The Earliest Known Dino? 69
sciencehabit writes "A team of paleontologists thinks it may have identified the earliest known dinosaur — a creature no bigger than a Labrador retriever that lived about 243 million years ago. That's at least 10 million years earlier than the oldest known dinos and could change researchers' views of how they evolved. But some scientists, including the study's authors, caution that the fossils could instead represent a close dino relative."
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You're an idiot.
The reason all the dinosaurs are embedded in layers of sediment is because of the great flood (you know, the one that noah saved all the animals from by putting them on the ark) which killed all the dinos and then layered them in dirt and mud kicked up by the flood. This didnt happen slowly over millions of years but in 40 days during the rains and flooding.
And don't give me carbon dating or any other dating method because they vary so much from each other that they prove the world is only
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You forgot the best one of all... earth was blinked into existence with an old earth history baked right in. A little misdirection to tempt us. I suppose that's because we need to keep religion on a faith basis, or there'd be no challenge on which to judge us later.
There's got to be a judgement, after all. There's obviously not enough space in Heaven for all of us, so there needs to be a cosmic coin flip to divide the herd between luxury resort and lakes of fire.
Makes sense, right?
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How can this be when the world is only 6000 years old? Hahahahahah I make myself laugh. No this is cool, lets clone it and get our dino bbq on.
Don't you know Satan has been planting false evidence, just to mess with your mind ?
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Re:Hmmmm? (Score:4, Funny)
Ok, this one always makes me laugh.
Since God (should he exist) is omnicient, omnipresent, and omnipotent, why does Satan have all this power if God doesn't let him?
Answer, please, if you can.
The god of the old testament especially seems like a petulant kid running his own "Sims Universe" like this guy:
"Hey, let's convince Abraham to kill his kid. It'll be hilarious!"
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BMO
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Even if the ones suffering deserve it?
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How would I know, I'm not omniscient.
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God does now willingly greive or afflict the children of men. don't colour Him bad.
He is the Lord, the Lord, merciful, compassionate, abounding in steadfast love and grace.
IOW, sit down and shut up.
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I'm an atheist, but I can tell you what my parents believe...
To summarize: God gave Satan power as he did all angels. He did remove some power, however, by banishing him to the earth. He isn't just killing him off because he is giving him an opportunity to learn for himself that God is good... And this also is a convenient way he can test the faith of man without bothering his conscience. He's set a time limit where enough is enough, at which point he'll put an end to it.
Again, not my beliefs.
Never mind all the people who spend an eternity being tortured in Hell because of this little experiment.
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God is a hermaphrodite?
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I bet paleontologists would be pissed that Slashdot uses their interesting scientific findings as a soapbox for religion trolling.
I bet they're glad we do it here instead of on their blogs.
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From what I know of our universe, it seems a great assumption to expect everything
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Well yeah, we could all just be brains in jars or some equivalent.
And it's possible that the universe was created 6000 years ago with photons placed as if they had travelled 13 billion years already. But once you've done the basic philosophy, why bother even considering it. There's no evidence for it and it doesn't have any predictive power and there isn't anything philosophically interesting that hasn't been covered much better elsewhere.
So yeah, while it's very hypothetic
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Firstly, I don't even know what you mean by a "fanatical atheist".
I think he's referring to an antitheists. Those guys want to rid the world of all religions, and they are indeed fanatical about it. And since there's no evidence that you've seen, the only logical choice is agnosticism.
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And since there's no evidence that you've seen, the only logical choice is agnosticism.
No, the only logical choice is atheism. Allow me to elaborate:
If the only logical choice was agnosticism, than I should be agnostic about every single hypothetical thing that anyone has ever come up with.
I should equally well be agnostic about the existence of Thor, Zeus, Anubis, Marduk and so on.
I feel entirely happy stating unequivocally that there isn't a large humanoid deity who fights ice giants with a large magical
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In Tolkein's words, "Memory became history. History became legend. Legend became myth." Thor was the cave man who invented the hammer. His hammer made him a god. The polytheistic gods did indeed exist; they were merely superhuman for their times.
Once God reveals himself to you, you can no longer be agnostic.
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Firstly, I don't even know what you mean by a "fanatical atheist".
I think he's referring to an antitheists. Those guys want to rid the world of all religions, and they are indeed fanatical about it.
Wonder what he calls people who want to rid the world of all religions except their own.
And since there's no evidence that you've seen, the only logical choice is agnosticism.
Do you apply that rule to all unfounded claims? FSM? Russell's Teapot? Irish mythology? Wrath of Khan is a true story?
Doesn't actually sound like a very logical choice to me.
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Do you apply that rule to all unfounded claims?
Unfounded claims reported by thousands of witnesses, yes.
Re:Hmmmm? (Score:4, Insightful)
Article about dinosaur bones.
Comments about science? Paleontology? Dinosaurs? Not one.
Rants about creationism and insults to theists? Forty. ...I thought this was a science and tech site, not one dedicated to the analysis and criticism of religion. Apparently I was wrong.
You guys are more obsessed with creationism than the creationists.
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Hi. Your name comes up a lot in these discussions. I mean, I don't memorize people's slashdot ids - at one point I even forgot my own - but yours does ring a bell. I'm sorry if I offended you.
I'm really not ranting; I'm just saying that for a sci/tech news site, people here certainly are awfully concerned with lambasting religion, which is usually classified as neither science nor tech. It's just...weird. If people were knowledgeable scientists or science enthusiasts, I would expect more comments about
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Well, you might have some false memories. The only religious wars I did participate in until now were related to Linux vs. other OSes or Android vs. iOS etc.
