The (non-religious) dinosaur hoax question

[smj]

Selene,

I'm not sure what you mean by Gaia. Do you mean the thing I'm standing on or Lovelock's silly metaphor?

A metaphor that he dreamed up on Nasa's dime:

"He first conceived the Gaia hypothesis while working at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., in the mid-1960s, where he was designing life detection instruments for NASA's Mars Viking probes.

How, Lovelock asked himself, if he were on Mars, could he tell there was life on Earth? By the Earth's atmosphere, which defies all natural expectations. Free oxygen accounts for 20 percent of the atmosphere, when the laws of chemistry say that this highly reactive gas should combine and settle down. How fortunate for life, most of which depends on oxygen for survival.

Lovelock concluded that life -- microbes, plants and animals constantly metabolizing matter into energy, converting sunlight into nutrients, emitting and absorbing gas -- is what causes the Earth's atmosphere to be so, well, lively. By contrast, the Martian atmosphere is essentially dead, settled into a low-energy equilibrium with little or no chemical reactions. So he recommended that NASA save its money and scrub the Viking mission. Carl Sagan, his officemate, did not agree but Sagan's then wife, microbiologist Lynn Margulis, took Gaia to heart."
http://environment-ecology.com/gaia/72- ... -gaia.html

Yep. We are told that Lovelock was hanging with Carl Sagan in his office at Jack Parson's Lab when he had his Gaia eureka moment.

Lovelock also happened to have a buddy named William Golding, yep that William Golding, who told him to name his new theory Gaia.

Then with a little help from Carl's ole lady Lovelock got all systems theory/cybernetic on us.

"The idea that life, the biosphere, regulated the Earth’s surface environment to sustain habitability came to me at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in 1965. It arose from a life detection experiment that sought the presence of life on a planetary scale instead of looking at the details visible on the surface. In particular, NASA’s quest to find life on Mars provided me with the opportunity to ask the question Can the existence of life be recognized from knowledge of the chemical composition of a planet’s atmosphere? The answer was a resounding yes. This way of thinking pre- dicted in 1965 that Mars and Venus were lifeless long before the Viking landers failed to find life on Mars in the 1970s, but it also drew attention to the extraordinary degree of chemical disequilibrium in the Earth’s atmosphere, which led me to think that some means for its regulation was needed. Although they disliked my conclusions about life on Mars, JPL actively supported the early development of Earth system science. In 1968 they invited me to present a paper that included for the first time the notion of the Earth as a self-regulating system at a meeting of the American Astro- nautical Society. NASA now recognizes the validity of atmospheric analysis as a life detection experiment. Without realizing it, they have taken the science that led to Gaia and made it their new science, astrobiology. By doing this they have brought together under one theoretical view life on Earth and life on other planets.
The next important step was in 1971, when Lynn Margulis and I began our col- laboration. Lynn brought her deep understanding of microbiology to what until then had been mainly a system science theory that saw a self-regulating Earth through the eyes of a physical chemist. By stressing the importance of the Earth’s bacterial eco- system and its being the fundamental infrastructure of the planet, Lynn put flesh on the skeleton of Gaia. Selling a new theory is a lonely business, and it was wonderful to have Lynn as a friend who stood by me in the fierce arguments with the neo- Darwinists who were so sure that they were right and we were wrong. And they were right to say that there was no way for organisms to evolve global scale self-regulation by natural selection, because the unit of selection is the individual organism, not the planet. It was not until I made the model Daisyworld that I recognized that what evolved was not the organisms or even the biosphere, but the whole system, organ- isms and their material environment coupled together. The unit of evolution is the Earth system, and self-regulation is an emergent property of that system."
http://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/f ... h_0001.pdf

Here's Lovelock's Daisyworld by Nasa...

full link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCxIqgZA7ag

Here's Gregor(y) Bateson's daughter; no, not Nora but Mary Catherine, explaining the Gaia metaphor's relation to cybernetics. She's speaking at Lynn Margulis' memorial because they were dear friends of course...


full link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMT4QMmvC4E

Here's Mary Catherine again talking about her dear friend and her contribution to "the future of cybernetics"- at the 26:30 mark...


full link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXQraugWbjQ

Besides dreaming up sweet metaphors, Lovelock was able to build super duper sensitive pollution detectors. His detector proved Rachel Carson's theory with its 1 part in trillion accuracy and whatnot...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electro ... e_detector

James tells us that not only was his ECD super duper sensitive, like 'Wild' Bill Libby's super sensitive geiger counters I reckon; but it was "uniquely sensitive to nasty things"...

http://www.webofstories.com/play/james. ... 6EDE25D434

We are also told Lovelock, the adventurer and environmental steward, even sailed to Antarctica to discover the CFCs that were pokin' Gaia's o-zone.

