Talk:Dinosaur

Talk:Dinosaur/Archive1

Note: an alternative version of this article is currently being written here. This is not an attempt to usurp Conservative's views, but rather add more factual information regarding the evolutionary view. --Hojimachong^talk

Alternative version of the article

It's a bit hard to tell what's different about the alternative article. A comparison with the current article shows lots of differences, but much of that is due to some heavy editing of the current article recently. Comparing the first version of the alternative (presumably a straight copy of the then-current article) with the latest version of the alternative shows some differences, but most of them seem to have been incorporated into the current article anyway (although I haven't compared how closely the "history of dinosaur paleontology" sections match). The other main change is the introduction, where the alternative version states matter-of-factly that the evolutionary view is based on "overwhelming scientific evidence" (which claim, as it goes on to say, creationists dispute of course). Naturally I'd object to this view being put as though it is correct. Philip J. Rayment 01:53, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

I am mostly happy with the current article. Given the ed staff, it's the best it'll ever get.-AmesG_yo! 02:16, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

Let's Have this "Evolutionary" Debate Here & Now

Conservative, you have never rebutted my contention that "evolutionary," used as a qualifier to the entire field of science, is nothing more than a qualifier-word designed to make scientists sound less credible. There is a branch of science called "evolutionary biology," but they do not deal with dinosaurs. If you do not properly rebut this argument, I will change the article to not use the word "evolutionary" except where appropriate. -AmesG_yo! 01:16, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

Here is what AmesG said regarding material he posted in regards to it's veracity:

"I honestly had no idea and just wanted to pick a fight." [1]

Do we really need users who care so little about whether their material is factual or not? Do we need users who are so pugnacious that the facts don't really matter?

I say we cannot afford to babysit AmesG anymore. Conservative 01:50, 1 April 2007 (EDT)conservative

Inappropriate edit here. See my reply on Andy's page. Stick to the point.-AmesG_yo! 01:51, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

"Creationary"

Conservative, that you've never heard the word "creationary" is not really the point, is it? That most haven't may be a point, but I dispute the relevance of that. It is perfectly legitimate in English to append standard prefixes and suffixes to words regardless of whether the resulting word has ever been used before, and "creationary" is just following that pattern.

"Creationary" is also a good balance to "evolutionary"; if the latter is acceptable, why not the former? At least it provides for consistency.

And it has in fact been in use for quite some time, and was included in a dictionary nearly 50 years ago. Please read here for more information, including why "creationist" is not the best word to use where an adjective is required.

Philip J. Rayment 01:34, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

I'm down with that compromise.-AmesG_yo! 01:36, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

I think we should not use the word "creationary" if it is not in more than one current very large dictionary. That's my two cents. I will not start an edit war about it though! Conservative 01:42, 1 April 2007 (EDT)conservative

AmesG, I don't follow. I suspect that you were objecting to the term "evolutionary", but that you'd be happy if both "evolutionary" and "creationary" are used. Is that correct? Philip J. Rayment 01:55, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

That's right. If both sides sound ridiculous, no problem.-AmesG_yo! 01:58, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

The terms may be uncommon, but I fail to see how they are, or make the topic sound, ridiculous. Philip J. Rayment 02:08, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

Then I must have misspoken. Let's use them both.-AmesG_yo! 02:12, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

Snipping apparent joke

However, a certain "Dr. Karl Pilkington", has used numerous reliable paleontological sources, such as "1 million years BC", by the eminent social philosopher Racquel Welch, to deduce that since dinosaurs and humans have once lived, there must be "some cross over point" where both roamed the Earth. This standpoint has gained a large amount of publicity, and is now taken more seriously than accepted extinction theory.

One Million Years BC is a 1966 science fiction movie, and Raquel Welch was the "curvy" actress who starred in it. Karl Pilkington produces a radio show and has his own Wiki. Sounds like someone was having fun. Dpbsmith 16:10, 5 April 2007 (EDT)

OK

Let's discuss this:

• For example, explorers have reported seeing a live dinosaur. A thousand people reported seeing a dinosaur-like monster in two sightings around Sayram Lake in Xinjiang according to the Chinese publication, China Today. An expedition which included Charles W. Gilmore, Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology with the United States National Museum, examined an ancient pictograph which is claimed to portray dinosaurs and man coexisting.

Has anyone in the last 100 years report seeing a dinosaur? Anyone?

