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Vorpal Rabbit-o-Saurus
guacamolefoo writes "CNN reports that a rabbit-o-saurus fossil was discovered in China. Apparently it lived about 128 million years ago and was related to the T-rex. It had feathers and large, buck teeth.
Paleontologists are finding more and more bizarre things. Some seem so strange that they must appear to some to be made up. When the science skeptics get ahold of the rabbit-o-saurus, they'll put it right next to their moon landing hoax books and their creationism propaganda."
April 1st was 171 days ago, by my count. Or it's 194 days ahead.
So that means this article is nearly as far off the mark as it can be - it should have come about 11 days later.
Lately democracy seems to be based on the skybox, the Happy Meal box, the X-box, and the idiot box.
When the science skeptics get ahold of the rabbit-o-saurus, they'll put it right next to their moon landing hoax books and their creationism propaganda
According to the article, the technical name for this dinosaur is Incisivosaurus. Calling it a "rabbit-o-saurus" instead will only encourage the skeptics. The picture in the article depicts something that, aside from the buck teeth, is very different from a rabbit--it looks much more like an emu or an ostrich. This is, to my understanding, consistent with recent research that suggests that dinosaurs were the antecedents of birds. And buck teeth would, no doubt, be useful in digging up plant roots or whatever, suggesting that it was a herbivore.
Granted, it's one funny looking mother.
Karma: Chevy Kavalierma.
I soiled my armor I was so scared......
They stuck me in an institution, said it was the only solution, to...protect me from the enemy, myself
Rabbit-o-Saurus?
Where's a Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch when you need one?
How many scientific discoveries are mistakes? I just have to wonder how many animals may have died side by side or next to one another. I'm dreading the day they find a "two-headed" sloth.
Discovery of a species of rabbit? You apparently didn't read the article.
The newly discovered fossil is a dinosaur with large front incisors. People noted that the two teeth look vaguely like a rabbit's incisors, thus the misnomer of "rabbit-o-saurus". The whole animal, though, looks more like a standard dinosaur - birdlike.
Aristotle and Newton are still correct - unless I missed the Slashdot articles on the revocation of the principles of displacement and gravity. The Bible, on the other hand, hardly survives from its original form - it's been translated and modified so many times.
I haven't seen any new discovery that pokes holes in theories whilst supporting creationists - can you post a single example of this? (p.s. sites such as "www.godisgreat.com" don't count as sources)
I used to think I was a creationist because I believed that the hand of God was behind the big bang . Then I met "creationists" who thought the earth was only 4000 years old. After wondering whether I was a true creationist for a while, I decided that these people aren't creationists but are luddites who attend churches.
Never overestimate the end user. -jeramy b. smith
One of my biggest gripes with fundamental christianity (which I was raised in btw) is the hypocritical idolatry of the Bible. The Bible is just a book assembled by man. A great book but it has no magical powers and cannot fight vampires.
I think part of the root of this hypocrisy is various references in the Bible to the "word of god". Now, at the time those particular verses were written; there was no Bible. Yet people assume these were forward looking statements covering the Bible. If you really believe in a God that transcends the physical world, why put so much faith in a stack of paper that you are probably interpreting out of its own historical context and doing so poorly?
To each his own though....... I could be wrong.
Never overestimate the end user. -jeramy b. smith
Maybe it's because the creationists can just play the "God is all-powerful, so anything is possible" card at any time. Hard to poke holes in a Biblical theory which has no limitations, isn't it? You don't know how many times I've gotten the "That's one of the mysteries of God" answers. Sorry, but for some people who don't want to think that answer may be enough, but it's not enough for some of us thinking peoples.
I think I would prefer having a world that changes with new information that I have to think about rather than one where I'm told what to think by a 2000 to 4000-year old book. Maybe I like thinking about life, the universe, and everything more than living a blissful, yet ignorant, life where I can "know everything" by reading a book that hasn't changed in the last 1500 years, at least.
Maybe it's this rigidity of the typical Creationist that many people find unsatisfying. To them, the world is already figured out, why bother studying it? Why can't you just live your life according to what this book says? I consider this a pure stagnation of all thought and progress. Science is based off of experimentation and observation... new ways of observing things give new ideas and new theories. Science is not stagnant, and that is one of its strengths. The conservative minds that Creationists tend to have don't like things changing... a continuum is something that Bible-thumpers and Creationists can't handle. Everything has to be discrete and in nice, easy to understand pieces. Things don't happen gradually; they just happen. This flies in the face of so many things that people experience in the world... coffee doesn't spontaneously change to room temperature, clouds and weather just don't spontaneously appear, new lives aren't just brought into creation in adult sizes. That's why creationism seems like the odd man out. Yeah, you can play the "everything" card in God; that's fine. But that's a weak logical argument. Hard to have an intelligent argument with a person who "knows everything", isn't it?
