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An artist's impression of a 6-mile-wide asteroid striking the Earth. Scientists now have fresh evidence that such a cosmic impact ended the age of dinosaurs near what is now the town of Chixculub in Mexico.
By Charles Choi
LiveScience
The idea that a cosmic impact ended the age of dinosaurs in what is now Mexico now has fresh new support, researchers say.
The most recent and most familiar mass extinction is the one that finished the reign of the dinosaurs — the end-Cretaceous or Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event, often known as K-T. The only survivors among the dinosaurs are the birds.
Currently, the main suspect behind this catastrophe is a cosmic impact from an asteroid or comet, an idea first proposed by physicist Luis Alvarez and his son, geologist Walter Alvarez. Scientists later found that signs of this collision seemed evident near the town of Chicxulub (CHEEK-sheh-loob) in Mexico in the form of a gargantuan crater more than 110 miles (180 kilometers) wide. The explosion, likely caused by an object about 6 miles (10 kilometers) across, would have released as much energy as 100 trillion tons of TNT, more than a billion times more than the atom bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
However, further work suggested the Chicxulub impact occurred either 300,000 years before or 180,000 years after the end-Cretaceous mass extinction. As such, researchers have explored other possibilities, including other impact sites, such as the controversial Shiva crater in India, or even massive volcanic eruptions, such as those creating the Deccan Flats in India.
Courtesy of Paul Renne
Doctoral student Bill Mitchell collects a volcanic ash sample from a coal bed just above the final dinosaur extinction level.
Timing of an impact
New findings using high-precision radiometric dating analysis of debris kicked up by the impact now suggest the K-T event and the Chicxulub collision happened no more than 33,000 years apart. In radiometric dating, scientists estimate the ages of samples based on the relative proportions of specific radioactive materials within them. [Wipe Out: History's Most Mysterious Mass Extinctions]
"We've shown the impact and the mass extinction coincided as much as one can possibly demonstrate with existing dating techniques," researcher Paul Renne, a geochronologist and director of the Berkeley Geochronology Center in California, told LiveScience.
Courtesy of Klaudia Kuiper
Near Jordan, Mont., rock layers expose the level (lower arrow) where dinosaurs and many other animals and plants went extinct. The arrows point to coal beds that contain thin volcanic ash layers that were dated.
"It's gratifying to see these results, for those of us who've been arguing a long time that there was an impact at the time of this mass extinction," geologist Walter Alvarez at the University of California at Berkeley, who did not participate in this study, told LiveScience. "This research is just a tour de force, a demonstration of really skillful geochronology to resolve time that well."
The fact the impact and mass extinction may have been virtually simultaneous in time supports the idea that the cosmic impact dealt the age of dinosaurs its deathblow.
"The impact was clearly the final straw that pushed Earth past the tipping point," Renne said. "We have shown that these events are synchronous to within a gnat's eyebrow, and therefore, the impact clearly played a major role in extinctions, but it probably wasn't just the impact."
The new extinction date is precise to within 11,000 years.
"When I got started in the field, the error bars on these events were plus or minus a million years," added paleontologist William Clemens at the University of California at Berkeley, who did not participate in this research. "It's an exciting time right now, a lot of which we can attribute to the work that Paul and his colleagues are doing in refining the precision of the time scale with which we work."
Cosmic Log: Asteroid closes in for close encounter — and a swift kick
Although the cosmic impact and mass extinction coincided in time, Renne cautioned this does not mean the impact was the only cause of the die-offs. For instance, dramatic climate swings in the preceding million years, including long cold snaps in the general hothouse environment of the Cretaceous, probably brought many creatures to the brink of extinction. The volcanic eruptions behind the Deccan Traps might be one cause of these climate variations.
"These precursory phenomena made the global ecosystem much more sensitive to even relatively small triggers, so that what otherwise might have been a fairly minor effect shifted the ecosystem into a new state," Renne said.
The cosmic impact then proved the death blow.
"What we really need to do is to understand better what was going on before the impact — what was the level of ecological stress that existed that allowed the impact to be the straw that broke the camel's back?" Renne said. "We also need better dates for the massive volcanism at the Deccan Flats to better understand when it first started and how fast it occurred."
The scientists will detail their findings in Friday's issue of the journal Science.
Follow LiveScience on Twitter @livescience. We're also on Facebook and Google+.
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The end is nigh!
Mr. Ed can attest to that.
