Some Large Dinosaurs Survived the K-T Extinction 269
mmmscience sends along coverage from the Examiner on evidence that some dinosaurs survived the extinction event(s) at the end of the Cretaceous period. Here is the original journal article. "A US paleontologist is challenging one of the field's greatest theories: the mass extinction of dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous period. Jim Fassett, a paleontologist who holds an emeritus position at the US Geological Survey, recently published a paper in Palaeontologia Electronica with evidence that points to a pocket of dinosaurs that somehow survived in remote parts New Mexico and Colorado for up to half a million years past the end of the Cretaceous period. If this theory holds up, these dinosaurs would be the only ones that made it to the Paleocene Age."
I keep dinosaurs in my garden (Score:5, Insightful)
But of course (Score:5, Insightful)
"some dinosaurs survived the extinction event(s)"
If some dinosaurs hadn't survived it/them, we wouldn't have birds.
Re:Cavemen? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, but the good news is modern technology has brought the internet into our caves and in the time it takes to post this comment another 2 "Cave chicks go Rex riding" websites will have been created.
As for TFA, interesting but only just outside the uranium dating error bars and no mention of the error margin in the strike date ~65mya. No mention of a KT boundry at the site that is clearly below the fossils. There is very strong evidence that insects were wiped out across the Americas for over a million years, so I think a bit more extrodinary evidence is required to belive a band of dinosours somehow survived in a "lost valley".
Re:Surprising? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm also intrigued by the fact that these specimens were found in Colorado/New Mexico, which is pretty darn close to the best impact site candidate. I'd expect any animals that survived to be much further away.
I suppose its possible that they migrated there from further away. I wonder if the impact created opportunities for animals further away to move towards the impact site, similar to the way floods can improve the fertility of soil.
Re:But of course (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, evolution should be taught like evolution.
Simple concepts first, when they are young.
More complex concepts later, when they are older.
But definitely, teach them simple concepts.
You don't start sex-ed by teaching them about the Stork bringing children. You tell them that when a mammy and daddy love each other very much, and want to have a baby, they hug in a very special way...
Re:Cavemen? (Score:5, Insightful)
There is very strong evidence that insects were wiped out across the Americas for over a million years, so I think a bit more extrodinary evidence is required to belive a band of dinosours somehow survived in a "lost valley".
More evidence is always good, but once you actually start to think about it, "a small population of some dinosaurs survived in remote areas until it eventually petered out" is actually more plausible than "every single last dinosaur died at once in a gigantic catastrophe that nevertheless was not large enough to affect other animals such as mammals to the same extent".
Many kinds of animals survived, after all. Why shouldn't dinosaurs have, too? I'm certainly not saying they must have, but just on the face of things, it seems more likely that their extinction was gradual and drawn-out over a long period of time. (And yes, I know the K-T extinction is not thought to have happened in the blink of an eye, anyway, but you know what I mean.)
Re:Cavemen? (Score:5, Insightful)
Basically, size. The dinosaurs were all largeish - turkey-sized or bigger - with the exception of thos who seem to have evolved into birds, and may have been much smaller because of the nifty invention of feathers. The only mammals at the time were small, shrew-like animals. It is not unreasonable to think that small beasts could survive, scavenging of the dead big beasts, where big beasts could not.
Some things are just untouchable by parody... (Score:5, Insightful)
Holy shit, batman. I thought you were joking. It turns out it was reality tickling my funny-bone.
I especially "like" the quote "Emphasis on scientific evidence supporting: [...]". They're saying up-front "we're here to give you a skewed and biased impression of how the real world works, independent of whether the real world supports our biases".
I can rephrase their bulleted list, too:
"For 45 years(1), we've been spamming the whole world(3), sullying the name of all major sciences(4) and cheating quality control systems(2) in order to convert you to our preconceived notions(6)."
("(n)" refers to the nth bullet)
Wait a second... (Score:3, Insightful)
If you live through a bomb blast but die 3 days later because of shrapnel in you liver, did you really survive the bomb blast?
Re:cautionary notes from a paleo geek (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:not a troll (Score:3, Insightful)
I wasn't trying to indicate HOW you should teach sex-ed to very young children.
If anything I was making the same point you were trying to make, that lying to them at an early age is a bad idea. (I used the Stork to represent that position in my post.)
The point was to use simple concepts first, then get more complex over time.
I suspect you were flagged as a Troll because you seem to have deliberately missed the point of the post, and snarkily decided that "hugging in a special way" would not be suitable as a first idea for children about where kids come from.