-Jellisky
For arguments sake: isn't there just a chance that it could be a freak. Some genetic defect or something. I mean we've only got one example right?
;). Would be even funnier if they try to use the popular belief (IMO fallacy) that "evolution produces optimum solutions" to explain them (e.g. selfish gene, and all those popular explanations for animal/human behaviour using evolution/genes).
There's this guy who collects unusual farm animals - extra legs, two heads etc.
Would be interesting if future bone diggers stumble on those
"This cowlike animal has two heads - it evolved this to allows it to chew grass and look out for enemies at the same time".
"The extra limb could serve as a decoy, much like a gecko's detachable tail". Or could help chasing away flies.
It's funny, then it's sad when you find out that everyone seems to believe those scientists.
In a less harsh environments, lots more silliness can survive or even thrive. So the reason why an animal looks or acts in a particular way could just be because it's cool (and there's no reason why it's cool, except that just a bunch decided it is). If you can afford it and the environment is kind, why not have a bit of fun in your life eh?
Real example: the panda is crap at digesting bamboo (has carnivore's digestive system), but it still eats it. Why? Probably coz it thinks it tastes great.
So another reason for the buck teeth could be - "Hey it's fun. And we can whistle the top hits really loud too". Not to mention our granddads and moms were kicked out from the tribe coz they had slightly different teeth (and whistled loud whilst sleeping), so we're gonna show em we're better and cooler.
Cheerio,
Link.
Creationism crashed my system too often, so I switched to evolution, and have been pretty happy ever since.
Still has some annoying and outstanding bugs (Mostly "Missing Link"-type bugs), the documentation is only partially finished, and the interface is more complex then Creationism, but it still works pretty well...
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
The reason for the comment is that although its rude, its funny and true.
Aren't we the ones who prefer Linux to Windows because it doesn't break as often? As rational and intelligent people, many of us professionals and experts in industry and academia, we pride ourselves on choosing the tool that gives us the best results.
A much better analogy would be Linux is like science because anyone can develop a bugfix, and so is more likely to fix bugs faster.
Surely, while the discovery of a species of rabbit that no longer walks this Earth may surprise the evolutionists and Science-worshippers, it's plain to see that it fits right in to the Creationist worldview. Extinct species don't have to be our "ancestors." They were just creations that didn't make it through the flood.
First of all, it is *NOT* a species of rabbit!! It is a species of dinosaur that happens to look like a rabbit in one small way. It has buck teeth. Secondly, there are plenty of extinct species of rabbit, but they are all ancestors or relatives in some way. Thirdly, the idea of a global flood is ludicrous for several reasons. One, where did all the water go? Enough water to raise sea level to the summit of Mt. Ararat doesn't just disappear. Two, why is there still sea life? A flood of that magnitude would have stired up enough silt and sediment to kill every living creature in the sea. Three, why do we see layers of sediment in things like the grand canyon? If there was a flood like that, we should see one single huge layer of sediment. There are tons more flaws with a great flood hypothesis, I'm sure you can find them online.
So once again, we see Scientists scurrying about, trying to revise their fragile theories so that new information doesn't destroy them. Remember the great Scientist Aristotle? How about Newton? Those guys were the best Science had to offer, and now we know how wrong they were.
Yes, that is how science works. Everytime that an inconsistency is pointed out, the ideas are revised so they are more correct. We know that not every single one of our ideas are completely correct, but we are pretty close and getting closer all the time.
Religion on the other hand just ignores all the new evidence and just says its not true, unless you're Catholic, in which case it only says its not true until 300 years after its been accepted by the general populous of scientists.
Meanwhile, the Bible has been through, count 'em, one revision in the same time period. New discoveries poke holes in Scientific theories, while supporting Biblical ones, almost without fail.
Without fail?! LOLOL, that is the funniest thing I've read in a long time. You seem to have conviently forgotten about the geocentric theory, the global flood (see my reasons above for discounting it), evolution (we *have* observed evolution many many times, the only question is how it happens), and the myriad armageddon predictions. The only reason you think no evidence contrary to the bible exists is because you stick your fingers in your ears and say "la la la" whenever it pops up.
If you really want to find some good evidence for creationism or any other biblical hypothesis, find something those hypotheses actually predict, and then do an experiment to test the prediction. Fitting the data to your theory after the fact is dishonest research.