"The impact was clearly the final straw that pushed Earth past the tipping point," High volcanic activity? enough impact to creat faults in the earths curst and increase volcanic activity. eart now of it's axis would that not cause internal stress?
like a bald tire hitting a bump POP!!! 100 trillion tons of TNT? scientists underestamated the atom bomb and maybe this also. would not somethink that size with a couple added valcano's speaking up actually Block out the sun for w few days? it's cold man @_@
Killed the dinosaurs? Hillary Clinton is still alive - unfortunately.
Hi Cozy! I enjoy your comments on the Fox sport pages as well. Hope you are well.
They call this proof, really? And if such a thing happened to wipe out all life, then not even the birds would have survived. And even if the birds survived, then that means we are all descendants of birds or if everything was destroyed then the idea we came from a pile of goo would be destroyed, unless these folks believe the primordial ooz happened more than once. If they believe it happened more than once, then it is not a unique event. If it is not a unique event we should either be able to see it again or re-create it. Now you have to have faith to believe in all of the above or that God's design created us. I see way more evidence of design than chance.
Nobody says that the meteor impact wiped out ALL life. Just the dinosaurs and a few other select species that were unable to cope with the environmental changes. For example, so much greenery was apparently destroyed the worldwide oxygen levels dropped, forcing larger insects to die off because they couldn't get oxygen efficiently. Neat, huh?
Rev, you are entirely wrong in every one of your claims. If you don't even understand what the scientists are saying, then how can you be so sure they are wrong?
You're making too many assumptions Rev. Not everything was wiped out...mostly the big dino's. Small ones survived and became birds. Small burrowing mammals survived and became us. Accept it or not. That is simply what happened, and science has shown it to be true beyond a reasonable doubt. How come you accept the creation myth without questioning it?
Life orginated almost three and half billion years ago with the Stromatolites.
http://www.fossilmuseum.net/Tree_of_Life/Stromatolites.htm
Consider this, the asteroid hits cracking the mantle and earthquakes and volcanic eruptions ensue. Water is vaporized and mixed with the volcanic ash and dust from the asteroid rains down a watery muck that coats everything including all vegetation, diminishing oxygen production. At the same time, the water vapor and soot dim the skies with clouds further reducing oxygen production from the oceans. Impact and volcanic gases spread out for miles from the epicenter and the loss of oxygen from the fires causes a large moving mass of low oxygen air creating an oxygen dead zone that kills every oxygen breathing thing in it's path (such as what happens with oceanic death zones devoid of oxygen). The temperature warms with the cloud covers and fires stressing poikilotherms who then breathe faster and suffocates with the largest of them dying faster as they use up more oxygen. Also deep oceanic carbon dioxide was released and making the air toxic as well.
Rev you have no proof to back up anything and you will twist everything around to meet your agenda. They have proof even though you will never believe it
Rev, all but one group of birds were killed off at the K-T extinction event. As for "god's" design, what a bunch of BS. The "design" of every human, every vertebrate, every multi-cellular living thing on this planet is encoded in DNA. Now that the DNA of many species have been decoded, especially humans, it is clearly apparent that Darwin's great theory of evolution of the species is fundamentally correct.
Um, where'd the DNA come from? If it came from a microbe from another planet on an asteroid, what put it on that planet? [Infinite regression...] How did DNA come to be? It's a pretty robust storage medium for all the information needed to assemble a human being, which is pretty amazingly complex. It had to START somewhere, and the ideas on that are as speculative as any faith statements you seem to denigrate.
Rev, your explanation is as good as any I've seen here.
geez, why does every article have to have a whiner on it??? doesnt anyone have a sense of humor anymore??? can nobody laugh at themselves or a group jokingly?? I refuse to play into this political correctness crap,,,,If something is funny to me i will laugh,,,if its not funny to you,dont laugh,,,thats the beauty of everyone being an individual!!!! just saying,, :)
As long as you laugh without putting down others, then you are right that nobody should be uptight about it.
The dinosaurs are still around today.I rode mine into work along with Fred Flintstone....yabba dabba doooooooohhhh
ONE HUNDRED TRILLION!!!!!!! Sounds like our debt!!!
sure does.......dumbass
An atheist is someone who believes something started from nothing a scientific impossiblity.
Actually, everyone believes that. Either the universe was already here, or it began at some point. there are no other options.
And POOF! God was created out of...of.....wait, out of!......no wait.... seems to be a mirror image dilemma, hey cottage cheese.
Too bad it did not eraticate the DNA that created Obama some time later.
Ahh, another angry about losing political troll.
