New Dinosaur Species Found in India

AP ^ | August 13, 2003 | RAMOLA TALWAR BADAM

[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.

[DittoJed2]

The theory "evolved" from the philosophies of a handful of men, most famously James Hutton, who was picked up by Lyell, who was picked up by Darwin. It is still an evolving theory.

[Doctor Stochastic]

From Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There

"I see nobody on the road," said Alice.

"I only wish I had such eyes," the King remarked in a fretful tone. "To be able to see Nobody! And at that distance too! Why, it's as much as I can do to see real people, by this light."

[bondserv]

However, given a constant speed of light, that age of the universe already gives contemporary creationist theory fits.

God stretched out the heavens when He created them, and for those still confused, He created man upon the earth, not, He created a single living cell that became man.

Isa 42:5
5 Thus saith God the LORD, he that created the heavens, and stretched them out;

Isa 45:12
12 I have made the earth, and created man upon it: I, even my hands, have stretched out the heavens, and all their host have I commanded.

And a warning!!!

Isa 51:12-13
12 I, even I, am he that comforteth you: who art thou, that thou shouldest be afraid of a man that shall die, and of the son of man which shall be made as grass;
13 And forgettest the LORD thy maker, that hath stretched forth the heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth;

[DittoJed2]

"Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have
sinned" (Romans 5:12).

[DittoJed2]

There is an intelligent and well thought out contribution to the discussion.

[AndrewC]

What he actually said was..drop it. Which I did.

[Virginia-American]

What I mean is that Mammoth or elephant fossils (or any modern mammals for that matter) are never found in the same strata as dinosaur bones.

It was this phenomenon, repeated many many times, that led to the discovery of the geologic column. For example, trilobites are never found in the same strata as plesiosaurs, mammals are never found in the same strata as Eryops (coal-age amphibian)

And so on and so on.

It is this perfectly regular ordering, which is the same worldwide, that needs a scientific explanation. Evolution provides such an explanation. I've never seen anything other thatn adhoc proposals from the anti-evo camp.

[Physicist]

The years are proposed periods of times. They were proposed by men who are fallible. Dating methods do not confirm them and circular reasoning is often used (we date the layers by the fossils and the fossils by the layers). It is hypothesis.

I'm sorry, but you're talking out of your hat. Nobody proposed that the Earth (or the universe) was billions of years old. There simply was no such hypothesis. Everybody "knew" that the Earth was under 30 million years old. When the geologists set out to measure (yes, measure) the age of the Earth, their prejudice, if any, lay towards that value. Their data told them that the Earth had to be far more ancient. The physicists scoffed...but ultimately data trumps theory. The geologists were correct.

Nowadays we have several completely independent methods of measuring both the age of the Earth and the age of the universe. The ages measured by these methods agree. The universe is 13.7 billion years old, and the Earth is 4.6 billion years old.

It is hard data that you are arguing against, very hard data.

[Aric2000]

Believing it, it's a fact of life there ditto, scientists looked at Behe's stuff and went, WHAT?

Scientist: Intelligent design? What the heck is that?

Scientist: OK, so who's the intelligent Designer?

Behe: Uh, just something or someone that designed us.

S: OK, then prove that the intelligent designer exists.

B: I can't.

S: OK, then prove that an intelligent designer doesn't exist.

B: I can't do that either.

S: Then it's not scientific, you cannot show evidence for the existence of an intelligent designer, and you cannot show evidence disproving the existence of an intelligent designer.

S: It cannot be falsified, until you can falsify it, then it is NOT science.

S: Prove that it is irreducibly complex.

B: Well, look at it.

S: What?

B: Look at it.

S: OK, what about it?

B: see this flegellum here, there is no way that this creature can exist without it.

S: OK, so what about it's simpler cousins.

B: Excuse me?

S: What about it's similar cousins that do not have this flegellum?

B: What about them?

S: Do they survive without this flagellum?

B: Well, yes.

S: Then it's NOT irreducibly complex.


There ya go, a conversation between a REAL scientist and Behe.

Thanks for playing.

[Aric2000]

There is an intelligent and well thought out contribution to the discussion


Yes, it was....

OMG we AGREE!! Wow, what a concept!!

[Doctor Stochastic]

There are other objections. Changing velocity of light would cause chromatic aberration through dust fields. The Po halos in crystals would be fuzzy (differently if there were speeding or slowing) rather than sharp.

[Aric2000]

For the reason that I stated in another post just above this one.

