University of Georgia and others say dinosaurs THOUSANDS of years old, not millions

originally posted by: Masterjaden
a reply to: Arbitrageur

One, your explanation for the dragon mythos origin requires that the mythos already existed. How does that then explain it then? rhetorical question btw.

People found dinosaur bones, didn't know what they were exactly but knew it was some large terrible creature maybe like big lizard. So invent some giant creature along the lines of the bones and call it a "dragon". Find more big bones of large terrible creature, call them "dragon bones", just like the uneducated chinese farmer did.

Two, iron preserving the soft tissue does NOT explain the presence of C-14, unless you think they are also claiming that iron halts the radiologic decay of carbon-14?

As others have said C-14 dating is only reliable up to maybe 50,000 years or if extraordinary measures are taken maybe slightly longer like 60,000, but when you get ages in the range of 40,000 years this means you are already very close to the upper limits of C-14 dating and then only if great care was taken. What that also means is there's not much C-14 left in such samples so even small amounts of contamination of C-14 from other sources like the shellac used to preserve the bones ground in with the bone sample could be enough to give the sample a 40,000 year measurement even if the true age of the uncontaminated bone was much older.

originally posted by: Arbitrageur

originally posted by: Masterjaden
a reply to: Arbitrageur

One, your explanation for the dragon mythos origin requires that the mythos already existed. How does that then explain it then? rhetorical question btw.

People found dinosaur bones, didn't know what they were exactly but knew it was some large terrible creature maybe like big lizard. So invent some giant creature along the lines of the bones and call it a "dragon". Find more big bones of large terrible creature, call them "dragon bones", just like the uneducated chinese farmer did.

Two, iron preserving the soft tissue does NOT explain the presence of C-14, unless you think they are also claiming that iron halts the radiologic decay of carbon-14?

As others have said C-14 dating is only reliable up to maybe 50,000 years or if extraordinary measures are taken maybe slightly longer like 60,000, but when you get ages in the range of 40,000 years this means you are already very close to the upper limits of C-14 dating and then only if great care was taken. What that also means is there's not much C-14 left in such samples so even small amounts of contamination of C-14 from other sources like the shellac used to preserve the bones ground in with the bone sample could be enough to give the sample a 40,000 year measurement even if the true age of the uncontaminated bone was much older.

Do you realize the odds of some uneducated farmer figuring out that a giant thigh bone belonged to a monster lizard?

Not to put down farmers who actually do excellent work and could school most scientists regarding their own environment...

C-14, schmee-14. Dinosaurs ate people and people ate dinosaurs - in fact, some dinosaurs were hunted into extinction.

I can't wait until people start digging giant bones out of the ocean floor.

a reply to: TarzanBeta
All he needs to know is they are large bones of some creature he's never seen living before, and it would be human nature to try to come up with some kind of explanation for the origin of these huge bones.

Maybe it panned out in the past like it did in the documentary I saw where a relatively uneducated farmer got some more educated people to look at his find.

www.smithsonianmag.com...

Ancient people may have discovered dinosaur fossils and understandably misinterpreted them as the remains of dragons. Chang Qu, a Chinese historian from the 4th century B.C., mislabeled such a fossil in what is now Sichuan Province. Take a look at a fossilized stegosaurus, for example, and you might see why: The giant beasts averaged 30 feet in length, were typically 14 feet tall and were covered in armored plates and spikes for defense.

That article has some other ideas on the origin of dragons such as finding whale bones was another idea. That idea would hinge on their (lack of) familiarity with whales, but the idea again is finding large bones, and imagining they belonged to some large creature.

originally posted by: Arbitrageur
a reply to: TarzanBeta
All he needs to know is they are large bones of some creature he's never seen living before, and it would be human nature to try to come up with some kind of explanation for the origin of these huge bones.

Maybe it panned out in the past like it did in the documentary I saw where a relatively uneducated farmer got some more educated people to look at his find.

www.smithsonianmag.com...

Ancient people may have discovered dinosaur fossils and understandably misinterpreted them as the remains of dragons. Chang Qu, a Chinese historian from the 4th century B.C., mislabeled such a fossil in what is now Sichuan Province. Take a look at a fossilized stegosaurus, for example, and you might see why: The giant beasts averaged 30 feet in length, were typically 14 feet tall and were covered in armored plates and spikes for defense.

