The AP reports today on what amounts to the holy grail of paleontology: “a nearly complete dinosaur, skin and all.”
The fossil of a duck-billed dinosaur, found in 2004 in North Dakota, is being painstakingly extracted from the surrounding sandstone at the state museum in Bismarck. They’re working carefully and slowly because the fossil is not just of bone, it is of the entire carcass of the dinosaur.
Here’s the intriguing paragraph:
“Animal tissue typically decomposes quickly after death. Researchers say Dakota [the dinosaur] must have been buried rapidly and in just the right environment for the texture of the skin to be preserved.
‘The process of decay was overtaken by that of fossilization, preserving many of the soft-tissue structures,’ Manning said.”
What kind of an event would have caused a thirty-foot long dinosaur to be buried rapidly?
Class? class? anyone…?
Hint: It might have something to do with Ben Stein’s new movie, Expelled.
– Rob Shearer
Director, Schaeffer Study Center
Publisher, Greenleaf Press
I read the article you referenced, and the paleontologists clearly reference the age of the discovered fossil is thought to be 65 million years old. Do you really think they are of the opinion that the folssil was caused by Noah’s flood 5,000 years ago?
You clearly should read a book on paleontology.
Regarding Expelled, the films’ main thesis, that anyone in the science community who believes in God, or is a Darwin dissenter is being “expelled” is false at its core.
In a New York Times interview, Walter Ruloff (producer of Expelled) said that researchers, who had studied cellular mechanisms, made findings suggestive of an intelligent designer. “But they are afraid to report them”.
Mr. Ruloff also cited Dr. Francis S. Collins, a geneticist who directs the National Human Genome Research Institute and whose book, “The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief”, explains how he came to embrace his Christian faith. Mr. Ruloff said that Dr. Collins separates his religious beliefs from his scientific work only because “he is toeing the party line”.
That’s “just ludicrous,” Dr. Collins said in a telephone interview. While many of his scientific colleagues are not religious and some are “a bit puzzled” by his faith, he said, “they are generally very respectful.” He said that if the problem Mr. Ruloff describes existed, he is certain he would know about it.
Similarly, Dr. Ken Miller is a professed Christian who wrote “Finding Darwin’s God” (which I suggest you read). Dr. Miller has not been “expelled” in any fashion for his belief in God.
The movie tries to make the case that “Big Science” is nothing but a huge atheist conspiracy out to silence believers, but only presents a very one-sided look at some of the Discovery Institute’s “martyrs”.
Carolyn Crocker “expelled”? – No.
Her annual teaching contract was not renewed. Was she “fired” for daring to bring God into research? – No. She was hired to teach Cell Biology, and she decided to ignore the schools’ curriculum and substitute her own curriculum.
Guillermo Gonzalez “expelled”? – No.
He was not granted tenure. The film doesn’t bring up the fact that in all his years at ISU he had only brought in only a miniscule amount of grant money. Nor does it bring up the fact that in all his years at ISU he failed to mentor a single student through to their PhD. Nor does it mention that in his career at ISU, his previous excellent record of publication had dropped precipitously.
Richard von Sternberg “expelled”? – No.
Sternberg continues to work for NIH in the same capacity. Of course the movie doesn’t bring up his underhanded tactics in getting Meyers work published.
This movie attempts to influence it’s viewers with dishonesty, half-truths, and by a completely one-sided presentation of the facts.
If a scientists’ research is not accepted by the scientific community, it isn’t because the scientist either believes or doesn’t believe in God or Darwin, it is usually because they are producing bad science. Like the idea of Intelligent Design.
Yes, I read the article too. And of course they think the fossil is 65 million years old. Silly paleontologists!
It was simply refreshing to see an inadvertent admission that gradualism and the uniformitarian hypothesis (upon which Darwin depends) cannot account for the rapid burial of a thirty foot long dinosaur.
Thomas Kuhn would call that an “anomaly.”
Keep whistling… its a mighty big graveyard.
– Rob
So what exactly do you think?
Do you really think that the earth is only 6,000 years old?
“Benjamin Franklin” has been making the rounds with his post. It appears on my blog, as well: http://www.douggeivett.wordpress.com. A Google search will show that it appears on numerous blogs.
What I think is that every age gets the science that it wants. The belief in “progress” preceded Darwin by a century or more. Darwin finally gave the Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment intellectuals the science they had so desperately been hoping for.
The desperate will to believe in Darwinism and fight a rear-guard action in its defense is entertaining to watch. The irony of the Cardinals of Biology fiercely condemning the skeptics has too much irony not to be richly amusing.
– Rob