title: Intelligent design

text: The intelligent design concept of "specified complexity" was developed in the 1990s by mathematician, philosopher, and theologian William A. Dembski. Dembski states that when something exhibits specified complexity (i.e., is both complex and "specified", simultaneously), one can infer that it was produced by an intelligent cause (i.e., that it was designed) rather than being the result of natural processes. He provides the following examples: "A single letter of the alphabet is specified without being complex. A long sentence of random letters is complex without being specified. A Shakespearean sonnet is both complex and specified." He states that details of living things can be similarly characterized, especially the "patterns" of molecular sequences in functional biological molecules such as DNA.


title: Intelligent design

text: Dembski defines complex specified information (CSI) as anything with a less than 1 in 10 chance of occurring by (natural) chance. Critics say that this renders the argument a tautology: complex specified information cannot occur naturally because Dembski has defined it thus, so the real question becomes whether or not CSI actually exists in nature.


title: Intelligent design

text: The conceptual soundness of Dembski's specified complexity/CSI argument has been discredited in the scientific and mathematical communities. Specified complexity has yet to be shown to have wide applications in other fields, as Dembski asserts. John Wilkins and Wesley R. Elsberry characterize Dembski's "explanatory filter" as "eliminative" because it eliminates explanations sequentially: first regularity, then chance, finally defaulting to design. They argue that this procedure is flawed as a model for scientific inference because the asymmetric way it treats the different possible explanations renders it prone to making false conclusions.


title: Intelligent design

text: Richard Dawkins, another critic of intelligent design, argues in "The God Delusion" (2006) that allowing for an intelligent designer to account for unlikely complexity only postpones the problem, as such a designer would need to be at least as complex. Other scientists have argued that evolution through selection is better able to explain the observed complexity, as is evident from the use of selective evolution to design certain electronic, aeronautic and automotive systems that are considered problems too complex for human "intelligent designers".


title: Intelligent design

text: Intelligent design proponents have also occasionally appealed to broader teleological arguments outside of biology, most notably an argument based on the fine-tuning of universal constants that make matter and life possible and that are argued not to be solely attributable to chance. These include the values of fundamental physical constants, the relative strength of nuclear forces, electromagnetism, and gravity between fundamental particles, as well as the ratios of masses of such particles. Intelligent design proponent and Center for Science and Culture fellow Guillermo Gonzalez argues that if any of these values were even slightly different, the universe would be dramatically different, making it impossible for many chemical elements and features of the Universe, such as galaxies, to form. Thus, proponents argue, an intelligent designer of life was needed to ensure that the requisite features were present to achieve that particular outcome.


title: Intelligent design

text: Scientists have generally responded that these arguments are poorly supported by existing evidence. Victor J. Stenger and other critics say both intelligent design and the weak form of the anthropic principle are essentially a tautology; in his view, these arguments amount to the claim that life is able to exist because the Universe is able to support life. The claim of the improbability of a life-supporting universe has also been criticized as an argument by lack of imagination for assuming no other forms of life are possible. Life as we know it might not exist if things were different, but a different sort of life might exist in its place. A number of critics also suggest that many of the stated variables appear to be interconnected and that calculations made by mathematicians and physicists suggest that the emergence of a universe similar to ours is quite probable.


title: Intelligent design

text: The contemporary intelligent design movement formulates its arguments in secular terms and intentionally avoids identifying the intelligent agent (or agents) they posit. Although they do not state that God is the designer, the designer is often implicitly hypothesized to have intervened in a way that only a god could intervene. Dembski, in "The Design Inference" (1998), speculates that an alien culture could fulfill these requirements. "Of Pandas and People" proposes that SETI illustrates an appeal to intelligent design in science. In 2000, philosopher of science Robert T. Pennock suggested the Raëlian UFO religion as a real-life example of an extraterrestrial intelligent designer view that "make[s] many of the same bad arguments against evolutionary theory as creationists". The authoritative description of intelligent design, however, explicitly states that the "Universe" displays features of having been designed. Acknowledging the paradox, Dembski concludes that "no intelligent agent who is strictly physical could have presided over the origin of the universe or the origin of life." The leading proponents have made statements to their supporters that they believe the designer to be the Christian God, to the exclusion of all other religions.


title: Intelligent design

text: Beyond the debate over whether intelligent design is scientific, a number of critics argue that existing evidence makes the design hypothesis appear unlikely, irrespective of its status in the world of science. For example, Jerry Coyne asks why a designer would "give us a pathway for making vitamin C, but then destroy it by disabling one of its enzymes" (see pseudogene) and why a designer would not "stock oceanic islands with reptiles, mammals, amphibians, and freshwater fish, despite the suitability of such islands for these species". Coyne also points to the fact that "the flora and fauna on those islands resemble that of the nearest mainland, even when the environments are very different" as evidence that species were not placed there by a designer. Previously, in "Darwin's Black Box", Behe had argued that we are simply incapable of understanding the designer's motives, so such questions cannot be answered definitively. Odd designs could, for example, "...have been placed there by the designer for a reason—for artistic reasons, for variety, to show off, for some as-yet-undetected practical purpose, or for some unguessable reason—or they might not." Coyne responds that in light of the evidence, "either life resulted not from intelligent design, but from evolution; or the intelligent designer is a cosmic prankster who designed everything to make it look as though it had evolved."


