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Study Provides Compelling Evidence of Single Impact Extinction Theory

ectotherm writes to tell us that a new study at the University of Missouri-Columbia claims to provide compelling evidence that a single meteor impact was the cause of animal extinction 65 million years ago. From the article: "MacLeod and his co-investigators studied sediment recovered from the Demerara Rise in the Atlantic Ocean northeast of South America, about 4,500 km (approximately 2,800 miles) from the impact site on the Yucatan Peninsula. Sites closer to and farther from the impact site have been studied, but few intermediary sites such as this have been explored."

382 comments

  1. Wombats by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    I suspect Wombats were somehow involved.

    1. Re:Wombats by Woldry · · Score: 1

      You could ask them.

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      How can a post be modded "overrated" or "underrated" when it hasn't been rated yet?
    2. Re:Wombats by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      I've heard that the wombats were all going to seminary school down at Lake Titicaca when a dump truck full of kumquats overturned on their clambake.

      The rest, as they say, is history.

    3. Re:Wombats by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Are you talking about: "Women's Mountain Bike and Tea Society. A network of women who share a passion for pedaling in the dirt." www.wombats.org

    4. Re:Wombats by Magic5Ball · · Score: 1

      Yes, wombats have been suppressing "Evidence of Single Impact Extinction Theory" for years now, to the point that some doubt that he theory ever existed. Evidence _for_ the single impact extinction theory, however, appears plentyful.

      --
      There are 1.1... kinds of people.
    5. Re:Wombats by cyclomedia · · Score: 1

      which, along with the next post down, leads into a newish theory of mine: maybe god DID create the human race, and in his own image to boot. but maybe it was a few million years ago and god is actually a small, furry mammal

      --
      If you don't risk failure you don't risk success.
  2. 65 million? by grub · · Score: 5, Funny


    65 million years is crazy-talk, that's 64,994,000 years before God made the Earth!

    --
    Trolling is a art,
    1. Re:65 million? by sRev · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I read this yesterday and have been looking in occasionally to read the comments at the bottom. It looks like there must be some global creationist group that is directing traffic to the story, as every comment makes just that same arguement. I guess the creationist party line is that the "flood" wiped out the dinosaurs. That's a lot of water.

    2. Re:65 million? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ahh, so you're one of those (weird?) Christians who interprets The Bible literally?

      Or are you trying to make fun of something which you don't seem to know anything about?

    3. Re:65 million? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny
      It looks like there must be some global creationist group that is directing traffic to the story, as every comment makes just that same arguement. I guess the creationist party line is that the "flood" wiped out the dinosaurs.


      Maybe they are just hoping that a crapflood will wipe out scientists?
    4. Re:65 million? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      When Young Earth Creationists say that the Earth was created 6000 years ago, they're talking in God-years.

    5. Re:65 million? by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      Please use a dictionary and look up the word "sarcasm".

      And if you don't think a huge number of people today don't believe the earth is 6000 years old, you're naive.

    6. Re:65 million? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Okay, I looked it up, it means what I thought it means.

      I don't believe a huge number of people today believe Earth is 6000 years old, so I'm naivete.

      I do believe that grub is an anti-religious troll (read his sig, then read his posting history).

    7. Re:65 million? by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 4, Insightful
      65 million years is crazy-talk, that's 64,994,000 years before God made the Earth!

      Read through the comments at the bottom. Seriously. These people really believe this stuff, and I've personally met people who, if you try to talk to them about almost anything scientific (like, oh say, 80,000-year-old human remains) will absolutely tell you "No, way! The Earth is only 6,000 years ago. It says so in the Bible!"

      I'm not at all suggesting that people give up their religious convictions, but I am saying that some people need to stop confusing religion with science. They are separate disciplines and need to be separate. If you absolutely must believe that the choice is eaither A) God loves me and the Earth is only 6,000 years or B) there was a mass extinction event on the Earth 65 million years ago, so there can't be a God, then you are either seriously depraved or downright stupid.
    8. Re:65 million? by pilgrim23 · · Score: 1

      Ever wondered what god the dinosaurs fought wars and slaughtered each other in the name of?

      oh and regards your sig: Watch out at zebra crossings.....

      --
      - Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum.
    9. Re:65 million? by saforrest · · Score: 1

      I don't believe a huge number of people today believe Earth is 6000 years old, so I'm naivete.

      Er, whether or not grub is an anti-religious troll, there are lots of believe who believe this. This was evident from the public reaction in American media to this court case.

    10. Re:65 million? by buswolley · · Score: 1, Insightful
      Personally, I don't believe that the Universe was made just thousands of years ago, but first consider the following:

      It seems possible that if a creator was able to make a Universe, then He would also be able to create that Universe with a false history. To be more precise,

      I mean the Creator could have created a Universe at state B, with Physical Law set Y, in such a way as to make it appear that state A had existed, by reconstructing state A by applying Y on states B..C...D...k...etc, where A In other words, if something is to come out of nothing, and can take on any form, it may well APPEAR that there was a prior history before that creation, but it isn't actually true. Light may take a million/billion years to reach us from that star, but those intermediating states may be reconstructed by an all knowing all powerful entity. By placing a photon with the appropriate properties and vectors in between the star and our planet, say 10,000 Light years out, may make it appear that the photon originated from that star millions/billions of years ago.
      --

      A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.

    11. Re:65 million? by buswolley · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      Sorry about the html screwups above.

      --

      A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.

    12. Re:65 million? by ettlz · · Score: 2, Interesting
      And yet, you are here on Slashdot.
      I do believe that grub is an anti-religious troll (read his sig, then read his posting history).
      And yet, you are here posting anonymously, thereby preventing us from examining your proclivities.
    13. Re:65 million? by ettlz · · Score: 5, Funny
      Ever wondered what god the dinosaurs fought wars and slaughtered each other in the name of?

      Jehovasaurus.

      Next!

    14. Re:65 million? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      That's something that's always struck me. An omnipotent god could trivially create a zillion photons all the way up to every star in the iniverse. And in fact could create 15 billion years of fake history which would be completely indistinguishable from "real" history.

      Which also means that we could also postulate that the universe came into existence 10 seconds ago, complete with this comment half written.

    15. Re:65 million? by flynt · · Score: 4, Insightful

      So you have no problem granting me equal logical standing when I say the following: that I have, as of this moment, created your entire reality. Isn't it possible that if I was the creator, and created the universe, then I could also have created that universe with a false history? You believe me don't you? I have a post that says it's true! All other posts were planted here by me to tempt the faithless.

      The problem with the statement is that there is no way to challenge it. You can't prove it, I can't disprove it, at best it's uninteresting, and at worst it's meaningless.

    16. Re:65 million? by Hoi+Polloi · · Score: 1

      And the Bible doesn't even give the number 6000. It is extrapolated by Bible researchers based on counting named generations (sure they mentioned every one?) and making assumptions.

      --
      It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
    17. Re:65 million? by pixelpusher220 · · Score: 1

      Go read "End of Faith" by Sam Harris. *Any* religious beliefs are entirely and wholly incompatible with science.

      In the old days before science became it's own field, religion *was* the science and of course they got along famously together. Once Science grew up, Religion wasn't so thrilled since it's basic prinicples were being overturned one by one.

      Religion has been nothing more than the explanation of that which can't be explained right now. It rained? must be the Rain god is upset. It didn't rain? guess what, he's still upset, just differently. Repeat adnauseum for anything you need to explain.

      'God' today is just the summation of all the different 'gods' so called 'primitive' cultures generally had.

      And if you look at most religions, they all have the same basic beliefs - be nice to others, be 'good'. Funny how all the different 'human' groups came up with the same conclusions...we all like to live next to people who aren't going to hurt or kill us.

      So religion is also a human expression of the desire for 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness' to re-use a phrase.

      There is no God...there is however the basic goodness that comes with being human expressed over and over again throughout history. (obviously bad apples will exist, even outside of nurture forces...but the *vast* majority of people don't want to hurt others)

      --
      People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people :-D
    18. Re:65 million? by mojodamm · · Score: 1

      Tell you what; if I was omnipotent I sure wouldn't be playing this crappy version of 'The Sims', just to mess with all the insignificant life-forms I'd created earlier. Do people honestly think that if God created us in his image, he'd be content to just tool around in the heavens because he couldn't find anything better to do?

      --
      I'd rather be an ignorant moron than an anonymous coward.
    19. Re:65 million? by ArcherB · · Score: 1

      That's something that's always struck me. An omnipotent god could trivially create a zillion photons all the way up to every star in the iniverse. And in fact could create 15 billion years of fake history which would be completely indistinguishable from "real" history.

      Uh, that is what omnipotent means. I'm not agreeing with it, but by definition, an omnipotent God could do literally anything.

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    20. Re:65 million? by venicebeach · · Score: 1, Troll

      I'm not at all suggesting that people give up their religious convictions

      Why not? That's exactly what they should do. The fact that there are convictions immutable by evidence is the problem.

    21. Re:65 million? by bushki3 · · Score: 1

      Maybe man's perception of time is not the same as God's perception. Perhaps those millions of years worth of "proof of evolution" that we see only cover 6 days worth of creation for a God who exists in Eternity? Thus it's possible that a time difference is all that separates the creationist from the evolutionist.

      --
      011100110110100101100111
    22. Re:65 million? by jakel2k · · Score: 1

      In Genesis, it states that Heaven and Earth were created along with everything else in 7 days... from that you have Adam and Eve... from that you can trace appx. each generation, including how long certain people lived. That can be traced to the creation to the flood to the house of David to Jesus... and from there you have well documented 2000 years. Which adds up to about 6000 years.

    23. Re:65 million? by truckaxle · · Score: 2, Funny

      This reminds me of an incident at the San Diego museum of Natural History. There was a display of Therizinosaurus. A group of kids were admiring the display when one of them asked out loud how old the fossils were. A member of the museum staff was walking by and overheard the question and quickly answer "72 million and 14 years".

      That answer satisfied most, but after a few seconds another asked how could they ever identify the age so precisely. The staff member responded "Well when I started work here they told me that it was 72 million years old and I have worked here for 14 years so now it is 72 million and 14 years old."


    24. Re:65 million? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Uh huh... but even the entire USA is hardly a representative sample. That said, the American media is hardly a representative sample of Americans.

      Creationists == Atheists

      Why? Because they both have the least confidence in their faith (yes, grub, Atheism is a faith, whether that makes it a religion...??) and are therefore the most vocal about it. That's why it is perceived that so many Americans are atheists, while the rest are seen as creationists.

      HELLO, there are over 1,000,000,000 Catholics in the world alone. That's enough to populate 3 USA's; and the vast majority of Catholics aren't creationists. Then we'll talk about the other some billions of Christians, the Jews, etc. who aren't creationists either.

      The thing that drives me nuts about the average Slashdotting atheist is, they like to paint the picture that anyone who believes in God accepts The Bible literally. That's not only stereotyping, it's wildly inaccurate.

    25. Re:65 million? by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 1

      It might interest you to know that I don't belong to one of the major Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) and that I'm also a (former) agnostic. The specifics of my religious/spiritual beliefs are outside the scope of this discussion.

      But in any respect, your argument (and by extension, I'm assuming Harris' book) seems to be that religion only exists to explain the unexplained. Since there's nothing (or almost nothing) left unexplained, we don't need religion (or spirituality, I assume).

      Except that there are things left unexplained, and there are events in people's lives that cannot be explained.

      But that's even besides my main point. Religion exists not to explain the unexplained, but because it is human nature to ponder the mysteries of life. No matter how much science figures out, there are always mysteries, not all of which can be explained by science or that science would ever even try to understand. But that's even still besides my main point.

      Also, religion != morality != ethics. Religion doesn't exist because we think we need to be nice to one another. And as much as religions are similar on some ethical and moral issues, they differ very greatly on others.

      Ok, here's my main point (finally): Religion exists because people need to believe in something greather than themselves. That's it in a nutshell.

    26. Re:65 million? by malsdavis · · Score: 1
      That THEORY might be mentioned with arguments for and against it, but there is equal amount of evidence for other possibilities regarding the origin of life on this planet

      There are no serious arguments against "natural selection". "natural selection" has nothing to do with the "first spark of life" which is what you appear to be referring to.

      Are you seriously trying to say you have proper evidence that contradicts the "primordial soup" theory? If you actually do (which I highly doubt), you would become world famous in academia if you could write a paper on it!

      because most people here are biased towards evolution as being the source of all life.

      They are only biased in the same way that a jury might be made biased upon seeing an overwhelming amount of evidence. They have reached their conclusions based on the large amount of compelling evidence, what have you reached your upon?

    27. Re:65 million? by wall0159 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      >> equal amount of evidence for other possibilities regarding the origin of life
      The theory of evolution is not a theory regarding the origin of life.

      >> The Monkeyists might like to know
      I presume you're trying to imply that people are thought to be descended from monkeys. This is not what evolution states.

      >> there hase to be NO CHANGE in the ratio of carbon 14 to carbon 12
      This is true. In fact, the ratio has not been constant. A quick look at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dating shows that scientists are aware of this. (who would have thunk it?)
      So, is the ratio constant historically? No. Does that make carbon dating useless? No.

      >> I do expect at least 5 posts arguing against what I say
      That'd be because what you say is factually incorrect and misleading.

    28. Re:65 million? by winomonkey · · Score: 1

      Please, please, please allow me to say this - thank you from the very bottom of my little heart. I have been having a pain-in-the-ass of a day, and your joke has made it notably brighter.

    29. Re:65 million? by hxftw · · Score: 1

      The Bible does not say that the Earth was created 6000 years ago. People who say that it was; either haven't actually read the Bible, lied, or didn't understand it. Genesis 1:1-2. "(1) In [the] beginning God created the heavens and the earth.(2) Now the earth proved to be formless and waste and there was darkness upon the surface of [the] watery deep; and God's active force was moving to and fro over the surface of the waters." This was BEFORE the 6 creative days. As for people saying that it was 6 24 hour long days, here is this. 2 Peter 3:8. "However, let this one fact not be escaping YOUR notice, beloved ones, that one day is with Jehovah as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day." If you actually took the time to do real research, science and the Bible actually agree on many scientific things. People simply don't want to see it. And for those who don't know who Jehovah is, Psalms 83:18. " That people may know that you, whose name is Jehovah, You alone are the Most High over all the earth." The "YOUR" you see above just indicates it is in plural, as in more than one person. Many translators took out God's name and replaced it with GOD or LORD. I'm sick of hearing people preaching that the Bible says something when it doesn't, and when people say science and the Bible contradict each other. DO THE RESEARCH.

      --
      Just because an idea is popular doesn't make it right.
    30. Re:65 million? by TheJorge · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I see a bigger problem with that statement.

      If we are to assume God did in fact create the universe and all its laws in such a way to make it look as though it's been around a lot longer than it has, and then gave us the tools of analysis and reason to "discover" these laws and the universe's history, who are we to thumb our noses at him and see through his giant fabrication? I mean, if He went to all this effort to make it look like there were dinosaurs 65 million years ago, carefully placing each photon and atom and what-not, we're pretty big jerks to dismiss all his efforts and say, "Yeah, that was nice with the fossil record and the carbon dating and all, but we know the truth. Good try with all that 'evidence' you made us." Even if you really know the secret truth that the universe has only been around 6500 years, lets not go and put a damper on God's efforts. Just go along with the rest of us when we say things like "Evolution" and "Big Bang"-- it'll make God a lot happier. And you don't want to make God angry.

    31. Re:65 million? by jakel2k · · Score: 1
      Some interesting combinations of the two I've heard:
      1. Dinosaurs, (along with Unicorns, Winged Horses...) didn't get on the ark.
      2. Each day of God is millions of years in human time.
      3. Using carbon dating on scripture, scrolls...
    32. Re:65 million? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      I'm not agreeing with it, but by definition, an omnipotent God could do literally anything.

      Could he microwave a burrito so hot that even he couldn't eat it? Either way he's not omnipotent!

    33. Re:65 million? by ArcherB · · Score: 1, Interesting

      65 million years is crazy-talk, that's 64,994,000 years before God made the Earth!

      So a lot of people believe in Creationism. What's really sad is that even MORE people believe that 9-11 was an inside job, even though there is actually more evidence of creationism! Some examples include: lack of lunar dust, the Big Bang theory breaks the first law of thermodynamics, life breaks the second law of thermodynamics, descriptions of dinosaurs living and walking around in The Bible and so on.

      Personally, I do believe the universe was created some 13-20 billion years ago but neither me nor anyone else can prove by who or how. I just suggest that you and the rest of the slashdotters take a little time to actually read the arguments of Creationism before you immediately dismiss it and ridicule those that believe it as a matter of faith and/or science. I've met good Christians with multiple doctorates in scientific disciplines such as physics, nanotechnology and quantum mechanics. I think it is safe to assume that these people are smarter than the vast majority of slashdotters who frequently mock their intelligence because of their religion.

      Finally, as a Christian myself, I humbly ask that slashdotters stop seeing every article that deals with dinosaurs, evolution/Darwin, stem cells or genetics as an excuse to slap me in the face with it. The only thing worse that pushing your religion on others is trying to take other's religion away.

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    34. Re:65 million? by truckaxle · · Score: 1

      In order for Carbin 14 dating system to be accurate, there hase to be NO CHANGE in the ratio of carbon 14 to carbon 12 in the atmosphere over the years for which the system is claimed to be accurate.

      What is Carbin 14 is that sort of like the Mini-14?

      Seriously, modern Carbon-14 dating does not assume there is NO CHANGE in the atmosphere. Carbon-14 dating is calibrated to known events such as ice cores, wood artifacts and growth rings, ocean sediment, cave deposits, etc. Uncalibrated Carbon-14 dates are referred to as radiocarbon years.

      Additionally Carbon-14 dates only are reliable in the tens of thousands of years. A common mistake by YECers.

      NO PLACE THAT STATES THAT THE EARTH IS ONLY 6000 YEARS OLD

      Yes it does, run the math on the geologies.

      In confirming that the earth is old, very old, there are many geological structures that confirm this and falsify a young earth. My favorite question to ask YECer's is which sedimentary layer in this picture of lava layers is the flood deposit.

      I do expect at least 5 posts arguing against what I say because most people here are biased towards evolution as being the source of all life.

      No just that you have the wrong information.

    35. Re:65 million? by pjbgravely · · Score: 1
      In Genesis, it states that Heaven and Earth were created along with everything else in 7 days... from that you have Adam and Eve... from that you can trace appx. each generation, including how long certain people lived. That can be traced to the creation to the flood to the house of David to Jesus... and from there you have well documented 2000 years. Which adds up to about 6000 years.


      This is wrong. No one knows how long each day of creation lasted.

      No one knows how long Adam and Eve were in the Garden, it could have been 10 years, or even 10 Billion years for all we know.

      The genealogies are known to be incomplete, they tend to only list the important people and leave out the others.

      It seems a lot of scholars read the Bible without any kind of understanding. Just look at the pictures of Solomon's temple and then read how it was really built. The people that drew them had no understanding of engineering.
      --
      Star Trek, there maybe hope.
    36. Re:65 million? by stonedcat · · Score: 0

      One time god pooped in my socks.

      --
      You can't take the sky from me.
    37. Re:65 million? by grub · · Score: 1


      Who cares? The bible is just a dusty old story book from the late Roman Iron Age. I don't own one, have never owned one and don't plan do. Green Eggs and Ham is better storytelling and less violent.

      --
      Trolling is a art,
    38. Re:65 million? by rthille · · Score: 1

      No. The variation of carbon 12 to 14 is already known and depends on the earth's magnetic field. That's not relevant given that the 1/2 life of carbon 14 is only ~6k years (5600 I think), so Carbon dating is only useful for living things and only upto about 40k years. Potassium -> Argon is just one of the radioactive decompositions used for longer time scales.

      Bill Bryson's book "A Short History of Nearly Everything" has a good general overview of what we know about the age of the earth and the universe...

      As for evolution not being the source of all life; praytell what other explanation do you have for it? That's the thing about science, it doesn't just throw up it's hands at the hard questions. It posits an explanation, comes up with tests that can be made to see if it works, and then refines the theory.

      And as for this:
      there is equal amount of evidence for other possibilities regarding the origin of life on this planet

      What evidence and for what other possibilities?

      --
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    39. Re:65 million? by CFTM · · Score: 1

      Shhh, don't tell the masses that; makes it tougher to push the drugs!

    40. Re:65 million? by geobeck · · Score: 2, Funny

      ...there are over 1,000,000,000 Catholics in the world alone.

      You mean in addition to the Catholics on other worlds?

      Yes, I know what you mean, but the placement of your modifier says something else.

      --
      Find environmentally and socially responsible products on http://buy-right.net
    41. Re:65 million? by cyberscan · · Score: 4, Funny

      "They are only biased in the same way that a jury might be made biased upon seeing an overwhelming amount of evidence. They have reached their conclusions based on the large amount of compelling evidence, what have you reached your upon?"

      I base mine on a compelling amount of evidence. What is your evidence?

    42. Re:65 million? by FST777 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Old argument. Could He create a stone He couldn't lift?

      I heard answers like: sure He could, after that He could improve His might so He could lift it (or eat the burrito).

      Funny as hell.

      Thruth is: if there is a God, He is definitely not omnipotent. Most people talk about a Almighty God, which, in strict sense, means "One with all might". That doesn't mean He "can do everything", it means He can do anything every other being can, and perhaps a lot more (like creating a universe with an embedded existance, which I personally believe to be bogus).

      Back to the "creation" thing: I'm christian. I believe God created the Universe, the earth and all living and non-living beings. That doesn't mean he created the world in six literal days, nor does it mean that "it just happened" as he wished. He could have initiated everything and guided it since then.

      Bottomline is: when you mix up science and religion, you degrade the value of both. The question of the scientific origin of "us" shouldn't be hampered with religious prejudice, nor should the question of religious origin be hampered with scientific prejudice. In the end, it's up to the individual to combine both beliefs into one.

      What both ends always should realize: everything you say which you can't prove beyond reasonable doubt is a theory. At this point in time, macro-evolution seems the more likely theory. For others, Intelligent Design could seem the most likely. But these questions should always be regarded as a theory, not as facts, and should be considered from a scientific point of view, instead of a religious one. It's apparent that most creationists forget that rule, but to me it's also apparent that a bunch of evolutionists forget it: it almost is a sport to degrade monotheists with scientific theories.

      --
      Free beer is never free as in speech. Free speech is always free as in beer.
    43. Re:65 million? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you take god out of religion, you end up with philosophy. It is not far fetched to give philosophy the same status as religion. It tries to solve the same problems after all. The captcha for this comment is "atheism". I kid you not.

    44. Re:65 million? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Millions of years ago Lucifer was put here to repare for the coming of human beans. Human beans are the reproduction process of God, that is if they make it. Lucifer is a created bean and can never become a God. He got pissed off and prepared the world for the destruction of the future human beans instead of making it a garden of Eden. So he created the dinos, with big teeth, so they could devour the human beans. So, God slammped his face for it and knocked him off his stool and renamed him Satan. So Satan decided to pull off a coup and take over the throne in Heaven. A great battle took place, I mean a real big one which involved all of our solar system and perhaps more. That my friends is why the donos are gone and why the other planets in our system is so screwed up with craters etc. The Bibical account and the fossil evidence clearly supports this throry. There was only one generation of dinos and their ilk. And they may have existed for a few years or a few thousand years, it's no matter. Remember their teeth are designed to eat meat. That in the light of the fact that when they existed they only had fern like plants to feed upon, or perhaps each other!!!!! OK?

    45. Re:65 million? by geobeck · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Do I believe that natural selection should be taught in school? YES I DO!!! It is a proven fact.

      No, it's not. It's a theory that happens to fit the facts better than any other. If the Flying Spaghetti Monster lands tomorrow and starts handing out samples of the Primordial Pasta, current theories will be modified or discarded.

      --
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    46. Re:65 million? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you believe that the universe was created 13-20 billion years ago, then that is not Creationism. Creationists believe that God created them in his image, literally, not as in "God created a universe in which mutation and natural selection resulted in us". I am a Christian myself and I think that Creationists are a disgrace to the faith. It is right to point out how and why they are wrong.

    47. Re:65 million? by ArcherB · · Score: 0, Troll

      Read through the comments at the bottom. Seriously. These people really believe this stuff, and I've personally met people who, if you try to talk to them about almost anything scientific (like, oh say, 80,000-year-old human remains) will absolutely tell you "No, way! The Earth is only 6,000 years ago. It says so in the Bible!"

      And there are even more people that think 9-11 was an inside job, yet they are seen as the smart ones here on /.

      I'm not at all suggesting that people give up their religious convictions, but I am saying that some people need to stop confusing religion with science. They are separate disciplines and need to be separate. If you absolutely must believe that the choice is eaither A) God loves me and the Earth is only 6,000 years or B) there was a mass extinction event on the Earth 65 million years ago, so there can't be a God, then you are either seriously depraved or downright stupid.

      Very well said. As a Christian myself, I do not try limit an infinite God to what can fit into my finite brain. I guess you could say that I take an agnostic approach to creation.

      --
      There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
    48. Re:65 million? by Anthony · · Score: 1

      The way that dating mechanisms work is based on unproven assumption. In order for Carbin 14 dating system to be accurate, there hase to be NO CHANGE in the ratio of carbon 14 to carbon 12 in the atmosphere over the years for which the system is claimed to be accurate.

      Perhaps you should read up on Carbin[sic] 14 dating before you post. The Internet is a wonderful place where ignorance is indefensible. Here's a Chapter that may help: Radiogenic Isotope Geochemistry

      --
      Slashdot: Where nerds gather to pool their ignorance
    49. Re:65 million? by TheCabal · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Do I believe that natural selection should be taught in school? YES I DO!!! It is a proven fact

      Bzzzt. Wrong. Evolution is a theory, just like Einstein's theories of relativity, Pythagoras' Theorem, and Maxwell's Theory of Electromagnetism. There are no "scientific facts", just theories. A Theory attempts to explain a natural phenomenon. A theory becomes more accepted through repeated experimentation and observation. But if an experiment yields a result other than what the theory predicts (and the experiment was done properly), then the theory must be discarded in favor of the new evidence.

      A Theory can never really be proven because the next experiment may yield a result other than what the theory predicts. A lot of people, especially Creationists, get hung up on "theory" and "fact". Creationists will assert that Evolution is just a theory- it is, and thank you for reiterating that. They also insist that their belief is Fact, which is where science and religion begin to diverge.

    50. Re:65 million? by LionMage · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Finally, as a Christian myself, I humbly ask that slashdotters stop seeing every article that deals with dinosaurs, evolution/Darwin, stem cells or genetics as an excuse to slap me in the face with it. The only thing worse that pushing your religion on others is trying to take other's religion away.

      Maybe if you read TFA, you'd recognize that the reason there's such a hubbub on Slashdot regarding this article is that a large percentage of the comments on the article were left by ultra-conservative fundamentalist Christians who all pretty much say the same thing (e.g., it was the biblical flood that extinguished the dinosaurs, and much more recently than the scientifically-agreed-upon period of the asteroid impact that TFA refers to).

      Maybe if evangelicals stopped trying to cram their religion down our throats, we wouldn't react so vehemently. Though I must say, if I had to pick between being shouted down by partisans of a scientific theory and being murdered by an angry mob of religious extremists, I'll take the shouting match any day. The thing is, few people have been murdered in the pursuit of Science (the Tuskeegee experiments and various Nazi experiments being the prime counter-examples), while many have been murdered in the name of religion.

      Do I need to invoke the murder of Hypatia, the last great Libarian of Alexandria, at the hands of a mob incited by a man who later became a Christian saint, to make my point any clearer? (Carl Sagan goes on at length about this atrocity in the book and television series Cosmos.)

      I guess my point is, practice what you preach, and encourage your evangelical fundamentalist comrades to follow your example. If you want non-believers to cut you some slack, then kindly get the believers to stop behaving badly by vandalizing the comment sections on science-oriented web sites, for a start. And while you're at it, stop being so self-centered: this isn't a reaction against you, but against the fundie loonies who effectively vandalized the web page of TFA.

      Oh, and incidentally, since you toss off a list of supposed "evidence" against evolution and modern cosmology and in favor of creationism, I should point out that each one of those points has been debunked endlessly. Repeating these time-worn non-arguments doesn't make them any more true or correct. As someone trained in the physical sciences, I get tired of trying to explain to people why evolution doesn't violate thermodynamics, or why extreme energy densities (e.g., those found in the Universe of the Big Bang, as well as those found in the singularities of black holes) cause most physical laws as we commonly understand them to break down. For that matter, it gets tiresome trying to explain why scientific "laws" are descriptive, not proscriptive like the laws that men write. So when you complain about believers having their intelligence assailed or mocked, perhaps you should step back and realize that part of the reason for the mockery is the repetition of the same old retread non-arguments that we scientists have to endure from the extremist believers out there.
    51. Re:65 million? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful
      it's up to the individual to combine both beliefs into one.
      You can't combine 1+1=2 and 1+1=3 into one belief. You can either reject science despite enjoying its effect each time you listen to an iPod, or accept science and consider religion to be a bunch of fairy tales.
    52. Re:65 million? by wall0159 · · Score: 1

      I don't know why I'm bothering, but...

      >> What I say happens to be the TRUTH
      yet
      >> we do not have any CERTAIN way of telling
      and
      >> Scientists can make EDUCATED GUESSES, but that in no way makes these GUESSES correct

      That's bollocks. There are lots of separate pieces of evidence that corroborate each other. Sure, it doesn't make it a certainty - any more than a person standing over a bloody corpse, and holding a smoking gun, is likely to have killed them. But we can't be certain! Let's not jump to any conclusions!

      Do you, perhaps, have an agenda here? Is there another "truth" that you would really _like_ to believe and this science perhaps contradicts that? If so, why don't you just say it, and get it out in the open? Or alternatively, maybe you can just go on seeing the world through your rose-coloured glasses...

    53. Re:65 million? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In other words, it's not even wrong.

    54. Re:65 million? by Laser+Lou · · Score: 1
      I base mine on a compelling amount of evidence. What is your evidence?

      If you have fact-based, non-sectarian evidence that Darwinian evolution is wrong, I would very much like to see it. Years ago, I was a creationist. However, on my own investigation, I concluded that none of the "facts" I read before (from ICR and others) that supported that were valid. None. Ironically, that helped me understand that Bible better and strengthened my faith.

      --
      No data, no cry
    55. Re:65 million? by ArcherB · · Score: 1

      If you believe that the universe was created 13-20 billion years ago, then that is not Creationism. Creationists believe that God created them in his image, literally, not as in "God created a universe in which mutation and natural selection resulted in us". I am a Christian myself and I think that Creationists are a disgrace to the faith. It is right to point out how and why they are wrong.

