painshill Posted August 21, 2013 Share Posted August 21, 2013 (edited) For your entertainment, I offer this article from the website for the “Institute for Creation Research”. That’s those folks who don’t believe in what most of us here believe and prefer to think that: “Each of the major kinds of plants and animals was created functionally complete from the beginning and did not evolve from some other kind of organism.” http://www.icr.org/article/7558/ The article postulates that this “fossil-sniffing pooch” is evidence that fossils aren’t millions of years old as we palaeontologists believe and provide further proof of creationist idealism. It isn’t my intent to start a religious argument (so please restrain yourselves). People can believe whatever they want as far I am concerned. But the question that crossed my mind as I was reading it was this. Do any of you have any experience of taking your pooch with you when fossil-hunting and has your dog ever sniffed out anything you might not have otherwise found? I would be prepared to believe that a dog could be trained to sniff out almost anything with a chemical signature (sulphur dioxide, hydrogen sulphide, ammonia, whatever) and that the ability doesn’t depend on there being residual organic tissue in the way the article suggests. I often note that split nodules which prove to contain a fossil have a distinct odour that empty nodules do not and I'm a smoker with probably rather disadvantaged olfactory abilities. I can't smell the difference from the outside, but I wonder if a dog might be able to? I haven’t had a dog for years, but when I did and took her beachcombing, she would often find a Pleistocene bone before I did – but I think she was using her eyes rather than her sense of smell. Edited August 21, 2013 by painshill Roger I keep six honest serving-men (they taught me all I knew);Their names are What and Why and When and How and Where and Who [Rudyard Kipling] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Auspex Posted August 21, 2013 Share Posted August 21, 2013 Dogs want to please, have keen senses (experiencing the world differently than we do), and are easily programmed. "There has been an alarming increase in the number of things I know nothing about." - Ashleigh Ellwood Brilliant “Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.” - Thomas Henry Huxley >Paleontology is an evolving science. >May your wonders never cease! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nandomas Posted August 21, 2013 Share Posted August 21, 2013 I used follow my seven-days buddy armadillo down in Florida for searching sea urchins. I gave him the name "Drillo the Armadillo". He dug for worms, insect, snails in a very soft reclamation quarry soil, and I gathered echinoids as if it was pick cherries ... and I am not creationist Erosion... will be my epitaph! http://www.paleonature.org/ https://fossilnews.org/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnJ Posted August 21, 2013 Share Posted August 21, 2013 I used follow my seven-days buddy armadillo down in Florida for searching sea urchins. I gave him the name "Drillo the Armadillo". He dug for worms, insect, snails in a very soft reclamation quarry soil, and I gathered echinoids as if it was pick cherries ... and I am not creationist She doesn't sniff them out, but sometimes they make an acceptable pillow... The human mind has the ability to believe anything is true. - JJ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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