General Questions

[abeefaria]

Please don't answer any of the questions if you aren't reasonably sure you are correct.

 

1) Could man and dinosaurs have co-existed?

 

2) If the Earth received rain for 40 days and 40 nights, would not most of terrestrial life perish?

 

3) Can we prove that if the Earth was hit by another object of a large enough size, then the planet would experience a nuclear winter? Can we predict how long the winter would last?

 

4) Can dinosaur bones be carbon dated?

 

5) Have any human bones been found in the geological strata that hold the dinosaur bones?

 

6) Is there a "bible" of evolution and if so, what is the title?

 

7) Can you add anything to this discussion for the laymen to help argue against creationism? Something that would be very obvious, like "there is no way dinosaurs could have fit on Noah's ark."

 

Thanks much.

[greentea]

1) does not seem likely to me. the only 'evidence' i can think of are the myths of surprisingly similar creatures like dragons.

 

2) maybe it would, but if you refer to the 'flood' in genesis or any other recorded one, they are local events that affected only a certain territory.

 

3) no, nuclear winter is a hypothesis that can be hardly called scientific. it might be the case, but is based on speculations of the sort people use to predict how many intelligent species exist in the universe (like ... say 1 in so and so planets has this conditions, say there are so and so planets in a stellar system, stars in a galaxy, etc. there is almost no evidence behind these numbers, they are apriori probabilities)

 

4) i guess not, radioactive carbon has a relatively short halflife. assuming millions of years the quantity left would be undistinguishable from noise. however, i think carbon dating can state with significant certainty that dinosaurs are much older than for example 6000 years.

 

5) i do not know, never heard of

 

6) since 'bible' simply means book, there are many books about evolution. i do not think, however, that there is a single one that holds the truth like the 'bible' is assumed to.

 

7) i think the best arguments against creationism are in the bible itself. if you honestly try to read it literally you would face enormous incosistencies and contradictions, despite the efforts of numerous revisions to correct the problematic expressions. if you read it simply as a book, no problem.

 

attack a creationist on 'genesis' and he will have to come with really 'creative' ideas to explain the two (or more) distinctly different stories told. not that you can disprove god in this way, but at least a literal interpretation of the bible has no support.

 

on the other hand, any faults creationists find in evolution does not disprove it (unless it is something really huge), since science does not claim to be 'absolutely' right.

[abeefaria]

Nuclear winter happens, we saw it a few years ago when the Shoemaker-Levy asteroids hit Jupiter. What I want to know is if we can say for certain, that if a body of a certain size hit the earth, would it cause a nuclear winter over the whole of the planet, such as the one that hit off of Mexico that was suppose to have led to the demise of the dinosaurs. The obvious answer is yes, but do we know the minimum size?

[atinymonkey]

1) Could man and dinosaurs have co-existed?

If you mean did man exist in the Cretaceous period 65 million years ago, no evidence has been found that shows that would be possible. Very few mammals lived in the cretaceous period, so it's not really possible that complex lifeforms such as man existed.

 

But if you literally mean could they exist at the same time in history, then yes. Dinosaurs such as alligators and sharks still exist to this day.

 

2) If the Earth received rain for 40 days and 40 nights, would not most of terrestrial life perish?

No. It would just get wet. There is a finite amount of water on the planet, and it would continue to run off the land into the sea. You might want to stay away from the rivers and flatland though.

 

3) Can we prove that if the Earth was hit by another object of a large enough size, then the planet would experience a nuclear winter? Can we predict how long the winter would last?

Well, it would not be a nuclear winter but yes, and it can be extrapolated based on size and speed of the object. It can't be proven, without the asteroid strike, it's just a theory. Like throwing a baseball into a pile of flour will make a mess.

 

Smaller events have happened that validate the theory; -

 

http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect/meteors/impacts.html

 

4) Can dinosaur bones be carbon dated?