When the big 'ol asteroid hits again, we start all over again. Maybe in that future there won't be such a thing as the 9-5, 5 days a week, working life. Since we're living in this time, we should all take a vote on reducing it to just 4 days working (readjust all pay to equal 5 days like we know it), 3 days off always.
If civilization is crushed by a meteorite, I think we're going to have to work a lot harder than we do now to rebuild. Expect 7 days a week, and no vacations. Oh, you're sick? Go find a ditch and die, because now you're dragging down the group.
Life is actually pretty cozy now, you know?
Interesting article, but not sure how Hillary, Obama, and King David (the writer of Psalms) got involved in all this.
Now, I read the end is nigh, from another post. Don't doubt any of it, any more than the scientist's precise dating of an asteroid hit. Oh, another post stated that asteroids were fallen angels. Well, thats interesting. Never heard that one before!
We are all just one hit away from oblivion. Ok....I'll set the pipe down.
There are still a few dinosaurs around.
You see the 65 year old guys with the pony tails still listening to The Grateful Dead and using terms like "far out, man".
Dino and proud of it. They lived through it. Now if they could only remember more of it...............
indeed if you are lucky you might live long enough to fit that category...
There's one that's a senator in Nevada...
There are plenty of people living in their own little world....young and old. To each their own.
@flylowguy. feeling immortal today? Life is short.
"Young men soon give, and soon forget, affronts; old age is slow in both."
--Joseph Addison
I see know study that really can benefit us, today from what may or may not have happened to the dinosaurs. It does however provide another avenue for money to be spent on professional student types...when it would have fed literally thousands of people, but what is helping a few starving people?
Can it change the weather today, tomorrow...no way in hell....sometimes science is what it is...nothing mor.than professionals making calculated guesses....better known as the SWAG theorem,.
sorry for the piss poor spelling.
This is a science article about increasing knowledge about a subject many of us are interested in.. If you are concerned about starving people, go do something useful for them like volunteering.
Can we steer the next one to the mid-east? Just askin'.
God has them in his sights, ready to pull the trigger...
The article headline says proof but the article says close but no cigar. Once again science falls short.
It's amazing that people believe this and how much money they spend to prove their theory. It's STILL just a theory..... And Mankind came from what was it a fish, So far over the past 3000 years mankind has been the same! Not turning into anything else! Once again a theory.. Trust in your maker God almighty!
You might have come from a discarded orange peel?!?!
"So far over the past 3000 years mankind has been the same!"
Closer to 100,000 years, actually; but that is nothing compared to the 400,000,000 years since the "fish" stage. Evolution works verry slowly.
Apparently YOU DID come from an orange peel. An orange that was PEELED VERY SLOWLY.
Trust in the Omnissiah, not God almighty!
For evolution has failed us, and the human race faces stagnation! It is up to US to move onto to the next step of human advancement!
The truth is in the processor! Machine God set us free!
Don't knock it. Cybernetics may be the next medical breakthrough once they figure out how to connect nerves to processors.
I can't wait!
I pray that, one day, my actual face will look just like my current profile picture.
Am I the only one feeling a little "Nervous"? since the news is saying we are about to have an astroid heading torwards earth? I know they say the astroid is not hitting earth, but everyone makes mistakes!
We can be pretty sure this one won't hit us. Physics does work. Bit we can also be fairly confident that another one will hit us some day.
You are right...and if you following me...we will all be sipping some koolaid this weekend wearin our bright orange uggs waiting for our maker's space shuttle to come get us. But ONLY if you believe.
You know "heaven's gate" people?
Quick, lets believe what the scientists say because....well, they said it! Maybe someone should ask these researchers why there are fish/whale fossils on top of Mount Everest!
We believe what the scientists say because they lay out their evidence and logic and we agree with it. No, you shouldn't just take anybody's word for it, but there are ways that you can determine who is more trustworthy.
And please learn about continental drift if you want to know the answer to your question.
I have a THEORY. You're all dumbasses.....that came from orange peels.
And we're supposed to believe preachers?
Now that's some hard-edged skepticism, G! I assume you apply that same level of suspicion to the Bible, right?
I mean, you'd never believe in something so hard to prove as a magic man creating all life and generating matter from nothing just because some old book said so, right?
Maybe the bible should have said that if whales and other creatures don't let out their farts that they wind up floating away and then get stuck up in the mountains.
Someone wise once asked, if swimming is so good for your health, why do whales look like that.
