Alberta Scientists Discover Largest-Ever Cache of Dinosaur Bones 154
Cryolithic writes "The largest cache of dinosaur bones ever found has been unearthed in Alberta. From the article: '... officials at the Royal Tyrrell Museum say the Hilda site provides the first solid evidence that some horned dinosaur herds were much larger than previously thought, with numbers comfortably in the high hundreds to low thousands. ... Rather than picturing the animals as drowning while crossing a river, a classic scenario that has been used to explain bonebed occurrences at many sites in Alberta, the research team interpreted the vast coastal landscape as being submerged during tropical storms or hurricanes. With no high ground to escape to, most of the members of the herd drowned in the rising coastal waters. Carcasses were deposited in clumps across kilometers of ancient landscape as floodwaters receded.'"
Re:It's not what it would seem. (Score:3, Informative)
I was quoting the stand-up comedian Bill Hicks making fun of people who think the earth is not as old as scientists claim. Here's part of a transcript leading up to that quote:
"Fundamentalist Christianity - fascinating. These people actually believe that the bi.., er, the world is 12 thousand years old. Swear to God. What the..? Based on what? I asked them. "Well we looked at all the people in the Bible and we added 'em up all the way back to Adam and Eve, their ages - 12 thousand years." Well how fucking scientific, okay. I didn't know that you'd gone to so much trouble. That's good. You believe the world's 12 thousand years old? "That's right." Okay I got one word to ask you, a one word question, ready? "uh huh." Dinosaurs."
There's plenty of funny (and/or offensive) Bill Hicks clips on youtube.
They died in 'a' great flood, not The Great Flood (Score:3, Informative)
The religious have always managed to adapt their pet mythologies to the evidence of the day. Scientists avoid sounding like creationists in front of their colleagues by following the evidence, rather than exclaiming "GODIDIT!", rolling around on the floor, and speaking in tongues. Nice try, tho.
Re:It's not what it would seem. (Score:5, Informative)
I'm about 99% certain you were doing that for the lolz and you're not some bible-thumping-hick, but regardless I'm going to go ahead and troll a response that is related to the article.
First and foremost, I'm going to have to say that the Royal Tyrrell Museum is quite possibly the most badass museum on the face of the planet. Let me go ahead and also go out on a limb and say that Drumheller (the city/town in which the Royal Tyrell Museum resides) would probably be the best place for a kid to grow up. Do a google image search if you don't believe me, but the town is literally littered with dinosaur tourist traps. Dinosaurs everywhere. It's not uncommon for people to go on random excursions and find a dinosaur bone or two sticking out of the hills, which have ever-shifting mud and dirt being in the badlands region that they are. I grew up in Calgary so I was about an hour and a half away from Drumheller, but I still don't think I go there often enough, even though I go at least once a summer.
So, to say that the biggest cache of dinosaur bones found in Alberta does not at all strike me surprised. I think we probably held the previous 3 records as well. Even in the mountain ranges people find dinosaur bones, which always kind of struck me as odd, but I guess it suggests how young some mountains really are. You may have heard of these fossilized things called ammonites [fossilmuseum.net] - they are pretty common in mountain ranges all over the world. Old reminents of ancient sea life. However, only in this certain region in Alberta do they get this rainbowy colour. I found it kind of interesting. Alberta is also known for its Oilsands, one of Canada's sources for oil nowawdays, and if I had to venture a guess, its because we had lots and lots of dinosaurs.
In response to the whole "test our faith" - anyone who believes that HAS to go to the Tyrell Museum. They have set up an amazing display of how we've actually linked the timeline. Aside from the first exhibit, which is sort of their "Prize displays" - everything is in chronological order. You go back hundreds of millions of years and see some of the marine life fossils, then you work your way into dinosaurs, mix in marine reptiles every now and then, then you get a mix of neanderthals and ice age and tribal stages of life, working into today.
All in all, by the end of it, if you don't believe in dinosaurs, you've managed to ignore rock solid (pun intended) evidence presented to you before your eyes.
Re:They died in 'a' great flood, not The Great Flo (Score:1, Informative)
What disproves [...] the idea that there was a global flood? Because it seems like a lot of fossils are created during "great floods." Nobody seems to ever even suggest the idea that there was a global flood... every other idea is proposed (numerous "great floods," meteors hitting the earth, etc) but why is a global flood not proposed?
Because there simply isn't enough fucking water on the planet?
Re:It's not what it would seem. (Score:4, Informative)
Point is, if you make a square from Jasper to Medicine Hat, there are bones all the way through there.
One of their prize exhibits, The Black beauty, was found all the way out by crowsnest pass.
Re:They died in 'a' great flood, not The Great Flo (Score:5, Informative)
I'll bite. What disproves - not Biblically speaking, but just the simple idea - the idea that there was a global flood? Because it seems like a lot of fossils are created during "great floods." Nobody seems to ever even suggest the idea that there was a global flood... every other idea is proposed (numerous "great floods," meteors hitting the earth, etc) but why is a global flood not proposed?
Many different reasons:
First, there's not enough water on Earth. So if it did occur, where did the other water go?
Second, we don't see in the geological record evidence for a flood all at the same point in history. We see at different levels in the geologic column floods in different locations and some with no floods at all. If there were a global flood we'd see a universally dated flood (much as we see a universal iridium layer at the major asteroid impact 65 million years ago). This by itself should be enough.
Third, and related to the above, we don't see any global die off that is closely connected to flood deposits.
Fourth, we don't see the genetic bottlenecking that would have wiped out that many species. The genetic diversity of many species shows us that a global flood could not have occurred in the last 50,000 years at least, on genetic evidence alone.
So the upshot? No global flood in the last 50,000 years just by easy genetic evidence. No global flood at all given lack of water. No global flood at all based on the geologic columns. If it turned out there had been a global flood anytime in the last billion years, we'd have to be so wrong about so much of basic science that it is difficult to find a good analogy for how wrong we'd have to be. We'd have to be about as wrong as it turning out that Julius Caesar never existed.