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Author Topic:   Undermining long-held paradigms
Hyroglyphx
Inactive Member


Message 61 of 124 (345989)
09-02-2006 9:57 AM
Reply to: Message 26 by anglagard
09-01-2006 12:10 PM


Re: You're in error
quote:
That's because I didn't say "facial," I said "fascial."
Well, you got me there, I thought it was a mispelling. My post #9 is therefore rendered irrelavant.
I apologise for being mistaken.
No worries brother.

“"All science, even the divine science, is a sublime detective story. Only it is not set to detect why a man is dead; but the darker secret of why he is alive." ”G. K. Chesterton

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Admin
Director
Posts: 12998
From: EvC Forum
Joined: 06-14-2002
Member Rating: 2.3


Message 62 of 124 (345991)
09-02-2006 10:11 AM
Reply to: Message 46 by Dr Adequate
09-02-2006 12:17 AM


Re: Herbivores
Dr Adequate writes:
Still no word about your slanders over the peppered moth, et cetera, I see. You'll find the word "integrity" in any good dictionary, and the words THOU SHALT NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS in any Bible.
If you have complaints about member behavior or moderation, please take them to the General discussion of moderation procedures - Part 7 thread.

--Percy
EvC Forum Director

This message is a reply to:
 Message 46 by Dr Adequate, posted 09-02-2006 12:17 AM Dr Adequate has replied

Replies to this message:
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Hyroglyphx
Inactive Member


Message 63 of 124 (345992)
09-02-2006 10:11 AM
Reply to: Message 27 by Archer Opteryx
09-01-2006 12:11 PM


Re: Time scales
You mean the theory has to keep accommodating new discoveries?
No, that would be one thing. That would learning off of new discoveries. I certainly don't ever expect science to ever plateau. What I expect is that theory needs to be tread lightly. Really what I'm little ticked about is 1880 evolution was a theory. 1900 evolution was a theory. By 1920 evolution was a fact, including all the anamolies we now find. Then 1970 evolution was a fact, but its a large departure from Darwin's theory-- a very large departure that sought to reinvent the wheel to reconcile the deplorable fossil record.
My point is that 'facts' are often tentative. And the scientific community should show a little more restraint until we flat out know that what we are investigating is a solid fact, not simply leaning in a certain direction. If I taught high school biology in 1995 and some kid told me that he believed mammals were much larger in the late Cretaceous period, I would be inclined to inform him that he was wrong because I have the facts. As it turns out, the boy was right. Isn't that a reasonable objection?
As for this article, its not the be-all-end-all of evolution. Its just to elucidate the point that there are several discoveries which are compelling more and more people to take another look at these long epochs of geologic time.

“"All science, even the divine science, is a sublime detective story. Only it is not set to detect why a man is dead; but the darker secret of why he is alive." ”G. K. Chesterton

This message is a reply to:
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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 285 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 64 of 124 (345994)
09-02-2006 10:23 AM
Reply to: Message 62 by Admin
09-02-2006 10:11 AM


Re: Herbivores
If you have complaints about member behavior or moderation, please take them to the General discussion of moderation procedures - Part 7 thread.
I have no complaints. If NJ is allowed to expose himself again and again as a halfwitted filthy disgusting liar who drivels out his pathetic filthy lying trash as a substitute for argument, and I am allowed to say so, that's fine by me.
My worry was that the moderators might object to my pointing out that NJ is a stupid disgusting halfwit liar. If I am allowed to say so ... again, that's fine by me.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 62 by Admin, posted 09-02-2006 10:11 AM Admin has replied

Replies to this message:
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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 285 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 65 of 124 (345995)
09-02-2006 10:26 AM
Reply to: Message 63 by Hyroglyphx
09-02-2006 10:11 AM


No, that would be one thing. That would learning off of new discoveries. I certainly don't ever expect science to ever plateau. What I expect is that theory needs to be tread lightly. Really what I'm little ticked about is 1880 evolution was a theory. 1900 evolution was a theory. By 1920 evolution was a fact, including all the anamolies we now find. Then 1970 evolution was a fact, but its a large departure from Darwin's theory-- a very large departure ...
This is again a very obvious lie. Could you not argue for your point of view by telling the truth?
Oh, yeah, you can't, can you?