title: Intelligent design

text: Intelligent design proponents such as Paul Nelson avoid the problem of poor design in nature by insisting that we have simply failed to understand the perfection of the design. Behe cites Paley as his inspiration, but he differs from Paley's expectation of a perfect Creation and proposes that designers do not necessarily produce the best design they can. Behe suggests that, like a parent not wanting to spoil a child with extravagant toys, the designer can have multiple motives for not giving priority to excellence in engineering. He says that "Another problem with the argument from imperfection is that it critically depends on a psychoanalysis of the unidentified designer. Yet the reasons that a designer would or would not do anything are virtually impossible to know unless the designer tells you specifically what those reasons are." This reliance on inexplicable motives of the designer makes intelligent design scientifically untestable. Retired UC Berkeley law professor, author and intelligent design advocate Phillip E. Johnson puts forward a core definition that the designer creates for a purpose, giving the example that in his view AIDS was created to punish immorality and is not caused by HIV, but such motives cannot be tested by scientific methods.


title: Intelligent design

text: Asserting the need for a designer of complexity also raises the question "What designed the designer?" Intelligent design proponents say that the question is irrelevant to or outside the scope of intelligent design. Richard Wein counters that "...scientific explanations often create new unanswered questions. But, in assessing the value of an explanation, these questions are not irrelevant. They must be balanced against the improvements in our understanding which the explanation provides. Invoking an unexplained being to explain the origin of other beings (ourselves) is little more than question-begging. The new question raised by the explanation is as problematic as the question which the explanation purports to answer." Richard Dawkins sees the assertion that the designer does not need to be explained as a thought-terminating cliché. In the absence of observable, measurable evidence, the question "What designed the designer?" leads to an infinite regression from which intelligent design proponents can only escape by resorting to religious creationism or logical contradiction.


title: Intelligent design

text: The intelligent design movement is a direct outgrowth of the creationism of the 1980s. The scientific and academic communities, along with a U.S. federal court, view intelligent design as either a form of creationism or as a direct descendant that is closely intertwined with traditional creationism; and several authors explicitly refer to it as "intelligent design creationism".


title: Intelligent design

text: The movement is headquartered in the Center for Science and Culture, established in 1996 as the creationist wing of the Discovery Institute to promote a religious agenda calling for broad social, academic and political changes. The Discovery Institute's intelligent design campaigns have been staged primarily in the United States, although efforts have been made in other countries to promote intelligent design. Leaders of the movement say intelligent design exposes the limitations of scientific orthodoxy and of the secular philosophy of naturalism. Intelligent design proponents allege that science should not be limited to naturalism and should not demand the adoption of a naturalistic philosophy that dismisses out-of-hand any explanation that includes a supernatural cause. The overall goal of the movement is to "reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview" represented by the theory of evolution in favor of "a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions".


title: Intelligent design

text: Phillip E. Johnson stated that the goal of intelligent design is to cast creationism as a scientific concept. All leading intelligent design proponents are fellows or staff of the Discovery Institute and its Center for Science and Culture. Nearly all intelligent design concepts and the associated movement are the products of the Discovery Institute, which guides the movement and follows its wedge strategy while conducting its "teach the controversy" campaign and their other related programs.


title: Intelligent design

text: Leading intelligent design proponents have made conflicting statements regarding intelligent design. In statements directed at the general public, they say intelligent design is not religious; when addressing conservative Christian supporters, they state that intelligent design has its foundation in the Bible. Recognizing the need for support, the Institute affirms its Christian, evangelistic orientation:


title: Intelligent design

text: Barbara Forrest, an expert who has written extensively on the movement, describes this as being due to the Discovery Institute's obfuscating its agenda as a matter of policy. She has written that the movement's "activities betray an aggressive, systematic agenda for promoting not only intelligent design creationism, but the religious worldview that undergirds it."


title: Intelligent design

text: Although arguments for intelligent design by the intelligent design movement are formulated in secular terms and intentionally avoid positing the identity of the designer, the majority of principal intelligent design advocates are publicly religious Christians who have stated that, in their view, the designer proposed in intelligent design is the Christian conception of God. Stuart Burgess, Phillip E. Johnson, William A. Dembski, and Stephen C. Meyer are evangelical Protestants; Michael Behe is a Roman Catholic; Paul Nelson supports young Earth creationism; and Jonathan Wells is a member of the Unification Church. Non-Christian proponents include David Klinghoffer, who is Jewish, Michael Denton and David Berlinski, who are agnostic, and Muzaffar Iqbal, a Pakistani-Canadian Muslim. Phillip E. Johnson has stated that cultivating ambiguity by employing secular language in arguments that are carefully crafted to avoid overtones of theistic creationism is a necessary first step for ultimately reintroducing the Christian concept of God as the designer. Johnson explicitly calls for intelligent design proponents to obfuscate their religious motivations so as to avoid having intelligent design identified "as just another way of packaging the Christian evangelical message." Johnson emphasizes that "...the first thing that has to be done is to get the Bible out of the discussion. ...This is not to say that the biblical issues are unimportant; the point is rather that the time to address them will be after we have separated materialist prejudice from scientific fact."


