41% of Americans are definitely, or probably, sure that humans and dinosaurs lived at the same time.

Courtesy of YouGov: 

YouGov's latest research shows that 41% of Americans think that dinosaurs and humans either 'definitely' (14%) or 'probably' (27%) once lived on the planet at the same time. 43% think that this is either 'definitely' (25%) or 'probably' (18%) not true while 16% aren't sure. In reality the earliest ancestors of humans have only been on the planet for 6 million years, while the last dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago. 

There is a religious split on this question. While most Americans who describe themselves as 'born again' (56%) believe that humans and dinosaurs once shared the planet, most Americans who do not describe themselves as born again (51%) think that they did not. Only 22% of born again Americans think that dinosaurs and humans did not coexist.

Anybody surprised that religion plays a huge part in the American people's ignorance? 

Leave it to Fundamentalists to think that the Flintstones is a documentary.

As seen in Ken Ham's Creation Museum in Kentucky.

I have read the Bible one and a half times.

Don't remember the section on transitional fossils or the dietary needs of the Diplodocus.

P.S. Yes I am aware that they are likely talking about the behemoth, leviathon, and dragons that ARE mentioned in the Bible, but to even call that a stretch in logic is to be much too kind to these anti-science idiots.

I have said it once, and I will say it again, parents taking their children to this "museum" should be charged with child abuse.

The Brontosaurus is back!

Courtesy of Livescience:  

The Brontosaurus is back. Or at least it should be, according to a new analysis of the long-necked dinosaur family tree. 

The study researchers suggest the dinosaur currently known as Apatosaurus excelsus is different enough from its Apatosaurian kin as to be a different dinosaur altogether. Because A. excelsus was famously first known as Brontosaurus until 1903, the species would revert back to that original name and become Brontosaurus once again. 

It's a proposal that excites some paleontologists and leaves others skeptical, but researchers say it's entirely possible that Brontosaurus may eventually regain its place in the scientific nomenclature.

"The big picture is, there are independent groups of researchers looking at these dinos and these relationships, and they are independently arriving at the same conclusion, that the diversity of this family of dinosaurs is greater than previously recognized," said Matthew Mossbrucker, the director and curator of the Morrison Natural History Museum in Colorado. Mossbrucker was not involved in the new study, but is "wholly in favor of bringing the genus Brontosaurus back," he said.

This post is for that little geeky kid in me that was devastated when it was decided that there were no Brontosauruses, and that instead they were simply misidentified Apatosaurus. 

The Brontosaurus had been one of my favorite dinosaurs growing up, right below the Tyrannosaurus Rex and Triceratops. And losing it was a little hard to take, I have to admit.

I mean sure the Apatosaurus was essentially the same beast, but I just felt that the Brontosaurus name was way cooler.

Besides it was such a big part of my childhood it was simply hard to let go.

Well now maybe we don't have to, maybe the Brontosaurus is coming back to our elementary science textbooks and our favorite cartoon series in a big way.

Now if only they will reinstate Pluto as a planet everything will once again be right in the world.

"I'm getting sick of tired of dinosaurs being forced on our children." Update!

"Aww, it's okay. They didn't mean it."

Courtesy of The Mirror:  

Popular parenting website Mumsnet might just have witnessed its best post of all time - after a parent detailed their concerns about DINOSAURS. 

The extinct mega beasts, widely accepted to have roamed the earth 230 million years ago, were listed as a worry for mothers alongside topics including baby names, weight loss and feeding toddlers. 

Started by user, 'CADministry', the prehistoric problem thread is titled: "I'm getting sick of tired of dinosaurs being forced on our children." 

It continues: "I'm really concerned about dinosaurs, and I think something needs to be done. The science behind them is pretty flimsy, and I for one do not want my children being taught lies. 

"Did you know that nobody had even heard of dinosaurs before the 1800s, when they were invented by curio-hungry Victorians?"

The science is pretty flimsy?

They were "invented by curio-hungry Victorians?" 

And these people are allowed to procreate?

But wait, there's more.  