• The World Book Encyclopedia states that: "The dragons of legend are strangely like actual creatures that have lived in the past. They are much like the great reptiles [dinosaurs] which inhabited the earth long before man is supposed to have appeared on earth."

This contradicts the section title.

• Dragons exist in the folklore of many European and Asian cultures.[25] World Book Encyclopedia says, "In Europe, dragons are traditionally portrayed as ferocious beasts that represent the evils fought by human beings. But in Asia, especially in China and Japan, the animals are generally considered friendly creatures that ensure good luck and wealth."[25] Dragons appear in the flag of Wales, and in traditional Chinese New Years' Day celebrations. The Nile Mosaic of Palestrina, a second century piece of art, is said to appear to be a piece of artwork that shows a dinosaur and man coexisting.

What does this have to do with anything. There are a lot of cultural references to animals which don't even exist! This makes no sense.

• Creation scientists also see the recent dinosaur tissue find as a strong rebuttal of the claim that dinosaurs lived millions of years ago.

Again, contradicts section title.

• Among those who believe in the existence of the Loch Ness Monster, one popular theory is that it is a living plesiosaur.

Has anyone seen that?Sterile 13:52, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

I don't understand your claim that two of those points "contradict the section title". The section title is "Humans and Dinosaurs Coexisting", and each of those points provide support (not proof, but support) of humans and dinosaurs coexisting at some time (or are you reading the section title as saying that they coexist now?).

I doubt that there are lots of cultural references to animals which don't exist, but the point here is that cultural references to creatures with descriptions matching dinosaurs supports the idea of dinosaurs and humans coexisting, especially when there are so many references from two continents.

By the way, I smiled at your reference to "evil British punctunation".

Philip J. Rayment 19:43, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

You are suggesting that the cyclops existed? When a potentially simpler answer is "the ancient Greeks saw an elephant skull[2]?" You can have cultural references to something without it existing (dragons, unicorns, boogie man, fairies, etc...) --Mtur 19:47, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

No, I'm not suggesting that the cyclops existed. I didn't deny that there are some cultural references to animals that didn't exist, and I'll go further and admit that perhaps the Greeks had quite a few. But by the same token, people too readily dismiss cultural references to things they haven't otherwise heard of rather than see if there might be a basis for them. The descriptions of dragons are many and widespread, and largely consistent with descriptions of dinosaurs. Philip J. Rayment 23:18, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

Actually, as I understand it, the dragons that appeared in the different cultures (including English culture) wheren't actually that similiar to dinosaurs. If anything, they were more serpent like. In some cases, they were extremely different. The 'looking kindda like dinosaurs' is just the modern interpretation of dragons. Ironically, Wikipedia actually has a pretty good page on them. Sureal 10:17, 7 April 2007 (EDT)

What do you mean by "serpent like"? Long and slender? Legless? Dragons seem to have had a wide variety of descriptions (which is as you'd expect if they are dinosaurs, i.e. if they are referring to a group of creatures, not a particular type of creature; dinosaurs came in a wide variety of shapes), some serpent-like but others not. Note that most of the pictures in the Wikipedia dragon article are not really serpent-like. Philip J. Rayment 11:08, 7 April 2007 (EDT)

"[S]ome descendants of those dinosaurs taken aboard the Ark still roam the earth today..."

The reference in a creationist journal for this statement says, "The feasibility of the idea that some dinosaurs may still be alive has a little more support, although at this time we would have to say it is not conclusive." If the creationists are saying it's not conclusive, then why is it in the article? Sterile 14:20, 22 April 2007 (EDT)

Good point. I've downgraded the claim to be more consistent with the reference. Philip J. Rayment 22:17, 22 April 2007 (EDT)

"For example, explorers have reported seeing a live dinosaur.[15]"

The only sentence in ref 15 about explorers is, "And British explorer Colonel John Blashford-Snell returned from an isolated Nepalese valley in March with photos of living creatures which looked something like mammoths or extinct stegodons." Mammoths and stegodons are not dinosaurs. And the plural "explorers" implies more than one. Sterile 18:20, 1 May 2007 (EDT)

Maybe you could quibble about the word "explorers" vs. "researchers" or similar, but look further down in that referenced article to the bit about Mokele-mbembe. Philip J. Rayment 23:28, 1 May 2007 (EDT)