If you actually look into it, only religions that originated near the fertile crescent in the middle east have flood myths. The most logical explanation for the flood myth is the flooding of the plain that is now the Black Sea. Approx. 10,000 years ago the Mediterranean broke through the Bosporous Strait and flooded the Black Sea. There is some evidence that prehistoric people were living on that plain when it happened. From then on, the story was passed down through oral tradition until it was incorporated into the religions of the area. This would also explain how religions that originated earlier than Judaism have flood myths.
What? Carbon-14 decays at the same rate no matter what enviromental conditions it is in. It will *always* have the same half life.
I am glad He has a sense of humor (He created us all, after all)
Or is that the other way around? It's true either way, you see.
When the science skeptics get ahold of the rabbit-o-saurus....
Is anybody else enjoying the irony here? Although they derive from different roots, "skeptic" and "science" are startlingly close in meaning. "Skeptic" comes from the Greek skeptesthai ("to look carefully"). "Science" came from the Latin "scire" ("to know").
Sounds to me like skepticism and science go hand in hand. They're not opposites like you seem to want to imply they are. Maybe you should choose your words more carefully next time, guacamolefoo.
> I've always wondered if the earth was "created" with these fossils in place.
Some creationists actually invoke that argument in a last-ditch attempt to preserve their beliefs in the face of the masses of contrary evidence. Unfortunately they end up binding themselves to a theology that requires a Divine Deceiver as the creator of the universe, with a result that divine revelation is no more trustworthy than the faked physical evidence, so they end up without a leg to stand on anyway.
> IOW, these things never lived, that would explaing the dinasaurs that seem to defy the laws of physics and common sense.
This seeming is presumably in the eye of the beholder. Think how incredibly strange a turtle, a penguin, an elephant, or any of a thousand other species would seem, if we had never seen the like before.
> I can just se the Supreme Being up there laughing his ass off at us trying to imagine how these ceatures lived.
Yeah, me too.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
This thing looks a lot like a jabberwock
@AlexSheive
> You claim that there was a regional flood, because you can see evidence that it happened. I claim that the flood covered the entire earth because I have faith. There is evidence in the stories and evidence in the earth (flood of the Black Sea area, flooded plains of North America, etc), it just needs to be connected with faith.
The problem is, you can connect anything with faith. Thus one claim is exactly as good as another, and as a result they're all worth exactly nothing for understanding what really happened.
That's why those of us not blinded by religious beliefs prefer to stake our claims on evidence rather than faith. We can still be wrong, but at least the evidence puts some constraints on what we can claim.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
> Oh my, how I'd like that to be true! Unfortunately, ``peer review'' (which is neither) only guarantees that revolutionary findings are suppressed for 30 years or so, and by then those who actually thougth of it, the true scientists, are retired or even dead, and the looters of science `rediscover' those findings and become the new high priests of the departed genious. Then, this new generation of looters and fakers block the new ideas for another 30 years... and so it goes on and on generation of looters following generation of looters that feed on the work of real scientists.
You seem to portray this as the norm for the field. How many examples can you cite?
> The so-called ``peer-review'' also means that skeptics in science never get published. Only those that `get along with the program' are not silenced.
This, along with your earlier assertion that revolutionary findings are suppressed for 30 years, is a sure indication that you've never read much peer-reviewed literature.
Peer review isn't about ensuring orthodoxy; it's about ensuring that you support your claims. We get revolutionary and/or contrarian views expressed in peer-reviewed literature all the time; what we don't get (when the system works) is grandiose claims based on sloppy work and/or handwaving arguments. There's a reason cold nuclear fusion was announced in the news press rather than in a peer-reviewed publication, and it ain't because CNF would have rocked the boat.
> And answer this: why is the review done on things we never get to see.
Actually, almost all of it is plainly visible if you care enough about it to study up in the field and go to conferences where you can talk to people about what they're doing.
> We have had the Inet for a couple of decades now... why is science not published first and reviewed later?
To a certain extent that is in fact happening. Many prominent researchers have non-peer-reviewed articles available at their Web or FTP sites, or at some other centralized repository. The entire "tech report" mechanism uses only lightweight review, i.e. is usually only a grad student's work reviewed by that student's advisor, which is not generally considered a detached enough reviewer or a broad enough review for this to count as peer review proper. Yet huge masses of this stuff is available over the internet. (Hint: google for "university of <state>" and "tech report", and spend the next few years reading the papers you find.)
