komodo Dragon can grow up to 20 feet in length, it runs faster than any human, can swim and climb trees and its mouth filled with razor sharp shark like teeth are armed with poisonous saliva - there is evidence these creatures existed elsewhere besides these islands but were killed off by humans.
3. There are writings about such creatures that go back over 4,000 years ago
1,821 posted on 08/21/2003 8:45:14 AM PDT by kkindt (knightforhire.com)
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To: Porterville
Yes, it's called a hoatzin; and only young birds have the claws. Try to keep up.
1,822 posted on 08/21/2003 8:45:18 AM PDT by Right Wing Professor
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To: Alamo-Girl
You are very welcome!
And thanks for the link.
Have a great day!
~MM
1,823 posted on 08/21/2003 8:49:53 AM PDT by Michael_Michaelangelo
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To: kkindt
Many of the writings and legends can be attributed to the finding of dinosaur bones (the ancients had no way of knowing when the animal lived). Indeed, the legend of the griffon can be traced directly to the discovery of protoceratops remains in the far east. Also, you have the phenomenon of "traveller's tales." If you take all legends at face value, there were giant gold-mining ants in the Middle East and Africa was populated by dog-faced men [1], men without heads, men with only one leg, etc.

BTW, kimodo dragons are not dinosaurs. They are reptiles (complete with the splay-legged stance and commensurate senuous gait -- unlike the straight stance of dinosaurs, birds and mammals).

[1] Probably a twisting of recounts of baboons and Egyptian wall paintings of their gods.

1,824 posted on 08/21/2003 8:53:41 AM PDT by Junior (Killed a six pack ... just to watch it die.)
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To: PatrickHenry
Thank you so much for your post!

Indeed, there have been no attempts to kindle these last few days. Even so, it takes two to make a flame war and with the current mood, I truly believe any such kindling would have been met with ice.

Hugs!!!

1,825 posted on 08/21/2003 8:53:49 AM PDT by Alamo-Girl
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To: Michael_Michaelangelo
You're quite welcome, M_M! I'm wishing you a great day also. Hugs!
1,826 posted on 08/21/2003 8:55:07 AM PDT by Alamo-Girl
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To: Alamo-Girl
Is this like the longest post on FR? 1826 and counting...
1,827 posted on 08/21/2003 8:55:26 AM PDT by Cronos (Reagan waz best, but Dubya's close!)
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To: Cronos
Thank you for your post and the question!

No, this is not close to the largest. I'm thinking the largest might be the Christian Chronicles in the Religion forum. Right now it is at 940 posts, but the previous thread was in 5 digits, 65535 to be exact. big thread

1,828 posted on 08/21/2003 9:01:00 AM PDT by Alamo-Girl
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To: PatrickHenry
mulled placemarker
1,829 posted on 08/21/2003 9:02:22 AM PDT by longshadow
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To: Cronos
The Hobbit Hole III topped out the system at 65535...
1,830 posted on 08/21/2003 9:02:40 AM PDT by null and void
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To: DittoJed2
http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/1357.asp This is about embryonic thumbs. I remembered it wrong as relating to Archie, but not as to dino-bird transitions.

The bad news is that Feduccia has since discovered that ostrich embryos do develop the thumb by about day 14 but lose it on about day 17. Your AiG article is from 1998. Here's a Feduccia press release from 2002 with the finding of the in-and-out thumb, "the first concrete evidence" of such in birds.

And what would be the point of getting a structure only to lose it? Why does the designer find it necessary to fool around with embryos recapitulating the history of their species development?

If I say "the bad news," there must be "the good news," right? The good news is that the controversy rages on which Feduccia raised about the digit numbers being different between fossil dinos and modern ostriches. An ABC article on the topic.

If Feduccia's right, the correspondence of claws I pointed out in post 1745 is a freaky convergence after an earlier divergence. Freaky because it converged so well you wouldn't know bird claws and dino claws are not as related as they look. That ball's still in play, but there's a lot of evidence the other way.

