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Newfound Dinosaur a Transitional Creature
Las Vegas Sun (AP) ^ | May 04, 2005 | Malcolm Ritter

Posted on 05/04/2005 12:32:23 PM PDT by 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.

(Excerpt) Read more at lasvegassun.com ...


TOPICS: Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: crevolist; dinosaurs; evolution; godsgravesglyphs; paleontology; transitionalfossil
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To: MeanWestTexan
Johnny, my point was that the cockroach has had very little evolutionary pressure to change (much).

Actually, what we should see is the cockroach being the common ancestor to a bunch of critters. Has anyone tried to construct a descent tree back to the living cockroach?

721 posted on 05/09/2005 1:39:29 PM PDT by frgoff
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To: Dimensio
"I ... am ... a ... bi-sexual ... sissy fag ... and ... I ... have ... committed ... child ... abuse." Hosepipe said that.

Creationist Quote Science is so much fun, I don't see why we can't argue everything that way.

722 posted on 05/09/2005 1:39:57 PM PDT by VadeRetro (Liberalism is a cancer on society. Creationism is a cancer on conservatism.)
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To: hosepipe
Your ranting hyperbole does nothing to justify Matchett-PI's blatant lying. You can try to change the subject all you like, but the fact is that Matchett-PI lied blatantly, and you're trying to defend his lie.

Not surprising, given that you also are a known liar.
723 posted on 05/09/2005 1:40:08 PM PDT by Dimensio (http://angryflower.com/bobsqu.gif <-- required reading before you use your next apostrophe!)
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To: MEGoody
LOL This phrase cracks me up. How can one 'catch' something in the act of evolution if evolution is about small changes at the DNA level over long periods of time?

For the same reason we can see stars at all stages of their lives even though individual stars take billions of years to complete their life cycle.

For the same reason I can take a photograph at Disneyworld and see a human being in every stage of life, even though birth to death takes, on average, 75 years.

In statistics, it's called population sampling, and is commonly used when you want to study a steady state process. Time reduces to a percentage rate of change in the equations.

So, it shouldn't matter that evolution takes a billion years, if the sample is large enough, I should see dozens, hundreds, thousands, millions of examples occurring at the moment the sample is taken.

724 posted on 05/09/2005 1:42:38 PM PDT by frgoff
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To: Dimensio
I believe the technique in question is often referred to as "Dowdification" in honor(sic) of the NY Times columnist who manufactures audacious examples, but when caught never retracts, corrects, or admits error.
725 posted on 05/09/2005 1:43:39 PM PDT by Gumlegs
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To: Dimensio
[ "I ... am ... a ... bi-sexual ... sissy fag ... and ... I ... have ... committed ... child ... abuse." ]

Strawman I see.. You could use a brain.. but OZ is a fabrication also..
You going from tinman to strawman to cowardly Lion is cute..
and effectivly evades my question/statement.. unless I pose it again..
AND DO...

726 posted on 05/09/2005 1:44:29 PM PDT by hosepipe (This Propaganda has been edited to include not a small amount of Hyperbole..)
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To: frgoff

"Actually, what we should see is the cockroach being the common ancestor to a bunch of critters"

I don't think that is necessarily correct.

The cockroach has hit upon such a good design that --- with little modification ---- it almost always has a niche.

Hence, few braches off the family tree (unless one considers the 4-6 inch nastiness in Brazil and the 1/4 inch nastiness from Germany completely different beasties).


727 posted on 05/09/2005 1:48:15 PM PDT by MeanWestTexan
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To: hosepipe
Strawman I see..

Strawman? Do you even know what that means?

I posted an accurate quote from you, and the best response that you have is "strawman"?

You're the bottom of the creationist barrel. At least others try to make sense, even if they lie blatantly.
728 posted on 05/09/2005 1:51:59 PM PDT by Dimensio (http://angryflower.com/bobsqu.gif <-- required reading before you use your next apostrophe!)
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To: js1138
Stupidity and ignornance do not honor your beliefs.

Look. At some point it has to happen. If you have a dino that has flat teeth and all its ancestors had pointy teeth, then at some point in time, a baby dino was born with flat teeth.

We don't see piles of bones with dinos have less pointy and more flat teeth in a gradual change over eons, we see pointy teethed dinos, then, woah, two layers up we see the same dinos with flat teeth.

This is what people mean when they say the critters appear fully formed. The minute changes over time you keep mentioning don't exist.

We don't see that anywhere.

This is why puncutated equilibrium is back in vogue.

And so, yes, at some point we should see a salamander born who has a major morphological shift from it's parents (an exoskeleton for example).

You can't just keep saying minute changes too small to see that eventually lead to a major morphological change. You are simply rephrasing Zeno's Paradox, and that was solved a long time ago through the discovery of limits in mathematics.

729 posted on 05/09/2005 1:54:22 PM PDT by frgoff
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To: narby
It has a shape like a cedar tree.

You're stretching, here. It's obvious the distinguishing characteristic of the Cedar tree is its size, not its shape. The normal inference to anyone painting the analogy would be size.