      I've actually done some studies on Creationism, and Creationists are like all religions, they don't agree amongst themselves. I've heard theories like you described where in six 24-hr periods, God created the light, heavens and the earth, the seas parted to create land and so on. I've heard others that take a slightly more scientific approach and state that in the beginning, there was no universe, and therefore no time so a day != 24 hrs, or any other measure of literal time. I've even heard theories where God created several different classes of creatures at or around the genus level, like a bird, a man, a horse, a cow, and so on, that evolved over time (yes, through evolution) into the variety of creatures we see today. So while I will agree that the strict creationists are a bit whacked out (I see them screaming "nah-nah-nah-nah" with their hands over their ears with their eyes closed every time scientific evidence is presented), I'm not going to ridicule their intelligence because of their faith.

      --
      There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
    56. Re:65 million? by Laser+Lou · · Score: 1

      By the way, I really do mean it when I asked you show me any real evidence you have that Darwin was wrong. I searched hard and have found nothing. NOTHING!!!!!!

      --
      No data, no cry
    57. Re:65 million? by cyberscan · · Score: 0

      "Yes it does, run the math on the geologies."

      Did you mean geneaologies (as in generations)?

      If so, these geneaologies only go back to Adam. The earth (or land) was void before then according to thw writings.
      The Hebrew word that is translated as Earth simply meant dirt or land. Does "the entire earth (eretz or land)" mean every square inch of land on every continent, or does it refer to only the land where Adam lived? The Bible does not make that exactly clear clear.

      "No just that you have the wrong information."

      The wrong information that I have (teaching about carbon 14 dating) just so happens to come from a (government-run) school textbook. I have just also read the wikipedia article on carbon 14 dating, and yes, there are attempt by scientists to calibrate the carbon 14 dating. However there are still many factors that may not have been taken into account when measuring the carbon 14 ration in the listed samples.

      Rather than saying that one has to assume that there has been NO CHANGE in the level of carbon 14 from year to year. I should have stated one would have to prove what these changes are from year to year. Core samples are not exactly proof but rather EDUCATED GUESSES. An example of this is the fact that we do not know exactly what period of time each core sample covers. An extremely large amount of ice can be deposited in an extremely short period of time. At other times, an extremely small layer of ice may be deposited over an extremely long period of time. At other times, certain layers may have even melted away. If there are record measurements taken during each each past year since the cration of earth with the accurate measurement equipment we have today, then I would be much more confident in the carbon 14 dating. However, these calibrations are based on the EDUCATED GUESSES of scientists.

      The point is that NOBODY REALLY KNOWS FOR SURE. In the '70's scientisits were sounding the alarm that we are on the verge of entering another ice age, Recently that has changed to global warming. Years ago it was thought that eggs were very bad for you. Now it is thought that eggs are not so bad. It was also thought that there was less than one percent gebetic difference in hunmans, now, scientists say that there is much more difference than that.
      I have been alive for many years and have seen many different fads in science. Some science gives use many new toys and luxuries, however other science has caused the destabilization of nations. Science has been used to skew public policy for both the good and the bad.

    58. Re:65 million? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Could He create a stone He couldn't lift?

      Yes, he could, end of story. It's only a contradiction if you look at it with the logic that he created from within a universe that he created. It's reasonable to believe that, if there is exactly one god, he must be omnipotent (because without that assumption you lack an explanation for the restrictions on god's power).

    59. Re:65 million? by maraist · · Score: 1

      ...religion only exists to explain the unexplained. Since there's nothing (or almost nothing) left unexplained, we don't need religion (or spirituality, I assume).

      How can you say all things are explained by science? Maxwell derived the complete electro magnetic equations 1xx years ago and Einstein General relativity 8x years ago, yet we have only begun to understand them practically.

      There is a difference between the understanding of the general order of things and discerning pratical things.

      Except that there are things left unexplained, and there are events in people's lives that cannot be explained.

      From my above, unexplained things will always exist no matter how great the depth of general understanding. But I have little doubt that all things important to humans will ultimately be found to be imperical, testible, and thus Scientifically grounded. cience isn't about having the answers, but about reliably pursuing them.

      First and foremost are the historical lies that have been told by the authorities in power that have empowered the feeble minded - those willing to kill for an idea never grounded in empirical evidence. Muslim, Chrisitians, and even Jews (with respect to the "holy land").

      I have faith that the ability to research historical evidence will become the greatest achievement of mankind. Whether this comes through mathmatical deduction, or space mirrors that can see ancient earth light or some quirk over time travel - it doesn't matter.

      Simple logical deduction disproves that 3 mutually exclusive religions can not all be completely correct. Yet people die or are terminally oppressed (even today) over the subtle interpolations of the infallible truths of their respective texts.

      Religion exists not to explain the unexplained, but because it is human nature to ponder the mysteries of life. No matter how much science figures out, there are always mysteries, not all of which can be explained by science or that science would ever even try to understand

      When studying religion, you do find that the thing most common among them is the use of giving personal order out of the knowlege of the greater order. A primitive way of saying this is in fact that Religions purpose is to explian the unknown. Read "The sacred Canpoy" an excellent though dated book.

      From this it is still true to say charismatic leaders give hope to the lost or down trodden. That morality can still be found in the central philosophy and theology of a particular dogma.

      But history is replete with arbitrary nomos's (general orders), so it is repugnant to me that the evolved state of the current three western religons can be considered uniquely sacred.

      Also, religion != morality != ethics. Religion doesn't exist because we think we need to be nice to one another. And as much as religions are similar on some ethical and moral issues, they differ very greatly on others.

      From my above, you can see where my analysis would lead to different conclusions. Religion, in an order centric view, necessitates defining morality. And those that crafted the doctrine (Mohammud, Jesus, Abraham, Moses, Pharoh, etc) all had similar needs to fullfil. Their followers would not have deemed them credible if there wasn't a natural feeling about rules regarding friendliness towards like neighbors. (Note that most religions were/are still hostile towards outsiders. Even Jesus gives creedence to the idea of the inferior non-Jews - the Samaritans - saying Jews should take pity on them)

      --
      -Michael
    60. Re:65 million? by scoot80 · · Score: 1

      I reckon one of the Unicorns farted, and killed the dinosaurs...

    61. Re:65 million? by ArcherB · · Score: 0

      Maybe if you read TFA, you'd recognize that the reason there's such a hubbub on Slashdot regarding this article is that a large percentage of the comments on the article were left by ultra-conservative fundamentalist Christians who all pretty much say the same thing (e.g., it was the biblical flood that extinguished the dinosaurs, and much more recently than the scientifically-agreed-upon period of the asteroid impact that TFA refers to).

      Then /.'ers should post their ridicule of all faiths on that site, not this one.

      Maybe if evangelicals stopped trying to cram their religion down our throats, we wouldn't react so vehemently.
      I don't see much of that by /.'ers. I do see many posts literally calling Christians retards (some of which are modded down appropriately). As a Christian, I get offended by that. There is not a single article posted on slashdot concerning evolution, big-bang or anything else that could be seen as counter religion as an excuse to slap religions in the face. If someone posts an honest thread on /. calling this article bogus because the Bible says so, then have at them, but to attack religion here without cause is getting tiresome and a bit worn out.

      I guess my point is, practice what you preach, and encourage your evangelical fundamentalist comrades to follow your example. If you want non-believers to cut you some slack, then kindly get the believers to stop behaving badly by vandalizing the comment sections on science-oriented web sites, for a start.
      I do what I can. Still, comments against these people should be posted on the site that they are reading, not here. They are kinda preaching to the choir here (pun not intended).

      And while you're at it, stop being so self-centered: this isn't a reaction against you...
      When a group that I belong to is insulted (not fundamentalists, but anyone who believes in a higher being), I get offended, and as a person with some religion, yes, it is directed at me.

      Oh, and incidentally, since you toss off a list of supposed "evidence" against evolution and modern cosmology...
      It was not my intention to debate the "evidence" of creationism, only to point out that it does exist. I never said I agreed with it, but most people here have not taken the time to even consider that there may be other view points with valid, logical and scientifically backed reasoning. I've heard both sides of the argument and you have to agree that both sides have valid points as well as theories that don't make sense. While you and others have done a pretty good job of "debunking" most of the creationist view, I have yet to hear anyone debunk the first law of thermodynamics. If energy (and matter) is never created nor destroyed, nothing can exist without that law at any scale being broken at some point. I'm not saying I know who, how or why, but I am saying that not all Creationist theories have been "debunked endlessly". And saying that these "laws" don't apply because they break down at extreme scales is as much as a cop out as saying God did it.

      --
      There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
    62. Re:65 million? by saforrest · · Score: 1

      I think you're allowing your resentment of unsubstantiated generalizations make by idiotic atheists to colour your perceptions about public belief in a young Earth.

      The fact is, there are lots of people alive today, many of whom are Americans, who beleive that the Earth is 6000 years old. I don't particularly care whether they do this because they are Biblical literalists, Quranic literalists, Talmudic literalists, or just plain nuts. The fact is they exist, and that's the only point I was interested in making.

      That said, Catholicism is not a faith generally known by its adherents' rigid applications to doctrine -- no faith that stretches over the entire world and hundreds of languages and cultures could be otherwise -- so I am not particularly convinced by an argument that merely presents the Vatican's view on an issue with an estimate of the worldwide number of Catholics.

      As for your statements about atheism being a faith, I'll agree to an extent. I think a belief in the non-intervention of a deity is a the only position with which to approach scientific questions, merely because of Occam's Razor. But I have yet not seen athiests whose atheism was inspired by science argue convincingly to me on the larger metaphysical questions on the existence of higher powers.

      However, I am meaning to read more by Daniel Dennett, who apparently has argued something of this kind, and I have been generally impressed so far with his work.

    63. Re:65 million? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      That's also why there was so much uproar about the Intelligent Design philosophy being taught in schools. Most people accept the idea; just not the vocal extremists from both sides.

      Creationists == Atheists


      That's got to be about the most insightful thing I've ever read on Slashdot; well done.
    64. Re:65 million? by Gilmoure · · Score: 1

      A microwave burrito is the hottest substance known to man. Even they can't eat it, much less dog!

      --
      I drank what? -- Socrates
    65. Re:65 million? by cyberscan · · Score: 3, Funny

      "there is equal amount of evidence for other possibilities regarding the origin of life on this planet. What evidence and for what other possibilities?" Yes there is an equal amount of evidence demonstrating other possibilities. There is also little scientific evidence that points to evolution as the source off all life on this planet. Many cultures have reords of the great flood and other biblical events. There is physical evidence of other biblical events such as the sulfer balls from the site where Sodom and Gommorrah was beleived to have existed. As far as other possibilities are concerned, these possibilities include a supreme being creating life on this planet or life from beyond this planet bringing life here. I can go on and on with various forms of evidence, but most here have made up their minds about what they want to believe. I also have better things to do than spend my arguing back and forth with people who are stuck on one ideology. Yes, I was once an atheist, howeveronce I was open minded enough to look at evindence and records from many different sources and have changed my mind. By the way, I do have a college education in the sciences and many other scientists also believe in a Supreme being. One such Scientists is the father of modern calculus. His name is Isaac Newton. Does this mean that I agree with what the fundamentalist Christians believe? No It doesn't. In fact, my beliefs are in many ways very different from what most people call Christian. In fact, there is a huge difference between what the original biblical texts say and what most Christians THINK they say. Knowlege of ancient customs and idioms is essential in understanding what the Scriptures say. I do not approach any subject with blind faith. I base my belifs on what I have studied in the past.

    66. Re:65 million? by Chris+Burke · · Score: 1

      What I say happens to be the TRUTH

      So scientists can only make educated guesses, but you know the all-capital TRUTH.

      Uh-huh. The sad thing here is that you are impunging upon the capabilities of scientists who have studied and used these techniques, learning both the advantages and limitations, for years as being mere "educated guesses", while your "TRUTH" with regard to carbon dating is certainly less educated than any of the scientists you are slurring.

      But apparently only scientists need an education to make their guesses. For others, the TRUTH just seems to appear out of a combination of learned dogma, sheer arrogance, and some cranial-rectal connection to the aether that I don't understand. It's like, just sitting there, they become Enlightened like a Buddhist monk and the TRUTH falls upon them fully formed.

      Must be nice. Too bad the scientists are stuck with their limited learning and educated guesses and empirical evidence. Pulling stuff out of one's ass^W^W^W^W^W Enlightenment has no such limitations.

      --

      The enemies of Democracy are
    67. Re:65 million? by cyberscan · · Score: 1

      Note that I said natural selection is a fact - not natural selection as the origin of life. It is a proven fact that certain animals in each species have certain qualities that make it able to thrive or breed better in its envoronment. Combinations of certain genes as well as learned behaviours can be passed from parent to offspring.

    68. Re:65 million? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You bastard! You created this reality and didn't make me rich or give me a fabulous babe? I'm coming for you.

    69. Re:65 million? by hxftw · · Score: 1

      Don't come in here and say "who cares" to my comment when most of the other comments in here are basing their ridicule of religion and the Bible on false statements that they didn't bother checking, some science.

      --
      Just because an idea is popular doesn't make it right.
    70. Re:65 million? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If I had mod points, I'd mod this +1 billion Insightful.

    71. Re:65 million? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You are an uneducated ranter. No one cares. Eat lead.

    72. Re:65 million? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "No, way! The Earth is only 6,000 years ago. It says so in the Bible!"


      the only problem is that it doesn't say that. i know, it is a minor issue... -lol-

      look, there is no explicit time definition between genesis v1 and v2.

      for example,

      v1: "in the beginning, i woke up."
      v2: "and i grew tired and fell asleep."

      is it a 100% requirement that i grew tired instantaneously after i woke up?

      of course not. it must be *assumed*. maybe i grew tired later that same day - or 60 years later.

      these folks *assume* the earth is 6,000 based upon their assumptions, not upon the what the bible actually says. the bible doesn't say, "the earth is 6,000 years old."

      it. ain't. there.

      in fact, the bible tends to contradict the idea of a 6,000 year earth.

      1. god doesn't create "without form and void," he creates perfection (for his intended purposes). this infers the state of "without form and void" occurred well after god's perfect initial creation.

      2. david wrote about god using his spirit to "renew the face of the earth." the "re" in renew has significance. it tends to contradict the idea of an initial creation starting in genesis v2. it also backs up the idea that there is an unknown time frame between the initial perfect creation and the renewing of a decayed earth in verse 2.

      3. the bible isn't a scientific book, rather, it is a relational book. it uses plenty of figurative language and, sometimes, it is hard (impossible?) to distill the figurative from the literal. the bible is very clear on certain things, but the exact methodologies used to fire up physical creation isn't among them.

      scriptural assumption are bad news. pretty soon you'll start thinking death === eternal life in hellfire, even though david was inspired to say "the dead know nothing." the bible doesn't teach immortal souls and it doesn't teach burning in hell for eternity. why do almost every christian religion teach these lies? they *assume* a lot about what is actually said in the bible and just rely on the passed down word of those they know (all the way back to plato's idea).

      the bible is a book of incredible hope and joy for the potential destiny of all people. i dislike it when people use it to try and express their vanity while only displaying their ignorance.
    73. Re:65 million? by cyberscan · · Score: 1

      Note that I said natural selection (not evolution as the origin of species) is a fact. It is demonstrated many. many times that creatures that are well suited towards an environment tend to produce offspring that is better suited for the same environemnt. That is what I mean by natural selection.

      Unfortunately, in most schools, evolution (even as the origin of species) is taught and treated as if it is a fact rather than a theory. Courts have even blocked a disclaimer label being put in textbooks that state that evolution is a theory. In fact evolution as the origin of life is being taught with religious zeal in our public schools.

    74. Re:65 million? by Maserati · · Score: 1

      Congratulations, you win teh Internet.

      Seriously, every DARPA grant, every CompSci thesis, every failed IPO, every mile of fibre, every microwave repeater, just to get me that one joke.

      Worth it !

      --
      Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1992-1951
    75. Re:65 million? by Laser+Lou · · Score: 1
      descriptions of dinosaurs living and walking around in The Bible

      That is totally absurd and untrue.

      lack of lunar dust

      That involves a false "fact" often quoted by creationists. A simple google search will show the facts behind this urban legend.

      life breaks the second law of thermodynamics

      This is a creationist / "intelligent design" fact, but is generally not well accepted, and is highly disputed.

      the Big Bang theory breaks the first law of thermodynamics

      That's not evidence for creationism. It just means that the "Big Bang" theory is not complete.

      --
      No data, no cry
    76. Re:65 million? by Phleg · · Score: 1

      Of course these points are not allowed to be brought up in any "science" program in the public schools.
      Flamebait and a troll. Some teachers might not know about this, or bring it up, but nobody's prohibited from bringing it up. In any class I had where radiocarbon dating was discussed, they also clearly described its shortcomings, and exactly why we don't rely on a single method of dating and use several overlapping measures instead.
      --
      No comment.
    77. Re:65 million? by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 2, Interesting

      And what kind of a sick liar of a god would do that?

      Should you worship such a god?

      Which is more plausible. that such a god exists... or that the evidence we can repeatably measure is correct.

      --
      She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
    78. Re:65 million? by duguk · · Score: 1

      Its completely lost me, I'm going to be up all night trying to figure this out. Yeah, I have read his post... over and over again but I just don't get it.

      Atheism is the disbelief in the existence of God .
      Creationism is the belief that humanity, life, the Earth, or the universe as a whole was specially created by a supreme being, God.

      Help? I'm an atheist btw, does that make me a creationist?

      DugUK

    79. Re:65 million? by abigor · · Score: 1

      You are wasting your life with this crap, you know that? It's just a bunch of fairy tales invented by Semitic nomads. You only have one life to live - get out there and live and accomplish things rather than worrying about some irrelevant bunch of stories.

    80. Re:65 million? by Yunzil · · Score: 1

      For example can you tell me what the ration of carbon 14 to carbon 12 ration was in the yeer 50000000 b.c.e?

      It doesn't matter because you don't use carbon dating for things that old.

      Now go out and play and later we might have ICE CREAM!

    81. Re:65 million? by buswolley · · Score: 1

      I think the idea is that He can do anything he wants, but will not break his word.

      --

      A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.

    82. Re:65 million? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, if we know how long Adam lived (Genesis 5:5), wouldn't that indicate that we know how long he could have been in the garden?

    83. Re:65 million? by grub · · Score: 1


      Where did I ever say my original post (which was meant to be tongue in cheek) was based on science?

      --
      Trolling is a art,
    84. Re:65 million? by mikael · · Score: 1

      But the problem is that some highly respected bible scholar decided to do this study. Because of his seniority and respect in the community (he went to university, they didn't), nobody could really prove otherwise. So this belief becomes common wisdom (and now a website.

      --
      Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
    85. Re:65 million? by Artifakt · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Natural Selection has EVERYTHING to do with the First Spark of Life".

      1. Standard evolutionary theory says that a lower mutation rate, (down to some minimum that is greater than zero) actually increases selection speed. That sounds counter-intuitive, but it is straight from Dawkins and similar sources. One reason here is that mutations are occuring in organisms that are already pretty close to perfectly adapted to their environments or they'd be dead. The few mutations that are improvements are generally small improvements, that take generations of testing to prosper. A high enough mutation rate, and a new mutation overwrites the last one before the first had time to be tested. To see this a little more clearly, just imagine a mutation that makes an annual type plant a little better able to resist drought. If droughts only happen in that area about every 20 years, the mutation only helps a carrier survive every twenty generations or so. There are several other arguements for this point, which can be found in the Dawkin's The Selfish Gene or The Blind Watchmaker, or in a typical college textbook on the subject.
      (Anyone who doubts this is standard theory is welcome to write somebody such as Dr. Dawkins and ask, or for God's sakes read a little. Usually when I get this far, someone insists this isn't the standard theory of evolution at all, and proposes some kind of Lysenkoism as the standard instead. I am very sick and tired of proposing this and having people who think evolution means the X-men try to prove I'm wrong.).

      2. Modern organisms use DNA, with both advanced error correction and mutation reduction. One form of correction is sexual reproduction, by using a second copy of most genes. One form of reduction is putting the DNA in a central nucleus where it is less exposed to chemical mutagens.

      3. Fully modern DNA in sexual organisms has been around for at least 700 Million years (see Dr. Simon Conway Morris's estimates for the age of the earliest Ediacaran fauna. If he's not THE greatest still living expert on this, he's at least number 2.).

      4. Less modern DNA, but still with error protection in the form of nucleated cells, has been inside the oldest fossil eukarotes since, at the absolute very least, 2.1 Billion years ago (again Morris's timetable). That's also about half the age of the Earth (4.2 Billion years).

      5. Really primative DNA with no correction or protection, has been found, again at the very least, as far back as the first stromatolites (2.9 billion years). Most paleontologists (admittedly not all), point to earlier fossils, as early as 3.5 billion years old, for the first DNA based organisms.

      6. DNA is believed to have developed from RNA. RNA is still used by most life as a messenger chemical, but is only found as a heredity chemical in some very primative viruses. The error rates for RNA are well known, and indicate evolution must have been proceeding very slowly, even compared to the most primative DNA based life. The living record agrees with this, as do extensive tests comparing generalized eukarotes with all surviving types of non-eukarotes. While it's not as universally agreed by biologists as the earlier points, it's still generally agreed that RNA did predate DNA. You can find a few recognized biologists who don't support this last point, but they are a distinct minority, under 5%.

      7. This means, we have counted back to within about 700 million years of the time Earth formed, just for the three stages of DNA based life. That's about 84% of all the time we have to explain life. The RNA dominant period, when evolution was much slower, has to fit into that last 16%. Whatever came before RNA has to fit into what's left after RNA gets its share, and so on.

      8. By the standard theory's best guess, there are at least a dozen stages, each with more primative molecules involved, going back to the beginnings of life. The earliest ones might have been non-living clay-like substances, where natural selection operated only

      --
      Who is John Cabal?
    86. Re:65 million? by pjbgravely · · Score: 1

      I assume that Adam's age wasn't counted until he was thrown out of the garden and became mortal. While in the garden he was immortal so age didn't matter. If that assumption is wrong then so am I.

      --
      Star Trek, there maybe hope.
    87. Re:65 million? by andy_t_roo · · Score: 1

      This is wrong. No one knows how long each day of creation lasted.i believe most biblical scholars lean on the side that the writer of genesis one intended for a meaning of a single revolution of the earth 'day' not an epoc 'day'; http://www.gotquestions.org/Genesis-days.html has a discussion concerning this

      No one knows how long Adam and Eve were in the Garden, it could have been 10 years, or even 10 Billion years for all we know. i agree - the bible does not specify how long adam and eve were in the garden however Genesis 5 does specify how old Adam was when Seth was born, how old Seth was when his son Enosh was born and so on down to Abram (post flood, with years totaling about 1200) so while people argue over what actually happened, i believe that what the bible claims is quite clear. 3 When Adam had lived 130 years, he had a son in his own likeness, in his own image; and he named him Seth. 4 After Seth was born, Adam lived 800 years and had other sons and daughters. 5 Altogether, Adam lived 930 years, and then he died.
    88. Re:65 million? by Kohath · · Score: 1

      Any argument that starts with "Go read [some book] ..." is a poor (or poorly communicated) argument.

      I didn't read the rest of your post. I'll wait until the author of that book posts and them I might read his.

    89. Re:65 million? by Kohath · · Score: 1

      I am saying that some people need to stop confusing religion with science

      Maybe all the hateful bigotry that the "science" crowd directs at the "religion" crowd will help with that. Religious people will learn (correctly) that anyone involved in science is their enemy and wishes them harm.

      And people who like science, but won't engage in hateful bigotry, will eventually choose professions that are separate from the sciences and their culture. That's either a loss or a gain, depending on how highly you value hatred.

    90. Re:65 million? by radtea · · Score: 1

      But these questions should always be regarded as a theory, not as facts, and should be considered from a scientific point of view, instead of a religious one.

      The fact/theory distinction is devoid of scientific interest. No scientist has ever had a debate over the status of a particular piece of knowlege, wondering if it is a fact or a theory. Opponents of science are the only people who bring up the distinction, but they never explain what it is.

      --
      Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
    91. Re:65 million? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Raptor Jesus.

    92. Re:65 million? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Also, religion != morality != ethics. Religion doesn't exist because we think we need to be nice to one another. And as much as religions are similar on some ethical and moral issues, they differ very greatly on others.
      Quite to the contrary, actually. Religion exists as an excuse not to be nice to one another. It's primary purpose is to allow us to treat each other horribly, to kill, to steal, to watch others starve to death while we eat our fill, and to generally be selfish, all the while feeling justified that we're really good people. Those who suffer are getting their due from god, while we're being rewarded for being righteous. That's the reason we have religion.
    93. Re:65 million? by ArcherB · · Score: 1

      My post was not to defend Creationism or try to debate it. I'm just tired of /.'ers calling Christians retards because of their beliefs. I find that extremely rude and not to mention politically incorrect. No one here would stand for someone saying that believing in Budha is rediculous, why should Christianity be any different? Besides, the article was about how a single even wiped out the dino's 65 million years ago. No one on slashdot mentioned Creationism except for those ridiculing it right out of the gate. That was not the point of the article nor any post before the attacks started. I'm just asking for a single dinosaur or darwin story to be posted here without someone calling my religion, or any other, retarded because it might be counter to their belief system.

      BTW, I don't necessarily side with the most Creationists, but I do believe that God created the Universe. I see no reason why He could not have done it 14 billion years ago in a big bang and let life evolve throug evolution. That's a bigger miracle to me anyesy thsn just saying "LET IT BE!"

      Finally, even in mentioning this, I have been modded down three times because my views were a bit different (as my sig states). The moderation guidelines state that "you are moderating to promote thoughtful discussion, not to make your opinions heard", but because I don't follow the /. group think, I'm modded down. You could say I'm literally modded down because of my religion, even though I did not force it on anyone. All I did was ask that it not be attacked when unprovoked. I think that alone proves my point.

      --
      There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
    94. Re:65 million? by orkysoft · · Score: 1

      But you can only get a maximum score of +5! It says so in the FAQ! How dare you mock the Slashcode authors?

      --

      I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
    95. Re:65 million? by loxosceles · · Score: 1

      ...life breaks the second law of thermodynamics, ...

      Finally, as a Christian myself, I humbly ask that slashdotters stop seeing every article that deals with dinosaurs, evolution/Darwin, stem cells or genetics as an excuse to slap me in the face with it. The only thing worse that pushing your religion on others is trying to take other's religion away.

      You want to know why many people slap you in the face with your Christianity? Because you spout off about "life break[ing] the second law of thermodynamics," demonstrating that you either don't understand life or you don't understand thermodynamics... perhaps both. Yet you're obviously willing to insult scientific principles based on something you read on some crackpot website. I think it's written somewhere that you should do unto others as you would have them do unto you. And you have the audacity to complain about people who believe crackpot 9/11 theories?! Maybe you should first cast the beam out of your own eye.

      Oh, I'm an agnostic. I have no problem with the idea that there might be a God. We're not very far along in understanding the universe, so who's to say the universe wasn't created by something even more incomprehensible. I do not, however, see how the possible existence of God has any relevance to government, society, science, or morals

      I get prickly when people use religion as filler for science or social policy. If your religion keeps you from examining the scientific and pragmatic realities of dinosaurs, evolution, stem cells, genetic engineering/cloning, abortion, women's rights, etc., then I think you deserve to have your religion stuffed down your throat.

      The amazing thing about the Bible is that it illuminates so much hypocrisy among Christians. And, since I don't subscribe to the Bible wholesale, my glee in watching people like you get raked over the coals in scientific discussions does not make me a hypocrite. If I'm wrong about something, which happens, I accept it. I don't go on to whine about how I'm persecuted because I prefer science over faith.

    96. Re:65 million? by radtea · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Religion exists because people need to believe in something greather than themselves.

      "That word you keep using, I do not think it means what you think it means."

      Art can fulfil the purpose of giving something greater than themselves to believe in. So can science. There's so much to simply WONDER at in the universe, from the smallest bug to the farthest star. Religion, as it is commonly understood rather than according to your personal definition of it, has nothing to offer anyone who is aware of the world around them.

      --
      Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
    97. Re:65 million? by zm · · Score: 1

      Right on the money there, amigo. Similarly, if it was His will that the scientists do stem cell research and that the doctors perform abortions, who the heck are we to question Him? There are people around who claim to be bigger believers than us and tell us that His will is something else, but we know better - if it happens, it is the will of God. Praise the Lord.

      --
      Sig ?
    98. Re:65 million? by redneckHippe · · Score: 1

      Yea, until he destroyed them in a huge ball of fire for their wicked ways.

      --
      It'll quit hurtin' once the pain stops.
    99. Re:65 million? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Err...well you really need to atomize the meaning of that sentence: 'create' -> nothing is 'created' (willed into existence out of nothingness), so we're dealing with a physical process of formation. Can god form a rock so heavy he can't lift it? Heavy: a measure of gravity, which is a function of mass. Now: could god form a massive rock he can't lift? lift: to move against the force of gravity. Could god form a massive rock that he can't move against the force of gravity? Assuming that a rock that was the only thing existing would not be subject to gravity from other objects (only internal gravity, but assuming that god formed said rock such that its internal structure had integrity to withstand), then god would have formed a rock that he is incapable of moving against the force of gravity (as there would be no gravity to move against, or even any space to move it into or from)........

      But the real deconstruction of the question is: can god contradict himself? Certainly not, paradoxes are simply incoherent quandaries of language.

    100. Re:65 million? by masdog · · Score: 1

      Whew! It's a good thing Bartleby and Loki didn't make it into that church in New Jersey. Otherwise, we might really be in for some trouble.

    101. Re:65 million? by rthille · · Score: 1

      I'll stop subjecting religion to scientific inquiry when religion stops saying things about the real world.

      --
      Awesome furniture, accessories and cabinetry in Santa Rosa, CA: http://humanity-home.com/
    102. Re:65 million? by Laser+Lou · · Score: 1
      No one on slashdot mentioned Creationism except for those ridiculing it right out of the gate.

      Creationsim gets that sort of treatment here because it claims to be scientific while having no real scientific merit. It is like the king with no clothes.

      I'm just asking for a single dinosaur or darwin story to be posted here without someone calling my religion, or any other, retarded because it might be counter to their belief system.

      Yes, some people think that creationism is an essential part of a belief in God, so while they may reject creationism because of its lack of scientific merit, they may feel that they have to reject religion and God's existence as well. That would not happen if they had any sense of theology, and were able to accept God as the creator, while also seeking to understand astronomy and evolution.

