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Evolution of Mammals Re-evaluated

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the shaking-the-tree-to-see-what-falls-out dept.

AaxelB writes "A study described in the New York Times rethinks mammalian evolution. Specifically, that the mass extinction of the dinosaurs had relatively little impact on mammals and that the steps in mammals' evolution happened well before and long after the dinosaurs' death."

20 of 249 comments (clear)

  1. What About the Other Dinosaurs? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Most paleontologists now think that birds descended from dinosaurs. So in a sense, even dinosaurs in one form escaped the calamity.
    Don't forget varanus komodoensis ... and Strom Thurman, he died out only four years ago and was the most prominent organism to escape the icy grasp of natural selection!
    1. Re:What About the Other Dinosaurs? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      "...Dinosaurs were created on day 6 of the creation week approximately 6,000 years ago, along with other land animals, and therefore co-existed with humans."

      "...Dinosaurs lived in harmony with other animals, (probably including in the Garden of Eden) eating only plants;" and "pairs of each dinosaur kind were taken onto Noah's Ark during the Great Flood and were preserved from drowning."

      "Dinosaur bones originated during the mass killing of the Flood;" and "some descendants of those dinosaurs taken aboard the Ark still roam the earth today."

      And you can look that up!

    2. Re:What About the Other Dinosaurs? by Monokeros · · Score: 4, Funny

      Easy. Elephants, hippos, alligators, lions, polar bears, and kitty cats were the food for the dinosaurs. The dinosaurs made their way through the dragons, unicorns, hobbits and fairies by the time the flood ended and the rest were spared. They're living on a ranch in Montana now.

      --
      The Statue of Liberty is America's lawn jockey.
    3. Re:What About the Other Dinosaurs? by iminplaya · · Score: 2, Funny

      They're living on a ranch in Montana now.

      "Gonna be a dental floss tycoon"

      --
      What?
    4. Re:What About the Other Dinosaurs? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      Easy. Elephants, hippos, alligators, lions, polar bears, and kitty cats were the food for the dinosaurs. Well, seeing how I have personally seen elephants, hippos, alligtors lions, polar bears and kitty cats, but never a dinosaur (or dragon, unicorn, hobbit or fairy), I suspect it might have actually been the other way around...
  2. no theory of evolution.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    There is no theory of evolution, just a list of animals chuck norris has allowed to live....

  3. Alternate theory by Average_Joe_Sixpack · · Score: 5, Funny

    Most sensible explanation

    1. Re:Alternate theory by franksands · · Score: 5, Funny

      Sorry for the comment abuse, but I just had to post this comment from youtube:

      evilc27 (2 hours ago)
      The fact that we are born babies and evolve into people is evidence enough to dispel the myth of evolution. If we were born monkeys, then there would be billions of monkeys in the world as there are billions of people. This does not equate. People have called me stupid for expressing my facts, but I am far from stupid. I took an IQ test at my church school, and I scored 95. You cannot get more than 100% and so I am in the top 5% of the smartest people in the world. chew on that disbelievers.

      This just made my day.

  4. Re:From a friend by Tackhead · · Score: 3, Funny
    > a similar analysis for birds, published recently in the journal Biology Letters, revealed that more than 40 avian lineages survived the mass extinctions. Most paleontologists now think that birds descended from dinosaurs. So in a sense, even dinosaurs in one form escaped the calamity.

    In other words, chicken tastes like dinosaur!

    (In Creationist America and Lysenkoist Russia, dinosaurs taste like chicken!)

  5. Re:From a friend by Cro+Magnon · · Score: 4, Funny

    So in a sense, even dinosaurs in one form escaped the calamity. I found it pretty cool.


    It's not so "cool" having to clean dinosaur droppings off my car, though.
    --
    Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
  6. Hrmm... by grub · · Score: 5, Funny


    But can they shoehorn it into the framework of a 6000 year old Earth?

    --
    Trolling is a art,
  7. Re:Miss Leading title by gardyloo · · Score: 2, Funny

    Speaking of misleading titles! I got all excited about your post's title, anticipating a link to some Miss Universe-type website. Instead, all I got was a one-sentence comment.

  8. Re:Science rethinking. by physicsboy500 · · Score: 1, Funny

    I'm calling you on this rediculous statement. Science is only as sure as they can prove. You'll hardly find a scientist who, under new evidence or studies, will say "nope, the way we used to believe is more correct, and i'll be damned if i take your new evidence into consideration!"

    Sounds more like religion to me.

    You two should stop fighting and realize that it was actually the flying spaghetti monster that created it all!

    --
    The original generic sig.
  9. Re:Quick! Call Kansas BOE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    I've been partial to this alternative theory of Intelligent Design. http://www.venganza.org/about/open-letter/

  10. Look out, R.O.U.S.! by deoxyribonucleose · · Score: 2, Funny

    Recently there have been a number of finds of surprisingly large mammals that are much older than had previously been expected. They include a beaver like (pre)-mammal from the Jurassic that was almost half a metre long, discovered in 2004, /.../

    "Rodents Of Unusual Size? I don't think they exist." http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093779/quotes
  11. Magic man done it theory by Bowling+Moses · · Score: 2, Funny

    A magic man done it! With "forcey forces" of coursey.

  12. And the venerable answer is by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    i

    Duh...

  13. Is Creationism Imaginary? by nbritton · · Score: 1, Funny

    Evolution:
    x + 2 + 3 + 5 + 7 + y + 13 = 42

    Creationism:
    x^2 + 43 = 42

  14. Re:This is Great by Fordiman · · Score: 2, Funny

    "Nobody has EVER made a fossil. NO fossils are being made anywhere today, especially by any slow, gradual process, sometimes imagined by evolutionists."

    Two words: Snow Mummies.

    "To prevent this, a dead body needs to be put in an environment that prevents all microorganisms from feeding on the remains and oxygen must be excluded."

    Hm. Like drowning in tar?

    "A sudden disastrous upheaval such as the Biblical flood could certainly account for fossils."

    Yes. Because there are no waterborne microorganisms.

    Read as "Naturally occuring semi-modern fossils"

    "The unwarranted assumption (faith) is that such radioactive decay rates have never varied over the vast periods of time evolutionists need in order to make their assertions seem plausible."

    In order for radioactive decay rates to change, there would need to be some fundamental changes in a number of unary (ie: they equal 1) quantum constants. These constants only exist to translate from conventional units of measurement into quantum units. I would submit that you need to show evidence to suggest that any QED constant has drifted by any small percent over the time we've known about them.

    Seriously. Is it that you're trolling on purpose, or are you actually someone who is *just* educated enough to sound this stupid?

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    110100 1101000 1101000 1100110 0 1101111 1101000 1100011 1
  15. Re:From a friend by thePig · · Score: 2, Funny

    Can it be because there is more selection pressure due to the dinosaurs?
    If there is more selection pressure, more the chance of diverging to new species.
    And when dinosaurs died out, the mammals had a field day.

    --
    rajmohan_h@yahoo.com