New Dinosaur Species Found in India

AP ^ | August 13, 2003 | RAMOLA TALWAR BADAM

[nwrep]

New Dinosaur Species Found in India

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By RAMOLA TALWAR BADAM, Associated Press Writer

BOMBAY, India - U.S. and Indian scientists said Wednesday they have discovered a new carnivorous dinosaur species in India after finding bones in the western part of the country.

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The new dinosaur species was named Rajasaurus narmadensis, or "Regal reptile from the Narmada," after the Narmada River region where the bones were found.

The dinosaurs were between 25-30 feet long, had a horn above their skulls, were relatively heavy and walked on two legs, scientists said. They preyed on long-necked herbivorous dinosaurs on the Indian subcontinent during the Cretaceous Period at the end of the dinosaur age, 65 million years ago.

"It's fabulous to be able to see this dinosaur which lived as the age of dinosaurs came to a close," said Paul Sereno, a paleontologist at the University of Chicago. "It was a significant predator that was related to species on continental Africa, Madagascar and South America."

Working with Indian scientists, Sereno and paleontologist Jeff Wilson of the University of Michigan reconstructed the dinosaur skull in a project funded partly by the National Geographic (news - web sites) Society.

A model of the assembled skull was presented Wednesday by the American scientists to their counterparts from Punjab University in northern India and the Geological Survey of India during a Bombay news conference.

Scientists said they hope the discovery will help explain the extinction of the dinosaurs and the shifting of the continents — how India separated from Africa, Madagascar, Australia and Antarctica and collided with Asia.

The dinosaur bones were discovered during the past 18 years by Indian scientists Suresh Srivastava of the Geological Survey of India and Ashok Sahni, a paleontologist at Punjab University.

When the bones were examined, "we realized we had a partial skeleton of an undiscovered species," Sereno said.

The scientists said they believe the Rajasaurus roamed the Southern Hemisphere land masses of present-day Madagascar, Africa and South America.

"People don't realize dinosaurs are the only large-bodied animal that lived, evolved and died at a time when all continents were united," Sereno said.

The cause of the dinosaurs' extinction is still debated by scientists. The Rajasaurus discovery may provide crucial clues, Sereno said.

India has seen quite a few paleontological discoveries recently.

In 1997, villagers discovered about 300 fossilized dinosaur eggs in Pisdura, 440 miles northeast of Bombay, that Indian scientists said were laid by four-legged, long-necked vegetarian creatures.

Indian scientists said the dinosaur embryos in the eggs may have suffocated during volcanic eruptions.

[bondserv]

YOU are the one struggling and strangling against biblical truth.

I NEVER said there were NO creationists before the 1600's, I said there were no LITERALISTS before the 1600's.

Creationism was a given, god made the heaven and the earth, but the literal truth of genesis is a relatively new phenomenon.

Literalism is new, creationism is not, there is a HUGE difference!!

I thought you said you had a degree in this stuff?

Your argument on this one is with Jesus, Paul, John, Peter, James, Jude and all of the other New Testament writers, who according to you believed a fairy tale.

[DittoJed2]

I do have a degree "in this stuff" and know that Jesus and Paul taught a literal creation.

[balrog666]

Question for the evolutionists you. Is there any evidence that would cause you to abandon the theory of evolution and accept a literal Genesis Mahabharata account of creation? If so, second question, what kind of evidence would it take. Please describe.

[DittoJed2]

I add you to my above post. Is there any evidence that would cause you to abandon evolution and accept a literal creation account?

[Right Wing Professor]

Just because you are a hideous deformation of the original design, doesn't mean the original design was a hideous deformation.

The ape genomes suffer from the same 'design flaws' the human genome has. Where is your biblical evidence that apes suffered from the fall? And why would a loving God make poor Pongo's time on earth short, and his days full of sorrow, because some human female chomped on a bit of fruit?

[VadeRetro]

I look at evolution as a hypothesis concerning the origin of the species. Part of that hypothesis includes how the earliest organism formed. I have stated several times that evolutionists are divided regarding this early organism. That's why you have theories such as punctuated equillibrium, panspermia, and the like.

Creationism seminars apparently tell their students to frequently mention punctuated equilibrium as something refuting Darwinism. However, they never seem to tell them what the heck punk-eek is. It does not address abiogenesis at all. Never did, never will. BTW, if you follow the link, Punk-Eek is not Goldsmith's "hopeful monster" theory. (And why do I mention that?)

We on the evo side see the same cookie-cutter output replete with the same shared errors all the time from a stream of seminar posters. It all orginates from a few people at AiG and ICR who are not telling the truth about what evolution even is, or what it predicts, or what the evidence is.