      --
      No data, no cry
    103. Re:65 million? by ArcherB · · Score: 0

      Thank you for proving my point. All I stated is that Creationists have reasons for believing what they do that go beyond blind faith, whether you agree with them or not. And because I even brought it up, I am immediately insulted and accused of either not understand life or you not understand thermodynamics... perhaps both. I understand that ordered systems (such as life) do not spring from chaos and evolve. I understand that energy is never created or destroyed, yet it is here. (How can something exist if was never created?) Fact is, I personally don't know and neither do you. We were not there. I personally see no reason why God could not create life through evolution and the universe through a big bang. Who am I to tell God what to do with his dice? Still, you assume that I because I believe in a higher being, I must some fundamentalist, Bible-thumping, ignorant redneck who thinks science is an abomination of God's law.

      Regardless of what I believe, I didn't bring it up on slash. No one disputing dinosaurs did. Still, the posts sprang up calling Christians retards and sarcastic posts claiming that they were 64,993,000 years off because the earth is only 6,000 years old and so on. That is what started it, not me. I just responded asking bigots like yourself who assume that all Christians keeps you from examining the scientific and pragmatic realities of dinosaurs, evolution, stem cells, genetic engineering/cloning, abortion, women's rights, etc. As I have already stated, you have no idea what I believe. Assuming that about me because I am a Christian is no different than assuming that all Muslims are terrorists, all Jews are cheap, all Catholics sleep with little boys and all Wickens smoke pot. What is the difference between your prejudices about me and any other bigot that assumes that Mexicans are lazy, black people steal and so on?

      The point I was trying to make is that every time an article is posted on slashdot that may be even the slightest bit counter to some Christian (and all religions for that matter) beliefs, posts break out claiming how wrong Christians are for their beliefs when no one challenged the article here in the first place. I guess I should thank you for proving my point by attacking me when I never challenged the premise of the article either.

      Would say the same to Einstein because he said, "God does not play dice with the Universe", "When the solution is simple, God is answering.", "Before God we are equally wise and equally foolish.", "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.", and the relevant one for you here, "Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods." Maybe Einstein should have his religion stuffed down his throat too.

      --
      There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
    104. Re:65 million? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "And saying that these "laws" don't apply because they break down at extreme scales is as much as a cop out as saying God did it."

      Incorrect. Breakdown of natural laws on extreme scales is, in theory at least, subject to experimental verification. It may not be practical at the moment, but in principle the experiment could be run. "God did it" has no possibility of experimental verification.

      The difference, even in principle only, is what distinguishes science from religion. If you aren't at risk of being proven wrong, then it isn't since to begin with.

    105. Re:65 million? by syousef · · Score: 1

      >> The Monkeyists might like to know
      I presume you're trying to imply that people are thought to be descended from monkeys.


      Now be fair. I'm sure he was talking about Monkey Magic fans. I bet he thinks that's real too. After all if you believe the earth was made in 6 days by a guy shouting let there be light etc., it's not a stretch to think that blowing between your fingers as you move them up and down will summon a pink cloud that will take you where you want it.

      --
      These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
    106. Re:65 million? by syousef · · Score: 1

      Blasphemer! How dare you speak the name of the great one without including the suffix -Rex. You are evil and must be purged from this place!

      --
      These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
    107. Re:65 million? by 2short · · Score: 1

      "I'm just tired of /.'ers calling Christians retards because of their beliefs"

      Then don't make retarded posts. Buddhism and Christianity are both, in my opinion, silly mumbo-jumbo, but I don't care. Beleive whatever you want. However, some people think their beleifs, for which they have no evidence, deserve to be respected by others just because they beleive it, and they push these beleifs at others, and try to get them taken seriously in public schools, etc. These people deserve ridicule. It's not unprovoked. They put forth blatantly false ideas, and attack good science with nonsense that has already been debunked many times over. The mocking carries over into the next relevant story, because they are just so mock-worthy. If you're not one of them, then don't be offended; it's not Christianity as a whole we criticise, but idiocy, Christian or otherwise.

    108. Re:65 million? by rohan972 · · Score: 1

      I don't know much about his science being wrong, but his moral outlook certainly seems questionable:

      "At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked (18. 'Anthropological Review,' April 1867, p.236.), will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla."
      The Project Gutenberg Etext The Descent of Man by Charles Darwin

      If he was to first propose his theory today, it would likely be rejected as people would distance themselves from such racist remarks. I note that this is not the real evidence that Darwin was wrong that you asked for, nor do I have an alternate scientific theory for the origin of species.

    109. Re:65 million? by quigonn · · Score: 1

      Well, religion started the conflict. Religions like Christianity were there before science was. And when science started to emerge, it was fought extremely hard and brutal by Christian religions (especially the Roman-Catholic church). And in these days, the evangelical movement and their think-tanks try to take over the science with pseudo-scientic junk like ID and try to make it into the schools' curricula, so the "hateful bigotry" you mention is only the healthy self-defense from the science community.

      --
      A monkey is doing the real work for me.
    110. Re:65 million? by ArcherB · · Score: 1

      hen don't make retarded posts. Buddhism and Christianity are both, in my opinion, silly mumbo-jumbo, but I don't care. Beleive whatever you want. However, some people think their beleifs, for which they have no evidence, deserve to be respected by others just because they beleive it, and they push these beleifs at others, and try to get them taken seriously in public schools, etc. These people deserve ridicule. It's not unprovoked. They put forth blatantly false ideas, and attack good science with nonsense that has already been debunked many times over. The mocking carries over into the next relevant story, because they are just so mock-worthy. If you're not one of them, then don't be offended; it's not Christianity as a whole we criticise, but idiocy, Christian or otherwise.

      This is a fucking article about dinosaurs!!! It has nothing to do with religion being taught in public schools. No one posted anything about religion being taught in public schools or about pushing religion on you or anyone else. So yeah, it is unprovoked. Yes, some people believe things that you disagree with, but that doesn't mean you have to insult them and their core beliefs any time something they disagree with is brought up. There is an article about Apple Hardware on slashdot right now, why don't we go over there and bash religion for hating gays?

      Finally, you say here:
      However, some people think their beleifs, for which they have no evidence, deserve to be respected by others just because they beleive it, and they push these beleifs at others, and try to get them taken seriously in public schools, etc.
      Isn't that kind of what is goes on here? Let's ridicule those that believe differently than we do.

      --
      There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
    111. Re:65 million? by complete+loony · · Score: 1
      It looks like there must be some global creationist group ...

      I don't think it requires that much organisation, just enough regular visitors with the same opinions.

      That's a lot of water.

      Yes and no. There's lots of water in the oceans, and it would take less total volume of water to erode the mountains than would be required to cover them over.

      --
      09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
    112. Re:65 million? by Slip-Knot+in+space+t · · Score: 1

      Dude, dont post religious sh** in a scientific discussion forum, thats just not cool.

    113. Re:65 million? by 2short · · Score: 1

      "This is a fucking article about dinosaurs!!!"

      In response to which some people made dumb jokes (it's slashdot, dumb jokes are always in context) at the expense of young-earth creationists. Which were funny, because YECs are ridiculous. Others defended the YECs because how dare we make fun of others beleifs. I is this idea I feel needs a righteous smack-down. The concept that we must respect others ideas no matter how crazy they are is downright dangerous.

      "Isn't that kind of what is goes on here? Let's ridicule those that believe differently than we do."
      No, let us ridicule those who insist on ridiculous things. If you are insulted because I say your "core beleifs" are ridiculous, oh well. I do not ask anyone to take my beleifs seriously just because I beleive them. In many cases I beleive them because there is good evidence for them, which may ocf course be a reason for a rational person to agree with me. But I ask no one to beleive, or even respect, anything at all just because I say so.

    114. Re:65 million? by ObiWanStevobi · · Score: 1

      Yes, I was once an atheist

      Atheist turned troll? Reading through your comments, I don't see any technical posts, just thinly disguised right wing politics.

      I do have a college education in the sciences

      Really, which ones? Was this degree over the internets? Certainly not any sciences that are applicable to this debate. Perhaps social, political, or economic?

      You haven't produced one bit of 'evidence' that doesn't match this site.

      I hate to be a flamer, and couldn't care less what anyone believes about how he universe got here. However, you have made the always typical comments telltale of someone not intersted the least bit in 'the sciences' or any fact, you're interested in framing the argument. First off, you start with the 'Public Schools' chestnut. Only in a geeks wildest dreams would a public school education get that in depth into science. Second, you confused evolution with origin. If you are a student of 'the sciences', you would not make such a mistake unless you intended to do so. Finally, using the term monkeyist religion? Perhaps you would feel more at home at a Rush Limbaugh blog rather than a tech site.

    115. Re:65 million? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      The fact is, there are lots of people alive today, many of whom are Americans, who beleive that the Earth is 6000 years old.

      I understand. I'm just saying that they aren't a majority like atheists seem to suggest. Likewise, atheists seem to dodge the very large chunk of the human population which both believes in the existence of God AND evolution at the same time... some of us even find evolution to be further evidence of God...

      We find it ridiculous that Atheists can stare at galaxies that are thousands of light years away and still somehow think they have already discovered "most" of the total empirical evidence to be discovered, and subsequently conclude that there's no God.

      You bring up Occam's Razor... apply Occam's Razor in reverse:

      The universe, in all its magnificence, is the simplest solution to ________________________________

      (if anyone can fill in the blank with the correct answer, there's a few billion people who would really appreciate it - as a head's up, nobody's going to buy "nothing at all"; that doesn't make any sense, philosophically, religiously, or empirically...)
    116. Re:65 million? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So, let's see the numbers:

      Creationists claim the earth is 6,000 God-years (GY) old, wich is 65,000,000 man-years (MY).
      That gives 1 GY = 10,833 MY.
      The Genesis says Adam, Cain, and all the prole lived about 900 GY. That made them 900 GY * 10,833 MY/GY = 9,750,000 MY
      old when they died.
      Wow! ALMOST TEN MILLION YEARS!!!
      those where good times! And all is because of the shit we eat nowadays!!

    117. Re:65 million? by cyxxon · · Score: 1

      Damn, +5 already, and I have mod points. Just need to reply then, and link this from my blog (which nobody reads, but hey, that never stopped anyone from having one). Anyway, very interesting way to see this problem!

    118. Re:65 million? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Stop the non-sense. Evolution is not a theory. It *is* the observed natural phenomenon. It *is* an observed "scientific" fact.

      We have _observed_ how genes change from generation to generation (are you contesting this?), and we have _observed_ that in any environment, only the fittest to the local environment survive (or maybe are you contesting this?).

      Can you please explain how creationism explains those observed phenomenons, so that it deserves to be taught in schools as an scientific theory?

    119. Re:65 million? by SleepySheep · · Score: 1
      Maybe man's perception of time is not the same as God's perception. Perhaps those millions of years worth of "proof of evolution" that we see only cover 6 days worth of creation for a God who exists in Eternity? Thus it's possible that a time difference is all that separates the creationist from the evolutionist.

      That does not work. Consider the following verses from Genesis:

      1:11 God said, "Let the land produce vegetation:31 plants yielding seeds according to their kinds,32 and33 trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds." It was so. 1:12 The land produced vegetation - plants yielding seeds according to their kinds, and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. God saw that it was good. 1:13 There was evening, and there was morning, a third day.

      1:14 God said, "Let there be lights34 in the expanse35 of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them be signs36 to indicate seasons and days and years, 1:15 and let them serve as lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth." It was so. 1:16 God made two great lights37 - the greater light to rule over the day and the lesser light to rule over the night. He made the stars also.38 1:17 God placed the lights39 in the expanse of the sky to shine on the earth, 1:18 to preside over the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness.40 God saw that it was good. 1:19 There was evening, and there was morning, a fourth day.

      On the 3rd day, God created plant life and put into the place the process by which they reproduce. I've got to think that means by the end of the 3rd day, the plants were completed which also means the process known as photosynthesis has been created. As we all know, plants require sun light in order to live.

      Sunlight was not created until the 4th day. If a day in these verses means a period of 24 hours (as I believe), then no problem. The sun sets every evening and when it rises in the morning the plants are OK. But, if a day stands for millions of years, then the plants will be dead before sunlight is created. Besides, the Scripture talks about evenings and mornings; so if "a day" is a million years then what is an "evening" and a "morning"?

      But, yes, God's perception of time is very different from man's. Man is living inside of time and is thus limited by it. God is the Creator of the universe. Time is simply one of the universe's dimensions and God transcends the universe.

      The only thing that seperates the creationist from the evolutionist is God. That is, creationists believe in design with a Creator. Evolutionists believe in design without a Creator.

    120. Re:65 million? by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 3, Interesting
      There are other ways around that paradox. The one I tend to like most is that "a stone the God cannot lift" is not definable in a meaningful way. It simply doesn't mean anything, much the same as "result of division of 1 by 0" (the latter is not infitity BTW... it's nothing, as in, there's simply no such thing), or, even simpler, a "square circle".

      Can God create a "square circle" or a "triangle with four sides"? The fallacy is that of assuming that the answer of canCreate(x) should be either true or false. For some values of x, you just get an ArgumentException, which is really neither ;)

      P.S. And no, I'm not a Christian.

    121. Re:65 million? by Gotta+ask+yourself.. · · Score: 1

      That doesn't mean He "can do everything", it means He can do anything every other being can, and perhaps a lot more (like creating a universe with an embedded existance, which I personally believe to be bogus).

      You have no way to prove it's bogus, just like they have no way to prove it's not. You both are on the same ground and think very much alike. The conclusions you might come to might be opposit, but the method you use to get there is exactly the same.

      With the advancement of technology, we might one day be able to simulate one entire universe inside a computer. Doesn't even matter whether it would take one of our years to simulate one second of the so created universe, because the time of the universe we created would exist in a reference frame independent from ours. What would matter, is the question: since you created that universe, who are you, if not the God of that universe?

      Therefore, why and how we're here, ultimately, is irrelevant. There will always be the question "who or what originated it all". Call it God, if you wish.

      -- an agnostic.

    122. Re:65 million? by FST777 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I strongly disagree. For me both science and religion contains the Truth. In my personal opinion, one doesn't rule out the other. Science cannot rule out the existence of a God, simply because that is out of the scope of natural laws as we know it. Religion cannot rule out the existence of natural laws (like gravity, or quantummechanics, or genetics), simply that is beyond the scope of spirituality.

      The fact that I believe God created everything does not mean that I oppose the findings like we discuss in this very topic. It simply means that I believe that there is more meaning in life than mere chemics. But the bottomline remains: science and religion simply don't mix up, so they shouldn't be mixed up.

      Your allegory doesn't make sense. Science might say 1+1=2, but religion doesn't contradict that by saying 1+1=3. I really can combine [1+1=2] and [$God=true]. That is the allegory that is made when combining science with religion.

      --
      Free beer is never free as in speech. Free speech is always free as in beer.
    123. Re:65 million? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why wouldn't He? Like there is a God upon God that would punish Him for lying? The whole point of religion is moot. Like if our actions and rituals could ever influence the conduct of superior or even no less then omnisuperior being. If it exist it will do as it pleases and it doesn't have to answer to anybody, you, me or whichever prophet. It doesn't have to keep the word because by definition of omnipotence it is above the word, the right, the wrong, the just, the good and the evil.

      I say: If there is such a being and it falsified universal history so well that we cannot reasonably conclude other way then what it seems, then we can totally disregard such an influence as inconsequential for our observations, because of disjunctive principle: There is no history that is both hidden from the world and yet effecting the world, as we know the history only through the effects and detectable consequences it has on presence.

    124. Re:65 million? by master_p · · Score: 1

      God is not a human being. Deception, angriness, purposefulness, there are all signs of a finite being.

      Actually, your argument falls flat because of itself! if you say that 'who are we to judge how the universe was constructed by God', we can also say that 'who are we to assume how the universe was constructed'!

    125. Re:65 million? by gavri · · Score: 1
    126. Re:65 million? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      1 cloud colliding with 1 cloud produces 1 cloud. so, in this case, 1+1=1

      This does not prove the general statement 1+1=1, it just proves that integer math is not a good tool to model clouds colliding.

    127. Re:65 million? by ComaVN · · Score: 1

      It's not so much [$God=true] that people have a problem with. It's [$SpecificGodAsDescribedInSpecificBook=true] that is demonstrably at odds with current scientific understanding.

      --
      Be wary of any facts that confirm your opinion.
    128. Re:65 million? by CmdrGravy · · Score: 1

      Some of you find pretty much anything to be proof a God, the problem is that nothing we can see, nothing we have ever discovered and nothing that we know about has ever provided the slightest reason to believe that there is such a thing as a God let alone any evidence for it.

      Instead religious types start out by assuming that there is a God and that he is in some way responsible for everything.

      When they start trying to explain exactly how he was responsible for a particular thing they come unstuck because shortly afterwards science will come along and explain the thing much more accurately without any reference to God.

      In some cases it appears that God has just got some things plain wrong, e.g. everything orbiting the world. Once it becomes obvious that science is better at describing something than God was religious types change their mind about what it was exactly God had done - "But God never said everything orbited the Earth, that was just our misinterpretation".

      What religious types fail to understand has always been a misinterpretation, no one has ever seen God, no one has ever heard God, there has never been any evidence for God it has from the start been simply an fabrication which is constantly re-interpreted to attempt to fit in with current thinking.

    129. Re:65 million? by CmdrGravy · · Score: 1

      i believe most biblical scholars lean on the side that the writer of genesis one intended for a meaning of a single revolution of the earth 'day' not an epoc 'day'I agree but I bet that wasn't the case 400 years ago when that was probably a hard fact you had to agree with.

      The only reason religious types have now changed their mind about this is that Science has so convincingly proved that any such belief is pure nonsense.

      Rather than simply admit that their religion is nonsense the religious types instead prefer to simply re-interpret their original hard and fast laws to something more likely to be accepted by the general population so that they can continue to exert their control over their own believers and other sympathetic members of the general population.

    130. Re:65 million? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's also a little out of date. Geologists of the late 1700s/early 1800s that expected evidence of a global flood to turn up in the Earth's history quickly realized that if there was any global flood at all, there had to be dozens of them to account for the evidence, because there were multiple major extinctions in Earth history. The big extinction at the end of the Cretaceous Period kills off dinosaurs and many other animals and plants, including plenty of sea creatures (a bit perplexing for a global flood), but it is hardly the only one. It isn't even the biggest mass extinction in Earth history. It is probably the second biggest.

      Then there is the fact that geologists soon realized the evidence didn't really match a global flood for any of these events. Global flood models were basically dead, scientifically speaking, by the 1830s or so, and there's no way that had anything to do with Darwin's ideas, which came decades later.

      Modern "global flood" creationists are ignoring an awful lot of Earth history and scientific history. Scientists did consider these ideas, but rejected them a long time ago.

    131. Re:65 million? by caroboom · · Score: 1

      I don't have time to argue about some points. But: "A high enough mutation rate, and a new mutation overwrites the last one before the first had time to be tested." Do you have any idea what kind of mutation rate this would require? Eating plutonium sausage for breakfast wouldn't give you enough mutations to have a decent change of having 2 mutations that would cancel eachoter out. It's bullshit. Second point is that if what you say is true, why do bacteria evolve faster than humans. Or are you arguing they do not?

    132. Re:65 million? by CmdrGravy · · Score: 1

      What is the difference between your prejudices about me and any other bigot that assumes that Mexicans are lazy, black people steal and so on?Their is a big difference between harbouring predjuices about Mexicans or black people and people with religious convictions. Mexicans cannot alter the fact that they are Mexican or black and their personal beliefs, character, intelligence etc have nothing to do with the fact they are Mexican or black.

      You on the other hand choose to harbour completely irrational beliefs that you will somehow live on after you are dead, that some kind of superman created the world and watches over you. These are beliefs you have chosen to subscribe to and if I, or anyone else, decides to judge you based on a choice you have made then there is nothing wrong with that at all.

      Personally I think people who choose to subscribe to a religious belief are more ignorant, less intelligent, less open minded, less charitable, more concerned with money and more likely to be a drunk than people who do not have religious beliefs. This is however purely based on people I have met, I've never met you so there's a chance you might be different.

    133. Re:65 million? by FST777 · · Score: 1

      Care to elaborate? Remember that "Specific God That Created Everything Sixthousand Years Ago In Six Days" is a scientific interpretation of religious-based wishfull thinking. The Bible is written so that people from all ages could understand it, and it should be read as such.

      That being said, I can't see a problem with [$SpecificGodAsDescribedInSpecificBook=true] and scientific understanding, as long as one keeps in mind that one cannot approach science from a religious PoV, and vice-versa.

      --
      Free beer is never free as in speech. Free speech is always free as in beer.
    134. Re:65 million? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Another rather important point: C-14 dating isn't used to radiometrically date things from 65 million years ago. It decays too fast (half life of about 5000 years). After a million years, too little C-14 is left for the method to work.

      That's why other isotopic systems are used, such as K/Ar or U/Pb, which have slower decay rates.

      Vary the atmospheric C isotopic composition all you like. It's irrelevant to the methods actually used for rocks from the age of dinosaurs. The original poster is not even wrong about this.

      Come on. Young Earth creationists have cooked up all sorts of imaginative but bogus criticisms of conventional geology. At least try to pick the applicable ones.

    135. Re:65 million? by bhiestand · · Score: 1
      What both ends always should realize: everything you say which you can't prove beyond reasonable doubt is a theory.

      No. At that point all you have is something which can't be proven. You need a lot more to have a scientific theory.

      At this point in time, macro-evolution seems the more likely theory. For others, Intelligent Design could seem the most likely. But these questions should always be regarded as a theory, not as facts, and should be considered from a scientific point of view, instead of a religious one. It's apparent that most creationists forget that rule, but to me it's also apparent that a bunch of evolutionists forget it: it almost is a sport to degrade monotheists with scientific theories.

      Well, once again, you're being dishonest about scientists. You're acting as if the two are actually equal scientific theories, which they aren't. Gravity is a fact, and a law, but there are many theories which explain how it works. Likewise, evolution is a fact. It is observable. The modern versions of the theory predict things very accurately and it probably has more evidence for it than any other theory.

      Let me say that again: The fact that evolution happens is an indisputable, irrefutable, observable FACT. And you wonder why scientists ridicule people who claim to have a "competing" theory? Intelligent Design isn't even a hypothesis, and even if it was supported by scientific evidence (which it's not), it would never be a scientific theory.

      Bottomline is: when you mix up science and religion, you degrade the value of both.

      Funny you mention that. I see it as strengthening science and weakening religion. It is proof that the religious know they cannot survive without resorting to impersonating science. When you attempt to make it a scientific debate you are going to lose every time. Science will survive because too many people already know there is a method for determining the truth about how the universe works.

      Personally, I'm looking forward to the day when a person saying they believe in a god is as embarrassing as an adult saying that they believe in Santa Clause.
      --
      SWM seeks new sig for a brief fling
    136. Re:65 million? by abell · · Score: 1
      Evolution is a theory, just like Einstein's theories of relativity, Pythagoras' Theorem, and Maxwell's Theory of Electromagnetism. There are no "scientific facts", just theories
      I would definitely exclude mathematical theorems such as Pythagoras' from the realm of theories. Theorems strictly follow from axioms and are not dependent on such contingencies as the physical world. Their application to real-world problems depends on whether the axioms they derive from are themselves applicable to it.
    137. Re:65 million? by Dabido · · Score: 1

      'That doesn't mean he created the world in six literal days, nor does it mean that "it just happened" as he wished. He could have initiated everything and guided it since then.'

      A friend of mine from School went on to do a PhD in Theology. During that time he studied Hebrew & Kone Greek, along with all the books of the Bible in these languages. From what he told me the word in Genesis that gets translated as 'Day' doesn't mean that in Hebrew. It apparently just means a period of time. Thus, a literal interpretation of the term 'Day' is just literally interpreting the English Translation and NOT the original word or meaning behind it.

      I think the old warning from the Bible of not leaning to ones own understanding gets missed by a lot of people. I get tired of arguing against people who interpret things from a Modern Western point of view, and won't even consider that the meaning of some passages might have been obvious to a culture two thousand years plus in the past but not to our current understanding.

      A lot of people seem to forget that Religion and Science are answering two different questions.

      btw, enjoyed your post.

      --
      Sure enough, the cow costume was hanging up next to the superhero outfit and sailors uniform. (S,Spud)
    138. Re:65 million? by FST777 · · Score: 1

      Thanks, I appreciate that.

      This discussion came at the right time for me. I'm just started reading "the language of God" by Francis L. Collins from the Human Genome project. Judging from the first three chapters, I can recommend it to anyone who is interested in this dillema. Those chapters and this topic forced me to think about it thoroughly and strenghtened my faith enormously (in both God and science).

      --
      Free beer is never free as in speech. Free speech is always free as in beer.
    139. Re:65 million? by ComaVN · · Score: 1

      http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/science/long.htm l

      What method do you employ to determine which parts of the bible are to be read literally, and which parts are not? More specifically, why do most moderate Christians like (I presume) yourself interpret Genesis as metaphore, but the miracles performed by Jesus as literal truth?

      --
      Be wary of any facts that confirm your opinion.
    140. Re:65 million? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Have you seen that disclaimer? I did a long time ago. I can't seem to find the damn thing right now, but iirc this is part of what it said: "evolution is only a theory". That's incredibly misleading to students. A theory in science is well regarded because of the amount of evidence, so to say "only" is especially confusing. I think the creationists are intentionally taking advantage of the confusion between "theory" and "hypothesis" which are different between science and popular speech. The attitude of the rest of the disclaimer, again iirc, is that there are differing opinions and that students should have an open mind to alternatives. That too is discounting evolution to students who don't know any better, when in the relevant scientific community there is no dispute. Students unfortunately won't have the time to process much of the evidence for evolution, so like in many of their other classes they are left trusting the school. The confidence in evolution however that evolutionary biologists have is such that they are quite fine with calling it a fact. Evolution is being taught with scientific confidence, not religious zeal. (Anonymous coward because I don't care to take this further.)

    141. Re:65 million? by FST777 · · Score: 1

      In my opinion, each part of the Bible can be interpretated as metaphoric or literal juding on two points:

      1. Context
      Oftentimes it is obvious if something is meant as a metaphore. For some pasages, the context and the wording should be judged in its original language. Sometimes it simply cannot be done.

      2. Time
      You have to remember the time in which the Bible was written. Science as we know it now was virtually nonexistant back then. When there is a mention that "the sun stood still" it is obvious with current knowledge that if anything stood still, it was the earth.

      I totally agree that it always is a thin line. You can spent a lifetime with judging texts like these, but it helps a lot that we know more of the world nowadays (for instance that it's round) than folks did back then.

      --
      Free beer is never free as in speech. Free speech is always free as in beer.
    142. Re:65 million? by bogado · · Score: 1

      That's something that's always struck me. An omnipotent god could trivially create a zillion photons all the way up to every star in the iniverse. And in fact could create 15 billion years of fake history which would be completely indistinguishable from "real" history.
       
      Which also means that we could also postulate that the universe came into existence 10 seconds ago, complete with this comment half written.If he created the world this way, I guess that he can't blame humans and condemn them to eternal pain and stuff in hell for believing it... ;-)

      God, the meta-physical prankster, "hahaha, fooled you"...

      --
      []'s Victor Bogado da Silva Lins

      ^[:wq

    143. Re:65 million? by Johnny5000 · · Score: 1

      God is not a human being. Deception, angriness, purposefulness, there are all signs of a finite being.

      I'm not sure what your point is, but if you're a religious kook just keep in mind that the bible is full of instances where god acts like a complete douchebag, including deception, anger, etc.

      So that would indicate the bible (and god) were created by finite beings?

      --
      The libertarian solution to the failures of capitalism is to apply more capitalism til the failures are fixed.
    144. Re:65 million? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    145. Re:65 million? by ComaVN · · Score: 1

      Point 1 directly contradicts your earlier statement: "The Bible is written so that people from all ages could understand it"

      --
      Be wary of any facts that confirm your opinion.
    146. Re:65 million? by Ginger+Unicorn · · Score: 1

      Then why not ignore it and mind your own business?

      because the unchallenged propagation of poor reasoning like that is bad thing. the more ignorance there is, the more the world is a dangerous place.

      I think not being able to prove something is better than thinking you proved something with evidence when you really didn't.

      That's why he had to pull you up on the way you were implying that your meaningless thought exercise was any kind of evidence for the existence of God, which it isn't.

      Also, a lot of the evidence that scientists use for evolution can be viewed another way as evidence for Creation.

      That's a bold claim, the kind that needs to be backed up with some references or at least some examples. And again, it would be irresponsible for me to let you make potentially baseless assertions without challenging you to back up your claims. As an unrelated and more extreme example, i'm sure you wouldnt think that a holocaust denier should not be challenged when making claims like "a lot of evidence for the holocaust can be viewed another way as evidence against it", without presenting a single example for consideration.

      By the way, what ever happened to the 3 rules of cell theory, namely the one about all cells can only come from another living cell?

      They are rules governing a particular well bounded model. They arent a set of commandments etched into the fabric of the universe. They also dont contradict evolutionary theory whatsoever. What I assume you are thinking about is the origin of life, rather than speciation. The theory of evolution has little to say about the origin of life.

      Tell your friends to get their story straight before preaching evolution.

      I would encourage you to heed your own advice. Also, evolution isn't a gospel that is preached. It is a scientific fact that can be readily examined by anyone who is genuinely curious about the way the world actually works. Your problem is that your only understanding of evolution is the self-deluding and ignorant propaganda of the intelligent design "movement".

      A very important fact of life that would do you well to appreciate, is that you simple CANNOT make a valid judgement of the truth of a proposition if you only listen to one side of the story. Do yourself a favour and open your eyes. Try reading some actual scientific material about evolution and make a genuinely balanced judgement. Don't spend the rest of your life as the mouthpiece of someone else's propaganda.

      --
      (1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons
    147. Re:65 million? by FST777 · · Score: 1

      You had me thinking there...

      With my earlier statement I meant the way things are told or explained. It's quite easy to imagine the sun standing still, for us as well as for 1000 BC jews. Point one touches two issues which are out of that scope: translation (indeed not everyone understands Hebrew) and "supernatural" things, like described in Revelations. The first is a matter of insight in an old language and old cultures. The latter has been a matter of debate for ages and will remain so until "the end of times", if you follow me.