That article has some other ideas on the origin of dragons such as finding whale bones was another idea. That idea would hinge on their (lack of) familiarity with whales, but the idea again is finding large bones, and imagining they belonged to some large creature.

That quote proves my point, friend.

Chang Qu was right.

How is that possible.

And why are they saying it's a case of mistaken identity?

The Chinese didn't speak Latin and the creatures weren't referred to as dinosaurs until the 19th century. As chance would have it, dinosaur means "terrible lizard". Hmmm...

Long

So why is the Chinese KangXi for "Dragon" used in their current word for dinosaur, "konglong"?

I don't know... Maybe because the Smithsonian is mistaken - or they want to immediately disconnect the reality that people clearly lived with the "thunder beasts"?

originally posted by: TarzanBeta

originally posted by: Arbitrageur

originally posted by: Masterjaden
a reply to: Arbitrageur

One, your explanation for the dragon mythos origin requires that the mythos already existed. How does that then explain it then? rhetorical question btw.

People found dinosaur bones, didn't know what they were exactly but knew it was some large terrible creature maybe like big lizard. So invent some giant creature along the lines of the bones and call it a "dragon". Find more big bones of large terrible creature, call them "dragon bones", just like the uneducated chinese farmer did.

Two, iron preserving the soft tissue does NOT explain the presence of C-14, unless you think they are also claiming that iron halts the radiologic decay of carbon-14?

As others have said C-14 dating is only reliable up to maybe 50,000 years or if extraordinary measures are taken maybe slightly longer like 60,000, but when you get ages in the range of 40,000 years this means you are already very close to the upper limits of C-14 dating and then only if great care was taken. What that also means is there's not much C-14 left in such samples so even small amounts of contamination of C-14 from other sources like the shellac used to preserve the bones ground in with the bone sample could be enough to give the sample a 40,000 year measurement even if the true age of the uncontaminated bone was much older.

Do you realize the odds of some uneducated farmer figuring out that a giant thigh bone belonged to a monster lizard?

Not to put down farmers who actually do excellent work and could school most scientists regarding their own environment...

C-14, schmee-14. Dinosaurs ate people and people ate dinosaurs - in fact, some dinosaurs were hunted into extinction.

I can't wait until people start digging giant bones out of the ocean floor.

I just had to respond to my own post with speaking of the devil.

From six days ago...

On the afternoon of March 21, 2011, a heavy-equipment operator named Shawn Funk was carving his way through the earth, unaware that he would soon meet a dragon

I think I just rested my case, Your Honor.

originally posted by: TarzanBeta

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
a reply to: TarzanBeta

So? Nothing you said there was scientific in the least. You don't also believe in unicorns because horses exist do you?

What's wrong with thinking a horse with a horn may have existed? Have you seen the platypus? Or have you seen the blue-assed monkey?

Nothing as long as you are willing to test that hypothesis and discard it if the evidence for it is lacking. But imagining a creature doesn't magically give it credence for existence. You still have to provide proof that it exists or has existed. Unicorns don't exist. Dragons don't exist. Dragons can't be living dinosaurs because dinosaurs didn't live during human times. If they did, then what killed them off and why didn't most of humanity notice?

No one would be shocked if they did exist. I'll never understand why the people who flock towards fantasy use creatures of fantasy as an insult. So odd.

I'll never understand the people who can't tell the difference between fantasy and reality.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t

originally posted by: TarzanBeta

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
a reply to: TarzanBeta

So? Nothing you said there was scientific in the least. You don't also believe in unicorns because horses exist do you?

What's wrong with thinking a horse with a horn may have existed? Have you seen the platypus? Or have you seen the blue-assed monkey?

Nothing as long as you are willing to test that hypothesis and discard it if the evidence for it is lacking.

No one would be shocked if they did exist. I'll never understand why the people who flock towards fantasy use creatures of fantasy as an insult. So odd.

I'll never understand the people who can't tell the difference between fantasy and reality.

