Slashdot Mirror
20 Million Year Old Spider Found
evil agent writes "BBC News is reporting that Paleontologist Dr. David Penny has found a spider, and two droplets of blood, perfectly perserved in amber. He was able to extract the blood and determine its age: 20 million years old. Since it is thought to be the first time that spider blood has been found perserved in amber, it is hoped that DNA could be extracted."
Or does this sound like the intro narrative to a horror sci-fi flick...
God continues to fuck with us! First all those dinosaur bones and now this! Everyone knows the earth is only 3,000 years old, they added up all the people's ages in the bible and proved it!
/. has been tricked by the atheist science lobby, again :)
Looks like
Oh boy I hope they clone it. 'Cause that's all we need is more spiders... :/
to Arachnid Park!
Jurassic Marvel Superheroes!
Goo goo g'joob.
As an arachnophobe, i really don't wanna think about this. -giant spiders attacking everyone!-
Show this to your friends and family that don't know what a real hacker is
Michael Crichton creams his pants in cybercafe after reading this report.
"where words meet intent, lies rhetoric's lament"
...
Wouldn't the time-related changes *be* his results?
So one day, thousands (millions?) of years from now some scientists will be looking at my pale, naked body inside a shell of delicious hardened maple syrup, in which I died doing what I loved.
Then they'd bring me to some scientific symposium, and present me up on stage.
"Here you can see an ancient human, most likely in the 'geek' class. You can tell by his white skin, lack of muscles, and raw skin on his penis from over-masturbation"
*Audience oooh's and aaah's*
I'm not going to even touch on the AIDS thing... but, do you really believe that a virus that affects spiders would be able to harm humans? Those two evolutionary paths branched off a long long time ago.
WANNAWIKI Wannawiki WannaWiki WANNAWIKI!
How about one in the Tasman Sea?
"I am worried that such specimen could be concealing deadly bacteria/viruses that man does not know how to handle."
Any such bacteria/virus certainly wouldn't know how to handle us either. The ones that most affect us are those which have evolved to take advantage of our weaknesses. I'd say the risk is very low.
"Mind you, there is a rumor that AIDS was a rogue virus that escaped from some American lab."
There's also a rumor that man didn't land on the moon. My guess is that you believe that one too? With the distribution of aids cases and the fact that it's actually quite difficult to transmit, that's a pretty ridiculous rumor.
Since science articles are only 50% correct, it's 10 million years old.
BTW,it looks remarkably like spiders that are merely 20 days old.
Queue NOVA voice over: "20 million years ago, the Earth was a much different place...with much difference life forms!"
Kid: "Sir! What about this spider!?"
NOVA voice: "Okay! Okay! The spiders were all the same! But there were no humans to screw things up! GOT IT!"
Kid: "Sorry...."
I'm not. But to reassure you, he will be doing all his work in a sterile environment, to avoid contaminating the specimen. Happily, the precautions work both ways.
Mind you, there is a rumor that AIDS was a rogue virus that escaped from some American lab.
There are also rumors that the moon is made of green cheese, and that the rapture will be next Thursday. Do you plan on repeating them too?
You've watched way too many bad sci-fi movies. Seriously.
LOAD "SIG",8,1
If we bring back these creatures (a la Spielberg) and they get out of hand, we can just step on 'em.
I read
First all those dinosaur bones and now this!
;-)
While we both know you're kidding, I have to wonder about the authenticity of carbon dating proceedures in general. I'm sure lots of scientists believe in them wholeheartedly, but I'm of a more humble seed. If they say this is a 20mil yr old spider, then I would agree under the stipulation that it's 20mil yrs in relation to everything else we've carbon dated.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
That this story isn't already on this site
http://www.world-science.net/
All the wild science you ever needed....
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
edit your robots.txt
Well in that case, its definately 20 million years old. Because... uhm... we can carbon date stuff thats not dead yet. Thats how they figured out what the 'normal' amount of C-14 was.
Mod parent down! If he'd ever actually read the Bible he'd know it was closer to six thousand years. After all, there were far too many people who lived to be 200, 300, and 400 years old. And some were even 100 when they were busy begatting! I guess God must've liked people better back then, cos he certainly let them live a lot longer...
Be a real patriot: Question authority. Think for yourself. Formulate your own conclusions.
For some reason I am hearing the Jurassic Park sound track playing... wait, I am playing it.
:)
I think that this is awesome. I saw a special on the Discovery Channel called "Raising the Mammoth" where they went out into Siberia looking for a frozen Mammouth in the snow and such to get DNA and clone one using a Elephant from India as a Surrogate...
My only concern is... if we do get into cloning extinct animals and insects, what effect will it have on the ecosystem? Also is it possible to do at the present time?
But map that DNA
-- Josh
"Whoopie! Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but that's a long one for me!" - Pete Conrad
Or maybe it's just the demo that God presents at fairs to attract VC. I wonder if he sells licenses or subscriptions...
that's right.. the odds of molecules turning into a fully formed human are the same as that of an explosiion in a junkyard yielding a fully assembled 747. HEHEHEHE
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Well, it's like this. You're an idiot. He's a scientist. Your post is the equivalent of:
"How does Ford know that it's new Hybrid cars won't have a nuclear meltdown?"
"I heard that cancer is cause by di-hydrogen monoxide."
Why send rockets into space? Leave the vacuum alone!
Palaeontologist Dr David Penney, of the University of Manchester, found the 4cm long by 2cm wide fossil during a visit to a museum in the Dominican Republic.
"Oh, look! It's an amazing discovery! I found these T. Rex bones! And look, it's an ancient spider preserved in amber! Wow - there's a wooly mammoth entrapped in tar! This is the richest archeological find ever! Oh, wait... I'm in a museum."
Jurrassic Terrarium?
I'm curious as to what oh-so-reliable dating method they used.
"Well...maybe it was for the best. Now I...I finally have time to do what I've always wanted: write the great American novel. Mine is about a futuristic amusement park where dinosaurs are brought to life through advanced cloning techniques. I call it "Billy and the Cloneasaurus." -- Principal Skinner, Episode 1F18
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
Uh, so you're questioning decades of work by people smarter than you?
History is littered with the overturning of decades of work by smarter people...who were all wrong. Even when you accept the foundation of carbon dating, it is remarkable how repeated testing on the same object can yield many magnitudes of time differences.
Of course this really is all sort of funny - Many Christians believe in evolution, and the Vatican even released a statement saying that Darwin's observations were consistent with the bible. The whole "6000 year" thing is figment of a particular brand of Christianity in the US, owing to a particularly literal interpretation not shared elsewhere.
Nothing is mentioned about using DNA (in fact i'm not even sure if it would be preserved for that amount of time). Also I don't know where the "two dropllets" of blood comes from - the scientist has been using "droplets" which could be any number larger than one... Picky aren't I? :)
The find is seriously cool though..
Carbon dating just checks how much of a sample of Carbon-14 has decayed. It's not as if they take some carbon from the organism and do some weird shit to it, like putting it next to a TV and then throwing it in boiling water to see what happens.
"Mind you, there is a rumor that AIDS was a rogue virus that escaped from some American lab. Does the scientist know what he's dealing with?"
./ editors dupe this story in about 5 hours and 43 minutes.
My guess is that the scientist is dealing with just that, a RUMOR. And apparently he's got you for company in the rumor mongering business.
Since you're an expert in the science of rumorology, my best friend's cousin's wife's brother's son has informed me that this rogue virus' name is bogabogabus bullshitus
Make sure you spread that around when the
Mr. T pitied this fool on 27 July 1992.
Funny how this 20 million year old spider species exists in identical form today. It must be a perfectly adapted design; why else would it not have changed in all that time?
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
I have to wonder about the authenticity of carbon dating proceedures in general.
Why? Something that you know about nuclear physics that I don't? Share.
The Earth is actually 5,000 years old and was created by the great Flying Spaghetti Monster. But in His infinite wisdom, he created it old.
I.E. He created a world that was millions of years old 5,000 years ago.
Hello Mr. BogaBoga
Your concerns are valid. There is the small chance that previously extinct bacteria might be trapped there. Though, I would not be that worried. First, this is not an alien, and what ever is there has been here before. Secondly, its 20,000,000 years old, though preserved in amber in form, it, and all bacteria with it, is certainly dead. Actually, I would be surprised if they can find a complete set of DNA. It's probably all in pieces.
