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Author | Topic: Undermining long-held paradigms | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Archer Opteryx Member (Idle past 3628 days) Posts: 1811 From: East Asia Joined: |
I'm delighted to see something about Repenomamus robustus again. Exciting discovery!
BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Fierce mammal ate dinos for lunch n_j: What makes it particularly interesting is that according to virtually all evolutionary biologists, very small mammals barely eking out of existence, should have ever been contemporaneous with dinosaurs. The prevailing theory, obviously, having mammals made their rise to glory after a profound cataclymsic event caused the dinosaurs to go extinct, allowing for the proliferation of small mammals. It's hard to make sense of this statement. You seem to have mistaken notions about mammal evolution. No one doubted the existence of mammals all throughout the Mesozoic (dinosaur) Era. A number of species have been identified. Mammals had evolved earlier, in the Permian Era, from the therapsids. So the discovery of a previously unknown species of mammal in the Mesozoic causes no problems. It's just that this critter is very, very interesting. Most Mesozoic mammals tended to be small, shrew-like creatures. Dinosaurs and other creatures occupied most of the ecological niches. This new discovery shows us that at least one species of mammal grew large enough to pose a threat to the big boys--even if only to the baby versions of them. Mammals did not 'suddenly appear' after the K-T event--that is, after the extinction of non-avian dinosaurs. They had long been around. They just starting growing larger and diversifying at that point because many previously occupied ecological niches came open.
This is one of several contradictions concerning the the long-held paradigms of evolution that have been undermined in recent years. What contradiction? What undermining? This is an exciting discovery that poses no problem at all for evolution.
Another example and a more notorious case Notorious? Paleontologists are buzzed! You've got to quit snorting so much Hovind. That stuff will rot your brain.
being the discovery of unfossilized fascial tissue attached to an alleged 70 million year old T-Rex. It is not unfossilized and it is not fascial tissue. It is remarkably well preserved bone marrow. Soft tissue structures of such delicacy are rarely preseved--or so scientists thought. But then, most paleontologists don't open bones, either. So this is a very exciting find and it raises the possibility of more discoveries to be made in bones we already have. Fossilization can be a very complex process mineralogically. This fossilized bone marrow certainly has the chemists going to work. Here's an excerpt from the BBC story:BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | T. rex fossil has 'soft tissues'
As you can see, scientists are hardly going back to the drawing board on evolutionary theory or timescales. This fossil promises to give us exciting new information about how dinosaurs evolved.
How should modern biology feel about such discoveries, and is it in the best interest of the entire biological community to rethink some of their timescales in lieu of such discrepancies? Again with the feelings! Earlier you were trying to decide your 'feelings' about the Big Bang. Every scientific discovery is something you have to decide your 'feelings' about. Well, I guess that's how it has to be when so many discoveries cure your diseases and so many other discoveries challenge your beliefs... Whatever you decide for yourself, scientists are excited, as you can see. Neither discovery poses any problem for evolutionary theory. On the contrary, both give us fascinating new details about it. Very good days for science--both discoveries. Edited by Archer Opterix, : Typo. Archer All species are transitional.
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Archer Opteryx Member (Idle past 3628 days) Posts: 1811 From: East Asia Joined: |
n_j: Here's what we know for certain:1. Dinosaurs are extinct and mammals are not. Non-avian dinosaurs are extinct. The others are here.
2. The earth shows signs of being bombarded by asteroids. An object hit the Yucatan Peninsula area 65 million years ago--the time of the K-T event.
Here's the assertion: 1. It was an asteroid that caused the extinction of the dinosaur. Its not a terrible guesstimate, but lets not get carried away and call it facvt when its far from anything factual at this point. No one is 'guessing' about the impact. The crater has been found and it's the right age. The environmental effects would have been severe all over the world. But the exact role of the impact in the extinction of non-avian dinosaurs, mosasaurs, plesiosaurs, pterosaurs and the other large species is debated. No one is 'carried away.' Other natural factors are implicated, as is always the case with mass extinctions. Archer All species are transitional.
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Archer Opteryx Member (Idle past 3628 days) Posts: 1811 From: East Asia Joined: |
n_j writes:
its just one more clue to build a case against and demonstrates that much of the theory has to keep reinventing itself. You mean the theory has to keep accommodating new discoveries? Hey, guess what--that's not reinvention. That's what successful theories do. They accommodate new discoveries! The scientists like this. That's why they search for fossils in the first place. So they can get more details to explore and explain. Archer All species are transitional.