1,831 posted on 08/21/2003 9:04:56 AM PDT by VadeRetro
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To: Ichneumon
EXHIBIT A: Michael Behe:

The quotes I posted on Mr. Behe shows the level of disrespect he received on this forum. He postulated something that is unpopular with your camp and was called a joke, a member of a lonely little group (or however it was worded), and a person who puts forth presentations that are a joke. This was highly disrespectful of another member of the scientific community. I would not show this kind of disrespect towards Darwinists (even though Francis Crick's Directed Panspermia idea does strike me as desperately NUTS- I still would not say Crick himself were a joke, or belittle him based upon the number of other people who agree with him that seeds came here maybe on spaceships from other planets and made what we see today).

Exhibit B: Dr. David Menton
He is an example of creationist resources being ignorred. He wasn't attacked specifically, but his articles that were answers to certain posts were just glossed over.


Exhibit C: Dr. Damadian Responses regarding Dr. Damadian on this thread:
You implied that Damadian single-handedly invented the MRI. People pointed out that there was a lot of ongoing dispute about that. What does any of that have to do with evolution?


Give me a break! I answered a post by someone who wanted me to name one useful medical product that didn't come from the worldview that assumes man came from animals. Then I posted Dr. Damadian's MRI as a pretty significant example. Sanitize the conversation however you like, but the record will show that Damadian was a crank who basically has been using his money to try to convince folks that he came up with the technology first when in reality some other professor did so (making Damadian the apparent thief of intellectual property). When I posted a source stating that he was working on this technology 4 years prior to when the other fellow wrote the paper, and then posted further information stating he applied for a patent concerning MRI technology a year before the other guy's paper was written, received his patent the year after the paper was written and went on to build, apparently, the first MRI machine, I was told to provide proof that it was for IMAGING that his patent was for. Then, I went to the U.S. Patent office website and found that it was for an NMR Scanning device that the patent was for. I posted evidence that Damadian's claims have stood up to Supreme Court review verses the high powered attorneys at GE, and showed links from all over the place that he is considered the inventor. And yet, Damadian is still called a "big crank" and shown a childish level of disrespect on the thread. What it has to do with evolution is that it answers the post regarding useful medical equipment and shows that some people with a strong understanding of science indeed see a young earth as plausible.

Now, I post something from a website where the person does have some knowledge of science, but may not have the credentials you desire (i.e., he isn't an evolutionist), and you dismiss what he has to say as lacking authority.
*Where* have we allegedly done what you describe? Your above three examples don't fit your allegation.

How about in the post I was replying to. I posted a link from Scientists against Evolution and attacking the credentials of the website's author was a response I was given.

I don't know why I should bother posting ANYTHING to you all any more because if it is not evolutionist you aren't going to accept it.

We'll accept it if it makes a good case. If you think we have unfairly dismissed an actual argument or evidence, please point it out. But mentioning that Behe wrote a book, or that Damadian was involved in the the MRI, isn't an argument or evidence. And failure to address Menton's links is no kind of dismissal, it seems to have just gotten lost in the flood of posts and dozen+ links that were flying around. We can't address everything if there's too much to focus on, which is exactly why I suggested making a "project" out of selected items.

I have answered a great many posts singlehandedly. There are probably a dozen or so of you. You would think that my having mentioned Menton's work several times would have been noticed and picked up on by someone. Menton works with AIG and their work has been repeatedly groaned at and dismissed. AIG has several well qualified men working on their staff. Yet, because you don't like some of the things you have read, you may have found errors in others, you have had links posted to the stuff a lot, you seem to throw the baby out with the bath water. Menton (and others) are just as qualified to publish their assertions as evolutionists are- but for the lurker's ears, to correct the record, creationists are not just a group of unqualified, pseudoscientists. Many of them are very well qualified and experts on the material they are commenting upon.
1,832 posted on 08/21/2003 9:05:44 AM PDT by DittoJed2
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To: Porterville
Read the thread! 1745 might be a good start.
1,833 posted on 08/21/2003 9:09:48 AM PDT by VadeRetro
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To: Junior
BTW, kimodo dragons are not dinosaurs. They are reptiles (complete with the splay-legged stance and commensurate senuous gait -- unlike the straight stance of dinosaurs, birds and mammals).