G Jones-Dreams--If you ever went to school you would know where mountains come from they heave up from ground level. So where do fossils come from on top of a mountain , put two and two together. Ever here of plate tectonics or volcanic action?
WOW! If we could just have one hit the center of Washington DC and make all those political dinosaurs extinct. What a lessed revelation that would be !!
First my question is who are these clowns doing this study? Clearly they don't seem to want to follow the party line that man causes Global Warming. But in both instances with these guys and the GW folks they don't have a clue.
"Although the cosmic impact and mass extinction coincided in time, Renne cautioned this does not mean the impact was the only cause of the die-offs. For instance, dramatic climate swings in the preceding million years, including long cold snaps in the general hothouse environment of the Cretaceous, probably brought many creatures to the brink of extinction. The volcanic eruptions behind the Deccan Traps might be one cause of these climate variations."
They are following that rabbit trail to "Wonderland" because the earth is around 6000 years old. These folks want to justify not wanting to give honor to the God of Creation. They are follow the bread crumbs placed by the evil one to try to legitimize their choice to disbelieve.
Before I get into my short reason/explanation why the earth is only 6000 years old let me say to those who disagree, understand your belief wont put a real hurt on you until you stand before the One who will show and prove your wrong. Then give you your punishment for not honoring your creator. Always remember and never forget "When Jesus Rocks Heads Will Roll".
The thing is guys this whole party called earth is for God to have children born unto Him to love and to lavish with blessings. (period) (Isaiah 5:1-3, Matthew 21:33-35) This being the case what reason would God have to create the earth any time before He needed to set things up to support Adam and Eve's needs to support their life? Do you think it impressed God to watch the planets rotate around the sun? Accomplishing nothing. Believe me He is not like us, feeling some sort of accomplishment when we look at something we put together.
One last thought about time and all these folks who want to say the earth is billions of years old. Know time did not start until Adam sinned. You see everything was perfect before he disobeyed. There was no reason or nothing to cause decay, which is a evidence of time.
IE The tires on your car ware out from miles and they decay from the day of their creation. After a tire is 10 years old (miles or no) no tire store will install it on your car because of the liability the rubber deteriorates over time.
Now we live in an age where time and decay are exponential compared to the time before the flood (this is what killed of the dinosaurs not some explosion) now we age about 10 to 12 times faster.
For those who want to thrash or argue, know I will only smirk at anything that is not supported by verses from the only Book that has life in it. The one warped in blood.
James T. Harris
BedRockRevival
I think you might actually believe all of that. LOL
You can believe anything you want to , but please don't claim it is reasoned argument, when your only criterion is what some unknown guys in the middle east said 3000 years ago.
This article, evolution, and global warming are all based on solid science. If you want to debate the science, fine, but you show know interest in even learning what it says, so there is no point in interacting.
Don't feed this deluded troll. Just No Value vote up.
I believe you, but did you actually use tire depreciation to help make your point? C'mon man?
Mythololgy can't be proven.
And you have scientific evidence of everything you say James? And why do you support the creation myth unquestioningly?
Evolution/globel warming both unproven guesses/theries, there is no proof to support either. Just a lie streight out of hell. My God made His point with His creation 6000 years ago and the evidence has not changed. What was writen 3000 years ago or actually 3460years ago just was late making the news.
Jim it was what came to mind. Most people can't realate that we die daily. Ten year life makes it a little closer to home. It is not depreciation it's deteriorates (tion). But thanks!
And everything in the Bible is unproven stories/dialogues. There is no proof to substantiate any of the supernatural claims in Christian lore. The evidence has indeed not changed in regards to religion. If you fear change and new knowledge so much that you claim that as some sort of virtue, well, I can hardly stop you.
The evidence HAS changed substantially in regards to evolution, global warming, and a host of other topics, though. Very quickly. Which is why science is advancing while religion withers, its importance and relevance in society degrading further with every generation.
Yeah, I guess all those birds on the Galapagos Islands just like being different to look cool, right?
Your evidence is only evident to those who what to see it your way, you guys will know the truth when you loose control of what you think you have and then there will be no question. But for all those folks who want to chad science says this or that know they all ways skew the data to tell their story to prove their point.
No, actually, if they were just going to skew the data to arrive at a conclusion they've already decided on, then we would never have any change in scientific theory. This is how religion works sometimes: you have your book and your "truth", and everything must fit that conclusion. Data that might challenge the conclusion is ignored or decried, as you're doing right now. This is the opposite of how science works.
