Tuesday, October 27, 2009

We really did have monsters

Long ago:
The 7.8ft (2.4m) skull of the predator, which lived 150 million years ago, could belong to one of the largest pliosaurs ever found, and could measure up to 52.48ft (16m).

[snip]

Pliosaurs are a short-necked form of plesiosaur, a group of giant aquatic reptiles that dominated the oceans during the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. They had immensely powerful jaws and a huge set of razor-sharp teeth.

Richard Forrest, a palaeontologist and plesiosaur expert said that the T-Rex was a "kitten" compared to the pliosaur.

"One of the things that is very clear from looking at this specimen is just how powerful this animal was," he said.

"If we look at the lower jaw this is the point at which the muscles attach and then you've got the great beam coming forward – that bone is roughly the strength of steel, so think of the strength of a steel girder that size.

"So it was an enormously powerful biting machine. These things were big enough and powerful enough to bite a small car in half.

"It would take a human in one gulp. It would take T-Rex in one gulp. Compared to this beast T-Rex was a kitten."

12 comments:

Mike Goldman said...

there's always a bigger fish...

ellroon said...

And they keep on finding bigger dinosaurs....

Mike Goldman said...

and other oddities

ellroon said...

Ewww! The things I learn!

Mike Goldman said...

Novella is engaging in the same kind of unbased speculation he condemns. He says the child must have had hydrocephalus, but based on nothing but his prejudice, and the evidence does not support his theory. That does not mean the child wasn't 100% human, he might have had some other rare mutation, of course, but it looks nothing like other children with hydrocephalus.

ellroon said...

Well... it gets just plain silly when people try to work in aliens....

Mike Goldman said...

Well, it's good to be skeptical, but not dismissive out of hand. It is one hypothesis, and it is not excluded by the evidence.

Besides, what you THINK you know is mostly not true about human history.

ellroon said...

But usually there will be a logical explanation to all wondrous things. It does not detract from the mystery and awe that we feel.

Mike Goldman said...

What's your "logical explanation" for the sunken city of Dwaraka?

How about Adam's bridge?

The water erosion of the Sphinx?

You can go around accepting all "debunkers" as more logical than those who actually investigate, but it isn't.

There has been advanced civilization of some kind on this planet a lot longer than modern history thinks.

Mike Goldman said...

Exactly what happened 6,000 years ago that caused humans to suddenly begin building civilizations, whereas before for the past hundreds of thousands of years they didn't?

Of course they did, but presumably it gets wiped out like sandcastles every 24,000 years regardless if we consider the tidal effects (world wide flooding to say the least) of near alignment with the second and third sun (Sirius A/B).

ellroon said...

I understand your thoughts, Mike, but I cannot follow. I've been there and evolved away. I am in delighted awe in the mysteries of the earth, but I believe that we will be able to slowly figure out and understand the earth's history as well as the universe's.

It's like a wondrous and extremely difficult puzzle that the ages of man have been trying to piece together. But the joy of finding a piece, defining it, and connecting it to another... the scientific process.. is as exciting to me as mysticism is to others.

I am not saying science in itself is the be all and end all of things. I grew up and am marinated in the belief in God even though I no longer believe in church. But the fact we can take apart our own DNA and the DNA of stars is as if we can see God in the microscope or the telescope.

Mike Goldman said...

I've been where you are too, Ellroon, and evolved away from that limitation. I understand you don't want to give any ground to religion, but religion is ancient science which has been largely perverted.

I am by no means opposed to science or the scientific method, it is the best way of learning about the world and testing for the truth of manifestation. It is not the best way of learning about consciousness and testing for the truth of existence. Both perspectives are needed.

The FACT of our sun rotating around another body is science, not mysticism. Lunisolar precession is complete bollocks.