      I have a hard time translating my thoughts on this in Dutch, let alone English. Bear with me :)

      --
      Free beer is never free as in speech. Free speech is always free as in beer.
    148. Re:65 million? by fimbulvetr · · Score: 1

      ...false statements that they didn't bother checking...

      Funny, coming from a guy who defends the bible and all.

    149. Re:65 million? by Ginger+Unicorn · · Score: 1

      It was not my intention to debate the "evidence" of creationism, only to point out that it does exist.

      But he just explained that those examples you gave are not valid. They arent evidence because they arent true. Every single piece of evidence presented to bolster the notion of creationism by attempting to discredit scientific facts is demonstrably wrong. It is also a false dilemma. Proving all of science to be wrong would not prove that god created the universe.

      I never said I agreed with it, but most people here have not taken the time to even consider that there may be other view points with valid, logical and scientifically backed reasoning. I've heard both sides of the argument and you have to agree that both sides have valid points as well as theories that don't make sense.

      The creationist side ONLY has theories that don't make sense. And "science" isnt some kind of gospel edict that scientists have faith in. Science consists of varied points of view with logical scientific backed reasoning. But at the end of the day, one of those points of view come out on top as having the most evidence behind it. Thus a consensus is reached. A consensus that can be revised should more evidence come up in favour of a different point of view. "Intelligent Design" has been and can be reviewed as a scientific theory and it has been found to be JUNK SCIENCE. It doesnt hold any water. The "evidence" presented by the IDers has been peer reviewed the world over and it's GARBAGE. This ploy of appealing to "fairness" and "balance" is a political ruse to sway people who are ignorant of the fact that the entire case has been evaluated fairly and in a balanced way, and was found to be INCORRECT.

      While you and others have done a pretty good job of "debunking" most of the creationist view, I have yet to hear anyone debunk the first law of thermodynamics. If energy (and matter) is never created nor destroyed, nothing can exist without that law at any scale being broken at some point.

      He just explained that to you, but you havent understood. Scientific "Laws" are not etched into the fabric of the universe. They are used to describe the behaviour of a particular well defined system. In the same way that Newton's Laws dont apply when you approach the speed of light, the laws of thermodynamics dont apply when you are talking about the beginning of the universe, because they weren't written to describe it. They describe the lower energy universe we occupy today. This is another example of creationists confusing the layman with intellectually dishonest misrepresentations of what science is and what it says.

      I'm not saying I know who, how or why, but I am saying that not all Creationist theories have been "debunked endlessly".

      Present one that hasnt been debunked then. And dont just reiterate the ones that have just been debunked in front of you.

      And saying that these "laws" don't apply because they break down at extreme scales is as much as a cop out as saying God did it.

      No it isnt at all. You fundamentally misunderstand science. The "laws" were written from experimentation and research made in the universe as it is now. They only apply to the universe as it is now. A Scientific "law" is not a universal. It only applies to the system it describes. Saying god did it is saying "i know for a fact this thing we cant explain or understand was definitely done by god.". Saying the laws of thermodynamics dont apply at the beginning of the universe is just admitting the reality that we dont know what happens.

      --
      (1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons
    150. Re:65 million? by fimbulvetr · · Score: 1

      I think you're confusing Budha with Buddha.

      In any case, Buddha wasn't a son of a god. He was just a guy who wrote some guidelines. There are no buddist mantras about killing your enemies, killing nonbelievers, promising 72 virgins in heaven, forgiving suicide bombings, holy cities, etc.

      You can believe in him or not, and still be buddhist.

      Perhaps you should conjur up another religious avatar you can compare your bearded savior of man with?

    151. Re:65 million? by Ginger+Unicorn · · Score: 1

      could he create a being that could and would kill him? Does that being have omnipotence+1?

      --
      (1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons
    152. Re:65 million? by mrpeebles · · Score: 1

      There is strong physical evidence that natural selection provides a coherent and consistent picture of how the rise of the species. And it does have explanatory power- it tells us that we can consider whatever causes mutations, and the survival value of those mutations, separately. So it is a good scientific theory. Now I'm not a biologist, and don't know how well people understand the potential beginnings of life. I'm not particularly convinced by your argument, but I can't immediately come up with a counter argument either. But I'm no expert. I will say, thought, that I could make an analogous argument about electrodynamics in physics. I could claim that Maxwell's 4 equations are blatantly absurd because they can't explain how a simply hydrogen atom (or any other kind of atom) is held together- the prediction from 19th century physics is that in a the electron should fall into the proton. (I might even say that since we must test electrodynamics with things made of atoms, electrodynamics has no explanatory power because it simply pushes the wild unexplained things into the very small, though this might be taking the analogy too far.) But electrodynamics did not turn out to be wrong. It is pretty much exactly right for large things, and just required some modifications for small things. (The modifications were radical, but not in a way that jettisoned earlier knowledge, exactly.) This isn't surprising. Classical electrodynamics had to be more or less right for large things- there was strong physical evidence for it. Logical extrapolations into phenomena it wasn't developed to explain weren't going to change that. Natural selection is no different.

    153. Re:65 million? by Gibsnag · · Score: 1

      Of course that is possible... a creator could have created the universe a day ago, a minute ago, a second ago or at any point in time approaching an infinitely small measurement of time. Therefore not only does this idea have no relevance to science (because science is either assuming that it didn't happen, or not caring that it happened and is interested in this fake history), it also doesn't help the Creationist's point of view either. If someone wanted to say that it was created at a specific point in our history, say 6k years ago then without *cough* evidence to show that that was the point in time at which God created the universe their point is moot. Seeing as there are conflicting religious accounts of this exact point (I think certain aboriginal tribes believe that this creator was a rainbow snake who vomited out the universe) I don't see why one unsupported book should be taken more highly than another unsupported book or any other unsupported creation legend.

    154. Re:65 million? by init100 · · Score: 1
      A lot of people, especially Creationists, get hung up on "theory" and "fact".

      This is because the word theory in common use by laymen means something like hunch or hypothesis, i.e. an idea without any evidence for its validity.

    155. Re:65 million? by init100 · · Score: 1
      I find that extremely rude and not to mention politically incorrect.

      Rudeness is bad, but I hope that you are not trying to enforce a political correctness policy. I don't have many good things (if any) to say about political correctness, as it usually restricts free speech, sometimes quite severely.

      And by the way, even if this is an american website, the web is international. Should non-americans have to stay updated on what is considered politically incorrect in the US this week?

    156. Re:65 million? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Some of you find pretty much anything to be proof a God, the problem is that nothing we can see, nothing we have ever discovered and nothing that we know about has ever provided the slightest reason to believe that there is such a thing as a God let alone any evidence for it.

      Instead religious types start out by assuming that there is a God and that he is in some way responsible for everything.

      Yes, you're exactly right. Being the religious type, the first word I taught myself at age 1 was God. It was almost a reflex of the tongue. Ever since I was 3, I knew that everything I could see was manufactured by The Holy Spirit.

      When I turned 5, I realized that no God could ever understand what it's like to be a toddler and to grow up in such a demented world, and heuristically determined that God must have incarnated a human Son so that He could realize what temptation drove us to, and sacrifice this Son for our sins (the things which I inherently knew separated us from The Lord).

      - ALTERNATE EXPLANATION -

      We have these things, which we can see, which have been "discovered" since they were created, that most anyone (except you apparently) knows about, they're called BIBLES (aka scriptures, "holy books", testaments, etc.).

      Moron.

      Do you suppose that the Jews would have accepted scripture which told them that the world was round and that the center of the universe is something so incomprehensible that it will be thousands of years before we can even define exactly what that is? Bearing in mind that we only have the very faintest clue today.

      What's that? You don't think they'd have bought it?

      Then how could God's Word have proliferated if The Bible was simply a complete specification for the universe?

      This is why amongst the select few genuine Atheists who have read The Bible from an empirical standpoint, a philosophical standpoint, a psychological standpoint, etc. and have selected their beliefs based on genuine insight, there are COUNTLESS (tens of thousands) of "follower" Atheists who essentially have no clue what they're talking about - you spout off things like

      nothing that we know about has ever provided the slightest reason to believe that there is such a thing as a God

      which CLEARLY is nothing more than an insistent, unsubstantiated, poorly thought out assertion, which happens to be 100% false.

      Let's be honest - there are many religious people who are far more intelligent than these "follower" Atheists. This leads me (amongst many) to believe that 99% of all Atheists simply don't like the accountability factor; you don't like that you may be judged for what you do here on Earth.

      Whether you believe The Bible literally, metaphorically, or just empirically (many psychologists can tell you why The Bible as it is written would have been God's only way of surviving His Word amongst imperfect, sinful, unintelligent humans) it is "the reason to believe that there is such a thing as a God," if you are so inclined.

      I assure you, you've never read The Bible, so don't think you're somehow qualified to start arguing with people who learn from it, find their faith within it, and apply it to their daily lives. In other words, before you become an Atheist apologist, you really should learn more about who you're arguing with.
    157. Re:65 million? by init100 · · Score: 1
      Others defended the YECs because how dare we make fun of others beleifs.

      I wonder what the YECs (or YEC defenders (should I say apologists?)) thought about the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons article slightly less than one year ago. Could I suppose they attacked those as vehemently as they attack those who make fun of YECs?

    158. Re:65 million? by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 1

      Actually it's not a fact.

      A measurement of gravity at a given location and time is a fact.

      I've read that the word "Law" is really 1800's talk for "Theory".

      The "Law" of gravity is really the "theory" of gravity.

      We can observe that gravity exists today.
      We can use astronomy to look into the past and see evidence that it existed in the past.

      But gravity could stop, reverse or change tomorrow.

      In that case, the theory of gravitation would have to be changed to fit that change.

      And technically the "Law" of gravity was wrong and redefined to be correct as long as relativistic effects were not involved (i.e. for things moving slowly compared to the speed of light).

      --
      She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
    159. Re:65 million? by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 1

      The fundamental flaw with your dream is that on average,
      irrational religious people outbreed rational people by 10 to 1.

      Since we both agree that natural selection and evolution exists, I think we should both see the natural conclusion.
      A population comprised 99%+ of irrational religious people.

      In addition, I believe that some religious memes have "evolved" ways to be immune to logic and science. In part by just killing people who don't believe that way but more importantly by certain concepts that redefine rational thought while people are too young to think logically.

      --
      She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
    160. Re:65 million? by albanac · · Score: 1

      Religion, as it is commonly understood [...] has nothing to offer anyone who is aware of the world around them.

      I hope you won't mind if I substitute 'spirtuality' for 'religion' here: I'm only doing so to be clear that I'm not talking about churches, or other human organisations that accrete around spiritual understandings, but am talking about the actual thing itself.

      I've thought for many years that a very good description of spirituality (religion) is precisely "being aware of the world around [one]".

      ~cHris
    161. Re:65 million? by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 1

      Again, you make the classic assumption that religions are all about dogma and are all similar to the dogmatic religions of Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, etc.

      Not all religions are about shared belief. There are some religions (like, say, Zen Buddhism, some other Eastern philosophies/religions, deism, pantheism, or neopaganism) that are really religions of shared practice; belief or dogma or theology isn't all that important and many of these religions and philosophies have no cannon (scripture) and little or no common laws and practically nothing in the way of theology.

      Now where, exactly, does your description fit into that?

    162. Re:65 million? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      ...I have never seen God, I have never heard God, there has never been any evidence for God that I'm aware of

      Fixed that for ya.

      it has from the start been simply an fabrication which is constantly re-interpreted to attempt to fit in with current thinking.

      Good job, you just described all of science.

      Physics, chemistry, biology, etc. as we know it are just models that we created to fit our observations. Newtonian physics, for example, doesn't work on tiny scales or massive scales. Note that despite not having quantum physics/quantum mechanics all figured out yet, it's the first "science" which the concept of God actually fits inside of. *GASP* !!! 'Magine that. *sigh*
    163. Re:65 million? by buswolley · · Score: 1
      Granted. Indeed I would not seek to argue against any of the points you've just made, and I did not in my original post. I merely showed that it may be possible for a creation to be made that disguises its true birthday from logic and science. I DID NOT advocate that this is the true state of our world, and nowhere did I make a case for a particular date of creation.

      unfortunately, it is difficult to argue for the possibility of God and creation without others jumping in and erroneously believing that more was said than actually was stated. Given the history of bad reasoning from religious communities scared of science, it is natural for people to make this mistake, and just assume that I am just another zealot without reason since their experience with zealots gives them reason to convicts me a priori. However, it is a fallacy to conclude that because the reasoning skills of the proponents of a position are poor, then the position they are defending is also weak. It may be that those whom wish to defend their religion from agnostic philosophers and scientists are less trained in reasoning skills, and are blinded by the bad reasoning thats been drilled in their heads from childhood from their religious leaders and peers. However, I believe that with a fresh approach a proper defense of religion can be made if and only if, opponents are willing to let go of stereotypes, and use reason themselves in analyzing the arguments actually made.

      --

      A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.

    164. Re:65 million? by kchrist · · Score: 1

      Crappy? Have you seen the resolution of Real Life(TM)? The Sims doesn't even compare!

    165. Re:65 million? by loxosceles · · Score: 1

      Thank you for proving mine.

      I accused you of not understanding life or thermodynamics because you stated that life violates the 2nd law of thermo. I did not accuse you of anything simply because you're a Christian. You saw fit to gripe about the limits of science, yet you don't understand that science. The 2nd law applies to closed systems, which Earth is not. When energy is dumped into a system, that system can become more organized without decreasing global entropy.

      I understand that energy is never created or destroyed, yet it is here. (How can something exist if was never created?)

      That's a damned good question. How can God exist if God was not created? If you propose a mechanism for God's existence, I can use that mechanism to explain the existence of a Godless universe -- the universe becomes God, in a sense.

      If the best you can do to defend your position is to quote Einstein, you'd better give up. Einstein was not a Christian.

      There's a continuum of types of God, and some scientists (but not Einstein) retain the label of "Christian" or "Jew" even when they've abandoned notions of a Christian or Jewish God. The few physicists who label themselves according to a major organized religion are either hypocrites, subscribing to religious beliefs where their scientific knowledge ends, or they are part of a fringe group within their religion where God and religious doctrine has been toned down to such an extent that it does not interfere with scientific thought. I don't know whether you belong to the second group or not. If you do, I would not call you a Christian.

      You labeled yourself a Christian, and you don't know physics. You're so consumed with defending your faith that you evidently haven't bothered to read up on entropy and correct your mistaken beliefs. I suggest you obtain Fermi's wonderful treatise on Thermodynamics, cheaply available on Amazon and published by Dover. The big bang? Fine, ascribe /that/ to God if you want. You can even believe that God created life; science cannot prove otherwise. But don't suggest that natural occurrence of life, or the propagation of life, violates thermodynamic laws unless you have a thorough scientific argument or experiment to prove it. Otherwise, you come across as a religious scientific illiterate, whether you are one or not.

    166. Re:65 million? by CmdrGravy · · Score: 1

      Yes, you're exactly right. Being the religious type, the first word I taught myself at age 1 was God. It was almost a reflex of the tongue. Ever since I was 3, I knew that everything I could see was manufactured by The Holy Spirit.

      When I turned 5, I realized that no God could ever understand what it's like to be a toddler and to grow up in such a demented world, and heuristically determined that God must have incarnated a human Son so that He could realize what temptation drove us to, and sacrifice this Son for our sins (the things which I inherently knew separated us from The Lord).

      Obviously this is not how it works, Religion isn't typically that people realise for themselves from the moment they're born. More typically someones peers, they're parents, teachers or powerful members of the community might have a particular religious view which they then pass on to you. Usually this is accomplished by teaching religion as though it was the truth and not just a convienent self perpetuating fairy tale. This is why you normally find a predominance of Muslims in Islamic communities where it would be very unusual to find someone deciding to grow up as a Christian and vice a versa.

      We have these things, which we can see, which have been "discovered" since they were created, that most anyone (except you apparently) knows about, they're called BIBLES (aka scriptures, "holy books", testaments, etc.).

      You mean you have books of stories which contain nothing in the way of verifiable scientific proofs but an awful lot of speculation. These things didn't suddenly spring into existence from the loins of God but were instead written and collated by groups of people who chose which stories to include and how they were written based on political decisions determined by what message would suit their goals.

      Do you suppose that the Jews would have accepted scripture which told them that the world was round and that the center of the universe is something so incomprehensible that it will be thousands of years before we can even define exactly what that is? Bearing in mind that we only have the very faintest clue today.

      What's that? You don't think they'd have bought it?

      Then how could God's Word have proliferated if The Bible was simply a complete specification for the universe?

      This is a nonsensical argument, if the Jews or whoever else is believe in the word of God then surely they would be perfectly happy to believe that the world was round etc etc. In fact what this proves is that the Bible and all other religious texts are simply convienent stories. As soon as science successfully disproves whatever commonly held opinions which have been derived from the Bible the churches first response is to deny it and once that doesn't work they change they're mind about what they actually believe in order to prevent their credibility being totally undermined.

      We can see this happening ( not very successfully ) now with Intelligent Design, the people advocating this have been forced to accept that God was wrong when he told them the world was formed 6000 years ago but are now trying to say that thats not what God told them in the first place and they are attempting to use pseudo science to lend some credibility to their belief that even if God was wrong about that he may have been correct on some other things.

      which CLEARLY is nothing more than an insistent, unsubstantiated, poorly thought out assertion, which happens to be 100% false.

      Well then it should be very easy for you to prove that God does exist right now then shouldn't it ...

      But you can't, that should tell you something.

      Proving the existence of God is admittedly a tall order but you can't even explain why different people believe in different Gods and why other people believe rocks and trees are Gods or why some people believe their ancestors are gods.

      Let's be honest - there are many religious people who are far more i

    167. Re:65 million? by maraist · · Score: 1

      Now where, exactly, does your description fit into that?

      Well, it's not my description, as I pointed out. It just makes the most sense of any description I've come across. And I have spent most of my life twiddling with Religion (as a hobby).

      Again, you make the classic assumption that religions are all about dogma and are all similar to the dogmatic religions of Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, etc.

      You misrepresent what I said.. Religion is not about Dogma. Dogma is one vessel by which the general order can be emparted to the individual's personal order. More correctly, Dogma is a contextualized way for the collection of beliefs to be passed on to outsiders.

      By definition:
      "a system of principles or tenets, as of a church."

      But this assumes that all of the principles are neatly organized, and internally consistent.. This requires a LOT of thinking, and usually by lots of people, before a regular dogma can emerge.

      There are tons of informal religions.. Or more correctly, religions that aren't consistent from one village to another, yet have the same label (as used by outsiders), or are recognized as one-in-the-same by insiders.

      The ability to categorize divergent religions into the same category is the same as how we group people into "white", "black", "asian" or "hispanic".. There are key characteristics which we identify and rough into one category or another. When an asian person sees another pseudo-asian person, they may identify that other person differently than say a white American (who might have a greater tendency to categorize both equally as asian). The second asian might instead be categorized as Taiwanese or Chinese or what-have-you.

      The same is true with the categorization of religion.. It obviously has greater differentiation within a similar set of practioners than to outsiders.

      But this doesn't preclude the concept of personal internal order being provided by participating in the community's external order.

      Moreover, I made no mention of a "shared" belief between religions. Only that the general order (also referred to by me as the community's order) is consistent enough to provide internal order.

      Your examples including Buddhism perfectly match my description. Buddhism provides a description of the universe and your place within it. It also designates a method that can relinquish the world of suffering (training your mind to consider nothingness as an escape of the viscuous life-cycle of reincarnation). This very specifically is a general order (description of the universe and personal best-practices) such that your internal psychi can be without strife - having internal meaning/order/consistency.

      Even the pseudo-religions like confusionism is a philosphy about how you and your rulers should live your respective lives. Again, virtually any philosophy is a structure-providing order. Even Atheists rely on the trust of logic, rationalism, and the consistency of natural things as part of their inner peace.

      Finally, even a barbaric anarchistic atheistic amoral person with low mental capacity has a sense of the world.. Their sense is pure survivability.. Be stronger than your neighbor so you can take what you need and defend what you have. The only difference here is that they may be a community of one. So their sense of order may not come from outsiders.. Possibly not even from their parents.

      In this extreme case (and possibly excluding hermits for similar reasons), you could find those that would not meet this analytical view of religion.

      As one final point.. The key discriminator is the making of internal 'order'. Natural order and community order that does not ultimately translate into personal order is not inherently religious. Learning the quick-sort isn't inherently religious. But recognizing that the divide-and-qonquer alogithm is found throughout nature, and trying to encorporate this natural process into your everyday approach to things, and finally preaching to others the personal benifits of applying divide-and-qonquer could be considered religious.

      --
      -Michael
    168. Re:65 million? by DoninIN · · Score: 1

      Easy. Snakes don't talk, therefore Genisis and by inference most of the Old Testament is either metaphorical or divine wisdom interpreted through the terribly flawed writings of mankind. "Love your neighbor as yourself" and the other commandments of Jesus are meant to be interpreted literally, and the "Roman Church" by which I mean the thing that Christianity has been for most of its existence under the influence of Rome, and human governments in general is to be treated exactly as Christ treated the money changers he found in the temple (he went after them with a whip) so, love your neighbor feed the hungry clothe the naked, be merciful and take care of one another. That's the literal part. The rest is unimportant.

    169. Re:65 million? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Dude, the NOMA ("Non Overlapping Magisteria") has shown to be a NO-NO by, among others (most recently) R. Dawkins. In other words, the argument that religion and science have separate research domain no longer holds water, if it ever did.
      As for the meaning of theory, sorry to tell you, you have *absolutely no idea* what it means in a scientific context, your common-sense aception is insufficient for present purposes. Subjective attitudes towards a scientific idea have no probative value and therefore are irrelevant when trying to evaluate the merit of said scientific idea.
      As an aside, it's almost impossible to degrade a monotheist: his religion does that for him quite sufficiently.

    170. Re:65 million? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No f*cking way!
      If "the book" that constitutes the ultimate foundation of the believes of those who for that very reason are called "peoples of the book" (Jews, Christians and Muslims) has its facts so undeniably wrong that its timescales are wrong by some 9 (!!!) orders of magnitud then the "downright stupid" attitude is to still give it any credence. The problem is not confusing religion with science, no scientist does that; the problem is believing that religion has anything valuable to say about the natural world or the things that exist/don't exist in it.

    171. Re:65 million? by godless+dave · · Score: 1

      They're not trying to take your religion away, they are justifiably mocking the minority of Christians who are Young Earth Creationists.

      --
      "If it's real, then it gets more interesting the closer you examine it. If it's not real, just the opposite is true." -
    172. Re:65 million? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Hoo-hah, more apologetics.

      This is why you normally find a predominance of Muslims in Islamic communities where it would be very unusual to find someone deciding to grow up as a Christian and vice a versa.

      Nope, there's an abundance of Christians in what you'd call "Muslim communities," particularly Iraq. In fact, Christianity is the one religion that seems to proliferate in every cultural group, be it Muslims or Jews, East Asia (amongst former Taoists, Hindus and Buddhists), Native Americans and other native tribes across the world, etc.

      You mean you have books of stories which contain nothing in the way of verifiable scientific proofs but an awful lot of speculation. These things didn't suddenly spring into existence from the loins of God but were instead written and collated by groups of people who chose which stories to include and how they were written based on political decisions determined by what message would suit their goals.

      Really? Isn't that what most religions call Apocrypha? Note that most church's which have selected books out of cannon (which is the verbatim definition of Apocrypha) did so because they were of questionable authenticity, not because they contradicted any knowledge (scientific, religious, or otherwise).

      In fact what this proves is that the Bible and all other religious texts are simply convienent stories.

      What proof? As another poster explained, most all of documented science is simply convenient models of what we observe. My contention proves nothing, it wasn't meant to.

      Additionally...

      As soon as science successfully disproves whatever commonly held opinions which have been derived from the Bible the churches first response is to deny it and once that doesn't work they change they're mind about what they actually believe in order to prevent their credibility being totally undermined.

      ...is also exactly what scientists do when they disprove their peers and those which made conclusions in the past. Talk about a nonsensical argument... at best we could say that science is as discredited as religion for all the same reasons, except that atheists (not scientists in general, specifically atheists) have failed to provide any purpose for that which we call "the universe", "humanity", etc. etc. - that's what makes all atheists truly agnostic - you admit that you have no clue what purpose "the big picture" (i.e. everything as a whole) serves, while some generally assume there is none.

      An example: The Big Bang theory contradicts much of what we know in terms of "science" - the idea that all of the matter and energy can fit into an infinitely small point in void space contradicts much of what we know regarding atomic structure, magnetism, etc. - some scientists claim that The Big Bang theory doesn't work and is probably incorrect. Others claim that the laws of atoms and gravity were much different before the Big Bang; that as the universe incessantly expands and contracts, these laws which we have "proven" are dynamic and change. Seems convenient, doesn't it?

      Likewise, some parts of The Bible have been given scientific merit and probability by those who aren't simply deadset on tearing religion apart, including the Holy Shroud of Christ, Noah's Ark, etc. Of course, there's always a full host of scientific theories which supposedly disprove the same stories; scientists change their theories out of simple convenience at least ten times as often as any major church does.

      ...the people advocating this have been forced to accept that God was wrong when he told them the world was formed 6000 years ago but are now trying to say that thats not what God told them in the first place and they are attempting to use pseudo science to lend some credibility to their belief that even if God was wrong about that he may have been correct on some ot

    173. Re:65 million? by bhiestand · · Score: 1
      A measurement of gravity at a given location and time is a fact.

      Right. As is the observation of species evolving. Evolution is a fact.

      I've read that the word "Law" is really 1800's talk for "Theory".

      The "Law" of gravity is really the "theory" of gravity.

      The word "Law" basically means observation. The law of gravity says "things go down". The theories of gravity explain how and why, and make predictions. The fact that there are actually competing gravitational theories does not eliminate the fact that there is also a law of gravity, and we all know gravity does exist and is a fact of life. Likewise, the theories explaining how and why evolution works, which make predictions which have been accurate enough to be a great boon to other biological sciences, do not force evolution to cease to exist. They're simply answering different questions.

      Certainly there are some small holes in the current models. There are also still some rather large holes in our understanding of gravity. By the logic which has been used by the Intelligent Design/Creationism movement, the existence of gravity should also be in question because we don't entirely understand everything about how it works. Perhaps the Intelligent Falling people were right after all?
      --
      SWM seeks new sig for a brief fling
    174. Re:65 million? by bhiestand · · Score: 1

      The fundamental flaw with your dream is that on average,
      irrational religious people outbreed rational people by 10 to 1.
       
      Since we both agree that natural selection and evolution exists, I think we should both see the natural conclusion.
      A population comprised 99%+ of irrational religious people. You're right. Luckily this doesn't matter much. While many parents are required by their religions to indoctrinate their children at a young age, even leave them to die if they don't agree with the religion, a hypocritical religious upbringing nearly ensures the adolescent will begin to have doubts. Some of the world's most outspoken atheists have the attitudes they have because they were raised in religious environments.

      In addition, I believe that some religious memes have "evolved" ways to be immune to logic and science. In part by just killing people who don't believe that way but more importantly by certain concepts that redefine rational thought while people are too young to think logically. You just hit the nail so firmly on the head that I'm tempted to add you as a friend. This is commonly referred to by Christians as "challenging your faith". They are encouraged to find things which shake their beliefs and then overcome them. This is essentially logic resistance training. It is the reason why religious people are able to believe that statements like "God loves you" and "God hates you for being sinful" are not contradictory. They have actually trained themselves to set logic aside.

      A Christian friend of mine defined it as "testing the solidity of your beliefs against overwhelming evidence". He used the comparison to Job, if you're familiar with that story. Basically God and the devil make a little bet about whether Job, this really upstanding and successful guy, will crack and curse God. God destroys his life, takes all his property, kills his kids, and gives him leprosy. Job refuses to doubt or curse his god. So God tells a prophet to tell Job that he did this all to him and he hates him and yadda yadda yadda. But Job says "oh, no, that doesn't make sense, I still love God!" God wins his bet, so he cures Job's leprosy and give his stuff back to him. But his ten kids stay dead. The moral of the story? Even if there's a world of evidence against you saying that your god is an evil bastard, you're supposed to stick with him. He's just testing you. He'll pay you back for it later, we promise!

      Of course when you do things like this to a child so young he can not tell that Santa Clause is bogus, he ends up having a warped sense of reality and logical thought.
      --
      SWM seeks new sig for a brief fling
    175. Re:65 million? by Artifakt · · Score: 1

      Bullshit? - great intelligent rebuttal there. Sorry, but that's precisely the point. Genes don't spread through a population in a single generation. They spread diferentially over tens of thousands of years or more and through millions or billions of organisms. Humans for example, tend to have about 0.34 mutant genes per organism, and only about 30,000 total genes. So in a population of 30 million humans, there are about 340 who get a mutation on the same gene (not necessarily the same mutation) in the same generation. Now as I've already pointed out for the learning impaired an advantagious gene has only a small positive effect on reproductive success. There has never been a single mutation that made every creature that had it 100% successful at reproducing and every one that didn't a 100% failure. Do the math from just those two factors, and it proves there absolutely have to be some cancelations, and we're just arguing over what it affects, not whether it exists.

            While you're at it, I said that was just one reason, and referred you to Dawkins for others that are a little long to go into on slashdot. Did you read the assignment? Obviously not - to busy to pick up even a laymans idea of the subject before you opened your yap.

            If what I am saying is true then bacteria mutate faster than humans (some bacteria, particularly the ones without ennucleated cells and no sexual reproduction). This means by my arguement they respond less quickly to selection pressure and so prokerotes and archaeobacteria don't evolve new types as fast as eukerotes, which is in fact precisely what happens. Duh! While we are at it, the genes in your mitochondria are not passed on from both parents, and they evolve much less quickly than the genes in your cell nuclei, again exactly as predicted. You are simply wrong. Go talk to a real biologist on this point - you are simply and utterly wrong. You don't have time to argue this point because you don't know jack about evolution or biology and think that the more rapidly evolving bacteria are the types which don't have sexual reproduction. You're confusing a lot of things here. Are you arguing that bacteria do evolve faster than humans, that is they need fewer generations to change than advanced organisms do? Remember they don't take 20 years between generations, more like 20 minutes, and maybe you'll see where you went off track. You're looking at organisms that don't have nearly the same numbers of genes or the same lifespans as multicelled creatures, and saying those tremendous differences produces no effects what-so-ever, so the effect this guy is talking about doesn't exist. While you're at it, what about bacterial sex? You do know that for bacteria, Sex and Reproduction are not likely to be the same thing? Don't you think being able to steal genes from entirely different species has some effect on how fast bacteria adapt to antibiotics and such?