Nope. For one thing, the bone has been replaced by sediment making it a fossil. Secondly, carbon 14 only has a 50000ish year range before it become ineffective.

 

5) Have any human bones been found in the geological strata that hold the dinosaur bones?

No. Physically close to it, but not in the same strata. It doesn't mean much though, as the world is a huge place. For instance, try and find a umbrella on top of a cheese sandwich sitting on a blue table.

 

6) Is there a "bible" of evolution and if so, what is the title?

Er, you mean like Joey's big book o' evolution? No. It is not one theory, it's is a set of theories.

 

7) Can you add anything to this discussion for the laymen to help argue against creationism? Something that would be very obvious, like "there is no way dinosaurs could have fit on Noah's ark."

Yes. The Vatican has stated repeatedly that creationism is bunk. The factions that still believe in creationism are ignored by every mainstream religion that exists today. It's somewhat pointless to argue with creationists, as it's a matter of faith rather than logic. Like a five year old and Santa.

[PhDP]

6) Is there a "bible" of evolution and if so, what is the title?

 

There's no real "bible" of evolution, but I do like Futuyma's books on evolution. The only thing I don't like about those books is the lack of mathematics, but most people see that as a plus.

 

Here's the "big book" on evolution;

 

Douglas J. Futuyma. 1999. Evolutionary Biology. Sinauer Associates.

 

It's big, but you don't need any previous knowledge to understand it... He also published a shorter one;

 

Douglas J. Futuyma. 2005. Evolution. Sinauer Associates.

 

There's also his other book which is purely a defence of evolution versus it's many foes and an explanation why scientists are so enthusiastic about evolutionary biology.

 

Douglas J. Futuyma. 1995. Science on Trial: The Case for Evolution. Sinauer Associates

[Phi for All]

6) Is there a "bible" of evolution and if so, what is the title?

Creationists will try to confuse things even more if you use titles like Origin of the Species to defend evolution. Darwin was merely accumulating facts, he was not trying to disprove creationism.

7) Can you add anything to this discussion for the laymen to help argue against creationism? Something that would be very obvious, like "there is no way dinosaurs could have fit on Noah's ark."

Yes, stop arguing. There's no point to it. Creationists feel they must disprove evolution for them to be right. Evolution doesn't have to disprove anything. There are heaps and mounds and mountains of data that support its ongoing theory. More is being compiled every day.

 

The only argument I give to creationists is this: Which is truly more magnificent and awe-inspiring, an impatient god who just waves his hands and poofs everything into existence exactly as it is inside a week, or a god who starts off with a cooling rock and has the infinite forbearance and wisdom to wait billions of years for his plans to come to fruition?

[AzurePhoenix]

1) Could man and dinosaurs have co-existed?

*They never coexisted prior to the KT event. At that time, only the most archaic proto-primates existed.

*It's doubtful any small non-avian dinos surivived long enough to exist alongside man, though we can't say for sure that none did, especially in remote, heavily wooded regions, but their is no evidence of such creatures, short of dragon-legends.

*In the sense that birds are dinosaurs, or at least evolved from them, yes, we still exist alongside dinosaurs. (no, sharks and crocs are not "dinosaurs")

 

2) If the Earth received rain for 40 days and 40 nights' date=' would not most of terrestrial life perish?[/quote'] All that water would have to come from somewhere (the oceans, lakes, etc) which would drop in depth drastically. Most of the raining water would simply refill these resovoires, and sure, the rivers and flood plains would become extremely flooded, some plantlife would suffer a bit from over-watering, but if anything, arid regions would benefit more from this more than wet regions would suffer (in the long run)

 

6) Is there a "bible" of evolution and if so, what is the title?

Considering evolution is a series of constantly changing scientific theories, not some doctrine laid down by someone who already knows it all, it isn't possible to have an "Evolutionary Bible," at least not the way I interpret the term.