Well, in fairness, they do at least walk with their bellies somewhat up off the ground. That's extremely rare in extant reptiles.

1,834 posted on 08/21/2003 9:12:05 AM PDT by VadeRetro
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To: null and void
65535

Ooh! Oooh! You ran out of unsigned 16-bit integers!

1,835 posted on 08/21/2003 9:14:01 AM PDT by VadeRetro
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To: balrog666
Exactly. Why they think a massive societal degradation to the ignorance, misery, and brutality of the dark ages is a good idea, is an enigma.


1,805 posted on 08/21/2003 7:49 AM PDT by balrog666 (Ignorance never settles a question. -Benjamin Disraeli)



fC ...


Evolution and society and politics ... personal intelligence too --- is the formula for disaster !

A bomb apes ... hi tech pop culture freaks of unnature --- ANTI science // nature!

1,836 posted on 08/21/2003 9:18:23 AM PDT by f.Christian (evolution vs intelligent design ... science3000 ... designeduniverse.com --- * architecture * !)
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To: Ichneumon
For those who are listening. If you want a list (that purports to be pretty accurate, and to my knowledge is darn close if not completely accurate) of those who doubt Darwinism (not all creationists mind you) then peruse the credentials of some of those found Here

Ahem. It's nice that you seem pretty confident of it, but I'm troubled by the fact that as I glanced down the list looking for names I recognized, the VERY FIRST one that jumped out at me was bogus. It was:

57. Dr. Colin Patterson (Senior Palaeontologist, British Museum of Natural History, London) as seen in his address to the American Museum of Natural History (Nov. 5, 1981).

This is a well-known example of dishonest quoting (2) (3) by creationists. Patterson was quoted out of context and then cited it to "show" that Patterson was "admitting" a lack of evidence for evolution. But when asked about the context of the quote, Patterson confirmed that he was not denying evolution and that "the creationists' [interpretation] is false".

Here's a quote from one of Patterson's books -- does this sound like an evolution-denier to you?

"In several animal and plant groups, enough fossils are known to bridge the wide gaps between existing types. In mammals, for example, the gap between horses, asses and zebras (genus Equus) and their closest living relatives, the rhinoceroses and tapirs, is filled by an extensive series of fossils extending back sixty-million years to a small animal, Hyracotherium, which can only be distinguished from the rhinoceros-tapir group by one or two horse-like details of the skull. There are many other examples of fossil 'missing links', such as Archaeopteryx, the Jurassic bird which links birds with dinosaurs (Fig. 45), and Ichthyostega, the late Devonian amphibian which links land vertebrates and the extinct choanate (having internal nostrils) fishes. . ."

That doesn't give me much confidence in the rest of the list, especially since the Patterson misquote was debunked in 1993. It also doesn't bode well that many creationist websites are still using it...

First, this is a list of 400 something names. You picked out one. The list admits to the possibility of being not 100% accurate, but I would also like to introduce you to two little words in the english dictionary:

doubt
Function: noun
Date: 13th century
1 a : uncertainty of belief or opinion that often interferes with decision-making b : a deliberate suspension of judgment
2 : a state of affairs giving rise to uncertainty, hesitation, or suspense
3 a : a lack of confidence : DISTRUST b : an inclination not to believe or accept


and
de·ny
Pronunciation: di-'nI, dE-
Function: transitive verb
Inflected Form(s): de·nied; de·ny·ing
Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French denier, from Latin denegare, from de- + negare to deny —more at NEGATE
Date: 14th century
1 : to declare untrue
2 : to disclaim connection with or responsibility for : DISAVOW
3 a : to give a negative answer to b : to refuse to grant c : to restrain (oneself) from gratification of desires
4 : archaic : DECLINE
5 : to refuse to accept the existence, truth, or validity of This does not mean that these people are creationists. Some are, many are not. But it does go to show that the science is less universally accepted than proposed.