Here's a picture of Lovelock working at Nasa back in the day when he was working on detectors...


Now it seems he's worried about "accelerated evolution" and "endosymbiosis with the mechanical world", I reckon Sagan's ole lady would be proud...

"He cites Moore's law, which states that a computer's processing power doubles every two years, and says we, too, will have to adapt to this speeded-up world. Man likes to assume he is the end of the evolutionary cycle, but dinosaurs, who held sway for almost 150m years, probably laboured under the same misconception. In the book, Lovelock posits the idea that one consequence of accelerated evolution could be that at some point we ourselves incorporate inorganic elements in our bodies. "Instead of robots going to war with us and taking over the world, which is the way it's always portrayed in science fiction," he says, "I thought, what happens if we join with them?""
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/ ... over-world

[Flabbergasted]

Selene,

Thank you again for your efforts. However, this exchange is leading nowhere and I suspect other forum members are getting rather bored with it.

I have a question for you but I would like a truly scientific response so let´s leave all the could-be-this-could-be-that wishful thinking aside for a moment.

Background:
There are several species of toad fishes. Some have dorsal fins with solid spines we will classify as "simple and conventional" to save time. Other species have a poison gland and a poison pump at the base of the dorsal spine and the spine is hollow (like an injection needle). I presume you know that the poison gland and the poison pump are highly complex biological systems, the formation of which requires a multitude of very specific "instructions" in the DNA (comparable to adding a 30-page section to a builder´s manual explaining how to assemble and install a burglar alarm).

Question:
Where did all this novel and highly specific information come from and how was it introduced into the DNA?
If you are claiming that environmental factors are responsible for the emergence of such highly specific instructions in the DNA, then please describe by what mechanism.

Tip: if you can answer this question scientifically you will win the Nobel Prize.

If you are going to carry on with the wishful thinking, then let´s just save each other´s time.

[DrTim]

Selene can answer Flabbergasted herself, but I would like to answer as well. It's clear by now that Flabbergasted is promoting Creationism, appealing to one Intelligent Designer. He's too careful to state his position plainly, so he makes allusions to "engineers" and "complexity" and "wishful thinking".

Poison glands are an evolved efficiency of a process that originates in the "vomiting" or "spitting" of digestive juices or saliva, respectively. The distinction between animals that do such things and those that don't is initially tribal, cultural. One group of the same species for any number of reasons separates sufficiently from another to develop its own method of feeding. As a result of their behaviour, their internal balance of processes changes, and thereby a new evolutionary path is found. Enzymes detect the internal change and adapt their own behaviour accordingly, their handling of DNA and RNA changes, transcription is affected. This eventually leads to some glands specialising in being just poison glands. The detail of it all is too complex for us to ever quantify, because the working of the structures is intelligent. That is to say, objects at all levels of the hierarchy have minds - molecules and cells and organs. Minds work associatively, they are abstract and decoupled from the physical processes that underpin them. The clue is in the simplicity of the starting point (in this case "vomiting" and "spitting"), not the eventual complexity that is so dear to Creationists.

Note that the example of the toad fishes, some poisonous and some not, contradicts mainstream evolutionary theory. If it really was "survival of the fittest", one or the other variety of the fish should be extinct. The fact that both species co-exist shows that they are both "fit" to survive and did not evolve through necessity. They evolved culturally, evolution is driven by intelligence of the objects concerned, not the intelligence of some mythical Creator.

PS: I agree with the poster in Derailing Room - if this evolutionary discussion is moved to its own thread, fine by me. It's an important discussion.

[Undoctored]

However, this exchange is leading nowhere and I suspect other forum members are getting rather bored with it.

Indeed. I, for one, came here for the dinosaurs! Or rather, to enjoy a weighing of the evidence for their past existence. Not for a debate about evolution. Note the topic title: “The (non-religious) dinosaur hoax question.” More to the point: Even if you disprove Darwinism or prove a Designer is necessary, you by no means disprove dinosaurs. There are plenty of bible literalists who espouse a belief in dinosaurs. If the dinosaur fossils are real, they still could be a product of chance or design. Moreover, the theory of evolution does not hinge on whether or not there were once giant lizards roaming the earth. Most of this evoultion debate is off-topic.