 

Can you add anything to this discussion for the laymen to help argue against creationism? Something that would be very obvious, like "there is no way dinosaurs could have fit on Noah's ark."

It's a waste of energy. You can't fight blind faith through written or verbal means, you can only sit back and try to ingore it. Understandably, doing so can become insanely difficult at times...

[swansont]

But if you literally mean could they exist at the same time in history' date=' then yes. Dinosaurs such as alligators and sharks still exist to this day.

[/quote']

 

 

Neither of those are dinosaurs.

[swansont]

7) Can you add anything to this discussion for the laymen to help argue against creationism? Something that would be very obvious' date=' like "there is no way dinosaurs could have fit on Noah's ark."

[/quote']

 

 

The HLA gene in humans has 59 alleles. Tough to explain how that happened from only 8 people on the ark without some evolution going on. (that's good for the "there are only harmful mutations" argument)

[atinymonkey]

Neither of those are dinosaurs.

Hey. If AzurePhoenix can claim birds are dinosaurs based on the descent from life in the Cretaceous Period, I can certainly claim sharks are direct descendents from the Carboniferous Period . Besides which, Lamnoid sharks evolved during the Cretaceous period and they are the same genus today.

 

Shortfin Mako, a Lamnoid shark: -

Raarrrggg, chomp chomp.

 

Not actually a dinosaur, but a species that existed in the same timeframe. I think that abeefaria was asking about timelines rather than details.

[Spyman]

Meteorite Impact Calculator: http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/impacteffects/

[swansont]

Hey. If AzurePhoenix can claim birds are dinosaurs based on the descent from life in the Cretaceous Period, I can certainly claim sharks are direct descendents from the Carboniferous Period . Besides which, Lamnoid sharks evolved during the Cretaceous period and they are the same genus today.

 

Yes, but dinosaurs were land-based. IIRC anything in the ocean is some other classification. A problem of the technical vs lay definition - the common use is basically anything that was alive between ~245 and 65 mya is a dinosaur, and that's wrong.

 

I think that abeefaria was asking about timelines rather than details.

 

Agreed.

[AzurePhoenix]

Hey. If AzurePhoenix can claim birds are dinosaurs based on the descent from life in the Cretaceous Period, I can certainly claim sharks are direct descendents from the Carboniferous Period

While I would normally agree on the principal of your argument, I still win, because my birdies were descended from ACTUAL DINOSAURS

Anyway, I think his question was meant to ask "is there evidence humans existed alongside dinos 65 million years ago and earlier?" In which case, birds being dinosaurs is irrelevant, as is your comparison of modern crocs and sharks, though any of the many crocs or sharks around prior to the KT Event would be fair game. I hate semantics.

[Mokele]

I'll only breifly poke my nose in, since everyone else seems to have it covered.

 

As for dinos and humans, not a chance in hell. Hominids are the product of a unique environment which, while it involved predators, didn't involve things quite as nasty as theropod dinosaurs. Anything even remotely like humans would have been eaten before it could say "lunch". Additionally, roaming foragers like early humans would have been quickly out-competed by the smaller ornithischians in the same niche.

 

As for the flood, even if we ignore the idea of limited water on earth, things float, and animals in modern floods have shown themselves to be damn good at clinging to floating debris in order to outlast the flood. This goes double for reptiles, who have made vast oceanic journeys between islands on just such rafts.

 

As for the dating, not by carbon, but by other radiometric methods, such as calcium-argon or uranium series. And no human bones have ever been found in the same strata as dinosaur bones, unless artificically placed there during burial.

 

Another good book, in addition to those listed, is Gould's Structure of Evolutionary Theory. It's about 1000 pages long, intended to be comprehensive of modern thought on the subject, and, because it's so long, almost never read.

 

Yes, but dinosaurs were land-based. IIRC anything in the ocean is some other classification. A problem of the technical vs lay definition - the common use is basically anything that was alive between ~245 and 65 mya is a dinosaur, and that's wrong.