              In the end, you're argueing with me on the very point all reputable geneticists agree is true, not the point I derived from it that many disagree with. That makes you a crackpot with some weird non-standard model of evolution.

      --
      Who is John Cabal?
    176. Re:65 million? by Artifakt · · Score: 1

      Well, you could make that analogy, but does it hold? Maxwell's set of equations did predict some things its predecessors didn't, which I'll freely grant you also fits natural selection. Natural selection has explanitory power.
      But Maxwell's equations don't make anything else that we have observational data on less probable. They do predict that if the nucleus of an atom fits something like the 'electron is a little thing, rapidly orbiting a bigger thing' model, there's a problem, and it takes quantum mechanics to give us a model different enough to overcome that problem, but we never had photos of an electron as a small discrete object, orbiting a larger nucleus as a planet orbits its sun. Even when this first became a 'crisis' in physics, many people simply proposed alternate models. People such as Einstein suggested that light had some sort of wave/particle duality by about 1906, and everybody was pretty patient until the 20's when it all shook down into QM.
      Here, we have observations that do seem to dictate some probabilities. (for just one example, counting backwards, the period between artificial selection and sex being 'invented' is about 700-800 million years. The period between the 'invention' of sex and cell nucleation is longer, about 1.2 billion years. The period between the 'invention' of cells and DNA itself is longer again, about 1.6 billion years. We're trying to deal with the fact that data, such as lead/uranium isotope ratios, doesn't seem to allow enough time for the next step in that that sequence, let alone the half dozen steps we seem to think we need at minimum. The problem is, doing something analogous to QM here might involve claiming that the funamental physical laws were pretty seriously different on a macroscopic level, only about 4 billion years ago, well after the universe had settled down to being fundamentally as it is today. Unlike non-existant photos of orbital model electron structure, we have Hubble photos of honkin big objects we think are quite a bit more than 4 billion years old to argue against that, plus lots of red-shift data, spectroscopic comparisons, etc, that all have to be rewritten unless the universe has been functioning on our scale level pretty much like it does now, for about 12 billion years.

      If all we've done with natural selection is make some things that once seemed improbable look more likely, but at a cost of making other things necessarily less likely, then a lot of people are drawing some very bad conclusions. That doesn't make the theory wrong, but it does make a lot of the interpretation flawed to completely bogus. It means professionals in the field have been saying things that are about as well grounded as all those half assed physics metaphors that compare QM to ancient Hindu teachings and Yogic sayings are in real physics.

      I really don't want to get into a religious arguement, but as just one point, many agnostics have criticized the way religion sometimes seems to be in constant retreat, assigning God as a buzzword to cover whatever we can't explain without 'him' yet. As knowledge grows, the gaps get smaller, and so the need for a supernatural explanation shrinks. This is usually called the God of the Gaps arguement. But if we have explained one thing only by making another less explainable, overall human knowledge hasn't grown - instead the gap has gotten smaller in one area, but only by becoming proportionately bigger in another, so there goes the idea that the supernatural explanation may have looked valid for primative people but we don't need it as much any more.
      Perhaps more fundamentally, if we can't reduce the gaps in human knowledge beyond a certain point, then what are we doing by doing science?
      This same problem applies to many other ideas besides religious ones, such as progress. If we just made scientific progress by inventing the theory of natural selection, but we just

      --
      Who is John Cabal?
    177. Re:65 million? by mrpeebles · · Score: 1

      Well, first, I don't think you are accurately portraying the problem that classical EM had with the atom. We essentially did have pictures of the electron as a small object orbiting a much larger nucleus. Thomson showed us that the electron was negative. Millikan showed us that the electron was small. Rutherford showed us that the nucleus was dense and positively charged. And the atom had to be neutral. So we pretty much did have a picture of a small electron orbiting a larger nucleus.

      I think, though, that I must not have done a good enough job at what the similarities between the two theories were. My point is that there is good evidence that natural selection adds a lot to our understanding of the history of the differentiation of the species. Logical arguments about whether this causes problems for understanding the origin of life (whatever life is, exactly) cannot change that anymore than the logical problems with extrapolating Maxwell to the very small could change the fact that over certain scales of size, there was very good evidence for classical EM. I should also point out that people such as Einstein proposed alternate models for for very small things such as atoms. Nobody disagreed that Maxwell was more or less right on the macroscopic scale.

      We could imagine that, for example, the origin of life is a singular event, so unlikely that the most science can ever do to explain it is to say that it is a statistical anomaly. Scientists say this about strange events in experiments all the time. As I said, I'm not a biologist, so I don't know how likely this is to happen. Certainly it would be very disappointing if we couldn't say anything more interesting about the origin of life. But none of this affects the validity of using natural selection to explain the differentiation of the species.

      Now some people think the concept of natural selection says something interesting about metaphysics. The claim seems to amount to something like if the miracle of life must be explained by the existence of God, and natural selection is in some sense responsible for life, the natural selection must be God. Natural selection seems to imply that the differentiation of the species is not simply contingent, but is also accidental, so we should take this as motivation that the entire universe is accidental. (Or something like that.)

    178. Re:65 million? by mrpeebles · · Score: 1

      I clicked submit too early... I think your argument may be relevant to the question of how natural selection should motivate metaphysics and religion- we will have to see how the origin of life is explained. But it cannot change the fact that there is very good evidence that natural selection is a good model for understanding the origin of the species, and that while the sort of argument you are making can be good for asking new questions in science, it is very dangerous to actually draw conclusions from it.

      Also, one last thing, this isn't terribly relevant, but the claim in physics right now is that the universe has more or less behaved fundamentally differently throughout its history. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_unification_ene rgy

    179. Re:65 million? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      The one I tend to like most is that "a stone the God cannot lift" is not definable in a meaningful way.

      I agree. So how about: Can God create a universe in which He does not exist?

  3. Okay... by Stanistani · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Since this helps to support a widely-held theory of the mass extinction 65 million years ago, why is this really news?

    Help me out here.

    Didn't they just fill in another data point?

    1. Re:Okay... by Profane+MuthaFucka · · Score: 1

      OK, fine. It's OLD news. It's still interesting.

      --
      Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
    2. Re:Okay... by inKubus · · Score: 2, Informative

      Some scientists believe that there were multiple events that caused the massive global change that caused the mass extinction. This theory is that there was only one.

      It's amazing to imagine the world populated by giant birds and lizards. But what did these creatures breathe? Perhaps the world was covered in plant life, which provided a lot of Oxygen. Then the impact hit, killing the plants, lowering the oxygen enough that the larger animals just sort of suffocated. The smaller animals had smaller lungs, less air requirements, and thus did not perish.

      --
      Cool! Amazing Toys.
    3. Re:Okay... by hobo+sapiens · · Score: 1

      thank you. Talk about much ado about nothing. Did nobody else even read the article? Did anyone else get the fact that this theory stands in constrat to others which state the dinosaurs were wiped out by a chain of events rather than one cataclysmic one?

      --
      blah blah blah
    4. Re:Okay... by quakeroatz · · Score: 1

      This sediment finding supports the idea of a single, massive impact. As opposed to multiple events or impacts.

      Also they are pushing the idea that sediment layers near the impact point would be so affected by the ensuing earthquakes and tsunamis, it may explain why there is little sediment evidence located near the alleged Yucitan crash site.

      In short: One huge frikken impact which in which secondary events blew the crap out of the originals imapct's nearby, "tell-tale" sediment layer.

    5. Re:Okay... by pingveno · · Score: 1

      Yes. The specific theory - that a meteor so large that its trailing edge was still in the outer atmosphere when it hit near the Yucatan Peninsula - has been around for a while. Read A Short History of Just About Everything and search around in the science for amateurs magazines for more. Apparently this study provides more solid evidence.

      --
      "it's not about aptitude, it's the way you're viewed" - Galinda
    6. Re:Okay... by maraist · · Score: 1

      As a lay person, most of what I know about the topic comes from he history channel. But that info tends to coincide with slash postings like this.

      From what I've gathered, 65M years ago one one of the very few mass extinctions due exclusively to a meteorite. There aren't as good markers that scream big-rock in some of the other period transitions.

      --
      -Michael
  4. big news... but wrong by zappepcs · · Score: 3, Funny

    Dinosaurs were not killed off in a mass extinction 65 million years ago... many of them survived and are currently employed by the *AA and associated groups.

    1. Re:big news... but wrong by fittekuk · · Score: 1

      Well, I think some birds and reptiles are left overs who survived the extinction.

    2. Re:big news... but wrong by From+A+Far+Away+Land · · Score: 1

      I think you mean ??AA. *AA would include organizations like AAA, or Canadian Automobile Association along with the RIAA, MPAA. I'm no certain if it would include Alcoholics Anonymous, it might depend on the language.

    3. Re:big news... but wrong by CreatureComfort · · Score: 3, Funny


      If you count vultures and snakes, the GP still applies.

      --
      "Unheard of means only it's undreamed of yet,
      Impossible means not yet done." ~~ Julia Ecklar
    4. Re:big news... but wrong by ettlz · · Score: 1

      ...having been recently laid off from a Microsoft advertising campaign.

    5. Re:big news... but wrong by init100 · · Score: 1

      On Slashdot *AA only means RIAA and MPAA, regardless of other organizations with AA as their name or a postfix of their name. :)

    6. Re:big news... but wrong by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Er, why wouldn't "??AA" match "GNAA", "AAAA" "BAAA" "ABAA" or "XQAA" just as well as "MPAA" or "RIAA", for example?

      How about "{MP,RI}AA" or "(MP|RI)AA" instead.

  5. *sigh* by OverlordQ · · Score: 3, Funny

    I was *not* a meteor impact that killed the dinosaurs, it was global warming. Let's examine the facts here, with nearly everybody driving around Bedrock in their souped up SUVs, you can imagine all the CO2 those things put out, not to mention the contributing factor of mass extinctions due to consumption of racks of ribs at drive-ins.

    --
    Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
    1. Re:*sigh* by anzha · · Score: 3, Funny

      You're confused. That was the synapsids in the Permian with their unchecked Volcano Maker Pro users.

      The KT Event was a case of the dinos getting waaaaaaaaaaaay too excited over their Orbital Dynamics for Dummies books.

      A tad bit more seriously. Take that Gerta Keller!

      --
      Do you know why the road less traveled by is littered with the bones of the unwary?
    2. Re:*sigh* by venicebeach · · Score: 1

      Yes, clearly if the dinosaurs stopped driving Hummers sooner they would still be around.

      Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it people.

    3. Re:*sigh* by grozzie2 · · Score: 1

      There's 18 inches of fresh snow on the ground outside, and more of it falling as i type this. I'm fed up with all these promises of global warming. Would you folks kindly quit with the talk, and get on with it, you've been promising global warming for years now, and it's all just empty talk promises. I'm getting tired of waiting, so please, just hurry up and deliver on that promise, i'm tired of shovelling snow....

    4. Re:*sigh* by Woldry · · Score: 2, Funny

      But I'm already driving as much as I can!

      --
      How can a post be modded "overrated" or "underrated" when it hasn't been rated yet?
    5. Re:*sigh* by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I suggest you get a 4x4 SUV to drive though all that snow. It'll even help prevent snow in the future!

    6. Re:*sigh* by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No shit. It's -25 deg C here now. Most winters it doesn't get below -5. I was promised global warming!

    7. Re:*sigh* by yoder · · Score: 1

      "There's 18 inches of fresh snow on the ground outside, and more of it falling as i type this. I'm fed up with all these promises of global warming."

      I wish I could say the same but our winter weather is starting about a month later than when I was a kid (late 60's early 70's). We haven't had a real winter (ground completely snowcovered for more than a month) in probably close to 7 years.

      --
      "In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act!" -- George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair)
    8. Re:*sigh* by 14erCleaner · · Score: 1
      OverlordQ writes:

      I was *not* a meteor impact that killed the dinosaurs, it was global warming.

      Nice try, there, Q, but I still think you did it.
      --
      Have you read my blog lately?
    9. Re:*sigh* by Chris+Burke · · Score: 1

      I'm getting tired of waiting, so please, just hurry up and deliver on that promise, i'm tired of shovelling snow....

      Look, I'm sure you've heard this before, but global warming means more heat energy overall on the earth, not that any particular spot on earth is warmer or colder. Some will get hotter, others will get colder, it's just the average that goes up.

      How does this affect you? Well, according to my models, it looks like the spot you're at is one slated to become much, much colder, windier too, and with more of that stingy icicle-snow that you hate so much. Sorry about that.

      Oh, and don't bother trying to move to someplace that is going to get warmer instead of colder. According to my models when you move the cold spot follows, even when I model you moving to Ecuador or slowly crossing the Sahara. I don't know what's up with that. If it makes you feel any better, at least you can try making some money from hopeful but currently unlikely hosts of the Winter Olympics.

      --

      The enemies of Democracy are
    10. Re:*sigh* by kryten_nl · · Score: 1

      I wish I could say the same but our winter weather is starting about a month later than when I was a kid (late 60's early 70's). We haven't had a real winter (ground completely snowcovered for more than a month) in probably close to 7 years.

      Thats because "winter" was a communist conspiracy!

      --
      For the perfect anti-Unix, write an OS that thinks it knows what you're doing better than you do and let it be wrong.
    11. Re:*sigh* by LouisZepher · · Score: 1

      Is "icicle snow" Snow Type 232, or 136?

    12. Re:*sigh* by Woldry · · Score: 1

      Is that why it was called the "Cold" War?

      --
      How can a post be modded "overrated" or "underrated" when it hasn't been rated yet?
    13. Re:*sigh* by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The "Global" in Global Warming refers to the average mean temperature trend of the entire planet.

      Local temperatures will deviate from the mean. You just happen to be in one of those deviant spots statically or in a spot which is diverging from the mean (for now).

      Likewise, there will be places which are hotter than the global mean (statically) or which are warming faster than the mean trend, or both. Those cancel out your colder than average temperatures or slower than average warming (so slow it could be negative -- local cooling).

      Local coldness compared to the global mean is nothing new. Consider the poles.

      Slower warming than mean can be hysteresis caused by large heat sinks nearby (biiiig bodies of water, for example).

      Local negative warming can be caused by moving a heat source away. Poleward ocean currents carry warm water from the tropics towards the poles. Disrupting these will stop transporting this warmth polewards. The areas formerly warmed by these currents will cool, locally. Other areas now served by these currents will, by contrast, warm locally at a much faster rate than the global mean trend.

      Finally, snow only falls at relatively warm temperatures. (There is very little snowfall at the poles, for example. The Dry Valleys Region in the Antarctic is the dryest place on Earth). Increased snowfall, particularly at altitude, is a symptom of local warming.

  6. I once say a bumper sticker... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... that said "Big Bang Theory: God spoke and BANG it happened."

    1. Re:I once say a bumper sticker... by meringuoid · · Score: 1
      ... that said "Big Bang Theory: God spoke and BANG it happened."

      This is part of what really puzzles me about the six-day breed of creationist. I mean, seriously... They think the universe began when God said 'let there be light'. We now find that the story of creation is written all over the sky in the cosmic microwave background, the redshifted photons of the original glow of creation still visible today. What more do they want? 'Let there be light'? Light meters out the metric of space, it binds spacetime together, it's the whole damn secret of relativity itself. The universe was created in a blaze of light and the physics of its grand scale are all founded upon light. Surely these people should be downright ecstatic?

      --
      Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
  7. I call BS by $RANDOMLUSER · · Score: 5, Funny

    Look at the film. You can see another meteor on the grassy knoll.

    --
    No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
    1. Re:I call BS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      It seems that people on slashdot call this BS character alot, and he always has a great deal of information at his fingertips.

      Can someone please give me his number? Thanks.

    2. Re:I call BS by Hogwash+McFly · · Score: 1

      Noone knows BS's number. Of course, getting hold of Noone is just as difficult.

      --
      Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
    3. Re:I call BS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Noone knows BS's number? I call BS.

  8. Fl00d by picob · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If you want to laugh read through the comments. Laugh or be concerned, that is.

  9. 1963 called by krell · · Score: 0, Troll

    "Look at the film. You can see another meteor on the grassy knoll."

    1963 called. It wants its nutty conspiracy theory back. Fortunately, there are plenty of cranks peddling tales of explosives in WTC buildings to give you plenty of new material.

    --
    Where were you when the voynix came?
    1. Re:1963 called by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      oh lawd is dat sum troll

  10. But.... by spahn · · Score: 1

    But the Creation Museum says the Earth is only 6,000 years old! :-D

    1. Re:But.... by InsaneProcessor · · Score: 3, Funny

      God has a sense of humor. When he created everything, he figured that there would be some idiots (we call them scientists but not all fall into the idiots class) that wouldn't believe the truth so He created a past that they could track down and say "see, there is no creation, just evolution" just to keep them busy.

      --
      Liberalisim is an absurd ideology that displays the lack of knowledge of history.

      --

      Athiesm is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby.
    2. Re:But.... by suitepotato · · Score: 1

      Old, very old.

      Not every or even most practicing Christians or Jews believe the biblical creation story as literal truth. We're not all dim enough to raise the writings of ancient *human* (and thus fallible) ancestors to the level of G-d's word.

      Can you get a new joke and stop beating on other people because you've still got unresolved juvenile issues from being made by mom and dad to get up early and to sit/stand/kneel on a Sunday morning?

      --
      If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
    3. Re:But.... by pixelpusher220 · · Score: 1

      Also a very old reply. "We don't take it literally" being an excuse that allows completely unfounded beliefs to continue to exist. The same moderation that allows you to say which parts of the Bible are 'right' and which aren't really the real words of God, allows extremists to say it's still ok to stone people to death, homosexuals are bad and to not associate with women on their period.

      If you don't believe in certain parts of the Bible...by all means WRITE A NEW ONE. I just don't see that happening much these days, do you?

      Religion was created by humans for humans...there is no 'God' except the one(s) we create for each of ourselves as needed.


      --
      People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people :-D
    4. Re:But.... by ray-auch · · Score: 2, Funny

      Look, we know the mice paid for it to be built around 2 million years ago - it says so in The Book.

      But, lets look at both theories anyway.

      1. the mice, 2m years ago, pay for the planet to be built to look like it is billions of years old, with fake fossils etc. buried as part of the construction process

      2. God makes the planet 6k years ago, with dinosaurs and everything, then floods it when Noah's got two of everything into the ark. Except Noah forgot about all the dinosaurs, because they were small and easy to miss, especially the sauropods (behemoth) which Noah thought were on board but were hiding behind some reeds. Oh, sorry that was Job:40. Oops, Job was after the flood. Guess the dinosaurs maybe made it onto the ark after all. Seems that even the ID guys can't agree on that one.

      Anyhow, lets look at the supporting evidence, ie. the fossil record:

      Could it be fakes buried by the (far more advanced than us) builders of the planet to look millions of years old ? Difficult to disprove that one.

      Could it be the victims of the flood buried in the sediments from the flood ? Hmmm, yep could fit too.

      Ah, teeny weeny problem with the second one. People - lack of. According to the biblical accounts, lots of people should have perished in the flood alongside the dinosaurs. So, people bones should be common in the fossil record alongside the dinosaurs. Nope.

      Since that just about wraps it up for the flood, we're left with the super advanced Magratheans building it all 2million years ago for the mice. All cleverly faked to look millions of years older.

      QED - it was the mice.

      Now try to disprove the mice / Magratheans theory you crazy Darwinists.

    5. Re:But.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What if prophets still existed and could do that?

  11. MacLeod? by rainer_d · · Score: 4, Funny

    Hell, he's probably witnessed it himself.

    --
    Windows 2000 - from the guys who brought us edlin
    1. Re:MacLeod? by Gospodin · · Score: 1

      He is Connor MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod. He was born in 65,000,000 BC in the village of the Cephalopods on the shores of Loch Shiel. And he is immortal.

      --
      ...following the principles of Heisenburger's Uncertain Cat...
    2. Re:MacLeod? by zomper514 · · Score: 0

      Obviously it was a single impact...There can be only one!

    3. Re:MacLeod? by Genrou · · Score: 1

      And he said, about the meteor: "There can be only one".

  12. How it really happened... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    65 million years ago...

    Dino 1: Wii is the best dino console.
    Dino 2: No. The Wii graphics suck. Xbox 360 is awesome.
    Dino 3: Wii and Xbox 360 both suck. Playstation 3 with Cell processor rules. Plus we have BluRay.
    Dino 1: PS3 is too expensive and there aren't enough blue diodes. All dinosaurs can afford Wii though. It great!
    Dino 2: Meh, PS3 is expensive and Wii doesn't do hidef. Xbox 360 sits right in the middle and saves the day. Go 360, go!

    God: Ok, that does it. No more dinosaurs.

    1. Re:How it really happened... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That means....we're next

      "Those that do not know history are doomed to repeat it"

    2. Re:How it really happened... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      God: Ok, that does it. No more dinosaurs.God: And to cover my mistake, I'm going to declare that the earth is only 6000 years old (easier than starting over).

    3. Re:How it really happened... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thanks for clearing that up for us.

    4. Re:How it really happened... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Thank you, Ted, that was the joke.

  13. according to... ? (was:big news... but wrong) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    According to the creationists, the dinosaurs were killed off when God flooded the earth. What compelled Noah not to include a pair of every dinosaurs on the arc however, is beyond me...

    1. Re:according to... ? (was:big news... but wrong) by Who235 · · Score: 1
      What compelled Noah not to include a pair of every dinosaurs on the arc however, is beyond me...

      Obviously he couldn't fit them in there.
      Do you have any idea how big 300 cubits is?
      Not long enough to fit a bunch of freakin' T-rexes and stuff on, that's for sure.
      Oh well, at least he managed to bring the bees. I love a little honey in my tea.
    2. Re:according to... ? (was:big news... but wrong) by yurigoul · · Score: 1

      I believe that this was explained in detail in "A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters" by Julian Barnes:

      The dinosaurs shared their boat with some aggressive woodworm no one ever heard from since ...

      (But this could also have been another book ...)

    3. Re:according to... ? (was:big news... but wrong) by IdleTime · · Score: 1

      The biblical flood is impossible as it would require the whole planet to be under more than 29000 feet of water. That is a rainfall of approx 30 feet per hour. That is not rain, but hydraulic mining.

      --
      If you mod me down, I *will* introduce you to my sister!
  14. back in college by Lord+Ender · · Score: 0, Redundant

    I once dated a smoking-hot (female) engineering student. I was totally psyched, because I thought an engineering student would make a much better date the the vapid and witless masses in the communication and humanities majors*.

    Well, I learned that knowing calculus and physics doesn't always make you smart. After a few too many drinks one night, she opened up to me. She told me about the "proven scientific evidence" that recently demonstrated that the dinosaurs went extinct in "Noah's flood." I was dumbfounded and had no idea how to respond.

    That was the last time I asked her out. Oh well. She was so hot! But even I have standards.

    * Don't kill me. Not all of you are dumb. Just the vast majority (including all those I dated).

    --
    A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
    1. Re:back in college by gravy.jones · · Score: 2, Funny

      I have heard it said that when God cast out Satan from heaven that his impact on the earth is the same meteoric impact that scientists believe wiped out the dinosaurs.

      --
      Where's the 0xBEEF
    2. Re:back in college by exp(pi*sqrt(163)) · · Score: 1
      But even I have standards.
      Wasn't the "Jesus wants me to save my virginity for marriage" enough of a tipoff? Or was she one of those types who think virginity means anything goes apart from intercourse?
      --
      Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
    3. Re:back in college by P3NIS_CLEAVER · · Score: 1

      Standards? Your crazy! I would have done the hot meat conversion!

      --
      Please sign petition to restore sanity to our banking system!!!

      http://financialpetition.org/
    4. Re:back in college by Zonnald · · Score: 1

      Heard on local radio station.
      "You want to get rid of an annoying man (i.e. boyfriend)? - start talking about Jesus."

    5. Re:back in college by Captain+Splendid · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I have heard it said that when God cast out Satan from heaven that his impact on the earth is the same meteoric impact that scientists believe wiped out the dinosaurs.

      So, what you're saying is that the dinos are the first ever "friendly fire" casualties?

      Should explain why such a christian nation as the US is so good at it, then.

      --
      Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
    6. Re:back in college by flyingsquid · · Score: 1
      I once dated


      You know, you don't have to lie to try to impress us.

    7. Re:back in college by eclectro · · Score: 1

      That was the last time I asked her out. Oh well. She was so hot!

      What was her name? What town was she from? What school was this at?

      I think Noah was an ok dude.

      --
      Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
    8. Re:back in college by wiredlogic · · Score: 1

      She told me about the "proven scientific evidence" that recently demonstrated that the dinosaurs went extinct in "Noah's ... EJECT, EJECT, EJECT!

      --
      I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
    9. Re:back in college by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > I was dumbfounded and had no idea how to respond.

      That's when you stick your dick in her mouth.

      Dumbass.

    10. Re:back in college by Lord+Ender · · Score: 1

      pretty much what happened. there was also the "we don't need NASA. god would protect us from a meteor strike" bit.

      --
      A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
    11. Re:back in college by meringuoid · · Score: 1
      I have heard it said that when God cast out Satan from heaven that his impact on the earth is the same meteoric impact that scientists believe wiped out the dinosaurs.

      Now, I know most people didn't much like Adric, but really - he wasn't Satan!

      --
      Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
  15. Assume the flood is true by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Let's assume the flood story is true. God wipes out practically the entire human and animal population by drowning them. And this is your loving God who you want to spent eternity with? Really???

    1. Re:Assume the flood is true by Penguinoflight · · Score: 1, Insightful

      He'd hardly be God if He let everyone else make the rules.

      --
      "And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
      1 John 4:14
    2. Re:Assume the flood is true by pedantic+bore · · Score: 2, Informative
      Go back and read it again. Afterward, God promised he'd never do it again. After nuking a few cities of the plain, and drowning almost everything else, he realized it was time to chill out and limit himself to a few massacres here and there.

      p.s., yes, I'm probably going to hell for that.

      --
      Am I part of the core demographic for Swedish Fish?
    3. Re:Assume the flood is true by Caspian · · Score: 1

      Even if a God willing to commit acts of mass murder (even genocide) against his own, supposedly beloved creations actually existed, he would not be worth worshipping. The things God allegedly did, just vis-a-vis mass human extinction alone (i.e.: 'The Flood'), makes God a worse dictator than any human tyrant ever to live.

      The 'Old Testament' makes it abundantly clear that YHVH is not a nice guy. At all. Hell, even I'm nicer than YHVH; I've never even killed a single person, much less nearly wiped out the human race in a fit of pique.

      --
      With spending like this, exactly what are "conservatives" conserving?
  16. Article Summary by mypalmike · · Score: 0

    [Linux/Firefox version. On mostly green blob...]

    Rollover to expand video

    REPLAY VIDEO

    The Librarian
    Return to King Solomon's Mines

    Sunday, December 3 8/7C TNT

    --
    There are 0x40000000 types of people: those who understand 32-bit IEEE 754 floating point, and those who don't.
  17. World Comedians Called by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They want you to learn some humor.

    Shots, I would think that after 5 years of your supporting a joker, a crack-pot, and an idiot (you figure out which one is which), that you would learned to acquire some humor.

    1. Re:World Comedians Called by krell · · Score: 1

      The joker is Jon Stewart. I can't figure out the other two, however.

      Shotz.

      --
      Where were you when the voynix came?
  18. According to TV... by jzarling · · Score: 1

    Global cooling killed the dinosaurs, wikipedia says so. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinosaurs_(TV_series)

    --
    It is better to be the hammer than the anvil.
  19. Dating error + meteor frequency = = correlation by MROD · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The problem with all these sedimentological studies is that the statistical period between large meteorite impacts and the systematic error in the dating of the sediments (using isotopic geochemistry) in addition to the ambiguity in the fossil record (and the dating errors in those sediments) means that it's guaranteed that you will find a correlation between any mass extinction and a large meteorite impact event.

    Around the K-T boundery there is not only the Chixalub impact but a large one in Germany and a couple of others which have been discovered, all within the dating error. Add to this that there's also the Decan Traps flood basalts being errupted, ocean currents changing as the north atlantic starts to open and the amount of flooded continental shelf decreasing hugely and you have several possible smoking guns.

    The evidence just isn't there currently to say why most of the dinosaur lineages died out (along with many sea reptiles and other oceanic creatures). In fact there is still a doubt as to when it actually happened and over how long a period. Ammonites, it seems, saw the meteorite coming.. about a million years before it hit.

    --

    Agrajag: "Oh no, not again!"
    1. Re:Dating error + meteor frequency = = correlation by cdrguru · · Score: 2, Informative

      Uhhh, no.

      Crater impacts in millions of years:

      Yucatan - 65,000,000

      Nordlingen, Germany - 5,000,000

      Barringer, Arizona - 0.05

      Yeah, there are a bunch of others out there but the spread is a lot more than you seem to think.

    2. Re:Dating error + meteor frequency = = correlation by tootlemonde · · Score: 1

      The evidence just isn't there currently to say why most of the dinosaur lineages died out

      The evidence will probably never be conclusive. It is not the sort of question that can ever be answered with the same certainty as laboratory science where the results can be replicated.

      Because new evidence could emerge at any time to support some other hypothesis, there will always be doubt as to what really happened. Given that doubt, the question of what really happened isn't even a meaningful question since the answer is fundamentally unknowable.

      If there was an impact on the Yucatan Peninsula of the size indicated by the evidence, then it is reasonable to say, as the article does, that the impact "likely caused massive earthquakes and tsunamis. Dust from the impact entered the atmosphere and blocked sunlight, causing plants to die and animals to lose important sources of food. Temperatures probably cooled significantly around the globe before warming in the following centuries, wildfires on an unprecedented scale may have burned and acid rain might have poured down." If the impact occurred with those consequences, mass extinctions are a plausible outcome and it correlates with the extinction of the dinosaurs.

      One could postulate that some new virus coincidentally emerged that wiped out reptiles but spared mammals. The virus would probably leave no trace and so it will never be counted as explanation. The most one can ever say is the sort of conclusion that this study reached: "The samples we found strongly support the single impact hypothesis". It is remarkable that one can say anything about what happened 65 million years ago with any degree of certainty.

    3. Re:Dating error + meteor frequency = = correlation by flyingsquid · · Score: 5, Informative
      The problem with all these sedimentological studies is that the statistical period between large meteorite impacts and the systematic error in the dating of the sediments (using isotopic geochemistry) in addition to the ambiguity in the fossil record (and the dating errors in those sediments) means that it's guaranteed that you will find a correlation between any mass extinction and a large meteorite impact event.