I don't know of many recent explorers. In most people's (and I mean most) "explorers" are the folks who went looking for "new worlds" 100s of years ago. I've done research, but never considered myself and explorer before. I shouldn't have to interpret references anyway :). Sterile 08:40, 2 May 2007 (EDT)

How about replacing the sentence with "People in the Congo have reported seeing a creature they termed "mokele-mbembe," meaning "one that stops the flow of rivers." French priests translate this as "monstrous animals." Dr. Roy Mackal made an expedition to the region and recorded the Congolese descriptions of the mokele-mbembe. (and reference 15). That's much more clear than "explorers reported seeing...," which really isn't in ref 15 anyway. Sterile 11:34, 2 May 2007 (EDT)

That's too much irrelevant information for the space, in my opinion. The important point for this article is not what it's called and what that means, but that the description matched that of a dinosaur. Your suggestion doesn't mention that. Second, I would be happy to change it to "People in the Congo..." if it were not for the facts that it wasn't just the Congo and that a biologist has reported seeing it as well as ordinary "people" (see reference 15).

I'm still open to suggestions on alternative wording, however.

Philip J. Rayment 11:52, 2 May 2007 (EDT)

Since you seem to claim a monopoly to the wording, what better word than explorer would you recommend? And what other researchers have observed a dinosaur? The ONLY reference to explorers in the reference is the British explorer that saw a mammoth. The "expeditions" brought back "ordinary people"'s (your words) observations, but Dr. Mackal did not observe one. There's nothing in the reference about explorers and dinosaurs. Sterile 13:05, 2 May 2007 (EDT)

How am I claiming a monopoly on the wording if I'm inviting suggestions of better wording? I'll try to do some rewording of that entire section, though. Philip J. Rayment 08:40, 3 May 2007 (EDT)

My reversion of recent changes

The first edit that I've reverted was deletion of the comment about recent sightings, with the edit comment, "the author has since retracted claims - see reference". This is incorrect. The author has retracted one recent sighting, but there are still others in that article, so the statement is still correct.

The second edit removed information without any explanation. I will reinstate the minor wording changes that were also in that edit.

The third edit removed information with the edit comment, "article discredited by scientist it quotes http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/2491". This is incorrect. First a couple of minor quibbles. The article was not discredited, so much as the claims of the article, and the the main scientist it quotes was not the one who disputed the claims, but her boss. More relevant, however, is that the claims were disputed; to say that they were discredited is to put a POV on whether the disputing succeeded. Most relevant is that the claim in this (Dinosaur) article was not even disputed. The claim in this article was, "Creation scientists also see the recent dinosaur tissue find as a strong rebuttal of the claim that dinosaurs lived millions of years ago.". Horner did not "discredit" that creationists see things this way, and the reference cited in the edit comment did not retract the creationist claim.

The fourth edit was grammatically incorrect, but I will reword it to make it a bit closer to the edit.

Philip J. Rayment 09:45, 2 May 2007 (EDT)

http://www.users.bigpond.com/rdoolan/coelacanth.html

This page makes a number of claims regarding evolutionary biology that I cannot verify from any other source, and they do not cite their sources. In addition they make the claim "It is surely strange that the coelacanth could remain so stable all this time, both genetically and morphologically". However, there is no possible way to tell whether or not the species have remained genetically stable. The only conclusion is that the site in unreliable. Nematocyte 12:22, 2 May 2007 (EDT)

I agree that it doesn't cite sources. Hang fire until I've reworded that section. Philip J. Rayment 08:53, 3 May 2007 (EDT)

My reversion of recent changes (2)

The first edit I reverted this time had the edit comment, "China Today is noted for "Inquirer"-like sensational stories that cannot be confirmed.". Show me some evidence of this and I'll agree to the re-removal of that bit.

The second edit had the edit comment, "Author of the reference claims to be the Paleontologist for the United States "Rational" Museum, which apparently does not exist.". No, it said the "National" Museum, which is an alternative or former name of the Smithsonian Institute, and Wikipedia and other sources confirm that Gilmore was a paleontologist there.

The third edit had the edit comment, "Information about dragons belongs in an article on dragons.". Sorry, but the point is that creationists see dragons as being dinosaurs. Thus it belongs here.

The fourth edit had the edit comment, "Reference indicates that author retracted his claims about dinosaurs.". Please don't go repeating the same changes without giving new (and valid) reasons for doing so. The same editor made this same deletion with the same basic edit comment before, which I answered above when I reverted it.

