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.

[Aric2000]

You're a lawyer? Man, I am never talking to you again!! ;)

[PatrickHenry]

The scientific evidence existed first, so without science, and the scientific evidence that came from it, there would be NO theory of evolution. So no, without science, there would be no Theory of Evolution.

Without science, biology would consist of little more than a long list of a million or so unrelated species. (Ah, but if that were the situation, there would have been no Hitler.)

[CobaltBlue]

It's a rotten job but somebody's got to do it. ;^)

[DittoJed2]

Yep, Hitler was a Christian alright. If you have shown anything, its he was a theistic evolutionist, not a creationist. If you read his statements in Mein Kamph, they are clearly evolutionary in nature with an occasional "Our creator" thrown in. They speak of natural selection, survival of the fittest, all naturalistic evolutionary assumptions. Hitler was an evolutionist, was not Christian, and used evolutionary theory to justify genocide. Although it sinned in the beginning by not doing so, many in the German Christian church did stand against the Fuhrer and his insanity.

Some four thousand Protestant ministers, led by Karl Barth and Hans Asmussen, formed the Confessing Church, which at Barmen in 1934 declared that no human Fuhrer could stand above the Word of God. The Confessing Church lost its properties, its seminary was suppressed, its journals were prohibited, and when war came the members of its clergy of military age and not in prison were assigned to positions of greatest danger, while the older leaders were sent to concentration camps. Among them was Martin Niemoller, a Lutheran pastor who after more than half a year in solitary confinement was brought to trial under Hitler's law against "treacherous attacks upon state and party." His refusal to capitulate and his persistent resistance to Nazism made him the symbolic figure of the Protestant opposition until the downfall of the Nazis.4
4. Roland H. Bainton (Marshall B. Davidson, Editor) The Horizon History of Christianity (New York: American Heritage Publishing Co., Inc., 1964), p.390.

[js1138]

I am not dismissing science. I am dismissing evolution. You confuse the two and make the two sound inseparable. You could still have science without evolution. And, strangely, you could have evolution without science.

It is possible that some theory will replace evolution as currently understood, but biblical inerrancy plus literalism stands in opposition to most of science, and without science, evolution would never have been proposed.

[biblewonk]

I don't "believe" in evolution. I accept it as the best explanation for the diversity of life we see around us.

It's a mystical explaination or your origin. The "science" is beyond you but you pretend to understand it. What you atmit to not understanding you accept by faith. It can be theistic but doesn't have to be. It can neither be proven nor disproven. It is religion.

[Right Wing Professor]

I didn't start this Hitler stuff, but as long as some creationist was foolish to bring it up ... Actually, Hitler was a creationist:

Hitler was a creationist, Hitler was an evolutionist, Hitler was whatever it was convenient to be at that exact moment. That's the stupidity of this argument. People who really, really want to exterminate another race of people use whatever tools are easily available at the time, be they Darwinism, Christianity, Shintoism, Islam or whatever. Trying to infer anything but expediency from this betrays a sad lack of histrorical knowledge, or an extreme tendentiousness.

[Da_Shrimp]

Define hot

Werrrlll..hotter than we're used to in these Isles, try 30/90+. Nowt to what you're used to I daresay!

[PatrickHenry]

Hitler was a creationist, Hitler was an evolutionist, Hitler was whatever it was convenient to be at that exact moment.

Bingo. So why, oh why, do creationists continue to raise such a stupid argument? Oh ... I've answered my own question.

[DittoJed2]

He wasn't a creationist. He may have somehow weirdly believed that the Creator set forward evolution as many Christians do today, but he wasn't a Creationist. And, he wasn't Christian.

If you have studied Nazi Germany, Hitler used Christianity as a propaganda tool, was raised in the R.C. church, but gave no deference to Christ at all. I don't even think that Jesus is mentioned in Mein Kampf. Could be wrong. But I don't think so.

[Aric2000]

And the stupidity continues....

Such willful ignorance is beyond my ability to comprehend.

[Right Wing Professor]

He wasn't a creationist. He may have somehow weirdly believed that the Creator set forward evolution as many Christians do today, but he wasn't a Creationist. And, he wasn't Christian.

See post 2735.

Hitler used Christianity as a propaganda tool

He used evolution as a propaganda tool also.

[whattajoke]

Again, I did not call Evolutionists Nazis. I simply said the Nazis were evolutionists.

And we are saying your "logic" is absurd. OBL is a religionist. Tim McVeigh was a member of the US Military and a christian. The KKK were christians. Anyone can play your game, which is devoid of credibility.

[DittoJed2]

I am being on "Virtual Ignore" because I dared to say that the Nazi Hitler was an Evolutionist. Yet I can be subjected to all sorts of personal attacks such as the one's by Aric and nobody says a blasted thing. It seems like most of "the willing" are just a bunch of blustering hypocrites who only like to hear themselves talk and major on belittling those who disagree with them. Lurkers can re-read these threads and see if I do or do not speak the truth. As for me, this thread is now on VIRTUAL IGNORE until another day. You all are like arguing with a wall. And, my points have been adequately made- so I will let them rest.

[Doctor Stochastic]

106 Proof?

[PatrickHenry]

He used evolution as a propaganda tool also.

No, no. That was real. A creationist knows these things.

[Aric2000]

She complains about talking to a wall?

never mind......

Such willful ignorance, and not understanding a word that WE said.

Then complaining about us attacking her with the same type of stupidity.

Can give it real well, but when she is asked to take it, she picks up her ball and goes home.

[Alamo-Girl]

Truly, I wasn’t going to post another word on this Hitler/Nazi stuff – but I am compelled.

Flame wars are the only thing which can possibly result from such irrelevant assertions as “Hitler was an evolutionist” or “Jim Jones was a Christian.”

True or false doesn’t matter. They mean nothing – nada – zilch. All such statements can do is create harmful resentment.

Please stop fueling the argument!

[Junior]

Where did the rules for democracy come from in Scandinavian countries?

Ancient Greece?

[Doctor Stochastic]

Maybe directly from the Norns. The Athling dates back to 960 or earlier. Of course, the Pagan Greeks had democracies dating back to the -300 or so.