Now, about the AIDS theory... AIDS is probably the most studied virus, and most scientists in the world, not only in the US, believe that this is a retrovirus that passed from monkeys to humans somewhere in Africa, about a hundred years ago. Actually, the origin of the two common HIV strains has been narrowed to specific species of African monkeys. The origin of HIV-2 has been established to be the sooty mangabey (Cercocebus atys), an Old World monkey of Guinea Bissau, Gabon, and Cameroon. The origin of HIV-1 is a chimpanzee subspecies: Pan troglodytes troglodytes. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIDS_origin)
If you are going to present such an extreme theory, it must be supported with extreme evidence.
Thanks
GTFO furry!
Welcome... to Arachnid Park!
Are you sure you got that right? Our new arachnoid overlords thought they were welcomed to Human Park.
1. Why is there no reference to how they know that the spider is that old?... and 2. Does the writer actually know that spiders have hemolymph instead of blood as us humans would look at it? Sigh...lazy science reporting strikes again.
Requiem
.... and nobody's gonna make a comment questioning how an std was transmitted from monkeys to humans? Slashdot, what's happened to you? Oh well, I guess everyone's out watching Serenity...
What wouldn't Jesus do?!
A) 20 millions years isn't that old, its 100 times older than humans, big deal. Thats why the form hasn't changed that much, but it may also be because the design really is that well. Most spiders have few predators but quite a selection of prey.
B) Some animals did evolve to what is considered pretty optimal, some examples being sharks, crocidiles and squid. If you follow the genetic chains of living things you'll see that some tend to have fewer changes. Often times the case is that the animal has few or none predators.
Regards,
Steve
Dr David Penney didn't use carbon dating. Carbon dating only works to roughly 60,000 years ago. Beyond that, the radioactivity of the little C-14 that remains falls can't be told from background radiation.
I don't know what technique was used to date the spider; The article only says they used the blood in the spider to do it.
Maybe that old Slashdot troll was on to something when he started putting hot grits down his pants. Maybe he just wasn't advanced enough to realize that if he'd done it with tree sap, then he'd be naked and petrified with blood and DNA intact for at least 20 Million years, just like this spider!
I've been considering different ways I could preserve my body, and I think encasing myself in amber has shot to the top of the list, past deep freezing, and freeze drying.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
> I have to wonder about the authenticity of carbon dating proceedures in general. I'm sure lots of scientists believe in them wholeheartedly, but I'm of a more humble seed. If they say this is a 20mil yr old spider, then I would agree under the stipulation that it's 20mil yrs in relation to everything else we've carbon dated. ;-)
FYI, carbon dating is only good for the past 50,000 years.
Also, notice that TFA doesn't mention carbon dating.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
hmm... perhaps some stupid ritual of eating raw chimp meat and monkey meat?
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
> Funny how this 20 million year old spider species exists in identical form today. It must be a perfectly adapted design; why else would it not have changed in all that time?
TFA mentions that it's a new species. I.e., not identical to any known spider.
(Presumably "new species" means "newly discovered", since the specimen is rather old.)
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Or maybe it's just the demo that God presents at fairs to attract VC. I wonder if he sells licenses or subscriptions...
I think subscriptions. 20+ years ago when I actually went to church, I would always see them pass around a metal plate, and everyone was expected to put money in it.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
Well please let me know what science you've discovered that conflicts with all known, tested, and proven nuclear theory. Regardless, carbon dating is only good for up until about 60,000 years old. After that many other methods can be used, most of those methods are proven and extremely accurate. Please also keep in mind that scientists rarely, if ever, only use one method of dating something. By using two or more completely unrelated methods to date a specimen you can get its age to within extremely small margins of error.
Carbon dating, and similar methods, tend to often be most useful for mummies and humans or recent dead animals. Methods like those can't be used on dinosaur bones because most of the time the bone has been replaced with a different material (one example would be in southern south america, some major finds have been found but the bones were hard to move because they were nearly pure iron and bigger than a man.) You should read up on the science, its a very mature and well understood thing. The media does shitty research and doesn't check any facts that various religious groups tell them. Learn for yourself, you can probably take a class in it at your local college.
The intelligent design folk tend to be ignorant and ignoring facts. They can't accept the truth because they want more to their life, they want to believe that God designed people after himself (which in my eyes is a pretty conceited view, and also an insult to God considering how crappy and fragile we are designed, not to mention the numerous unused organs... I guess God just wanted to weigh us down.) I am a religious man, but some people associate evolution with meaning there is no heaven (not necessarily a true relation) and can't go through life not thinking that there is some higher meaning for them living. Its really all a case about people not being as important as they want to be. Its always been that way (hell, for centuries we claimed we were the center of the friggin Universe) and some people just need to wake up and accept the truth.
Regards,
Steve
"mm... perhaps some stupid ritual of eating raw chimp meat and monkey meat?"
Very interesting theory. I didnt think about this.
I was thinking something else. I wonder what would Dr. Sigmund Freud have said about our suggestions....LOL...
-v
"I heard that cancer is cause by di-hydrogen monoxide."
Caused? Well, we don't really know, but there is a very strong correllation. 100% of cancer sufferers have significant quantities of DHMO throughout their bodies. The tumor cells themselves are probably close to 90% DHMO by volume.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
You are correct, especially about your second point. As a Biology teacher, I emphasize the point to my students that spiders (and all arthropods) do NOT have blood (that term is reserved for animals with a closed circulatory system). Spiders and other arthropods have a fluid called "hemolymph" (as you mentioned) which contains the equivalent of our blood plus lymphatic fluids (hense the name "hemo"=blood + "lymph").
Do you actually expect any more from BBC News, though?
Did I misread the article?
It is a new species from the Filistatidae family commonly found in South America and the Caribbean.
I interpret this to mean that the 20-million-year-old spider species does not exist today.
That's the shit that feds me up
Ahh, but you were fooled again!! The DAY-VIL encased that spider in amber just to TEST YOUR FAITH! Just like all the dinosaur bones and all those gamma rays that supposedly come from that fictonal outer space! Yup all the DAY-VIL'S work!!! PRAAAYZZZ JEEEEBUS!!! PRAAAYZZZ JEEEEBUS!!! [gurrgle] Blaaarrrgghhhannnnn! [froth] [epileptic fit]
Palaeontologist Dr David Penney, of the University of Manchester, found the 4cm long by 2cm wide fossil during a visit to a museum in the Dominican Republic.
Since the discovery two years ago, he has used droplets of blood in the amber to reveal the age of the specimen.
Um, if he "found" it in a museum, doesn't that mean someone ELSE discovered it?
Just curious.
I vote for a liger!
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Oh well, I guess everyone's out watching Serenity...
Speaking of Serenity, did anyone see the credits? There were animal handlers, animal trainers, and a disclosure that no animals were harmed. What animals?!?! Other than brief glimpse of an iguana, I don't recall any animals. Was there a horse in the background of Haven that I missed? Or were they referring Adam Baldwin?
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
If you say that out loud it sounds like Iraqi Park - Where WMD's roam freely.
But then I'm from sweden AND i'm drunk, so my pronounciation is probably screwed up.
Yes, blood is made out of atoms. If the atoms are embedded in a durable impenetrable container, they're not going anywhere as long as the container remains intact. The molecules that made up the blood may degrade, but the atoms all remain in place.
Arguments like this don't matter anyway. If you believe that an invisible man is fscking with our minds by creating a young universe that he filled with all types of evidence that makes it look old (including fossils, geological features, astronomical phenomena, cosmic redshifting and background radiation, minerals on earth and other planets, and myriad other observations, many down to the subatomic level) then all bets are off. You don't need to argue that carbon dating is flawed: in that scenario all carbon samples were rigged when they were created, so worrying about the scientific validity of any dating technique is futile.
There is no such thing as 'creation science.'