The reason I went to the big bang is because evolutionists do. As I said, I'm perfectly willing to throw that theory out.

"Throw that theory out?" Recognizing that something is unrelated to your argument is not the same as proving it false. Please recognize that Darwin was unaware of any Big Bang. The diversity of life on earth is a later question than the origin of the universe.

[Aric2000]

Answer, NO!! There is not, why, because I was raised a Roman Catholic, and here is what the biblical scholars of the Roman Catholic church have to say about A literal interpretation of the bible.

http://www.baptistpillar.com/bd0156.htm

VATICAN CITY, Italy - The Vatican criticized a literal interpretation of the Bible
and said the fundamentalist approach to scripture was “a kind of intellectual suicide.”
A Vatican document said fundamentalism “refuses to admit that the inspired Word of God has been
expressed in human language... by human authors possessed of limited capacities and resources.”
The 125-page document, The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church, was written by the Pontifical Biblical Com-mission, a group of scholars who assist the Pope in the study of scripture.
It noted that a fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible had been gaining strength. The Vatican is
increasingly concerned about the number of Catholics, especially in Latin America, who have abandoned the church for fast-growing fundamentalist sects.
“The fundamentalist approach is dangerous, for it is attractive to people who look to the Bible for ready answers to the problems of life,” the document said. Fundamentalism actually invites people to a kind of intellectual suicide.”
A fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible began during the Reformation, when Protestants showed an increasing concern for fidelity to the literal meaning of scripture.
The document said fundamentalism refused to admit that there was a human element in the transmission of the Word of God.
One member of the commission, Jesuit Father Joseph Fitzmyer, said fundamentalists failed to recognize that several years elapsed between the time Jesus spoke and the time when the gospels were written.
“There was no stenographer, no one with a tape recorder on that time,” said Fitzmyer.
From The Star, 1994 Manila, Philippines


Did you see this?
Here let me spell it out...

A fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible began during the Reformation, when Protestants showed an increasing concern for fidelity to the literal meaning of scripture.


Do you get it yet?

A literalist interpretation of the bible is a fairly new phenomenon.

Again, I thought you had a degree in this stuff, shouldn't you KNOW this?

How about this part?

A Vatican document said fundamentalism “refuses to admit that the inspired Word of God has been
expressed in human language... by human authors possessed of limited capacities and resources.”


Do you understand what that means?

Perhaps you do, but you obviously do not care.

Literalism is a relatively NEW phenomenon. And to twist what I said into something I didn't, should be above even you.

[Right Wing Professor]

Is there any evidence that would cause you to abandon the theory of evolution and accept a literal Genesis account of creation? If so, second question, what kind of evidence would it take. Please describe.

Sure. If an entity materialized before me, gave evidence of omnipotence, solved a couple of unanswered questions in a convincing way, and then told me he desgined the whole thing, with plausible answers for a few questions about inconsistencies in Genesis, and many questions about the inconsistencies between Genesis and virtually every field of science, I'd be happy to accept the Genesis creation story.

[StolarStorm]

"Creationism seminars "

Right down the hallway from the Amway seminars.

[DittoJed2]

Well, at least thank you for your honesty. Incidentally, the allegorist interpretation of Scripture was only made popular since the time of Augustine. Early Christians took the Bible literally. The Catholic church follows Augustine's interpretation, and honestly, I could tell you were Catholic by your interpretation of Christian beliefs. That is not an insult or anything of the like. I know what the Catholic church teaches, and I know where they got it from. I know where Augustine got it from as well, and it wasn't from Jesus or Paul.

[VadeRetro]

Is there any evidence that would cause you to abandon the theory of evolution and accept a literal Genesis account of creation?

The geologic column could look like the residue of a great flood. (But it's a little late for that.)

The paleontological record could show that all the modern species have been around from the beginning. (But it's a little late for that.)

The preponderance of evidence could show that the earth is about 6K years old. (But it's a little late for that.)

I could go on, but the problem is that all the really important evidence is in already. Similarly, it's too late to prove the phlogiston theory of fire. It's already been conclusively shown to be wrong.

[DittoJed2]

Well, I'm not that entity, and that entity provided your answers in a book. Whether you consider them sufficient or not is between you and Him. But, you've answered my question as to whether or not I could post a single thing that would sway your opinion. Thank you.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Part of that hypothesis includes how the earliest organism formed. I have stated several times that evolutionists are divided regarding this early organism.

You nailed this one. I'd say there are several dozen speculative hypotheses. I doubt this'll be resolved in our lifetimes.