As creationists enjoy pointing out, science is CONSTANTLY being revised and changing consensus based on new data. This is because scientific information is presented to form a conclusion, not in service to a conclusion. Why would science start out with a false conclusion and then keep trying to prove it once the evidence doesn't match up? To what end?
theory:
1 : the analysis of a set of facts in their relation to one another
2 : abstract thought : SPECULATION
3 : the general or abstract principles of a body of fact, a science, or an art *music theory*
4 a : a belief,
First example: In the 60's/70's they did two five year double blind studies that proved everyone should take beta carotene for their good health. I think by Tuff’s University and Harvard. Then sometime in the late 80's/90's they did an alleged same study, and found out that they were wrong.
Now here is the rest of the story: The first two used food in their research, where the third used synthetic beta carotene. Now the first two had a control group, they monitored who got it and did not and how much. Where the third the group of people had to smoke and they did not control anything, but they came out with findings that beta carotene was no good. (My belief is to help slow down the population growth.)
Next: remember Y2K, where all the computers were suppose to go nuts/crash because of the cost of memory the computer could not got to the year 2000? You had all types of scientists that swore you would have nuclear subs sinking to the bottom or going out of control and all types of problems with something that man has made. My point here is if those who are suppose to be in the know when it comes to something they should have interment knowledge about and don't, are you really going to trust someone/scientist who is guessing when it comes to evidence like this?
The thing is, there is more supposed science that has been proven wrong, theories have changed, you just need to pay closer attention.
Now the reasons are the three sins, that all sin comes from is: lust of the eyes, flesh and the pride of life. Money, power and pleasure and don't forget about control. This or these are the basses for most of why.
The end is to control!
Control is what religion and politics are for. Science does not aim to control. Science is sometimes perverted in order to provide more legitimacy to a cause, it's true. For example, scientifically valid objections to evolutionary theory are held up by Creationists as "proof" that evolutionary theory is bunk, when those objections do not in fact nullify all the evidence in support of the theory.
In addition, your examples prove my point and undermine your own; my entire point was that science constantly corrects itself with new data, as you just demonstrated. In addition, you reinforce the idea that the only thing that can fix and correct bad science is more, better science. The end of science is not control, but to reveal. It even reveals bad science.
And in all of this, of course, what relevance is faith and religion? It has no relevance. You can't use religion to prove bad theories wrong. You can't even use religion to increase humanity's knowledge of the universe, because everything religion has to teach us already exists and never changes. Religion is for spiritual comfort and self-fulfilment. Don't pretend that it's any substitute for scientific knowledge.
So fair as religion and politics, I do agree they try to control and those who back those doing the scientic research also in many instance use it for control. (Who do you think pays the bills or is giving the pay check?) Just as the things I mentioned of the redue studies were wrong (no science, just lies) and use it to control. The first ones were correct. But I am not advocating any religion, because man's religions send people to Hell. But pure religion is to help the poor and widows. My belief leads to relationship with the God the Father.
The last statement sounds like someone wistling in the wind, because you have no clue. I am not pretending about anything, I am just giving truth that will soon smack you between the eyes!
I thought it was Al Gore. He takes credit for everything else.
vr,
Wow = surprised they didn't pin it on GWB
Well what do ya know, I always wondered what hole they crawled out of.
Science is great. I love it. Not so sure they can predict what happened billions of years ago, or for that matter 1 million years ago, or for that matter a few thousand years ago. But isn't it great we live in a society that we can all believe what we want?
Not according to liberals you can't.
You wouldnt necessarily believe that from reading many of these comments....
Science is ever-evolving; the earth was definitely flat, and anyone who believed otherwise was a dangerous heretic, or at least a nutjob...until it wasn't. Flying through the air in a big metal tube? Insanity!!! There is nothing beyond our galaxy...oops.
Now if science can manage to tell me what the weather will be two days from now, with better than 50% accuracy, I'll be impressed...
There's a 10 dayer on MSN Weather.
Yeah, that changes every day...I can put up a ten day forecast, too...doesnt mean it will be accurate.
Come on now, we all know everything else MSNBC puts out is true and factual. Bite your tongue.
Weather forecasts seevral days out are more accurate than random guesses, but there is only so much you can do with such a complex, chaotic system. There is a reason why we can't predict the future.
Fortunately, there is a lot of stuff we get from science that we can know pretty well. There had better be, or else we would know nothing, and be truly lost.