I'll never understand people who make up their own rules and then call that reality.

a reply to: TarzanBeta

Make up rules? The scientific method is a process of experimentation to produce consistent results to explain reality. It is by FAR the best tool humans have thought of to understand our surroundings. To so arrogantly dismiss it shows a severe lack of understanding of how it works.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
a reply to: TarzanBeta

Make up rules? The scientific method is a process of experimentation to produce consistent results to explain reality. It is by FAR the best tool humans have thought of to understand our surroundings. To so arrogantly dismiss it shows a severe lack of understanding of how it works.

The scientific method that you keep defending, which I defend, relies on developing hypotheses and then developing an experiment. The scientific method is not explaining away something that goes against the narrative.

a reply to: TarzanBeta

Except there are criteria for developing a hypothesis. You can't just say that unicorns exist and that be a valid hypothesis. You should have prior research and experimentation that point you in that direction. Otherwise any good scientist would dismiss you using the null hypothesis. No evidence. Not putting in the effort to believe you. Ie it doesn't exist. You are welcome to prove that narrative wrong though by actually providing evidence.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
a reply to: TarzanBeta

Except there are criteria for developing a hypothesis. You can't just say that unicorns exist and that be a valid hypothesis. You should have prior research and experimentation that point you in that direction. Otherwise any good scientist would dismiss you using the null hypothesis. No evidence. Not putting in the effort to believe you. Ie it doesn't exist. You are welcome to prove that narrative wrong though by actually providing evidence.

You know, scientists always say things like that, but always end up making the mistake anyway.

To err is human.

originally posted by: TarzanBeta

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
a reply to: TarzanBeta

Except there are criteria for developing a hypothesis. You can't just say that unicorns exist and that be a valid hypothesis. You should have prior research and experimentation that point you in that direction. Otherwise any good scientist would dismiss you using the null hypothesis. No evidence. Not putting in the effort to believe you. Ie it doesn't exist. You are welcome to prove that narrative wrong though by actually providing evidence.

You know, scientists always say things like that, but always end up making the mistake anyway.

To err is human.

No one claimed the system was perfect. That's why we have the peer review process. To account for human error and bias.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

If you had watched the videos you would have seen that they got date ranges in the 20K year range. So nope again, not right.

Jaden

originally posted by: Masterjaden
a reply to: Arbitrageur

If you had watched the videos you would have seen that they got date ranges in the 20K year range. So nope again, not right.

Jaden

Did you figure out why the chart in the OP also shows two measurements 1950 and 2560 years ago, well within our written records? Hint: look for the parentheses after the reported number, and realize those aren't the only samples with that problem, it likely applies to all of them, just to a lesser degree, and they didn't admit it for the others.

originally posted by: TarzanBeta

originally posted by: GetHyped
a reply to: TarzanBeta

Correction: I don't like it when people make uninformed criticisms of a topic/field they have no understanding of, particularly in the SciTech forum. It's just ignorant.

So, when you say things like:

any credible scientists are only ever looking for evidence according to their education instead of realizing the piece of paper(s) they earned are simply certifications of having gone through the gauntlet of ignorance.

You're being ignorant, and anyone who's on even passing terms with academic research knows this.

The motto of this site is: Deny Ignorance.

Ignorance means that you're not looking past what you've been shown.

Ignorance is a lack of knowledge on a given topic, something you have and continue to demonstrate in this very thread regarding the topic of the scientific method and the academic research community.

originally posted by: TarzanBeta

originally posted by: jimmyx
a reply to: GetHyped

many people on this site do not believe in science, they think it's a government, financial, or an academic sham...I don't...I admire scientists who devote their entire career to one field of study. a friend of mine who happened to be an archeologist said of the "peer review process" as being a nice phrase for saying "you're a dumbass moron and here's why" (my crude interpretation) by others working in the same field. he said after initially getting "hammered" (my phrase, again) about a theory of his, he eventually licked his wounds, and got over it. don't let these ignorant bastards get you down, there are plenty of us out here that would love nothing better than to have a conversation with a scientist to better understand the world around us.

There's nothing wrong with the peer review process. There's something wrong with some of the peers.

Because they don't but into your ridiculous beliefs regarding the origins of life and species on this planet, perhaps?