I realise now that in future, all hypothetical examples that I create to illustrate a point, should be accurate, factually based, preferably with all the physics worked out. And of course, meet with your pre-approval.
Re:Cavemen? (Score:4, Insightful)
To find a bunch of dinosaurs that survived what the entire insect population could not, is an extrodinary claim. However I don't think the scientists themselves are explicitly making this claim, I think they are just reporting their evidence and asking "how could this be?".
Re:Other findings. (Score:3, Insightful)
And they pointed out that lots of frog species seemed to survive pretty easily even though they are very sensitive to acid rain, forest fires and other such things that would have happened if the K-T impact was the primary explanation of extinction.
We know from relatively solid physical evidence what the size and composition of the KT impact object was. We know its effects were world-wide, and we know those effects would have caused acid rain, forest fires, etc.
What we do not know is how the world-wide frog population would have responded to such an event. We don't even know why the frog population is in decline worldwide today.
To hold up the survival of frogs, whose biology is complex and whose interaction with and response to extreme environments is very poorly understood, as a counter-argument against the preponderance of relatively simple physical evidence of world-wide effects from a large impact event is an extremely weak rhetorical move, which looks to me more like misdirection than actual argument.
Re:But of course (Score:3, Insightful)
Thinking back to my school years, I learnt about Newtonian physics before I learnt about special relativity. Was that wrong? Certainly not.
Well, sticking with the example at hand; Newtonian physics work in every case the average person will ever encounter. But telling children a "special hug" can result in children can only cause confusion. Next thing you know they'll be afraid to hug their hairy-nosed uncle. While the person who constructed the example has attempted to defend his poorly-chosen example [slashdot.org] it is a particularly excellent example of the kind of thing we're talking about here, so I'm going to stick with it. Besides, I don't believe him anyway.
Oversimplifying things for children is fine. Just don't tell them things that are outright *false* (such as the stork in the above example);
The hug is no less false than the stork. You don't even have to be face to face to make a baby. You (and the OP) are attempting to create a distinction between falsehoods which does not exist, which was the very point of my comment to begin with. He accuses me of missing the point in his comment; it is clear that you both have missed the point of mine.
and also, once they reach a certain age, make sure they understand that they ARE getting an oversimplification and why.
Yes, I agree. That age is birth. More literally, when they are old enough to be asking you questions, they are old enough to be told that they are being given enough information for the time being. If you are not going to tell them the truth, then certainly you should be telling them that you are not telling them the truth.
I don't know what age you think is a good time to stop lying to children, but please allow me to assure you that they are living, thinking creatures even before they can really understand the repercussions of childbirth (you know, sometime around the age of 30 or 40 is when that usually happens — if ever) and if you lie to them you will only hold them back.
Now, I'm not talking about stuff like Santa Claus or Jesus — that's a separate diatribe. I'm talking about real questions with real answers. This is one of those cases. If you're so afraid to tell your children what genitals are for that you have to lie to them about where babies come from, you've probably got some serious fucking problems ahead of you. And speaking of which, have you noticed that teen pregnancy is on the rise in the USA?
Re:Even more in middle management (Score:3, Insightful)
"Bankrupt" is a funny way of spelling "a great candidate for a bailout".
Re:Cavemen? (Score:2, Insightful)
Do you know what 2 week old dead dinosaur smells like? Maybe they could scavenge for awhile but after that I'm sure the mammals would be too disgusted.
Re:Other findings. (Score:5, Insightful)
People want to cling to the K/T extinction being a mystery for some reason. It just isn't anymore.
"There appears to have been some mass extinctions around this time. A huge asteroid impact could cause that. Here's evidence of a huge asteroid impact around that time. Case closed."
It seems that in some branches of science, we accept "plausible" as "proven". Sure there may be some pretty good evidence that an asteroid impact caused mass extinctions, but are there any other explanations? Here's a case where someone points out some data inconsistent with the prevalent theory, and we say, "it doesn't NECESSARILY disprove the theory, so we can ignore it". In other branches of science, we would strive for, "we can ABSOLUTELY explain this data", or we'd have to change or qualify the theory.
Re:Wait a second... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Other findings. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Cavemen? (Score:2, Insightful)
"...so why are you afraid to admit that the biblical account of creation and history might be a better way to explain the evidence presented?"
Because we can't confine God to a box in a laboratory, maybe?
Re:Cavemen? (Score:1, Insightful)