Monday, January 11, 2010

Fox News: Killing the Dinosaurs before they evolved

Via a science blog "Highly Allochthonous" comes the story that Fox News reports that a volcano eruption killed Dinosaurs 250 million years ago
 Fox says That coal was formed by the same 250-million-year-old giant volcanic eruption termed a supervolcano that was responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs.
Highly Allochthonous says that what means is
The dinosaurs were made extinct before they actually evolved (in reality they radiated after the Permian extinction killed off the mammal-like reptiles that were the dominant large land animals at the time.
The Permian era is that 250 million year ago thing .
Since there is no mention of what happened to the people who co-existed with the dinos (look it up in Chick cartoons) and the dates are older than 6,000 years, there will be some head explosions amongst FOX viewers.

14 comments:

Smut Clyde said...

Among the other errors and omissions in the Fox distortion of the original press release, note the way they have deliberately suppressed the ".357-calibre bullet" theory of dinosaur extinction.

Smut Clyde said...

Reading the Whackypedia article on the Permian-Triassic extinction event, I gather that the not-dinosaurs of the time (e.g. therapsids) were actually caught in Siberian traps, which sounds cruel.
I was caught in a gin trap once and could only escape by drinking the entire bottle.

mikey said...

Well of course not. The bullet lodged in the petrified Hadrisaur pelvis in my sock drawer is quite clearly a 300 grain .375 H&H Magnum.

It makes sense that the time traveling Dinosaur hunters would use classic big game rifles as used in Africa.

Substance McGravitas said...

look it up in Chick cartoons

Pffft. Chicks.

M. Bouffant said...

At least I'm not descended from a mammal-like reptile!

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

You're assuming the young earth creationists have been able to successfully transition to digital broadcasting.

Dude, I want to see proof of that.

Plus, if you know of any who have managed to figure it out, I want to tell them that it is evidence of evolution.

Big Bad Bald Bastard said...

Therapsids are the Jews of Supervolcano fascism!

Hamish Mack said...

Therapsids are shiftless and arrogant. If they wanted to, they could have got away but, no! They just stayed and then bleated for government help!!1

Smut Clyde said...

If Making a Loud Noise Until Rescued was good enough for Eeyore, it was good enough for --
-- Eeyore was a therapsid?

Hamish Mack said...

Eeyore certainly needed therapy.

Smut Clyde said...

That coal was formed by the same 250-million-year-old giant volcanic eruption
And oddly enough, this part of the Fox story turns out to be as wrong as the "dinosaur-extinction" part... the formation of coal was already well-underway when, if the original press release is correct, the peat bog was contaminated by rainwater enriched with dissolved silica.
So two wrong out of two, not bad.

mikey said...

So two wrong out of two, not bad.

Meh.

That's actually pretty much just average for Fox.

In many cases they manage to get SEVEN wrong out of two.

And that's BEFORE Sarah Palin has even sat down in her chair there...

Hamish Mack said...

Yes, new areas of wrongness are gonna be opened by the Quitta. She couldn't report this story anyways since it's got evolution (lord God cleanse my mouth, send the demons to the south)in it.

Big Bad Bald Bastard said...

Eeyore was a therapsid?

Well, if one looks at it from a cladistic perspective, an argument can be made...