Well, My Opinion Of The US Public Just Went Down Again...

[Deepcrush]

@ Deep - excellently put.

Thank you.

[Sionnach Glic]

Truthfully, I'm not sure, maybe their wrong, maybe I am, but as of now, I'm sticking to what I believe...

I find this interesting. You say you're willing to believe that the Earth and universe are billions of years old, based on what scientists have determined. Yet you're willing to dismiss humans being many thousands of years old, despite what scientists have determined. Why is this, if I may ask?

How do you know? and we may have, but I was unsure of what he meant when I said that... I have no problem believing dinosaurs were dead long before we were around...

We know because we can date both human remains and dinosaur remains and get vastly different numbers regarding how old they are. There's also the fact that no human civilisation has ever mentioned how those pesky Dienonychus keep killing off their cattle....and the farmers too.

Also, as Sunny pointed out, if dinosaurs had existed along side the creatures we see today, many species that survive today should have died off. They'd have simply out-performed many modern day animals. Can you imagine cows surviving with packs of Raptors roaming the lands? Whales surviving in the same waters as Liopleurodon? Elephants surviving with Tyranosaurs hunting them? Hell, it's debatable as to whether we would have survived. Throw half a dozen native Americans into an arena with a hungry Albertasaurus and see how little use those spears become.

There's also the simple fact that many of the larger dinosaurs simply couldn't have survived along side us due to the atmosphere. The dinosaurs lived in an era when the atmosphere was very oxygen-rich, far more so than it is today. That abundance of oxygen is one of the reasons why some dinosaurs became so incredibly big. Drop a Diplodochus anywhere on modern day Earth and it'd probably suffocate.

So, even if we disregard all the dating evidence, there's an abundance of reasons why dinosaurs simply couldn't have existed in the same era as us.

The fact that they have been wrong before on carbon dating...

I can't find the source right now, but a few years ago there was a university student that used some radiological dating method, and got a reading of like 3,000 years... And they proved that it had to be incorrect due to the rock formations that it was found in. And I know Carbon dating is rarely accurate, because of it's short radiological decay, but the one used had a rating of like 300 million years, or some insanely large number of years...

If it were so innacurate, would they still be using it?

And I find it highly unlikely that a university student discovered that this process was useless, despite it having been tested by numerous scientists. I'd be very interested in reading your source.

[Lt. Staplic]

There's also the simple fact that many of the larger dinosaurs simply couldn't have survived along side us due to the atmosphere. The dinosaurs lived in an era when the atmosphere was very oxygen-rich, far more so than it is today. That abundance of oxygen is one of the reasons why some dinosaurs became so incredibly big. Drop a Diplodochus anywhere on modern day Earth and it'd probably suffocate.

Is it, I don't doubt you, I was just thinking it was the other way around, we have more free oxygen molecules, rather than CO2 which they definitely had plenty of.

EDIT:

Just did some poking around and we're both right, the O2 Concentrations were as high as like 35% at times with the CO2 levels being double what they are today, the atmospheric pressure was also over 2x what it is now IIRC

just thought I'd throw that out there.

[Vic]

This is one of the reasons that we can be thankful that spiders are so small now.

[Sionnach Glic]

Meh, modern day animals aren't interesting. I want some of those two metre long milipedes roaming around the place.

Is it, I don't doubt you, I was just thinking it was the other way around, we have more free oxygen molecules, rather than CO2 which they definitely had plenty of.

EDIT:

Just did some poking around and we're both right, the O2 Concentrations were as high as like 35% at times with the CO2 levels being double what they are today, the atmospheric pressure was also over 2x what it is now IIRC

just thought I'd throw that out there.

Ah, thanks. I knew oxygen and CO2 levels were higher, but was unaware that the atmospheric pressure was greater. So I think we can pretty safely conclude that the larger dinosaurs would die if they were introduced to our Earth.

[Tyyr]

It was during the Carboniferous that they O2 levels were high enough for large insects to survive. Evolutionary tip kids, having some sort of pumping mechanism works far better for respiration than hollow tubes and hope. During the time of the dinosaurs oxygen levels were actually lower than they are today. It was only towards the end of the Cretaceous that they even started to close in on today's levels.



If anything putting dinosaurs in this kind of environment, with oxygen levels significantly higher than present would likely give them an energy boost.

[stitch626]

Crap, raptors on steroids...

[Mikey]

Looking at the approx. Jurassic levels to modern levels, I don't think going from 18% - 21% would have had a huge effect... besides, a lower average temperature and smaller average size of prey or herbivore chow would combine to completely erase any gains dinosaurs wou'd have realized from higher oxygenation.

