TIME: Maybe an Asteroid Didn't Kill the Dinosaurs

[skinsfan51]

Monday, Apr. 27, 2009
Maybe an Asteroid Didn't Kill the Dinosaurs
By Jeffrey Kluger

When a scientific principle is common knowledge even in grammar schools, you know it's long since crossed the line from theory to established fact. That's the case with dinosaur extinction. Some 65 million years ago — as we've all come to know — an asteroid struck the Earth, sending up a cloud that blocked the sun and cooled the planet. That, in turn, wiped out the dinosaurs and made way for the rise of the mammals. The suddenness with which so many species vanished after the 65-million-year mark always suggested a single cataclysmic event, and the 1978 discovery of a 112-mi., 65-million-year-old crater off the Yucatán peninsula near the town of Chicxulub seemed to seal the deal.

Now, however, a new study in the Journal of the Geological Society throws all of that into question. The asteroid impact and the dinosaur extinction, argue the authors, may not have been simultaneous, but rather may have occurred 300,000 years apart. That's an eye-blink in geological time, but it's a relevant eye-blink all the same, one that occurred at just the right moment in ancient history to have sent the extinction theory entirely awry. (See pictures of meteors striking the earth.)

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I just love when those "established facts" end up not being quite so established. Maybe millions of school kids shouldn't be told they are facts to begin with.

[Mickalino]

I just love when those "established facts" end up being not quite so established.

Another reason why you shouldn't believe in evolution

[skinsfan51]

Another reason why you shouldn't believe in evolution

You ARE one smart person!

[Zguy28]

It was dragons! DRAGONS I TELL YOU! They ate the dinosaurs. They are in hiding right now under London.

[PiLfan]

[The_Godfather]

I just love when those "established facts" end up not being quite so established. Maybe millions of school kids shouldn't be told they are facts to begin with.

Agreed. I don't mind if unproven ideas are taught as theories. But teaching "facts" that change every other year is unacceptable.

[skinsfan51]

LOL, I forgot about that one! Maybe it should be published as a possible reason.

One thing is a fact, no one knows what really happened to the dinosaurs. ALL theories are just that: theories. And they should NEVER "cross the line" (as the article says) from theory to fact until something is 100%, beyond-a-shadow-of-a-doubt, proven to be a fact. But it's been a long, long time since science has been that honest--if ever.

The real losers are the millions of impressionable school children who are wooed by the white-coated science teachers, and believe everything they say as gospel truth.

[skinsfan51]

Agreed. I don't mind if unproven ideas are taught as theories. But teaching "facts" that change every other year is unacceptable.

You're right, and even if they don't change every other year, NOTHING should be taught as fact (see evolution) unless it is absolutely, unequivocally, proven to be a fact.

"Exercise is good for the human body." That is a proven fact and should be taught as one.

"Darwinian evolution is a fact." That has never been observed, much less proven. It should never, ever be taught as a fact. Only a unproven theory.

The same goes for the extinction (or supposed extinction) of the dinosaurs. You don't tell every school kid on earth what actually happened when no one was there to witness it. Every teacher should start this type of teaching with "We think..." or "Scientists believe..." But NEVER "This is what happened 65 million years ago." That is deceptive and misleading.

[mrhetzler]

The same goes for the extinction (or supposed extinction) of the dinosaurs. You don't tell every school kid on earth what actually happened when no one was there to witness it. Every teacher should start this type of teaching with "We think..." or "Scientists believe..." But NEVER "This is what happened 65 million years ago." That is deceptive and misleading.

It was never taught as FACT when I was a kid. That's the logical flaw in the above arguments. The first mention I've heard of "established fact" of meteor/asteroid collision is in the article above. In fact the first sentence is a little foggy, and is unfortunately a launching point for the whole argument.

In other words, is it an "established fact" that this was taught as an "established fact"?

[The Brave Little Toaster Oven]

It was never taught as FACT when I was a kid.

It was taught as fact when I was in elementary school....we even were read books that had pictures of the asteroid hitting Earth.

Remember the movie, The Land Before Time? That also talks about the asteroid hitting Earth....who was its intended audience? Kids of course.

[Tulane Skins Fan]

It was never taught as a fact in my school. That would've been ridiculous.

[SkinInsite]

It was taught as fact when I was in elementary school....we even were read books that had pictures of the asteroid hitting Earth.

Remember the movie, The Land Before Time? That also talks about the asteroid hitting Earth....who was its intended audience? Kids of course.

Yeah Land Before Time was the evil evolutionist plot to poison young people's minds!

[PiLfan]

It was never taught as FACT when I was a kid. That's the logical flaw in the above arguments. The first mention I've heard of "established fact" of meteor/asteroid collision is in the article above. In fact the first sentence is a little foggy, and is unfortunately a launching point for the whole argument.

In other words, is it an "established fact" that this was taught as an "established fact"?

Agreed...i've only ever heard of it referred to as a theory...albeit a theory that had more going for it than most others (the discovery of the Yucatan crater dated to roughly the same time as the mass extinction made the 'asteroid or comet' theory more popular, arguably, and it's popularity may be mistakenly perceived as a presumption of fact).

The real "fact" is we will never know what really killed them off unless we build a time machine...same goes for evolution and everything else that is based on things that happened in the past...they are all "theroies" until then. Hell, aliens could've killed off the dinosaurs for all we know...

[The Brave Little Toaster Oven]

Yeah Land Before Time was the evil evolutionist plot to poison young people's minds!

Damn straight!

If only they had Jebus riding on the back of a Stegasaurus to make it more believable

[Thiebear]

Well i believe it is a fact that a MASSIVE meteor hit near Mexico and probably killed a good percentage of the planet based on size and speed.

Extinction? who the hell knows that far back, but the extinction line is rather abrupt in the fossil records and geological lines in the dirt. an earlier version of the two cities being destroyed?