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The Earliest Known Dino?
sciencehabit writes "A team of paleontologists thinks it may have identified the earliest known dinosaur — a creature no bigger than a Labrador retriever that lived about 243 million years ago. That's at least 10 million years earlier than the oldest known dinos and could change researchers' views of how they evolved. But some scientists, including the study's authors, caution that the fossils could instead represent a close dino relative."
Ok, this one always makes me laugh.
Since God (should he exist) is omnicient, omnipresent, and omnipotent, why does Satan have all this power if God doesn't let him?
Answer, please, if you can.
The god of the old testament especially seems like a petulant kid running his own "Sims Universe" like this guy:
"Hey, let's convince Abraham to kill his kid. It'll be hilarious!"
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BMO
You're an idiot.
The reason all the dinosaurs are embedded in layers of sediment is because of the great flood (you know, the one that noah saved all the animals from by putting them on the ark) which killed all the dinos and then layered them in dirt and mud kicked up by the flood. This didnt happen slowly over millions of years but in 40 days during the rains and flooding.
And don't give me carbon dating or any other dating method because they vary so much from each other that they prove the world is only 5000 years old.
And don't tell me about single specimins of trees that reproduce by self cloning that are over 5000 years old. I'm not listening LALALALALALA....
-- Senior Software Engineer, Attorney appearance services, locallawyerapp.com.
"Reptiles" is a paraphyletic group, and is no longer used. The classification "reptile" has some serious problems, as for instance turtles branched early from the other reptiles, later the mammal-like reptiles, and then the other branches of reptiles radiated. So reptiles would cover a very incomplete tree where one early branch is missing (mammals) and one very late one (birds). Instead we are talking "amniotes", meaning animals whose early development involves the growing of an amnios, a pouch in which the embryo develops. The amniotes then branch into Anapsides (including turtles), Synapsides (mammals and their predecessors) and Diapsides (all other reptile-like animals including the birds).
Upon reading a little about those groups, I noticed that molecular analysis does suggest that even though turtles have no additional holes in their skulls (which would morphologically put them into the anapsid group), it seems that they are closer related to some diapsid groups, especially lepidosauridae (lizards, snakes etc.pp.). So the point in time when the last common ancestor of turtles and other reptiles lived, is still debated.
So the question for this reconstructed animal is not so much if it fits a morphological definition of a dinosaur, but rather if the last common ancestor of this animal and a bird was living later than the last common ancestor of birds and crocodiles. If yes, then it would put it definitely into dinosaur territory, being either an early dinosaur or a member of one of the sister groups of early dinosaurs. If no, it might still be an archosaur, closer related to recent birds and crocodiles than to other lizards and snakes.
"Reptiles" is a paraphyletic group, and is no longer used.
Well, that's a little harsh. It's widely understood what it means, and is easier to say than non mamallian, non avian amniotes. :)
It's no worse than fish, which would include all vertibrates, and possibly hagfish too, depending on how you feel about it. (Though to my mind, "is a hagfish a fish" is up there with "is pluto a planet".)
Perhaps they're not used all that much when one is working in the taxonomy/classification literature, bit I've definitely heard cell biologists claim they work with fish instead of mice.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
... brain in a jar philosophy ...
Well yeah, we could all just be brains in jars or some equivalent.
And it's possible that the universe was created 6000 years ago with photons placed as if they had travelled 13 billion years already. But once you've done the basic philosophy, why bother even considering it. There's no evidence for it and it doesn't have any predictive power and there isn't anything philosophically interesting that hasn't been covered much better elsewhere.
So yeah, while it's very hypothetically possible, but anyone who is actually positive it is true is worthy of ridicule or pity. And all because someone wrote it down in a book. Actually they didn't. A bunch of people wrote a bunch of stuff, then a bunch more people translated it a bunch of times. Then someone came along thousands of years later and tried do deduce it based on cherry picking a few bits and filling in the huge gaps rather creatively.
The entertaining thing is that while people try to imagine the greatness of god, what they actually do is limit themselves to pathetically human scales.
Anyway my point was that the whole 6000 year old thing is ridiculous.