[Aric2000]

And show me one spot in the NT where Jesus said to take Genesis literally. Show me one spot where he said anything other then, god created the heaven and the earth.

Show me where he said that Adam and Eve are the father and mother of the human race, show me one spot where he dicussed the genesis account in a literal way, and not as allegory or morality tale.

Jesus was a RABBI, a Jewish scholar, he knew that Genesis was NOT literal, just as many of his same day Rabbi's knew the same thing.

Genesis and the bible taken as an entire literalist whole is a new phenomenon, you should know this, it's out there just waiting to be read, a little internet search, a little bit of actual research, a little bit of talking to priests rabbi's and biblical scholars will net you ALL of this information. You just have to look for it.

[DittoJed2]

So in other words, you will believe the evidence you have seen regarding all of the things mentioned because it is too late for refuting evidence to make its way into your scope?

Here are some young earth evidences from Answers in Genesis:

1. Comets disintegrate too quickly.

According to evolutionary theory, comets are supposed to be the same age as the solar system, about five billion years. Yet each time a comet orbits close to the sun, it loses so much of its material that it could not survive much longer than about 100,000 years. Many comets have typical maximum ages (on this basis) of 10,000 years.(1)

Evolutionists explain this discrepancy by assuming that (a) comets come from an unobserved spherical 'Oort cloud' well beyond the orbit of Pluto, (b) improbable gravitational interactions with infrequently passing stars often knock comets into the solar system, and (c) other improbable interactions with planets slow down the incoming comets often enough to account for the hundreds of comets observed.(2) So far, none of these assumptions has been substantiated either by observations or realistic calculations.

Lately, there has been much talk of the 'Kuiper Belt', a disc of supposed comet sources lying in the plane of the solar system just outside the orbit of Pluto. Even if some bodies of ice exist in that location, they would not really solve the evolutionists' problem, since according to evolutionary theory the Kuiper Belt would quickly become exhausted if there were no Oort cloud to supply it.

2. Not enough mud on the sea floor.

Each year, water and winds erode about 25 billion tons of dirt and rock from the continents and deposit it in the ocean.(3) This material accumulates as loose sediment (i.e. mud) on the hard basaltic (lava-formed) rock of the ocean floor. The average depth of all the mud in the whole ocean, including the continental shelves, is less than 400 metres.(4)

The main way currently known to remove the mud from the ocean floor is by plate tectonic subduction. That is, sea floor slides slowly (a few cm/year) beneath the continents, taking some sediment with it. According to secular scientific literature, that process presently removes only one billion tons per year.(4) As far as anyone knows, the other 25 billion tons per year simply accumulate. At that rate, erosion would deposit the present amount of sediment in less than 12 million years.

Yet according to evolutionary theory, erosion and plate subduction have been going on as long as the oceans have existed, an alleged three billion years. If that were so, the rates above imply that the oceans would be massively choked with mud dozens of kilometres deep. An alternative (creationist) explanation is that erosion from the waters of the Genesis Flood running off the continents deposited the present amount of mud within a short time about 5000 years ago.

3. Not enough sodium in the sea.

Every year, rivers(5) and other sources dump over 450 million tons of sodium into the ocean. Only 27% of this sodium manages to get back out of the sea each year.(6,7) As far as anyone knows, the remainder simply accumulates in the ocean. If the sea had no sodium to start with, it would have accumulated its present amount in less than 42 million years at today's input and output rates.(7) This is much less than the evolutionary age of the ocean, three billion years. The usual reply to this discrepancy is that past sodium inputs must have been less and outputs greater. However, calculations which are as generous as possible to evolutionary scenarios still give a maximum age of only 62 million years.(7) Calculations(8) for many other sea water elements give much younger ages for the ocean.

4. Earth's magnetic field is decaying too fast.

The total energy stored in the Earth's magnetic field has steadily decreased by a factor of 2.7 over the past 1,000 years.(9) Evolutionary theories explaining this rapid decrease, as well as how the Earth could have maintained its magnetic field for billions of years, are very complex and inadequate. A much better creationist theory exists. It is straightforward, based on sound physics, and explains many features of the field: its creation, rapid reversals during the Genesis Flood, surface intensity decreases and increases until the time of Christ, and a steady decay since then.(10) This theory matches paleomagnetic, historic, and present data.(11) The main result is that the field's total energy (not surface intensity) has always decayed at least as fast as now. At that rate the field could not be more than 10,000 years old.(12)