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Archer Opteryx Member (Idle past 3628 days) Posts: 1811 From: East Asia Joined: |
nj writes:
I didn't say "facial," I said "fascial." I'm surprised no one has heard of this argument. Surely prior to my arrival on EvC somebody had heard about this argument. I mean, I know that it was kept a little quiet in the evo community because it tends to undermine the timescale, but I'm surprised that no one seems to have heard about this. Where are you getting this fantasy of 'no one hearing of it'? The discovery is well known and has been addressed directly in this thread. I understood your word 'fascial' at once. That word is also incorrect, as I showed you. The fossil preserves bone marrow, as I also explained. And it is incorrect to say as you did that the material was 'unfossilized.' It is indeed fossilized, but on the microbial level that allows the preservation of soft tissue and small details. I gave you a link and quoted a BBC article in which two scientists associated with the discovery were interviewed. Their responses make it clear that the discovery poses no problems for time scales or evolutionary theory. You have ignored that post. You have not addressed the corrections of fact it contains and you have reiterated the incorrect word 'fascial.' And now you put forward a fantasy that 'no one' at EvC knows of this discovery. I submit that it is NJ who is 'keeping things quiet' because the facts undermine his pet ideas. If you intend to discuss this discovery, answer my post. A good place to start would be with your detailed response to the comments by the scientists. Edited by Archer Opterix, : Typo. Archer All species are transitional.
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Archer Opteryx Member (Idle past 3628 days) Posts: 1811 From: East Asia Joined: |
NJ writes:
Do you really not see the profundity of such a discovery? It is said that T-Rex went extinct 70 million years ago. It's a wonderful discovery, but not because it alters anything about T Rex's extinction date (65 million years ago).
That means, according to evolutionists, that the specimen in question is at least 70 million years old, if not several millions of years older. The estimates I saw said 68 million years.
Now, the tissue was found to be pliable. True.
As well, the specimen was unfossilized and unfrozen. ***WRONG*** Another flat tire for the juggernaut. Everything else you say just waxes dramatic from the basic falsehood that the fossil is not really a fossil.
But how can a logical person think that unfossilized bone, much less soft tissue, can survive decay past a few hundred years? Given the fact that examples of many human skeletal remains rarely surviving decay past 50 years indicates that in 70 million years nothing could survive past this unbelievable length of time. Oxygen accelerates the rate of putrefaction and overall decomposition, greatly. However, despite being in an airtight coffin, buried six feet under ground, many human remains rarely survive decay past half a century without the intervention of embalming techniques. Many instances where a body had been exhumed for legal cases of suspected homicide were found without any soft tissue, and sometimes, no bones survived decay altogether. I mean, I think people have been inundated with literature speaking about millions and billions of years of time with a certain frivolity. Do you really believe that soft tissue can survive decay this long? The juggernaut just blew out another tire. You mention how difficult it is for soft tissue to survive 'past half a century.' This makes it obvious the material has been specially preserved--fossilized--in some way. Else, we would not have it. Read the article from the BBC. Read the scientists' descriptions of the fossilization process. Please respond. Otherwise, you may as well drop the subject. It's obvious you don't know what you are talking about. If you keep ignoring the information you have been provided, it will be equally apparent that you don't want to. Edited by Archer Opterix, : Credited quotes. Archer All species are transitional.
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Archer Opteryx Member (Idle past 3628 days) Posts: 1811 From: East Asia Joined: |
Dr Adequate writes:
Someone has been lying to you. The Heidelberg jaw has not been demonstrated to be a fraud. May we expect to see a retraction of these falsified assertions, NJ?
Heidelberg on the left, modern H. sap. on the right. [...] Nor, by the way, is it particularly cited as proof of anything except that there were once people with really big jaws. Some of whom are still playing rugby. Archer All species are transitional.
