It makes the argument, which I think is widely accepted, that dinosaurs went extinct in essentially one day, or a little longer if some survived the impact and immediate aftermath of the asteroid strike. Maybe it took a year to full extinctify all of them.
So boom. One day you've got a world full of dinosaurs munching on vegetation and each other, and then you go back a year later and you've got a barren wasteland full of corpses. The article says "the available fossil record shows that about 75 percent of known species completely disappeared, and things probably weren’t rosy for the survivors. “It’s is reasonable to suppose that the 25 percent of surviving species had near-total mortality...”. In other words, 75 percent of species were wiped out immediately, and the other 25 percent were almost wiped out.
Now, we generally have something like this happen about every 60 to 150 million years, because there have been five mass extinction events since life began forming on earth. Read more here if you're interested: https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/what-...sixth-one.html
For whatever reason, this is the cycle.
We had the first one, then 69 million years later we had the second.
Then we skipped a cycle and had the third one 124 million years after the second.
The fourth one was a bit ahead of schedule, happening 50 million years after the third one.
Then the fifth one (the dinosaur one) skipped a cycle and happened 135 million years after the fourth one.
Don't think about the fact that it's been 65 million years since the last one, by the way. Just put that out of your mind.
So the bottom line is that we get hammered on a cycle of about 65 million years, but sometimes we dodge the problem and get it on the next round at 130 million years.
So my question is, what would have happened if the asteroid that caused the last one 65 million years ago somehow missed us and the dinosaurs didn't get wiped out. Would we still have dinosaurs today? Or would cavemen have hunted them to extinction? Or would they have gone extinct naturally before humans came around, due to climate change or some such thing?
Disclaimer: if you believe the earth is less than 65 million years old, just move along and talk football. This thread has nothing for you. [Reply]
The only thing that’s certain is that we know very little and understand even less about anything prior to our written history. It’s all theoretical. Why have some species survived like alligators while most died? Religion and science leave us with more questions than answers. My honest belief is that humans pre date what we know my a long shot.
As far as dinosaurs go I just can’t see them all going in 24 hours. Life finds a way. [Reply]
"The Institute for Creation Research (ICR) is a Creationist apologetics institute in Dallas, Texas that specializes in media promotion of pseudoscientific creation science and interpretation of the Genesis creation narrative as a historical event."
"The ICR also offers unaccredited graduate level programs in Biblical Apologetics, including a minor in Creation Research"
"An April 2008 survey by Texas Freedom Network showed the majority of science faculties in Texas are opposed to ICR's request to issue science degrees with 185 (95% of respondents) opposed to certifying the program and 6 (3%) in favor."
Our ancestor would be a Troodon and we would be reptilian instead. I see no reason to think all dinosaurs would have ever disappeared. They would have diversified differently and their overall sizes would have been reduced as food sources shrank and atmospheric conditions changed, but they would still dominate barring something else intervening. Dinosaur descendants and animals that lived alongside them survived as it is anyways. [Reply]
Keep in mind, when these extinction level events are referred to as being “rapid”, they are not rapid in the human context. For example, the dominant theory of the K-T extinction (asteroid) has most dinosaurs dying in 3500 years, but may be much longer due to how incomplete the fossil record is.
The Tr-J event was probably 2 pulses of extinction over several million years.
Many scientists argue that we are currently in a mass extinction period, but it’s not like we see dead animals everywhere. [Reply]
Originally Posted by DrunkBassGuitar:
I mean it's a little speculative because it's hard to know what could have wiped them out if not for an asteroid. There's all kinds of animals that have gone extinct since the last mass extinction like multi-toed horses.
Birds are the descendants of one branch of dinosaurs (theropods). Lots of human like primates went extinct but yeah the descendants of dinosaurs would be a lot more of the biodiversity on earth most likely.
I had a book in elementary school which speculated that maybe one branch of dinosaurs would have evolved intelligence and walking upright so instead of primate like humans we would be lizard or bird like
They'd probably need to evolve something like breastfeeding that allows them to inject super-nutrients into helpless babies with giant brains.
Then again octopus and squid are fairly smart - and they don't do any of that stuff. And some birds are pretty smart. But there could be a limit to intelligence w/o something like breastfeeding. [Reply]
So how small were the dinosaurs that eventually evolved into birds? And how did they survive? Surely they couldn't have hid out in caves for thousands(?) of years while the planet reset itself and still keep evolving flight ability so how did they survive and keep evolving?
As much as this stuff interests me, I'm pretty stupid when it comes to it, so sorry if it's a dumb question :-) [Reply]
Originally Posted by suzzer99:
They'd probably need to evolve something like breastfeeding that allows them to inject super-nutrients into helpless babies with giant brains.
Then again octopus and squid are fairly smart - and they don't do any of that stuff. And some birds are pretty smart. But there could be a limit to intelligence w/o something like breastfeeding.
if I remember correctly the female lizardman had titties but no nips for some reason.
but yeah the human brain is pretty huge energy investment and you're probably right [Reply]
Originally Posted by lewdog:
"The Institute for Creation Research (ICR) is a Creationist apologetics institute in Dallas, Texas that specializes in media promotion of pseudoscientific creation science and interpretation of the Genesis creation narrative as a historical event."
"The ICR also offers unaccredited graduate level programs in Biblical Apologetics, including a minor in Creation Research"
"An April 2008 survey by Texas Freedom Network showed the majority of science faculties in Texas are opposed to ICR's request to issue science degrees with 185 (95% of respondents) opposed to certifying the program and 6 (3%) in favor."
That's okay. Implausible scientific theories that go against real science, such as the idea that matter was created from nothing and life was created from nonlife are universally rejected by people who are willing to open their eyes and see that the big bullshit theory is impossible. [Reply]
Originally Posted by jjchieffan:
That's okay. Implausible scientific theories that go against real science, such as the idea that matter was created from nothing and life was created from nonlife are universally rejected by people who are willing to open their eyes and see that the big bullshit theory is impossible.
The Big Bang Theory is impossible, but the Book of Genesis isn't?
Of course I'm not going to change your mind, but if you're rejecting the impossible, creationism should be tossed into the garbage. [Reply]
