Debate Rages over 'Oldest Dinosaur' Find in Germany

[n2doc]

By Philip Bethge
A scientist in the eastern German state of Saxony-Anhalt believes he has uncovered tracks from the world's oldest dinosaur. But the footprints at the center of the find have sparked a major debate among scientists.


http://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,1322697,00.jpg
Landesamt für Denkmalpflege und Archäologie Halle
Purported dinosaur tracks in Bernburg, Germany: Are the evolutionary "missing link" between reptiles of the Paleozoic era and the later, lithe dinosaurs?

A massive creature tromped its way across an expansive limestone marsh. Horseshoe crabs scurried in its wake, and a reptile similar to a crocodile crossed its path. Weighing between 600 and 800 kilograms (1,760 pounds), the creature left impressive footprints in the limestone deposit. Shifting sand then covered the tracks. The creature's rear foot measured a large 35 centimeters (14 inches).
All this happened around 243 million years ago -- and it took until now for the fossilized tracks of this massive reptile to come to light again. The find was made in a quarry near Bernburg, a small city in the eastern German state of Saxony-Anhalt, and the first details were revealed last week. If the discoverer, paleontologist Cajus Diedrich, is to be believed, these limestone impressions will make for a research coup of global dimensions.

Diedrich believes he's found the world's oldest dinosaur, the ancestor of T. rex, Brontosaurus, Triceratops and all the others. The German weekly newsmagazine Stern obligingly reported the paleontological discovery was a "sensation," but a number of experts in the field believe Diedrich's theory is fundamentally wrong and an all-out scientific brawl is brewing within the profession.

more:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,583116,00.html

[Zenlitened]

1. Shouldn't John McCain be here at home during this time...

... of national crisis??? Where is the leadership???!!!!11

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

2. Wow! Over 5900 years old!

:wow:

[n2doc]

3. Must be a typo, eh? n/t

[semillama]

4. And now for the obligatory non-snarky post that's actually about the article

The statement to take away from this article is this one:

"With only tracks to go on, it's very difficult to draw conclusions about a new dinosaur," says Bonn University's Sander. "There would have to be a skeleton."

So, basically, the guy was making a huge inferential leap from one piece of evidence to a conclusion, but is missing key pieces of evidence that would allow that conclusion to be a satisfactory explanation of the original evidence.