I learn a lot of interesting stuff, stuff you can't learn in school.

I post something and they will correct me if I am wrong, if they don't correct me, I know that I have learned something, if they do correct me, then I learn something new.

I don't care about convincing or not convincing a creo, I just do it to learn this stuff from the people that are actually doing it, or have studied extensively.

This is better then college and it costs me a few hours a day and $5 a month.

A cheap education any way you look at it.

Yeah, it can get frustrating, because people with closed minds are always frustrating, but the stuff I learn from the people that respond to him, THAT'S what's important!!

[longshadow]

layman-readable placemarker

[RightWingNilla]

He is probably a theistic evolutionist that believes God created something, that he designed things the way they are meant to be.

Do you allow for the possiblity that God designed the universe to unfold in time the way He wished? IOW what we would call the laws of nature are His methods.

[DittoJed2]

The question is what evidence can be presented from either side of the argument. Can creationism predict and then test results? Can evolution?
The more I read, the more I believe, yes, creationism can predict and test results. For example, when a volanic eruption like Mt. St. Helens erupts, certain geological features such as stratification can be predicted to be seen. Petrification can be predicted under certain conditions (consistent with the flood) to occur very rapidly. Sedimentary layers also yield some interesting results http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/magazines/tj/docs/v3n1_sedexp.asp

On the flip side, Evolutionists often use dating methods that don't work with specimens of known age and expect us to believe they will work with objects of unknown age. The same object is tested to be several varying ages. Some objects have tested to be even older than the universe is supposed to be much less the earth(but since the authorities say 4.6 billion years then the younger date is assumed).

Here are some interesting articles on problems with the theory and its record. They aren't necessarily pertinent to this post, but I thought they were interesting because of the vast age of the one and the variance of scientific opinion on the other. Note: If the 95% is correct in article two, then it is conceivable that the "basking shark" from the Japanese boating expedition was actually a plesiosaur. I am not claiming that it was, just that genetic similarity does not equal macroevolution.

http://www.icr.org/pubs/imp/imp-224.htm

http://www.icr.org/headlines/humanchimpanzeedna.html

[editor-surveyor]

"Why?"

Because they are also running from God, but are unwilling to admit it to themselves. At least the atheists don't attempt to put up a front.

[DittoJed2]

Hard as a marshmallow. Take out the word "billion" and you get even more variation. Not necessarily all by young earth creationists.

http://www.revelationwebsite.co.uk/index1/menton/t1.htm

[Doctor Stochastic]

Having two (or more) time-like dimensions doesn't create a problem with causality. The metric in ordinary 4-space is dx^2 + dy^2 + dz^2 -dt^2 if one is in a reference frame where the metric is diagonal (not moving too quickly works in most cases.) (dx means a difference in the x-coordinate, etc.) In moving frames (according to Einstein and Lorentz) one would have a quadratic form (dx,dy,dz,dt)^2(transpose)A(dx,dy,xz,dt) where A is a matrix with 3 non-negative eigenvalues and 1-non positive eigenvalue. If the metric is positive, the distance is space-like, if negative, time-like. Space-like separations are not causally connected. (In the sense of cause effeciens.)

A 5-dimensional metric would just be dx^2 + dy^2 + dz^2 - dt^2 - dw^2 (where w is the other time-like coordinate.) A positive distance is still space like and a negative distance timelike.

The real reason for (mostly) ignoring these models is that so far, they don't predict things actually observed.

Something I have thought about (but can't find in the literature) is the problem of how to do a Minkowskiation of the metric with two time coordinates. For example, normally one just uses, the coordinates (x,y,z,it) with i^2=-1. This works fine with one time coordinate. Using two corrdinates one may suggest (x,y,z,it,jw) where j^2=-1 too. Using iw would make the time coordinated indistinguishable. Now there is an algebraic problem; what is i*j? Hamilton (mid 1800s) discovered that there must be another term (k) where k^2=-1 and to be consistent, ij=k. I'm not sure this has physical meaning, but there seems to be a reason to think that having two time-like dimensions implies three such.

One may have to write out a complete Clifford algebra to make sense of this. Still, the predicted consequences aren't so far observed.

[DittoJed2]

I don't have to allow for God to do anything. He said how He did it. I could theoretically allow for a gap in time between Genesis 1:1-1:2, but that gap is really meaningless to any discussion of origins.

[Doctor Stochastic]

I've attended one of Behe's presentations on ID. Behe may or may not be a joke, but his presentation was.