Posted on 09/17/2005 3:35:39 AM PDT by SeaLion
THE popular image of Tyrannosaurus rex and other killer dinosaurs may have to be changed as a scientific consensus emerges that many were covered with feathers.
Most predatory dinosaurs such as tyrannosaurs and velociraptors have usually been depicted in museums, films and books as covered in a thick hide of dull brown or green skin. The impression was of a killer stripped of adornment in the name of hunting efficiency.
This week, however, a leading expert on dinosaur evolution will tell the British Association, the principal conference of British scientists, that this image is wrong.
Gareth Dyke, a palaeontologist of University College Dublin, will tell the BA Festival of Science being held in the city that most such creatures were coated with delicate feathery plumage that could even have been multi-coloured. Fossil evidence that such dinosaurs were feathered is now “irrefutable”.
“The way these creatures are depicted can no longer be considered scientifically accurate,” he said. “All the evidence is that they looked more like birds than reptiles. Tyrannosaurs might have resembled giant chicks.”
The latest visualisation suggests that parts of Walking with Dinosaurs, the acclaimed BBC series, cannot be seen as scientifically valid. Similar criticisms might also be levelled at the Hollywood blockbuster Jurassic Park.
The Natural History Museum in London, which has a popular exhibition of robot dinosaurs, conceded this weekend that some of its permanent displays may have to be adapted to reflect the new findings.
The feather revelation follows a series of discoveries in fossil beds at Liaoning in northeast China where a volcanic eruption buried many dinosaurs alive. It also cut off the oxygen that would otherwise have rotted them away.
Some theropod (“beast-footed”) dinosaurs were preserved complete with feathery plumage. Theropod is the name given to predatory creatures that walked upright on two legs, balanced by a long tail.
The feathered finds include an early tyrannosaur, a likely ancestor of Tyrannosaurus rex, two small flying dinosaurs and five other predators. Feathers are thought to have evolved first to keep dinosaurs warm and only later as an aid to flight.
Such finds are significant in linking dinosaurs to modern birds. Most palaeontologists accept that birds are descended from dinosaurs but there is fierce debate over how this happened. At the Dublin conference, Dyke will present new evidence suggesting that dinosaurs evolved the ability to fly and that some even developed all four limbs into wings.
Ironically, many scientists have once again returned to the belief that life came from non-life. . . in spite of the fact that there is no experimental evidence to show how that could have happened. The reason this unsupported belief has returned is that science has been defined as to eliminate the consideration of the only other alternative-the creation of life by an intelligent designer.
No Chance of Life by Chance Author: Bruce Malone In the 1700's many scientists believed that life spontaneously generated from non-living matter (such as raw meat or sewage). In the 1800's, using careful experimentation, Louis Pasteur proved this concept wrong and verified that life only comes from previously existing life. Ironically, many scientists have once again returned to the belief that life came from non-life. . . in spite of the fact that there is no experimental evidence to show how that could have happened. The reason this unsupported belief has returned is that science has been defined as to eliminate the consideration of the only other alternative-the creation of life by an intelligent designer. Search for the Truth This article is one of many found within Mr. Malone's excellent book, Search for the Truth. Even the simplest living cell is an incredibly complex machine. It must be capable of detecting malfunctions, repairing itself, and making copies of itself. Man has never succeeded in building a machine capable of these same functions.
Yet most scientists accept the belief that life arose from non-life (in spite of the evidence clearly indicating that it did not and could not happen). This incredible belief is as absurd as finding a complex chemical manufacturing facility on Mars and assuming that it built itself.
One classic experiment which is used to support the belief that life "built itself" is an experiment by Stanley Miller in 1953. In this experiment sparks were discharged into an apparatus which was circulating common gases. These gases reacted to form various organic products which were collected and analyzed. The experiment succeeded in producing only a few of the 20 amino acids required by itself. Furthermore, the dozens of major problems with this experiment as an explanation for the formation of life are seldom reported.
For instance, our early atmosphere was assumed to have no oxygen because this would stop amino acid formation. However, with no oxygen, there would be no ozone shield. With no ozone shield, life would also be impossible. Furthermore, oxidized rocks throughout the geologic record indicate that oxygen has always been present.
In addition to this, the same gases which can react to form amino acids undergo known reactions in the presence of sunlight which remove them from the atmosphere. The required gases would not have been around long enough for life to have developed! In addition, a cold trap was used to keep the reaction products from being destroyed as fast as they formed.
The biggest problem is that the amino acids formed in this experiment are always a 50/50 mixture of stereotypes (L and D forms). Stereotypes are like a drawer full of right-hand and left-hand gloves, identical in every way except a mirror image of each other. Life contains only L stereotypes of these randomly produced amino acids. Yet equal proportions of both types are always produced. How could the first cell have selected only L stereotypes from a random, equally reactive mixture? No answer to this has ever been found.
These are just a few of the problems with the fanciful idea that life generated itself. The linking of these randomly produced amino acids into the required proteins is an even more overwhelming impossibility.
No experiment has ever shown that the matter has the ability to come alive. The best explanation for life is still that "life only comes from pre-existing life". As you search for truth, perhaps you should consider the possibility that the source of all life... is GOD.
Try again prout.
Look at the word itself: 'e' means out of. 'volve' means turn. Evolve means turn out, as in bread dough during kneading. It's the same bread dough all the time, just fresh surfaces being exposed. All that was already in there. For what it's worth.
Then it should be easy to prove up. Prove it.