If I were to say a tail like a Redwood, there's no way you would think I was describing something straight and red with a green tuft at the end. You'd immediately visualize something massive and huge.

730 posted on 05/09/2005 1:58:33 PM PDT by frgoff
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To: Dimensio
For the 1720th time, give it up!

Just my wildly elliptical sense of humor.

731 posted on 05/09/2005 1:58:46 PM PDT by Gumlegs
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To: frgoff
We don't see piles of bones with dinos have less pointy and more flat teeth in a gradual change over eons, we see pointy teethed dinos, then, woah, two layers up we see the same dinos with flat teeth.

And what percentage of dinosaurs that lived and have been found as fossils.

This is not a cheap evasion. How many fossil dinosaurs have been found, and how many dinosaurs lived?

When you do find fossils, you tend to find a lot. Chances are they were preserved at almost the same time by some flukey conditions. Oddly enough, they all seem to belong to the same era.

You fail to mention two things. Fossils never appear out of their expected sequence, and new ones are found every year that fill expected gaps.

732 posted on 05/09/2005 2:02:09 PM PDT by js1138 (e unum pluribus)
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To: Dimensio
[ Strawman? Do you even know what that means? I posted an accurate quote from you, and the best response that you have is "strawman"? ]

Yes I do...
another diversion I see...

Strawman.. = a man made out of straw..
Like Darwin was a man made out of straw.. pre-Bull Sperm..
Bulls like it though..

733 posted on 05/09/2005 2:08:53 PM PDT by hosepipe (This Propaganda has been edited to include not a small amount of Hyperbole..)
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To: hosepipe

Okay, you're a complete idiot in addition to being a liar. I'm through with you.


734 posted on 05/09/2005 2:09:58 PM PDT by Dimensio (http://angryflower.com/bobsqu.gif <-- required reading before you use your next apostrophe!)
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To: Dimensio
[ Strawman? Do you even know what that means? I posted an accurate quote from you, and the best response that you have is "strawman"? ]

Yes I do...
another diversion I see...

Strawman.. = a man made out of straw..
Like Darwin was a man made out of straw.. pre-Bull Sperm..
Bulls like it though..

735 posted on 05/09/2005 2:10:11 PM PDT by hosepipe (This Propaganda has been edited to include not a small amount of Hyperbole..)
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To: Dimensio
[ Okay, you're a complete idiot in addition to being a liar. I'm through with you. ]

Ditto... except I'm NOT through with you...

736 posted on 05/09/2005 2:12:50 PM PDT by hosepipe (This Propaganda has been edited to include not a small amount of Hyperbole..)
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To: js1138
You operate on the assumption that I dispute every aspect of evolution. You assume I maintain the theory must be completely scrapped. You assume a lot of things not warranted by the evidence. The interesting thing about a falsifiable theory is that I don't have to falsify all of it. To paraphrase Einstein on his Theory of Relativity, failure to meet ANY predictions of the theory is failure of the entire theory. There was an earlier link in this thread where a noted expert in the field stated that his statistical analysis of the existing fossil record is sufficient to spot all the trends out there. And the minute changes discussed should be occurring across the entire fossil record. If you are maintaining that the fossil record does not preserve sufficiently well to find evidence for minute changes over time, then the record cannot be used as prove of evolution.

You fail to mention two things. Fossils never appear out of their expected sequence, and new ones are found every year that fill expected gaps.

And you fail to mention that fossils are often dated according to where they would fill a plug in the sequence.

Fossil dating is an imprecise science at best. Strata dating is not always reliable, radioactive dating has its own issues.

More often than not it comes down to something like: We're pretty sure the critter is here, but it could also be here. Which one fits the evolutionary sequence? B? OK. That's probably the correct date, then.

You also failed to mention that every year, fossils are found that do not fit the expected sequence. How many times now has hominid history been revised back because of new fossil finds?

It's not quite as clear cut as you maintain.

737 posted on 05/09/2005 2:13:25 PM PDT by frgoff
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To: hosepipe
J.T. Barnum recounts.. "a sucker is born every minute"

You realize, of course, that quote is falsely attributed to P.T. Barnum. He didn't say that.

738 posted on 05/09/2005 2:21:10 PM PDT by Liberal Classic (No better friend, no worse enemy. Semper Fi.)
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To: Liberal Classic
Yeah, but maybe J. T. Barnum did.

Interestingly, it's not well known that a major scientific undertaking in the early to middle years of the 19th century was isolating the sucker reproduction rate.

739 posted on 05/09/2005 2:32:25 PM PDT by Gumlegs
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To: frgoff
It's obvious the distinguishing characteristic of the Cedar tree is its size, not its shape.

True, except that is the single characteristic, out of several, that points to "dinosaur" rather than "hippo".

The Occam's razor answer is that it's a hippo, as there are no other references in the Bible to dinosaurs. There were none alive during the era encompassed by Biblical stories. And peoples of the middle east had no archaeological knowledge to base such a story upon. But they DID have knowledge of the hippo.

It's a hippo.

740 posted on 05/09/2005 3:22:48 PM PDT by narby
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