Apparently pretty dumb.

Let's see your research papers and explanations to how life changes when pressures are relieved and competition is low. Or better yet, when the slate is pretty much wiped clean (due to an extinction event) and nature can take almost any course it sees fit for any creature it sees fit to change.You think this article is a "load of crap"? Just wait a little while for some of the posts this story is, I'm sure, going to generate.

How is it a load of crap? I thought it was kind of interesting. Maybe we can shrink our way out of global warming

We don't need to "think" that the American people are dumb. Surveys have shown nearly 50% of them are young earth creationists and you can't get much dumber than that.

'Creatards,' for short

Well all I can say is get your fingers ready because I suspect the mythtards will be coming soon.

I suspect the mythtards will be coming soon.

Ya, if they put this up on the home page, it's Katie bar the door

It makes sens to me that evolving to a smaller state would be faster.

assuming an animal slowly got bigger first an then began to shrink the DNA to grow a small version is already in place and just needs to be activated.

ps: "Creatards" now that's just plan hilarious!!!!!

"Load of crap"? As opposed to what? The idea that some invisible bearded guy up in the sky waved his hand and all the animals and all the plants were magically created in the space of a few days? That's a load of crap if you ask me.

Plus, just to make things fun, he must have put a bunch of fossilized bones in and under the layers of rocks that he also made, in just the sort of way that they appear to have been laid down over millions upon million of years and the fossils within these layers precisely correspond to the slow morphological change over time which is known as evolution? So apparently, God just made it look that way, just to f**k with us?!!

Riiiight. It is only the dumbest and blindest of Americans that do not understand the simple truth of this.

No, seashells and fossil fish are in the mountains because of the flood. I'm sure the flood covered the dinosaur bones and tracks as well.

But it does not explain why T-rexes were not on the Ark. I'm still trying to visualize Noah with elephants, rhinos, hippos, brachiosaurs, apatorsaurs and diplodocuses (diplodoci?). Would have had to be a really big boat.

Cue the line from Quint in Jaws... "We're gonna need a bigger boat."

Was the Indrocotherium larger than an elephant?

According to Wikipedia, Indricotherium could reach an estimated approximately 20 tons. Elephants get to be about 12 tons.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraceratherium

The Songhua River Mammoth reached 17 feet tall with an estimated weight of 19 tons (2,000 pound tons). The largest African elephant on record was killed in Angola. It weighed 12 tons and was 13 feet high at the shoulder. Indricotherium was definitely the tallest land mammal at 18 feet high at the shoulder and an estimated weight of 20 tonnes (aka 22 tons). (tonne = 1000 kilograms; ton = 2000 pounds)

To evolve a large graviportal body size from a small body requires numerous body changes. As an animal doubles in dimensions, its mass is cubed. (2x2x2=8) The legs must be moved under the body and strengthened. The heart must be able to pump blood against gravity to the head. Further, as size increases, the time to reach maturity increases. This reduces the number of generations in a given time and reduces the number of individuals that are available to breed. It is a basic given that small animals evolve faster than large animals.

Wow that's big. Thanks MikeyMike and Dale3242

Some of the largest might have been the size of medium sized sauropods.