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Megan: A brief response to a specific point you raised:
>The impetus
> for this article was the 2/25/96 program NBC ran called "Mysterious
> Origins of Man" which claimed, among many other things, that man and
> dinosaurs lived at the same time. Why is this such a point of
> contention? When exactly did scientists nail down the exact age of
> dinosaurs? Why is this so pivotal to the evolution debate? Any thoughts
> or comments would be greatly appreciated.
The creationists are so eager to prove that humans and dinosaurs
coexisted because proof of such would falsify many evolutionary
assumptions, as well as our understanding of geological time.
Creationists have attempted to show that evolutoion is not a
falsifiable hypothesis, and thus not a true theory in the sense of
Karl Popper's crtiterion.
However, the fact that we have a fossil suiccession (i.e. that
species and higher taxa appear and dissappear in a predictable and
reproducable pattern) proves that we do in fact have good,
falsifiable data and that evolution is a working theory.
By the way, I hope you know that the "man-tracks" in the Paluxy
River beds are either dinosaur prints or (a few) bogus carvings.
Scientists "nailed down" the age of dinosaurs quite a number
of years ago with small imprecision in the end date (within the
constraints of about .5 million years. The early dates for
dinosaurs is being pushed back as new discoveries are made of
relatively more primitive forms: this is toi be expected in an active
research pursuit. Roughtly the same is the case for humans: we
know the end-date (roughly, in geological time frames!) but the early
date is being pushed back as more-ane-more primitive hominids are
found.
Cheers,
David Schwimmer
Dep't of Chemistry & Geology
Columbus College, Columbus GA 31907-5645
schwimmer_david@cc.csg.peachnet.edu
No, I'm not Ross.
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