Pretty damned ignorant.
Paleontology is what is classified as a hard science. I’m not a fan of the distinction being made, though: sociology also involves some demanding statistical work, so even if the basis of the stereotype is a lack of math, it’s wrong. Also, anthropologists don’t study dinosaurs.
I’m also amused by the claim that no tissue
from dinosaurs has been found. Guess what? Bone is a tissue!
Before you indignantly explain that this has to be a spoof, that creationists believe dinosaurs were on the Ark, I have to tell you: Ken Ham is not mainstream. Answers in Genesis argues that dinosaurs existed (because the Bible says so, although it doesn’t), but there are a lot of creationists who reject all the fossil evidence, rather than trying to mangle and distort it. There are conspiracy theorists who think dinosaurs were an invention, and that the evidence is all made up.
Some of these dino-deniers are hilarious. “Mike”, for instance, is truly oblivious.
Think about it. I live in New Jersey. One of the shittiest states in the Union besides Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Connecticut. Why is it that there are no dinosaur fossils anywhere near the United States? If this whole Pangaea nonsense is in fact true and the entire world was connected together at one point, wouldn’t the fossils be spread around evenly? So they typically only find fossils in Canyon-like areas in the Middle East or Africa or Australia. But never in North America? Hmm. That seems a bit off to me. Needless to say, archaelogists have also never found an entire dinosaurs’ remains. And don’t you dare say because it’s 34,000,000 million years old. It’s because they never existed.
Hmm. New Jersey, you say? It’s too bad nobody ever mapped the distribution of dinosaur fossils.
I love the Mormon creationists who argue that all the fossils are in the ground because the Earth was made from used parts, previously parts of other worlds, and dinosaurs only lived on those other worlds, not on Earth.
Not only does New Jersey have dinosaur fossils, New Jersey was an early hotbed of paleontology in North America. People have been recovering fossils from NJ since the late 1700s, and the first partial skeleton of a North American dinosaur was found in NJ in 1858.
Mike should visit Dinosaur State Park in Connecticut. Surprising he’s never heard of the T. Rex nicknamed Sue, which is 80% complete, and found in South Dakota. That was big news for quite a while. You really need to have your head where the sun don’t shine . . .
In fairness, Eric Dubay also believes that the Earth is flat (he’s written a book about it) and that Hitler really was a nice guy who is misunderstood by historians today because they are dominated by “the Jew world order”. He also believes in numerology, chemtrails, FEMA concentration camps, Atlantis and HAARP, and has written about how “Santa” is an anagram of “Satan”.
(To clarify: Dubay’s website is at the end of the link about dinosaur denialism)
Mike’s got a point. If someone’s been telling him that the earth is they are clearly bullshitting.
I get the idea that Mike has never been anywhere near the Dakotas. Lotsa leftover dinosaurs here.
Hadrosaurus (“Duck-Billed Dinosaur”) was discovered IN New Jersey (and is their state dinosaur). It was also the first dinosaur specimen (from N. America) to be recognized from more than just teeth.
Well, I, once believed in the dinosaur myth. But then I found out that the Flintstones were a cartoon and Jurassic Park dinosaurs were puppets or CGI, and Dick Cheney wasn’t a velociraptor. Oh, the veils came off my eyes and now I see the truth.
From Mike’s blog post…
If I have sex with someone and they get pregnant, I will start believing in miracles.
@ G.D. “has written about how “Santa” is an anagram of “Satan”
But you have to admit that he got that one right “Santa” IS and anagram of “Satan”!!
It’s an irrelevant coincidence, but still…
that emphasis should have ended after IS like this (I hope).
Back when I wanted to be a comedian (one of my teachers at Georgia Perimeter College wanted to put on a stand-up show and really wanted me to be a part of it, so I wrote a ten minute set; there was a group of us ready to go, but there wasn’t enough interest when advertised, so it never happened), I wrote a joke about Creationists and dinosaurs…
Well… “wrote” is a strong word… more like I stole and then reworded and expanded Bill Hicks’s joke about Creationists and dinosaurs.
It was basically this:
—————————————————————–
I really want to take a Young-Earth Creationist to a museum and stand him in front of a dinosaur. Then just point to it and say “dinosaur. No no no…
Shh…
Dinosaur. Died 66 million years ago…
Dinosaur.”