Unfortunately, this arrangement is not altogether satisfactory. There's just too darn much material out there to allow reading everything written even for a sub-sub-sub-field of some major discipline. Peer review is nice because it filters out most of the stuff that is just text without a point, or without any tangible contribution to the field, or that "discovers" something the experts already knew, or that doesn't follow good experimental procedures, or that makes claims that aren't actually supported, etc. Peer review is ultimately a spam filter; the internet makes peer review more important rather than less important.
> To do it that way costs less than 10%
Yes, several major disciplines are trying to move away from the traditional print journals, partly due to cost issues and partly because the internet will give wider access and thus make science more open.
> and science would be transparent to us all.
Other than weapons research and the direct applications research going on in big companies, science is remarkably transparent. For peer reviewed science all you really need is a library card.
> Yes, fakes---read non-officially santioned fakes---are found out. But others, like Darwinism, are not. Go and ask for any evidence that supports Darwinism... you get called ``Creationist''.
That's because with six nines' accuracy only creationists are asking for evidence that supports the theory of evolution. Scientists realize that in the big picture a theory isn't something you dream up and then try to dredge up evidence to prove. In fact it's almost the reverse of that process: faced with a big pile of evidence, you generate a theory as a model that explains it.
If you have a better model for biology than the theory of evolution, you should write it up and submit it to Nature for publication. But sitting around and asking "where's the evidence" merely makes you look ignorant, not only of the evidence but of what science is all about.
> Be a skeptic, be a scientist, and get labeled as ``Creationist''.
Sorry, but your post indicates that you don't even know what science is. Spend a few years of intense study learning what observations the theory of evolution was created to explain, then come back and post your alternative model and explain why it is better - then, and only then, will I acknowledge you as a scientist. Meanwhile you differ from creationists only in the details, not in the important dimension, cluelessness.
Sorry to sound so harsh, but you need to think things out a bit. Try going to a construction site and convincing everyone that there aren't enough anchor bolts in the steel columns, or go to an operating room and try convincing everyone that the incisions should be made elsewhere, or go to a racetrack and convince the drivers to swing wider on the curves, or any of a million other examples. You can't just sit in your armchair and proclaim "I don't believe the experts, let them prove me wrong!", and expect to be labeled a scientist for your trouble. Science isn't in the business of convincing recalcitrant deniers; science is in the business of understanding nature. For that we observe nature and construct models; the rhetoric of denial is irrelevant.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
> In one sentence you made fun of Muslms, Jews, and Christians. That's what, half the world population?
Are all Muslims, Jews, and Christians creationists?
Are all creationists Muslims, Jews, or Christians?
Did you have a point, other than to score rhetorical points with an unfounded insinuation of ethnic prejudice?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I presume you're doing a bit of Loki trolling, but here goes anyway:
> Surely, while the discovery of a species of rabbit that no longer walks this Earth may surprise the evolutionists and Science-worshippers
Uhm, yes, that's why I suspect you're just parodying a creationist. Discovery of "new" extinct species doesn't surprise scientists at all. IIRC, we discover a new one every few days, on average. Most aren't cutesy enough to make Slashdot headlines.
> it's plain to see that it fits right in to the Creationist worldview.
Anything fits the creationist worldview, unless there has been a political decision to reject it.
> Extinct species don't have to be our "ancestors." They were just creations that didn't make it through the flood.
So, are you saying the bible is wrong when it claims that Noah actually did save two of everything on the ark?
> Remember the great Scientist Aristotle?
Aristotle wasn't a scientist in the modern sense. (Though he was a damn sight more rational than Plato.) It's probably best to think of him as an encyclopedist.
> Meanwhile, the Bible has been through, count 'em, one revision in the same time period.
Actually, bible-based religion has undergone 1000-2000 sect fissions in the past 500 years. That doesn't inspire much faith in the bible as an indisputable source of truth.
> New discoveries poke holes in Scientific theories, while supporting Biblical ones, almost without fail.
Actually, new discoveries almost always reveal a world that's further from the naive conception of the bible's bronze age mythology, rather than closer to it.
> And so the Scienc-ists are reduced to snide comments. I guess I shouldn't expect anything better.
Actually, creationists act as lightning rods for tart comments because they're in the habit of parading their ignorace in public forums. Let the thunder roll, for all I care. If they don't want to be ridiculed, let them quit playing the court jester.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
It was a theory supported by the church through force.
The global flood happened whether you believe it or not.
No, it very obviously did not happen, as the fact that we are not currently covered with water, or the fact that there is still life in the sea, or the fact that we see sedimentary layers clearly shows. I don't care how many stories you hear, these observations make a global flood impossible.