title: Intelligent design

text: The strategy of deliberately disguising the religious intent of intelligent design has been described by William A. Dembski in "The Design Inference". In this work, Dembski lists a god or an "alien life force" as two possible options for the identity of the designer; however, in his book "Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science and Theology" (1999), Dembski states:


title: Intelligent design

text: Dembski also stated, "ID is part of God's general revelation [...] Not only does intelligent design rid us of this ideology materialism , which suffocates the human spirit, but, in my personal experience, I've found that it opens the path for people to come to Christ." Both Johnson and Dembski cite the Bible's Gospel of John as the foundation of intelligent design.


title: Intelligent design

text: Barbara Forrest contends such statements reveal that leading proponents see intelligent design as essentially religious in nature, not merely a scientific concept that has implications with which their personal religious beliefs happen to coincide. She writes that the leading proponents of intelligent design are closely allied with the ultra-conservative Christian Reconstructionism movement. She lists connections of (current and former) Discovery Institute Fellows Phillip E. Johnson, Charles B. Thaxton, Michael Behe, Richard Weikart, Jonathan Wells and Francis J. Beckwith to leading Christian Reconstructionist organizations, and the extent of the funding provided the Institute by Howard Ahmanson, Jr., a leading figure in the Reconstructionist movement.


title: Intelligent design

text: Not all creationist organizations have embraced the intelligent design movement. According to Thomas Dixon, "Religious leaders have come out against ID too. An open letter affirming the compatibility of Christian faith and the teaching of evolution, first produced in response to controversies in Wisconsin in 2004, has now been signed by over ten thousand clergy from different Christian denominations across America." Hugh Ross of Reasons to Believe, a proponent of Old Earth creationism, believes that the efforts of intelligent design proponents to divorce the concept from Biblical Christianity make its hypothesis too vague. In 2002, he wrote: "Winning the argument for design without identifying the designer yields, at best, a sketchy origins model. Such a model makes little if any positive impact on the community of scientists and other scholars. [...] ...the time is right for a direct approach, a single leap into the origins fray. Introducing a biblically based, scientifically verifiable creation model represents such a leap."


title: Intelligent design

text: Likewise, two of the most prominent YEC organizations in the world have attempted to distinguish their views from those of the intelligent design movement. Henry M. Morris of the Institute for Creation Research (ICR) wrote, in 1999, that ID, "even if well-meaning and effectively articulated, will not work! It has often been tried in the past and has failed, and it will fail today. The reason it won't work is because it is not the Biblical method." According to Morris: "The evidence of intelligent design ... must be either followed by or accompanied by a sound presentation of true Biblical creationism if it is to be meaningful and lasting." In 2002, Carl Wieland, then of Answers in Genesis (AiG), criticized design advocates who, though well-intentioned, "'left the Bible out of it'" and thereby unwittingly aided and abetted the modern rejection of the Bible. Wieland explained that "AiG's major 'strategy' is to boldly, but humbly, call the church back to its Biblical foundations ... [so] we neither count ourselves a part of this movement nor campaign against it."


title: Intelligent design

text: The unequivocal consensus in the scientific community is that intelligent design is not science and has no place in a science curriculum. The U.S. National Academy of Sciences has stated that "creationism, intelligent design, and other claims of supernatural intervention in the origin of life or of species are not science because they are not testable by the methods of science." The U.S. National Science Teachers Association and the American Association for the Advancement of Science have termed it pseudoscience. Others in the scientific community have denounced its tactics, accusing the ID movement of manufacturing false attacks against evolution, of engaging in misinformation and misrepresentation about science, and marginalizing those who teach it. More recently, in September 2012, Bill Nye warned that creationist views threaten science education and innovations in the United States.


title: Intelligent design

text: In 2001, the Discovery Institute published advertisements under the heading "A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism", with the claim that listed scientists had signed this statement expressing skepticism:


title: Intelligent design

text: The ambiguous statement did not exclude other known evolutionary mechanisms, and most signatories were not scientists in relevant fields, but starting in 2004 the Institute claimed the increasing number of signatures indicated mounting doubts about evolution among scientists. The statement formed a key component of Discovery Institute campaigns to present intelligent design as scientifically valid by claiming that evolution lacks broad scientific support, with Institute members continuing to cite the list through at least 2011. As part of a strategy to counter these claims, scientists organised Project Steve, which gained more signatories named Steve (or variants) than the Institute's petition, and a counter-petition, "A Scientific Support for Darwinism", which quickly gained similar numbers of signatories.


title: Intelligent design

text: Several surveys were conducted prior to the December 2005 decision in "Kitzmiller v. Dover School District", which sought to determine the level of support for intelligent design among certain groups. According to a 2005 Harris poll, 10% of adults in the United States viewed human beings as "so complex that they required a powerful force or intelligent being to help create them." Although Zogby polls commissioned by the Discovery Institute show more support, these polls suffer from considerable flaws, such as having a low response rate (248 out of 16,000), being conducted on behalf of an organization with an expressed interest in the outcome of the poll, and containing leading questions.