This message is a reply to:
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Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 66 of 124 (345997)
09-02-2006 10:33 AM


There were a few posts strongly objecting to NJ's determined characterizations that evolutionists claimed that only mammals 4-5 inches long lived during the Mesozoic. I concur that NJ should critisize evolution for things it really says, but I think arguing this point distracts from the primary issue.
What's really important, and this has already been said a number of times in this thread, is that our interpretation of the evolutionary history of life on this planet will change as new evidence is discovered. Since new evidence is always being discovered, these views will always be changing.
So what if we really did believe that mammals in the Mesozoic never exceeded 4-5 inches because we'd never discovered any larger fossils, and then one day we discovered a cat-sized mammal. What NJ has to realize is that this is a big "So what!" if what he's looking for is challenges to evolutionary theory. We'd never found a cat-sized mammal before, and now we have! What a wonderful discovery! Our knowledge of life's history has increased. And it's completely consistent with evolutionary theory.
To NJ:
What would you have science do? Ignore new evidence and cling to initial interpretations no matter what? This would make sense to no one, I'm sure, including yourself. It is an inherent part of the scientific process to build accurate models that interpret and explain available evidence. The available evidence keeps growing, and so the interpretations and explanations must change to keep pace with newly available evidence. Science has to be this way. There is no other possible way it can be.
In other words, you're critisizing science for doing precisely what it is supposed to be doing.
--Percy

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Hyroglyphx
Inactive Member


Message 67 of 124 (345998)
09-02-2006 10:34 AM
Reply to: Message 29 by Archer Opteryx
09-01-2006 12:32 PM


Re: You're in error
Where are you getting this fantasy of 'no one hearing of it'? The discovery is well known and has been addressed directly in this thread.
No, I think you might have been the only one in light of the responses. I guess kudos to you.
I understood your word 'fascial' at once. That word is also incorrect, as I showed you. The fossil preserves bone marrow, as I also explained. And it is incorrect to say as you did that the material was 'unfossilized.' It is indeed fossilized, but on the microbial level that allows the preservation of soft tissue and small details.
Okay, I stand corrected about the bone being fossilized. That would certainly allow for a much better preserving mechanism, however, this is still quite a discovery that pushes the boundaries. Who would believe in earnest that any soft tissue should remain in 70 million years or older? That's unheard of. Therefore, is it possible that T-Rex did not die out 70 mya?
"A Tyrannosaurus rex fossil has yielded what appear to be the only preserved soft tissues ever recovered from a dinosaur. Taken from a 70-million-year-old thighbone, the structures look like the blood vessels, cells, and proteins involved in bone formation.
Most fossils preserve an organism's hard tissues, such as shell or bone. Finding preserved soft tissue is unheard of in a dinosaur-age specimen. o my knowledge, preservation to this extent”where you still have original flexibility and transparency”has not been noted in dinosaurs before, so we're pretty excited by the find," said Mary H. Schweitzer, a paleontologist at North Carolina State University in Raleigh.
The findings may provide new insights into dinosaur evolution, physiology, and biochemistry. They could also increase our understanding of extinct life and change how scientists think about the fossilization process.
"Finding these tissues in dinosaurs changes the way we think about fossilization, because our theories of how fossils are preserved don't allow for this [soft-tissue preservation]," Schweitzer said."
National Geographic
I gave you a link and quoted a BBC article in which two scientists associated with the discovery were interviewed. Their responses make it clear that the discovery poses no problems for time scales or evolutionary theory. You have ignored that post.
I didn't see it. I've been answering questions in sequential order, except for those that overly redundant. I'll go back and look for the article and address those points.
I submit that it is NJ who is 'keeping things quiet' because the facts undermine his pet ideas.
I work for secret evolution taskforce at the NSA. I have to keep queit about certain things..... Damn, I just blew my cover!

“"All science, even the divine science, is a sublime detective story. Only it is not set to detect why a man is dead; but the darker secret of why he is alive." ”G. K. Chesterton

This message is a reply to:
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Admin
Director
Posts: 12998
From: EvC Forum
Joined: 06-14-2002
Member Rating: 2.3


Message 68 of 124 (345999)
09-02-2006 10:35 AM
Reply to: Message 64 by Dr Adequate
09-02-2006 10:23 AM


Wow!
Hi Dr Adequate!
I'm interpreting your response as a request for a short vacation. See you tomorrow.

--Percy
EvC Forum Director

This message is a reply to:
 Message 64 by Dr Adequate, posted 09-02-2006 10:23 AM Dr Adequate has not replied

  
RAZD
Member (Idle past 1405 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 69 of 124 (346011)
09-02-2006 11:10 AM
Reply to: Message 6 by anglagard
09-01-2006 1:01 AM


Re: Another Untrue Assertion -- or three
This assertion, that most biologists believe mammals did not exist along with dinosaurs, is false ...
... may have been much different than is commonly understood as the Age of Dinosaurs -- a time dominated by long-necked, 85-ton plant-eaters and the emergence of terrifying hunters with bladelike teeth and sickle claws.
We also know that the age of dinosaurs was not all large beasts, that there were many many small dinosaurs, so this is another strawman argument sensationalism type news fluff.
It contradicts conventional evolutionary theory ...
Oh flubber. This is only a 'theory' in the weakest usage of the term, as a hypothesis and the rest of the assertion is more hyperbole than part of a scientific theory. The size of the mammals has nothing to do with their diet, the diet of the known small mammals was based on their physiology.
Sheesh. News.