      This is really misleading- there may be other craters out there, but there is certainly nothing else out there like Chicxulub. The Chicxulub crater is one of the largest meteorite craters ever discovered; vastly larger than anything we've ever seen in human history or anything that's happened in the past 65 million years. The rock or comet responsible for it is thought to have been about 10km in diameter, travelling at tens of thousands of miles per hour; in terms of energy released by that blast, we're talking about something that would have made a full-scale nuclear exchange between the US and USSR look like a couple of kids playing with fireworks. It is estimated that a Chicxulub-scale impact occurs on the order of once every 100 million years, if that often.

      The end-Cretaceous mass extinction, meanwhile is one of the five largest mass extinctions to occur in the past half-billion years. In other words, a 1-in-100 million year event. What are the odds of two such large scale, exceptionally rare events occurring simultaneously? Pretty much nil. True, there may be a few scientists out there who debate whether the K-T extinction was caused by the Chicxulub, and they try to poke holes in the Alvarez extinction hypothesis. But they haven't been able to present a compelling alternative to it.

      Finally, ammonites go right up to the K-T boundary. In a paper in PNAS, Pope et al. show stratigraphic ranges of ammonites; the majority of ammonites extend to within a few tens of thousands of years of the K-T boundary and many go extinct right at the boundary.

    4. Re:Dating error + meteor frequency = = correlation by init100 · · Score: 2, Interesting
      there may be other craters out there, but there is certainly nothing else out there like Chicxulub.

      Oh? What about the Shiva crater?

      The Shiva crater, along with the Boltysh crater and the Silverpit crater, are all dated to about the same time as the Chicxulub crater, and this brought up the multiple impact theories.

  20. engineers and religion by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's funny. Within that field there's an interesting dichotomy. When I was an engineering undergrad it seemed that the percentages of atheists and over-the-top thumpers were higher than in the geneneral population (of college types).

    Now, I can understand the atheist part. But, I had to think about the other group. My guess is that engineers become accustomed to a 0/1 world in school that has very little uncertainty, and they eventually start thinking that way in other areas of life. Only the Bib1e can help with that.

    There's another interesting angle. Engineers at my school tended to be, in the aggregate, at the bottom of the socioeconomic heap. Many first-generation students from rural areas... so, you can imagine they'd more often be really religious.

    1. Re:engineers and religion by ettlz · · Score: 2, Funny
      Oh, so it's not
      1. design it;
      2. model it;
      3. build it;
      4. test it;
      5. pray it stays up?
    2. Re:engineers and religion by M.+Baranczak · · Score: 1

      The engineers who built the Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv'ry Tay obviously weren't praying hard enough.

  21. Garbage In, Garbage Out by pln2bz · · Score: 1, Funny

    If you ask the wrong questions, you'll get the wrong answers.

    People should be asking how it is possible that dinosaur birds of the past could have been as large as 747's. We don't have birds today on the entire planet that are larger than about 50 lbs. And this clearly pushes the limits of what's possible with bird mass because these 50-lb birds practically kill themselves when they land. The Mongolians have tried to breed bigger falcons for thousands of years with no luck. So, how is it possible that birds were once as big as 747's?

    People should be asking exactly *which* animals survived, and why?

    People should be asking if the land-walking dinosaurs were alive today, would they survive? Check out http://www.bearfabrique.org/Catastrophism/sauropod s/biganims.html.

    Ask those questions *WITH* the questions about the impact, and suddenly the bigger picture changes. Is the Big Bang Theory still just a theory, or are there alternative cosmologies that people will consider? What about the electrical force? In a theory of everything based upon electricity, gravity would be a function of electrical charge accumulation and the Theory of Relativity could be very easily explained using aether concepts that contrary to popular belief, have never actually been disproven. The aether explanation for Relativity is actually much simpler to understand than Relativity.

    Do planets accumulate and transfer charge? According to astrophysicists and NASA, the answer is a vehement "NO!". But have you ever actually looked at the Aristarchus crater on the Moon? That "debris field" has *negative depth*. They are trenches! That looks a hell of a lot more like a lightning strike to me than a debris field: http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2006/image06/060 309hubble.jpg. Should we just assume that it is pure coincidence that the Aristarchus and Tycho craters occur on naturally high spots on the Moon's surface?

    We know that metals can accumulate charge and we know that the Earth has a hell of a lot of metals. So, why can't the Earth accumulate and transfer charge with nearby planets or bodies? Because we've never seen it happen? But we can see large-scale electrical activity all over the universe with our telescopes. We've gathered enough data by now on comets to suspect that the tail and coma of a comet are in fact lightning bolts. Check it out: http://www.thunderbolts.info/pdf/ElectricComet.pdf . If we're seeing large magnetic fields and temperatures of 100 million Kelvin inside of nebulae, then that means that nebulae are almost certainly *not* forming by gravitational collapse and that electricity is the dominant force in creating stars. If we're seeing large-scale electrical forces elsewhere in the universe, why should our solar system be so special as to not have these?

    Why are all craters round? Sure, astrophysicists will tell you that it's because an object going fast enough will create an explosion upon impact, but then why is the sedimentary layer at the bottom of Meteor Crater undisturbed? Would a comparable nuclear explosion leave no trace of itself in the ground beneath it?

    How To Kill A Planet of Dinosaurs:

    What motivated Einstein to say that space is modified by gravity? Imagine that a planet is orbiting around the sun. Then imagine that suddenly the Sun disappears, and the source of gravitational attraction is gone. What happens to the planet? Does it instantly go off the orbit? Or does the disappearance of gravity require some time to reach the orbiting planet's position? Einstein's answer is that it stays in the orbit for a time R/c before going off. It is as though gravitation continues to operate on the planet at its location even though the Sun is gone. Something wa

    --
    "A man cannot begin to learn that which he thinks he already knows." --Epictetus, 1st Century A.D.
    1. Re:Garbage In, Garbage Out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Lay off the drugs, man. That crap is rotting your brain.

    2. Re:Garbage In, Garbage Out by vertinox · · Score: 1

      So, you can see how Einstein's relativity theory can be explained in fine detail using an alternate theory that involves an aether.

      Don't you mean dark matter?

      In the end, it is pretty much the same thing... Things that affect reality that you can't see or detect.

      --
      "I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
      -Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
    3. Re:Garbage In, Garbage Out by ScentCone · · Score: 1

      See, normally you'd have to visit three or four crackpot web sites to get a full sampling this sort of BS. Thanks for condensing it all into one spot so that we can be more clearly reminded of how poorly we're educating people about basic things like causality, critical thinking, and little details like basic physics.

      If you can't really deal comfortably with things like the nice smooth sediment in a crater having accumulates in the millions of years AFTER an impact, then there's really no point taking any single utterance you make as anything other than Super Duper Troll Bait. Which it is, of course. 'Doh! You got me!

      --
      Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
    4. Re:Garbage In, Garbage Out by Jonas+the+Bold · · Score: 1

      I don't know why I'm bothering.

      1. There were never birds as big as 747s, Dinosaur or otherwise.
      2. Uh.. electrical universe is so bunked it's hard to respond to it. It's like trying to prove bananas aren't 57 mph, or that the color yellow isn't the driving force behind cell phones. No real math, no good astronomy, no real science.. there's really nothing to it that works at all or explains anything. Electric force is very easy to see and measure in this day and age, and is very well understood, and we just haven't seen anything at all like you describe. An object on earth or the moon or mars' weight is determined by their mass and not their charge, so are their orbits, so gravity must be the force that keeps the solar system's structure.
      3. The reason Einstein is liked so much is that his theory explains gravitation perfectly in all places we see it, effecting light, the orbit of mercury, frame dragging, his time dilation is put to use in technologies like GPS, which rely on extremely precise clocks. The speed of light being constant from all frames of reference makes no sense with an aether based theory, yet that's exactly what all experiments find. Just because Aether is easier to understand doesn't make it right- the universe has no obligation to be comprehensible to you.

      I don't really get what it is about junk science that makes people want to believe it so much, maybe just being anti-establishment? I mean the real science is just as exciting most of the time.

      --
      Everything seemed to be going so nice
      'till the end of all beings punched right through the ice
    5. Re:Garbage In, Garbage Out by TheCabal · · Score: 3, Funny

      I think I lost some IQ points reading this. I'm going to go off and install Win95 now.

    6. Re:Garbage In, Garbage Out by Chris+Burke · · Score: 2, Funny

      So, how is it possible that birds were once as big as 747's?

      The 747s were smaller back then. Duh!

      --

      The enemies of Democracy are
    7. Re:Garbage In, Garbage Out by M.+Baranczak · · Score: 1

      You've got to admit: the Electric Universe crackpots are way more entertaining then the Creationist crackpots.

    8. Re:Garbage In, Garbage Out by pln2bz · · Score: 0

      You can argue about the details, but then you'd be ignoring my actual point:

      "The largest pterosaur (Quetzalcoatlus, wonderfully named for the Aztec winged serpent god) had a wing span from eleven to twelve meters long (about forty feet)." (http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/diapsids/pterosauria .html)

      I think the fact that you so easily dismissed the point without actually becoming curious implies that you believe that we already understand the universe completely. And that is perhaps just as absurd to most people as electric universe theories. If you actually read the link I posted, then you'd see that the only reason that the existence of even larger birds were denied was because aeronautical engineers refused to believe it could be so.

      > Uh.. electrical universe is so bunked it's hard to respond to it.

      That's funny because there are quite a few books being published about it these days.

      > It's like trying to prove bananas aren't 57 mph, or that the color yellow
      > isn't the driving force behind cell phones. No real math, no good astronomy,
      > no real science..

      The science is called electricity and magnetism and plasma physics. Those are typically considered to be real sciences.

      There are in fact many findings in astronomy that suggest that electricity is happening in the universe. The real problem is that whenever somebody tries to research it, like Halton Arp, they typically lose their telescope time.

      As for the math, the Big Bang's forte, this is fudgable. Having math that works doesn't necessarily mean that your theory is true. When Big Bangers get a prediction wrong, they just add in a constant and everybody's happy (I refer you to predictions of 50 K for the cosmic microwave background by big bangers, which was quickly adjusted to around 3 K when the observations came in for that value). But what have we really accomplished if the Big Bang Theory rarely predicts much of anything that we see in the universe? Are theories these days no more than logbooks of our findings?

      > there's really nothing to it that works at all or explains anything.

      Actually, it explains quite a few things that Big Bang Theory fails to explain -- like why does the solar wind accelerate and continue accelerating past the planets? Why is the Sun's corona 2 million Kelvin while the surface is only 6,000 K? Why are we seeing temperatures of up to 100 million Kelvin in some nebulae? Why are large scale structures of the universe filamentary?

      These are very good questions. Astrophysicists will concoct exotic, disjointed physical theories involving colliding galaxies and imaginary magnetic reconnection phenomenon, for instance, to account for these things, and portray the existence of these theories as proof that the problem has been solved. They treat a "theory of everything" as if it is something that we will one day figure out. I think this is absurd. The theory of everything is what we're actually looking for. You don't find it by analyzing the components and then trying to piece together all of your disjointed theories. You find a theory of everything by finding similarities between things in the universe. You look at the universe holistically. This is what Electric Universe theorists try to do.

      > Electric force is very easy to see and measure in this day and age, and is very well
      > understood, and we just haven't seen anything at all like you describe.

      And we are seeing it. You don't hear about it because you're listening to traditional astrophysicists, who have all been taught to believe in the Big Bang, which states that large-scale electrical forces cannot occur.

      Every time a comet goes by in the sky, we're seeing it. I suppose you still believe that comets are dirty snowballs though and that that the coma of a comet (which can span millions of miles) is actually sublimating ice ...

      > An object on earth or the moon or mars' weight is determined by their

      --
      "A man cannot begin to learn that which he thinks he already knows." --Epictetus, 1st Century A.D.
    9. Re:Garbage In, Garbage Out by pln2bz · · Score: 0

      Dark Matter
      Dark Energy
      Black Holes
      Neutron Stars
      Quasars at their Redshift Distances at the Edge of the Universe

      Might as well add unicorns in there. There are plenty of things in traditional astrophysics that are actually far more ridiculous than the thought that electricity could be flowing over plasma, which we know represents 99.99% of the observable universe.

      But, Oh! I forgot. We can only see 5% of the universe. Sure, man.

      --
      "A man cannot begin to learn that which he thinks he already knows." --Epictetus, 1st Century A.D.
    10. Re:Garbage In, Garbage Out by Jonas+the+Bold · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I'm not going to write a complete rebuttal, but to start with, a 747 has a wingspan of ~55 meters. Not that a 12 meter wingspan isn't big, but it is not the size of a 747. Second, a Pterosaur is not a bird. It's a different evolutionary branch entirely. Just because birds can't achieve that sort of wingspan, doesn't mean no flying animal can. Imagine if birds had died out and there were no bats, you'd find a fossil of a seagull and say gravity must have been lower because you can't breed a flying insect that size. Third, look at the build of the larger birds, like vultures or eagles or albatrosses. The larger the birds get, the smaller thier bodies get in proportion to their wings. Now look at Pterosaur skeletons. The pattern holds. Now think, for a moment, about what would happen if gravity were lower. Air would be much thinner. The earth would orbit further from the sun. I assume we're talking about a major change in gravity here that would allow "birds the size of 747s". If gravity were that low earth probably wouldn't even have liquid water. Now here's the part I hope you won't take as me giving anything up, I'm not, but EVERYONE agrees the sun has electromagnetic phenomenon. It simply does. Science believes it's caused by the conductive plasma the sun is made of working as a dynamo caused by plasma convection from the sun's core, where energy is produced by fusion. What your electric universe theory suggests is that the sun is nothing but a big gas discharge light bulb, and there's a multiple exowatt current being run through it. As for the Big Bang theory not explaining the sun's corona, those are sort of different scales, aren't they? The big bang theory also doesn't explain how ants communicate. It's not supposed to. It explains the formation of the universe, not phenomenon in individual stars. Asteroids orbits are not all circular and not eliptical. Every orbit is eliptical, with the sun at one of its focci. Comets' orbits tend to be very eliptical. Asteroids less so, mostly. But they're all elipses, of varying degrees. The grand canyon was caused by lighting because it's shape looks like a bolt of lighting. Give me a break.

      --
      Everything seemed to be going so nice
      'till the end of all beings punched right through the ice
    11. Re:Garbage In, Garbage Out by ScentCone · · Score: 1

      Might as well add unicorns in there.

      Why? Because the recent observations of reactionless mass actually on display in front of you, in the form of colliding galaxies, are just too uncomfortably close to confirming what you don't like? Or because the Doppler effect is something you can demonstrate at any wavelength (try it with your car horn, sometime - and if you get good enough gear try it with some light), and that just annoys the hell out of you? Or because black holes and neutron stars are just too dense for your brain - which evolved without any context for grappling with things on that scale - just hates the fact that if you put enough matter in one spot with nothing fluffing it up... gravity kicks in, and that's just too annoying for you?

      Also, I think I can demonstrate, if you have a moment, that the world is in fact not flat.

      --
      Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
    12. Re:Garbage In, Garbage Out by pln2bz · · Score: 0

      > I'm not going to write a complete rebuttal, but to start with, a 747 has a
      > wingspan of ~55 meters. Not that a 12 meter wingspan isn't big, but it is not
      > the size of a 747.

      The point is that any bird that has a 30+ foot wingspan is going to weigh much much more than 50 lbs. We're splitting hairs here. A 30-foot wingspan for a bird would require either (a) different gravity or (b) some sort of biological trait that never evolved on this planet post-extinction.

      When Electric Universe proponents suggest these things, all we really hope for is that somebody with the capabilities to do so will become curious and investigate it. To presuppose that it's not a useful line of investigation and not look into it can only confirm any preconceived notions that may exist on the issue. To be honest, and I doubt you believe me, but I would LOVE to see concrete evidence that this is all bullshit. But what amazes me is the degree to which conformity remains such a value within the scientific establishment. It's such a battle just to get people to *consider* alternatives. It appears unlikely to me that all progress in science would be so scheduled and coordinated as Big Bang Cosmology has been. When you actually get down to it, there really is no philosophical rationale for people to be so hostile to alternative cosmologies. Dominating all of the telescope time with just one cosmology is actually a very dangerous idea.

      > Third, look at the build of the larger birds, like vultures or eagles or
      > albatrosses. The larger the birds get, the smaller thier bodies get in proportion
      > to their wings. Now look at Pterosaur skeletons. The pattern holds.

      These seem to me like arguments of degrees. These arguments aren't so convincing that they qualify as ruling out the notion that something strange is happening here that deserves investigation.

      > Now think, for a moment, about what would happen if gravity were lower. Air would be
      > much thinner. The earth would orbit further from the sun. I assume we're talking about
      > a major change in gravity here that would allow "birds the size of 747s". If gravity
      > were that low earth probably wouldn't even have liquid water.

      Once again, none of these speculations are significant enough to warrant a refusal to be curious.

      > Now here's the part I hope you won't take as me giving anything up, I'm not, but
      > EVERYONE agrees the sun has electromagnetic phenomenon. It simply does. Science
      > believes it's caused by the conductive plasma the sun is made of working as a dynamo
      > caused by plasma convection from the sun's core, where energy is produced by fusion.
      > What your electric universe theory suggests is that the sun is nothing but a big gas
      > discharge light bulb, and there's a multiple exowatt current being run through it.

      EU theory proposes that fusion occurs where temperatures are hot enough, and so far, we only have real evidence that temperatures are hot enough in the corona. It's never been demonstrated that temperatures reach millions of degrees inside of the Sun. But you know what? If an experiment was done and that was determined without a doubt to be true, then I'm pretty sure I'd abandon ideas of an electric sun.

      The biggest problem with EU theory currently that I can find is that the proposed currents flowing into the Sun are difficult to see, and would apparently have to be moving upwind of the solar wind. But for me, the most convincing part to EU theory are the stars and nebulae that are farther away. The evidence appears to support that nebulae are hot conductive plasma (up to 100 million Kelvin hot) and include massive magnetic fields. By default, strong magnetic fields in nebulae appears to discount the idea of gravitationally collapsing clouds of gas and dust because the electric force would easily dominate the gravitational force.

      I also have big problems with neutron stars. To think that a huge star can rotate at 300 t

      --
      "A man cannot begin to learn that which he thinks he already knows." --Epictetus, 1st Century A.D.
    13. Re:Garbage In, Garbage Out by pln2bz · · Score: 0

      > Why? Because the recent observations of reactionless mass actually on display
      > in front of you, in the form of colliding galaxies, are just too uncomfortably
      > close to confirming what you don't like?

      Do you believe that it's common that galaxies collide because you've thought about the dimensions involved or because somebody told you that that's what's happening? I've been taught that galaxies are really far apart from one another and the next logical step would be that collisions are rare. If you're seeing this as an explanation for anything commonplace, then your skeptic alarm should be going off.

      > Or because the Doppler effect is something you can demonstrate at any wavelength
      > (try it with your car horn, sometime - and if you get good enough gear try it with
      > some light), and that just annoys the hell out of you?

      I believe in the Doppler Effect. There are, btw, multiple possible causes for redshift. If you actually study quasars with an open mind, not assuming any Big Bang Model, you will notice that they tend to form along the axes of (Seyfert) spiral galaxies. Despite what you've been told and are being told, their redshifts do not correspond to their cosmological distances. If you can somehow for a second believe that something you've been told is perhaps wrong, then you will see that quasars appear to be proto-galaxies whose redshift has a component that decreases in quantized steps as the quasar moves away from the spiral galaxy. This sounds weird to you, but it's because you've been taught that it's not possible. People (Halton Arp) have written entire books on this subject ("Seeing Red"), so please forgive me if I can't be more concise.

      > Or because black holes and neutron stars are just too dense for your brain -
      > which evolved without any context for grappling with things on that scale -

      It's not about me. They're not the simplest explanation for the observation. If you didn't believe in the Big Bang and all the baggage that comes with it, you'd agree.

      Neutron stars actually violate physical laws. You can't pack neutrons into a space like that without having them rush away from one another. It's called "The Island of Stability".

      Black holes are just mathematical abstractions. They exist primarily because we can't observe them -- which means that we can't disprove them. I think people don't realize that Albert Einstein did not theorize black holes. That's Stephen Hawking's invention. When it was observed that black holes could have jets, in fact, Stephen Hawking proposed another kind of black hole ... with jets. Einstein would not have approved of all of the things that Hawking has done. A black hole is what you get when you assume that gravity is doing the work of electricity over plasma: you have to compensate for the weak force of gravity compared to electricity by supposing an infinite mass. We can suppose these same forces with normally massed things by making the simple leap that electricity is flowing over plasma at the centers of galaxies. We don't need to speculate infinite mass or anything like that. The only reason we do so is because we presume that the Big Bang Theory is correct. If your cosmology is consistently getting in the way of selecting the simplest theory for your observations, then maybe you should re-evaluate your cosmology. That is still an option, right? Isn't that what scientists do?

      > just hates the fact that if you put enough matter in one spot with nothing
      > fluffing it up... gravity kicks in, and that's just too annoying for you?

      The problem that EU proponents have with the idea that things form from gravity is that it presumes that there are no magnetic fields occurring. In order for nebulae to be gravitationally collapsing gas clouds, there cannot be magnetic fields or currents moving through them because this would alter the nature of the nebulae far faster than the millions of years it takes for gravitational collap

      --
      "A man cannot begin to learn that which he thinks he already knows." --Epictetus, 1st Century A.D.
    14. Re:Garbage In, Garbage Out by ScentCone · · Score: 1

      I've been taught that galaxies are really far apart from one another and the next logical step would be that collisions are rare. If you're seeing this as an explanation for anything commonplace, then your skeptic alarm should be going off.

      I did I say or imply that it's common? It's not. The point is that, using the Hubble, we've been able to actually see such a collision - a real rarity - and the observed images behavior directly support the contention that there is a large component of 'dark' mass effecting things, gravitationally, while still not behaving like a normal component of the vast dust/gas clouds are part of every galaxy.

      You can't pack neutrons into a space like that without having them rush away from one another.

      You can't, until the incomprehensible effect of that much gravity comes into play. Neither neutrons, nor much of anything else, behave "normally" when the normal forces that govern their behavior outside of such an intense gravitational gradient are overcome by such density. Add a little more, and you've got a singularity. Nebulae are actually hot. In some cases 100 million Kelvin hot!

      You say "nebulae" as if they all behaved the same way, were formed of the same material, by the same processes, and were exposed to the same sources of nearby radiation. They're not. Some are being continually cooked by unspeakably intense radiation, and were formed while being accelerated within a hair of lightspeed during a violent explosion. Some of the molecules in those nebulae are quite juiced up indeed.

      We'd be better scientists if we were better at accepting uncertainty in our lives.

      Happily, we can embrace the uncertainty of what we don't know (specific mechanisms that are cooking up one nebula vs. another that isn't so toasty, for example) while still realizing that (just as we did when we all settled on the earth's spherical shape) we are actually gaining an understanding of what we see around us because we have better tools and a less mythology-driven, cave-man grade sense of why things are (or are not!).

      --
      Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
    15. Re:Garbage In, Garbage Out by nra1871 · · Score: 1

      The aether explanation for Relativity is actually much simpler to understand than Relativity.
      So if something is hard to understand, it must be wrong? I wish that excused worked in my math classes in high school.

    16. Re:Garbage In, Garbage Out by spun · · Score: 1

      I just had to respond to one of the many errors in this post. The Kaibab upwarp did not exist when the Colorado river first started flowing over the area. The upwarp happened gradually and as the land rose, the river stayed at about the same height, gradually cutting a channel into the rising land.

      --
      - None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
    17. Re:Garbage In, Garbage Out by Jonas+the+Bold · · Score: 1

      Pterosaurs were bigger than birds, and Sauropods were bigger than modern land animals. This is true. But it's a HUGE leap to go from that to gravity being lower back then, and from that to surmise that gravity is caused by electrical phenomenon. It's crazy. Earth was also hotter then, and had more oxygen, which for my money is a much better explaination. Or maybe it still is possible, it just hasn't happened. The blue whale is believed to be larger than any whale before it, does that mean our water has different proporties than it did back then? Evolution is a weird thing, it doesn't operate with the goal to produce the largest animals the environment it can, just to produce animals that can survive.

      It could also be that Dinosauria were better suited for large sizes in basic design than mammals. They died out, now mammals dominate which perhaps can't get as big. Also a better theory than higher gravity.

      Gravity, not electrical phenomenon, is responsible for the structure of our solar system. There is no question about this whatsoever. The orbit of the Moon around the Earth and the orbit of the Earth around the Sun, and every other body in orbit around another in the solar system can be calculated perfectly using gravitation towards mass, not charge. If it were electric charge and not gravity, you would expect things orbiting the sun (extreme electromagnetic activity) and objects orbiting planets (nearly electromagnetically inert) to behave with different rules. They don't, the same formula works perfectly. So perfectly that we can plot orbits of spacecraft that do gravitational slingshots and execute them perfectly. The math involved there doesn't even acknowledge electrical charge of the objects involved, only their mass, since charge in insignificant on these scales.

      It's Gravity. Gravity gravity gravity. Mass attracting mass over long distances. Magnetism and electrical force die off much too quickly to matter.

      Big bang cosmology does not have to address the Sun's corona, and this is not a cop out. The Corona is a peculiarity on a very small scale compared to the big bang, and doesn't effect much of how a star works. Scientists disagree how exactly it works. It's not really a problem for star formation or the inner workings of stars, the corona is essentially the atmosphere and a very small (un-massive) part of the star.

      You can calculate the pressure at the Core of the Sun from its mass. Fusion can occur there, there is enough.

      Geologists are not mystified by the grand canyon. I looked it up, they aren't. The reason it appears to flow uphill is because uplift raised parts of it after it had started forming.

      Neutron stars are not like atoms. Atoms have neglibible gravity, in neutron stars as so massive that gravity is the dominant force. I'm sure the neutrons are trying to repel each other and are held in place by gravity. Just because you can't imagine the core of a star spinning 300 times a second doesn't mean it can't be the case. I'm sure you can't imagine the heat in a nuclear explosion either, doesn't mean it's not happening. If pulars were binary stars you'd find them with every pulsar- you don't. You find them in the middle of supernova remnants and in star forming nebulae.

      Look, this science is quite junky. It's just throw everything against the wall and see what sticks. Dinosaurs! The grand canyon! Quasars! The Corona! If the Sun is being powered by an external electrical current, it should be huge enough that it's easy to find. Like - impossible to miss easy.

      --
      Everything seemed to be going so nice
      'till the end of all beings punched right through the ice
    18. Re:Garbage In, Garbage Out by init100 · · Score: 1
      The point is that any bird that has a 30+ foot wingspan is going to weigh much much more than 50 lbs.

      But pterosaurs were not birds. Their wings were only a single membrane, with the only stiff structure being the arms and extremely long little finger. Almost all weight would be in the body and head, which would probably not be taller than a man, and a lot lighter. We have a lot of solid thick bones, but pterosaurs had many hollow bones, just like today's birds. They might have weighed more than 50 lbs, but probably not a lot more.

    19. Re:Garbage In, Garbage Out by pln2bz · · Score: 0

      I'm gonna switch to your italics. That's definitely better ... :).

      The point is that, using the Hubble, we've been able to actually see such a collision - a real rarity - and the observed images behavior directly support the contention that there is a large component of 'dark' mass effecting things, gravitationally, while still not behaving like a normal component of the vast dust/gas clouds are part of every galaxy.

      Actually, The New York Times article that featured the bullet cluster that you speak of quoted two scientists that stated that this doctored NASA image *proved* the existence of dark matter (http://www.holoscience.com/news.php?article=stb9s 0ye). To any intelligent beings not expecting to find electricity, the existence of electricity in space would indicate a general lack of mass and an existence of force. We know that electricity can flow over matter in the plasma state because this matter consists of free-flowing ions, electrons and protons. And we know that plasma exists in space. In fact, it composes about 99.99% of the observable universe. By consistently excluding the strong action of this electrical force over this abundant plasma, you end up with mysterious matter that consumes 95% of the universe.

      Neither neutrons, nor much of anything else, behave "normally" when the normal forces that govern their behavior outside of such an intense gravitational gradient are overcome by such density. Add a little more, and you've got a singularity.

      Neutron stars were only postulated when it was observed that the repetition rate was too high for a normal star to keep its shit together while spinning. This is what is called an "ad hoc epicycle" -- something you add in to a theory to make it work, but which you wouldn't add in so long as you had never observed it. The Big Bang never predicted the existence of neutron stars.

      Shouldn't we first consider the possibility that we can explain these observations using known physical laws before resorting to exotic, law-defying explanations? Neutron stars show all the characteristics of a spark happening between a binary star pair. We actually have images that show the sparks themselves. If you're willing to still believe your eyes over Big Bang Theory's math, go to http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2004/arch/040920 pulsar.htm. By the way, close observations of the Vela Pulsar by astronomers in these images indicated a "glitch" in the pulsing.

      You say "nebulae" as if they all behaved the same way, were formed of the same material, by the same processes, and were exposed to the same sources of nearby radiation. They're not. Some are being continually cooked by unspeakably intense radiation, and were formed while being accelerated within a hair of lightspeed during a violent explosion. Some of the molecules in those nebulae are quite juiced up indeed.

      Actually, all nebulae would be related. Any gas that's hot enough to glow of its own accord is going to be in the plasma state by definition (astrophysicists will admit this much). We would expect to see some differences. But we can understand them *all* by applying plasma physics and electricity and magnetism. The only reason you are seeing scientists break the problem down into distinct unrelated parts is because they refuse to accept the fact that electricity could be causing all of the various phenomenon in these images. Each time a new observation comes up that they don't understand by gravity alone, they must concoct a new exotic physical theory to explain it (anything but electricity). Then, without ever attempting to validate these theories in any way, the problem is passed off as having been "solved". But as sure as tomorrow, there will be more unusual images next week and the week after that, ad infinitum. Space will continue to be a big mystery if you consistently ignore the greatest

      --
      "A man cannot begin to learn that which he thinks he already knows." --Epictetus, 1st Century A.D.
    20. Re:Garbage In, Garbage Out by pln2bz · · Score: 0

      I just had to respond to one of the many errors in this post. The Kaibab upwarp did not exist when the Colorado river first started flowing over the area. The upwarp happened gradually and as the land rose, the river stayed at about the same height, gradually cutting a channel into the rising land.

