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We can conclude from the facts that dinosaurs once lived.

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I don't think this is true. We have bones. It's an assumption that bones came from a once living creature.

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Can you show me some bones that didn't once come from a living creature that aren't a prop or toy or teaching tool?

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That begs the question.

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No, you have to establish that thousands of remains in the character of articulated animals are not actually the remains of animals. To do this, you have to have a plausible explanation. Otherwise you're running down the rabbit hole that ends with total uncertainty of reality. If you are a theist, you're questioning whether your God can be trusted or not.

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We can conclude from the facts that dinosaurs once lived.

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I don't think this is true. We have bones. It's an assumption that bones came from a once living creature.

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And footprints and fossilized eggs and nests and gastroliths and so on...

Let's just say that the ability to sequence massive amounts of DNA, and the bioinformatic tools available to analyse that data has put a nice bow on all of the previous work in paleontology and comparative anatomy.

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good one. I like this one better:

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That's so much better.

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can we even conclude that the dinosaurs once lived? I'd categorize that as an assumption, not a fact derived from science, correct?

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How bout we say that the overwhelming quantity and quality of evidence supporting the conclusion that dinosaurs once lived on Earth

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What is the evidence?

oy vey

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Let's just say that the ability to sequence massive amounts of DNA, and the bioinformatic tools available to analyse that data has put a nice bow on all of the previous work in paleontology and comparative anatomy.

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I'm curious about what those tools add to our study of dinosaurs. I was under the impression that genetic material from dinosaurs was unavailable.

Are all these jokes and cartoons attempting to mask the realization that this is an assumption, not a scientific conclusion?

Ever driven in a car that used gasoline? That's only possible with long dead plants and animals.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleontology

Paleontology is one of the historical sciences, along with archaeology, geology, astronomy, cosmology,philology and history itself.[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleontology#cite_note-Laudan1992WhatSpecialP58-4][4][/url] This means that it aims to describe phenomena of the past and reconstruct their causes.[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleontology#cite_note-Cleland2002MethodologicalAndEpistemicDifferences-5][5][/url] Hence it has three main elements: description of the phenomena; developing a general theory about the causes of various types of change; and applying those theories to specific facts.[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleontology#cite_note-Laudan1992WhatSpecialP58-4][4][/url]

When trying to explain past phenomena, paleontologists and other historical scientists often construct a set of hypotheses about the causes and then look for a smoking gun, a piece of evidence that indicates that one hypothesis is a better explanation than others. Sometimes the smoking gun is discovered by a fortunate accident during other research. For example, the discovery by Luis Alvarez and Walter Alvarez of an iridium-rich layer at the CretaceousTertiaryboundary made asteroid impact and volcanism the most favored explanations for the CretaceousPaleogene extinction event.[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleontology#cite_note-Cleland2002MethodologicalAndEpistemicDifferences-5][5][/url]

The other main type of science is experimental science, which is often said to work by conductingexperiments to disprove hypotheses about the workings and causes of natural phenomena note that this approach cannot confirm a hypothesis is correct, since some later experiment may disprove it. However, when confronted with totally unexpected phenomena, such as the first evidence for invisible radiation, experimental scientists often use the same approach as historical scientists: construct a set of hypotheses about the causes and then look for a "smoking gun".[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleontology#cite_note-Cleland2002MethodologicalAndEpistemicDifferences-5][5][/url]

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Are all these jokes and cartoons attempting to mask the realization that this is an assumption, not a scientific conclusion?

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Can you give me an example of a scientific fact or a valid scientific conclusion so I have an idea of where the goalposts are?

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Sure, a male sperm uniting with a female egg produces a unique human being.

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Can you show me some bones that didn't once come from a living creature that aren't a prop or toy or teaching tool?

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That begs the question.

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No, you have to establish that thousands of remains in the character of articulated animals are not actually the remains of animals. To do this, you have to have a plausible explanation. Otherwise you're running down the rabbit hole that ends with total uncertainty of reality. If you are a theist, you're questioning whether your God can be trusted or not.

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I said "from a scientific perspective." Evidence that bones found in the ground are from once living creatures. You are assuming they were from once living creatures and asking me for proof that they are not.

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Yes, you have to provide proof that they are not the remains of once living animals since those remains check off every box you would want for previously living animals. We have fossil footprints, fossil turds, fossil eggs, fossilized skin impressions, mummies with fossilized organs, millions of bones, feather imprints, and clear links between birds and Dinosaurs that one would expect to see if the theory is correct. So, please, demonstrate how one can logically infer that fossils are not the remains of once living animals.

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Yes, you have to provide proof that they are not the remains of once living animals since those remains check off every box you would want for previously living animals.

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Still begging the question.

MQB what is the alternative? They were placed there? They are really just natural geologic formations?

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The burden of proof is on you. And it's not begging the question to say that all of the evidence points in one direction.

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Evidence doesn't point. People do. They also assume their position is correct in order to prove it.

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MQB what is the alternative? They were placed there? They are really just natural geologic formations?

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Those conclusions would have about as much "scientific" basis as the assumption that they lived at one time.

Martin how do you propose we develop explanations for anything that we weren't there to observe?