Dinosaurs...

[petrel]

You are making a common mistake. A transitional species does not have to be an ancestral species, though it may be. Archaeopteryx is not ancestral to modern birds.

A common mistake that you yourself made back in post 354
forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=8756378&postcount=354
When you cited Archie as an example of an early bird which has a tail.

Now you are saying that Archie is not ancestral to modern birds.
It seems that you are confused. Don’ t worry. I am not shocked. I have noticed your confusion from the beginning, and the confusion of your teachers, the biologists and evolutionists with their vast array of conflicting evidences.

Happy New Year by the way.
And more importantly. Happy Christmas as we are still in the period of the 12 days of Christmas.

 

[rossum]

A common mistake that you yourself made back in post 354
forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=8756378&postcount=354
When you cited Archie as an example of an early bird which has a tail.

Thank you for pointing out my error. Arche is not ancestral, but it is a transitional between dinosaurs and birds, hence the difficulty in classifying it.

rossum

 

[buffalo]

Please provide evidence. I cannot find any.

The scientist repeated the experiment and has found soft tissue in scores of samples. The only reason that soft tissue is not found in a great many bone samples is because nobody wants to break the bones and disolve them using the technique that Schweitzer developed.

You can’t tell the difference between that and a bird? So you think that you can stick some feathers on an elephant and it will look like a bird? A three year old would quickly notice that this creature has four legs and a tail whereas a bird has only two legs and no tail.

Schweitzer was not the first scientist to find soft tissue. Another scientist was the first to sample a DNA sequence from a dinosaur bone. By rights this guy should have been hailed a hero in scientific circles and his name should be in lights. However his work was discredited because he discovered an inconvenient truth that dinosaur DNA is more closely related to mammal (in particular, whales) than it is to reptiles or birds.

This of course scuttles the conventional theory that birds evolved from dinosaurs. Scott Woodward was accused of bad science. The establishment said that his sample was contaminated with human DNA.

Woodward and his team were assailed by the “establishment”. I have seen this played out countless times. A scientist discovers an “inconvenient truth” which upsets the established theory, and a “team of experts” is sent in to review the work. Of course they discredit the work in order to maintain the “system”.
articles.baltimoresun.com/1995-06-20/news/1995171065_1_dna-dinosaur-bone-woodward

You can be sure that this disgraceful behaviour of the experts will set back the research of dinosaur DNA 30 years. Nobody will bother to sequence dino DNA because they will know that they will discover that the DNA is not bird-like and that there work will be discredited by the “establishment”

Again, another example of “science” actually holding back the truth instead of being impassionate and unbiased like its supposed to be.

Ain’t that the truth? Anyone who presents evidence contrary to popular belief is excoriated. Some of this forum do the same. It is a shame.

 

[petrel]

Thank you for pointing out my error. Arche is not ancestral, but it is a transitional between dinosaurs and birds, hence the difficulty in classifying it.

rossum

I am glad that you have admitted your error. I have found very few people with this capacity. However I am still confused. How can something be transitional and not ancestral?

 

[RubyT]

When I was in college studying Biology in the USA it was quite obvious to me that the so called scholars were trying to make a scientific case that was full of holes. They could admit there were holes but gave no explanation. What they were really doing was sticking to the “approved program”, which in my humble opinion was a secular program. It was quite clear to me as a student. Knowing Gods infinate Power explains every hole in their theories.

I once took a Philosophy class in the same school that taught us not to separate matters of the spirit with matters of science. It was a lesson to be open minded as the two (Science and Spirituality) complement each other if you have an open mind and they contradict each other without an open mind.

Happy New Year and God Bless us everyone!

 

[rossum]

I am glad that you have admitted your error. I have found very few people with this capacity. However I am still confused. How can something be transitional and not ancestral?

It was a cousin of the ancestor, not the actual ancestor. Related, and similar but not in the actual line of descent. In loose terms, Arche can be thought of as like Virginia Dare. Related to the first European settlers in America, but not an actual ancestor of any of them. She was a transitional between European and American.

rossum

 

[petrel]

It was a cousin of the ancestor, not the actual ancestor. Related, and similar but not in the actual line of descent. In loose terms, Arche can be thought of as like Virginia Dare. Related to the first European settlers in America, but not an actual ancestor of any of them. She was a transitional between European and American.

rossum

In other words Arche is not a transitional fossil between dinosaurs and birds but is transitional between dinosaurs and something else which is related to birds. Which is the same thing as saying that Arche is not an ancestor of birds.