Actually my answer was somewhat poor attempt at humor - you ranted about a discussion completely unrelated to the original subject, so I answered with a post completely unrelated to yours. Never mind.
But I do think that all religions and deities are stupid and bad for humankind (or in slightly unscientific terms - they suck), and I'm not afraid to offen
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Given the fact that we have people on the House Science Committee who are active bible thumpers and science deniers, you have to ask whether bashing theists is deserved or not.
I think it is.
After the thousandth time you're told you're going to Hell because you don't believe in the 6000 year old universe, it's time to bash back. Religious nutters are dangerous. The only difference between the Taliban and Dominionists is which twisted interpretation of a phrase of whatever prophet of the Abrahamic God tells
Re:Hmmmm? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not even trying to touch on the issue of fundamentalism, endorsing it or countering it. Maybe fundamentalism in America needs to be countered, maybe not. I don't even mean to remark on that. As far as congressional committees go, I think you are giving the US too much credit. Give it a couple hundred years and this country won't even exist any more. My point was more about how useless Slashdot is becoming with regard to these sorts of articles.
I'm just saying, this is a sci/tech news site. I'd like it if my time spent reading comments added to my knowledge of the topic. Instead, that time doesn't give me any new topical knowledge. It just adds to my knowledge of the fact that yes, the majority of Slashdot members are quite hateful and condemning people, and truly despise religion and everyone who takes value from it.
You say something interesting,
After the thousandth time you're told you're going to Hell....it's time to bash back.
So, you're hitting them because someone - maybe a parent, or a former pastor - bashed you "for the thousandth time." I'm sorry you were hurt by someone telling you that you were going to Hell. Probably wasn't the best way to approach the situation. But bashing back isn't really the way to go. Everyone from Jesus to John Stuart Mill would agree on that. It's petty.
Moreover, ranting on Slashdot isn't bashing creationists. It's more like *trying* to hit a creationist and instead swiping at thin air. The creationists are in Southern Baptist churches, not on Slashdot. I'd bet that less than 0.1% of Slashdot readers are YECs...so ranting about how wrong you think YEC is on this site is (pardon the religious idiom) preaching to the choir. It's pointless. I'd like to read science instead of spending time scrolling across a bunch of people who already all believe, with all their heart, the same thing, and sit around telling one another how right that belief is, when they all already agree. I don't know of any "Christian Warriors" who are going to be reached by picking on creationism here.
I could direct myself to several sites which are dedicated to ridiculing Christianity. There are tons of those sites, and they're easy to find. Instead, I come to a tech news site. I just wish the comments would discuss tech news instead of how silly they think religion is, in keeping with the whole point of why Slashdot exists.
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Maybe if you weren't so condescending I'd take you seriously.
Lastly, Jesus thought that flipping tables was an option.
Bye.
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BMO
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Man, I wish Slashdot had a private messaging system. Condescending how?
Birds and dinosaurs (Score:2)
The absolute definition of a dinosaur, when we now consider most of them to be birds, seems to be pointless - They used to be reptiles, or others.
What I'm guessing this find is an early reptile, it's happened before... I may be way off base though.
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The absolute definition of a dinosaur, when we now consider most of them to be birds, seems to be pointless
Yes and no. It's no more useless than "fish", for exactly the same reasons.
Polyphyletic classes FTW.
Re:Birds and dinosaurs (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Birds and dinosaurs (Score:4, Informative)
So the question for this reconstructed animal is not so much if it fits a morphological definition of a dinosaur, but rather if the last common ancestor of this animal and a bird was living later than the last common ancestor of birds and crocodiles. If yes, then it would put it definitely into dinosaur territory, being either an early dinosaur or a member of one of the sister groups of early dinosaurs. If no, it might still be an archosaur, closer related to recent birds and crocodiles than to other lizards and snakes.
Re:Birds and dinosaurs (Score:4, Interesting)
"Reptiles" is a paraphyletic group, and is no longer used.
Well, that's a little harsh. It's widely understood what it means, and is easier to say than non mamallian, non avian amniotes. :)
It's no worse than fish, which would include all vertibrates, and possibly hagfish too, depending on how you feel about it. (Though to my mind, "is a hagfish a fish" is up there with "is pluto a planet".)
Perhaps they're not used all that much when one is working in the taxonomy/classification literature, bit I've definitely heard cell biologists claim they work with fish instead of mice.
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Earliest Dino? (Score:2, Funny)
The PDF is available for free (Score:3)
The open access model would like to say "you're welcome".
Kind of obvious (Score:1)
The earliest known dinosaur — a creature no bigger than a Labrador retriever [polyvore.com][...].
T-Rex closer to us than Stegosaurus (Score:1)
I saw something recently that made me have to do some Wiki'ing.
Stegosaurus lived around 150 to 155 million years ago.
T-Rex lived 67 to 65 years ago.
This means that we live closer to T-Rex than T-Rex lived to Stegosaurus. Crazy eh?
How did I ever guess (Score:1)
that this would turn into a troll thread rather a rational discussion of one of the greatest paleontological finds? Sad that so many 'open minded' people are as bigoted && mean spirited as they perceive others to be.
It is exciting to me to have any new scientific discovery of this magnitude. Hopefully, this will lead to the further study of earlier finds to push the veil back even further on the predecessors of these fossils.
And to explode the minds of the trolls, I confess that I'm an orthodox Chr
Misread as "Dildo" (Score:1)
Nevermind.