Dinosaurs and man lived together, which destroys the theory of evolution

Buz, But science doesn't now. Under the modern cladistic classification system there is no such thing as a reptile!A "reptile" is a collection of features that shoehorns organisms together into a subjective man-made class. Cladistics is an objective system that places no such limitations on itself. When organisms have their characters stochastically studied in this way reptiles as a man made subjective class vanish, & birds are placed firmly in the dinosaurian therapod clade.Even under the linnaean system that you use, birds are far more morphologically similar to dinosaurian therapod reptiles than crocs, & vice versa.Ergo, your hypothesis is contradicted by evidence. In claiming that dinosaurs are closer to other reptiles than birds, you are ignoring a mass of evidence that places birds far, far closer to a specific group of extinct reptiles than that group of extinct reptiles are are to extant reptiles (under the linnaean sytem).Mark

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There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't

It's fine if your belief that dinosaurs and man were contempories derives from religious sources. But you'd be wrong if you think there's any evidence of a scientific nature for this belief. The first step of the scientific method is to gather information through experiment and/or observation so that you can form a hypothesis. Because your proposal ignores rather than gathers information, it doesn't actually qualify as hypothesis, nor as science.The evidence we have in hand would not lead to a hypothesis that the most recent common ancestor of birds and dinosaurs was a reptile. You have to either propose a hypothesis consistent with the evidence, or you have to explain how the evidence should be reinterpreted to support your hypothesis. Even if Genesis were right, it doesn't constitute evidence. If you'd learned anything in all your time here you'd think it would be that you need evidence to support your position.Unless you understand that your hypothesis derives from religious beliefs rather than evidence, what you've done is put yourself right back where you always put yourself: proposing a hypothesis contrary to evidence, then arguing irrationally and ad nauseam that your hypothesis *is too* valid.--Percy

I learned that reptilia was a class of vertebrae that included the orders that contain turtles, lizards and crocodiles. What did it change to, and is there general agreement about this?--Percy

I'm no expert but it seems to me that the Tree of Life project (Tree of Life Web Project) uses cladistic taxonomy and does include ReptiliaAmniotaHowever I'm sure that the old taxonomy included some of the Synapsids under Reptilia - as "mammal-like reptiles" so at the least the taxonomy has been significantly revised in that respect.Of course the taxonomic problem is just one of the major problems with Buz's "hypothesis" and even Buz's reading of the Bible doesn't offer any real support. The only good thing about this thread is that if Buz ever claims that he always carefully checks his facts again we have conclusive proof that he doesn't.

Percy,Reptilia is a class of organisms under the Linnaean classification system, which included the dinosaurs. The newer cladistic classification system only allows the naming of monophyletic groups, that is, a node, & everything above it becomes a part of that named group. The problem is that the earliest "reptiles" were the ancestors of all mammals & birds as well as all extant reptiles, so naming the Linnaean notion of reptiles means all birds & mammals are reptiles to. This isn't such a bad thing, if you think about it, it's only a name, after all, but the clade was named "amniote", a name I'm sure you have heard before.Reptiles are what is known in cladistic terms as a paraphyletic group. That is, a group in which not all descendents are considered a part of that group (if they were it would be a monophyletic group). Cladistically speaking, the old Linnaean reptiles are best spoken of in their own specific monophyletic clades, testudines (turtles) crocodiliomorphs, dinosauria, etc. Whatever the most inclusive clade is. The instant you try & include all of them in a monophyletic clade you also include mammals & birds, & that group already has a name, amniota.Hope that makes sense. I'll try & dig out a diagram if you'd like further clarification. A picture paints a thousand words!

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There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't

. double postThis message has been edited by mark24, 10-27-2004 12:58 PM

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There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't

Right, and the Earth was "traditionally" thought to be a flat surface that you could fall off the edge of...Just like "dinosaur" literally means "terrible lizard", "orangatuan" literally means "man of the forest". Does the "traditional" view of the orangatuan serve as evidence that man and orangatuan are evolutionary brothers? I guess this was what I was trying to get at in my previous message. Why are we discussing this, exactly? Your "hypothesis" relies entirely on "God did it", and so no evidence can confirm or falsify it.The scientific evidence is against your "hypothesis" - I don't think you've come up with a single legitimate piece of scientific evidence to support it (correct me if I'm wrong). You've rather based it on your interpretation of the Bible, faith, and speculation, (which is fine if that is your personal choice), but you seem insistent to dress it up in the trappings of science.What is the endpoint that you see from this discussion?

We are discussing this exactly because when I presented my "hypothesis" that God did it I was drawn into this by members of the board who wanted to discuss it. If I do I be damned and if I don't I be damned. I get all kinds of heck by my counterparts and admin here in town if I don't respond to stuff when it comes at me, like I'm the alleged town guy that abandons threads and doesn't answer stuff, in case you're not aware.

The newest version of the software, to be released sometime this fall, prevents double posts.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

Which is too bad... I'm willing to call a stalemate between faith and science at this point without "damning" you.

Thanks very much, my friend. You have impressed me, as we have dialogued, as a fair and balanced counterpart. May God bless you for that.

I don't know how widespread the flat earth notion was. I think most apprised folks knew better, simply by watching the dawn and dusk in the mornings and evenings, as well as watching a vessel go over the horizon at sea, etc. The prophet Isaiah wrote of the "circle of the earth." I understand that, in Hebrew, can mean either a sphere or a 2 dimensional circle.Likely orangutan got that "man of the forest" label from the primitive natives of the jungle who lived among them whereas dinosaurs have long been regarded as extinct reptilian animals. My dictionary calls dinosaurs "any of a group of extinct reptiles of the Mesozoic Era, with four limbs and a long, tapering tail." (Both those whatchumaycallits, most folks call extant reptile, and bird have four limbs, but only whatchumaycallits, most folks call extant reptiles, have long tapering tails.)I really don't know what to call those extant things that resemble dinos in appearance, now that them and birds are both reptiles. (I never dreamed such a revisionist generation could possibly emerge in society.) First it was history and math and now it's science they're messing with. I tell ya, it's a shocker for us old folksies! This message has been edited by buzsaw, 10-27-2004 10:58 PM

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The immeasurable present is forever consuming the eternal future and extending the infinite past. buz

Well, math is the same math it's always been. I can't speak to history, having no interest in it. (Probably doomed to repeat it, or something.)But given that science has always been the process where we refine our knowledge in the light of new data, you shouldn't have been surprised to find out that what was once thought to be so - dinosaurs were reptiles - might be subject to revision. We have, in your lifetime, learned staggering amounts of information that led us to believe that, not only were we in error to classify dinosaurs as "reptiles", we were in error to classify anything as reptiles. It turned out that we were grouping animals together that had only superficial similarity, rather than any legitimate exclusive nature.Some of the organisms we classified as "reptiles" don't really belong in the same group as some of the other organisms we threw in there. The term "reptile", now, says nothing about relationship or ancestry. Much as if I had a group of Red Sox fans - the fact that I had put them all in one group says absolutely nothing about their being related to each other, and it would be a mistake to pick one of them out and say that, because he's a Sox fan, his grandfather must have been, too, or his son.I'm sorry it comes as a shock to you to learn that there's no inherent reptile "nature", or that organisms we used to think were reptiles turned out not to be. But given the nature of science, why did you think this particular claim was immune?