Science is based on 3 fundamental assumptions: That the universe exists (is not a figment of my imagination), that it interacts with us in predictable ways (E=MC^2, PV=nRT, etc), and that the way it interacts with us does not change (E=MC^2 & PV=nRT today, they did yesterday, and they always will). If you believe that God exists and interacts with the universe, then you have to reject science because that invalidates the 3rd assumption as God could change the way the universe works (Hmm... I think I'll make E equal MC^1.5 for reasons that puny mortals cannot comprehend)
If you want to believe that God popped the universe into existance 6000 years ago, that's cool with me. Just don't try to pretend it's scientific, because it isn't. And don't try to sneak it into science classrooms, because it isn't science.
The baseline concentration of carbon 14 is from a 1950 measurement - C14 is atmospheric nitrogen bombarded by naturally occurring radiation, the C14 is incorporated metabolically into living organisms - but only as long as you're alive and respiring.
As to accuracy, there are calibration curves for it against other known counters - tree rings etc.
As to precision, there was also a recalculation of the half-life - but they were only off by a few percent.
They're not off by an integral factor, they're not off by an order of magnitude. But after ten or so half-lifes, the differences become too small to be practically useful.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Linking to answersingenesis on Slashdot means you suck at life.
It was discovered by a scientist's wife, who demanded he come from the other side of the forest to squish it with his shoe...
(No, I'm not a sexit pig... just a married man with an aracnophobic wife...)
Oooh .. Ahhh .. That's how it always starts. Then later there's running ... and screaming ... and bug spray ...
I'm all for an antelope/basset hound hybrid.
Abstract from the paper
Note that this was submitted and accepted more than a year ago. If you have a subsciption (most universities), you can get it at this url
Abstract: Two spiders (Filistatidae) in Miocene Dominican
Republic amber, one newly identified and only the second
known fossil of this family, have autospasized legs (detached
at a predetermined locus of weakness when restrained by a
non-self-induced source) at the patella-tibia joint. In both
specimens, droplets of haemolymph (blood) are preserved
exiting the patellae. The autospasized legs and the presence
of haemolymph suggests that both spiders were engulfed in
rapid-flowing resin seeps of relatively low viscosity, rather
than having wandered onto a sticky exudate, becoming stuck
and then covered by a subsequent resin flow. These are the
first reported incidences of such fossilized blood droplets, the
shape, size and position of which provide clues to preservational
taphonomy, an understanding of which is necessary
for reliable conclusions concerning fossil communities and
ecosystems. In addition, haemolymph droplets may serve as
reservoirs for fossil DNA.
Key words: Dominican Republic, spider, Araneae, Filistatidae,
haemolymph, autospasy.
Ignignokt: Did anyone see an eight-foot spider wearing a diaper in the parking lot anywhere?
Cybernetic Ghost of Christmas Past from the Future: I did see that spider, but when I was in that parking lot, it was about 375 thousand years ago....
It isn't anything near 100% in the USA. It is just those that belive the 6000 year 'theory' are very vocal when it comes to their beliefs.
The Bible makes no statements as to the age of the Earth.
Let me repeat that. The Bible makes no statements as to the age of the Earth.
Just because some count the number of generations in the Bible to 'prove' the age doesn't mean they are correct.
Not to mention we have had 20 Million years to adapt. Also bacteria/viruses can't survive for 20 Million years at presumably close to room temperature without light or food.
So if all the ages in the Bible add up to X years ago, all that would imply is that people were made then. Last time I checked in Genesis God waited to make people last and the common belief by most Christians is that "7 Days" could refer to millions of years (evolution for ya), because a biblical day has often meant more than what we now consider to be a 24-hour time period. So basically the spider could have been made on day "3" which is 20 million years ago, and day 4 may have been 10 million years ago etc all the way up to when humans were created. Also, the ages in the Bible may not be years as we determine years now either.
Just a thought..
"To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." - Tennyson
Based on the chances of transmitting aids via different mechanisms of intercourse, it is now believed that God's will is That Lesbians Shall Inherit the Earth.
They don't know that yet, do they? RTFA, they are HOPING to be able to extract DNA from this spider.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Here's some fuel for the fire.
e s_inaccurate_results
http://wiki.cotch.net/index.php/Carbon_dating_giv
"It's not as if they take some carbon from the organism and do some weird shit to it, like putting it next to a TV and then throwing it in boiling water to see what happens."
Hey, don't disparage the proven techniques of Intelligent Design like that!
I'm not sure what's funnier... an appropriate, and funny remark about our Lord, the Great Spaghetti Monster, or that you were modded as interesting?
Damn your relentless logic! Personally, I believe that cancer is caused by 'intelligent infection'. Cancer is far to complicated to be anything but the work of a 'great doctor in the sky'.
Obviously, He reached out and touched the moderators with His noodly appendage.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
I wonder why facts and discussion presently coherently was marked troll. How weird
Stop the Slashdot Effect! Don't read the articles!
Next you'll be telling us there was a point singularity at which space and time itself were created out of nothing with no source and no existence beforehand ... pah! Pseudoscientific clap-trap!
The spider commented that it was cold, and that no one turns up the goddamned heat anymore. It went on to note that younger spiders ran all over his web yesterday, and left things quite untidy. "No sir, things ain't what they used to be 'tall."
Bah. I'm going to skip that amateur penny-ante stuff and go straight for the two-hundred-and-fifty-some. Sex is much more exciting when you need an HR department just to schedule it.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
And besides, it just pops the fundamental question up a level, from who made us... to who made Him?
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
You are wrong.
You are not known as 'young earthers'
You are known as idiots.
I hope that clears everything up.
So the September 11th hijackers really are in heaven now, enjoying their 72 virgins and whatnot?
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
To be honest, there probably are better things to worry about.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
it's a tiny minority outside the US (1% I'd guess.. seems to be near 100% of christians in the US.. didn't one state mandate teaching it as science? Scary stuff...).
Where do you get this stuff? A tiny minority outside the US? Do you happen to know fundamental (or even mainstream semi-educated) Islamic views on evolution? What about tribal Africa religious views? What about South American religious? What about fundamental Christians in Africa? I guarantee you that many, many people across the world have never heard of evolution, would think it's nonsense, and/or disbelieve it today. But that is neither here nor there.
Seems to be near 100% of Christians in the US? Well, something like 80-90% of Americans would identify themselves as Christians. Even non-observant ones. Not like in Europe. I don't go to church, but I consider myself a Christian. It's a cultural thing. I think many Europeans don't understand this. Anyways, long story short, there's NO WAY anywhere remotely near 100% of Christians believe the Earth was created 6000 years ago. I have no idea how many people actually believe that, but I can say I went through public schools in North Carolina (ie, Bible Belt!) and never met a fellow student who has believed that. Didn't one state mandate it? definitely not. Arguments have been made over whether religious views (ie, 6000 years, intelligent design, etc) are even ALLOWED to be taught in schools, not mandated.
I know as an American, I find almost every BBC article that touches on faith in the US as blatantly wrong. Hah, it's kind of like modern-orientalism. We can't really get past our biases and our own preconceptions and our own beliefs. It's easy to see the US as a seething hotbed of fundamentalism. Compared to Europe, maybe so. Compared to many parts of the world, definitely not.
And getting either further off topic, the argument can be made that socialism and environmentalism are the new religions of Europe, with fundamentalisms and lunacies all their own.
...But the real question is can they use it's DNA to create a spider with four asses?
FTA, it's Dr David Penney.
He may have also used nuclear magnetic resonance to date the specimen. I'm currently describing a new bug in amber and plan to use an NMR technique. All of the Dominican amber mines have been dated according to a paper that I don't have handy at the moment. Anyway in it, they describe the NMR resonance of the ambers from several Dominican mines. This manuscript is often referenced in Dominican amber dating as a relative reference to date a newly described specimen. Additionally, if he knows from what mine the amber was taken he may not need to date the specimen himself because some of the mines (e.g., the La Toca mines) have been dated several times by several techniques. To the fossil dating critics out there, you really need to read some of this research yourself before spouting of your thoughts. As is true for much as science, no one puts all of their wait on one technique to make a conclusion. There are a few ways to date amber and if they all point to approx. the same age they are probably about that age.
lol-putting it next to a TV... Awesome.
I vote for chakats!
Denham's Dentrifice, Denham's Dentrifice, Denham's Dandy Dental Dentrifice, Denham's Dentrifice Dentrifice Dentrifice.