Philip J. Rayment 08:53, 3 May 2007 (EDT)

If this is a joke, it's not that funny.

In my short time at Conservapedia, I've seen two 1337-speaking vandals attack (striking, among other things, my newly-made talk page!), and I've had the misfortune of seeing this article. Between the two - the vandalism and this article - I'm not sure which one is worse. I mean, I'm as conservative as the next guy (that's why I joined the site), but I'm also... errr... "college educated." There's a line between "conservative" and "creationist" that I don't think you guys really get, and it bothers me to have you creating this site in the name of all conservatives, who include me...

Let's start briefly with the content. The Loch Ness Monster is proof of the continued existence of dinosaurs? Seriously? And treating science as a "point of view" that needs to be "balanced" is obscene. Anyone who's taken science classes in any school knows that science doesn't concern itself with having a point of view, and if you believe to the contrary, honestly, you could probably find a better conspiracy theory to believe in. It strikes me that what you're working for in this article is the taking of "political correctness" to its logical extreme, that even bad science is an "opinion" that deserves "equal time." As a conservative, the idea of political correctness bothers me enough, and it should bother you, too, but I see that where being PC serves you, you're more than happy to indulge. I'd rather not dignify the rest of this article with a response.

The real weakness, though, is sourcing. Encyclopedias imply objective, factual writing. That means good academic sourcing. But, the creationist claims here are sourced to outlandishly biased one-trick-pony sites I've never even heard of before, but they all seem to have their own agenda. A basic underpinning of academic writing, as I have learned, is objective & honest use of citations. But the way you cite in this article is no better than having an article on Hillary Clinton that said, "Hillary would be a good president <ref>See her campaign website</ref>." You see the comparison? You can't support a biased statement with a biased citation just to give an illusion of objectivity: it's just my hunch, but I suspect that "AnswersInGenesis" and "CreationOnTheWeb" have a not-so-hidden agenda.

I don't know what you people are, but you're not conservatives. I'd like to contribute positively to this site, but perusing through other related articles after seeing this one, I have realized that many have fought & "died" (been blocked) for pointing out what I just did. Will I face an uphill battle in just writing in encyclopedic style? Based on this article, I would assume, "yes."-BillBuck 11:06, 3 May 2007 (EDT)

No, it's not a joke. What's a joke is that the atheistic agenda of evolution is treated as empirical science and creationary science is dismissed as an unreliable source, rather than actually being refuted. The tactic is to argue, as you have implicitly, that "evolution is science" and is therefore totally objective. Scientists are not always totally objective, and [[physical science#[edit] Types of science|origins science]] is not empirical science]]. There is no anti-creationists conspiracy, but there is a ruling paradigm that refuses to acknowledge creation as a valid alternative. Evolutionists (some of whom acknowledge their anti-theistic bias) are no less agenda-driven than creationists, and lay evolutionists who argue otherwise are the pot calling the kettle black. Philip J. Rayment 11:20, 3 May 2007 (EDT)

As I said, I'm a Christian, a Conservative, and an "Evolutionist" (that term's new to me too). But I've also taken science classes. Don't you think it says something that the only sources you can point to are biased niche-sources, and not anything actually serious? And the last time I checked, assuming your conclusion is bad science :-P -BillBuck 11:25, 3 May 2007 (EDT)

I believe that it's you that's assuming your conclusion. You've not even bothered to explain why the sources are supposedly "biased niche-sources" and opposing sources are not, and why the sources are not "serious". Making those assertions without something to back it up is not a valid argument. And you are sort of wrong with the "biased niche-sources" anyway. The creationist sources referenced frequently cite from non-creationist sources. So what that you've taken science classes? So have the scientists who are creationists! Philip J. Rayment 11:45, 3 May 2007 (EDT)

thanks!

Phil, thanks for clarifying the Mokele-member part of the story. (I'm not a big fan on bulleted lists--it makes it look like the writer is just trying to occupy more space--but that's your stylistic choice.)

The only other true objection (well, at least that I will bring up) is that the "exctinct species that were found" argument. An analogous argument is that apples provide evidence for oranges. That is, there's nothing about pine trees, squirrels or fish that provide any evidence for dinosaurs, because they are not related. Certainly you would not say that birds do not provide evidence for dinosaurs (!), so why would squirrels or fish or pine trees?

Other than that, I think you have portrayed the creationist perspective as well as it will ever be done. Cheerio! Sterile 11:48, 3 May 2007 (EDT)