5. Many strata are too tightly bent.

In many mountainous areas, strata thousands of feet thick are bent and folded into hairpin shapes. The conventional geologic time-scale says these formations were deeply buried and solidified for hundreds of millions of years before they were bent. Yet the folding occurred without cracking, with radii so small that the entire formation had to be still wet and unsolidified when the bending occurred. This implies that the folding occurred less than thousands of years after deposition.(13)

6. Injected sandstone shortens geologic 'ages'.

Strong geologic evidence(14) exists that the Cambrian Sawatch sandstone -- formed an alleged 500 million years ago -- of the Ute Pass Fault, west of Colorado Springs, was still unsolidified when it was extruded up to the surface during the uplift of the Rocky Mountains, allegedly 70 million years ago. It is very unlikely that the sandstone would not solidify during the supposed 430 million years it was underground. Instead, it is likely that the two geologic events were less than hundreds of years apart, thus greatly shortening the geologic time-scale.

7. Fossil radioactivity shortens geologic 'ages' to a few years.

Radiohalos are rings of color formed around microscopic bits of radioactive minerals in rock crystals. They are fossil evidence of radioactive decay.(15) 'Squashed' Polonium-210 radiohalos indicate that Jurassic, Triassic, and Eocene formations in the Colorado plateau were deposited within months of one another, not hundreds of millions of years apart as required by the conventional time-scale.(16) 'Orphan' Polonium-218 radiohalos, having no evidence of their mother elements, imply either instant creation or drastic changes in radioactivity decay rates.(17,18)

8. Helium in the wrong places.

All naturally occurring families of radioactive elements generate helium as they decay. If such decay took place for billions of years, as alleged by evolutionists, much helium should have found its way into the Earth's atmosphere. The rate of loss of helium from the atmosphere into space is calculable and small. Taking that loss into account, the atmosphere today has only 0.05% of the amount of helium it would have accumulated in five billion years.(19) This means the atmosphere is much younger than the alleged evolutionary age.

A study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research shows that helium produced by radioactive decay in deep, hot rocks has not had time to escape. Though the rocks are supposed to be over one billion years old, their large helium retention suggests an age of only thousands of years.(20)

9. Not enough Stone Age skeletons.

Evolutionary anthropologists say that the Stone Age lasted for at least 100,000 years, during which time the world population of Neanderthal and Cro-magnon men was roughly constant, between one and 10 million. All that time they were burying their dead with artefacts.(21) By this scenario, they would have buried at least four billion bodies.(22) If the evolutionary time-scale is correct, buried bones should be able to last for much longer than 100,000 years, so many of the supposed four billion Stone Age skeletons should still be around (and certainly the buried artefacts). Yet only a few thousand have been found. This implies that the Stone Age was much shorter than evolutionists think, a few hundred years in many areas.

10. Agriculture is too recent.

The usual evolutionary picture has men existing as hunters and gatherers for 100,000 years during the Stone Age before discovering agriculture less than 10,000 years ago.(21) Yet the archaeological evidence shows that Stone Age men were as intelligent as we are. It is very improbable that none of the four billion people mentioned in item 10 should discover that plants grow from seeds. It is more likely that men were without agriculture less than a few hundred years after the Flood, if at all.(22)

11. History is too short.

According to evolutionists, Stone Age man existed for 100,000 years before beginning to make written records about 4,000-5,000 years ago. Prehistoric man built megalithic monuments, made beautiful cave paintings, and kept records of lunar phases.(23) Why would he wait a thousand centuries before using the same skills to record history? The biblical time-scale is much more likely.(22)

