Dinosaur fossil found in mammal stomach

http://www.livescience.com/animalworld/belly_beast_050112.html

 

In China, scientists have identified the fossilized remains of a tiny dinosaur in the stomach of a mammal. Scientists say the animal's last meal probably is the first proof that mammals hunted small dinosaurs some 130 million years ago.

It contradicts conventional evolutionary theory that early mammals couldn't possibly attack and eat a dinosaur because they were timid, chipmunk-sized creatures that scurried in the looming shadow of the giant reptiles.

In this case, the mammal was about the size of a large cat, and the victim was a very young "parrot dinosaur" that measured about 5 inches long...

note: Then I guess dinosaurs did live along with mammals just like the creationists have been saying all along

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Lake Champlain monster's (Champ) voice recorded multiple times - so much for the detractors...

http://www.animalvoice.com/lakechamplain.htm

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300 scientists express scepticism about evolution

 http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&id=2114

SEATTLE — Since Discovery Institute first published its statement of dissent from Darwin in 2001, more than 300 scientists have courageously stepped forward and signed onto a growing list of scientists of all disciplines voicing their skepticism over the central tenets of Darwin’s theory of evolution and urging “careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged.”

“A growing number of scientists around the world no longer believe that natural selection or chemistry, alone, can explain the origins of life, and while they are still a minority, they are a growing minority,” said Bruce Chapman, president of Discovery Institute. “It is an important day in science when biologists are bold enough to challenge one of the leading theories in their profession.”

During recent decades, new scientific evidence from many scientific disciplines such as cosmology, physics, biology, "artificial intelligence" research, and others have caused scientists to begin questioning Darwinism’s central tenet of natural selection and studying the evidence supporting it in greater detail.

The full statement signed by the biologists reads: “We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged.”

“Darwin’s shrillest defenders continue to claim there is no scientific debate and no legitimate scientists who question neo-Darwinian evolution and yet again that claim is shown to be false,” said John West, associate director of Discovery Institute’s Center for Science & Culture.

The list, started in 2001, continues to grow on a weekly basis. Biologists who have signed the list include prominent scientists such as evolutionary biologist and textbook author Dr. Stanley Salthe, and Giuseppe Sermonti the Editor of Rivista di Biologia / Biology Forum. The list of biologists also includes scientists from Princeton, Cornell, UC Berkeley, UCLA, Ohio State University, Purdue and University of Washington among others.

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Is teaching creationism un-constitutional (in the US)?

I think at least a couple of key facts need to be taken into account here. We need to know what certain terms mean and use them correctly—and insist that others do the same.

[This is directed mainly at those in the U.S.; I ask the indulgence and pardon of our brethren in other lands for the narrow scope of this post.]

The Constitution on Education and Science
The U.S. Constitution says absolutely nothing about education (let alone evolution or creation). The notion of any federal involvement in education did not exist in the minds of the founders—and rightly so. Before something can be said to be "unconstitutional" it has to be a violation of what the Constitution, taken as plainly written (at face value), actually mandates or prohibits. Anything dealing with education or science by its very nature will not be "unconstitutional" unless and until it explicitly violates the Constitution.

The Constitution on Religion
The Constitution's "establishment clause" (in the 1st amendment) is the only place where anything relating to "religion" is prohibited—and the prohibition is explicitly placed on Congress, not The People, nor the States. It says (quite plainly): "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." U.S. Constitution, 1st Amendment (emphasis added).

The People and the States are free to do as they please in matters concerning religion: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people" [U.S. Constitution, Amendment 9], and "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people" [U.S. Constitution, Amendment 10] (emphasis added).

“Unconstitutional” ??
Even if anyone wants to claim that anything up to (or including) to the wholesale teaching of the Christian gospel in schools is "unconstitutional," s/he is dead wrong when it comes to the Law of the Land as it is written, and they should be told as much.

“Public Schools”
That "public schools" (read: government indoctrination day camps) even exist is a shame on The People in general and on Christians in particular. There wouldn't even be a debate about what origins models could be taught in school, if The People had not lazily relinquished both their responsibility and authority over their children's education by allowing "the government" to "provide" that "service." A very instructive and current column on this topic may be found at http://www.worldmag.com/subscriber/displayarticle.cfm?id=10707.

Having said all that, "public school" curriculums remain (so far, at least in some measure) the bailiwick of state and local authorities, all of which still "derive their power from the consent of the governed" [Declaration of Independence], making the selection of origins models lawfully a matter subject to popular influence at the state and local levels. Not only is it not "unconstitutional" to teach one origins model or another, it is quite lawfully to be a state or local choice (depending on how much power a particular state government has gathered unto itself).