> Everyone knows the earth is only 3,000 years old
Uhh..... biblically speaking it's closer to 6,000 actually. You were only out by 100%. Not a bad try though, thanks for playing.
A whole hearted "Fuck That Noise!" to your insightful post.
I can't be the only person getting bad vibes from the idea of scientists recovering some 20 million year old spider DNA from this thing. We all know that once scientists get hold of 20 million year old spider DNA they can't just study it and compare it to modern spider DNA. Oh hell no, they're going to have to make some brand new "vintage" 20 million year old spiders out of it. Then those spiders will escape and breed with our spiders and shortly after that we're going to learn about the little tiny kind of spider who was really responsible for the Dinosaurs going away.
I'm going to be so pissed off when I'm proven right on this.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
Where from did the bing bang come from?
The theory of Creation clearly indicates a mature universe being brought into existence almost instantaneously (six days). When I say "mature", I mean that life forms were fully developed, and light from the stars had already reached earth. This created world appeared fully mature, in every way. Therefore, scientific dating methods are not a threat to this theory. If you believe in Creation, you should have no problem believing that God created fossils and what not to appear "old", just like he created everything else to have apparent age.
I'm guessing it was the iguana. That's the only animal I saw, too. You'd think they'd be more specific in the credits. Say something like "Iguana Wrangler." Actually, I'm not even sure it was an iguana. I thought it looked like it was meant to be some sort of alien species...it sure looked a lot knobbier than any iguanas I've ever seen (and I've known some knobby iguanas, I tell you what). Great...now I have to go see it again, just to be sure.....
That? That was a pigeon.
Now do you *REALLY* believe in the flying spaghetti monster? Or are you merely utilizing that legend to mock other peoples sincere beliefs that you don't happen to share?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Good to see everyone on /. hasn't lost their mind :) Thanks.
Regards,
Steve
Dr Penney, of the School of Earth, Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences, said he had used the blood droplets to trace how, when and where the spider died.
Was there a question about how the spider died? I could have saved you some time and money. I could have made a good guess on the "where" also if you told me where you found him.
RP
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I have to wonder about the authenticity of carbon dating proceedures in general. I'm sure lots of scientists believe in them wholeheartedly, but I'm of a more humble seed.
First, carbon (C14) dating doesn't work past about 6000 years, so that wasn't the method. Why did you leap to the conclusion that it was?
Second, belief don't enter into it. If you have good reasons to believe well-established scientific procedures are wrong, state them. There's not a lot of intellectual oomph to just feeling like you'd rather not accept it. But if you have a good reason to criticize a method, let's hear it - that's how science is supposed to work.
Third, making patronizing comments about what scientists "believe" isn't very humble. Maybe you should find out what technique was used and learn how it works before you act as if scientists just pulled it out of someone's butt and decided randomly that it must work out of arrogance.
Sheesh.
I love it how a criticism of carbon dating is modded down as a 'troll', whereas this flamebait comment goes unnoticed.
Not flamebait, you say? Tell that to a Christian browsing Slashdot.
How can you use NMR to date objects?! You must mean ESR, electron spin resonance.
- "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
Parent is an on-topic, cogent argument, NOT a troll. Someone please correct this.
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
I wonder the same thing about Christians sometimes.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
Well there were only 3 "I for one welcome our new Amber Arachnid Overlords" posts. 4 if you coun't this one. Why it was only yesterday we had the Tool Using Gorilla Overlords and the Giant Squid Overlords. Someone suggested we have an Overlords Championship. And we can't leave out the Poison Dart Dolphin Overlords nor the Acetylene Lifeform Titan Overlords. It must be Overlord envy. I have yet to see one post welcoming our current Neocon Overlords. I mean they must really have their feelings hurt. When everyone else is welcoming a new overlord at least once a day. There couldn't be anyone more deserving of our sympathy than Scooter The Libby, Donald the Rumsfeld, Cheney The Dick, Turd Blossom Rove, and SpaceChimp Bush. Can you feel the love? I'm sure people must have as much love for them as they do for spiders.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
You cannot say science cannot be practiced under the theory that the universe was created (by a creator)- it's a plausible theory, much like many of the others.
Indeed, most science can be practiced without fear of contradicting or confronting the "christian way" under that theory, however making arbitrary statements that contradict existing scientific evidence such as "the earth is around 6000 years old, it says so right here" (BTW I'd like to see where it does) is NOT scientific.
I would actually argue that the core philosophy of "science" is that a statement must be derived from evidence and logic; if that evidence and "logic" (aka doctrine) becomes complicated and contradicts other arbitrary and complicated doctrine from different sources (like other religions), then you really cannot say it is "science".
Saying that the earth is x years old because of an obscure reference in an abritrary 3rd-hand translation of genesis is about as scientific as saying Allah created man from the void...
But the iguana didn't DO anything! So what did they need an "Animal Trainer" for? Oh well...
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Woah... thats pretty interesting. 99% of all cancer patients also ate pickles at some point in their life.
Regards,
Steve (it's a joke, laugh)
Silly mortal. The big bang was God, snapping his fingers...
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
It's true, as evidenced by the dramatic drop in the number of pirates over the course of the past century!
In all seriousness though, people will take which facts and "facts" present themselves and support their position, regardless of how tenuous a manner, then bend them to their beliefs anyway. Anything which outright controverts their belief is either bent to fit their view or disregarded as propaganda. God, I hate zealots (pun intended ;) )
"In the end, there is simply no weapon more devastating than the truth, delivered in just the right way." - tnk1
Oh, I'm sure the pickle/cancer correlation is much lower. Cancer is found throughout the world, but pickles aren't.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I do not agree with time. I was responding to the Parent Poster who used them as a ref.
That is why the title of my post ends in a !
Whatever, just make sure you get that sample to the test chamber on time. The Administrator was most insistent that we proceed on schedule. The chance of a resonance cascade scenario is surely remote...
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
This goes to show the perils of unprotected monkey sex.
Fabio Aquotte
Freud? I'm more worried about the fact that the phrase regarding a "monkey's uncle" and the song "Uncle Fucker" wafted across my brainspace just now...
I need some sleep. Or more San Andreas. Or something.
Perhaps falling asleep playing San Andreas with Uncle Fucker playing on the radio...
...does it still taste like chicken?
Table-ized A.I.
> He may have also used nuclear magnetic resonance to date the specimen. I'm currently describing a new bug in amber and plan to use an NMR technique.
Do you think that technique could be applicable to bugs in programs?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Religious tolerance is allowing people to freely express their beliefs and supporting their rights to hold those beliefs .
.. the word was created by the invisible pink unicorn and that the Spaghetti monster is in fact the great Evil .
There is nothing wrong with parodying them and having a laugh about how silly they are .
Religion is something you choose and should be free to choose. It should also be something we are free to mock .
He sincerely believes that the spaghetti monster is a good parody , he sincerely believes that their religious ideas are a load of bunkum . Is there any difference ? Should he be disallowed from expressing those beliefs in this manner , especially with a crowed in which many share those beliefs .
Even though we all know its partially twaddle
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
The bible does NOT say that the earth is 3,000 years old.
What the bible actually says is...
that the earth is 6,009 years old.
i.e. 4004 years from Creation to the birth of Jesus (The first day of Creation was, of course, Sunday, October 23 4004 B.C.)
2005 years from the birth of Jesus to today.
Nevermind that the guy who first officially dated the birth of Jesus was six years off, give or take.
Why don't they try injecting some of that blood sample into a human. It may produce something like this
...because of course the "normal" amount of C-14 in a Spider is a universal constant, which could never change over 20 million or even 6,000 years.
Why mod the parent down? He's right. If you truly believe in science, you'll research this and find out that all of our dating schemes are based on assumptions that we keep having to redefine because we find they are wrong every 10-20 years.
All we know is - its old. Everytime somebody finds something that goes against the pillars of billions of years, its treated as an abnormality. Fact is - our great scientists that guzzle hundreds of millions of dollars for research based on assumptions don't know jack and are 100x worse than the Bush administration for cronyism. If only a tenth of the money spent on this junk would be spent on cures for cancer, alzhiemers, and other diseases - we'd probably be far more along and far more knowledgeable about ourselves.
How so? The third assumption is that the way the universe acts doesn't change. If a supernatural being creates the universe, then interacts with it in ways such as parting the red sea, then it must have changed the way the universe operates: Because of gravity, water will never naturally leave the lowest available height.