[Tyyr]

Actually that's late cretaceous O2 levels. However 18% to 21% is a large change. That's a 17% increase in available oxygen. That's the peak level. Move a bit farther back into the Cretaceous and even Jurassic and you're looking at 15% or less O2 levels which equates to a 40% increase or more in O2 levels. That's a lot more oxygen.

[Mikey]

Granted. But while an acute increase in an individual's pulse-ox may occur, how long would it take for alveoli to adapt to make a chronic, heritable usage of the environmental change?

[Nickswitz]

If it were so innacurate, would they still be using it?

And I find it highly unlikely that a university student discovered that this process was useless, despite it having been tested by numerous scientists. I'd be very interested in reading your source.

This wasn't the only case, just the most recent one, I will try very hard to find it. It was a few years ago, I think 2 or 3, maybe less...

But yes, they still may use it as it's the closest they may get to an exact date, regardless of its inaccuracy, it's still something.

I find this interesting. You say you're willing to believe that the Earth and universe are billions of years old, based on what scientists have determined. Yet you're willing to dismiss humans being many thousands of years old, despite what scientists have determined. Why is this, if I may ask?

The fact that the earth may be billions of years old in no way conflicts with what I have been raised to believe, and I accept it as fact, what I was raised to believe. However, the fact that humans are tens of thousands of years old conflicts with this belief, so yes, it is because I was raised to believe one thing and they say something else, and I stick to what I first knew. It may be a stupid reason, but until I have concrete evidence of that fact, I'll stick to what I believe.

We know because we can date both human remains and dinosaur remains and get vastly different numbers regarding how old they are. There's also the fact that no human civilisation has ever mentioned how those pesky Dienonychus keep killing off their cattle....and the farmers too.

As for this, I know, I said I know I think 2 times, and I accept that, I just thought he had meant something else when I was responding to what he said.

[Sionnach Glic]

This wasn't the only case, just the most recent one, I will try very hard to find it. It was a few years ago, I think 2 or 3, maybe less...

But yes, they still may use it as it's the closest they may get to an exact date, regardless of its inaccuracy, it's still something.

It's obviously not spot on, but it's still adequately accurate. Do you seriously think that it'd be in use if it dated a 10,000 year old object as being 65 million years old?

The fact that the earth may be billions of years old in no way conflicts with what I have been raised to believe, and I accept it as fact, what I was raised to believe. However, the fact that humans are tens of thousands of years old conflicts with this belief, so yes, it is because I was raised to believe one thing and they say something else, and I stick to what I first knew. It may be a stupid reason, but until I have concrete evidence of that fact, I'll stick to what I believe.

And what would you see as concrete evidence? What would you need to see to believe?

As for this, I know, I said I know I think 2 times, and I accept that, I just thought he had meant something else when I was responding to what he said

Could you rephrase that a bit? I've not got a clue what you're saying here.

[Nickswitz]

It's obviously not spot on, but it's still adequately accurate. Do you seriously think that it'd be in use if it dated a 10,000 year old object as being 65 million years old?

I'm pretty sure it isn't that off, but it can be off by as much as 5,000 years, well, was, they may now have better radiological equipment, but I know it was vastly off a few years ago.

And what would you see as concrete evidence? What would you need to see to believe?

I'm not actually sure...

Could you rephrase that a bit? I've not got a clue what you're saying here.

Sorry, I was talking about the dinosaurs living when we were, I thought that Seafort I believe was talking about something else when I was rebutting his statement, but yes, I realize that there is almost no chance dinosaurs were around when humans were, and if any were they were probably only small ones, otherwise there would be some myths about them somewhere...

[Mikey]

I'm pretty sure it isn't that off, but it can be off by as much as 5,000 years, well, was, they may now have better radiological equipment, but I know it was vastly off a few years ago.

"Vastly off?" We have, at the lower limit, a time frame of 65 million years ago for dinosaurs being extant. An error of 5,000 years is 0.0077%.

[Nickswitz]

I'm pretty sure it isn't that off, but it can be off by as much as 5,000 years, well, was, they may now have better radiological equipment, but I know it was vastly off a few years ago.

"Vastly off?" We have, at the lower limit, a time frame of 65 million years ago for dinosaurs being extant. An error of 5,000 years is 0.0077%.

Yes, for 65 million years that's a small number, but at the other end, at say, 10,000 years, thats a large difference.