BTW you assume that there was a large population of identical single cell organisms. Where did that population come from? You also assume that ambient radiation will account for a cell developing a self replicating mechanical system. There is no evidence for such a mechanism. You also assume that time is unlimited. But you don't have unlimited time unless the earth itself has been capable of supporting life for an infinite amount of time.
Your theory is dependent upon three assumptions that you simply can't assume
1) you have no evidence that a large population of single cell organisms evolved themselves out of random chemicals.
2) You have no evidence that ambient radiation would account for the development of a self replicating mechanism, and
3) You don't have enough time.
Try again.
We've always said that the 2 month old chicks around the farm here look like mini-dinosaurs...Not scientific, I know...just an observation.
Actually it's quite scientific. There's an old saying "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" which is a fancy way of saying that embryos tend to look like fish and that it's not an accident - that it happens for a reason :)
I hear the video of the event is pretty gruesome.
Personally, when I go hiking I prefer to see the bears running away from me. I don't have the obsession to be liked by every living creature.
Considering the fact that at no point in this discussion have I addressed the origin of life itself, nor extolled the virtues of one or another theory of abiogenesis (you will kindly note NOW, as you seem to have failed to do the first time around, that in #110, the FIRST factor of the GIVEN is an EXTANT "large population of single cell organisms"), your replies and your admonishments that I "try again" are curious indeed.
I can think of a few possible explanations for your responses:
1. you gentlemen are unobservant
-or-
2. you gentlemen are so deeply steeped in an indoctrinated belief system that you literally cannot comprehend arguments which fall outside of your narrow creed. This is an intermediary between simple unobservance and...
-or-
3. you gentlemen are actually stupid
-or-
4. you gentlemen are engaging in deliberate mendacity.
-or-
5. All of the above.
Which is it? Or is there another possibility?
many natural phenomena cannot be replicated in-toto under laboratory conditions.
many theories cannot be tested in-toto under laboratory conditions.
did you have a point?
*crickets chirruping*
No, I rather thought you hadn't.
I'm still waiting for an answer to the question I posed to Nathan Zachary in #102. All I hear is crickets too.
doesn't matter - once there is life, evolution applies. before life, it doesn't. NEXT!
You also assume that ambient radiation will account for a cell developing a self replicating mechanical system.
Nope: I make no such assumption in this discussion. How the SCO's got a genetic code doesn't concern me here. NEXT!
You also assume that time is unlimited.
Wrong again. I assume that the time available was staggeringly great, adequate for the random intersections of radiant energy (and charged particles) with genetic material to induce a wide range of genetic code mutations... but not infinite.
If, at this point, you feel some urge to generate a "NEXT" installment, please do me the courtesy of sticking to the facts and not responding to the "assumptions" your folly leads you to believe I make.
I'm not holding my breath.
I have a large enough sample to conclude with a fair degree of certainty that these gentlemen are not interested in (nor are capable of) debating what you or I actually assert.
They'd rather indulge in (quasi-)intellectual Onanism over the "assumptions" their folly leads them to believe we make.
I have better threads to fry, as -I suspect- do you.
Good point. I'll see you on the next one.
That being said, your theory was based upon unprovable assumptions. I pointed that out and you claim that I must be unobservant or stupid. I don't appreciate your insinuations or accusations.
Now would you like to take a stab at answering the questions? Or will you continue to dissemble?
Where did this large population of single cell organisms come from? Did they evolve? Or were they created?
If they must have evolved, then evolutionary theory is dependent upon abiogenesis. So you need to prove your theory from the ground up. You however are building your theory from the sky down. Hence, you have no foundation.
I will patiently await either your thoughtful response or your vile personal insult. It's your choice.
I made no insinuation, and no accusation.
I made a fully repeatable set of observations of recorded behavior, developed four competing and one inclusive hypotheses, and asked you to select one of them or provide others.
as to your questions:
"Where did this large population of single cell organisms come from? Did they evolve? Or were they created?"
Does not matter to the ToE.
Irrelevant.
They could have developed through physics and chemistry; They could have been Spoken into existence by the Divine; They could have been planted by little grey aliens.
IT DOES NOT MATTER.
Once they were there, subject to environmental stimuli and dependent upon environmental resources, evolution takes over.
LOL. Sorry but your incosnistency is showing here.
If it is irrelevant where the single cell organisms came from then it is equally irrelevant where the dinosaurs came from or where dogs came from or where man came from. To quote you, "They could have developed through physics and chemistry; They could have been Spoken into existence by the Divine; They could have been planted by little grey aliens. IT DOES NOT MATTER.
And when it comes down to brass tacks, it really doesn't matter, does it? Science deals with what is. History deals with what was. In that sense Evolution is neither science nor history. It is a theory without a foundation. It is a building built from the sky down. It is, in fact, a religion.
The Science of genetics has nothing to do with the theory of evolution. How the genes got there is as irrelevant as how the single celled organisms got there. You don't know. And IT DOES NOT MATTER.
wrong. yet again. why am I not surprised? oh, well.
He “…called Alaska's brown bears harmless party animals…”
WOW if ignorance is bliss he died a happy man.
We also know with some fish that as little as a transposition of a base pair (not even a whole gene) will change the size substantially.
I think you are going to have to do better than you are to successfully challenge the DNA theory for the transmission of characters from one generation to another.
Ever eat corn lately?
It's bigger and better than ever thanks to gene splicing.
Even Genesis says God planted a garden ~ which can be done if and only if you have a supply of seed prepared beforehand somewhere else.
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