Any possible action is the result of the universe no longer working as predicted: A monopolar force came out of nothing, thin vortices of wind forced the water back, star-trek-style forcefields popped into existance. Since the universe would then demonstrably no longer necessarily act the same way from one moment to the next, science would become meaningless: Steam expanding would not do work on a cylinder if God willed otherwise.
On the other hand, if a supernatural being created the universe and then completely and forever ceased interacting with it, letting everything take it's natural course, I can see no reason why we should speculate about the being or why we would believe it exists at all.
Hmpf, www. seems to be partly down. Hacked by fellow chimps?
On se Internetz nobody noes your German.
Damn your relentless logic! Personally, I believe that cancer is caused by 'intelligent infection'. Cancer is far to complicated to be anything but the work of a 'great doctor in the sky'.
:(
that god is one sadistic motherfucker
"where words meet intent, lies rhetoric's lament"
No we can't. Carbon dating tries to determine how long something has been dead from the ratio of radioactive versus stable carbon in its tissues; it is assumed that as long as the thing lived, it exchanged carbon freely with the surroundings (getting into its tissues tiny amounts of radioactive carbon produced in the upper atmosphere among the stable isotope), and when it died, this exchange stopped, leading to the radioactive isotope being depleted from those its tissues through radioactive decay.
In any case, Wikipedia claims that carbon dating can only be used to measure times some 60 000 years back, so this seems rather irrelevant for the discussion at hand.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
I also love Bill Hicks. Good job, dude.
> I don't go to church, but I consider myself a Christian. It's a cultural thing. I think many Europeans don't understand this.
Uh, what makes you think that Europeans wouldn't understand?
In France only something like 10% (don't know the exact figure but it is low) of Christians goes to Church.
For the US/Europe comparison, well let's just say that Europe is not homogenoeous in this respect: Italy or Ireland (where women don't have the right to do an IVG because of religion) are very different from France, for example.
You know to us wastelanders it's pretty scary to see the intelligent design "theory" gaining momentum in the US, up to the point of being teached in school as an alternative scientific theory, up to the point as being kind of supported by your President. It sure doesn't make it sound as an epiphenomenon that only a small fraction of the population supports.
;)
I don't have numbers but those two facts sure don't make it look as irrelevant (socially speaking, that is
Well we all know where Alabama, Georgia and Texas stand on this issue.
What's your point?
Except, of course, that the atoms inside the blood cells aren't held in place by the container, they are held in place by the structure of the blood cell. Similarly, the atoms inside any largish molecule are held in place by the surrounding atoms. If the molecule degrades, the bonds keeping the atoms in place break, and you are left not with blood but a mess with the same composition of elements than there was in blood.
In short, dust is not blood, even if the remains are held in a container.
That said, I have no idea how long it might take for blood to decompose beyond recognition when sealed in amber.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Although our EU overlords may work hard on a worldwide marketing campaign to make it seem otherwise: there's no such thing as "a European" in a cultural sense. Views, both religious and political, differ strongly across national borders. So do the demographic makeups of European countries. Europe is an economic union and a judicial and political one in some ways.
Some European countries would qualify as more religious than the United States, in my experience, take Roman Catholic Italy for instance. While other countries like the Netherlands are counted amongst the most secular nations on the planet.
As "an American", I'd suggest not attributing opions or cultural attributes to "a European", unless you're very sure it actually hold across national borders. It's similar to calling Canadians and Mexicans Americans. I know from experience that isn't taken too well either.
Just thought I'd let you know.
And about Europeans not understanding that someone would call himself a Christian even if he stays out of church: in most European countries, churchgoing has seen a steady decline, while the same amount of people as about 20 years still calls themselves Christian. So, I think that most Europeans can identify perfectly well with that standpoint.
Actually, you're right. At the beginning of Genesis the earth is "formless and void". However, A literal reading of the Bible does come up with a date of somewhere around 4000 BC for the *six days of creation* (where God creates the sun, stars, plants, animals, man - but not the earth). The date of 4000 BC is based on the Genesis information of each person's age when they "begat" a particular descendent. Using historical and Biblical information gives dates around 4000 BC for the six days of creation, and 2350 BC for the global flood (which, BTW, conflicts with known history which shows Egyptian dynasties going back to around 3000 BC, and plenty of pyramids predating 2350 BC).
The "Great flood of 1656"? I guess you mean the flood of 2350 BC (based on a literal reading of Genesis would put it around 2350 BC - which is during the sixth Egyptian dynasty - which was, strangely enough, never interupted by a flood!) I suppose you're going to tell me that the spider was preserved in the amber because the world was actually flooded by amber rather than water, too?
"And getting either further off topic, the argument can be made that socialism and environmentalism are the new religions of Europe, with fundamentalisms and lunacies all their own."
Aw, first you make an exelent speech about how Americans view religion in comparison to the beliefs shown by Europe's media. And then you end with a sentence to make it plain that you've been completely indoctrinated by your own government & media. At most it can be said that the average European is slightly more worried about the current state of affairs (unfortunately).
Ladies and gentlemen
Ladies and gentlemen
Spider
He is our hero
Spider
Get rid of
Spider
Step on spider!!
Spider
We love you spider
I promise not to kill you
Spider
Spider
We love you spider
Spider
Get rid of
Spider
Must stop
Spider
He is our hero
The Bible never stated that a Day is 24 hours.
You think I'm afraid of that prospect? I would revel in it if I could believe it were true. If I were held to account for my life and my actions, I would have things I would be ashamed of, but I would not be ashamed of my beliefs (or lack of faith).
As Thomas Jefferson said, "Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because if there be one he must approve of the homage of reason more than that of blindfolded fear."
It sure beats an omnipotent, omnisentient judge with a poorly communicated sense of morals and a tendency to attribute unpleasantness to other entities of his design.
I can respect people's love of tradition, I can respect what the church has done in the past to assemble communities, but ultimately, I think a bunch of guys made up this whole God thing to use people's existentialist angst to steal their land and money.
Nobody's killed anyone in the name of the flying spagetti monster. It will no doubt happen one day, but until then, it is a far less corrupt vision of the universe.
It is silly to make broad statements about people grouped only by not believing what you believe in because they may be a lot more diverse and intricate than what you expect. You cannot understand a person who believes other things if you express their thoughts in what you believe.
There have been over 2500 deities recorded in human history. Maybe you subscribe to the notion of the Christian God, but that means you are in denial of the thousands of others. There is no way you're not going to go to some hell according to some religion's teaching. My guess is that most Christians are not in the least fearful of Allah or Wodan... how much of a mental leap is it then to understand that people cannot be fearful of entities they don't believe exist?
I am not at all terrified by the concept of eternal happy life or absolute justice. What DOES terrify me is the idea that the most intelligent, logical and consistent being in the universe (and beyond) would require me to join a personality cult and accept that the worst sin possible is not rape or murder and so on, but to deny the validity of the religion. Remember that according to Christianity and Islam, even people who are the most loving, caring, law-abiding and humble will be punished, while unpleasant, bigoted and rude people supposedly get great rewards.
It really does seem that some people like yourself cannot grasp (terrified perhaps) that their views are regarded as little more than baseless mysticism and personality reverence.
see a Text Widget
... and would appreciate it if fewer such articles could be posted. Thanks.
-
sig sig sputnik
Whether or not the creator interacts with his creation is irrelevant. The Creator and his interaction are covered by the third assumption.
You're viewing a theory from the outside, so it wont make sense. All theories are first based on the premise that they are correct. (All interpretation is influenced by one or another theory)
Ideally, science is (just) based on observation of the natural order of the universe.
On the other hand, I think it's silly to say that the universe is 6000 years old. We definitely don't know that.
So you're claiming that all spider species currently alive have been discovered?
Jackass.
I'm pretty sure that's not what he was claiming. It's just generally accepted that in the absence of evidence that a species currently exists, we assume that it does not. Every now and then we're proven wrong when a species that was thought to be extinct turns up somewhere, but that doesn't happen all that often. Since this is a species that currently, as far as we know, only exists in a lump of amber, we assume that it is extinct. It's possible that we'll be proven wrong at some point, but it's not likely.