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Archer Opteryx Member (Idle past 3628 days) Posts: 1811 From: East Asia Joined: |
kuresu:
I'm not sure about the crocs, but I think the reason they wre able to survive was this. They are true reptiles, and they lived in the water.as true, cold blooded reptiles, they can often go for a year without eating if they've eaten a good sized meal. Being in the water conveyed an advantage to surviving the k-t extinction event, but I'm not sure what exactly. possibly the water was warmer. I know the water has to help somewhere--reason being--less life was destroyed in water than on land. Here's some conjecture from a non-specialist who just reads a lot. I think the effect you are talking about, kuresu, has to do with the way bodies of water can ameliorate the extremes of hot and cold temperatures. Everyone knows it's cooler on a beach or on a lake in summer than it is further inland. But bodies of water also curtail the extremes of cold temperatures in winter, even if their surfaces are frozen. A look at winter temperatures near the Great Lakes (Copper Harbor, Michigan, say, on Lake Superior) and further away (Minneapolis, Minnesota) on any given day shows this. The temperatures near the lake drop to freezing but do not keep dropping so far below. No one in Copper Harbor is going to break out the suntan lotion in January, of course. But the difference in temperature is one that could make all the difference in survival. You have an asteroid impact that swathes the earth in darkness and near freezing temperatures for six months. That shuts down a lot of photosynthesis and wipes out food chains in both the sea and land. That kind of catastrophe would run up the food chain in no time. The largest animals that require the largest quantities of food would be doomed. So out go the pterosaurs, the mosasoars, ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, and non-avian dinosaurs along with the largest species of fish and reptiles. Smaller animals that eat far less have an advantage. Avian dinosaurs (birds), with their insulating feathers, have an advantage in riding it out. Animals that can burrow or hibernate have an advantage. This is what crocodiles and turtles do, of course. They make burrows and hibernate through dry seasons. Small mammals would make it because they could burrow and perhaps hibernate. Many of them had been burrowing anyway to stay away from the big guys. But as omnivores they could also eat. Hard times favor the generalist. And they would have plenty in the 'fridge to nibble on: frozen dinosaur carcasses all over the landscape.
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Archer Opteryx Member (Idle past 3628 days) Posts: 1811 From: East Asia Joined: |
NJ writes;
Yes. And did you not get the memo that mammals were supposed to be no more than 5 inches and herbivores? You're making this up. Show me the memo. I've read nothing that sets limits on how big mammals could grow during the Mesozoic. All I've read are generalizations that, based on the evidence gathered to date, they tended to be rather small. The new find does nothing to contradict this. It adds an interesting new wrinkle, but an animal that is the size of a cat as opposed to the size of a shrew is no monster--not at a time when critters the size of a double-length truck are walking around. And Mesozoic mammals tended to be omnivores, not herbivores. Another blown tire for the juggernaut. What's next? The transmission? Edited by Archer Opterix, : Quote box code. Archer All species are transitional.
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Archer Opteryx Member (Idle past 3628 days) Posts: 1811 From: East Asia Joined: |
Dr Adequate:
What is the Creation Science explanation of why (non-avian) dinosaurs are extinct and crocodiles are not? I'd like to hear that, too. While you're at it, go for the gold. Please tell us why elephants are still around and camarosaurs are not. And why whales and dolphins are still around and mosasaurs and ichthyosaurs are not. Edited by Archer Opterix, : Format code. Archer All species are transitional.
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Archer Opteryx Member (Idle past 3628 days) Posts: 1811 From: East Asia Joined: |
Anybody have a size report for this beastie?
Just a moment... Castorocauda lutrasimilis, semi-aquatic, Middle Jurassic. Edited by Archer Opterix, : Attempted graphics link. Archer All species are transitional.
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Archer Opteryx Member (Idle past 3628 days) Posts: 1811 From: East Asia Joined: |
Many thanks, anglagard. It occurred to me we were overlooking another interesting creature.
To the extent that mammals lived in forests--the habitat would provide cover in a dinosaur-dominated age--they wouldn't fossilize often. No doubt many more discoveries await us. Some friends of mine who love animals saw the picture of Castorocauda. Their first reaction: 'I want one!' Edited by Archer Opterix, : Typo. Archer All species are transitional.
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Archer Opteryx Member (Idle past 3628 days) Posts: 1811 From: East Asia Joined: |
Dr Tazimus maximus writes:
Just for giggles and grins, has anyone brought up the Synapsids on this thread as part of the reply to this false assumption that mammals were not really around during the age of the dinosaurs? I mentioned the therapsids early on--not that anyone paid it much heed. And that's indeed quite a grin you have there. Please continue. I could use a refresher on the relationship between pelycosaurs, therapids, synapsids, and cynodonts, if you don't mind. Archer All species are transitional.