From what I know of our universe, it seems a great assumption to expect everything to be so simple as fanatical atheists... believe.
What on earth is that even meant to mean? Do you enjoy making up opinions that people have then cutting them down? Do you truly strike fear into the heart of every straw man ever to venture online?
Firstly, I don't even know what you mean by a "fanatical atheist". What? "no, there REALLY is no evidence that a god exists. Really, really. Nope, still no evidence. Nope. no...... and no. That's not evidence either. No, I still don't believe in god." I also have never met an atheist who believes that the universe is simple.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
The oldest dinosaur? A Middle Triassic dinosauriform from Tanzania
The open access model would like to say "you're welcome".
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Article about dinosaur bones.
Comments about science? Paleontology? Dinosaurs? Not one.
Rants about creationism and insults to theists? Forty. ...I thought this was a science and tech site, not one dedicated to the analysis and criticism of religion. Apparently I was wrong.
You guys are more obsessed with creationism than the creationists.
Hi. Your name comes up a lot in these discussions. I mean, I don't memorize people's slashdot ids - at one point I even forgot my own - but yours does ring a bell. I'm sorry if I offended you.
I'm really not ranting; I'm just saying that for a sci/tech news site, people here certainly are awfully concerned with lambasting religion, which is usually classified as neither science nor tech. It's just...weird. If people were knowledgeable scientists or science enthusiasts, I would expect more comments about actual science. I'd like to know if people have, oh, I don't know, questions or comments about the fossils that were found....their relationships to other fossils....conditions or sponsor of the dig...an analysis of TFA...followup plans...anything...anything at all scientific or newsworthy. Something where I actually gain new useful knowledge about the article's topic in return for my time spent reading people's remarks.
Instead, it's just a bunch of moronic...."Lol ever-body who lieks God is stoopid n sux" in fifty different varieties. I'm not ranting - just, I come here to read science, and lately, whenever paleontology or evolution is involved, the comments have more to do with hating religion than with anything productive.
Seems more like 4chan, really.
I'm not even trying to touch on the issue of fundamentalism, endorsing it or countering it. Maybe fundamentalism in America needs to be countered, maybe not. I don't even mean to remark on that. As far as congressional committees go, I think you are giving the US too much credit. Give it a couple hundred years and this country won't even exist any more. My point was more about how useless Slashdot is becoming with regard to these sorts of articles.
I'm just saying, this is a sci/tech news site. I'd like it if my time spent reading comments added to my knowledge of the topic. Instead, that time doesn't give me any new topical knowledge. It just adds to my knowledge of the fact that yes, the majority of Slashdot members are quite hateful and condemning people, and truly despise religion and everyone who takes value from it.
You say something interesting,
After the thousandth time you're told you're going to Hell....it's time to bash back.
So, you're hitting them because someone - maybe a parent, or a former pastor - bashed you "for the thousandth time." I'm sorry you were hurt by someone telling you that you were going to Hell. Probably wasn't the best way to approach the situation. But bashing back isn't really the way to go. Everyone from Jesus to John Stuart Mill would agree on that. It's petty.
Moreover, ranting on Slashdot isn't bashing creationists. It's more like *trying* to hit a creationist and instead swiping at thin air. The creationists are in Southern Baptist churches, not on Slashdot. I'd bet that less than 0.1% of Slashdot readers are YECs...so ranting about how wrong you think YEC is on this site is (pardon the religious idiom) preaching to the choir. It's pointless. I'd like to read science instead of spending time scrolling across a bunch of people who already all believe, with all their heart, the same thing, and sit around telling one another how right that belief is, when they all already agree. I don't know of any "Christian Warriors" who are going to be reached by picking on creationism here.
I could direct myself to several sites which are dedicated to ridiculing Christianity. There are tons of those sites, and they're easy to find. Instead, I come to a tech news site. I just wish the comments would discuss tech news instead of how silly they think religion is, in keeping with the whole point of why Slashdot exists.
Maybe if you weren't so condescending I'd take you seriously.
Lastly, Jesus thought that flipping tables was an option.
Bye.
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BMO