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Four-legged Snake Fossil Stuns Scientists, Ignites Controversy

Posted by Soulskill on from the i-have-had-it-with-these-multi-legged-snakes-on-this-multi-legged-plane dept.

sciencehabit writes: Scientists have described what they say is the first known fossil of a four-legged snake. The limbs of the 120-or-so-million-year-old, 20-centimeter-long creature are remarkably well preserved and end with five slender digits that appear to have been functional (abstract). Thought to have come from Brazil, the fossil would be one of the earliest snakes found, suggesting that the group evolved from terrestrial precursors in Gondwana, the southern remnant of the supercontinent Pangaea. But although the creature's overall body plan—and indeed, many of its individual anatomical features—is snakelike, some researchers aren't so sure that it is a part of the snake family tree.

30 of 153 comments (clear)

  1. Genesis! by Geoffrey.landis · · Score: 4, Funny

    The biblical literalists are going to love this one.

    --
    http://www.geoffreylandis.com
    1. Re:Genesis! by ilguido · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I don't see any reason why this is "stunning" or a big controversy. It's just a new fossil and they'll argue a bit on where it goes into the taxonomy tree... happens all the time.

      The fact is that, as always, those who found it are basically screaming "sensational discovery, mystery XYZ is finally solved", while other scientist are more cautious. It's the old theme of "sensationalism versus business as usual", dangerously close to the stance of attention whores.

      Having read the article, I think it's more likely that those weak limbs were used for tree climbing than for grabbing preys and probably this is not a snake but a specimen from some extinct group.

    2. Re:Genesis! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      That's how forgone conclusions work. Once you have committed to a conclusion, everything you see is skewed in that direction. Anything that is even suggestive of agreement appears to be "more proof" while any counter-evidence, no matter how confuting, is seen as "probably mistaken" if even there at all.

      To answer the OP's question....

      One walks the science path to find good reasons for their beliefs, rather than making a completely random guess as to which holy book already has it right. I am sure plenty of Muslims would use the same argument you did, in exactly the same way, to defend belief in the Quoran, and it does work just as well. Some of us would rather investigate reality than bet on superstition.

    3. Re:Genesis! by SuricouRaven · · Score: 2

      Snake taxonomy isn't really a tree. It's more of an overgrown hedge, full of thorns. This will be tidied up as the genetic comparisons are processed, but it's not a high-priority area of research.

    4. Re:Genesis! by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Religion is nothing but the easy way out.

      The opposite of "knowing" is not "not knowing". That can easily be remedied. If you do not know, you ask someone who does know, and then you know too. The opposite of knowing is believing. And believing is far more comfortable and convenient, and far less taxing than knowing.

      If I want to believe something, that's easily done. All it takes is a unilateral declaration of intent. Jesus the only son of God and my saviour? I believe. There, done. There is no huge investment of time and intellect necessary. A teapot in the middle of Jupiter? Sure, I believe. And done. I neither need someone showing me the ropes, nor do I need to spend any time or energy to do it.

      Knowing is far more taxing. To know something, you not only have to find someone who does already know to teach you, you also have to invest time and energy to understand. Understanding is one hugely important, critical prerequisite for knowing. And that takes time. And effort. And depending on your mental capabilities or prerequisite fundamental knowledge that effort may even prove futile.

      Believing is far more convenient. It only depends on you wanting. Knowing something also requires you to be able to and the investment of time.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    5. Re:Genesis! by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 2

      The certainty with which one feels a fact is true is actually an emotion, which is where everyone trips up.

      --
      (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
    6. Re:Genesis! by ultranova · · Score: 2

      The opposite of "knowing" is not "not knowing". That can easily be remedied. If you do not know, you ask someone who does know, and then you know too.

      Well, no. How do you know if the guy you asked actually knows anything about the matter but is simply making shit up as he goes or reciting some half-remembered factoid he heard from an unknown source? You can't. You can double-check, and quadruple-check, and so on, but ultimately every model of the world rests on unproven assumptions. After all, they're subject to the incompleteness theorems and as such can't be self-contained.