References

1. Steidl, P.F., 'Planets, comets, and asteroids', Design and Origins in Astronomy, G. Mulfinger, ed., Creation Research Society Books (1983), 5093 Williamsport Drive, Norcross, GA 30092, pp. 73-106.
2. Whipple, F.L., 'Background of modern comet theory', Nature 263 (2 September 1976), p. 15.
3. Gordeyev, V.V. et al, 'The average chemical composition of suspensions in the world's rivers and the supply of sediments to the ocean by streams', Dockl. Akad, Nauk. SSSR 238 (1980), p. 150.
4. Hay, W.W., et al, 'Mass/age distribution and composition of sediments on the ocean floor and the global rate of subduction', Journal of Geophysical Research, 93, No. B12 (10 December 1988), pp. 14,933-14,940.
5. Maybeck, M., 'Concentrations des eaux fluviales en elements majeurs et apports en solution aux oceans', Rev. de Geol. Dyn. Geogr. Phys. 21 (1979), p. 215.
6. Sayles, F.L. and Mangelsdorf, P.C., 'Cation-exchange characteristics of Amazon River suspended sediment and its reaction with seawater', Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 41 (1979), p. 767.
7. Austin, S.A. and Humphreys, D.R., 'The sea's missing salt: a dilemma for evolutionists', Proc. 2nd Internat. Conf. on Creationism, Vol. II, Creation Science Fellowship (1990) pp. 17-31. Address in ref. 12.
8. Austin, S.A., 'Evolution: the oceans say no!', ICR Impact, No. 8 (October 1973). Institute for Creation Research, address in ref. 2.
9. Merrill, R.T. and McElhinney, M.W., The Earth's Magnetic Field, Academic Press (1983), London, pp. 101-106.
10. Humphreys, D.R., 'Reversals of the earth's magnetic field during the Genesis flood', Proc. 1st Internat. Conf. on Creationism (Aug. 1986, Pittsburgh), Creation Science Fellowship (1987) 362 Ashland Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15228, Vol. II, pp. 113-126.
11. Coe, R.S., Prévot, M., and Camps, P., 'New evidence for extraordinary change of the geomagnetic field during a reversal', Nature 374 (20 April 1995), pp. 687-92.
12. Humphreys, D.R., 'Physical mechanism for reversals of the earth's magnetic field during the flood', Proc. 2nd Internat. Conf. on Creationism, Vol. II, Creation Science Fellowship (1990), pp. 129-142, address in ref. 12.
13. Austin, S.A. and Morris, J.D., 'Tight folds and clastic dikes as evidence for rapid deposition and deformation of two very thick stratigraphic sequences', Proc. 1st Internat. Conf. on Creationism, Vol. II, Creation Science Fellowship (1986), pp. 3-15, address in ref. 12.
14. ibid, pp. 11-12.
15. Gentry, R.V., 'Radioactive halos', Annual Review of Nuclear Science 23 (1973) pp. 347-362.
16. Gentry, R.V. et. al., 'Radiohalos in coalified wood: new evidence relating to time of uranium introduction and coalification', Science 194 (15 October 1976) pp. 315-318.
17. Gentry, R.V., 'Radiohalos in a Radiochronological and cosmological perspective', Science 184 (5 April 1974), pp. 62-66.
18. Gentry, R.V., Creation's Tiny Mystery, Earth Science Associates (1986), P.O. Box 12067, Knoxville, TN 37912-0067, pp. 23-37, 51-59, 61-62.
19. Vardiman, L., The Age of the Earth's Atmosphere: a study of the helium flux through the atmosphere, Institute for Creation Research (1990), P.O. Box 2667, El Cajon, CA 92021.
20. Gentry, R.V. et al, 'Differential helium retention in zircons: implications for nuclear waste management', Geophys. Res. Lett. 9, (October 1982), 1129-1130. See also ref. 20, pp. 169-170.
21. Deevey, E.S., 'The human population', Scientific American 203 (September 1960), pp. 194-204.
22. Marshak, A., 'Exploring the mind of Ice Age man', National Geographic 147 (January 1975), pp. 64-89.
23. Dritt, J.O., 'Man's earliest beginnings: discrepancies in the evolutionary timetable', Proc. 2nd Internat. Conf. on Creationism, Vol. I., Creation Science Fellowship (1990), pp. 73-78, address in ref. 12.

[Aric2000]

I said I was raised a Roman Catholic, not that I was one still.

That's fine though, but a literal interpretation of the bible is not at all what Jesus believed, he believed in allegory, morality tales etc, he used them extensivly throughout his ministry, where do you think he learned it?

It is called the OLD testament.

[balrog666]

I add you to my above post. Is there any evidence that would cause you to abandon evolution and accept a literal creation account?

I add you to my bozo list. Is there any evidence that would cause you to abandon mythology and accept the scientific method?

[VadeRetro]

Compared to what I mentioned, the deliberate AiG fallacies you post would not weigh an ounce even if they were legitimate arguments. They aren't. If no one has pounced on them before I get back to the machine in a few hours, I'll deal with them for the I-don't-know-how-many-eth time.

[StolarStorm]

Let's get to the really important issue, what do you think about outsourcing overseas?

[Aric2000]

ALL of those have been shown WRONG and have been thoroughly refuted by science.

I will let someone else deal with that post, because it has NOTHING in it that is in ANY way substantial, or scientific in it's conclusions.

THEY ARE ALL WRONG.

Reason that they are wrong.... because they have an answer and look for the evidence, then ignore the evidence that destroys those arguments that they found.

The arguments are there, but I do not have time to get into them right now.

We are getting ready for a 4 day camping trip, so Imust bid you good bye for a bit.

If I have time, and no one has refuted the post, I will take the time to do so.

Each of those arguments has been seen before, and each of them are strawmen, just waiting to be torn asunder.