[hoi.polloi]

Agreed. Inject that stuff in an evolution topic, but not here.

[Selene]

Selene,

I'm not sure what you mean by Gaia. Do you mean the thing I'm standing on or Lovelock's silly metaphor?

Hi smj, nice post and good you mention it. I was unaware of the links to the Gaia hypothesis.

Not the reason for the use of the word, just like Selene does not refer to the NASA thingy that allegedly orbited the Moon. I mean our beautiful blue-green planet.

Note the topic title: “The (non-religious) dinosaur hoax question.” More to the point: Even if you disprove Darwinism or prove a Designer is necessary, you by no means disprove dinosaurs. There are plenty of bible literalists who espouse a belief in dinosaurs. If the dinosaur fossils are real, they still could be a product of chance or design. Moreover, the theory of evolution does not hinge on whether or not there were once giant lizards roaming the earth. Most of this evoultion debate is off-topic.

Agreed. Inject that stuff in an evolution topic, but not here.

Fine with me, that's why I asked the question which was the topic of discussion with the four options.

But then a statement like this could not be discussed?

If the dinosaur fossils are real, they still could be a product of chance or design.

If stars are real, they still could be a product of chance or design.
If X is real, it could still be a product of chance (?) or design (?).

I mean, what do you mean with this? Anything "could be" caused by different factors, but not at the same probabilities right? And by chance? I don't understand? The fossilisation is "by chance" or the dinosaurs themselves?

"By chance", "spontaneous", "sudden", "out of nowhere" (abiogenesis) are abused terms by people who are not used to work in the millions of years history. They are reframings, not describing factually what is happening, Newspeak, like so many MSM lovers do with their attacks.

Not that I put anyone here in the same category, let that be as clear as a diamond ('complexity' leads by definition to chaos, disorder and degradation? ).

If only option 1 is the topic: only dinosaurs are real/faked (all of it), then my main question, nicely evaded by Flabbergasted and ShaneG, remains:

If dinosaurs (and only them) are not real, but faked, which animals occupied the ecological niches of the Jurassic and Cretaceous and where are their fossils then?

The presence of evolution in the topic makes sense as it is the mainstream mechanism by which dinosaurs originated, but not only that; many Cluesforum members and readers I'd say do not see an objection to evolution theory itself, maybe a difference of opinion on the main driver, but not about the theory explaining the observations. If the question (topic title) is pointing to non-religious sources or standpoints, which rational, non-intelligent design mechanism do you propose to explain the observations. Any Designer falls within the religious category; an omnipotent deity designing plants, animals and humans (who appear to fall in a different category).

Assuming a Dino Hoax exist; it can not be compared to the media hoaxes and not even to space (see arguments about controlled environment, lack of access to us the people to data or space) and Earth scientific hoaxes (AGW, see other posts) or the Nuke Hoax (controlled environments, invisible radiation, faking a nuclear explosion is far easier and less costly than faking 1 dino fossil up to the point that expert researchers will not notice and in order to maintain the hoax=proven position you need that to be the case for all dinosaur fossils). That also means that different benchmarks exist.

Compare the Charleston "shooting". A quiet topic, far less posts (12) in the first week than with Sandy Hook (18 pages), Utoya (34 pages!) or Boston (29 pages), it seems people lose interest at the next event (and I understand them perfectly) but still all the signs for the hoax are there and can be compared to Sandy Hook/Adam Lanza, Breivik (manifesto) or the Freddie Gray/other 'racist' hoaxes, etc.

Without studying the case, as an experienced CF-member you can shout "hoax!" pretty easily where the jump to conclusion is justified by the similarities to other proven hoaxes.

Does Cluesforum want to be the platform that supports that logical response of "hoax!" by people saturated with so much lying by the Elites, and does not need any more argumentation or in-depth analysis of the observations?

Dinosaurs are "according to Cluesforum" as convincingly a hoax as 9/11 or Nukes??

Right now "The (non-religious) Dino Hoax question" in General World Affairs has the same 'status' (as topic in the same list) as topics like the propaganda of Kony, airplane hoaxes, instigated London riots, etc.

As with Copernican vs Semi-Tycho-SSSS a separate System That Confidently Explains The Diversity (and Similarity) of Life Forms X vs Flawed Darwinian Disney-propagandised Bullcrap-topic in the Musings category would be an organisational solution?