      But then again none of this matters, since science vs. religion was never about knowledge but simply a case of two memetic complexes - or, if you prefer, "gods" - fighting for territory in the noosphere. Humans merely get sucked into the fight due to being the physical platform on which the noosphere rests.

      --

      Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.

    7. Re:Genesis! by HiThere · · Score: 2

      Caution: Many of the experiments are only statistically reproducable. Many of them require that the experimenter be "skilled in the art" (and which art varies with the domain of the experiment).

      So it's not as simple as school books try to make it seem. Check out "search image" to see one of the potentially confounding problems.

      And this isn't even considering that some of the experiments are so exensive or so dangerous to perform that most people are prohibited from doing them.

      That said, science, when well done, produces reliable results...within its applicable domain. E.g., don't ask science for moral guidance, it can't provide it. What is can provide is a statistical expectation of what the results of a particular action are likely to be. You provide the moral judgement. And, unfortunately, people who become deeply enmeshed in science are as apt to ignore morality as those who become too deeply enmeshed in finance or politics.

      --

      I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
    8. Re:Genesis! by HiThere · · Score: 2

      If you take it as a compliment, that's fine. But you *do* need to be aware of the full significance of that "symbol". You may find partial enlightenment at the nearest meat packing plant. (You'd find more in raising sheep, but that takes a lot longer.)

      --

      I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
    9. Re:Genesis! by gstoddart · · Score: 2

      Listen ... we don't care about your creationist drivel or your superstitions, we believe in reality around here.

      Why don't look a the universe as it exists, and realize that if your god actually exists, he's a fuck of a lot more sophisticated and expansive than you drooling morons who need to believe the Earth is young.

      The Earth is old. The solar system is old. The universe is massive, old beyond imagining, vast beyond comprehension, and utterly amazing beyond belief. You have elements in your body which could only come into existence in stars which have already died, before our own sun existed, before the Earth existed, and long long long before your damned 50,000 years.

      The need to squish reality into matching the literal interpretation of your superstitions is your problem, because your wee-little evolved-from-monkey brain refuses to see the world as it is, and insist on some trite explanation whipped up in a way suitable to explain to bronze age people ... and borrowed from what you'd call heathens and pagans from well before that.

      Any god which can create the vast and awesome universe we live in would be rolling his eyes at your need to deny physical reality to fit your fairy tales.

      But the specific need to take the bible as a literal, and accurate representation of reality instead a means of explaining stuff to primitive people is pathetic.

      You do god a disservice by treating him as being as as small and tiny as your world view. Because you're obsessed with denying reality, instead of seeing it.

      There is no "science" in this denial of fossils, evolution or any of this ... this is nothing but use stupid tricks to deny reality to match your fables, instead of realizing your fables are metaphor.

      Any god who wanted people to do that would have to be a moron. And if he doesn't like it, he can take it up with me himself.

      But stop pretending to use science to defend creationism. Because that's just sophistry to support your own delusional take on reality.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    10. Re:Genesis! by Opportunist · · Score: 2

      The main difference is that you can back up facts. They are testable. Gravity is easy to test. Take something into your hand. Let go while it's not in a stable connection to the ground (directly or by proxy). It will, provided the item you are holding is heavier than air, accelerate towards the earth. What you observed there was the effect of gravity working on the item.

      It is universally valid and works here as well as it does on the moon (with the relevant changes due to the different mass) and anywhere else in the universe. Not because we made it up and thought it would be neat if we didn't have to jump after every teacup that we thoughtlessly put into the middle of air and that happened to float away, but because it is one of the fundamental laws of the universe.

      Unlike some God, the universe would really literally not exist without it.

      Gravity works with or without my consent, whether I choose to believe in it or not. I cannot wish it away, despite my best attempts at flying I am returning faithfully to the earth every time I jump into the air.

      God only exists if you want him to.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    11. Re:Genesis! by Opportunist · · Score: 2

      This was of course a highly simplified example. In that I postulated that the person asked does actually know.