      You are passing off theory as fact. http://partners.nytimes.com/library/national/scien ce/060600sci-environ-canyon.html:

      "The modern Colorado appears to be a young river that flows out of the Rockies and hits a huge plateau, called the Kaibab Upwarp, which is 50 million to 70 million years old. Instead of being shunted away from this barrier, the river runs right through it. Moreover, when sediments from the river are examined closely, it is clear that the western end of the canyon -- where it flattens out and begins its final run to the Gulf of California -- is many millions of years younger than the eastern part of the river."

      Ironically:

      "For critical periods of canyon formation, the geologic record is entirely missing. The rocks and fossils that researchers need in order to tell a coherent story have either washed away or been buried, presumably in places not yet discovered."

      The key is, "presumably in places not yet discovered".

      And unfortunately:

      "Then, during various periods of uplift apparently caused by collisions between gigantic slabs of the earth's crust, the Kaibab Upwarp began to rise at a rate that exactly matched the river's capacity to erode the landscape. According to this view, the canyon cutting took place gradually, with the river staying in place and the land around it rising upward.

      This theory held sway for more than 50 years, Dr. Young said, but today it has few adherents because too many pieces of the puzzle do not fit. For example, as mentioned, a major part of the riverbed shows strong evidence of being younger than the Kaibab Upwarp."

      [...]

      I'd like to respond to any other errors you've noticed in my post now.

      --
      "A man cannot begin to learn that which he thinks he already knows." --Epictetus, 1st Century A.D.
    21. Re:Garbage In, Garbage Out by spun · · Score: 1

      Yes, well, the two competing theories presented in that piece are the one that I presented, and a slightly modified version in which several periods of uplift and erosion take place. In this scenario, several different rivers did the eroding and the current day Colorado simply flows through the older river channels. Your out-of-context quotes notwithstanding, the article presents no serious challenges to accepted theory, merely slight revisions.

      Very different from "The Grand Canyon was blasted into the Earth's surface by giant space-lightning." Not to insult your beliefs, but I have investigated the whole Electric Universe thing and it makes no sense whatsoever. It's predictions have been shown to be incorrect time and time again. Like most crackpot theories, it simply dismisses all contrary evidence as being the work of some vast conspiracy designed to keep down the truth. It is not science and it is not interesting.

      --
      - None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
    22. Re:Garbage In, Garbage Out by pln2bz · · Score: 0
      The blue whale is believed to be larger than any whale before it, does that mean our water has different proporties than it did back then?

      Gravity's effects are not so dominant in water.

      Evolution is a weird thing, it doesn't operate with the goal to produce the largest animals the environment it can, just to produce animals that can survive.

      And yet, being bigger would surely be a useful trait for killing competitors.

      It could also be that Dinosauria were better suited for large sizes in basic design than mammals. They died out, now mammals dominate which perhaps can't get as big. Also a better theory than higher gravity.

      There is certainly more than one explanation for what happened. What's striking is that not all of them are being investigated. We assume that some are impossible because they seem too "weird" to us. The thing is, although we may break the world down into categories by sciences, the physical world operates on all levels all the time. So, any theory regarding dinosaurs should look at *all* sciences at once, including questions regarding the biology of which creatures survived. And any time that we are acting on a feeling of "weirdness", we are using emotions to make decisions. Emotions have no place in science.

      If it were electric charge and not gravity, you would expect things orbiting the sun (extreme electromagnetic activity) and objects orbiting planets (nearly electromagnetically inert) to behave with different rules. They don't, the same formula works perfectly. So perfectly that we can plot orbits of spacecraft that do gravitational slingshots and execute them perfectly. The math involved there doesn't even acknowledge electrical charge of the objects involved, only their mass, since charge in insignificant on these scales.

      This actually isn't true. The most electrical items within our solar system -- the Sun and comets -- exhibit gravitational anomalies. I'll include the quote once again (from http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn2814):

      "To make mathematical models of the star's interior tally with experimental data, physicists have to use a lower value of G than is traditionally agreed. Mbelek says his calculations predict that electromagnetism would not boost gravity as much at higher temperatures, so you would expect G to be lower inside the Sun.

      Exotic physics

      But other researchers are not convinced. Clifford Will, a gravity theorist at Washington University in St Louis, Missouri, believes improvements in terrestrial experiments will eventually do away with the need for explanations that rely on such exotic physics.

      "In many ways it's a scandal that we don't have an agreed value for G, but if you look at the experiments, the values have been converging," he says. "In five years or so, we'll have an agreed value."

      But Mbelek does not think so. Although the precision of individual measurements is improving, he says, the values are not converging."

      Also, if you do a search on "non-gravitational acceleration", you'll notice that comets too exhibit gravitational anomalies. Astrophysicists tell us that these anomalies are caused by jets of gas outpouring from the center of the comets, causing it to spin around and do strange things. But we've observed comets up close now on multiple occasions and these supposed "jets" are actually electrical machining -- the result of charge being stripped off of the comet as it enters an electric field. The Deep Impact mission confirmed this probably as much as it can possibly be confirmed. Without jets, there are still gravitational anomalies on comets -- just like the Sun. I recommend that you look at the Deep Impact results:
      http://www.thunderbolts.info/pdf/ElectricComet.pdf

      It's Gravity. Gravity gravity gravity.

      --
      "A man cannot begin to learn that which he thinks he already knows." --Epictetus, 1st Century A.D.
    23. Re:Garbage In, Garbage Out by pln2bz · · Score: 0

      Very different from "The Grand Canyon was blasted into the Earth's surface by giant space-lightning."

      The real problem with supposing Earth-bound geological reasons for *all* large-scale rilles on Earth like the Grand Canyon is that these structures also appear on the Moon, Mars and Venus. And for each observation, based upon the theory of uniformitarianism, we presuppose that electrical discharge cannot possibly be the cause. But uniformitarianism -- this idea that we can understand things of the past by looking around us right now in the present -- isn't a logical reason -- it's an *assumption*. It assumes that the past was just like the present for many billions of years. This alternative electrical explanation would violate that assumption and so by maintaining uniformitarianism as the dominant principle in our investigation of the universe, we de facto rule out electrical causes for these things even though we see the evidence spanning multiple geological contexts. The Electric Universe Theory never had a chance once uniformitarianism was adopted. It's by definition assumed to be impossible. So, even if observations appear that may support it, it will *not* be investigated. That doesn't seem very scientific to me.

      Not to insult your beliefs

      I'm actually not insulted at all. I've gone toe-to-toe with every single one of you guys. I feel that I've done a pretty good job defending myself. I wonder what sort of people you guys must have had talking to you about this stuff before because they apparently left a bad impression that I'm having to mop up now. This is not junk science.

      but I have investigated the whole Electric Universe thing and it makes no sense whatsoever.

      You may have given up too early in trying or maybe you looked into it before the discoveries of the electrical nature of comets.

      It's predictions have been shown to be incorrect time and time again.

      I think you're confusing catastrophism with Electric Universe.

      Like most crackpot theories, it simply dismisses all contrary evidence as being the work of some vast conspiracy designed to keep down the truth.

      No, it actually has dual explanations for every single phenomenon that the Big Bang discusses. Many of these explanations are simpler. And none involve exotic physics. You choose to believe in things like dark matter and dark energy in spite of the observational evidence for massive magnetic fields in space, which can *only* result from currents. From my perspective, you have made the simple mistake of accepting everything that's being told to you without critically thinking about it. The problem is that we teach astrophysics as if the Big Bang is true. So, it's only natural that any competing cosmology would receive widespread scorn. Don't mistake the comfortable feeling of being in the majority for actually being right. People have made this mistake throughout history time and time again only to regret it.

      It is not science and it is not interesting.

      It's actually completely fascinating. I'm going to go off on a tangent, but check this out. There was a guy named Robert Becker some time ago who did experiments on salamanders. It was like playing Frankenstein. He'd chop off a limb and try to reattach it on the tail and so on. He found that the salamander body contains semiconducing lattice structures. Bone, for instance, believe it or not, is an LED that will glow if you pump it with current. Furthermore, he discovered that the salamander body has voltage centers from which currents are sent out to the body to direct healing. When these currents were interrupted, he found that healing would not occur. The limb would not regenerate or reattach or whatever. He also precisely characterized those currents, and when the system's currents were intentionally interrupted, he could introduce his own similar currents in order to artificially direct the healing process. Furthermore, he found back in the 60's and 70's

      --
      "A man cannot begin to learn that which he thinks he already knows." --Epictetus, 1st Century A.D.
    24. Re:Garbage In, Garbage Out by pln2bz · · Score: 0
      I'm trying hard to not just reprint the entire link I initially posted about impossibly large birds (http://www.bearfabrique.org/Catastrophism/sauropo ds/biganims.html). You can choose to disbelieve the contents of that article, but it does discuss all of these things that you guys have been talking about -- even the hollow bones:

      A book of interest here is Adrian Desmond's "The Hot Blooded Dinosaurs. Desmond has a good deal to say about the pteranodon, the 40 - 50 lb. pterosaur which scientists used to believe to be the largest creature which ever flew:

      "Pteranodon had lost its teeth, tail and some flight musculature, and its rear legs had become spindly. It was, however, in the actual bones that the greatest reduction of weight was achieved. The wing bones, backbone and hind limbs were tubular, like the supporting struts of an aircraft, which allows for strength yet cuts down on weight. In Pteranodon these bones, although up to an inch in diameter, were no more than cylindrical air spaces bounded by an outer bony casing no thicker than a piece of card. Barnum Brown of the American Museum reported an armbone fragment of an unknown species of pterosaur from the Upper Cretaceous of Texas in which 'the culmination of the pterosaur... the acme of light construction' was achieved. Here, the trend had continued so far that the bone wall of the cylinder was an unbelievable one-fiftieth of an inch thick Inside the tubes bony crosswise struts no thicker than pins helped to strengthen the structure, another innovation in aircraft design anticipated by the Mesozoic pterosaurs.

      The combination of great size and negligible weight must necessarily have resulted in some fragility. It is easy to imagine that the paper-thin tubular bones supporting the gigantic wings would have made landing dangerous. How could the creature have alighted without shattering all of its bones How could it have taken off in the first place It was obviously unable to flap twelve-foot wings strung between straw-thin tubes. Many larger birds have to achieve a certain speed by running and flapping before they can take off and others have to produce a wing beat speed approaching hovering in order to rise. To achieve hovering with a twenty-three foot wingspread, Pteranodon would have required 220 lb. of flight muscles as efficient as those in humming birds. But it had reduced its musculature to about 8 lb., so it is inconceivable that Pteranodon could have taken off actively.

      Pteranodon, then, was not a flapping creature, it had neither the muscles nor the resistance to the resulting stress. Its long, thin albatross-like wings betray it as a glider, the most advanced glider the animal kingdom has produced. With a weight of only 40 lb. the wing loading was only I lb. per square foot. This gave it a slower sinking speed than even a man-made glider, where the wings have to sustain a weight of at least 4 lb. per square foot. The ratio of wing area to total weight in Pteranodon is only surpassed in some of the insects. Pteranodon was constructed as a glider, with the breastbone, shoulder girdle and backbone welded into a box-like rigid fuselage, able to absorb the strain from the giant wings. The low weight combined with an enormous wing span meant that Pteranodon could glide at ultra-low speeds without fear of stalling. Cherrie Bramwell of Reading University has calculated that it could remain aloft at only 15 m.p.h. So takeoff would have been relatively easy. All Pteranodon needed was a breeze of 15 m.p.h. when it would face the wind, stretch its wings and be lifted into the air like a piece of paper. No effort at all would have been required. Again, if it was forced to land on the sea, it had only to extend its wings to catch the wind in order to raise itself gently out of the water. It seems strange that an animal that had gone to such great lengths to reduce its weight to a minimum should have evolved an elongated bony crest on its skull."

      Desmond has mentioned

      --
      "A man cannot begin to learn that which he thinks he already knows." --Epictetus, 1st Century A.D.
    25. Re:Garbage In, Garbage Out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      I did I say or imply that it's common? It's not. The point is that, using the Hubble, we've been able to actually see such a collision - a real rarity


      It's not that rare. There are several in each of the deep field studies HDF, HDF-S and HUDF, each of which represents a tiny sliver of the Hubble-observable universe.

    26. Re:Garbage In, Garbage Out by pln2bz · · Score: 0

      Galactic collisions are a pretty convenient mechanism for explaining x-ray emissions where the Big Bang didn't predict them. The problem that is very rarely mentioned is that there are typically multiple components to these x-ray emissions, and the biggest component tends to be the "synchrotron" radiation, which results from electron movement within plasma.

      You should expect that over time, as we continue to make new observations in x-rays that astrophysicists will continue to use this useful theory of galactic collisions to make sense of unusual x-ray emissions, and this will continue without regard for consideration of how frequently we should expect to see such collisions.

      --
      "A man cannot begin to learn that which he thinks he already knows." --Epictetus, 1st Century A.D.
    27. Re:Garbage In, Garbage Out by pln2bz · · Score: 0

      So if something is hard to understand, it must be wrong? I wish that excused worked in my math classes in high school.

      Obviously not. But if your cosmology is consistently forcing you to choose theories that appear to defy physical law over those that don't, then you might want to reconsider your cosmology. Black holes, neutron stars, dark matter and dark energy can all be explained using science that we already have -- plasma physics and electricity and magnetism. The only reason we believe in them today is because to not believe them would mean that we'd have to adopt an alternative cosmology to explain things like the rotation of spiral galaxies.

      But we can simulate the exact rotational properties of spiral galaxies using fundamental plasma equations. There's no need for dark matter whatsoever. All you need to accept is that electricity can flow over diffuse plasma in the voids between stars. Since we know that charged particles fill these voids, it's more a problem of imagination than of physics. That appears to be too much for people to accept, and yet, it's a far shorter leap than supposing that some matter exists that only has gravitational characteristics.

      All that Electric Universe Theorists really want is to have telescope time and journal publication space. Astrophysicists have created a real bad situation for themselves. They never recognized the need to have two competing theories for the universe, and now that they have just one, they're betting the entire farm on this one idea. It's a huge gamble and since the observations coming in are not being adequately predicted by their models, they're becoming increasingly desperate in their attempts to explain the strange things they're seeing in space. The explanations are becoming increasingly complex. This is what I mean when I say that the simplest theory should be considered. It makes more sense that there would be *unifying* principles of the universe than the idea that the universe would be filled with a bunch of disjoint, unrelated, exotic phenomenon. And yet, if you look at astrophysics today, you wouldn't learn anything about the coma and tail of a comet by learning about the magnetosphere of the Earth. But please, tell me, what the hell is the real difference? Both planets and asteroids can develop plasma tails. Why break the subject into two? It's the same thing. Different properties (one is luminous and one is not), but the same thing. If you consistently and unnecessarily categorize things, how do you ever expect to make predictions about other similar phenomenon that you have not yet observed? All you can really do is talk about the things you've already seen -- and without an in-depth understanding of those things, you still can't even predict *their* behavior.

      --
      "A man cannot begin to learn that which he thinks he already knows." --Epictetus, 1st Century A.D.
  22. oblig Bill Hicks by BitterAndDrunk · · Score: 4, Funny
    'Sure.' Dinosaurs? ..... 'God put those there to test our faith.'
    I think God put you here to test my faith, dude. You believe that?
    'Uh huh.'
    Does that trouble anyone here? The idea that God might be fuckin' with our heads? Anyone have trouble sleeping restfully with that thought in their heads?
    God's running around, burying fossils: 'Hu hu ho. We'll see who believes in me now, ha HA. I'm a prankster god. I am killing me. Ho ho ho ho.'
    You know, you die, you go to St. Peter, 'Did you you believe in dinosaurs?'
    Well, you know, there was fossils everywhere. [Bill makes sound effects with his mic] KOOM Aaaahhhh. 'What are you, an idiot? God was FUCKING with you! Giant flying lizards, you moron! That's one of God's easiest jokes!'
    'It seemed so plausibleeeee! Ahhhhhhhh!' Bound for the lake of fire. . . . "

    We miss you Bill . . . please tell the flying saucers to drop you off for another show.

    --
    You better watch out, there may be dogs about . . .
  23. Weird by pagaboy · · Score: 5, Funny

    40 responses and not a single noodly appendage in sight. Is everyone OK?

    1. Re:Weird by Anthony · · Score: 1

      Didn't you hear? All Pastafarians were invited to this really big party in Ecuador. That was the last anyone heard of them.

      --
      Slashdot: Where nerds gather to pool their ignorance
    2. Re:Weird by marcosdumay · · Score: 1

      FSM realy loves to play golf, so no one doubts the metheor thesis.

  24. Metaphysics by CustomDesigned · · Score: 4, Insightful
    A false history is a metaphysical concept. Any scientific investigation would see the "false" history. Indeed, the "false" history is the true physical history seen by honest scientists - except when viewed from outside the system. There is no sense even bringing it up in a scientific discussion.

    An analogy would be a computer simulation. You have a gigantic computer simulating a universe. You don't want to run the simulation from the big bang, so you load a precomputed state which includes 14 billion years already simulated. Now, this is important to know for discussions of the reality in which the giant computer exists. But it is meaningless for any discussion or investigation of the simulation rules for the universe being simulated.

    BTW, your simulation has a "cheat" function called "miracle" used for, ah, errr, "debugging". The AI units in your simulation can't reliably tell which events are miracles, and which are normal operation of the simulation. This is because they cannot know the full state of the simulation, and likely won't even know the full rule set - due to being part of the simulation themselves.

    1. Re:Metaphysics by orkysoft · · Score: 1

      Well, the agents in the simulation should worship the person running the simulation, because His avatar promised they would be saved! After the current simulation ends, a new simulation will start, which will be populated by those agents that were saved earlier.

      No wonder people from 2000+ years ago didn't understand it, it's all technobabble!

      --

      I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
    2. Re:Metaphysics by piscine2000 · · Score: 1

      Isn't mathematics part of metaphysics? We live in an n-dimensional universe, but we're not even sure of the value of n.

      Not disagreeing, but noting that (as misguided as the anti-scientists may be) science is not outside of metaphysics.

    3. Re:Metaphysics by tom17 · · Score: 1

      Given that scenario, it is entirely possible that "God" is some dude in a computer lab in his own (very advanced) world where they have some impending doom. To work out what they should do about it, they built a computer(or physical micro-scale) simulation (not Matrix style, no) with the state and history of their universe programmed in. They are merely watching our universe to see what the outcome is and work out what they can do about it.

      "God" is the project leader guy. Other "gods" are just the lab techs reading slashdot, discussing the existence of a god in their reality.

      And we thought DeepThought - err, no, Planet Earth was the biggest computer ever! Pah!

  25. Look, Up in the Sky! by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I want to know whether the meteor appeared from Earth to come from the direction of the Pleiades constellation that the Mayans would later prioritize in their studies with the world's most sophisticated pre-industrial astromomy.

    It's already an interesting coincidence that the people whose empire was built on the site of the most influential astronomical event in "recent" Earth history would have such sophisticated astronomy. I wonder what they discovered about the part of the sky from which the meteor seemed (to the dinosaurs) to appear. The Mayan name for the Pleiades is "Tz'ab", "the rattlesnake's tail", which is pretty resonant with a meteorite that killed the lizards ruling the world.

    I also wonder if our current complex space sciences can reconstruct the path of the meteor from its origin, by studying the trajectories of the remaining solar system objects, and projecting back 65My to a slightly larger population. A lot has happened, but astronomers' deductions have made much of very little for quite some time.

    --

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    make install -not war

    1. Re:Look, Up in the Sky! by 2short · · Score: 1

      Somehow I think a meteor impact 65,000,000 years ago had little effect on the Mayans thinking 2000 years ago.

    2. Re:Look, Up in the Sky! by rucs_hack · · Score: 1

      it's not very hard to get the aproximate location of earth in the solar system *provided* you can narrow the impact down to a single day, a simple inverted nbody model would acheive that, with a little extra work to predict and correct for model drift over the huge span of time. Time of day and Orientation of the earth is impossible, we just can't be that exact from the archeology.

      Then you need mass and impact velocity, plus analysis of the exact angle of impact to determine the likely incoming trajectory of the asteroid (slightly do-able perhaps). I have software I've developed that could extrapolate the likely orbit of the asteroid *if* all the specified data were known (which is impossible, it's just too long ago).

      You would be able to use an evolutionary algorithm to generate likely candidates for impact, if you had a sufficiently detailed terrain and impact modelling system, and enough data from the original site. That could give you a likely mass and impact speed/angle. Only aproximations mind.

      That's a whole bunch of impossible things, with a tiny smattering of vaguely possible. Shame that, it sounds like a cool project.

    3. Re:Look, Up in the Sky! by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 1

      I think so, too. That's why the coincidences are interesting. The sensible reaction is to want to know more facts.

      --

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      make install -not war

    4. Re:Look, Up in the Sky! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "The Mayan name for the Pleiades is "Tz'ab", "the rattlesnake's tail", which is pretty resonant with a meteorite that killed the lizards ruling the world"

      you really dont know what you are talking about, do you?
      snakes rattle didnt mean the same for the ancient mayan populations than what you are asuming it means on contemporary media.

      So many things are thrown upon the ancient mayans that their actual achievments are overlooked. For instamce, their "prophecies" that supposedly can give precise accounts... and for all of that, how the mayans lived and eventually dissapeared is a mystery.In fact nobody really knows much about them. This gives most street freaks -high on the occult and supernatural- an excuse to project their anxieties on the perceptions they have from the maya.

      not to mention the "big lizard" is just a theory, that is, dinosaurs might not have even been lizards at all.
      so, give up that rattle snake tail "is related to" meteorites...
      quicknote: if you ever get to see the nigh sky on mayan regions, i.e. close to the tropic of cancer, you'll notice that the pleiades are quite conspicuous. you can't really ignore them when doing agricultural calendars.

    5. Re:Look, Up in the Sky! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > I want to know whether the meteor appeared from Earth to come from the direction of the Pleiades constellation that the Mayans would later prioritize in their studies with the world's most sophisticated pre-industrial astromomy.

      Is there a way to find out? It sounds like finding out what time of day the meteorite struck.

    6. Re:Look, Up in the Sky! by 2short · · Score: 1

      What coincidences? A meteor hit the earth. 64.5 million years later, humans developed, and spread out around the earth. A comparative eyeblink ago, pretty much all of them developed astonomical systems; including those who happened to live in the area the meteor hit. None of them could possibly have been aware of the meteor.

    7. Re:Look, Up in the Sky! by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 1

      Does the condition of the buried crater, possibly indicating 3D angle of impact, help any? At least in narrowing down azimuth, perhaps?

      --

      --
      make install -not war

    8. Re:Look, Up in the Sky! by ebers · · Score: 2, Interesting

      A skeptical reply:

      > I want to know whether the meteor appeared from Earth to come from the direction of the Pleiades constellation that the Mayans
      > would later prioritize in their studies with the world's most sophisticated pre-industrial astromomy.

      Yes, but lots of civilizations have placed importance on the Pleiades. Perhaps because they look so cool.

      > It's already an interesting coincidence that the people whose empire was built on the site of the most influential astronomical
      > event in "recent" Earth history would have such sophisticated astronomy.

      Yes, but several ancient civilizations developed advanced astronomy. I suspect ancient civilizations are more likely to develop astronomy if:

      They have a way to record numbers and do arithmetic.
      They have a written language that allows them to record observations.
      They have substantial city-states sustained by intensive farming, and
      That farming relies (possibly via irrigation) on rainfall that comes at specific times each year.

      > also wonder if our current complex space sciences can reconstruct the path of the meteor from its origin, by studying the
      > trajectories of the remaining solar system objects, and projecting back 65My to a slightly larger population.

      Not going to happen. We would need accurate measures of the trajectory of the earth before and after the collision to determine the momentum, and thus direction, of the meteor. In principle, if we knew everything that happened in the solar system since that time to a very high accuracy, we could run Newton's equations backward and find the trajectory of the earth after the event.

      Yup, I'm a doubting Thomas.

    9. Re:Look, Up in the Sky! by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 1

      I've looked at the night sky from the top of Chichen Itza, among other Mayan locations. There are lots of other more conspicuous sky features, but the Mayans seem (as far as we can tell from scant evidence) to have really prioritized that particular feature, not even a separate constellation in many other contemporary tropical cultures.

      What part of "rattlesnake" and "extinct lizards" doesn't seem connected to you? And what specific interpreation am I "throwing on the ancient Mayans"? I haven't mentioned any symbolic meaning, but rather a literal connection between two possible

      And where do you get off dissing "street freaks - high on the occult and supernatural" for "projecting their anxieties on the perceptions they have", when you're Anonymously asserting uncited denials that dinosaurs weren't lizards, because it's "just a theory"?

      Anonymous denial Coward, you can cherrypick science all you want, in your own biased investigations. But don't spit your venom on me.

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    10. Re:Look, Up in the Sky! by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 1

      The coincidence is that the people who 65My later peopled the site of the buried meteorite developed the most sophisticated astronomy of any preindustrial (preglobal) civilization.

      There are other coincidences, but that's a pretty interesting one. The town of Chicxulub is in the middle of the crater. Chicxulub is Mayan for "devil's tail".

      I'm not proposing how Mayans could have been aware of the meteor, which seems practically impossible. That doesn't mean the other coincidences aren't interesting. To the contrary, it makes the coincidences more interesting.

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    11. Re:Look, Up in the Sky! by Hektor_Troy · · Score: 1

      Even if they somehow knew, wouldn't a more apt name have been something like "devil's bellybutton"?

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    12. Re:Look, Up in the Sky! by rucs_hack · · Score: 1

      a bit, but not knowing where in it's rotation the earth was it doesn't narrow it down. You could calculate likely approach vector, but not relate it to an incoming orbit.

    13. Re:Look, Up in the Sky! by exp(pi*sqrt(163)) · · Score: 1

      Take your coincidence meter in for servicing, it's badly in need of recalibration. Until you do so you'll be making all kinds of bizarre claims about coincidences that will make you seem pretty weird.

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    14. Re:Look, Up in the Sky! by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 1

      I'm a skeptic, too, but I'm also a brainstormer. I'm not proposing anything that can be disproved. I'm just looking for connections, which can later have hypotheses formulated into a theory that could be disproved. This is Slashdot, not a serious scientific (or any other discipline) discussion site.

      Mayans weren't just another civilization with astronomy. They had the most accurate astronomy of any preindustrial/preglobal culture, including Egypt (which aligned the Great Pyramid more accurately along the Earth's axis than did the British in setting the Greenwich Line a century ago). And they (apparently, according to our incomplete evidence) prioritized study of the Pleiades, unlike any other astronomer civilization of which we know. Despite the greater prominence of other star systems in the mutual sky. And the Mayans were the only ones of these astronomer civilizations of which we know to build on the unique (except perhaps the Shiva Cater in the Indian Ocean) impact site of the biggest astronomical event to affect the Earth.

      Another possible coincidence is that the Pleiades are known in Mayan as "Tz'ab", or "rattlesnake's tail". Which resonates with "the end of the lizard age". The town now at the middle of the crater is called "Chicxulub", which means in Mayan "the devil's tail".

      These are all connected coincidences only if the meteorite is connected with the Pleiades. Which is why I wondered if we could find the sky region from which the meterorite apparently came.

      As in "wouldn't that be an interesting coincidence?" Those words are often the beginning of fruitful scientific investigations. After that, after the brainstorming we're currently in, the skepticism is most useful for separating coincidence from correlation and causality. But we're not there, yet. Not enough facts to even hypothesize, let alone disprove.

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    15. Re:Look, Up in the Sky! by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 1

      I don't know. I don't know the connotations of tails, or devil tails, to Mayans. But I'm curious. Personally, I think of the devil's tail as a lashing weapon, bringing an eruption of painful flame. And I think of dinosaurs as kinda diabolical in imagery, against an often hellish landscape. A meteorite could be the "tail end" of an event like the biggest shooting star ever, or the tail end of the dinosaur era. But those are my connotations, not necessarily the Mayans'.

      I find it interesting that Mayans believe that devils have tails, like Europeans think. Maybe the town was named by Mayan Christians after European conquest. Still a funny coincidence.

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    16. Re:Look, Up in the Sky! by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 1

      Does the apparently similar Shiva Crater, at apparently approximately the same latitude, but (almost exactly 180') across the planet, offer any clues?

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    17. Re:Look, Up in the Sky! by scoot80 · · Score: 1

      Not going to happen. We would need accurate measures of the trajectory of the earth before and after the collision to determine the momentum, and thus direction, of the meteor. In principle, if we knew everything that happened in the solar system since that time to a very high accuracy, we could run Newton's equations backward and find the trajectory of the earth after the event.


      Time for someone to invent a huge "replay" button

    18. Re:Look, Up in the Sky! by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 1

      And your coincidence analyzer is measuring what, in what units, against what reference, exactly? Anyone going by "exp(pi*sqrt(163))" certainly has a lot to tell me about seeming pretty weird.

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    19. Re:Look, Up in the Sky! by 2short · · Score: 1

      "the most sophisticated astronomy of any preindustrial (preglobal) civilization"

      Would have to be that of Gallileo, Copernicus, Newton, et al.

      "I'm not proposing how Mayans could have been aware of the meteor,"

      Because they obviously could not possibly have been, any more than they could have been aware of dinosaurs, or any of the other events that occurred in the millions and millions of years between then and when some tree shrews first developed opposable thumbs, much less the millions and millions of years more before those shrews became something we'd call ape-like, let alone human.

      The Mayans have no more connection to the meteor than a population of cows in China does.

      Have you considered the coincidence that the modern state of Nepal looks kind of like a devils tail if you squint right? I think those Mayans were on to something!

    20. Re:Look, Up in the Sky! by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 1

      Copernicus, Galileo and Newton had nothing on Mayan astronomy.

      And the rest of your snide remark, the majority of your comment, merely reiterates what I've said myself, as if it were somehow a criticism.

      You know, if I look at this post just right, it looks like the end of this conversation.

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    21. Re:Look, Up in the Sky! by 2short · · Score: 1

      "Copernicus, Galileo and Newton had nothing on Mayan astronomy"

      Except, you know, correctness; a reasonably coherent model of the heavens; heliocentrism; universal gravitation... For pete's sake, the Maya thought the earth was flat. Aristotle knew it was round, and with no better tech than the mayans, calculated its circumference.

    22. Re:Look, Up in the Sky! by rucs_hack · · Score: 1

      without more study I couldn't say. That crater has drifted, so I'd need to see the work they did to work out the original shape. It could be used as a baseline to study though. More recent impacts would be easier to model, but the uplift in the centre of an old crater needs to be reversed, which I suspect is non trivial, and is not present in modern craters.

      I've done asteroid path reconstruction, but not asteroid impact reconstruction (though I have just bought the books I need to help me learn the fluid dynamics required for impact modelling, all I need is the time..).