title: Intelligent design

text: The 2017 Gallup creationism survey found that 38% of adults in the United States hold the view that "God created humans in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years" when asked for their views on the origin and development of human beings, which was noted as being at the lowest level in 35 years. Previously, a series of Gallup polls in the United States from 1982 through 2014 on "Evolution, Creationism, Intelligent Design" found support for "human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced formed of life, but God guided the process" of between 31% and 40%, support for "God created human beings in pretty much their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so" varied from 40% to 47%, and support for "human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God had no part in the process" varied from 9% to 19%. The polls also noted answers to a series of more detailed questions.


title: Intelligent design

text: There have been allegations that ID proponents have met discrimination, such as being refused tenure or being harshly criticized on the Internet. In the documentary film "", released in 2008, host Ben Stein presents five such cases. The film contends that the mainstream science establishment, in a "scientific conspiracy to keep God out of the nation's laboratories and classrooms", suppresses academics who believe they see evidence of intelligent design in nature or criticize evidence of evolution. Investigation into these allegations turned up alternative explanations for perceived persecution.


title: Intelligent design

text: The film portrays intelligent design as motivated by science, rather than religion, though it does not give a detailed definition of the phrase or attempt to explain it on a scientific level. Other than briefly addressing issues of irreducible complexity, "Expelled" examines it as a political issue. The scientific theory of evolution is portrayed by the film as contributing to fascism, the Holocaust, communism, atheism, and eugenics.


title: Intelligent design

text: "Expelled" has been used in private screenings to legislators as part of the Discovery Institute intelligent design campaign for Academic Freedom bills. Review screenings were restricted to churches and Christian groups, and at a special pre-release showing, one of the interviewees, PZ Myers, was refused admission. The American Association for the Advancement of Science describes the film as dishonest and divisive propaganda aimed at introducing religious ideas into public school science classrooms, and the Anti-Defamation League has denounced the film's allegation that evolutionary theory influenced the Holocaust. The film includes interviews with scientists and academics who were misled into taking part by misrepresentation of the topic and title of the film. Skeptic Michael Shermer describes his experience of being repeatedly asked the same question without context as "surreal".


title: Intelligent design

text: Advocates of intelligent design seek to keep God and the Bible out of the discussion, and present intelligent design in the language of science as though it were a scientific hypothesis. For a theory to qualify as scientific, it is expected to be:


title: Intelligent design

text: For any theory, hypothesis, or conjecture to be considered scientific, it must meet most, and ideally all, of these criteria. The fewer criteria are met, the less scientific it is; if it meets only a few or none at all, then it cannot be treated as scientific in any meaningful sense of the word. Typical objections to defining intelligent design as science are that it lacks consistency, violates the principle of parsimony, is not scientifically useful, is not falsifiable, is not empirically testable, and is not correctable, dynamic, progressive, or provisional.


title: Intelligent design

text: Intelligent design proponents seek to change this fundamental basis of science by eliminating "methodological naturalism" from science and replacing it with what the leader of the intelligent design movement, Phillip E. Johnson, calls "theistic realism". Intelligent design proponents argue that naturalistic explanations fail to explain certain phenomena and that supernatural explanations provide a simple and intuitive explanation for the origins of life and the universe. Many intelligent design followers believe that "scientism" is itself a religion that promotes secularism and materialism in an attempt to erase theism from public life, and they view their work in the promotion of intelligent design as a way to return religion to a central role in education and other public spheres.


title: Intelligent design

text: It has been argued that methodological naturalism is not an "assumption" of science, but a "result" of science well done: the God explanation is the least parsimonious, so according to Occam's razor, it cannot be a scientific explanation.


title: Intelligent design

text: The failure to follow the procedures of scientific discourse and the failure to submit work to the scientific community that withstands scrutiny have weighed against intelligent design being accepted as valid science. The intelligent design movement has not published a properly peer-reviewed article supporting ID in a scientific journal, and has failed to publish supporting peer-reviewed research or data. The only article published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal that made a case for intelligent design was quickly withdrawn by the publisher for having circumvented the journal's peer-review standards. The Discovery Institute says that a number of intelligent design articles have been published in peer-reviewed journals, but critics, largely members of the scientific community, reject this claim and state intelligent design proponents have set up their own journals with peer review that lack impartiality and rigor, consisting entirely of intelligent design supporters.


title: Intelligent design

text: Further criticism stems from the fact that the phrase "intelligent" design makes use of an assumption of the quality of an observable intelligence, a concept that has no scientific consensus definition. The characteristics of intelligence are assumed by intelligent design proponents to be observable without specifying what the criteria for the measurement of intelligence should be. Critics say that the design detection methods proposed by intelligent design proponents are radically different from conventional design detection, undermining the key elements that make it possible as legitimate science. Intelligent design proponents, they say, are proposing both searching for a designer without knowing anything about that designer's abilities, parameters, or intentions (which scientists do know when searching for the results of human intelligence), as well as denying the distinction between natural/artificial design that allows scientists to compare complex designed artifacts against the background of the sorts of complexity found in nature.