      Science also is no "god". It requires not your faith. Quite the opposite, it requires your doubt. Science (at least the kind that deserves the name) is the very anathema of a god. It is testable. Something gods are by the very definition thereof not. Science offers its findings in such a way that you are able (time, knowledge and, at least today, availability of technology permitting) to recreate its findings, test its veracity and, if you find contradictions, alter the knowledge (we prefer to call it a theory, though the word has been abused to the point where some people today think it means something like "something we made up 'cause we felt like it").

      That's something you can't do with a god. Gods have by their very definition the authority on the subjects they are gods in. In the case of the Christian god, being a monotheistic religion, he's the authority in everything. You cannot falsify a god without reducing him to absurdity. Because if a "mere human" shows that a god erred, well, it removes the god from its status.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    12. Re:Genesis! by Opportunist · · Score: 2

      Well, religion of course needs to explain the world. That's a necessity. How am I supposed to make people believe in my god if I give them no good reason to do so?

      Imagine yourself a few 1000 years ago. The world is a strange and mostly unpredictable place. Without rhyme and reason things happen around you. The seasons change, rain happens or it doesn't, seemingly at random. Storms and hail, pests eat and kill your crops, and you're totally powerless against it all.

      People don't like that. People like to be in control of their life. In come the gods. Putting the gods in charge and you praying to them gives you control. By proxy, granted, and not really, but at least it makes you feel like you can somehow influence what you cannot control.

      A religion that doesn't offer this will not exist for long. With passing time you can of course go more onto the metaphysical level and concentrate more on things like afterlife and morality, especially once science pushed your gods out of their original domain, i.e. controlling what can't be controlled (and what can now be controlled, to some degree), but that's where gods come from.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    13. Re:Genesis! by HiThere · · Score: 2

      You are talking about one part of religion, and considering it as if it were the whole. And the part that you are considering is the most dubious part.

      I, personally, happen to be a sort of gnostic, though not a gnostic christian. It *is* possible to have direct experience of the holy, which one and easily interpret as superhuman, though I consider that a mistake. I feel the the "gods" are a subset of the Jungian archetypes. Do *NOT* make the mistake of thinking that this renders them ineffective. They are the shared substratum of (almost) all humans. And they act powerfully, though indirectly, in the physical world because of that. Their actions are normally invisible because we don't notice them, not because they aren't present. Without the gods no machine would be built, and no language would be possible. Normally we call the "gods" instinct, if we notice them, but that badly downplays how powerfully they act. We don't tend to notice them because they are almost universal among humans. We are more likely to notice their absence, which we give names to like "sociopath", or "autistic". The eruption of a god into a full encounter with consciousness is quite rare, and generally needs to be managed with great care. It can also be quite destructive, so one should usually avoid this. Of course, it's more destructive if you don't notice that it's happening, and also if you have a great deal of trust in them. Be warned: The gods make mistakes. We do not live in the environment that we evolved for, so even when they act in ways that would be appropriate in that environment, it may be mistaken...and they would even make mistakes in their evolved environment.

      --

      I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
  2. 4 Legged Snake by StrangeBrew · · Score: 4, Funny

    The snake also recently stated that POW's are exempt from War Hero status.

    1. Re: 4 Legged Snake by Fire_Wraith · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Heroism takes many forms.

      McCain was the son of a high ranking Admiral, and a potentially valuable political pawn for the North Vietnamese. They offered him all sorts of inducements, nice treatment, etc, if he'd make statements for them. He refused, and they tortured him instead, to the point that he can't even raise his arms above his shoulders today.

      They offered to release him early, ahead of his fellow prisoners, and he refused, insisting that all previous prisoners be released first (according to military rules), even though that meant he'd be enduring more of that hellhole.

      Heroism isn't just about standing up with a machine gun on each arm and shooting up the enemy single-handedly.

    2. Re: 4 Legged Snake by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Concur. Can't fucking stand the guy's politics, but I respect the guy's strength here. Yes, others in his position of less status might have been outright killed, and maybe we wouldn't have known about their bravery, but heroism isn't about putting some men above others - it's about seeing the evidenced behaviour of some men and using that behaviour as an example to follow.