And there are two explanations they have for dinosaurs. The first one says that God, or Satan, put the fossils here to “test our faith”.
That’s right… the fossils exist because either our overlord or his sworn enemy thought it’d be funny.
But the other explanation is more hilarious. Some creationists believe that Dinosaurs lived with humans before the flood.
Let that sink in for a minute. Dinosaurs and humans living together…
How did humans not get wiped out by dinosaurs, you ask? Because GOD, that’s why!
You know what I want to ask these creationists?
“Did these humans also have cars with two long wheels on the front and back that were foot-powered and impossible to turn?”
—————————————————————–
When I performed this in front of the other “comics” who were going to take part, they all thought it was hilarious. It is not at all hilarious in written form, but… you know… delivery and all that. (I should say… almost everything I wrote for that set was basically stolen in one form or another from Bill Hicks and George Carlin. One of the only original jokes I wrote was one mocking myself for doing just that… in other words, I wrote a “funny” line to credit them for my set.)
Well, in one way he’s right. New Jersey is obviously not part of the United States. Well, for the geographically challenged, who think it’s in the Middle East or something.
As for dinosaurs, DNA has indeed been recovered in fragmentary form from fossilized marrow, feather imprints found and dammit all to hell and gone, I’m still fucking here, so dinosaurs still exist!
The real question is, does that asshole’s brain actually exist or is it a figment of our nightmares?
Wow, how bizarre. It’s like he’s never seen fossils or thinks they are, what, fakes? Sculptures made to look like bones? Also, it’s especially funny to me that he claims that the US has “no dinosaur fossils”, because one of my strongest memories of my childhood trip to the US was about the museums we visited there, specifically because of the great wealth of dinosaur fossils on display there. Hell, I got an awesome stegosaurus plushies back then to remind myself of that very fact.
re 14:
I’ve seen claims [sorry, no cites] that fossils are just bone shaped rocks, that paleontologist have hyped as being fossilized bones to keep their jobs.
I am Jack’s complete lack of understanding.
holytape@9:
To be fair, most people know Dick Cheney isn’t a velociraptor. They just wish he would be eaten by one.
I think a trip to Dinosaur National Monument is in order, where he can look at hundreds of fossils in situ.
Velociraptors know that Cheney is extremely toxic and best avoided.
(You now know the real reason the dinosaurs went extinct — the choice was that or Cheney, so it was no contest.)
keithb@18, I suspect “in situ” would mean, to these nutters, “glued on”.
────────────────────────
I still have (at least) the little orange plastic dino I got at the Monument when I visited with my parents. That was so long ago the dinosaurs weren’t fossils. Or even dead.
I love how these boobs always seem to think archeology, paleontology, and anthropology are all the same thing. I guess I can see their confusion because they also have a hard time differentiating between mother, sister, aunt or father, brother uncle. But thats usually because they are in fact the same thing when it comes to these twits.
@dali, all three are much the same to a monotreme. ;)
I once went to a Truth About Dinosaurs creationist seminar. The guy giving the seminar assured us that dinosaurs were real.
“There are some people who think dinosaurs are planted by Satan to trick us, and those guys are a little *makes a cuckoo noise*. Yeah, some people make up crazy stuff.”
Me and the atheist group I was sitting with all rolled our eyes.
Dinosaurs are just another phantasm promoted by Big Paleontology to keep those sweet, sweet grants flowing from wealthy donors trying to create adventure parks on remote islands.
No True Fossil would let itself be discovered in North America, because that would be a waste of an educational opportunity.
dali70 @21,
Thank you for that comment. No discussion about creationists is complete without a soupçon of classism.
“I ate’nt dead” sez the feathered dinosaur sitting on the balcony rail.
Wow. I never thought I would see someone who makes Ken Ham look like a member of Mensa. But there we have it…
Come to think of it, I’ve never seen a fossil from Noah’s flood.
“New Jersey. One of the shittiest states in the Union”?!
Hey Mike…FUUUUUCK YOU! Why do you think so many people live here? It’s because anybody who is ANYBODY lives in New Jersey… or wants to.
New Jersey! We’ve got beaches! We’ve got parks! We’ve got theaters! We’ve got concert halls! We’ve got sports teams! We’ve got AWESOME food! We’ve got casinos! We’ve got JOBS! We’ve got EVERYTHING!
Including fossils. You can pick them up right out of the river.
