Undermining long-held paradigms

Did you even read the article you linked to? The "dinosaur" was five inches long. The mammal was the size of a cat.

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In this case, the mammal was about the size of a large cat, and the victim was a very young "parrot dinosaur" that measured about 5 inches long.

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Paleontologists have long expressed the opinion that Laurasian mammals in the Cretaceous were both carnivorous and up to the size of cats (see, for example, Arundelconodon).The find is pretty cool - proof positive that all those folks who thought some early mammals were nest-robbers and small predators were right.Not only doesn't the article support any kind of "undermining [of] long-held paradigms", but it doesn't even support what you seem to be claiming for the find itself. Be careful, you're starting to "randman-ize" your arguments - which up to this point, while being mostly wrong, have been at least well thought out.

I think this belongs in a new thread. Especially 'cause the list lumps a ton of utterly different and unrelated things together. 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.Edited by Quetzal, : No reason given.

Hi NJ,A lot of people have responded here, but since you answered me, I guess I owe you a bit of explanation. 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). 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. 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).

I appreciate that. However, in order to show that these examples are more or less bogus, we'd take this particular thread so far off topic that Admin would shoot the lot of us. That's why I suggested a new thread to discuss these specific claims.

Whoo, hoo! Welcome back, Taz. Long time no, erm, read. Hope you'll have some time to post. After you're finished with that one, I urge you to read Douglas Erwin's Extinction: How Life on Earth Nearly Ended 250 Million Years Ago (Princeton Uni Press, 2006). Very up to date on the End Permian mass extinction.

Hi Taz, I, too, have similar conversations with my daughters - and probably over some of the same programs (I'm thinking of the DC's "Walking with Dinosaurs" and "Walking with Prehistoric Beasts" specifically). They are brilliant cinematography, but only tenuously based on science. NJ seems to be convinced that these "re-creations" are representative of what science says about the subject. They quite obviously are not. Behaviors, entegument coloration, vocalizations, etc, are pure speculation. Nonetheless, the pseudodocumentaries are truly a lot of FUN, IMO. One of the ways I've dealt with the "how do they know that?" questions, is to try and guess which modern species the behaviors depicted are designed to represent, for instance. In a lot of cases, the cinematographers are extrapolating based on fossil and paleoecology evidence to "guess" which niche these organisms might have filled. Then they go to the behaviors present in modern organisms filling similar niches, and have their creations manifest on film (or in their computers) the behaviors present in those organisms. Hence, when NJ says:

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...make guesses on what a Dinosaur sounded like, they make assertions on what its temperment was like, what color it was, what it ate, what ate it, etc. They even go so far as to present these reconstructions on whether or not an animal rolls in dung to escape from predators.

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he's absolutely correct - that's exactly what they're doing. However, as you noted, the two things he's missing are:1) Whatever the pseudodocumentary might state or show, it doesn't necessarily reflect our current state of knowledge - and is in fact unscientific extrapolation (based, more or less on real science, however); and2) Regardless of the sophistication of the representation or even its accuracy, this has absolutely nothing to do with the ToE in any way shape or form.Which brings me, sort of roundabout, to the OP: The characterization of a scientific discovery in the popular press - even one usually as good as New Scientist, are often filled with both hyperbole and even distortions of fact. The article referenced in the OP is interesting, but as many have pointed out, actually says absolutely nothing whatsoever about evolution. It would be like me proclaiming the discovery of our new anuran (Hemiphractus yachana) overthrew everything we knew about amphibian diversity simply because no one had ever encountered the critter before. After all, current scientific evidence indicated that the species present in our region was Hemiphractus scutatus, therefore everything we know about amphibians is wrong.