Any mechanism discussion aside, still my main point of criticism is the absolutism of going from "x faked dinosaur fossils" (and the topic has shown that x is absolutely a considerable amount, but compared to the millions of fossils in the world a tiny promillage, for dinosaurs only that becomes a bit higher of course) to "all dinosaur fossils (and fossil tracks etc.) are faked". See for relevant comparisons earlier posts.

Selene

[hoi.polloi]

Dinosaurs are "according to Cluesforum" as convincingly a hoax as 9/11 or Nukes??

Let's not get too bogged down by the forum's organization, wherever it's possible to just contribute research. There is no "according to Cluesforum", as far as I know. You could ask individuals what they think.

From my perspective, "dinosaurs" as a creature, timeline and fossil record are all clearly hoaxed where they aren't creatively invented and speculated about whole-cloth, and I haven't yet seen a convincing historic "dinosaur site" and that is confusing and distressing, if dinosaurs are supposed to be at all real. The leading discussions about it in newspapers are ridiculous. Birds and diets and hunting patterns of invented fantasy worlds and time periods.

There are a great deal more obvious — even admitted — hoaxes within fossil subjects than in space subjects or even terrorism subjects. I agree that doesn't necessarily mean it's less believable. Perhaps they are just more careful with space and terrorism hoaxes. On the other hand, maybe if it walks like a hoax and quacks like a hoax, it's not a duckasaurus. It's a hoax.

I agree that the discussion of Earth's history and evolution are intimately tied up with the question of dinosaurs. But for now, let us not devolve into a mockery of the subject itself. Let us simply make one point at a time, and debate each of those. What is one, single, supposedly strong argument for the existence of dinosaurs? I am not talking an answer like "fossil record" or "oil". I mean one, single well-documented and proven case of a dinosaur bone being found, examined by peers, proven to be the age claimed, and so on ...

If we haven't seen that yet, it doesn't bode well for the existence of the terrible lizard monsters. At all.

[fbenario]

Any mechanism discussion aside, still my main point of criticism is the absolutism of going from "x faked dinosaur fossils" (and the topic has shown that x is absolutely a considerable amount, but compared to the millions of fossils in the world a tiny promillage, for dinosaurs only that becomes a bit higher of course) to "all dinosaur fossils (and fossil tracks etc.) are faked". See for relevant comparisons earlier posts.

Selene

I don't believe 'promillage' is a word in the English language. Are you Dutch, by chance?

[Kham]

Analyzing Dinosaur Bones: A Visual Comparison of Alternate Explanations

Psittacosaurus Gobiensis versus turtle

Originally found in 2001, not by Paul Sereno
Paul Sereno wrote scientific paper on it in 2009
Institution: National Geographic

Psittocasaurus Gobiensis Scientific Paper





And of course we cannot ignore the intrepid dinosaur hunter who lays claim to this dinosaur



Definition of Holotype: a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism, known to have been used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration*) or one of several such, but explicitly designated as the holotype.

For the purposes of this study, only physical example holotypes of bones will be used, not illustrations emanating from the creativity of a dino expert.

Difficulties in researching: On several occasions, a bone might be found and stored for several decades. A ‘new discovery’ might be just analyzing an old find that was sitting in a vault somewhere.

[Kham]

Psittacosaurus gobiensis, is it a dinosaur or a turtle?

If it is the case that psittacosaurus gobiensis is just a turtle, which species of turtle was the donor for the skeleton found by the Chinese Team of Zhao Xijin and Tan Lin in 2001, or perhaps it is another unnamed species from the past.

[ICfreely]

MEGA DUNGOSAURS: THE TRANSMUTATION OF FECES

The following article successfully demonstrates the physical impossibility of the existence of giant dinosaurs based on (testable/measurable) applied Earth science.

The Impossible Dinosaurs – Ted Holden
http://www.n-atlantis.com/tedholden.htm

…the maximum weight his [a 340 lb weightlifter who can squat 1000 lbs.] muscles could lift when scaled to the size of an Brontosaur would be 47,558 lbs. If he weighed 70,000 lbs, he'd not be able to lift his weight off the ground!

-So what? That doesn’t prove anything. There are morbidly obese people who can’t get out of bed either. I suspect the Brontosaur had a genetic predisposition to morbid obesity.

