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IMO, while this is old news, the outcome is something I think we can showcase as why science is awesome. A mistake was found, and even though there was some hug

IMO, while this is old news, the outcome is something I think we can showcase as why science is awesome. A mistake was found, and even though there was some huge investment in the idea, it was corrected. It took time, sure, but it was still corrected. Had this been a religious idea, I'm afraid the new evidence would have been buried and we'd still have the old, wrong idea.

robbrown451 14y ago
Except that the main "mistake" had to do with naming conventions, as opposed to actual science. We've refined our view of other dinos over the years, but we don't say that T-Rex never existed just because we know he stood differently than we first imagined.
- onan_barbarian 14y ago
  It wasn't really just naming conventions. Having a second name for something that already existed - not to mention having the 'brontosaurus' being made from some bogus parts, eg. a skull of another dinosaur - is more than a simple naming error.
pkulak 14y ago
Religion has no use for evidence in creating or revising any idea. But I still get your point.
- politician 14y ago
  Let's try to be more tolerant then /r/atheism.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - illuminate 14y ago
    It's not intolerance, it's an airgap. Religion is a supernatural matter, not a tool by which one can gather objective evidence. To judge one by the standards of the other would be unfair (no matter whether a theist or atheist is trying to conflate one with the other.)
    - politician 14y ago
      Regardless, religion wasn't part of the article, and it's completely irrelevant to the conversation. These two guys brought it up for no other reason than open mocking. That's not tolerance, that's Reddit.
      - bunderbunder 14y ago
        Sadly, at least for Americans it's not irrelevant. In the USA paleontology, especially dinosaur paleontology, plays a huge role in the continuing political struggle over whether evolution should be taught in science classes. As a result the sources from which people learn about paleontology can often be quite partisan. A very large number of Americans learn their paleontology from sources whose approach to the subject is markedly different, which does play a part in the perpetuation of scientifically discredited ideas such as this one. So while many of us would agree that the comparison ideally shouldn't be relevant, certain cultural realities mean that it is. Though it's definitely still tangential in this case.
  - pkulak 14y ago
    I tolerate religion, I just don't respect it.
- pathy 14y ago
  To be fair, at least the Catholic church seems to accept evolution and such things and priests used to be the top scientists back in medieval times.
  - smackay 14y ago
    The Catholic church is a pragmatic institution. You can be sure that if the tide of public opinion started flowing against evolution they'd drop their support in a heart-beat.
    - pathy 14y ago
      I personally have little love for the Catholic church but I do believe a previous pope offered to make the theory of evolution the dogma. (on a side note: Do you make something the dogma? I never really used the word in that sense before)
pretoriusB 14y ago
>Had this been a religious idea, I'm afraid the new evidence would have been buried and we'd still have the old, wrong idea. Historically, religions have been found to be very adapting, incorporating new and existing ideas, and even elements from other religions. Christianity, for one, has incorporated many foreign elements and have changed over the years adapting to every era. Sure, people have also been burned as a consequence of religion. Then again, people have been killed as a consequence of science too. 240.000 men, women, children and elderly died in Hiroshima and Nagashaki from the direct results of several years of work by the top physicists of the time. Or the people had followed psychiatric treatments such as lobotomy we now consider BS. Or the tens of thousands sterilised (in Western Europe) by eugenics programs that run until the '70s. Those are consequences of science too -- one cannot separate it from politics arbitrarily, else we can say the same about religion "oh, but a TRUE believer would never harm anyone", etc. Well, many very true scientists are working on biological weapons and other scary things, and a lot of true scientists amongst them hate other people or nations with a passion.
- illuminate 14y ago
  "Historically, religions have been found to be very adapting" You're talking about syncretism. As new religions are generated, they draw from previous ritual and myth. This is not the sort of adaptation to eliminate falsehoods referenced here. The bible includes elements cribbed from other religions, it is not rewritten to be factual.
  - pretoriusB 14y ago
    >This is not the sort of adaptation to eliminate falsehoods referenced here. The bible includes elements cribbed from other religions, it is not rewritten to be factual. Both things happen. Religions also take things out of their "canon" as the society evolves, precisely to take out old mistakes. The way the Catholic church does not endorse slavery or the "Spanish Inquisition" as it once did, for example.

