Tell us about the dinosaurs

[orogenicman]

Sorry for assuming you knew more about paleontology than you actually do. I already pointed out that the method for classifying dinosaurs into "species" (an ambiguous term) is deeply flawed. we create different species of dinosaurs even when the animals are morphologically identical but just different sizes (see all the different raptors). These of course rae not neccessarily different species, people just want to get their fame by naming a different dinosaur. Pick up any dinosaur book (even children's ones) and you will see very clearly that there is only about 50 different kinds of dinosaurs. Using the same erroneous approach, if we found fossils of goats, and one had no horns and one had one set of horns and one had two sets of horns we would assume incorrectly we have three different species of goat. Every 4H student can tell you though that one species of goat can have all these different expressions for that phenotype.

I am published in the Journal of Invertebrate Paleontology. How about you? So what you are saying is that the current classifcation scheme which has been worked out by tens of thousands of scientists over the last 400 years (and accounts for variations within species as well as among different species) is wrong, but yours is right because it is based on a collection of books of questionable provenence written by nomadic people over 2,000 years ago. Sorry, I was assuming that you actually knew what you were talking about. You can be sure that I won't make that mistake again, particularly since you have yet to provide your list of 50 "kinds" of dinosaurs, and the fact that you've yet to explain why they went extinct.

Ahh, the old bad homology argument. "Common structures indicate a common ancestor, we know this because animals have common structures!" love it. However when animals have common features or genes but are separated by oceans we just assume they co-evolved. Well I guess that goes ot show that you can have your cake and eat it too. Common strucutres could just as easily indicate an common creator so that argument holds no water. So where are these fossils that are not quite dinosaurs are but are only a few features (yet evolved) from becoming dinosaurs? You make the class uniformitarian mistake that layers in the geologic record show a history of time. Bad bad.

Here is a common structure that indicates a common ancestry - DNA. Perhaps you've heard of it. Are you saying that even though every species on the planet has DNA as master blueprint, that we can throw that out as evidence that all species are related because DNA isn't mentioned in the Bible? Well, sir, this is exactly why you should not be attempting to use the Bible as a science book. It isn't a science book. It is a religious text, and was intended as a religious text. Your god of the gaps is going to have to do a lot better than this, if this is all you have. The fact is that in order to try to convince people that you are right, you have to throw out every single law of physics and hard-won scientific principle, and that, sir, is not how science is done. All that does is prove that you are just another crakpot. Congratulations.

Dinosaurs evolved from archosaurs. I do make the claim (and can back it up by massive volumes of data collected by myself and thousands of other geologists the world over) that the geologic database records the history of the Earth because it DOES record the history of the Earth, it's processes, and life forms. What do you think it records, dufus?

Well your questions assumes non-catestrophic plate tectonics

Who said that plate tectonics includes no catastrophic events? Geologists aren't making this claim. Ever hear of the eruption of Mt. St. Helens?

which of course assumes no flood.

You assume a global flood occurred with no evidence to support your claim. Plate teconics doesn't assume anything about whether or not a global flood ever occurred. That fairy tale was put to rest long before plate tectonics was ever conceived. Sorry dude, Santa Claus is still a fairy tale, and so is the Biblical flood.

So they are not real applicable to the situation. Water levels would not have needed to be as high as you think since much of the plate tectonic activity occured while the waters were receding.

According to the Biblical account, the flood proceeded until "until all the high mountains are covered fifteen cubits deep". Mt. Everest certainly is a high mountain, the highest, in fact, and so it must, according to the fairy tale, have been covered with at least 15 cubits of water. And that means that the flood would have been at least 29,029 feet above mean sea level (+ about 15 cubits). And if so, then there had to have been a crapload of water released (which no one can figure out from where it came, and to where it went). And so you also cannot claim, that the mountains were formed during the flood, because the Bible makes clear that the mountains already existed (not to mention that there is no evidence anywhere on the planet of "high mountains" or any other mountain forming in the past 10,000 years). The fact is that the only "evidence" you can claim is that "god did it", which is not evidence at all, since you can't even show that it ever happened at all.

Given different climates and a more pure genome, man could have very easily lived longer in the days of Noah, so that's not much of a problem. Noah was not exactly building anything like what Edison built so that was a bad example. If you don't believe that the Chinese built ships similiar in size to the Ark and sailed to Kenya then Time Magazine disagrees with you since that is where the article appeared.

Given a more "pure genome"? This sounds a lot like you believe that it takes racial purity to live a long live such as that which allegedly occurred in the bible. Wow, you and Adolf no doubt could have been great friends. Do point out on what professional publication on genetics lead you to this astounding conclusion. Whether or not the Chinese built large boats is irrelevant. We aren't talking about the Chinese or Chinese boats (which, at any rate, cannot hold two of every "kind" of animal that currently exists, much less two of ever kind thaqt existed at the time of the Noah fairy tale). Try to stay on topic.