It definitely looks like something that is millions of years old. If it were only thousands of years old, it would be buried in some loose sediment, but this critter (if we assume it to be for real) looks to be encased in solid rock.
Oh, but of course - how stupid of me not to think of that!;) But wouldn't it be inappropriate for a person who's studying the Noachian flood to use the foul Evilutionist method of carbon dating, which with all its shortcomings is clearly from Satan(TM)?
That thing reeks of a hoax up to the heavens. "World-wide anomalous phenomena resource", eh? Shilling's pages seem kind of authentic, but he's talking about carbon dating the thing. Casper, you don't carbon date million-years-old fossils! But then again, he claims to be an archaeologist, not paleontologist. I'd still presume professional archaeologists know their dating methods better.
Either that, or evidence that the theory of evolution is falling apart at the seams.
I'm not sure you know what you're talking about. Traits that are similar to each other are known to have evolved many times during biological evolution. Like powered flight.
It isn't a marsupial "cat", since such critters do not and have not existed, but Thylacoleo, the so-called marsupial lion, roamed the plains of until late Pleistocene, maybe even at the time when the first humans entered the continent.
Cryptozoologists, I'm sure, would be extatic to find a living Thylacoleo. Well, other people would be, too.
Actually, I think from an ecological point of view large and slow-breeding alien species are less of a danger to an ecosystem. Also, we can see they're not that common out there if it took this long to make the first (almost) verified case of big cats in Australia.
Yes, but it's tragicomical to the point where even/. moderators don't know whether laugh or cry... A perfect example of "intellectual property" gone wild.
Therefore the airplane must have *ramdonly* evolved as did the ancient bird.
Ram-donly? Sorry to burst your bubble, but as any paleontologist knows, both the Spitfire and pterosaurs were created by the Flying Spaghetti Monster (bless His Noodly Appendage).
Thank you, but I keep my stance which I have found to be true.
National Geographic is a good magazine for popular science, but as you said, it definitely isn't a scientific journal. Sure, scientists are interviewed for the stories, but remember that this is the journal that published the infamous Archaeoraptor-article. Also, I know from experience that when interviewing scientists, journalists press them hard to make fantastic speculations even from fragmentary fossil remains. Why? Because the journalists know this sells better than the scientist's usual answer, which at its base is just a boring "we don't really know". (I once listened to a radio program where the host got remarkably frustrated because the two guest scientists were not giving sensationalistic answers to the host's wild questions.)
We both know (or should know) that when the scientist, to please the journalist, then gives an answer which includes detailed speculation about behavior and such, he isn't exactly making a scientific claim, rather an educated guess based on better-known fossil specimens and on comparisons with modern animals. The journalist, however, grabs this speculation as a fact, or at least as a viable theory, which it isn't meant to be.
This doesn't mean paleontologists are free of human faults such as exaggeration. No field of science (or human life for that matter) is. But you are exaggerating the problem beyond what it is in practice. As somebody who reads scientific papers on paleontology on a consistent basis, I can attest they can't really be compared to the articles found in popular press. Popularisation is good, but sometimes (especially in newspapers) it's just bad journalism. Check out the new Slashdot article on this.
You are right, we always learn something new, both of hyenas and fossils, as time goes on. That's science at work. I always remind myself, when talking about scientific issues, to start with "according to current scientific knowledge" or something similar.
>> the use of fragments of a fossilized skeleton, while I admit can be useful, seems tenuous at best.
> I thought the same thing. Anyone else ever been to a museum where they found like, a tooth and toenail, and then reconstructed what the entire animal looked like?
Well, I am a paleontologist, and I can *definitely* tell you that *nobody* in this profession makes hypotheses on sounds, mating patterns etc. based on a toenail of an extinct animal. That kind of BS allegations is reserved to strawman-building creationists.
You know, museums often have only some isolated bones of an animal that *is*, however, known better from other bones, or then its close relative might be known. In cases like Parasaurolophus, a duck-billed herbivorous dinosaur, there's some very good evidence about the sounds it might have made, and it's known from complete skeletons, including skulls. Evidence for herding in dinosaurs can be found from fossilized nests and footprints.
Same principle goes for cases like this new pterosaur. We only have some wing bones of this creature (pterosaur bones are very fragile), but we also have loads of complete skeletons of other pterosaur genera. If we take the wingbone proportions of these animals and compare them to the new-found bones, we can make a pretty good estimation of its size. Of course, we have to remember two things: sometimes even scientists like to exaggerate things, even if just a little - a bigger fish makes a bigger story. But usually it's the media, though, that makes a mountain out of a molehill. I know too many examples of this.