robbrown451 14y ago

Except that the main "mistake" had to do with naming conventions, as opposed to actual science. We've refined our view of other dinos over the years, but we don't say that T-Rex never existed just because we know he stood differently than we first imagined.

onan_barbarian 14y ago
It wasn't really just naming conventions. Having a second name for something that already existed - not to mention having the 'brontosaurus' being made from some bogus parts, eg. a skull of another dinosaur - is more than a simple naming error.

pkulak 14y ago

Religion has no use for evidence in creating or revising any idea. But I still get your point.

politician 14y ago
Let's try to be more tolerant then /r/atheism.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- illuminate 14y ago
  It's not intolerance, it's an airgap. Religion is a supernatural matter, not a tool by which one can gather objective evidence. To judge one by the standards of the other would be unfair (no matter whether a theist or atheist is trying to conflate one with the other.)
  - politician 14y ago
    Regardless, religion wasn't part of the article, and it's completely irrelevant to the conversation. These two guys brought it up for no other reason than open mocking. That's not tolerance, that's Reddit.
    - bunderbunder 14y ago
      Sadly, at least for Americans it's not irrelevant. In the USA paleontology, especially dinosaur paleontology, plays a huge role in the continuing political struggle over whether evolution should be taught in science classes. As a result the sources from which people learn about paleontology can often be quite partisan. A very large number of Americans learn their paleontology from sources whose approach to the subject is markedly different, which does play a part in the perpetuation of scientifically discredited ideas such as this one. So while many of us would agree that the comparison ideally shouldn't be relevant, certain cultural realities mean that it is. Though it's definitely still tangential in this case.
- pkulak 14y ago
  I tolerate religion, I just don't respect it.
pathy 14y ago
To be fair, at least the Catholic church seems to accept evolution and such things and priests used to be the top scientists back in medieval times.
- smackay 14y ago
  The Catholic church is a pragmatic institution. You can be sure that if the tide of public opinion started flowing against evolution they'd drop their support in a heart-beat.
  - pathy 14y ago
    I personally have little love for the Catholic church but I do believe a previous pope offered to make the theory of evolution the dogma. (on a side note: Do you make something the dogma? I never really used the word in that sense before)

pretoriusB 14y ago

>Had this been a religious idea, I'm afraid the new evidence would have been buried and we'd still have the old, wrong idea. Historically, religions have been found to be very adapting, incorporating new and existing ideas, and even elements from other religions. Christianity, for one, has incorporated many foreign elements and have changed over the years adapting to every era. Sure, people have also been burned as a consequence of religion. Then again, people have been killed as a consequence of science too. 240.000 men, women, children and elderly died in Hiroshima and Nagashaki from the direct results of several years of work by the top physicists of the time. Or the people had followed psychiatric treatments such as lobotomy we now consider BS. Or the tens of thousands sterilised (in Western Europe) by eugenics programs that run until the '70s. Those are consequences of science too -- one cannot separate it from politics arbitrarily, else we can say the same about religion "oh, but a TRUE believer would never harm anyone", etc. Well, many very true scientists are working on biological weapons and other scary things, and a lot of true scientists amongst them hate other people or nations with a passion.

illuminate 14y ago
"Historically, religions have been found to be very adapting" You're talking about syncretism. As new religions are generated, they draw from previous ritual and myth. This is not the sort of adaptation to eliminate falsehoods referenced here. The bible includes elements cribbed from other religions, it is not rewritten to be factual.
- pretoriusB 14y ago
  >This is not the sort of adaptation to eliminate falsehoods referenced here. The bible includes elements cribbed from other religions, it is not rewritten to be factual. Both things happen. Religions also take things out of their "canon" as the society evolves, precisely to take out old mistakes. The way the Catholic church does not endorse slavery or the "Spanish Inquisition" as it once did, for example.