title: Intelligent design

text: Among a significant proportion of the general public in the United States, the major concern is whether conventional evolutionary biology is compatible with belief in God and in the Bible, and how this issue is taught in schools. The Discovery Institute's "teach the controversy" campaign promotes intelligent design while attempting to discredit evolution in United States public high school science courses. The scientific community and science education organizations have replied that there is no scientific controversy regarding the validity of evolution and that the controversy exists solely in terms of religion and politics.


title: Intelligent design

text: Eugenie C. Scott, along with Glenn Branch and other critics, has argued that many points raised by intelligent design proponents are arguments from ignorance.


title: Intelligent design

text: In the argument from ignorance, a lack of evidence for one view is erroneously argued to constitute proof of the correctness of another view. Scott and Branch say that intelligent design is an argument from ignorance because it relies on a lack of knowledge for its conclusion: lacking a natural explanation for certain specific aspects of evolution, we assume intelligent cause. They contend most scientists would reply that the unexplained is not unexplainable, and that "we don't know yet" is a more appropriate response than invoking a cause outside science. Particularly, Michael Behe's demands for ever more detailed explanations of the historical evolution of molecular systems seem to assume a false dichotomy, where either evolution or design is the proper explanation, and any perceived failure of evolution becomes a victory for design. Scott and Branch also contend that the supposedly novel contributions proposed by intelligent design proponents have not served as the basis for any productive scientific research.


title: Intelligent design

text: In his conclusion to the Kitzmiller trial, Judge John E. Jones III wrote that "ID is at bottom premised upon a false dichotomy, namely, that to the extent evolutionary theory is discredited, ID is confirmed." This same argument had been put forward to support creation science at the "McLean v. Arkansas" (1982) trial, which found it was "contrived dualism", the false premise of a "two model approach". Behe's argument of irreducible complexity puts forward negative arguments against evolution but does not make any positive scientific case for intelligent design. It fails to allow for scientific explanations continuing to be found, as has been the case with several examples previously put forward as supposed cases of irreducible complexity.


title: Intelligent design

text: Intelligent design proponents often insist that their claims do not require a religious component. However, various philosophical and theological issues are naturally raised by the claims of intelligent design.


title: Intelligent design

text: Intelligent design proponents attempt to demonstrate scientifically that features such as irreducible complexity and specified complexity could not arise through natural processes, and therefore required repeated direct miraculous interventions by a Designer (often a Christian concept of God). They reject the possibility of a Designer who works merely through setting natural laws in motion at the outset, in contrast to theistic evolution (to which even Charles Darwin was open). Intelligent design is distinct because it asserts repeated miraculous interventions in addition to designed laws. This contrasts with other major religious traditions of a created world in which God's interactions and influences do not work in the same way as physical causes. The Roman Catholic tradition makes a careful distinction between ultimate metaphysical explanations and secondary, natural causes.


title: Intelligent design

text: The concept of direct miraculous intervention raises other potential theological implications. If such a Designer does not intervene to alleviate suffering even though capable of intervening for other reasons, some imply the designer is not omnibenevolent (see problem of evil and related theodicy).


title: Intelligent design

text: Further, repeated interventions imply that the original design was not perfect and final, and thus pose a problem for any who believe that the Creator's work had been both perfect and final. Intelligent design proponents seek to explain the problem of poor design in nature by insisting that we have simply failed to understand the perfection of the design (for example, proposing that vestigial organs have unknown purposes), or by proposing that designers do not necessarily produce the best design they can, and may have unknowable motives for their actions.


title: Intelligent design

text: In 2005, the director of the Vatican Observatory, the Jesuit astronomer George Coyne, set out theological reasons for accepting evolution in an August 2005 article in "The Tablet", and said that "Intelligent design isn't science even though it pretends to be. If you want to teach it in schools, intelligent design should be taught when religion or cultural history is taught, not science." In 2006, he "condemned ID as a kind of 'crude creationism' which reduced God to a mere engineer."


title: Intelligent design

text: Intelligent design has also been characterized as a God-of-the-gaps argument, which has the following form:


title: Intelligent design

text: A God-of-the-gaps argument is the theological version of an argument from ignorance. A key feature of this type of argument is that it merely answers outstanding questions with explanations (often supernatural) that are unverifiable and ultimately themselves subject to unanswerable questions. Historians of science observe that the astronomy of the earliest civilizations, although astonishing and incorporating mathematical constructions far in excess of any practical value, proved to be misdirected and of little importance to the development of science because they failed to inquire more carefully into the mechanisms that drove the heavenly bodies across the sky. It was the Greek civilization that first practiced science, although not yet as a formally defined experimental science, but nevertheless an attempt to rationalize the world of natural experience without recourse to divine intervention. In this historically motivated definition of science any appeal to an intelligent creator is explicitly excluded for the paralysing effect it may have on scientific progress.


title: Intelligent design

text: "Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District" was the first direct challenge brought in the United States federal courts against a public school district that required the presentation of intelligent design as an alternative to evolution. The plaintiffs successfully argued that intelligent design is a form of creationism, and that the school board policy thus violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.


