Dinosaurs!!!

[Insidious Rex]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

They have theories, like evolution to birds, and astroid collision, but none of those has proven anything conclusive.

Actually we have gained a steady wealth of evidence for both in just the last decade or so. Certainly the astroid extinction theory is very well supported. The key is just how many died because of the asteroid. Certainly the vast majority of the extinctions were from this single event. And as for dinosaurs evolving into birds we are seeing more and more evidence for this as well. We have known for a while that the physics of being purely cold blooded creatures like todays reptiles wouldnt have worked with dinosaurs considering their size and life style and activity level. They were most likely some combination of both cold and warm blooded. They did not give rise to reptiles the reptiles were already here when the dinosaurs were alive. And gigantisism doesnt occur becuase reptiles "never stop growing". Its a natural phenomenon that occurs when given sufficient, nearly unlimited range and where size becomes a valuable tool for competing with other organisms. It occurs not only in reptiles (and dinosaurs...) but also in mammals and insects and even plants.

[Lief Erikson]

I knew that you or brownjenkins would eventually show up and post that . I'm well aware that there is evidence supporting both theories, but there are some things concerning modern evolution theory (which is related too, to what happens with the dinosaurs) that I find unconvincing.

There is first the environment. Secondly, humans.

Environment

There is a large amount of data available to us today that the environment changes extremely rapidly. Islands can be born in days, or even hours. Massive changes have occurred in Africa's climate very recently . . . I'd have to dig around somewhere again to get the data back from the old debates.

The entire Sahara-Gobi desert stretches have experienced enormous changes in climate. 120,000 years ago, according to pollen dating, they were all lush jungle. Then they switched to more arid condition within an extremely brief amount of time, but then made a shift toward heavy foresting and grassland condition. Elephant, hippo and giraffe skeletons have been found, dating to that period. Then the pollen dating shows a sharp shift toward complete, utterly lifeless desert for . . . I think it was about 5,000 years or so, and then shifts back more toward how it is now.

I've talked with people here about these changes, and they say, "well, the animals must have migrated." The theory of evolution currently requires extremely slow changes among animal species over vast periods of time. Available evidence from what we can see within the last hundred thousand years or so involving the climate shows extremely rapid shifts, however. If animals are able to just migrate all over the globe to escape traumatic and incredibly large scale environment shifts, I don't see any point in evolution according to environment. Even evolution by natural selection takes a hit, for it too depends upon vast periods of time. If animals are forced to make massive migrations every 50,000 years or so, as modern evidence suggests, then creatures would be constantly thrown in with other species. Predators would be changing too swiftly for evolution according to natural selection to keep up with it.

So modern evidence concerning the environment shows extreme flaws to me in the theory of evolution, in its current form. In view of all this, that there should have been some mistakes made involving the dinosaurs is only natural.

Humans

I just cannot believe that if humans have been around in near their present form for over 100,000 years, they have not developed more technology. It just is beyond my ability to fathom.

I know that many would argue, "before they had agriculture, they had to devote almost all their time to work. Before they developed fire, a vast number of other technologies were inaccessible."

These arguments don't ring true to me, however. Take my father, for example. He spends almost the entire week day at work. He works very hard at what he does, and when he comes back he only has about three to four hours at most. Much of this he spends with his family. However, he also spends a corner of it to focus upon pet projects. He likes to research, form theories about nature and the solar system, seek truth using mathematics and various books. He continues to tutor himself, to train his mind even despite his near incessant daily work.

I cannot believe that ancient man never had three or so hours at least to spend with his family, or with his people, or just to use as he chooses. I cannot believe that he is not curious about the world around him, either. Indeed, evidence shows that the Neanderthals believed in an afterlife and buried their dead with gifts of food and other objects, to give them a better future. They were curious. They thought. They discovered.

In spite of this, for nearly 100,000 years there is a blank void in technology. There were some major discoveries, like fire, but almost nothing is known about humanity during that period. There was almost no technology. There were almost no achievements. This is not humanity we're talking about any more . . . it's some primitive, unintelligent species. Humans are intelligent, and even if they are bound by difficult circumstances, they have a powerful way of rising above these circumstances. Our ancient humans, however, did almost nothing.