We have seen adaptation and try to make it look like evolution.
Adaptation *IS* evolution. Evolution is defined as a change in the allele frequency of a popluation. This has been observed many times. For example, the emergence of penecillin-resistant strains of bacteria is an example of evolution. The fact that the average human height has gained almost a foot in the past hundred years is another example.
As for the "finger in your ears" part, the same could be said of scientist. If they uncover something that proves something in the Bible, they immediate start looking for ways to disprove that it really happened or attempt to explain it away in some way.
Yes, that is their job! I'm sorry that not everyone will just automatically believe everything you tell them no matter how ludicrous it is. Not everyone is happy being sheep, although you certainly seem to be.
The prophesies of the Old Testament concerning the coming of Christ should be enough to prove scientifically that the Bible is correct.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but every single prophecy made in the old testament about the new testament was either a mistranslation (as in the case of the prophecy of a virgin birth), taken out of context, or fulfilled with deliberate foreknowledge. If you want a good treatment of it, read Thomas Paine's "The Age Of Reason".
And if you really want to get down to it the Bible proves many scientific things itself.
Right. Things like rabbits chew their cud and pi = 3. Quite amazing.
And if you really want to get down to it the Bible proves many scientific things itself. Look at Job 36:27-28 and learn about rain. Now there is question as to when this book was actually written, but it was written before 1000 B.C. and it tells how rain comes from water vapour.
That was common knowledge long before 1000 B.C. The egyptians and the greeks knew the basics of the water cycle.
Most of this has been well answered already, but here are a couple more points:
> The global flood happened whether you believe it or not. As I have stated other places in this thread, there are stories in almost every culture of a great flood and a boat with a surviving family and animals (please explain this away).
Easy. Do you base your geology on folklore or on the physical evidence? The physical evidence says "no global flood". We'll leave it to the anthropologists to explain the folklore. (Assuming there's anything to explain. Sure, there are lots of "flood" stories, but how many of them actually agree with the biblical one?)
> As for the "finger in your ears" part, the same could be said of scientist. If they uncover something that proves something in the Bible, they immediate start looking for ways to disprove that it really happened or attempt to explain it away in some way.
Not so. Archaeologists and historians have discovered lots of true stuff in the bible and other scientists don't feel any need to explain those things away. The problem arises when literalists assume that just because a book contains some true stuff then everything in it must be true. That notion is patently false; just consider your favorite historical novel as an example.
> And if you really want to get down to it the Bible proves many scientific things itself. Look at Job 36:27-28 and learn about rain.
Or if you really want to understand biblical science, read the second half of Genesis 30 and learn about bogo-genetics.
(Lurkers, please take the trouble to do this. You'll be amused as well as informed - reading it will be quite worth your time.)
> Just do a google search.
Just get a clue.
And quit relying on creationist Web sites for your "facts" about the world.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Read verses 31-43. You will find the ridiculous assertion that placing striped branches in the water troughs that sheep drink out of while they are mating will make them produce striped offspring.
That link didn't address a single one of my questions. Those three questions, among many others, stand as incontrovertible evidence against the existence of a global flood. When you can explain to me how we can find many sedimentary layers in places when a flood of that magnitude would have destroyed them, or how any sea life could survive the silt a global flood would have caused, get back to me.
> > I don't understand you reference to Genesis 30. This is the story of Jacob (Israel), his wifes, and 12 sons. Yes Jacob had 4 wifes (well two wifes and two handmaidens as wifes) and yes the culture of the day allowed a wife to claim the children of her handmaiden as her children, if they were fathered by her husband. This in no way claims that they are genetically related to the wife, she just claimed them as the fathers genetics were of the most important of the time.
> Read verses 31-43. You will find the ridiculous assertion that placing striped branches in the water troughs that sheep drink out of while they are mating will make them produce striped offspring.
Heh. Count on a creationist not to grok what the bible says about a topic even when directed to the book and chapter that addresses it. Now we'll see whether specifying the verses helps him get it.
BTW, I have a conjecture that creationism is closely related to problems with reading comprehension. It's not just the scientific literature that they mangle.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
So once again, we see Scientists scurrying about, trying to revise their fragile theories so that new information doesn't destroy them... New discoveries poke holes in Scientific theories, while supporting Biblical ones, almost without fail.
Like this?
"Night of the Lepus". Giant, mutant bunny rabbits terrorize the southwest. Unfortunately, despite the silly premise, this one wasn't quite bad enough to be good.