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Archer Opteryx Member (Idle past 3628 days) Posts: 1811 From: East Asia Joined: |
The discovery of any kind of mammal in the Mesozoic, as everyone has said, does not pose a challenge for evolutionary theory. The existence of Mesozoic mammals during that time has long been known because mammals evolved earlier.
Most terrestrial ecological niches for large creatures were occupied by non-avian dinosaurs in the Mesozoic. This makes the discovery of a Mesozoic mammal that even reaches the size or aggressiveness level of a housecat very rare. But regardless of how surprising the find or how journalism describes it, nothing about a Mesozoic mammal's size, in itself, challenges or overturns the theory of evolution. The ToE is a very big thing--a paradigm indeed--that already accounts for the existence of mammals at that time and leaves room for many possibilities about species variations. Discoveries can, and do, overturn prevalent ideas about how certain ecosystems worked. That's the exciting thing about this find. With each discovery come new insights and the picture comes into better focus. I can see why, NJ, from your perpective, it seems science gets some special break. Science revises its ideas to accommodate evidence. It can say one thing yesterday, pull out the eraser today and revise, and say another thing tomorrow--and be a healthy, worthwhile project the whole time. It admits its picture is incomplete. Filling in that picture is a learning process. Therein lies the fun. You are conditioned to value statements that remain the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Prooftexts reign; physical evidence is not needed. In that world, not having the right answer the first time is an indictment. It is the difference between a true religion and a false religion. You keep trying to hold science to the dogmatic standard of the religious world you know. The effort fails, not only because you rarely understand the discoveries to begin with, but because you don't understand the nature of scientific knowledge. Science is not religion. The two do not work the same way. Edited by Archer Opterix, : Typo. Archer All species are transitional.
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Archer Opteryx Member (Idle past 3628 days) Posts: 1811 From: East Asia Joined: |
NJ writes:
I think what I've said is perfectly accurate. I said that a fossilized mammal was discovered with a small dinosaur inside the cavity of what was its stomach. I said that the discovery of the mammal in question changed the previous beliefs that mammals during the late Cretaceous period mammals were tiny, shrew-like herbivores. I went on to say that this discovery did not topple the theory of evolution because it doesn't. At most it brings into question the continuous ad hoc explanations that are far from empiricism. What I said was that this discovery, coupled with other discoveries, allude to previously believed facts concerning evolution were obviously false. What you say here is, except for the wayward last sentence, much closer to the mark. But this summary is not what you've always said. You're doing some revising of your own, though you don't admit it. To begin with, you have here declined to repeat the numerous gaffes you made about recent discoveries. And in your earlier posts you did not 'at most' say that 'ad hoc explanations are far from empiricism.' You said 'at most' a great deal more than that. Go back to your first posts and look. You spoke in terms of the entire unifying ToE. See how often you used the word 'undermined'--a word that never appears in this new formulation of what you have supposedly always said. Your first statements were far more extravagant than you acknowledge here. As you've toned down your claims you've also changed your subject. Instead of seeking to undermine paradigms you now ask us to consider whether people on message boards always mind their manners. A sizable shift in focus.
The emphatic response that I recieved was that avian-dinosaur were exempt from extinction because they were already evolving endothermic qualities, among other tenuous notions. I recieved the ad hoc explanation that crocodiles, plesiosaur, and ichythosaurs come from avian lineage and that part of their survivability can be attributed to them taking great care of their offsprings eggs. This doesn't quite add up because while crocs and gators make nests for their young to incubate, Ichthyosaurs don't lay eggs at all. We know empirically that they give live births. Except for your use of present tense, you state the science on the point of ichthyosaur live births. Congratulations. But I find it hard to believe the mess you describe represents the content of any 'emphatic response' you received on a science board. It's nonsense. Science has long known that ichthyosaurs gave birth to live young. And why is anyone arguing for the K-T 'survivability' of plesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs when these groups went extinct? Something got garbled in the retelling, I'm sure. Can you provide a link?
Where in my assessment have said anything off-the-wall ridiculous or that I can't grasp what everyone is saying? See the above. See also the title of this thread. On my monitor the heading reads 'undermining long-held paradigms.' It does not read 'questioning continuous ad hoc explanations that are far from empiricism.'
I think I've ben very clear on the matter.
_ Edited by Archer Opterix, : Typo. Edited by Archer Opterix, : Brevity. Edited by Archer Opterix, : Typo. Archer All species are transitional.
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