Ha, huh because.... Science says so!

[Esquilax]

Not what I meant. I am not questioning the age of the fossil. I'm questioning the idea that this creature only lived then. Your initial assumption concluded that this creature and all of it's counterparts died 120 million years ago. Again as I have point out in later posts aligators first came onto the scene 150 million years before these things did, and still remain. So again, what makes you think this particular species died out at the age this only example we have happens to be?

My only conclusion is that it's unwise to believe something without sufficient evidence, least of all when the only reason you have for doing so is because it's convenient with a position that you already hold. In this case, our fossil record of legged snakes stops at about ninety million years ago, and that snake had lost two of the legs that the four legged one had, in thirty million years. That snake is a couple of significant speciation events away from the common ancestor of all extant snakes, and that common ancestor had no legs.

From the evidence that we have, we cannot come to the conclusion that legged snakes existed concurrently with human beings. It's simply an unjustifiable assertion to make, given what we know. You assert it anyway, based solely on the fact that maybe it happened but you have no evidence. You assert it because you want to believe it, nothing more; I am entirely justified in seeing through that transparent ruse, without needing to assume a thing. Of the two of us, I am the one paying deference to the available evidence, and you are the one ignoring it in favor of the assumption that you want to be true.

so by this logic we should only have One t-rex or one stegosaurus.. Uh, no. The only thing this tells us is that we have not found any other animals, which means given the creatures very delicate bone structure we probably wont. Just having the One example is not conclusive evidence of anything other than the fact this one example was found in strata that dates it to a given time period. we can only guess at everything else.

If we have found no other specimens, that means we have no evidence that they existed during the time periods that you would like them to exist, and therefore it is unreasonable to accept your bald assertion that they did.

Again a statement in either direction as to whether or not this animal survived past the 120 million year mark is just speculation. we are in the same boat sport.

Hey, you're the one making a claim based on nothing, sport. Don't blame me for pointing out your utter lack of evidence.

What a tangled web of misdirection and deception we weave when we choose to deceive laxie.

So basically, "I haven't seen the cladogram, but I know it's wrong!"?

Hey, real quick: do you even know the species designation of this snake? Because the cladogram- there's a link to it in the references- came packaged with the initial report by the paleontologist who first discovered its significance. Are you literally going to disagree with the person who brought the fossil to light?

First of all no citation. I know you fancy yourself as smart man, but seriously do you consider yourself an expert? do you see your self as being more of an expert than say...
Jean-Claude Rage, a palaeontologist at the Natural History Museum in Paris
Nick Longrich of the University of Bath, UK, who is a co-author of the study concerning this creature.
Jacques Gauthier of the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale University?

No you say?!?!

Well, then know your in pretty good company, because I don't see you in abrighter light than these men cast on the subject either.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2...g-origins/

The article does in fact quote one guy who oppsoses the idea that the fossil found was a snake. even if this one guy mentioned is right, it only points to the scientific communities own inability too decide for certain what this creature is or is not despite the evidence. So then how can you claim such definitive knowledge?

Wow, seriously? When did I ever say it wasn't a snake? Do you even know what a cladogram is?

It's a diagram that displays relations among organisms, Drich, like a family tree. This particular one shows that Tetrapodophis isn't a Serpentes snake, it's not a member of the crown group (those members of a species related to their cumulative common ancestor) that all modern snakes are a part of. No modern snake comes from this four legged one, since the common ancestor of modern snakes comes from a separate order of snake that shares a common ancestor with the four legged one, but was not itself that species, while Tetrapodophis itself went extinct. It is still a snake, but there is no snake currently alive that has Tetrapodophis in its lineage. Not directly.

The point I was making is that there were a series of speciation events so significant that they split the clade before we get from your four legged snake to even the common ancestor of current snakes, but it's amazing to see you disagree with me without even bothering to look up any of the concepts I was discussing that you clearly didn't know about. Because, see, anyone who actually knows what a cladogram is would not come to the conclusion that I was asserting that Tetrapodophis was not a snake, since cladograms trace ancestry and thus anything on it would be related to the other things on it. In fact, it's completely baffling to me that I can literally say the words "n fact, it is an extinct order of snake that's fully three significant branches away from even the common ancestor of current snakes," that I can explicitly call the thing a snake in my post, and you still came away with the impression I was saying it wasn't a snake.

Just admit it, Drich: you didn't read that part of my post, did you? You stopped at the first sentence because I started talking all sciency after that and you couldn't be bothered.

soo... you believe your unfounded assumptions based on what you want to believe, are more valid than my own based on the same thing?

My conclusions are based on the evidence. Yours are based on what is convenient for the position you already hold, and the fact that the evidence hasn't explicitly disproven that. If you can't see the significant difference between those two states, then you are beyond hope.

Or hey, you could just be erecting a lazy strawman to dodge out of answering what I'm saying, that seems consistent with your behavior too.

I know you guys like to pretend that I don't research EVERYTHING I speak on here, but don't tell me you are starting to believe your own hype.

If so it make it more fun for me to show you up.

So did you know what a cladogram was before you disagreed with the conclusions mine drew or didn't you?