From the article: "Palaeontologist Dr David Penney, of the University of Manchester, found the 4cm long by 2cm wide fossil during a visit to a museum in the Dominican Republic."
I've just discovered loads of egyptian sarcofags! In uhm.. British Museum!
What is this "spagetti" of which you speak ?
I need more proof
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
the amber is not a totally sealed container. The way it is dated is measuering the rate carbon excapes it. 2) Lots of the stuff you mentioned point to an old earth but not THAT old. We have found fossilized sacks of flour with a 1940's date on them. It does not take THAT long for much of this stuff to form
Nobody's killed anyone in the name of the flying spagetti monster.
I did it for the pasta!
Be a real patriot: Question authority. Think for yourself. Formulate your own conclusions.
obviously some bible thumper with mod points, duh.
Awww - but I wanted DINOSAURS not freakin' SPIDERS !!!
yes, but but in the Christian faith, you're hoping not to be touched by His Noodly Appendage.
hold on a second, bible believers actually think the earth is only 6000 years old?
You're not serious are you?
man, just when I thought I heard the stupidiest thing ever, something new like this comes along... amazing.
Its definatly more than a small fraction.
I am not sure of the percentage , however whatever fraction it is it sure is vocal about it.
Believe what you want. Like I said, there's no point discussing it if the evidence was rigged.
As CRT's are weak generators of soft X-Rays...
I also went to public school in North Carolina, pretty far out in the country even. I have met one person that I know for sure believes in a "young earth" (though I would bet there are more) and scores upon scores that think evolution is bullshit. It is truely scary.
Does it strike anyone else as odd, that the scientist quoted in article mentions the DNA possibility almost in passing, but rambles on proudly, at length, about how he figure out how it died from being hit with "fast moving resin"? (wtf?) Nothing like breaking your leg from being hit by maple syrup.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
Mod parent up. Please. I actually scared the dog with my laughing.
Have you seen the arrow?
Also note;
Even sub-optimal biological systems can not-change for a long time under these and other conditions;
- adaptions prevent or correct mutations
- long lifespan
- many breeding partners over a wide area
- no predators (like sharks)
- stable environment in the relevant parts (sharks that I know of do not specialize in foods for example)
- large population
So it isn't suprising that some animals don't change much over time.
ps. WTF is it with the ID people spreading from Fark to here... I figured that Slashdot had somewhat of a higher standard.
Hersay!
He created it el dente
Everybody knows that different shapes and parts took longer to be perfect.
The fact that everything el dente suited to its environment is PROOF in FSM's greatness!
Nobody's killed anyone in the name of the flying spagetti monster. It will no doubt happen one day, but until then, it is a far less corrupt vision of the universe.
Well, that solves my problem of what to do today. Thanks for the idea.
You win the blue ribbon. The article is pretty shallow, stating that he used the blood droplets to date the specimen. It then goes on to state he hopes to extract DNA. I don't see how the two are contradictory. My guess is it was dated by context.
er to explain what the "IVG" acronym stands for for non-french speaking people, it's "interruption volontaire de grossesse" (voluntary interruption of pregnancy) = abortion.
Yeah, except the AIDS virus was found in samples of some dudes (again in Africa) from the 1920s.
The best hypothesis so far as it's from bushmeat usage. I.e. killing, butchering and eating monkeys.
mmmmmmm. soft and cuddly x-rays. yeah baby!
"I don't believe spiders ever existed." - Carl Everett
Hilarious! Good thing I wasn't sipping on the coffee - learned my lesson with my last laptop.
We use the same irrationality and absense of logic that Christians do when choosing our religion, I don't see anything wrong with that.
If anything, most of them are probably just jealous because we're more creative than the people who made up christianity 2000 years ago. Afterall, we have beer volcanoes and strippers.
The great Designer must have been Slartibartfast!
If you mod me down, I *will* introduce you to my sister!
Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.
-Nano.
Ok. Let me put it in words that'll be understood here.
"Unfortunately. Nobody can be told what the matrix is. You have to experience it for yourself".
Faith is like that. Everybody at some point in their life wants to believe in something that is higher than themselves. To extract some kind of meaning out of existance. We are all born hard-wired that way. It will happen regardless of how atheistic the individual's views are.
When that moment happens, we have a choice. We can either believe in something or choose not to believe in a higher power. To swallow the 'red pill ' or the 'blue pill' as it were. The truth is out there. It only matters if you'll have faith.
I have seen and heard of all types of religions. The ones that focus on teaching and not preaching are the ones to be part of - in my humble opinion. Put simply, the choice is our's. We merely have to swallow it.
-FlynnMP3
Don't know how you got a troll...I laughed.
As I understand it, carbon dating gives wildly wrong dates for things that are still alive, and different dates for different parts of the same animal. And isn't accurate past a few tens of thousands of years. But maybe I am just partial because a pig that was supposed to be extinct for over 20 million years was found alive and kicking in my home country (Paraguay).
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Even if the amount of C14 changed dramatically over 20 million years, it wouldn't matter much because it isn't used to date anything older than about 50,000. And during that time, we can be pretty confident that the amount of C14 in the atmosphere did stay relatively constant. Since C14 is formed by cosmic radiation interacting with the upper atmosphere, any significant increase in C14 concentration would probably also involve an increase in radiation bombardment leading to (another) global extinction event.
End of lesson. You may press the button.
People here at /. are funny in a funny way. While discussing Aragog's mum, people bash others for their misinformation about the origins of HIV. You're not an expert in the field, I hear the /. masses say, an so you're not even entitled to an fscking opinion. But people fail to realize that science is contraditory in its own nature.
For example, Duesberg simply denies that HIV even causes AIDS. He is a most respectable virologist, so I guess he is entitled to his opinion. People like Kary Mullis, Nobel prize winner, and a host of others, support him.
So the next time Joe-not-a-scientist says something, don't rule it out just because he is not en expert in the field, or just because there isn't "extreme evidence" available.
Where is that guy who'd die defending what I had to say when I need him?
"I don't know what technique was used to date the spider"
Well, my guess is that he got to know the spider a bit before he finally asked it out. Then it could be a nice dinner, some wine, and a walk on the beach. If it was a more "casual" date, it might have involved a movie or Putt-Putt.
We may never know.
Well, the point of my post was not to argue the validity of specific religions, but to point out that the claim that non-believers are "frightened" somehow is silly.
see a Text Widget
But who really need the FSM when there are already so many stories to choose from
Check out:
http://www.randi.org/jr/062405silly.html#2
Actually you should read the entire site, I'm sure you'll feel much better afterward
The church up the street expects people to pay 10-20% of their income to the church...
What created God? What created God's God? What created God's God's God?
My argument was not against the Christian faith, but against the notion that people who do not follow this faith are still somehow fearful of its hypothesized deity. My point still stands unrefuted as you even show open disinterest in how those people regard your faith and only focused on preaching.
I could even grant that the Christian deity exists in the exact way that you outlined and your point would still be invalid.
How terrified are you of Allah?
see a Text Widget
The bible doesnt say "the earth is 6000 years old". However, you can add up all the periods of time that it mentions (example) and come up with a total of ~6000 years.
I think you're misreading or misunderstanding or both... ? You clearly said their choice was based on fear and that they are in denial of your deity's existence as a result of being terrified of it... that means they implicitly accept the deity's possible existence. This is a logical thing to think for someone who is entrenched in his own views.
see a Text Widget
No, I do mean NMR and its a relative dating technique. The NMR profiles of amber turn out to be unique to certain mines in the Dominican Repuplic. I'm sorry I don't know the details of the analysis, I'm not a physical scientist, but the work is published and does state that the proceedure was NMR. The dates of these mines have been surveyed using other techniques. So, if you have a specimen of Dominican amber and apply NMR analysis to it you can infer or confirm both its collection locality and date. Again, based on previous studies.
Is carbon the only radioactive chemical they can use to date biological material? I know they use an element with a much longer half-life to date rocks. My guess would be they used radioactive dating, just not carbon dating.
Feel free to mod me "-1 - Angry Jerk".