Again, in all cases, we are comparing the absolute maximum effort for a human weight lifter to lift and hold something for two seconds versus the sauropod's requirement to move around and walk all day long with scaled weight greater than these weights involved in the maximum, one-shot, two-second effort.
That just can't happen.

-Yes it can. All sorts of animals suffer from immobilizing physical disabilities.

Scientists who study sauropod dinosaurs are now claiming that they held their heads low, because they could not have gotten blood to their brains had they held them high.

-Due to their high blood pressure they would have had a stroke if they raised their heads too high. Of course! I’m one step closer to proving my MOBUS (Morbidly Obese Brontosaur Ultrasaur and Seismosaur) Theory.

Try holding your arm out horizontally for more than a minute or two, and then imagine your arm being 40 feet long and 30,000 lbs...An ultrasaur or seismosaur with a neck 40-60 feet long and weighing 25000-40000 lbs, would be looking at 400,000 to nearly a million foot pounds of torque were one of them to try to hold his neck out horizontally.
That's crazy.

You don't hang a 30,000 lb load 40' off into space even if it is made out of wood and structural materials, much less flesh and blood. No building inspector in America could be bribed sufficiently to let you build such a thing.

-Structural engineers, unlike paleontologists, are constrained by reality.

And so, sauropods (in our gravity) couldn't stand, couldn't hold their heads up, couldn't hold them out either.

-SMH! How could the poor things hold their necks out if they were immobilized by high blood pressure and morbid obesity? They shouldn’t be stigmatized for their faulty genetics.

The felt effect of gravity being what it is now, indicates that something was massively different in the world which these creatures inhabited.

-Great Scott! This provides further support for MOBUS Theory. There must be a correlation between Dinomorbidism and the evolution of planetary gravitational effects. It may have culminated in a ‘MOBUS Extiction’ if you will.

The only way of making sense out of this evidence is to understand that at one time and for whatever reason, the force of gravity operated differently on planet Earth.

-But of course, the space-time continuum solves all problems! Everyone knows that on a long enough timeline anything is possible. No one can prove otherwise. If I claim Ann Coulter gives birth to invisible unicorns, can you prove she doesn't have a mangina?

-Another way of making sense out of this evidence is to understand that at one time and for many reasons, the ‘force of gravity’ was invented whole cloth!

[Selene]

Hi Kham,

thanks for the example. Let me shed my head light on it in the dark cold Chinese desert...

On a side note, I understood you have a radio show on YouTube? Can you post a link to it for me and the other interested viewers? I like listening while surfing. If it's ok by the admins to promote of course [ADMIN: You can easily find her by searching KHAM Radio Fakeologist on the Internet. Layman's mistake. But this is still off topic. -HP]

Paul Sereno and his mate Jack Horner in the world of paleontology are really the main stream Disney-National Geographic-Nature-NASA-clowns which are not taken seriously at all. They do not represent nor personalise the diverse collection of people with paleontological interest. Both professionally and amateurs.

Sereno and Horner are what Kaku and DeGrasse Tyson are to serious astronomers, physicists and related scientists (and also there many amateurs/self-educated crowd). Or Justin Bieber to serious singers.

So this example. Faking, creating, hoaxing a dinosaur within the controlled environments of these clowns is possible and if interests are high and the risk of exposure minimal (because of this control) probable.

As soon as (dinosaur) fossils are outside of that small, strictly managed, "Skull-and-Boneysised" community, they fall into the hands of paleontological research, where taking another creature and making it a dinosaur doesn't really work. Only if you consider a complete branch of serious science a complete giga fraud, but then you'd have to come up with a little bit more evidence, please.

Still the three main questions I have:
- how one leaps from a handful of faked dino fossils (compared to the millions of real, well-studied by uncompromised honest researchers, fossil findings -counting every tiny bone as find-) to "everything is a hoax" still baffles me. Stars are real, even if NASA fakes star photos, right? Plane crashes can happen no matter MH370, AirAsia, Germanwings, Hudson, and all other faked ones, we agree on that?
- what happened during the ~150 million years of time that dinosaurs were around? Which animals did occupy these ecological niches, ate the lush forests (grass didn't exist then!), produced real coprolites, and where are their fossils then?
- faking isolated fossils for professional well-funded groups like those of Sereno and Horner is not too difficult. What is, is to do that to complete mountains, formations found over thousands of square kms. Where are all the witness accounts of truckloads full of fake rocks ( ) in layered sediment formations, driven to these remote sites in Patagonia, Mongolia, Montana or Montenegro to "build fossil-bearing formations", Lagerstätten? How do you practically do this gigantesque hoax, where the financial gain seems far too modest compared to the risks and costs of operations.