The eyebrow-raising post claims learning about dinosaurs - extinct for 65 million years according to experts - made a boy "bestially minded" and led to him biting three children. 

It ads: "Nothing about dinosaurs is suitable for children, from their total lack of family values through to their non-existence from any serious scientific point of view."

Yes let's not teach our children about dinosaurs because they lack "family values" and might teach children to bite each other. Good thinking.

Actually there is some good evidence to suggest that at least some dinosaurs were quite good at parenting.  

Not that it really makes any difference. After all we do not study dinosaurs to pick up parenting tips, we study them to learn more about our world and how creatures evolved.

Though it is stunningly clear that some creatures are far more evolved than others. These parents for example are obviously still several rungs down on the evolutionary ladder.

Update: It looks like the "sick and tired of dinosaurs" poster got  banned from Mumsnet.

I seriously doubt that they would be comfortable with those who actually brought their minds.

To be honest I am a little interested to find out which "amazing animals" would stump Darwin.

Just another night of slaying straw men, and avoiding uncomfortable facts, at your local house of worship/bingo parlor. 

You see this? My daughter helped to make this! File this under, shameless plug of the day.

I have told you guys a few times that my daughter works in the entertainment biz.

She works on all types, from movies, to theatrical plays, to television programs. And yes that includes a few really bad reality shows.

The movie above is the movie that she spent two years working on, and is the movie that she is the MOST proud of being a part of.

Her job was to scout locations and help with the production materials.

In the movie they filmed actual locations in Alaska, New Zealand, and other parts of the world and then inserted CGI dinosaurs into them. As you can see it is almost seamless, and takes the technology developed during the making of Jurassic Park (Which a few of the crew members also worked on) and makes it that much better.

In fact some of this team had just come off the making of Avatar before coming up here to film, so as you can imagine my daughter was very excited to work with them.

Anyhow I am bursting with pride and just wanted to share that with all of you.

The movie will be out for Christmas and according to my daughter will be an amazing experience, and tons of fun for the entire family.

Actual 4th grade "science" test in South Carolina private school.

This is the kind of thing that absolutely drives me nuts!

Purposefully teaching children bullshit is absolutely child abuse in my opinion.

Take a look at this model of Noah's Ark featured at a Creationist Museum.

This may seem like a small thing, but when you consider how drastically you impair a child's ability to pursue a higher education while saddled with this religious misinformation you can imagine how negatively that impacts their future.

I can remember sitting in a Philosophy class once where the subject matter literally sent a girl educated in a Christian high school fleeing the room in tears.

(Source.)

A look at Louisiana "Science" books.

Apparently now that Louisiana is allowing some of its state sponsored schools to "teach the controversy" below are the science textbooks now available to Louisiana students in some of these schools.

This courtesy of Buzzfeed:

 "Most evolutionists do not believe that that there was a great Flood. So they look for other ways to how fossils are formed." Easily one of the most ridiculous arguments ever put forth.

First of all scientists examine the evidence and then look for a cause. They don't already have a cause in mind and then look for the evidence to support it. No scientist that I am aware of ever thought of the Flood as the first possibility to explain the fossil record and then went about trying to disprove it.

They instead dated the strata that the fossils was trapped within and used that to date the fossil, a process that has only become more accurate over time.

I find it especially frustrating that the people who created this "textbook" assigned designations of "right" and "wrong," in this case clearly standing in for "moral and "immoral,"  to guide the student toward discerning which competing point of view is correct. Obviously with the increased stress of possibly choosing the one that is "against God."

There is NOTHING scientific in this approach.

It should be pointed out that not only does the Bible mention "Behemoths" it also discusses unicorns as if they were as prevalent and donkeys. So clearly when it comes to an accurate description of animal life is quite accurate don't you know.

In short if you currently living in Louisiana chances are your kid will NOT be the next Richard Dawkins, Carl Sagan, or Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Okay well I TOTALLY need one of these!

Neil DeGrasse Tyson makes a very vaild observation.

Too see a larger version of image click here.

I could not have said it better myself.

To be fair Creationists know EXACTLY why dinosaurs do not exist today.

Well there you go then. The problem was poor memory skills.