Perhaps I did not make myself clear, because you do not really disagree with me. What I meant by the "normal amount" was the ratio that we are comparing the dead organisms' ratio to, the one that should be stable while it is alive because of the exchange you mention. My whole point was that the gp was saying that he thought it was perhaps 20 million years old relative to other things that were carbon dated, when radiocarbon dating (or any radioactive dating) is inherently relative; by using the ratio in living organisms and the ratio in dead organisms, the date calculated is relative to the present.
Hot maple syrup rub down until naked and petrified
sigs are for fools and trolls. no signature is *always* appropriate. you should turn them off in your preferences.
How can they know? Unless someone planted an artefact 60000 years ago (and dated it), how can they know these methods are proven and accurate (in the +60000 years range)?
If you have, say, ten methods for dating something, and all of them give you the same age back, I'd say that's fairly conclusive evidence.
Do you also ask "if someone hasn't walked to the sun, and counted every step that they took, how do we know that the sun is 8 million miles away"?
in the Qur'an, Jesus said: But as for those who disbelieve, garments of fire will be cut out for them, boiling fluid will be poured down their heads.
This penalty is associated with a judgment by God, not a judgment by man.
Where do you get this stuff? A tiny minority outside the US? Do you happen to know fundamental...Islamic views on evolution?
Wow. Apparently the anti-evo's have mod points for this sort of nonsensical reply to be moderated up (while the parent and grandparent were moderated trolls or flamebait). You might have missed it, but we were talking specifically about Christianity, not about fundamentalist Islamist, or even Voodoo worshippers. Christianity. The reality, and let the anti-evo's feel comfortable moderating me down for saying the truth, is that the anti-evolution correlation with Christianity is almost an entirely US thing.
you all seem to forget his Holiness FSM ( Flying Spaghetti Monster ). There is an entire section in our mythos about his ability to change c14 dating, All this done with his holy Noodle Appendage. So Please see the reference http://www.venganza.org/
Onepoint
if you see me, smile and say hello.
I based my comment on http://www.crichton-official.com/speeches/speeches _quote05.html which at the very least is a quite interesting read.
I appreciate your comment. I will say that a certain part of my post was deliberate hypocrisy -- this is after all what we get when we make vast generalizations like "100% of Christians in America" and "in Europe..." Thanks for seeing my flaws :)
Though I would also argue that even in countries like Italy the numbers of people identifying themselves as Christians are falling.
No you missed the point. The point was the author claimed 100% of Christians in the US did not believe in evolution while 1% of anyone else outside the US agreed with them. I find that viewpoint silly. I would also be willing to bet a substantial sum of money that more than 1% of "Christians" in Europe do not believe in evolution.
The science is not something to be explained in a post on slashdot. It can be a pretty complex science, but the basis relies on the half-life of nuclear materials. The half-life can easily be measured and from that, you can come to many other conclusions. But let me repeat, there are plenty of other dating methods that have nothing to do with carbon dating or even nuclear phsyics at all. A simple example would be akin to counting the layers of certain tidal areas (or areas that were once tidal). Each cycle you can tell just from the way the rock formed, what the cycle of the moon was and other facts about the tide... the moon circles the earth on a pretty constant cycle and you can tell how long ago a certain layer of that tidal area is from. It is easy to determine if that layer has been tampered with or not, but if a fossile is in that layer and the surrounding sediments are consistent with typical tidal patterns than that fossil died during that period (Of course you would confirm your finding with a few other completely unrelated dating methods). Its just like counting rings on a tree, not only can you tell what rings are from which seasons but you get other information like how much rain was during that season.
Regards,
Steve
Ok, if we assume that a Creator is covered by the 3rd assumption, then wouldn't we have to assume that he/she/it always acts the same way under a given set of circumstances? Otherwise, we wouldn't be able to predict how things will necissarily work because the Creator and his/her/it's interactions would be unpredictable. Or would we be talking about something more like the ascended Ancients (if you're into Stargate)?
On the other hand, quantum uncertainty makes things more interesting. On the subatomic scale, at least, things are generally unpredictable anyway - A creator could very well interact on that scale and it would be impossible to know one way or the other. Any thoughts on this?
Does anyone know the name of the fossilized tree that was found with upper half being different material than the bottom. If fossilization takes millions of years, the upper part would not exist. Also please explain the concept of a jelly fish being fossilized over millions of years. There was an observable discovery of a hat being completely fossilized within time of 50 years in an abundonned mine.
Probably wasting my time, but objects can be preserved by burying, and fosilized later (over longer time periods). Fosils are created by mineral replacement, usually when the object is submerged in a fluid carrying the minerals. An object could be burried by silt (to protect it), then submerged over long time periods in different solutions, resulting in different mineralization for different parts. Depending on the solution, mineralization doesn't have to take an exceeding long time. Just because fosils are old, doesn't mean they take a long time to become fosils.
Sad for you, the more scientists discover the more it agrees with the Bible.
I guess I'll ignore this, since it's so vague as to be impossible to refute.
What doesn't agree is understanding. Facts are facts, but conclusions we draw from them can just be speculations at best. Also letting falacious logic off the leash doesn't produce good results either.
Actually, conclusions can be more than speculations. They can be theories which can be tested using experiments. They can predict things. That's what's useful about science. Religion is useless because it doesn't allow us to predict anything about the world. Even if you're right and some guy in a white robe created the earth 6000 years ago, who cares? Believing that doesn't help me to predict anything about the world 'he' created. Can I use that belief when I build a bridge or engineer a drug to combat disease? Not to mention the whole 'stack of turtles' that creationists ignore. After all, if the world is so complex that it needed someone to create it, doesn't that make the creator so complex as to need something to create him?
Awesome furniture, accessories and cabinetry in Santa Rosa, CA: http://humanity-home.com/
Refining dating science to make it more accurate doesn't mean it was 'wrong' to begin with. It's a case of increasing precision. Not to mention that the parent was talking out of his ass. Early geologists didn't have ways of doing absolute dating. That's why geologic timescales are all based on the life forms within them. However, _modern_ science can use radioactive decay to date rocks with reasonable precision to absolute ages.
BTW, what would be an example of 'something that goes against the pillars of billions of years'?
Awesome furniture, accessories and cabinetry in Santa Rosa, CA: http://humanity-home.com/
I don't know why but I STILL laugh every time i hear this stupid joke!
That may be, but there are problems with saying that day = long period of time. First, you'll note that plants are created before the sun. Now it might be plausible to say that plants survived without the light of the sun for 24 hours, but if you start saying "one day = millions/billions of years", you run into trouble. Also, there's the heat issue. Without the sun, the temperature of the earth would be near absolute zero. (Although if you believed in literal 24 hours, you might get away with saying that God heated up the earth until the sun arrived 24 hours later.)
...
...
Gen 1:11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, [and] the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed [is] in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
Gen 1:12 And the earth brought forth grass, [and] herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed [was] in itself, after his kind: and God saw that [it was] good.
Gen 1:13 And the evening and the morning were the third day.
Gen 1:16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: [he made] the stars also.
Second, the sequence of creation is wrong when compared to evolutionary history. The Genesis story has sea creatures, whales, and birds created on the fourth day. It has land animals created on the fifth day. But, evolutionarily speaking, birds and whales are descendents of land animals - they should not appear until after the land animals.
Gen 1:20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl [that] may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.
Gen 1:21 And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that [it was] good.
Gen 1:23 And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.
Gen 1:24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.
In the end, I don't think you can get by saying that "day = millions/billions of years" because it does not resolve the differences between Genesis and evolution.
I'm sorry, but where on earth did you get such misinformation about Christianity?
From the Bible. It outlines quite clearly that non-acceptance of the Christian deity equals going to hell, regardless of how nice or bad the person in question has been. I've spoken to various Christians over time and while they differ in many points of view and reasoning, they are without exception very clear about what happens to me if I don't accept the Christian deity as reality. Where I can be "saved" (i.e. joining the club) is not the issue.
Are you claiming that Christian heaven is open to atheists, Hindus, Moslims and so on? If so, then your views fall in the category of "some Christian sects".
see a Text Widget
But just because one is not living in fear of something (because they think its just make-believe), does not mean they are unafraid of it.
But here's the point: the common aspect of every major religion that ever existed is the denial of the unpleasant reality of death. You are the one who ducks the confrontation with death and thus require an afterlife to feel OK. You also indicate that you duck confrontations with other-believers because your life is hard (?), yet you make sweeping statements that attract their attention.