title: Intelligent design

text: Eleven parents of students in Dover, Pennsylvania, sued the Dover Area School District over a statement that the school board required be read aloud in ninth-grade science classes when evolution was taught. The plaintiffs were represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AU) and Pepper Hamilton LLP. The National Center for Science Education acted as consultants for the plaintiffs. The defendants were represented by the Thomas More Law Center. The suit was tried in a bench trial from September 26 to November 4, 2005, before Judge John E. Jones III. Kenneth R. Miller, Kevin Padian, Brian Alters, Robert T. Pennock, Barbara Forrest and John F. Haught served as expert witnesses for the plaintiffs. Michael Behe, Steve Fuller and Scott Minnich served as expert witnesses for the defense.


title: Intelligent design

text: On December 20, 2005, Judge Jones issued his 139-page findings of fact and decision, ruling that the Dover mandate was unconstitutional, and barring intelligent design from being taught in Pennsylvania's Middle District public school science classrooms. On November 8, 2005, there had been an election in which the eight Dover school board members who voted for the intelligent design requirement were all defeated by challengers who opposed the teaching of intelligent design in a science class, and the current school board president stated that the board did not intend to appeal the ruling.


title: Intelligent design

text: In his finding of facts, Judge Jones made the following condemnation of the "Teach the Controversy" strategy:


title: Intelligent design

text: As Jones had predicted, John G. West, Associate Director of the Center for Science and Culture, said:


title: Intelligent design

text: The decision has been examined in a search for flaws and conclusions, partly by intelligent design supporters aiming to avoid future defeats in court. In its Winter issue of 2007, the "Montana Law Review" published three articles.


title: Intelligent design

text: In the first, David K. DeWolf, John G. West and Casey Luskin, all of the Discovery Institute, argued that intelligent design is a valid scientific theory, the Jones court should not have addressed the question of whether it was a scientific theory, and that the Kitzmiller decision will have no effect at all on the development and adoption of intelligent design as an alternative to standard evolutionary theory. In the second Peter H. Irons responded, arguing that the decision was extremely well reasoned and spells the death knell for the intelligent design efforts to introduce creationism in public schools, while in the third, DeWolf, "et al.", answer the points made by Irons. However, fear of a similar lawsuit has resulted in other school boards abandoning intelligent design "teach the controversy" proposals.


title: Intelligent design

text: A number of anti-evolution bills have been introduced in the United States Congress and State legislatures since 2001, based largely upon language drafted by the Discovery Institute for the Santorum Amendment. Their aim has been to expose more students to articles and videos produced by advocates of intelligent design that criticise evolution. They have been presented as supporting "academic freedom", on the supposition that teachers, students, and college professors face intimidation and retaliation when discussing scientific criticisms of evolution, and therefore require protection. Critics of the legislation have pointed out that there are no credible scientific critiques of evolution, and an investigation in Florida of allegations of intimidation and retaliation found no evidence that it had occurred. The vast majority of the bills have been unsuccessful, with the one exception being Louisiana's Louisiana Science Education Act, which was enacted in 2008.


title: Intelligent design

text: In April 2010, the American Academy of Religion issued "Guidelines for Teaching About Religion in K–12 Public Schools in the United States", which included guidance that creation science or intelligent design should not be taught in science classes, as "Creation science and intelligent design represent worldviews that fall outside of the realm of science that is defined as (and limited to) a method of inquiry based on gathering observable and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning." However, these worldviews as well as others "that focus on speculation regarding the origins of life represent another important and relevant form of human inquiry that is appropriately studied in literature or social sciences courses. Such study, however, must include a diversity of worldviews representing a variety of religious and philosophical perspectives and must avoid privileging one view as more legitimate than others."


title: Intelligent design

text: In June 2007, the Council of Europe's Committee on Culture, Science and Education issued a report, "The dangers of creationism in education", which states "Creationism in any of its forms, such as 'intelligent design', is not based on facts, does not use any scientific reasoning and its contents are pathetically inadequate for science classes." In describing the dangers posed to education by teaching creationism, it described intelligent design as "anti-science" and involving "blatant scientific fraud" and "intellectual deception" that "blurs the nature, objectives and limits of science" and links it and other forms of creationism to denialism. On October 4, 2007, the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly approved a resolution stating that schools should "resist presentation of creationist ideas in any discipline other than religion", including "intelligent design", which it described as "the latest, more refined version of creationism", "presented in a more subtle way". The resolution emphasises that the aim of the report is not to question or to fight a belief, but to "warn against certain tendencies to pass off a belief as science".


