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bad week for creationists

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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 30,746 ✭✭✭✭Galvasean


    Mickeroo wrote: »

    I think I read recently they consider some skeletons complete when they're only 70% or whatever because some bones correspond with others, like left and right legs, so for example if they have a fossilised primate with only one femur they consider it the same as having both as the bones would be more or less identical.

    That seems logical, but I've seen 'complete' skeletons that were missing their heads! :eek:
    I'm guessing they must make assumptions based on related creatures. It didn't work too well for the dinosaur formerly known as Brontosaurus mind. That particular dinosaur had been reconstructed with the wrong head for years.

    Wrong:
    ApatosaurusSkull_small.jpg

    Right:
    apatasaurus_skull_SNOMNH.jpg


  • Administrators, Computer Games Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 32,459 Admin ✭✭✭✭✭Mickeroo


    heh,right i get ya.

    Is the top one not a Brachiosaur?

    The proper name for Brontosaurus is Diplodocus,right?


  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 10,088 Mod ✭✭✭✭marco_polo


    Mickeroo wrote: »

    Guess Rush Limbaugh ended speculation as to whether or not he is a creationist.
    We now officially came from a monkey, 47 million years ago. Well, that’s how it’s being presented here. It’s settled science. You know, this is all BS, as far as I’m concerned. Cross species evolution, I don’t think anybody’s ever proven that.


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 25,558 Mod ✭✭✭✭Dades


    Galvasean wrote: »
    I'm guessing they must make assumptions based on related creatures. It didn't work too well for the dinosaur formerly known as Brontosaurus mind. That particular dinosaur had been reconstructed with the wrong head for years.
    Didn't that happen with the Rhinosaur? :D


    rhinoceros-info1.gif
    triceratops_1.jpg


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,021 ✭✭✭Hivemind187


    Tbh I cant see how this is being over-played at all. It's an awesome thing to be sable to look at a few rocks and ascertain the existance of gigantic lizards from a period before we roamed the earth.

    Christmas gets reported every year, as does easter and various other religious holidays which are little short of a consensual mass lie. Being able to find another component in the map of how we got our opposable thumbs is nothing short of astounding.

    Why the down playing? Shouldnt we be celebrating this in even more hysterics and frenzy we do Christmas? Afterall, this will only happen once ... Jesus is garaunteed a sequel :rolleyes:


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,353 ✭✭✭Goduznt Xzst


    As a fossil, and discovery this is amazing, but the media-hype is out of control. Has it even been proven, under peer review, that this primate is even on the human evolutionary line?

    As far as I've read so far, this is mere speculation that is being heralded as fact by the media who want a sensationalist story. It also seems coincidental that this hype is being generated less than a week before the show "The link" is aired in US and the UK version on the BBC.

    I don't doubt the significance of this discovery and it's possible future worth. But the media are really jumping the gun on this one and I fear it will just give creationists another spanner to throw in the works if the speculations by the researchers do not prove to be true under peer review of the findings.

    BTW, research article here, with hi def images:

    http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0005723

    HD image: (Ida is a lot smaller than I imagined)

    http://www.plosone.org/article/fetchObject.action?uri=info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0005723.g001&representation=PNG_L


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 92 ✭✭cls


    As a fossil, and discovery this is amazing, but the media-hype is out of control. Has it even been proven, under peer review, that this primate is even on the human evolutionary line?
    Scientists have been studying it for 2 years. Its not like they have jumped to conclusions on first impressions. All the same, I'll have to wait for the Horizon documentary before I am convinced.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 6,609 ✭✭✭Flamed Diving


    Isn't the notion of a 'missing link' a fabrication in itself?

    No matter how many fossils you find, there will always be 'missing links', just like there are missing links of you in your photo collection.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,182 ✭✭✭Genghiz Cohen


    Isn't the notion of a 'missing link' a fabrication in itself?

    No matter how many fossils you find, there will always be 'missing links', just like there are missing links of you in your photo collection.

    There are thousands of missing links. Creationists jumped on the one that suited them.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,353 ✭✭✭Goduznt Xzst


    cls wrote: »
    Scientists have been studying it for 2 years. Its not like they have jumped to conclusions on first impressions. All the same, I'll have to wait for the Horizon documentary before I am convinced.

    Well the fossil was unearthed in 1983, so they have taken their sweet time to get around to it :p

    Also, from the research article I linked:
    We do not interpret Darwinius as anthropoid, but the adapoid primates it represents deserve more careful comparison with higher primates than they have received in the past.