They had such tiny brains you know.

Sort of sums it up, doesn't it?

My power is back on and I am ready to blog the crap out of this day. 

Even the dinosaurs are out to get Sarah Palin!

From the Bristol Bay Times:

Until last summer, recent discoveries of dinosaur bones and tracks in Alaska had been restricted to the Cretaceous Period, some 80 million years ago.

All that changed when a team including University of Alaska Fairbanks scientists documented fossilized tracks in Southwest Alaska that appear to date from the Jurassic Period, which stretches from 150 to 200 million years ago, UAF scientists say.

"In one fell swoop we pushed the record of dinosaurs in Alaska back about 50 million years," said Patrick Druckenmiller, earth sciences curator at the University of Alaska Museum of the North, and assistant professor in the UAF geology and geophysics department.

Well THAT is going to irritate a certain science denying, young earth believing, "drill, baby drill" chanting, Presidential hopeful. As you probably already know Caribou Barbie sort of believes that the Flintstones was a documentary.

Remember it was a young Sarah Palin, then Mayor of Wasilla, who once had the following exchange with my friend, and fellow Alaska blogger, Phil Munger:

After conducting a college band and watching Palin deliver a commencement address to a small group of home-schooled students in June 1997, Wasilla resident Philip Munger said, he asked the young mayor about her religious beliefs.

Palin told him that "dinosaurs and humans walked the Earth at the same time," Munger said. When he asked her about prehistoric fossils and tracks dating back millions of years, Palin said "she had seen pictures of human footprints inside the tracks," recalled Munger, who teaches music at the University of Alaska in Anchorage and has regularly criticized Palin in recent years on his liberal political blog, called Progressive Alaska.

Stupid 150 to 200 million year old dinosaurs!  How dare they embarrass the future savior of America with FACTS!  Don't they know who Sarah Palin is?

Well I am confident that nobody can find fault with her explanation for Christmas.

See? 

Dinosaurs live!

Extinct, my ASS! from The Original Joe Fisher on Vimeo.

I understand this is an anatromic robot at the Los Angeles Museum of Natural History. Check out the reaction of the kids.

Humans and dinosaurs may be sharing the planet in the future. Hey maybe the Flintstones was a documentary!

It poses the question: will scientists ever be able to resurrect the dinosaur?

According to Jack Horner, professor of palaeontology at Montana State University, the answer is an unequivocal yes.

He says: ‘Of course we can bring them back to life. Their ancestral DNA is still present.
'The science is there. I don’t think there are any barriers, other than the philosophical.’

I have watched "Jurrassic Park" at least twenty times and all I have to say is the it never ends well for the humans. Not once.

But having said that I will be the first guy in line to see the new dinosaur exhibit at the San Diego zoo. And I know I will certainly not be the only one.

Creation Museum is to Paleontology what Abstinence Only classes are to sex education.

It seems Noah solved the problem of fitting dinosaurs into his vessel by only taking baby dinosaurs. Indeed, the ark has a detailed display of many animals happily boarding the boat: dinosaurs cavort with giraffes, penguins, hippos, and bears.

Museum guides tell visitors that before Adam and Eve were expelled from paradise all of the dinosaurs were peaceful plant-eaters.

In Genesis 1:30 God gives ‘green herb’ to every creature to eat and so there were no predators. When a curious museum visitor asks, why exactly T. rex had six-inch long serrated teeth, the guides go on to explain that T. rex used his big teeth to open coconuts. Apparently it was only after Adam and Eve sinned and were cast out of paradise that the dinosaurs started to eat flesh.

So the sinning of Adam and Eve is the reason that Tyrannosaurus Rex began gobbling up other dinosaurs? Fucking selfish bastards! So just because Adam and Eve wanted to get enlightened and to be allowed to use their brains to do more then just follow God's directions like a couple of toddlers they screwed up this entire planet!

You know I have never really had an opinion about Adam and Eve before, but now I just hate their knowledge seeking guts!

But seriously I have to say that any parent who takes their children to this "museum" to learn about dinosaurs should be arrested for child abuse.