title: Intelligent design

text: In the United Kingdom, public education includes religious education, and there are many faith schools that teach the ethos of particular denominations. When it was revealed that a group called Truth in Science had distributed DVDs produced by Illustra Media featuring Discovery Institute fellows making the case for design in nature, and claimed they were being used by 59 schools, the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) stated that "Neither creationism nor intelligent design are taught as a subject in schools, and are not specified in the science curriculum" (part of the National Curriculum, which does not apply to independent schools or to education in Scotland). The DfES subsequently stated that "Intelligent design is not a recognised scientific theory; therefore, it is not included in the science curriculum", but left the way open for it to be explored in religious education in relation to different beliefs, as part of a syllabus set by a local Standing Advisory Council on Religious Education. In 2006, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority produced a "Religious Education" model unit in which pupils can learn about religious and nonreligious


title: Intelligent design

text: On June 25, 2007, the UK Government responded to an e-petition by saying that creationism and intelligent design should not be taught as science, though teachers would be expected to answer pupils' questions within the standard framework of established scientific theories. Detailed government "Creationism teaching guidance" for schools in England was published on September 18, 2007. It states that "Intelligent design lies wholly outside of science", has no underpinning scientific principles, or explanations, and is not accepted by the science community as a whole. Though it should not be taught as science, "Any questions about creationism and intelligent design which arise in science lessons, for example as a result of media coverage, could provide the opportunity to explain or explore why they are not considered to be scientific theories and, in the right context, why evolution is considered to be a scientific theory." However, "Teachers of subjects such as RE, history or citizenship may deal with creationism and intelligent design in their lessons."


title: Intelligent design

text: The British Centre for Science Education lobbying group has the goal of "countering creationism within the UK" and has been involved in government lobbying in the UK in this regard. Northern Ireland's Department for Education says that the curriculum provides an opportunity for alternative theories to be taught. The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP)which has links to fundamentalist Christianityhas been campaigning to have intelligent design taught in science classes. A DUP former Member of Parliament, David Simpson, has sought assurances from the education minister that pupils will not lose marks if they give creationist or intelligent design answers to science questions. In 2007, Lisburn city council voted in favor of a DUP recommendation to write to post-primary schools asking what their plans are to develop teaching material in relation to "creation, intelligent design and other theories of origin".


title: Intelligent design

text: Plans by Dutch Education Minister Maria van der Hoeven to "stimulate an academic debate" on the subject in 2005 caused a severe public backlash. After the 2006 elections, she was succeeded by Ronald Plasterk, described as a "molecular geneticist, staunch atheist and opponent of intelligent design". As a reaction on this situation in the Netherlands, the Director General of the Flemish Secretariat of Catholic Education () in Belgium, , declared that: "Catholic scientists already accepted the theory of evolution for a long time and that intelligent design and creationism doesn't belong in Flemish Catholic schools. It's not the tasks of the politics to introduce new ideas, that's task and goal of science."


title: Intelligent design

text: The status of intelligent design in Australia is somewhat similar to that in the UK (see Education in Australia). In 2005, the Australian Minister for Education, Science and Training, Brendan Nelson, raised the notion of intelligent design being taught in science classes. The public outcry caused the minister to quickly concede that the correct forum for intelligent design, if it were to be taught, is in religion or philosophy classes. The Australian chapter of Campus Crusade for Christ distributed a DVD of the Discovery Institute's documentary "Unlocking the Mystery of Life" (2002) to Australian secondary schools. Tim Hawkes, the head of The King's School, one of Australia's leading private schools, supported use of the DVD in the classroom at the discretion of teachers and principals.


title: Intelligent design

text: Muzaffar Iqbal, a notable Pakistani-Canadian Muslim, signed "A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism", a petition from the Discovery Institute. Ideas similar to intelligent design have been considered respected intellectual options among Muslims, and in Turkey many intelligent design books have been translated. In Istanbul in 2007, public meetings promoting intelligent design were sponsored by the local government, and David Berlinski of the Discovery Institute was the keynote speaker at a meeting in May 2007.


title: Intelligent design

text: In 2011, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) Bhaktivedanta Book Trust published an intelligent design book titled "Rethinking Darwin: A Vedic Study of Darwinism and Intelligent Design". The book included contributions from intelligent design advocates William A. Dembski, Jonathan Wells and Michael Behe as well as from Hindu creationists Leif A. Jensen and Michael Cremo.


title: Tannerite

text: Tannerite is a brand of binary explosive targets used for firearms practice and sold in kit form. The targets comprise a combination of oxidizers and a fuel, primarily aluminium powder, that is supplied as two separate components that are mixed by the user. The combination is relatively stable when subjected to forces less severe than a high-velocity bullet impact. A hammer blow, the product being dropped, or impact from a low-velocity bullet or shotgun blast will not initiate a reaction. It is also designed to be non-flammable (the reaction cannot be triggered by a burning fuse or electricity), although its explosion can ignite flammable material.


title: Tannerite

text: Because it is sold as separate components which are not themselves explosive, it is not regulated by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), and can be transported and sold in many places without the legal restrictions that apply to explosives. The term "tannerite" is often used to refer to the mixture itself, and other reactive targets and combination explosives are often generically referred to as tannerite.


title: Tannerite

text: Tannerite brand targets explode when shot by a high-velocity bullet. Low-velocity bullets and shotgun ammunition will not initiate a reaction.


title: Tannerite

text: The explosive reaction, once initiated, occurs at a very high velocity, producing a large vapor cloud and a loud report. It is marketed as a target designation that is useful for long-range target practice: the shooter does not need to walk down-range to see if the target has been hit, as the target will react and serve as a highly visible indicator.


title: Tannerite

text: Binary explosives like Tannerite are also used in some business applications, including commercial blasting, product testing, and special effects. Tannerite offers a "boom box" kit which includes colored powder for gender reveal parties.


