Newfound Dinosaur a Transitional Creature

Las Vegas Sun (AP) ^ | May 04, 2005 | Malcolm Ritter

[MeanWestTexan]

Caught in the act of evolution, the odd-looking, feathered dinosaur was becoming more vegetarian, moving away from its meat-eating ancestors.

It had the built-for-speed legs of meat-eaters, but was developing the bigger belly of plant-eaters. It had already lost the serrated teeth needed for tearing flesh. Those were replaced with the smaller, duller vegetarian variety.

[Elsie]

Well... it is.... a.....


FLAMIN' CARROT!

[VadeRetro]

Because I have a lot of unanswered questions.

You wish to bludgeon with your cultivated-to-massive-proportions ignorance. Bludgeon away. It's nice to find a creationist who admits he doesn't know what he's been talking about for the past several years.

[Elsie]

The fact is that one or the other of us is following pure, unadulterated, BS.

Only TWO choices?

[Aquinasfan]

And that's the "Tah-Dah!" proof that horses have always been horses!!!???" What do they put in your communion wine?

You make a powerful scientific argument.

Being questioned by religious crazies is annoying, isn't it?

[Dataman]

Actually all fakes are found by evolutionists because creationists do no field work. (They don't find real fossils either.)

You aren't usually given to such blatant falsehoods. Or was it simply a case of not knowing what you are talking about? Either way, here is a refutation. Of course there are many others doing field work like Dr. Robert Gentry, but their work is rejected without examination by the "open-minded" evo types who must protect their fabrication at all costs.

[Elsie]

Are we all the same scale??

[Elsie]

Bye for now folks; I've got WORK to do!

[js1138]

I understand I can do better, but I also hold that balrog shouldn't be allowed to act like he does and get away with it.

Perhaps you would care to explain why ID proponents never, ever criticise creationists when they repeat the same lies and absurdities, thread after thread.

1. Fossils are fake. Piltdown is typical. (setting aside the question of how a creationist would know it is fake)
2. The deposits from Mt. St. Helens are equivalent to the strata exposed in the Grand Canyon.
3. No one has ever observed evolution.
4. The speed of light and rate of radioactive decay change significantly over historical time.
5. Carbon 14 dating methods can be applied to rocks.

There are lots more wherre these came from.

I am also curious why creationists almost never criticise ID proponents for denying God as the Designer. I mean, who designed Magrathia?

[general_re]

Nothing wrong with skepticism - asking questions is how we find answers, after all. Unfortunately, most of us don't have much time to become full-blown experts in everything, so what can we do but listen to the experts?

[metacognative]

You're probably one of those people who think cells are just complicated crystals.

[VadeRetro]

Are we all the same scale??

Hate to admit it, but yours is bigger than mine.

Are a housecat and Siberian tiger the same scale?

[general_re]

Kent is a liar; therefore all crevo's are liars....

If you say so. I'm not sure I'd sign up for that reasoning myself. Anyway, regardless of what it says about his friends, it's pretty hard to avoid the conclusion that Kent is a liar. And he cheats on his taxes.

[VadeRetro]

You make a powerful scientific argument.

You just posted a detailed desciption of horse evolution from hyracotherium to equus as an intricate, branching tree with numerous local trends in response to situational pressures here, there, and then. That's a good argument, but not for what you were doing with it.

I've noticed that a lot, lately. You guys don't even look at the stuff you grab to throw at us. At any rate, you don't know what it means.

[js1138]

I used to wonder how the old USSR could have lasted so long until I realized that Western Europe propped them up for years, primarily out of fear, but also out of yearning for the "perfect socialistic state".

Leftists admired Stalin for the same reason they still admire Castro. Something about making the trains run on time, or perhaps universal health care.

I can't help but suspect that when Leftists think about socialism they envision themselves (and their children) as part of the ruling elite.

Right-wingers also have fantasies -- mostly about being successful entrepreneurs -- but these do not involve the use of force against others.

[MacDorcha]

"I am also curious why creationists almost never criticise ID proponents for denying God as the Designer."

Maybe because IDists and Creationists recognize that putting a name on a creator (or religion, in Creationist standards) is inconsequential to the arguement.

---

"Perhaps you would care to explain why ID proponents never, ever criticise creationists when they repeat the same lies and absurdities, thread after thread."

I can't speak for everybody, but my reasoning is that I come from a creationist background. The fact that I am in an IDist mindset is a step forward for me, that I hope to open other creationists to.

IOW, I try to remain diplomatic with them. Evolutionists are just more fun to debate with anyway! :)

(And just so we are clear, I DO argue against strict creationists on occasion. I just typically do it in freepmail due to the nature of things like "convictions" and "faith")

[metacognative]

I think there's a lot to be learned about the role of viruses in genetics. This post reminds me a lot of the claims of "junk" DNA" that did not pan out.
Why don't you restate what you think this proves?

[js1138]

Is it a transitional creature or a fully formed and functional creature?

I'm genuinely curious why you think these are different or incompatible concepts.

[metacognative]

I only believe in possible miracles, not impossible magic like darwinite something for nothing.

[js1138]

When I walk, am I not fully formed and functional or just not fully located?

It depends on whether your legs have evolved to be long enough to reach the ground, or whether they are transitional.

[doc30]

If evolution is true, there is no such thing as a "species" as every creature is a variation of the same thing. Basically, every creature becomes transitional. Speciation becomes nothing more than a man-made convention intended to categorize everything he sees into nice, neat, organized packages.

That's exactly right. Creationists like to get caught up in the definitions of words rather than looking at the scientific findings. They throw out observation when it doesn't agree with the classical definitions used in scientific vocabulary. It's like a hypocrisy game - the scientists are wrong when things don't fit their nice, neat definitions. They don't understand that those words are our descriptions for things, and have a human origin. Those descriptions change as we learn more.

If you really want to get a biblical literalist upset, ask them about the Bible. Ask them how can it be infallible when, according to scripture, man is imperfect and everything man does is tainted by original sin and no work done by man, in the eyes of God, is 'good'. Hence the need for salvation through Grace rather than through acts.