These stupid scientists are still trying to sell that evolution "science" to the public?!? It's amazing how they just can't accept the TRUTH! Ask any REAL scientist and he will attest that the World and life (including mountains, trees and a midget) were created by the almighty Flying Spaghetti Monster through the touch of His Noodly Appendage. We must make it so the Truth is heard. Teach the controversy!!
But alas, science isn't part of democracy or a democractic process in itself. If people decided about what is a fact and what is not, we'd probably still live in caves having fun throwing our feces at each other.
If we'd "let the people decide" and began to teach creationism, ID and evolution in science classes, then we'd also have to include astrology along with astronomy, magic along modern physics (or Intelligent Pushing, perhaps?) and phrenology along psychology classes. How does that sound? Sorry, facts are facts, not some opinions that can be sacrified because of a certain demographic percentage that dislikes them.
Yeah. The problem is not you if you don't read a website that is BS. And Junkscience.com is. The "Junk Man" himself, Steven Milloy, has larger-than-life ties to Corporate America - and he also works (or at least has worked) for FAUX News. Junkscience.com is nothing but some ideological BS. A thorough article here.
Something I don't understand about the people arguing that sea levels won't rise when the temperatures of the earth's atmosphere rises, is that they are completely ignoring historical evidence. We have a bullet-proof geological record that shows the sea level going back and forth all through the history of our planet, and that the water has been up high when the atmosphere has been warm, down when it has been cold. Is it the continental ice? Volume changes of the water because of changes in temperature? Salinity? We can't be 100% sure, but there sure aren't many other possibilities to explain the changes.
Melting icebergs may not be the major factor, but continental ice sure as hell must be.
Secondly, I personally love to watch foreign language movies so I can miss everything that is going on in the movie because I have to read subtitles, NOT!
Every Nordic (Northern European) country has subtitles in movies (and TV) and we don't miss anything that goes on in the movie.
Dubbing is for morons and pu$$ies (hello rest of Europe!;) ).
Slashdot Mirror
It definitely looks like something that is millions of years old. If it were only thousands of years old, it would be buried in some loose sediment, but this critter (if we assume it to be for real) looks to be encased in solid rock.
Oh, but of course - how stupid of me not to think of that! ;) But wouldn't it be inappropriate for a person who's studying the Noachian flood to use the foul Evilutionist method of carbon dating, which with all its shortcomings is clearly from Satan(TM)?
That thing reeks of a hoax up to the heavens. "World-wide anomalous phenomena resource", eh? Shilling's pages seem kind of authentic, but he's talking about carbon dating the thing. Casper, you don't carbon date million-years-old fossils! But then again, he claims to be an archaeologist, not paleontologist. I'd still presume professional archaeologists know their dating methods better.
They probably made a mistake and originally meant to say that powered flight evolved twice within the dinosaur/bird clade.
Either that, or evidence that the theory of evolution is falling apart at the seams.
I'm not sure you know what you're talking about. Traits that are similar to each other are known to have evolved many times during biological evolution. Like powered flight.
It isn't a marsupial "cat", since such critters do not and have not existed, but Thylacoleo, the so-called marsupial lion, roamed the plains of until late Pleistocene, maybe even at the time when the first humans entered the continent.
Cryptozoologists, I'm sure, would be extatic to find a living Thylacoleo. Well, other people would be, too.
Actually, I think from an ecological point of view large and slow-breeding alien species are less of a danger to an ecosystem. Also, we can see they're not that common out there if it took this long to make the first (almost) verified case of big cats in Australia.
"Is this the geek's version of Girls Gone Wild? Is it coming out on DVD?"
I can see it now: "Hey lawyer chick, would you like to see my intellectual property?"
Insightful?? Did someone give mod points to Rush Limbaugh?
Yes, but it's tragicomical to the point where even /. moderators don't know whether laugh or cry... A perfect example of "intellectual property" gone wild.
Therefore the airplane must have *ramdonly* evolved as did the ancient bird.
Ram-donly? Sorry to burst your bubble, but as any paleontologist knows, both the Spitfire and pterosaurs were created by the Flying Spaghetti Monster (bless His Noodly Appendage).
Thank you, but I keep my stance which I have found to be true.
National Geographic is a good magazine for popular science, but as you said, it definitely isn't a scientific journal. Sure, scientists are interviewed for the stories, but remember that this is the journal that published the infamous Archaeoraptor-article. Also, I know from experience that when interviewing scientists, journalists press them hard to make fantastic speculations even from fragmentary fossil remains. Why? Because the journalists know this sells better than the scientist's usual answer, which at its base is just a boring "we don't really know". (I once listened to a radio program where the host got remarkably frustrated because the two guest scientists were not giving sensationalistic answers to the host's wild questions.)
