Theos-Talk Archives (August 2002 Message tt00210)

There is much talk from scientist and materialists
alike that claims made by those who do not necessarily
adhere to orthodox are merely psuedoscientific claims.
There is also much talk that the sciences that get
published in, say, Nature or Science are true sciences
and do not dabble into psuedoscience. Palaeontology is
one such branch of science that is published in such
"prestigious" publications. Generations of children
have grown up reading dinosaur books, looking at
wonderful illustrations of animals long extinct, and,
these days, watching how they move and interact with
one another on programs such as "Walking with Beasts".
We are led to believe that these are hard core
scientific facts, the ecology and behaviour of these
animals is completely known, with only trivial gaps,
and there is no reason to question otherwise. But what
most people don't know is that often prehistoric
animals, in particular, are completely reconstructed,
behaviour, appearance, ecology and all, from a single
tooth, metatarsal or claw. For example, a single tooth
was excavated from a dig in south-east queensland. The
tooth has now been designated to belong to Tingamarra
(genus Chulpsia). This tooth "appeared" to represent
others from the condylarths and its subsequent
reconstruction of the entire animal was based on
knowledge from other fossils of this group. From a
single tooth, which could have been a genetic anamoly,
an entire prehistoric animal was reconstructed. 

When, I implore those scientific dogmatists, are we
meant to believe science? 

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