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Hyroglyphx
Inactive Member


Message 70 of 124 (346012)
09-02-2006 11:11 AM
Reply to: Message 31 by Quetzal
09-01-2006 3:13 PM


Re: Yet More Untruths
I think this belongs in a new thread. Especially 'cause the list lumps a ton of utterly different and unrelated things together.
Somebody asked me to provide a list of similar arguments that tend to undermine previous beliefs concerning the ToE. That's what I did.
First three are flat wrong, the third is misinterpreted, none of the frauds (except Piltdown), were in fact frauds, and Haeckel has been done to death. Open a thread, give some narrative to the claims, and I'll be happy to blow them out of the water for your edification.
okay.

“"All science, even the divine science, is a sublime detective story. Only it is not set to detect why a man is dead; but the darker secret of why he is alive." ”G. K. Chesterton

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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Chiroptera
Inactive Member


Message 71 of 124 (346026)
09-02-2006 12:41 PM
Reply to: Message 43 by Hyroglyphx
09-01-2006 11:43 PM


Re: Herbivores
Percy has already written a decent reply to this question, but I will simply repeat my question:
So what? For decades, all the known fossils of Mesozoic mammals were very small so the reasonable (but tentative!) conclusion is that perhaps all the mammals that existed during the Mesozoic were small.
Now fossils have been discovered of larger mammals. So now we know that the Mesozoic ecology of mammals is more complex than was thought previously. Just like in any other field of science, new discoveries shed new light, and science marches on.

"The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one." -- George Bernard Shaw

This message is a reply to:
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Archer Opteryx
Member (Idle past 3598 days)
Posts: 1811
From: East Asia
Joined: 08-16-2006


Message 72 of 124 (346035)
09-02-2006 1:31 PM
Reply to: Message 71 by Chiroptera
09-02-2006 12:41 PM


Mesozoic mammals
Anybody have a size report for this beastie?
Just a moment...
Castorocauda lutrasimilis, semi-aquatic, Middle Jurassic.
Edited by Archer Opterix, : Attempted graphics link.

Archer
All species are transitional.

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Replies to this message:
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 Message 76 by anglagard, posted 09-02-2006 1:46 PM Archer Opteryx has replied
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nwr
Member
Posts: 6408
From: Geneva, Illinois
Joined: 08-08-2005
Member Rating: 5.1


Message 73 of 124 (346036)
09-02-2006 1:34 PM
Reply to: Message 66 by Percy
09-02-2006 10:33 AM


What's really important, and this has already been said a number of times in this thread, is that our interpretation of the evolutionary history of life on this planet will change as new evidence is discovered.
This thread has helped to bring out the confusion between ToE, and the history of life. And it is the history of life that mainly upsets creationists. I think they could actually accept ToE, as long as they could claim that there was additionally a special creation event -- they have, after all, coopted ToE to try to explain away the problems of the flood story. However, the documented history of life clearly contradicts their dearly held beliefs.

This message is a reply to:
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anglagard
Member (Idle past 837 days)
Posts: 2339
From: Socorro, New Mexico USA
Joined: 03-18-2006


Message 74 of 124 (346038)
09-02-2006 1:40 PM
Reply to: Message 72 by Archer Opteryx
09-02-2006 1:31 PM


Re: Mesozoic mammals
This source claims up to a meter in length for at least some cretaceous mammals. Will check further.
http://www.fossilmuseum.net/...Paleobiology/Castorocauda.htm

This message is a reply to:
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Quetzal
Member (Idle past 5872 days)
Posts: 3228
Joined: 01-09-2002


Message 75 of 124 (346042)
09-02-2006 1:44 PM
Reply to: Message 50 by Hyroglyphx
09-02-2006 1:37 AM


Re: Tempest in a Teaspoon
Hi NJ,
A lot of people have responded here, but since you answered me, I guess I owe you a bit of explanation.
Yes. And did you not get the memo that mammals were supposed to be no more than 5 inches and herbivores?
Missed that one. I'm usually the last to get those memos. AFAIK, most of the early mammals were (until the last few years or so) thought to be insectivores - based on the fossils that had been found. However, there have been a few Laurasian mammals that have been larger (for example, Kollikodon).
Why only Laurasian as opposed Gondwanan as well?
Because up until fairly recently, most of the best examples of Mesozoic mammals - especially the really basal ones - have been from Laurasia. We don't have much of a fossil record from really early Gondwanan mammals.
Well, I'd sure hate to diminish my well-liked but mostly wrong stature here on EvC. How do I sound like Randman? I really don't see much of him so I don't know what his arguments entail. Does he have piss-poor arguments or something?
You're an excellent writer. Randman is, as well. However, his stock in trade is to do exactly what you have done on this thread: come up with an article (usually popsci) that provides some kind of new data, then proclaim that the article refutes the ToE. Then he spends a 300-post thread denying everything anyone says that either refutes his point or shows that the article was merely discussing some new find that actually advances our understanding, rather than destroying it. I'd hate to see you fall into that trap - I generally enjoy your posts (even though I generally don't agree with them).

This message is a reply to:
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