      The Yukatan impact seems to have had a secondary explosion caused by the material under the crust in that area (can't remember what, it's early here). That would muddy the picture somewhat.

      As I said, it's all very interesting. Whether the work would produce anything considered plausible is another matter.

    23. Re:Look, Up in the Sky! by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 1

      I hope that in my ignorant way I have helped walk with you further down that road. Until I started this discussion in this story I had never even heard of the Shiva Crater. The main "promoter" of the Shiva Crater seems to think there are several other similar craters that don't get the attention paid even the more obscure Shiva Crater. Maybe in the "meteorite forensics" community these artifacts are well known. But now I've doubled my knowledge of the evidence of the biggest, most recent celestial event to affect me.

      Just fixing the coordinates of both craters would
      If the Chucxulib and Shiva craters can be dated to simultaneity, they might indicate two pieces of the same space object. Matching the composition of the sediment laid down by impact, such as the iridium signature that connected Chicxulub to the global extinction, could confirm as well. Shoemaker-Levy showed how meteorites can be broken up by gravity, but the Earth's gravity is much smaller than Jupiter's. And the 12h difference in impact time indicated by their opposite global sites indicates they'd broken up long before, and become separated somehow by megameters.

      If their exact coordinates can be reconstructed after 65My of sediment and tectonic drift, there's probably some fascinating ballistics. Like almost establishing the plane in which the objects travelled, if their latitudes are consistent. If they're parts of a single object, and their remote separation point can be determined, and their relative momentums, their latitudinal separation could indicate the tilt of the Earth's rotational axis. Which would indicate the season, which would indicate the orientation of the Earth around the Sun, which might rule out some entry angles, blocked by planetary bodies.

      Their separation distance is a riddle, if even closer to 180' opposite than their current distance (something like 175'). Perhaps including an offset from the Earth's solar orbit in the interval. That's a bizarre calibration to the Earth's orbital period. Or an even more bizarre (nearly impossible) scenario of simultaneous impact from precisely opposite directions.

      This seems like a fascinating field. I look forward to seeing lots more of the original story told. And eventually some images of the streaks across the sky the doomed lizards might have seen, right before yielding to our great grandmothers.

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    24. Re:Look, Up in the Sky! by rucs_hack · · Score: 1

      I knew nothing about asteroid path modelling till I said something stupid to my tutor at Uni, that being I wanted to do asteroid interception strategies as my final year project. Then I had a month long panic trying to figure out how on earth I was going to acheive it. Now I have, after producing a double dissertation (which was painfully hard to write) what seems to be the only open source particle particle nbody model that runs on normal pc's, and I've supervised three projects in that field using the software.

      And I knew bugger all before I started, not a thing.

      Impact modelling is utterly fascinating. I need it to model deflection strategies, hence my book purchases. I hate just reading web pages, I prefer a good textbook.

      Its easy to work out the position of tectonic plates at that time, they don't move fast. The question is where were those impact points back then. How to go from that to seasons I don't know.

      The idea of a broken up asteroid is, as we know since Shoemaker-levy 9, not only plausible, but apparently common. Common because we saw one, and the chances of us seeing it if they were rare are too big to conceive.
      if indeed a second fragment hit the traps, then this would add credence to the impact worsening the eruptions. They did worsen, but the argument that shockwaves did it was always a bit dodgy to my mind. A stonking great asteroid smacking into them is far more likely.

      Seperation

      It will be a long time before I can model impacts, not least because the software is hard to write. When I can it would be fun to try and reverse engineer a double impact of the same scale as the twin impacts you speculate

    25. Re:Look, Up in the Sky! by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 1

      Meteorite forensics (as I think of the broad field) seems a lot more interesting and healthy to me than the Star Wars missile defense industry that asteroid deflection research fronts for.

      Which university? I look forward to seeing a lot more research in uncovering history of some of the most momentous (pun intended ;) events in Earth's lifetime.

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    26. Re:Look, Up in the Sky! by rucs_hack · · Score: 1

      Exeter University, where we have one ongoing (where I am the sole staff researcher, no-one else is interested), but soon Herriot Watt University, when we get our act together.

      Ok, when I finish writing the new code we need. The page for the code is here.

      http://nmod.sourceforge.net/

      However that is out of date, I haven't been able to finalize the new code that we've been using for the last year, or the funky new visualizer, which needs to be moved the QT from plain opengl. Also the manual will take weeks I don't have to write, and I need to complete the new compressed output format.

      Other then that it all works. If you fancy the *proper* code to play with, send me a mail c.pridgeon@ex.ac.uk. I know the open source thing is 'release early, release often', but when you have to re-write a huge manual, that's not so easy to achieve. I am bothered that it's been so long since a public update though.

      I'm not even slightly interested in star wars space defense stuff. My primary concern is that we not get fossilized by another asteroid impact, who gives a crap about theoretical space dominance wars when we know that sooner or later we are going to get freight-trained by an asteroid.. Understanding more about previous impacts is useful, but I am nowhere near done writing the code I need to model that.

    27. Re:Look, Up in the Sky! by 2short · · Score: 1


      I don't think you apreciate the time scales involved.

      A true skeptic would have wonder about the fact that there is no possible way the Mayans, or any humans, or, heck, any mammals, could have been aware of the meteor.

      The meteor hit the earth, and its crater filled in long before humans evolved. It is detectable today by extensive statistical analysys of large scale gravitometer and magnetometer surveys, coupled with detailed mapping of geological deposits. There is nothing unique about the impact site today.

      "Mayans weren't just another civilization with astronomy. They had the most accurate astronomy of any preindustrial/preglobal culture, including Egypt (which aligned the Great Pyramid more accurately along the Earth's axis than did the British in setting the Greenwich Line a century ago)."

      "Classical" Western astronomy is preindustrial, and had a substantially correct model of the solar system. The Greenwich meridian was selected considerably more than a century ago, and if someone made an error drawing a line, it's not because their understanding of astronomy was not as good as the Egyptians. I cannot accept describing the Mayans Astronomy as "accurate", as the world is not a flat plane, let alone supported by jaguars.

      To calculate the region of the sky the meteor came from, we'd need to know the impact time to within something like an hour. We know it to within about 5 million years; maybe.

  26. Nah! by Belial6 · · Score: 1

    She just was extra careful not to die between Saturday night and Sunday morning....

  27. YESSSSSSSSs by Captain+Splendid · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    Step right up folks! It's another edition of Captain Splendid's "Who pissed in your cornflakes this morning!"

    Today's contestant is Krell. So, Krell, tell us, who pissed in your cornflakes this morning? Enquiring minds want to know!

    Seriously, cheer up you grumpy fucker, and thanks for playing!

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  28. How Radiocarbon Dating works. by fuego451 · · Score: 1
    The way that dating mechanisms work is based on unproven assumption. In order for Carbin 14 dating system to be accurate, there hase to be NO CHANGE in the ratio of carbon 14 to carbon 12 in the atmosphere over the years for which the system is claimed to be accurate.

    I believe this article on Radiocarbon Dating may help you understand this process better. You will also see that scientists do take variables into account to better calibrate their results.

    1. Re:How Radiocarbon Dating works. by Guido+von+Guido · · Score: 1
      One additional thing you should point out is that carbon-14 dating is only used for relatively recent samples (i.e., the last 60,000 years or so).

      For older samples, other types of radiometric dating are used. For example, take a look at isochron dating.

    2. Re:How Radiocarbon Dating works. by dch24 · · Score: 1
      carbon-14 dating is only used for relatively recent samples (i.e., the last 60,000 years or so). For older samples, other types of radiometric dating are used. For example, take a look at isochron dating
      I try to date only up to double my own age, but if you need to check a Geiger counter when you get your date, maybe her age isn't the main problem here?
  29. exactly by circletimessquare · · Score: 1

    evolution, or any scientific advance, doesn't disprove the existence of god

    the raving fundamentalists and the raving atheists really need to reconsider that point

    the tension between science and religion is contrived, false

    the tension between science and religion exists only in the minds of demagogues, brain-dead partisans, from either the community of faith, or the community of atheists

    they both got it wrong

    nothing science does disproves religion. nothing religion does disproves science. they are two disciplines examining the nature of existence from completely unrelated approaches: the fact-based here and now, and the transcendent impressionistic meta-view

    and never shall the two disciplines meet

    that's the truth of the matter

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    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
    1. Re:exactly by Ansoni-San · · Score: 1

      Of course science does not conflict with the theory of a creator/God...it's a pretty plausible theory (even though arguable uninteresting). But let's not mince our words, God/Creator!=Religion. Science absolutely does conflict with most of the literal religions of the world. I'm sick of it already and I don't think I am alone.

      The argument on the merit of a creator/God theory is very much something to be resolved through science. But that's not the problem. It's all the other bs people try to attach to a perfectly credible (for now anyway) theory and still claim it credible.

      The Christians (I use the term Christian in the loosest of senses i.e. they go to Christian churches) I respect most are the ones that see the bible for what it is, a book written by people. They place no significance in the bible and focus on believing in a creator/God rather than a book in which they're too smart to blindly believe. I'm not saying they don't pray and whatnot but at least the imaginary conversations and alleged miracles are back down to clinically treatable levels of misguidedness. At least you can tell they're on the same planet. The praying can be looked at as a symbolic gesture, or human nature (things like hopes and wishes) so I would say their position does not conflict with science...the miracles being their choice of interpretation of an event because they'd rather think of it like that.

    2. Re:exactly by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      It all depends upon your definition of religion. If you define it so that it cannot involve making any verifiable statements, and only dealing with metaphysical, then sure, it will never "meet" science. Unfortunately, none of the modern widespread religions are like that.

  30. Public School by jcnnghm · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    The problem is with the education system. I don't see what the big deal is, but then again I went to private Catholic elementary, middle, and high schools, where we learned about science in classes called Science and religion in classes called Religion.

    Seems pretty logical to me. The catholics that actually teach it taught that the bible should be taken as a collection of stories that can assist you in making moral decisions. Not necessarily fact, for fact we have science class. We were taught about evolution, darwinism, and the big bang and it wasn't presented as a theory either, but fact.

    Interestingly enough, at one point or another we went into great detail about pretty much every major religion and belief system. Would it really hurt to learn about religion as a whole as long as it isn't taught in a secular manner? We did, which is probably why I don't practice any religion.

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  31. Ahh... the Emerill Lagasse Theory by jakel2k · · Score: 2, Funny

    Emerill "Bang! Creatures everywhere... don't worry about getting some in the lakes and rivers, only enriches things later...okay folks now stay tuned, after the commercial we'll whip up Man in less that 24 hours."

  32. Darn right by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Darn right they died out from a single impact. The impact of Chuck Norris' roundhouse kick simultaneously connecting with every dinosaur's face on the planet.

  33. Last Tuesday by Kozar_The_Malignant · · Score: 3, Funny
    That's something that's always struck me. An omnipotent god could trivially create a zillion photons all the way up to every star in the iniverse. And in fact could create 15 billion years of fake history which would be completely indistinguishable from "real" history.

    This is often referred to as "Last Tuesdayism." The idea that the universe was created last Tuesday with the appearance of being 15 billion years old is logically impossible to falsify. Since it cannot be falsified, it is not science, but that doesn't stop the creationists from bringing up the idea. They never seem to understand that a corollary of it is that God is a liar.

    There are also constant Usenet flamewars, religious jihads, and university campus riots between the Last Tuesdayists and the Last Mondayists. They're all heretics, of course. All right-thinking, intelligent people know that the universe was created by my cat Marvin three weeks ago Thursday.

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    1. Re:Last Tuesday by Subsound90 · · Score: 1

      My 2 cents, crazy or not. I believe in dinsaurs and the age of the earth to be billions of years, and not a bunch of fossils planted by god in a 6,000 year old earth. I think that if I got to be a higher being able to watch life I create unfold, I would want to create a start and see what happens. Then to see what diversity comes out of compition/disasters and celibrate it. We can look at these creatures with wonder and say "Wow, things like this actually existed? That is so awsome, I wonder what it would have been like", instead of the imagionation crushing "think as we do" vocal religous minority. Also, I don't think the writers of the bible could really understand any number as high as billions or even millions. Better to be vauge, and not have some one think you're a loony. I think people screaming at each other about how old the earth is are missing the point. The central tennent is kindness and generosity, which seem to have been lost in the "I"M RIGHT and YOU'RE NOT". Let people think and do what they want if it doesn't hurt anyone else, I think people are more creative and happier that way. I say let me deal with my own soul and beliefs, and everyone else deal with thiers any way that doesn't harm anyone else. No, I am not christian but I do believe there is a higher power out there. Whether I'm right or wrong in where I go to, or when I pray, or if I follow kosher or no alchohol, I feel my actions are what matters. If it's your beliefs and not actions that matter, then there is something wrong.

  34. Self-aligned dates by 2901 · · Score: 2, Informative

    The interest in the article is that they have found a single sediment with both the K-T boundary marked by loss of marine plankton species and debris from the impact at the same level. So they can look at date difference without needing absolute dates and without the errors possible in isotopic geochemistry.

  35. i know everyone hates religon here but by Some_Llama · · Score: 1

    In revelations it talks about a big "star" falling from the heavens that killed many people and a third of life on the planet.. could this be an accurate prediction of a future impact? Everytime this topic comes up I am reminded of this prophecy...

      The third angel sounded, and a great star fell from the sky, burning like a torch, and it fell on one third of the rivers, and on the springs of the waters.

    11 The name of the star is called "Wormwood." One third of the waters became wormwood. Many people died from the waters, because they were made bitter.

    1. Re:i know everyone hates religon here but by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Does it say anything about whether god/fate and survival favored particular game console users? You now, Wii, X360 or PS3? It's probably best to side with the angels, and all.

    2. Re:i know everyone hates religon here but by HyTronix · · Score: 1

      Actually, I think this predicts people dying from drinking cheap absynthe.

    3. Re:i know everyone hates religon here but by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Most people believe that the star represents Satan, as he was once an angel that fell from his position in heaven and began to mislead people on the earth.

  36. Ted? by Dimensio · · Score: 1

    When did Ted Holden start posting to Slashdot?

  37. "MacLeod" and single meteor? by kurzweilfreak · · Score: 1

    When questioned about what solidified the single-impact theory for him, MacLeod stated, "It just occurred to me, it's so simple.... THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!"

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    kurzweil_freak

    5th Kyu Genbukan Ninpo/KJJR student

    Be the darkness that allows the light to shine.

  38. Slashdot: News for Nerds (and Church for Atheists) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    First: parent probably meant to use the term "Young Earth Creationists" instead of just "Creationists". The contention is that Atheists and YEC's don't know what to believe; in that regard, they are the same - they're agnostics.

    The Atheist Side
    No Atheist has conclusive evidence that God doesn't exist. If you do, cough it up! They seem to believe that the complex system of energy and matter, biology, stars and galaxies, etc. is. It serves no purpose; it expands and contracts, and always has, and always will. For no reason. It simply is.

    All but a very (VERY) select few people are bound to Earth their entire lives. The select few (read: very, VERY few) got to go to the moon, or hang out in Earth's orbit. We have some robots on Mars. Despite looking at galaxies that are thousands of light years away, and literally *seeing* how much of the universe we know next to nothing about, Atheists are bold enough to contend that God has been disproven.

    That's a bunch of garbage; humans are incapable of disproving the existence of God, and any genuine ever-the-scientist knows this damn well. Atheists talk like we've already been out there and seen it all, like we (humans) own the universe. Which, I am very happy to inform you, we don't.

    Now, an Atheist could merely hold their "above everyone" intelligence perception to themselves; but instead, somehow, they feel the need to take shots at all that is "religion." They feel the need to attempt convincing everyone in the whole world that they've discovered it all, that all of "the evidence" somehow conclusively disproves God, that "religion is for retards," etc.

    The YEC Side
    Then there's "Young Earth Creationists." YEC's contend that God made a 15 billion year old history so as to test everyone's faith - and if you don't believe that (which they realize most people do not) that you're going to Hell. What a great belief system! Your local church is going to Heaven, and everyone else rots and burns. No wonder they don't want to let go of that... it's what secures their significance.

    YEC's == Atheists
    Have you ever seen someone lie, and the more their lie is challenged, the more they scream it as though it's true? Think of a guy on the show Cops who just got busted with drugs: the more compelling evidence that the cop provides that the drugs were really in the suspect's possession, the more insistent and abrasive the suspect becomes that the drugs don't belong to him.

    YEC's and Atheists are both the same in this manner. So many Atheists keep fallaciously painting the picture that all Jews, Muslims and Christians believe every line in The Bible literally. They keep trying to explain peoples' experiences with The Holy Spirit with really "far out" science (usually theoretical psychology), and contend that there's not much left to discover and therefore God must not exist... while YEC's keep contending that only a thin, select few individuals actually get to go to Heaven, that their dear, loving God has created many humans, fooled them into disbelieving His existence, and then "serves them right" by condemning them to an eternity in Hell and the Lake of Fire. An eternity. For 80 years worth of sins.

    I can only assume that they're both acting in the way of the liar drug addict mentioned above; they believe something that's so radical and unlikely that they HAVE to be very outspoken and insistent about their beliefs, or nobody will follow them (more importantly, they might have to admit to themselves what they don't want to - that they're believing in a complete fallacy). There can be no chance that God designed evolution - it just makes too much sense, dammit! It's a lot of fun to manipulate people into "seeing it your way" - and both religions (YEC's and Atheists) seem to get off on this.

    If you get all of your religious demographics from the Internet, you'd believe that about 48% of the humans are YEC's, and about 48% are Atheists. In fact, the two co

  39. Carbon Dating by camperdave · · Score: 1

    I am curious about carbon dating. Although most biochemical processes wouldn't care less which carbon atom was used, would there not be a bias towards one isotope rather than the other. C12 has less mass, therefore would have an ever so slightly different activation energy. Could this bias distort carbon dating ages?

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    When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
    1. Re:Carbon Dating by RockDoctor · · Score: 1
      Although most biochemical processes wouldn't care less which carbon atom was used, would there not be a bias towards one isotope rather than the other. C12 has less mass, therefore would have an ever so slightly different activation energy. Could this bias distort carbon dating ages?

      Carbon has two stable isotopes (C12 and C13), and a number of unstable isotopes (several with half-lives less than a second, C10 (19s), C11 (20min), C14 (5703a), C15 (2.449s) and C16 (0.747s)) So, for anything more than around 50,000 years old (approximately one mid-length Milankovitch Cycle, just to tie it to geological observables and astronomy), the only isotopes that matter are C12 and C13.
      Variations in the C12:C13 ratio are routinely used for correlation within and between geological sections, and have been used as evidence of variations in photosynthetic productivity across the rock record (since the core part of the carbon-fixing system is sensitive to the masses of the atoms involved, as you suspect). For example, evidence from the C12:C13 ratio has been cited in support of the thesis that North Sea Oil is partly sourced from Fammemian-Frasnian lacustrine laminites as contradiction to the common working model that it's sourced in Callovian-Oxfordian-Kimmeridgian-Tithonian of a more widespread and somewhat richer source rock (that's part of my area of competence, and (apart from Nigel Trewin) few care terribly deeply about the question. Certainly not me, certainly not since Nigel retired.).
      The shifts in C12:C13 ratio that one sees on cycling inorganic carbon through photosynthetic organisms are a few parts per thousand ; the abundance of C14 ranges around one part per trillion. Therefore, the disappearence of C14 from a system would distort C12:C13 ratios by (approximately) one part per million of the value of the ratio. That's around a thousandth of the level of the variations introduced by the experimentally observed isotopic shifts due to photosynthetic activity.

      Or, to put it another way - it's noise. Faint noise. At it's maximum.
      [Damn, Slashdot isn't letting me get a preview through. Got to go to work, so I'll just have to post blind. Typos etc are brought to you by the letter Q and the number (googleplex++)]
      4th try fixed it ... Typos etc are now mine!
      --
      Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
  40. Moo by Chacham · · Score: 2

    Religionists says there was great flood.
    Scientists decry it saying that the idea of a flood is ridiculous. Because, it couldn't be anything less than a meteor.

    IOW, they both agree on the fact that there was a catastrophic event, but argue religously about how it happened.

  41. Single meteor? by Slip-Knot+in+space+t · · Score: 1

    Wow really, a meteor wiped out the dinasours? and all this time I thought it was anthrax. 8P

  42. sorry about the rude people by misanthrope101 · · Score: 2, Insightful
    I do see many posts literally calling Christians retards (some of which are modded down appropriately). As a Christian, I get offended by that

    It's unfortunate that some people in the world are rude. Try being an atheist and having tens of millions of people assume that you have no morals or values. I have to be careful who I "admit" my lack of faith to, lest I be insulted openly by their assumption that I must live my life as if there is no morality. Yeah, like I rape, pillage, and plunder daily. Want to join me?

    Unfortunately for you, the fundamentalists have tried to co-opt the word "Christian" for themselves. If you aren't a biblical literalist, they don't consider you a Christian. The problem is, most biblical literalists repudiate rational thought and pretty much all of science. When you guys get that sorted out amongst yourselves as to who is an isn't a Christian, let us know.

    but anyone who believes in a higher being), I get offended,

    Well, how much respect would you have for an adult who believed in Santa Claus or magic elves? Really? You might not pelt them with rocks, but you aren't really going to respect them, and you are fully aware of that. God is basically an invisible magic friend who loves you and who will punish people you don't like by sending them to hell forever. We can disagree on the fine points, but though I agree that you have faith and I would never openly mock you (sorry about those who do--I don't like rude people) but at a basic level what is there that I'm supposed to respect? Can I have more respect for you than you would have for someone who prayed to Dionysus or thought that a magic leprechaun orbits Neptune and sends him messages? How you can expect more respect than you would have yourself? I agree that you wouldn't be rude to them (kudos to you) but the best we can hope for here is the old saw, "if you don't have anything nice to say..."

    I have yet to hear anyone debunk the first law of thermodynamics. If energy (and matter) is never created nor destroyed, nothing can exist without that law at any scale being broken at some point.

    The laws of physics would only exist in a universe that existed. Meaning, that this first law only holds true once the universe exists. And if science is correct and space and time are linked, there was no before to existence--it isn't as if the universe existed for a while but was empty, and then later stuff came into being. The laws only came into being with the existence of stuff, because the stuff has properties that, once recognized, are stated as scientific laws.

    Evolution is the basis of modern biology. It isn't a hack "theory" in the laymen sense of the word. It is a mental model that happens to not only explain the facts, but to have a predictive value, and so on. Talkorigins.org has good articles on what "theory" means in a scientific sense. A large part of the problem we face in the evolution-creationism "debate" is the (often deliberate) misuse of the word "theory." Just because the biblical literalists have an explanation doesn't make it a theory in the scientific sense, so their explanation isn't a competing theory. It's a competing explanation (just as magic elves, Odin, and so on are explanations) but not a competing theory. A theory is more than a conjectural explanation.

  43. Dear slashdot.... by advocate_one · · Score: 1

    how do I block entire threads from view??? That one comment at the beginning derailed the entire discussion... and off it went with crap about creationism...

    --
    Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
  44. Alone? by remmelt · · Score: 1

    Thanks for clearing that up! I thought he meant that they were alone, as in lonesome, no girlfriends. Which would have made sense, and would have provided some hope for an evolution-believer like me. Too bad!

  45. Come on dude by KKlaus · · Score: 1

    I'm an atheist but even I know the answer to that one. It's called the bible. And because christians consider it to be the word of god, it pretty much trumps everything else. Rethink your post with an "and he gave us this blessed book that was his truth to us all and it said (implied) 6000 years" and add that to the crafted history and the only conclusion you can come to (assuming bible is treated as gosple - is that a pun? anyhow..) is that something is wrong with the evidence, unless of course you want to believe the bible is false, which like I said is off the table for christians. No one wants to worship a dishonest god, so there is no way anyone would behave as you suggest.

    Keep fighting the good fight though.

    --
    Relax I just want some peanuts.
  46. The REAL dinosaur killer by rfc1394 · · Score: 1

    Everyone knows that an asteroid wasn't what killed the dinosaurs. It was high insurance rates!

    --
    The lessons of history teach us - if they teach us anything - that nobody learns the lessons that history teaches us.
  47. Time is Relative by djtachyon · · Score: 1

    You speak as if time actually exists. It seems more that time is an illusion and relative to us conceiving what we experiance. *shrug* .. Who cares, still means I have to go to work in half an hour.

    --
    "What's the use of a good quotation if you can't change it?" - Doctor Who
  48. Dual agents by CustomDesigned · · Score: 1

    That is a pretty good summary of Christian doctrine within the simulation analogy. However, it is just an analogy with weak points. For instance, in Christian doctrine, the AI units are not strictly in the simulation. They are actually intelligent beings in the outer reality, whose primary mode of interaction is through the simulation. Intelligence is not strictly natural, and human beings exist in two realms at once. Also, "simulations" imply a certain lack of instrinsic worth - they are discardable. The creator of our universe (through His avatar) claims to have a vested interest in our reality - and his enemies seem to find our universe surprisingly important also. Some theologians think this is only because our creator's interest makes our fate a good way to "get back" at the creator.

  49. My dogma chased your Wombats by zish · · Score: 1

    Wombats were put here by pirates to test our faith.
    Sheesh! Read between the lines people!

    --
    Spork.

    P.S. Spork.
  50. Pedantic point, but... by UncleGizmo · · Score: 1

    "everything you say which you can't prove beyond reasonable doubt is a theory."

    Ummm, no, that's actually closer to a belief (or a basis for a proof). A theory is something that you CAN prove, with consistency, regardless of who is doing the proving (I'm paraphrasing, but you get the point).

    I totally agree with you on keeping your science out of your religion and vice versa. But that's why I believe it's important to reinforce the definition of what a theory is. The inaccuracy as you state above is what ID'ers use to teach creationism (or more accurately, resist teaching evolution) in our public education systems ("...evolution is JUST a theory, so ...")

    --
    Who put this thing together? Me, that's who.
    1. Re:Pedantic point, but... by FST777 · · Score: 1

      OK, let me phrase a possible definition:

      A scientific theory is, as opposed to laws of nature, a hypothesis backed up with facts, but likely subject to change in the future, as more facts and laws become apparent. Therefore, a theory contains the possible thruth on a matter, with regard for the possibilities that future knowledge renders the theory to null and void and replaces it with another theory or a new law of nature.

      --
      Free beer is never free as in speech. Free speech is always free as in beer.
  51. Man, I know by rsilvergun · · Score: 1

    it's just a pity that He had to take out all those PS3 owners just to get the Wii gamers. *ducks*.

    Oh well, it'll only take 65 million years for Sony to get another 100,000 consoles out. **ducks again**

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
  52. Everything but the danged cockroaches... by enmane · · Score: 1

    damn those things - damn them!

  53. Re:Slashdot: News for Nerds (and Church for Atheis by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Do you disbelieve in the Loch Ness Monster, or Bigfoot, or the Abominable Snowman?

    There is no proof for any of these -- phenomena associated with these creatures have other rational explanations that do not require these monsters to exist.

    At the same time, there is no conclusive *dis*proof of their existence, thanks to their supposed range allowing them ample opportunities to hide such that only occasional eyewitnesses have claimed to have spotted them.

    Refusing to believe in these monsters until there is concrete proof of their existence is amonsterism. Eyewitness accounts are insufficient evidence. People lie. This is underlined by a failure to observe the monsters despite controlled, repeatable and repeated efforts to do so.

    Refusing to believe that a former Nigerian finance minister is going to send me a few milion dollars until there is concrete proof that he or she does, likewise, is perfectly reasonable. Email exchanges are insufficient evidence. People lie.

    Refusing to believe in a divine being until there is concrete proof of its existence, with no other rational natural testable explanation, is atheism.

  54. Hypocrites by Z34107 · · Score: 1

    Do you assume anyone with Faith is a hypocrite?

    Science and religion aren't exactly opposed to each other. It is true that science cannot prove the existence of God any more than the existance of the flying spaghetti monster, but it is also true that science cannot disprove the existence of God.

    That's why it's called "Faith." For the same reasons, it's foolhardy to try to use the scientific vernacular to articulate matters of faith; if science is worthless to prove/disprove the existance of an Almighty, than it is irrational to assume there is any overlap or conflict between science and religion at all.

    If for no other reason, look at Faith from the view of the pragmatist. Although any group has its asshats, the truly faithful have morals, try to be good people in any way they are called, and in my experience are happy. The "evangelical athiests" I know are angry, bitter, elitist, and destructive. Look past the individual: fascism, nazism, and communism are actually perfectly sensical and rational outside some external source of morals.

    I can see various counterpoints involving the crusades to trickle up, but stay them a moment. Are kings seeking wealth and power, and a then-corrupt Roman bureacracy actually examples of Faith and religion, or of more secular, political motives?

    The point: Believing in something higher than your own mortal self is not a rejection of science. Not everyone who listens to an iPod "enjoying its effect", the product of science, is rejecting Faith or religion. Science cannot disprove the existence of God; by the very definition of an Almighty, this is impossible. There is no reason outside politics of convenience (think secular liberals or witch burners) that the two cannot coexist.

    I personally consider science to be God's gift to humanity, that we may better understand His creation. From this viewpoint especially is any conflict ridiculous.

    --
    DATABASE WOW WOW
  55. Hypocrism by Z34107 · · Score: 1

    Do you assume anyone with Faith is a hypocrite?

    Science and religion aren't exactly opposed to each other. It is true that science cannot prove the existence of God any more than the existance of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, but it is also true that science cannot disprove the existence of God.

    That's why it's called "Faith." For the same reasons, it's foolhardy to try to use the scientific vernacular to articulate matters of faith; science is a wholly inadequate tool for reasoning out the existence/nonexistence of a divine being.

    If for no other reason, look at Faith from the view of the pragmatist. Although any group has its asshats, the truly faithful have morals, try to be good people in any way they are called, and in my experience are happy. The "evangelical athiests" I know are angry, bitter, elitist, and destructive. Look past the individual: fascism, nazism, and communism are actually perfectly sensical and rational outside some external source of morals.

    I can see various counterpoints involving the crusades to trickle up, but stay them a moment. Are kings seeking wealth and power, and a then-corrupt Roman bureacracy actually examples of Faith and religion, or of more secular, political motives?

    The point: Believing in something higher than your own mortal self is not a rejection of science. Not everyone who listens to an iPod "enjoying its effect", the product of science, is rejecting Faith or religion. Science cannot disprove the existence of God; by the very definition of an Almighty, this is impossible. There is no reason outside politics of convenience (think secular liberals or witch burners) that the two cannot coexist.

    --
    DATABASE WOW WOW