Go back to Texas, dumbass. You don’t deserve to live here.
#13 wzrd1:
I don’t believe this is actually true. It would be very unlikely given the chemistry of DNA. And there are no credible ancient DNA sequences going back more than 100,000 years, to my knowledge. Do you have a source?
carpenterman @30,
You’ve also got Chris Christie….
Someone’s got to say it: I don’t know Jack.
As an Australian, I was always jealous of the quantity (and quality) of fossils found in the USA. I was quite surprised to hear that Australia has fossils and the USA doesn’t.
I guess most religions make room for dinosaurs because they are so cool with the kids. Denying dinosaurs has got to be an early trigger for leaving the faith.
PZ, might you have fallen victim to Poe’s Law?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law
@John Harshman: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/jun/09/75-million-year-old-dinosaur-blood-and-collagen-discovered-in-fossil-fragments
The nature of the process virtually guarantees fragments can and will survive in protected tissues. Nothing anywhere near complete or intact, but fragments. With a few thousand, we might get a confirmation of the sex determination system type of fragments. :)
I have seen fossilised dinosaur footprints.
With my very own eyes.
In the USA!
Klondike Bluff was a great ride by the way. Fast, fun, and nowhere near as scary technical as the Slickrock Trail. The dino prints were the the thing that tipped us into choosing that one out all the incredible option around Moab. It was a great day that I still remember fondly.
wzrd1@35,
Read your link more carefully. Protein has been recovered from dinosaur fossils. DNA has not, although the article includes speculation tha t it might be in future.
Back in, I think, about 2011 the subject of creation vs evolution came up at the table I was sitting at in the cafeteria at work. A coworker confided in me that he’s open minded on the subject. That I had to admit “It’s a possibility archeologists carve dinosaur bones out of rock like an artist carves a statue”. It’s “archeologists” that do this mind you.
Over the last few years I’d say the subject has come up maybe half a dozen times. At which point I say “Tell them about the fossils”. He proceeds to regale the third party with his hypothesis about archeologists. I stare at the coworker steely eyed daring them to contradict him. Nobody has to date.
I keep a deadpan face but THIS is me inside when he does it. Sigh, my sad definition of fun at work.
Mrdead Inmypocket #36
Since the earth is only 10,000 years old, it very well could be the archaeologists carving dinosaur fossils.
I don’t know who carves fossil plants.
Maybe Monsanto.
PZ-This was satire, unless your post was also satire, then I’m completely flummoxed.
Also from a dinosaur fossils in North America:
Albertosaurus found in Alberta, Canada
Utahraptor found in Utah, USA
The Badlands is a freaking Mecca for dinosaur loving Americans. So many fossils found there.
Whole crap! No Dinosaurs ever found in or near the US???
Ever heard of Tyrannosaurus rex?
WHERE DO YOU THINK THEY FOUND T-REX IN THE FIRST PLACE!?
People dig up dinosaur fossils on their own all the time. Does this jackass think that every single dinosaur fossil that amateur fossil hunters find were pre-planted there by an evil conspiracy? Alternatively, does he think that all of the people who dig up fossils for fun are part of the conspiracy themselves?
Also, don’t fossils preserve the cellular structure of the bones? How are paleontologists supposed to fake microscopic details that permeate the entire fossil? Also also, the idea that they’re just bone-shaped rocks doesn’t hold up when you consider that people have found intact skulls, talons, femurs, and so on that didn’t need to be reconstructed from fragments.
I don’t care if this particular instance was a Poe or satire. There are in fact some groups of creationists and other assorted nutballs that really do believe that fossils are all fake. If you look around on the Internet, you can find people who believe almost anything.
Chigau #39
His story always evoked images of archeologists sneaking into paleontologists camps in the night, carving some outrageous fossil that would then have to be explained. Then the paleontologists would sneak over and shit in the archeologists trenches, or something. That’s not so far fetched is it? Science can be very competitive.
Mrdead Inmypocket #44
I’m an archaeologist and I’ve always been a little jealous that palaeontologists get to use dynamite.
How else are you going to discourage those pesky archaeologists from sneaking into your camp and craving yet another bloody fossil?
To be fair, who hasn’t had a fossil craving or two?
Yes, but we’re talking about archaeologists here: You really don’t want to know what they do if actually get their hands on / teeth into / tentacles around a fossil…