For the last 6,000 years or so, incredible surges of technology have occurred. The ingenuity of humans has been proven to be utterly astounding. There are numerous marvelous feats of architecture. The Sumerians, one of the very earliest ancient peoples we know anything about, were well acquainted with mathematics and writing.

100,000 years of humanity doing nothing is impossible, and this isn't even getting into the closely related, and doubtless intelligent species that came before them.

Other thoughts and evidence

About the break-up of Pangea, for a moment. It has happened several times that almost exactly identical species of dinosaur are found on different continents. According to the theory of evolution, which puts many of these dinosaur species well after the break-up of the continents, this should not be the case. I'd have to scramble for specific examples. Deinonychus pops instantly to mind, but I'd have to investigate him a bit.

There is also the evidence that Spock and littleadenel have brought up, about the powerful, ferocious flying or land reptiles that have been described by numerous completely separate cultures. It, like the worldwide flood, seems to be a common memory of the ancient world. The tale of Gilgamesh describes him encountering a huge reptile-like creature that ate trees and reeds. There are pictures on Roman and Greek vases and mosaics that show dinosaurs. Dragons . I have the pictures in front of me right now, in a book. They don't have wings and aren't breathing fire. They look exactly like dinosaurs.

Science is always evolving. It is always changing in its search for better and more accurate data. It keeps finding better and more accurate data, and frequently finds significant flaws in the old. If the Bible had been made to conform to past scientific knowledge, large hunks of it would by now have been proven inaccurate. The evidence is strong that it truthfully preserves an ancient experience (I can go on for a long time about that).

[Insidious Rex]

Now Lief you know yer gonna get all sorts of complaints now from the no talking about religion or evolution folk. So shall we take this thread down that direction? I could certainly cut up all that stuff you just posted if you like. And we could go back and forth like we normally do. Always fun. And you do really need to be corrected on some of that stuff you just posted...

[Lotesse]

You guys, esp. I. Rex, what are your thoughts about the Loch Ness monster, does anyone think that there might be a loch ness dinosaur-animal living there in Scotland, and in Lake Tahoe too? Is that even possible? I'm asking 'cause it looks like you know a lot about the topic, and I'd really like to see what someone like yourself thinks about the Loch Ness dinosaur idea, if there could be one...

[Insidious Rex]

I think its fun to think about and makes great camp fire stories but scientifically the prospect of a single dinosaur or monster of some sort escaping notice all this time is virtually nill. Same with big foot unfortunately. Now there are lots of unknown species in rather remote locations around this earth but they tend to be considerably smaller.

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

I think its fun to think about and makes great camp fire stories but scientifically the prospect of a single dinosaur or monster of some sort escaping notice all this time is virtually nill. Same with big foot unfortunately. Now there are lots of unknown species in rather remote locations around this earth but they tend to be considerably smaller.

Nessie isn't supposed to be a single dinosaur. There have been accounts of people seeing very small "Nessies" in Loch Ness. Also, Loch Ness isn't the only loch where accounts of such creatures exist. Other neaby lochs also have records of enormous marine creatures being spotted in them. The common people that live around such isolated sites generally aren't very willing to talk about it, though. I seem to recall hearing they hate the idea of all the tourism.

In saying this, I'm not stating an opinion either way about Nessie. I have studied her some though, so I'm just letting you know what the information actually says .


I think we've covered some of the different points I've brought up several times before, pretty thoroughly . However, going through it again is always fun, especially as I might be getting into debates regarding some of these topics at college. I already had a discussion about them with one student, and that's only two weeks into term. It will probably be a slightly slow discussion though, as my schedule is picking up speed.

I don't want to engulf the dinosaur thread with it, so how if we were to move it to one of the evolution threads? A significant portion of the debate is concerning the nature of evolution, anyhow. Most of the argument is not focused on dinosaurs.

[Lief Erikson]

Lotesse, please put me on your Ignore list. That would make you unable to see any of my posts. I dare say that having done that, you'll feel a lot happier.