A Last Thought
If the ideology of so many Christians weren't co-opted by a similar brand of statism to that of those who promote the secularist, evolutionist agenda, Christians would find it easier to oppose them from a higher position, grounded in the law as it is written. Instead, by allowing the paradigms of statism and collectivism to dominate their presuppositions in so many ways, Christians in the U.S. too often place themselves at a disadvantage. Being largely ignorant of both the Law of the Land and the heritage and responsibility it secures to The People, ours is a history more of complicity with than resistance to those who have usurped our sovereignty through the institution of the collectivist nation-state.

Sorry for so many words!

Tim Wallace (http://www.trueorigins.org)

“What if the democracy we thought we were serving no longer exists, and the Republic has become the very evil we have been fighting to destroy?”
— Padmé in Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith

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Dinosaur eggs still smelly after 70 million years !!!???

 From the May 2005 Natural History (p. 11):

"70,000,000 B.C. -- Rotten eggs are bad enough when they come from chickens, so imagine the smell of a 70-million-year-old dinosaur egg.

But a team of paleontologists led by Mary H. Schweitzer of North Carolina State University in Raleigh was not about to let the "petroliferous odor" keep them from examining the shells of a few astonishingly well preserved eggs deposited by the giant Argentinian dinos known as titanosaurs..."

The article goes on to explain the embryos inside the eggs still had "soft tissue visible" -- it's unclear if this means the soft tissue itself was preserved or just fossilized impressions of it. But it does say the scientists were able to investigate the eggs' molecular structure and "even the immunological reactions they provoked."

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Transition dinosaur in the prosess of becoming vegetarian?

The truth about this "find" can be read here http://creationsafaris.com/crev200505.htm

In short... Researchers like details and big words, but the news media like slang and humor. Researchers speak in tentative and reserved language, but news media like certainty. The scientists here proposed an interpretation that these species, despite the poor fit within a “generally accepted” hypothesis and uncertain dating, that Falcarius was undergoing a dietary change, even though

(1) the number of simultaneous morphological adaptations needed would be considerable, difficult to account for by chance mutations and natural selection, and

(2) they had to invoke the multiply-improbable concept of “convergent evolution” to link these changes to those going on in other species. These problems notwithstanding, perhaps the shape of teeth and pelvis suggested that these dinosaurs were in the midst of a transition from meat-eating to plant-eating.

That’s all the news media needed: a picture and a sound bite: “Fossil-hunters working in the dusty Utah desert have caught a dinosaur in the act of going vegetarian.” *Sigh*. Who do they think we are – children, who can’t handle the solid meat of data, and who cannot discern interpretations from evidence? These dinosaurs were not sitting around experimenting on lettuce for dessert after their usual steak. Get real; the herd was living within their well-adapted niche, when a flood suddenly came and buried them all.
 

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Pygmies found near "hobbit" - supposed human ancestor

http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,15129125%255E663,00.html

Herald Sun (Australia)

Pygmy found near home of hobbits

30 April 05


INDONESIAN scientists have found a community of pygmy people in the eastern island of Flores.

The community is near a village where Australian scientists discovered a dwarf-sized skeleton last year and declared it a new human species.

The latest discovery will likely raise more controversy over the finding of Homo floresiensis, claimed by Australian scientists Mike Morwood and Peter Brown in September. They nick-named the skeleton a hobbit.

Kompas daily reported yesterday that the pygmy community had been found during an April 18-24 expedition in the village of Rampapasa, about 1km from the village of Liang Bua, where the species called Homo floresiensis was found.

The newspaper quoted Koeshardjono, a biologist who discovered the pygmy village, saying 77 families had been found there.

Teuku Jacob, a professor at Gadjah Mada University, who led the human anthropology research team, said 80 per cent of the Rampapasa villagers were small, with most male adults under 145cm and female adults about 135cm.

"The presence of the pygmy people there is both very interesting and surprising," Prof Jacob said. "For years, scientists from all over the world could only see their traces. Now we could find them living in a society.

"Mini people have been reportedly seen in Andaman and the province of Papua, but only a few remained and they have been difficult to find because they have been spreading to some areas."

In the November issue of the journal Nature, professors Morwood and Brown, who claimed the discovery together with Indonesian colleagues, said the species was thought to have evolved from Homo erectus, which spread out from Africa to Asia about two million years ago.

It became isolated on Flores and evolved into its dwarf form with a minuscule brain to conform to local conditions, such as food shortages.

The brain volume of the skeleton found is about 380 cubic centimetres, slightly smaller than a chimpanzee.

Prof Jacob, however, is challenging the claim, accusing them of committing "scientific terrorism" as the discovery was announced without the consent of the Indonesian archaeologists who participated in the find.

Maciej Henneberg, a biological anthropology and anatomy expert from the University of Adelaide, has said the dwarf-sized skeleton found on Flores last year does not represent a new species, Homo floresiensis, as claimed by professors Morwood and Brown.