Yet you said that Arche was a transitional between dinosaurs and birds. I see this a lot in science too. Wierd unintuitive use of language which causes confusion.

I have also seen scientists in debates (usually on global warming) that wax eloquent using science-speak. It’s important to be aware that science-speak is not designed to make sense. It is designed to dazzle and ultimately bewilder the listener with a vast array of jingoistic terminology, much of which does not mean what the average layman would expect it to mean. He does this in order to gloss over the holes and contradictions in his argument and as a way of attacking an irrefutable argument offered by his opponent.
The audience is left looking speechless, unable to respond to the scientist because they did not understand what he was saying. In this exchange the scientist comes off looking incredibly clever and the layman comes off looking incredibly mute and ignorant.

We all have to be wary of this technique and not be intimidated by it.

 

[petrel]

When I was in college studying Biology in the USA it was quite obvious to me that the so called scholars were trying to make a scientific case that was full of holes. They could admit there were holes but gave no explanation. What they were really doing was sticking to the “approved program”, which in my humble opinion was a secular program. It was quite clear to me as a student. Knowing Gods infinate Power explains every hole in their theories.

I once took a Philosophy class in the same school that taught us not to separate matters of the spirit with matters of science. It was a lesson to be open minded as the two (Science and Spirituality) complement each other if you have an open mind and they contradict each other without an open mind.

Happy New Year and God Bless us everyone!

The primary purpose of an education in science is to learn how to perpetuate the various myths and legends of science on to the next generation.

Science which does not lend itself to this ultimate objective does not therefore belong in the classrooms of America and any such science is to be regarded as pseudo-science.
Either that or it is labelled as unrepeatable (because instructions have been given not to repeat it) or else it is labelled as tainted by contaminated samples.

 

[StAnastasia]

The primary purpose of an education in science is to learn how to perpetuate the various myths and legends of science on to the next generation.

False, and quite silly.

Science which does not lend itself to this ultimate objective does not therefore belong in the classrooms of America and any such science is to be regarded as pseudo-science.

False, and even silllier.

Either that or it is labelled as unrepeatable (because instructions have been given not to repeat it) or else it is labelled as tainted by contaminated samples.

False. silly, and risible.

 

[tonyrey]

The primary purpose of an education in science is to learn how to perpetuate the various myths and legends of science on to the next generation.

Unsubstantiated assertion.

 

[Jmd96]

When I was in college studying Biology in the USA it was quite obvious to me that the so called scholars were trying to make a scientific case that was full of holes. They could admit there were holes but gave no explanation. What they were really doing was sticking to the “approved program”, which in my humble opinion was a secular program. It was quite clear to me as a student. Knowing Gods infinate Power explains every hole in their theories.

I once took a Philosophy class in the same school that taught us not to separate matters of the spirit with matters of science. It was a lesson to be open minded as the two (Science and Spirituality) complement each other if you have an open mind and they contradict each other without an open mind.

Happy New Year and God Bless us everyone!

This is a God of the Gaps viewpoint.

 

[Buck_Crosswhite]

Job

[10] Behold behemoth whom I made with thee, he eateth grass like an ox. [Job 40:10] [Latin]

[11] His strength is in his loins, and his force in the navel of his belly. [12] He setteth up his tail like a cedar, the sinews of his testicles are wrapped together. [13] His bones are like pipes of brass, his gristle like plates of iron. [14] He is the beginning of the ways of God, who made him, he will apply his sword. [15] To him the mountains bring forth grass: there all the beasts of the field shall play.

[14] He will apply his sword: This text is variously explained: some explain the sword, the horn given to the animal for his defence: others, the power that God hath given to the animal for his defence: others, the power that God hath given to man to slay him, notwithstanding his great size and strength.

[16] He sleepeth under the shadow, in the covert of the reed, and in moist places. [17] The shades cover his shadow, the willows of the brook shall compass him about. [18] Behold, he will drink up a river, and not wonder: and he trusteth that the Jordan may run into his mouth. [19] In his eyes as with a hook he shall take him, and bore through his nostrils with stakes.

What is the book of Job talking about? Elephant, hippo, I doubt it.

 

[StAnastasia]

What is the book of Job talking about? Elephant, hippo, I doubt it.