There is a huge difference between these words. This list is, and was presented by me to be, a list of scientists who have "expressed doubt" concerning "Darwinian Evolution". It was nowhere implied that these folks are not evolutionists, or even Darwinians. They have all at one point or another in some tangible form expressed doubt of some sort about Darwinianism. That is all. The point of the list is to show that the jury is still out for many scientists and others(like Crick) feel it necessary to postulate another evolutionary model because the classical Darwinian/neo-Darwinian model does not work.

Funny how something I took great pains to be clear about was misrepresented in a post where the list is being castigated for allegedly misrepresenting a quote by one of its scientists (who, incidentally, in the current academic climate of folks who have been fired for teaching views other than evolution probably has suffient reason to protect his rear end from peer disdain).

A list of a few hundred people who have expressed some kind of question about evolution is hardly proof that it's widely rejected. And that web page is engaging in a huge straw man when it claims:
And did I say that it was??? I have admitted elsewhere on this thread that most scientists are evolutionists. My whole point of posting was to show that many scientists have doubts regarding the Darwinian model and many feel the whole theory needs to be re-evaluated. Did I say they are on the verge of jumping ship? NO. Such representations on your part regarding the posting of this list ignore the stated reasons for posting it as well as the list's author's stated reasons. NOWHERE does he claim this list is infallible and NOWHERE does he claim that these folks aren't evolutionists.

"The claim is often made that few or no legitimate scientists or academics have any real doubts about the validity of Darwinism, naturalistic theories of the origins of life, or believe in the real scientific possiblity of Intelligent Design of life or the universe."

Horse manure. No such overblown claim is "often made" that "few or no" scientists have doubts about evolution, etc. Everyone knows that there are quite a few such people. But they are still a small minority.

Lots of overgeneralizations here. Maybe this fellow has heard a lot of what he stated. You do not know that. Yet you claim to speak for "everyone" and say "no such overblown claim is often made". You simply do not know this, for you do not live in the man's shoes who posted the statement.

Finally, about two thirds of the Steves supporting evolution are biologists. Biologists are much farther and fewer between on the creationist list.
Don't know why you call it a creationist list. It is, if anything, an doubt Darwin list. It was never represented as anything else.
1,837 posted on 08/21/2003 9:27:31 AM PDT by DittoJed2
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To: Alamo-Girl
* hugs * if * hugs * you * hugs * wanted * hugs * to * hugs * have * hugs * a * hugs * shallow * hugs * * hugs * one * hugs * sided * hugs * debate * hugs * by * hugs * hypocrites * hugs * you * hugs * have * hugs * succeeded * hugs * immensely * hugs * via * hugs * what * hugs * you * hugs * have * hugs * done * hugs * revealed * hugs * here * hugs *
1,838 posted on 08/21/2003 9:30:22 AM PDT by f.Christian (evolution vs intelligent design ... science3000 ... designeduniverse.com --- * architecture * !)
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To: f.Christian
[De-hugged:] ... what you have done revealed here.

You Hawaiians talk funny. No doubt you mean "... what you done revealed here."

1,839 posted on 08/21/2003 9:34:35 AM PDT by VadeRetro
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To: DittoJed2
You mean this idiot who thought a comparison of modern bird feathers and shed snake scales would mean something about evolutionary trends 165 million years ago?

Question: Of course, evolutionists have long argued that feathers evolved from reptile scales and are thus fundamentally the same structure — very similar.

David Menton: Yes — so I became interested in comparing them myself. I had a laboratory technician at the time who had a ‘pet’ boa constrictor, so I took a look at some of its scales from shed skin. I was amused that they were, of course, not even the slightest bit similar to feathers, as these photographs show. The only similarity is that they are both made of the protein keratin — like hair, nails and our skin.


1,840 posted on 08/21/2003 9:36:38 AM PDT by balrog666 (Ignorance never settles a question. -Benjamin Disraeli)
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