I hate those left wing weather reports...all tolerant and stuff..... ;-)
Jon Jones, if all you have is juvenile political attacks, perhaps you could move it to the juvenile political attack thread. We would like to at least pretend we are debating science.
Medical Microbiologist with a minor in microbial genetics. 30 plus years. What you want to debate homer.
A good education doesn't excuse juvenile political attacks.
No, but it makes them more eloquent in their presentation normally.
OK Jon Jones explain why antibiotics don't work after a while, even though they worked on the same microbes before? Perhaps microbial evolution and natural selection allowing those more resistive ones to survive while their lessers die? Opportunistic exploitation of stronger evolved strains, perhaps? God made them before, but they didn't know it yet? How about mutative changes?
Spontaneous or induced mutations bud. Transmissible plasmids. This can be cell wall or mitochondrial based resistance. You look at an e.coli and they replicate or cell divide every 20 minutes. Do the math, look at the potential for mutations on that scale. You think bacteria mutate, wait until you get a load of viral mutability. Some pathogens like the Pseudomonas have natural based resistance. Giving antibiotics to every snotty kid with a viral infection has increased this mutation a 1000 fold. You can thank your mom for that.
Jon Jones
"Not according to liberals you can't." in reference to we can believe whatever we want?
Are you @!$%#ing kidding? BAHAHAHAHAA!!!!
It's conservative nut jobs judging and telling women what they can and can't do with their bodies based solely on their personal beliefs? I don't know of any liberals forcing their beliefs onto anyone, only ensuring that everyone can belief what they want to, even if it is different than your closed minded christan faith. I don't know of any libs that are trying to enforce prayer in school, a state religion, etc etc
Just so you guys are aware, the MRSA's, VRE's and MDRO's out there are man made. We now have a Gonorrhea strain that is 100% resistant. keep your wangs in your pants unless you know where it is going. The Mycobacterial MDRO's are scary. I'll be your Huckleberry would have never been made if that movie were made today.
One thing I was challenged by one of my Mirco Professors on was to genetically create a bacteria that could extract gold from Sea Water. he said if you did, you would make Bill gates look like a pauper. Something to think about if you plan on doing research.
Be Accountable---- Seriously bud. I'm conservative, not religious, and could give a chit what you or your sister does with your bodies. And this bullchit liberals don't not forcing their beliefs on anyone else?? You really going with that? Feinstein ring a bell? Obama? Gun control? Gay marriage? Armed Forces? Boy Scouts? healthcare?.....dude the list is endless.
I guess if freedom of choice is a belief than I guess libs do want to force that on people. So you have the option to get an abortion, get married, choose to NOT to be a christian, to have health care even if you work a minimum wage job, etc etc. Oh, and don't forget that every other single developed country in the world has universal health care and they are much much more healthier than we are.
Boy Scouts? They are a private organization and if they do not want to allow gays that's 100% their call and no one can MAKE them change their view. Although not discriminating against certain individuals woudl be the right thing would it not?
Fienstein? Obama? Those are people and they have their own views.
Second amendment? Yeah, the whole idea of that was to keep the populace armed to protect themselves against the government. Our forefathers had no idea the weaponry the government would create. If the government wanted you dead they can just do it, and since The Patriot Act was signed on Oct 26 2001 they can legally do just that. Remember Waco? Doesn't matter how many guns or what complex you live in the government always more and bigger guns. Our hand guns, rifles, and shotguns won't make any diff if the government comes knocking, and you know what? An assault rifle won't make any difference either.
Science continues to evolve and press forward to answer questions. Always attempting to learn more and more no matter how difficult the quest is.
Religion lies dormant, un-changed, and un-willing to adapt or learn because it somehow answered ALL questions to ever be asked. Even though it was written by sheep farmers in the middle of the desert with the modern education equivalent of a 5th grader.
Faith cannot be proved. You have to believe. There is NOTHING to prove. Perhaps you do not understand religion. You should have gone to college and obtained some education. Science attempts to prove things. They come up with THEORIES to try and explain something or sometime when we have no human documentation of it. It's great trying to find out what really happened, but they are only educated GUESSES.
Pyramids, aqua-ducts, just to name two...surprising what these uneducated civilizations came up with. You can have whatever opinion you want of the bible, but summarily dismissing all "ancient" civilizations as knowledge deficient is not accurate.
Jim, they are more than educated guesses when we have sufficient evidence. With differing amounts of evidence, we know some things better than others. But science is the only standard we have to really get at how the world works. Faith is useful, but in the end you have to remember that it IS faith. It it contradicts science we have a problem.