As well, laymen should understand that most scientists are literally the same bag of hammers as roofers.

Except, ya know, their area of academic specialty. Only in the minds of fools is the layman's opinion of an academic topic as informed and valid as the academic with expertise in that topic.

Again: Deny Ignorance

Or should I say that roofers are just as smart.

Intelligence =/= knowledge. If you seriously think the average layman has as much understanding of, say, quantum mechanics as a physicist does, you are, quite frankly, an ignorant fool.

"My uninformed opinion is just as valid as your knowledge"

No honey, it really isn't...

originally posted by: GetHyped

originally posted by: TarzanBeta

originally posted by: jimmyx
a reply to: GetHyped

many people on this site do not believe in science, they think it's a government, financial, or an academic sham...I don't...I admire scientists who devote their entire career to one field of study. a friend of mine who happened to be an archeologist said of the "peer review process" as being a nice phrase for saying "you're a dumbass moron and here's why" (my crude interpretation) by others working in the same field. he said after initially getting "hammered" (my phrase, again) about a theory of his, he eventually licked his wounds, and got over it. don't let these ignorant bastards get you down, there are plenty of us out here that would love nothing better than to have a conversation with a scientist to better understand the world around us.

There's nothing wrong with the peer review process. There's something wrong with some of the peers.

Because they don't but into your ridiculous beliefs regarding the origins of life and species on this planet, perhaps?

As well, laymen should understand that most scientists are literally the same bag of hammers as roofers.

Except, ya know, their area of academic specialty. Only in the minds of fools is the layman's opinion of an academic topic as informed and valid as the academic with expertise in that topic.

Again: Deny Ignorance

Or should I say that roofers are just as smart.

Intelligence =/= knowledge. If you seriously think the average layman has as much understanding of, say, quantum mechanics as a physicist does, you are, quite frankly, an ignorant fool.

"My uninformed opinion is just as valid as your knowledge"

No honey, it really isn't...

You sound like my mom, the computer scientist who is all but ignorant about everything besides security.

The problem with those who specialize is that they end up sorely lacking in all other areas and therefore cannot have an unbiased, big-picture view of reality.

That's why specialized scientists who think that their point of view is the only right one are so laughable.

Then you have people like me who literally cannot control the number of angles we can see from - to the point of near insanity because the implications are so far away from the reality we're being spoon fed that it is no longer laughable; it's downright terrifying.

I know your kind. You do good jobs, but you know less than a cat about the universe. You know your litter box and your carpeted playhouse of specialized science and that's it.

That's because you all preach scientific method constantly, but you never actually apply it. As many fictional characters have said, one should not twist facts to suit theories, but instead twist theories to suit facts(to paraphrase).

The number one issue I find with nearly every single scientist is that they preach scientific method, but then deliver a story that is completely unprovable. While I can relate to theorizing, I cannot relate to entire institutions being offered prizes, grants, praise, and contracts for subpar product.

It's annoying at best.

And your definition of ignorance is correct, but I was pointing out the condition of willful ignorance.

originally posted by: MerkabaMeditation
a reply to: Masterjaden

Agreed, well put.

I wasn't surprised to find that there was a scientist who attempted to dismiss it as microbial biofilm so that any results could be ignored.

There were proteins and other biology found that bacterias don't produce, thus it was proved that the tissue samples were not biofilm contamination/bacteria.

-MM

It's not a binary thing. The C-14 detected could be from more recent biological material which had mixed in with older fossil material.

a reply to: mbkennel

And exactly how would that have occurred considering that they cut through the bones to retrieve the soft tissue? It's not like the soft tissue was open to the elements and had a way of accumulating C-14 from later sources.

The logic stretching going on here puts olympic gymnasts to shame.

Jaden

originally posted by: Masterjaden
a reply to: mbkennel

And exactly how would that have occurred considering that they cut through the bones to retrieve the soft tissue? It's not like the soft tissue was open to the elements and had a way of accumulating C-14 from later sources.

The logic stretching going on here puts olympic gymnasts to shame.

Jaden

There is certainly always the risk of contamination when it comes to elements. But I do believe most are just fighting for the collective reality.

I can't blame them. I really have a very hard time with the real real world.