We both know (or should know) that when the scientist, to please the journalist, then gives an answer which includes detailed speculation about behavior and such, he isn't exactly making a scientific claim, rather an educated guess based on better-known fossil specimens and on comparisons with modern animals. The journalist, however, grabs this speculation as a fact, or at least as a viable theory, which it isn't meant to be.
This doesn't mean paleontologists are free of human faults such as exaggeration. No field of science (or human life for that matter) is. But you are exaggerating the problem beyond what it is in practice. As somebody who reads scientific papers on paleontology on a consistent basis, I can attest they can't really be compared to the articles found in popular press. Popularisation is good, but sometimes (especially in newspapers) it's just bad journalism. Check out the new Slashdot article on this.
You are right, we always learn something new, both of hyenas and fossils, as time goes on. That's science at work. I always remind myself, when talking about scientific issues, to start with "according to current scientific knowledge" or something similar.
>> the use of fragments of a fossilized skeleton, while I admit can be useful, seems tenuous at best.
> I thought the same thing. Anyone else ever been to a museum where they found like, a tooth and toenail, and then reconstructed what the entire animal looked like?
Well, I am a paleontologist, and I can *definitely* tell you that *nobody* in this profession makes hypotheses on sounds, mating patterns etc. based on a toenail of an extinct animal. That kind of BS allegations is reserved to strawman-building creationists.
You know, museums often have only some isolated bones of an animal that *is*, however, known better from other bones, or then its close relative might be known. In cases like Parasaurolophus, a duck-billed herbivorous dinosaur, there's some very good evidence about the sounds it might have made, and it's known from complete skeletons, including skulls. Evidence for herding in dinosaurs can be found from fossilized nests and footprints.
Same principle goes for cases like this new pterosaur. We only have some wing bones of this creature (pterosaur bones are very fragile), but we also have loads of complete skeletons of other pterosaur genera. If we take the wingbone proportions of these animals and compare them to the new-found bones, we can make a pretty good estimation of its size. Of course, we have to remember two things: sometimes even scientists like to exaggerate things, even if just a little - a bigger fish makes a bigger story. But usually it's the media, though, that makes a mountain out of a molehill. I know too many examples of this.
These stupid scientists are still trying to sell that evolution "science" to the public?!? It's amazing how they just can't accept the TRUTH! Ask any REAL scientist and he will attest that the World and life (including mountains, trees and a midget) were created by the almighty Flying Spaghetti Monster through the touch of His Noodly Appendage. We must make it so the Truth is heard. Teach the controversy!!
Of course. They are called coprolites.
Funniest and best-timed Slashdot running gag joke EVER. Or at least for now.
In other news, the star in question was said to have been heard screaming, "Watch out, that mad candy bar has rabies!!!"
But alas, science isn't part of democracy or a democractic process in itself. If people decided about what is a fact and what is not, we'd probably still live in caves having fun throwing our feces at each other.
If we'd "let the people decide" and began to teach creationism, ID and evolution in science classes, then we'd also have to include astrology along with astronomy, magic along modern physics (or Intelligent Pushing, perhaps?) and phrenology along psychology classes. How does that sound? Sorry, facts are facts, not some opinions that can be sacrified because of a certain demographic percentage that dislikes them.
Yeah. The problem is not you if you don't read a website that is BS. And Junkscience.com is. The "Junk Man" himself, Steven Milloy, has larger-than-life ties to Corporate America - and he also works (or at least has worked) for FAUX News. Junkscience.com is nothing but some ideological BS. A thorough article here.
...a Beowulf Cluster of these! Yeah, a regenerating mouse cluster!
Something I don't understand about the people arguing that sea levels won't rise when the temperatures of the earth's atmosphere rises, is that they are completely ignoring historical evidence. We have a bullet-proof geological record that shows the sea level going back and forth all through the history of our planet, and that the water has been up high when the atmosphere has been warm, down when it has been cold. Is it the continental ice? Volume changes of the water because of changes in temperature? Salinity? We can't be 100% sure, but there sure aren't many other possibilities to explain the changes.
Melting icebergs may not be the major factor, but continental ice sure as hell must be.
melting the ice that is already floating there displacing water won't affect the position of the sealevel at all.
You forgot Poland. I mean, continental ice.
Yeah, and there's plenty of ice on land in the Arctic of Canada and Russia, too.
Secondly, I personally love to watch foreign language movies so I can miss everything that is going on in the movie because I have to read subtitles, NOT!
;) ).
Every Nordic (Northern European) country has subtitles in movies (and TV) and we don't miss anything that goes on in the movie.
Dubbing is for morons and pu$$ies (hello rest of Europe!
My first First Post post?!?