If building "6" (duplicates are common) fake moon sets and the whole Kirmisse around it costed some 130 billion dollars, how much did the faking of all the dinosaur-bearing formations (including the ones not discovered yet!) in the world would have costed?? And what's the benefit exactly?

Selene

The real truth that dare not speak itself is that no one is in control, absolutely no one. … This stuff is ruled by the equations of dynamics and chaos. Now, there may be entities seeking control … but to seek control is to take enormous aggravation upon yourself … It's like trying to control a dream…
Terence McKenna (1998)

[hoi.polloi]

Instead of just casually linking off site in the middle of your post, try to use your own words to explain your reasoning for believing even one example of "Lists of dinosaur-bearing stratigraphic units".

That would be a good place to start proving dinosaurs existed. Just one site out of under one hundred stong cases listed on Wickedpedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_s ... dy_fossils

Or even among the 300 or so weaker cases: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_s ... aur_genera

And please don't make us snicker about "dinosaur tracks".

We have more so-called "terrorist" events and "galaxies" than we do the above. If you are not confident enough to do so, how can you say with so much certainty you simply believe them all?

[Ataraxia]

how one leaps from a handful of faked dino fossils (compared to the millions of real, well-studied by uncompromised honest researchers, fossil findings -counting every tiny bone as find-) to "everything is a hoax" still baffles me.

Even if the progression of thought here is potentially wrong, it's odd that it can baffle you. Isn’t it telling that no credible paleontologists make an effort to point out which dinosaurs are faked and which dinosaur finds are real? Even though science is supposed to be about the pursuit of truth and knowledge, yet they seem perfectly happy to let their science be tarnished forever, while allowing the public to fall into a trap where fakery and reality cannot be distinguished. I wouldn’t even be surprised if there are people in these earth sciences who know dinosaurs are fake, but are unwilling or incapable of saying anything. After all, it’s a meal ticket for all of them, just as in climate science, global warming is their never-ending source for money.

Besides, isn't it easy to just find the remains of some applicable animal and claim its a dinosaur? Think if they had a whale skeleton like below, if someone never knew that was a whale or could be a whale, it'd be pretty simple to tell them it's a dinosaur. You add legs to it and you have the outline for the basic dinosaur shape. As other examples in this thread have shown, it's easy to do the same with turtles or ostriches, depending on the size and evidence you need.



In a way, the most basic logic is that you’d expect the greatest dinosaur breakthroughs to be occurring now, since we have now the best technologies and techniques yet known. Yet conversely, most of what the public knows about dinosaurs derives from a murky age a hundred years or more ago, where they had no legitimate way to date fossils or say what the fossils should look like. Yet they were essentially correct with everything that they claimed, miraculously enough. Except for the shift towards making dinosaurs birds.

To me, it’s no real different than sci-fi authors creating aliens and ufos completely from imagination. Yet then fast forward 100 years, and now we have sightings of ufos, and scientists search for aliens and alien debris. We’re even told by the most reliable ( ) of NASA scientists that aliens likely existed on Mars or that we're created from alien DNA, etc. All of this is born out of science fiction and has no basis in reality, yet it’s become our truth. Aliens are now real because sci-fi authors once said they were. How are dinosaurs really that different? They're real because someone says they are.

And what's the benefit exactly?

How can’t you sit back and quietly think for a few minutes and see no potential benefits for any of this? I’m not advocating any sort of theological belief here, but various benefits can include:

• The continuing depreciation of human importance
  The affirmation of evolution
  Confirmation of the age and existence of the world as they say it is
  The role of scientists as our gods to understanding the world and truth
  The role and need of government to support these scientists, and so that without government there is no knowledge
  To create a belief that human knowledge is actually advancing towards a complete understanding of everything
  Prestige for both the university and government sponsoring the dinosaur finds
  Continued funding to museums, since you can sell the concept of dinosaurs better than you can sell the fossils of boring birds
  To create an entire field of funding and science that never existed before
  A trillion dollar entertainment industry
  The basic need to continue the whole farce, since it’s been started and they can’t say it’s all been a lie now

[Kham]

Selene,

Concerning dinosaur bones, how many examples of mis-categorized fossils do you require?