    3. Re: 4 Legged Snake by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      I agree, you can be a war veteran and a prisoner of war but you can not be a war 'hero' if all you did was sit in jail... and this is what John McCain ddid for almost the whole war. Are we trying to say that if he wasn't shot down he would've defeated the Vietnamese army with his plane alone?

      If you take the approach that (bravery && selflessness) != heroism, then you're right. He didn't jump out of a chopper and machine-gun down a platoon of the enemy. But having read and heard what Vietnam era prisionors went through, I have the highest admiration for anyone who lived through it. The one fact that he refused to be freed (because his father was an admiral) unless everyone captured before him was release is a remarkable display of selflessness.

      For that, he is a hero.

  3. "Ignites Controversy" . . . ? by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 5, Funny

    So it could breathe fire, as well? It sounds like they have not found a snake, but a fire-breathing dragon!

    --
    Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
  4. CLONE IT! by thedarb · · Score: 2

    Need to know if it can talk!

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    This sig intentionally left blank.
  5. It's the missing slink! by rgbatduke · · Score: 4, Funny

    Sorry, I had to do that one.

    --
    Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. --- Bertrand Russell.
  6. Re:Thought to have come from Brazil? by spacial · · Score: 2

    The site in Brazil (between 3 states) is know for it's type of rocks and a place to steal fossils. :)

  7. misread the headline by The+Grim+Reefer · · Score: 2

    I glanced through the above story about Hillary and misread the title of this story as "Four legged Senate fossil..." but then I remembered that Stromberg Thurmond died a few years back.

  8. Nor the first mission [Re: 4 Legged Snake] by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    I agree, you can be a war veteran and a prisoner of war but you can not be a war 'hero' if all you did was sit in jail... and this is what John McCain ddid for almost the whole war.

    Uh, you are aware that he did do other things in the war, right? Sitting in jail (by which you mean, POW camp) is not "all" he did. It was his 23rd bombing mission, not his first, on which he was shot down. And that by this time he'd been awarded the Navy Commendation Medal and the Bronze Star.

    I'm no fan of McCain, but I don't like personal attacks. Criticize him for his politics, not his history.

  9. Re:I stopped reading at by SuricouRaven · · Score: 4, Informative

    Carbon dating is useless on fossils. Firstly because they are far too old for the ratio to be measurable, and secondly because they don't actually contain any carbon of atmospheric origin to date.

    There are other forms of dating used for fossils though.

  10. Re:I stopped reading at by TeknoHog · · Score: 2

    There are other forms of dating used for fossils though.

    And that's how I met your mother.

    --
    Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
  11. Re:I stopped reading at by Anonymous+Cow+Ward · · Score: 2

    Carbon dating isn't used for things older than about 100,000 years. Anything older than that uses other radioisotypes to determine age, which don't vary with atmospheric composition.

    --
    Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
  12. Re:I stopped reading at by PRMan · · Score: 2

    Actually, that's incorrect.

    http://newgeology.us/presentation48.html

    All fossils date less than 50,000 years. This is not a problem for creationists, but it makes evolutionists uncomfortable so they don't do it.

    --
    Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
  13. Re:I stopped reading at by SuricouRaven · · Score: 3, Interesting

    According to a paper which failed peer review.

  14. Re:Creationists are mounting a proxy argument by SuricouRaven · · Score: 2

    Every one of which is just a more specific case of the general outline I gave above. I've heard them all before - they all involve some high-school science which, interpreted simplistically, seems to suggest a young earth. The carbon dating of diamonds or oil, for example. If you're only working with high-school physics, that seems a certain proof of a young earth - because at that level you only need be concerned with carbon isotopes, but back in the complexities of the real world carbon dating for very old samples cannot overcome the interference of other radioisotopes - mostly potassium-40. The SNR is just too low, so you end up with a reading at around the maximum age of your equipment sensitivity - which any operator would recognize as a sign that the sample cannot be dated.