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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.
So you're a Christian who believes in evolution?
Huh? What are you referring to?
I was there on your last thread. You yanked your pledge back and asked Jim to ban you. You also said some unpleasant things about Conservatism on this site.
Have you changed your mind? Did you apologize? Or did you just sneak back and get "outed"?
Nor I. Which brings an English joke to mind.
I think it was Lord Palmerston who was receiving the French ambassador. Trying to be friendly and break the ice, the Frenchman said: "You know, If I weren't a Frenchman, I would want to be an Englishman." Palmerston huffily responded: "And if I were not an Englishman, I should want to be an Englishman."
How did you manage the name change from concisetraveler?
Are you claiming to be the former Freeper know as goodseedhomeshool?
Then you have have no enemy in me. I'm a PROUD PATRIOTIC Englishman and I enjoy reading and posting to this site because it deal with a lot of things I believe in.
It's not goodseed. It's just another troll.
It must have some connection to a mod to get the name changed though.
This is a flawed argument. It is the same as the Catholic who invents hundreds of doctrines about Mary and says that just because the Bible doesn't say them doesn't mean that they aren't true. When the bible puts the rest of the universe at the feet of the earth regarding creation, that is all it needs to say. One must reject the whole 6 day creation and substitute some theistic evolution theory to allow any possiblity of importance to the rest of the universe.
Additionally, the quotation of the bible regarding God sending his only son to earth does not preclude life elsewhere. It only precludes that his son (human male child) has not been there - which would be entirely likely if some non-terran life form was not human, would it not? Even the verse from Genesis regarding man being created in the image of God doesn't mean life is terran only.
All I can think to say is that this is like saying, "So other than that, Mrs Lincoln, how was the show?". It is surreal.
Also, please understand I am not debating the validity of your beliefs, or the bible. I am debating your interpretations of inferences.
You are probably quite uncomfortable with the 6 day creation interpretation. Atleast, I assume this. There are certainly a lot of church goers who no longer believe this.
Thanks, that means more to me than I can say.
I don't think things are one-sided when we are forced to defind scientific conclusions. It is truely boring when the threads are clutttered up with side issues unrelated to the topics.
Indeed, it is a huge problem for science to define and keep a boundary with regard to metaphysics. If the line is drawn too firm, it leads to undesirable consequences of strong determinism. If it is drawn willy nilly, it leads to presumption and abuse.
Speaking of lines, there is a fine one between Intelligent Design and Theistic Evolution. I suspect that may be why ID is somewhat successful with parents and school boards.
ID has the potential of a much stronger argument than it has used so far. For instance, a measure of complexity was evidently developed and used by Dembski to speak of irreducible complexity. It was met with huge resistance. Yockey, on the other hand, used the widely accepted Shannon entropy to argue against abiogenesis. His views were taken seriously. Functional complexity was raised by Schützenberger. And other, non-ID scientists, are taking a hard look at the rise of autonomous self-organizing biological complexity through other methods, e.g. automata and Kolmogorov complexity/Solomonoff induction.
Even if they were to conclude that there is not enough time on the geological scale for the diversity of biological life to evolve in the order shown by the “tree of life” in the manner proposed by the theory of evolution - science will still want an explanation of the fossil record (tree,) and to get there, that explanation will of necessity point to the metaphysical.
That would open a floodgate of metaphysical explanations for phenomenon that science is loathe to entertain. Nevertheless, science is even now getting into the physics of consciousness and IMHO, will be compelled to move the metaphysical “line” at least somewhat.
For any Lurkers interested in more on my views of this subject: Evolution through the Back Door
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