 

Exactly. "Dinosaurs" actually refers to a very specific group of mesozoic reptiles diagnosed by numerous features such as an anorbital fenestra (hole in the skull in front of the eyes). Contemporary reptiles such as crocs, pterosaurs, ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, and the like, were not "dinosaurs" in the technical sense.

 

Sharks did not evolve from dinosaurs, and they last shared an ancestor with dinos some 400 mya. They didn't even evolve at the same time: sharks showed up in the devonian, dinos in the triassic. Gators are similarly non-dinosaurian, for the same reasons, though the difference is less dramatic in that case.

 

Mokele

[abeefaria]

thank you everyone

[Hyd]

4) i guess not, radioactive carbon has a relatively short halflife. assuming millions of years the quantity left would be undistinguishable from noise. however, i think carbon dating can state with significant certainty that dinosaurs are much older than for example 6000 years.

 

Theres more than one way to date fossils aside from carbon dating, you do realize that?

[atinymonkey]

While I would normally agree on the principal of your argument, I still win, because my birdies were descended from ACTUAL DINOSAURS

Yeah, ok, but not scary dinosaurs

 

Theres more than one way to date fossils aside from carbon dating, you do realize that?

Actually, no I didn't. I thought that dating fossils was somewhat pointless as it only showed the age of the sediment that replaced the bone. I thought the dating techniques were used on the surrounding sedimentary rock, and not on the fossil itself.

[swansont]

Actually, no I didn't. I thought that dating fossils was somewhat pointless as it only showed the age of the sediment that replaced the bone. I thought the dating techniques were used on the surrounding sedimentary rock, and not on the fossil itself.

 

But that gives you a date for the fossil, as long as it hasn't been moved or disturbed somehow.

[atinymonkey]

I'm never quite sure if the reasoning is avoidance of damage of the fossil or because the process of petrification of bone to form the fossil itself would take thousands of years. I think the assumption is that the fossil may be considerably older than the direct testing methods would suggest (hence creationists picking up on it). Mind you, I only really know archeological methods rather than paleontogical.

[Mokele]

So far as I understand it, fossils are dated by the layer they're in. Sedimentary rocks of any kind (either the stuff replacing the fossil or around it) are useless, because the isotope ratios are a product of the forces in the earth's core. Only lava has the initial isotope levels, and decays from there. Sedimentary rock might be eroded from a recent lava flow, or from one 100 million years ago, or both mixed together, so you can't get valid results. You can only date igneous rock.

 

But we can still find dates by using lava flows that are in layers of rock. We can't date the sedimentary rock around the flow, but we *can* date the flow. Having done that, we now know that any fossil found in that layer is from date X.

 

Mokele

[AzurePhoenix]

What are the common isotopes they use? And how reliable are they in comparison to C14? (Is it odd that these things interest me so?)

 

Yeah' date=' ok, but not [i']scary[/i] dinosaurs

You've never been mauled by a swan, have you? Ferocious beasts, simply vicious. Edit: Ravens too, I've also been mauled by those. And one pissed Monk Parakeet. Not to mention that small flock of grackles, and another of starlings. Oh Sweet Jebus! Birds hate me.

[ydoaPs]

if they're anything like geese, then i don't want to ever even see one in person...memories...bad memories...[insert psychotic break here]

[AzurePhoenix]

Swans are larger than geese, and are both fouler tempered and twice as determined to draw blood (in my experience, but we've already determined that birds hate me).

[Mokele]

What are the common isotopes they use? And how reliable are they in comparison to C14?

 

Potassium-Argon and Uranium-Lead are two of the most common, and so far as I know all are quite reliable, probably moreso than C14, since C14 is generated by the actions of cosmic rays in the upper atmosphere (introducing possible variation), while the aforementioned methods use isotopes that are generated in the earth's mantle.

 

For much, much more info, see here: http://www.asa3.org/ASA/resources/Wiens.html

 

Mokele