[rohirrim TR]

What about sea monsters? they are on all the ancient maps of the sea and i remember reading about a ship that saw a nessie type creature and the captain later didn't report it because he thought people would laugh, but he did write it in his journal and it was found after he died

it would be very easy for sea monsters to escape notice from modern humans, the ocean is huge, and because boats are so noisy these day a sea monster with ears would be long gone before a boat could get close

I think the evidence of all those maps with drawings of sea monsters is worth something, it is interesting at least

[Insidious Rex]

Yes well map legends aside... the prospect of a giant "monster" living and breeding in the oceans of the world are really quite remote. Unless they were deep water creatures that never surfaced or something like that. Some of those old "monsters" turned out to be things like giant squid and such which have a reputation for attacking man and very few have actually been caught. And really you have to ask yourself how come all these sea goers and map makers saw these creatures all the time but they dont show themselves now in a world with technology that pierces every dark recess in every ocean on earth. Seems rather odd... Shouldnt we see more of them now then they did in the past?

Now is it possible something lives (or perhaps lived and maybe went extinct recently) that people might have mistaken as monsters well sure. But most things we discover are a bit more fish like then dinosaurs or sea dragons. Like for example the coelacanth which was thought to be LONG extinct before they found one a few decades back in south america somewhere. That thing has been living for 450 million years!! Before even the dinosaurs! But then again its not nearly as big. But hey anything is possible.

[Rían]

the ocean is fascinating!

I was never into dinosaurs that much, because I preferred horses. But my kids have always liked them.

My oldest son had all these funny names for some of the more "popular" dinosaurs. He couldn't remember the "real" names, so he made up names of his own.

Can you guys figure out which dinosaur these are?

Honk dinosaur
Crunchy dinosaur
Lookover dinosaur
Catch dinosaur

[Lotesse]

Honk dinosaaur -- the one with that big pointy rhinocerous-looking pike on him?

Crunchy dinosaur -- the one what is always chewing on leaves and plantlife?

Lookover dinosaur -- the very long-necked tallest dinosaur with the long neck and is a herbivore?

Catch dinosaur -- the flying ones? No - the jumping running mean ones that Jim Carrey copies in that movie "Lemony Snicket"?

[Rían]

good guesses! You got most of them!

Honk dinosaur - triceratops- because of its "horns" (I guess he thought those horns could honk like a car horn!)

Crunchy dinosaur - stegosaurus - he thought the scales on the back looked like potato chips!

Catch dinosaur - the TRex, which usually can "catch" anything it wants to!

Lookover dinosaur - bracheosaurus (I'm sure it's the same one you're thinking of)

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

I knew that you or brownjenkins would eventually show up and post that .

i'm still being catagorized, i see

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by RÃ*an

Crunchy dinosaur - stegosaurus - he thought the scales on the back looked like potato chips!

and i thought it was a new brand of Flintstones cerel

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

Yes well map legends aside... the prospect of a giant "monster" living and breeding in the oceans of the world are really quite remote.

The average adult size of the Basking Shark is 22-29 feet long. This huge in size (though non-threatening) species of shark was only discovered in 1976.

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

Unless they were deep water creatures that never surfaced or something like that. Some of those old "monsters" turned out to be things like giant squid and such which have a reputation for attacking man and very few have actually been caught. And really you have to ask yourself how come all these sea goers and map makers saw these creatures all the time but they dont show themselves now in a world with technology that pierces every dark recess in every ocean on earth. Seems rather odd... Shouldnt we see more of them now then they did in the past?

The giant squid definitely is what I would classify as a sea monster. It was dangerous and enormous in size. Yep. We know more about this "monster" now, but it definitely would have been a sea monster to people in the past.

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

Now is it possible something lives (or perhaps lived and maybe went extinct recently) that people might have mistaken as monsters well sure. But most things we discover are a bit more fish like then dinosaurs or sea dragons.

Try the crocodile . Try the Great White Shark .

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

Like for example the coelacanth which was thought to be LONG extinct before they found one a few decades back in south america somewhere. That thing has been living for 450 million years!! Before even the dinosaurs! But then again its not nearly as big. But hey anything is possible.

The Coelecanth was such a cool find . That was very neat to read about.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

i'm still being catagorized, i see

I know you through and through. There's not one mystery left.

[Lotesse]

Here's Crunchy Dinosaur:

[Lotesse]

Here's Honk Dinosaur in a bad mood...

[Lotesse]

Here's Catch Dinosaur, also apparantly having an aggravating day...

[Lotesse]

And here's Lookover Dinosaur, just chillin' in the water having lunch...

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

I know you through and through. There's not one mystery left.

then you are a wiser man than me