I on the other hand welcome an afterlife with enthusiasm. How can you say I am fearful of it? It's unfortunate that the claims are unplausible in my eyes, because I'm actually biased in favour of it.
You didn't answer my question on whether you fear Allah. As I understand, you are in denial of Allah's existence for some reason.
The difference is that my views on life and personal philosophies don't center around denying the existence of 2500 deities. Your views on the other hand depend for a great deal on the denial of death. In fact, one of the most celebrated and most important events in Christianity is the alleged resurrection of Jesus.
Fear seems to be more an inherent concept in Christianity as almost all Christians at some point mention Hell as the end-stop for me if I don't join the cult.
see a Text Widget
Must be some DAMN IGNORANT BRITISH BASTARDS out there that can't the world knowing how their scientists have given the world AIDS.
Thanks for the ignorant flamebait mods.
George Bush + Linux = "I will not let information get in the way of the fight against Windows"
...on October 1, 2006, to celebrate its 20,000,001st birthday party!
Best Buy can have you arrested
Who knew we had DNA revision control that goes back that far!
Get rid of everything Micro and Soft: Buy Viagra and/or Linux
That's "heresy" and "al dente". Our Lord, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, is displeased.
You want to know who isn't running Firefox 2.x? They spell it "definately" and "rediculous".
Actually, the problem with carbon dating is not with nuclear theory. Some fungi and bacteria can produce C14, and can throw off the calculations of decay. This link to the talk.origins newsgroup talks about it: http://tinyurl.com/bwwfk/
Ok
20 million years ago this spider was trotting around the planet. I would love to see the evolutionary changes in the spider. That would be fantastic! Is noone else excited about this?
I am sure there are many changes in the old spider when examined, and compared, to today's spiders.
It would also give us a little more information about how long spiders have been around. When we look at how basic the spider was 20 million years ago, how natural selection has acted on the particular species of spider.
I would imagine this particular species would be ancestor to many other spider species.
It would also be fantastic if there are any of the spiders surroundings, at the time, were trapped in the hair of the spiders legs - if the spider infact had/needed hair on its legs 20 million years ago.
Also, I find "20 million years" a bit of a rough estimate. Could they not be more specific in regards to the dates? Maybe - twenty million seventeen hundered thousand years ago.
They could quite easily have been out a few million years.
---
Is this Shelob's mom? She waits.
Goddamned kids! Get off my lawn!
It's gotta have six asses!
Goddamned kids! Get off my lawn!
-- There are two kind of sysadmins: Paranoids and Losers. (adapted from D. Bach)
I have already displeased our Spaghetti Lord by teaching his concepts while NOT wearing full pirate regalia.
marinara ... bleuch!
surely you know he's bolonaissey
Arachno-Jurasic Park
Starring:
Laura Flynn-Boyle
Visit this park where instead of large dinosaurs spiders were cloned using giant tarantula dna. Nono this could even roll out into a sequel combining both Eight Legged Freaks and this one. Where the spiders grow even larger and jump at park attendees.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
Okay, I found the numbers : according to a survey from Harris in June 2005, 55% of the americans think that their kids should learn both "theories". Scary, indeed.
I've found competing numbers--but ultimately if we want to make this a discussion of numbers--check out Wikipedia. They have numbers and statistics from around the world--for instance creationism is MANDATORY in Pakistan and Turkey. Large percentage of germanspeakers believe in creationist theories as well. It's all in wikipedia.
you're getting OT there, I'm perfectly OK with creationism on its own, as a religious belief. It's just that some people in the US are trying to push a religious belief as a scientific alternative theory, in total discord with secularism, and to my knowledge that's the only place in the whole world where this is happening.
Sorry if I was unclear--it's illegal to teach evolution in Pakistan. In Turkey, evolution is not taught in schools, creationism is mandatory. I'm sure MANY other countries are similar to this. The belief in creationism is not limited to the US. Yes, some FEW people in the US are attempting to have Intelligent Design or other theories taught in addition to evolution. I think this is silly, but, it hasn't made much traction either, and judging from numbers, isn't too terribly popular. That's my point.
Forgot to mention in my other reply--it's mention on wikipedia also, but apparently there were movements afoot to pass a dutch law to allow teaching of ID.
Well you're just giving more weight to my point : Pakistan is an Islamic Republic! Islam is the state religion, there's no secularism there, so of course it is illegal to teach evolution over there. (see http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2004/35519.htm) Turkey is supposed to support secularism, as church and state have been set appart since Ataturk, but lately there has been a religious pressure over there, and Turkey is well-known for its problems with human rights. I wouldn't say that you have chosen the best countries to compare with the United States of America...
At any rate, would you have found more recommandable countries in the same situation, it wouldn't change anything : as you said the whole thing is just silly. It's really worrysome that such a thing could happen, as we expect much better from the USA we know and love (I know this would never, ever happen here in France. This couldn't even be considered a single second. Evolution is even taught in religious private schools here, while the creation is only taught where it belongs : in religious education. And even there, it's only being depicted as a metaphor!)
I have met one person that I know for sure believes in a "young earth"
Doesn't sound very scary to me.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
Any actual examples of these 'assumptions that we keep having to redefine'? After all, if we are being scientific then we can hardly take your word for it.
And as for your deranged ravings about how scientists waste all of their research funding, there is someone here who dosen't know jack, and I'd be looking in the mirror if I were you.
If you look at things objectively, you'll see that science is its' own little religion.
Besides, it's not like the definitive answer of where we came from is all that important.
Better to be concerned about where we are *now* and where it will lead us in future.
It's too trivial a subject to even debate.
I think that saying such a thing is only a way to dismiss the seriousness of the situation. If you look at things in a specific way, and only at things that can confirm that point of view, yes, science can be seen as a religion. The thing is, science isn't just about theories. There are theorems, axioms, postulates, experiments, demonstrations, hypothesis, proofs, analysis, etc... Science isn't about faith. Theories themselves aren't about faith. They're probabilities, and are there to be challenged by the scientific community to be confirmed or invalidated. And theories never come out of the blue : according to what we currently know, they are more or less probable, and compatible with what we hold for scientific facts. Things are always at least double-checked. The evolution theory has been challenged just as well, and still stands today. It is backed by facts and evidences, and evolution in itself has been used practically to improve technology : robots move optimally thanks to generations of computer programs born randomly, breeded, and selected, just like in nature and according to Darwin's theory. The same applies for artificial life, see this for instance : http://www.spiderland.org/breve/
I know that in science sometimes what we held for true yesterday can be wrong tomorrow. For instance the earth was believed to be flat before... But by then science had nothing in common with today's science, and furthermore, that theory was based on faith, just like the intelligent design "theory" is nowadays... which is precisely why such theory is unworthy of our era. And I think that moving the subject onto science is just a spin.
So basically the intelligent design "theory" tells us that the earth is 6000 years old, and that all living things were created at once (well maybe not at once, I guess it should rather be in 6 days?...) What's next? Will they put the Earth back in the center of the universe, with all other celestial objects rotating around it?...
You know I'm perfectly OK with creationism as a religious belief. I just can't stand to see that some try to disguise that as a scientific theory. What facts led to the creation of such theory? What scientific mind wrote a thesis about it? Is there even one? And if there is, will those who support such a view ask the Nobel prize for him? Isn't it troubling to see that this theory has been written nearly word for word in the Bible even before the birth of science as we know it? Is there a scientific collegiate that supports this theory and is working on it? Why is it that those who support this so-called theory do it on a religious basis and not on actual scientific facts? Isn't it worrysome that secularism has to undego such heavy fire, when lobbies put the pressure on schools to make sure that something which has nothing to do there is being taught? Where's the respect for other beliefs? Where's the respect for those who do not believe in God?
Dammit Jim, he's dead-- I'm a doctor, not a miracle worker!
Now, making fun of somebody's beliefs is indeed protected free speech. And using deprecating humor (also known as satire) to make a serious point is a time-honored rhetorical device. But it's also a tad rude and offensive. Sometimes you have to be rude and offensive to make a point, but when you do, you shouldn't be suprised when the object of your mocking takes offense. Religious tolerance, or lack of it, has nothing to do with the conversation.