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Posted on 08/13/2003 9:02:05 PM PDT by nwrep
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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.
What if their paper proves the other paper wrong. You just assumed it does not.
1,895 posted on 08/21/2003 1:09 PM CDT by DittoJed2
You know, if YOU can't read and understand either paper, why do believe either one at all? Or anything at all?
I'll bet real money it won't even acknowledge the other paper.
Errors in this sort of work tend to go one way; they tend to overestimate the diffusion constant. The reason is, if there are defects or cracks in the crystal, diffusion can proceed rapidly along the cracks or through the defects, and appear anomalously fast. The slowest diffusion will be in a nearly perfect crystal. I can't imagine how you could slow diffusion any further than that, at the same temperature. So, if two groups measure diffusion constants, and one is substantially smaller, I tend to believe the smaller value.
You just can't teach a pig to sing or some YE Creationists to think.
You are in the same family as an ape. A fish may not even be in the same order as another fish.
Do you understand why one is science and one is BS?
If not, on what basis do you evaluate them?
Yep, and I said the authors thought it was world shattering.
It seems to me that - sometimes - where scientists have bothered to read both sides of a scientific argument and form an independent view, they have been called "Intelligent Design" theorists - and thus end up being rejected out-of-hand by both sides. LOL!
It's the same nonsense we demolished about two months ago. It's based on the unfounded assumption that helium diffuses easily in zircons. It doesn't. A recent paper found a activation energy for helium diffusion of 44 kcal/mol., and a closure temperature of 190 C. (The closure temperature is the temperature below which diffusion is negligible). A zircon which has not been exposed to temperatures above 190C should retain its helium.Is this true? The last I had heard, Humphreys had defended himself against Joe Meert's claim that he had gotten the closure temperature horribly wrong. I hadn't heard about this 2002 paper you mention.He diffusion and (U-Th)/He thermochronometry of zircon: initial results from Fish Canyon Tuff and Gold Butte. Reiners, Peter W.; Farley, Kenneth A.; Hickes, Hunter J. Department of Geology, Washington State University, Pullman, WA, USA. Tectonophysics (2002), 349(1-4), 297-308.
Did I miss a thread somewhere? I thought this issue hadn't been resolved yet. I certainly haven't seen any resolution posted anywhere on the Net (that I have looked).
I certainly agree that talkorigins isn't neutral, but I do think they take an objective look at the evidence. In this, and in their lack of "quote mining" and such, I think they do a better job of being scientific than AiG. On the other hand, I give AiG credit for being upfront about their scriptural approach to these things.
Ah, we're making progress. Then tell me this: if the earth were as old as astronomy and geology tell us, would you then agree that there is no mechanism that could prevent micro-evolution from eventually resulting in macro-evolution?
But it'll never happen. I believe it was js1138 who pointed out that it takes decades to change a paradigm. All you can do is present the information and let the people who read everything draw their own conclusions.
Epistemological materialism is intended to keep science objective, but that leaves religion completely out of science which is repugnant to some in science who put faith first – and worse, epistemological materialism is embraced by metaphysical naturalists as authority to promote atheistic social agendas associated with it (everything from animal rights to infanticide) – thereby making it twice as repugnant. (BTW, I suggest we not "go there" in this discussion.)
My two cents...
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