    For this primate to be THE "missing link" it would have to be anthropoid, to bridge the gap between the highest anthropoid and the lowest man. I'm sure it is A link, but whether it has significance to the early, pre-anthropoidal lineage of humans has yet to be determined.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 6,609 ✭✭✭Flamed Diving


    There are thousands of missing links. Creationists jumped on the one that suited them.

    And undoubtedly they will jump on another as soon as they find a replacement.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 30,746 ✭✭✭✭Galvasean


    Mickeroo wrote: »
    heh,right i get ya.

    Is the top one not a Brachiosaur?

    The proper name for Brontosaurus is Diplodocus,right?

    The top one is Camarasaurus. The proper name for 'Brontosaurus' is now Apatosaurus (and always has been since they were the same animal and Apatosaurus was first to be used. In life Apatosaurus was a close relative of, and would have looked like a slightly less elongated version of Diplodocus.
    Interestingly, there is a close relative of Apatosaurus which was named Eobrontosaurus in homage to the lost name. What's worse some scientists now think it wasn't athat closely realted to Apatosaurus, but rather Camarasaurus (the wrong head guy so to speak). Ah, such delicious irony.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eobrontosaurus
    marco_polo wrote: »
    Guess Rush Limbaugh ended speculation as to whether or not he is a creationist.

    Creationists dispute evolutionary findings. Stop the presses.
    Dades wrote: »
    Didn't that happen with the Rhinosaur? :D


    rhinoceros-info1.gif
    triceratops_1.jpg

    The clue is in the name: Rhinoceras... rhino...saurus.... :pac::D:eek::eek::D:eek::pac:
    cls wrote: »
    Scientists have been studying it for 2 years. Its not like they have jumped to conclusions on first impressions. All the same, I'll have to wait for the Horizon documentary before I am convinced.

    For the love of God scince man!!!! Horizon documentaries are the most overblown sensationalist excuses for scientific programming you can get on mainstream TV. Ever seen 'Warrior or Wimp?', their programme about the possible scavenging habits of T.rex? It was atrocious. They gave the scavenger hypothesis people far more air time than the pro hunter group (who actually have a hell of a lot more evidence). Why? Sensationalism that's why!
    Then there was their hour long show about the Atkins diet where they started off saying how the laws of physics would need to be revised because of it. Then a tiny footnote at teh end saying that people on the Atkins diet simply end up eating less and therefore losing weigh. So no changes to the laws of physics then? :rolleyes:
    Horizon are the whores of scientific journalism.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,888 ✭✭✭AtomicHorror


    cls wrote: »
    Scientists have been studying it for 2 years. Its not like they have jumped to conclusions on first impressions. All the same, I'll have to wait for the Horizon documentary before I am convinced.

    Documentaries =/= science. Horizon is entertaining, at best an engaging place to start one's research. Not the point at which anyone should be convinced of anything. Primary papers and journal correspondence, or mainstream articles that back up their points with references to said sources.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 962 ✭✭✭darjeeling


    As a fossil, and discovery this is amazing, but the media-hype is out of control. Has it even been proven, under peer review, that this primate is even on the human evolutionary line?

    Not to the satisfaction of all primate palaeontologists. The ancestor of the anthropoids (monkeys and apes) back in the eocene, 50-odd million years ago, has been a mystery, and different scientists have come up with different candidates.

    Some of the people behind this paper have favoured one particular early primate group as our ancestors, and now they have a new fossil that they say supports their idea. It comes from their preferred group, but - they say - has acquired additional features common to monkeys and apes. If they're right, it would be one of the earliest fossils on (or most likely budding off from) the branch that led to us. Other scientists, though, have been quick to voice their scepticism.

    There's a bit more on this in this Palaeo thread.

    Back on topic, the fossil evidence doesn't show whether or not Ida was a creationist.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,888 ✭✭✭AtomicHorror


    darjeeling wrote: »
    Back on topic, the fossil evidence doesn't show whether or not Ida was a creationist.

    If we could just determine whether Ida had a PhD in the sciences then at least we'd be able to say there's a 0.0001% chance that she was a creationist. We know she's German, so maybe we can infer something from that.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 30,746 ✭✭✭✭Galvasean


    Someone posted a link to the official site (apparently prehistoric creatures get their own websites now) over at the Palaeontology forum:
    http://www.revealingthelink.com/
    (See that? I reposted it here as not to blackmail you all into visiting my forum, arent i nice?)


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