“Since the 17th century CE there have been many attempts to identify Behemoth. Some scholars have seen him as a real creature, usually the hippopotamus, although occasionally as the elephant, crocodile, water buffalo or for some creationists, a dinosaur. The reference to Behemoth’s “tail” that “moves like a cedar” (40:17), is a problem for most of these theories, since it cannot easily be identified with the tail of any animal. Some have identified it as the elephant’s trunk, but it might instead refer to Behemoth’s penis based on another meaning of the Hebrew word “move” which means “extend” and on the second last part of verse 17 describing the sinew around its “stones”—not, as in the translation above, his thighs. The Vulgate, recognising this, uses the word “testiculorum”. A second opinion is that Behemoth is a product of the imagination of the author of Job, a symbol of God’s power (and indeed, in verse 24 he is described as having a ring (“snare”) through his nose, a sign that he has been tamed by Yahweh).”

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behemoth

 

[vz71]

This is a God of the Gaps viewpoint.

The God of the Gaps is fine as long as you never run out of gaps.

I am confident that we will not. There is one specific gap that only God can fill no matter the others.
And given that, God of the Gaps really becomes a search for how God did things.

 

[rossum]

The God of the Gaps is fine as long as you never run out of gaps.

And as long as you don’t mind your God getting smaller with time. I will grant you that not all gaps may fillable, but some gaps certainly are. As those gaps are filled, your God will get smaller and more distant.

I suspect I would prefer Bonhoeffer’s God: “We are to find God in what we know, not in what we do not know; God wants us to realize his presence, not in unsolved problems but in those that are solved.”

I am confident that we will not.

You must be extremely confident of your opinion, if the existence of your God is dependent on your being correct.

rossum

 

[vz71]

And as long as you don’t mind your God getting smaller with time. I will grant you that not all gaps may fillable, but some gaps certainly are. As those gaps are filled, your God will get smaller and more distant.

On the face of it one would think so.
But that is not what I see and experience.
As the gaps fill, there is an ongoing wonder of a God that put this in motion and caused it all to work.
With each gap filled, a new wonder is revealed at the cleverness of the design.

The mysterious ‘God did it’ is replaced with ‘Wow, look at this ingenious design.’
God gets more and more clever with each gap filled.
God will always be God, even if we can explain nearly everything.
Because God started it all, he created it all ex nihilo.
And we cannot explain the beginning without God.

 

[buffalo]

And as long as you don’t mind your God getting smaller with time. I will grant you that not all gaps may fillable, but some gaps certainly are. As those gaps are filled, your God will get smaller and more distant.

I suspect I would prefer Bonhoeffer’s God: “We are to find God in what we know, not in what we do not know; God wants us to realize his presence, not in unsolved problems but in those that are solved.”

You must be extremely confident of your opinion, if the existence of your God is dependent on your being correct.

rossum

I am not buying it. Cellular complexity just opened the gaps much wider. The supernatural is a gap that won’t be closed.

 

[rossum]

I am not buying it. Cellular complexity just opened the gaps much wider.

Cellular complexity just opened a lot more opportunities for biologists to study.

The supernatural is a gap that won’t be closed.

Agreed. By definition, the supernatural is outside science.

rossum

 

[Buck_Crosswhite]

bibleufo.com/articleembedded.htm

1856 The last of the pterodactyls (flying reptiles with leathery wings and long, toothy beaks) died about 100 million years ago, according to established scientific opinion. But in the experience of a number of startled French workmen, the last one died in the winter of 1856 in a partially complete railway tunnel between the St. Dizier and Nancy lines. In the half-light of the tunnel, something monstrous stumbled toward them out of a great boulder of Jurassic limestone they had just split open. It fluttered its wings, croaked, and died at their feet. The creature, whose wingspan was 10 feet 7 inches, had four legs joined by a membrane, like a bat. What should have been feet were long talons, and the mouth was arrayed with sharp teeth. The skin was like black leather, thick and oily. At the nearby town of Gray, the creature was immediately identified by a local student of paleontology as a pterodactyl. The rock stratum in which it had been found was consistent with the period when pterodactyls lived, and the limestone boulder that had imprisoned the winged reptile for millions of years was found to contain a cavity in the form of an exact mold of the creature’s body.

 

[rossum]

bibleufo.com/articleembedded.htm

1856 The last of the pterodactyls …

Your source has been taken in by an old hoax. See CB930.4: A pterodactyl was found alive in Jurassic limestone.

Your source has also misunderstood evolution. We have had “living fossils” before; sharks are living fossils and we have known about sharks for a long time. Living fossils are not a threat to evolution. What they need to find is a rabbit from the Precambrian. That would indeed be a problem for evolution.

rossum