title: Tannerite

text: For safety reasons, Tannerite Sports recommends using no more than of the mixed composition at once, and will sell its largest targets with a size of to professionals only.


title: Tannerite

text: Tannerite targets are sold in pre-sized quantities. The package includes two containers. An oxidizer composition is contained within one of the containers and a catalyst composition is contained within the other.


title: Tannerite

text: The product, developed by Daniel Jeremy Tanner, and initially formulated in 1996, consists of two components: a fuel mixed with a catalyst or sensitizer, and a bulk material or oxidizer. The fuel/catalyst mixture is 90% 600-mesh dark flake aluminium powder, combined with the catalyst that is a mixture of 5% 325-mesh titanium sponge and 5% 200-mesh zirconium hydride (with another patent document listing 5% zirconium hydroxide). The oxidizer is a mixture of 85% 200-mesh ammonium nitrate and 15% ammonium perchlorate. The patents on these formulations were applied for on August 20, 2001.


title: Tannerite

text: As Tannerite is supplied as components, not themselves explosive, combining the components to constitute an explosive is regulated by laws on manufacturing explosives.


title: Tannerite

text: In the United States, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives advises: "Persons manufacturing explosives for their own personal, non-business use only (e.g., personal target practice) are not required to have a Federal explosives license or permit." However, "persons falling into certain categories are prohibited from possessing explosive materials". Those prohibited from possessing explosives include most non-citizens, unlawful drug users and addicts, those convicted or indicted for serious crimes, fugitives, and those who have been officially declared mentally defective or have been committed to a mental institution. There are also restrictions at state and local level. For example, in California a permit may be required to use or possess Tannerite.


title: Tannerite

text: Various regulations also govern the storage of unmixed explosives. As oxidizers and combustibles, there are some restrictions in the United States on shipping of the unmixed components.


title: Tannerite

text: A Minnesota man was fined $2,583 and sentenced to three years' probation on charges of detonating an explosive device and unlawful possession of components for explosives after he detonated of Tannerite inside the bed of a dump truck by shooting it with a rifle chambered in .50 BMG from away on January 14, 2008, in Red Wing, Minnesota. The man was on probation when he mixed and shot the Tannerite and was not allowed to possess firearms or explosives.


title: Tannerite

text: A 20-year-old man in Busti, New York, shot of Tannerite on January 13, 2013, that sent a particularly "loud boom" through much of southern Chautauqua County, New York, and extending as far south as Pennsylvania, at least away. Multiple other sounds of explosions were also reported in the incident. The explosive noise caused numerous phone calls to the Chautauqua County Sheriff's Office, the New York State Police, and other law enforcement in the area.


title: Tannerite

text: The September 2016 New York and New Jersey bombings involved improvised explosive devices that contained "a compound similar to a commercial explosive known as Tannerite", set off by a small charge of unstable hexamethylene triperoxide diamine, which served as a detonator for the highly stable ammonal-type secondary charge.


title: Tannerite

text: An unnamed person suffered "injuries typical of blast injury, such as tympanic membrane rupture, globe injury, and severe burns" due to "close proximity exposure to detonation of the mixed Tannerite blend".


title: Tannerite

text: On April 23, 2017, Dennis Dickey, an off-duty U.S. Border Patrol agent, shot a Tannerite target in a gender reveal celebration on state trust land south of Tucson, Arizona, which accidentally ignited the nearby dry brush and started a fire known as the Sawmill Fire. At the time, winds were gusting up to and the National Weather Service had issued a fire watch in the area. By the time the wildfire was mostly contained one week later, it had jumped over the Santa Rita Mountains and crossed State Route 83, spreading into the historic Empire Ranch and the surrounding Las Cienegas National Conservation Area. The estimated damage caused by the blaze was $8.19 million. Dickey pleaded guilty in September 2018 to a misdemeanor violation of U.S. Forest Service regulations and was sentenced to five years' probation. He also was ordered to pay restitution, with an initial payment of $100,000 (taken from his retirement fund) and monthly payments of $500 per month thereafter for 20 years unless his income changes significantly. The payments will total $220,000 over the 20 years, after which the case will return to a judge to make a decision about future restitution. The eventual restitution payments could hypothetically be up to $8,188,069.


title: Tannerite

text: On April 23, 2021, another gender reveal party involved of Tannerite detonated at the bottom of a quarry in Kingston, New Hampshire, rattling homes in not just New Hampshire but also parts of north-eastern Massachusetts. Although no one was injured, some homes experienced damaged foundations and water from the faucet briefly turned brown. The person who purchased and detonated the Tannerite turned himself in to Kingston police.


title: American Dream Meadowlands

text: American Dream is a retail and entertainment complex in the Meadowlands Sports Complex in East Rutherford, New Jersey, United States. The first and second of four opening stages occurred on October 25, 2019, and on December 5, 2019. The remaining opening stages occurred on October 1, 2020, and thereafter.


title: American Dream Meadowlands

text: The project was first proposed in 2003 by the Mills Corporation as the "Meadowlands Xanadu", with construction beginning in 2004. After the Mills Corporation's bankruptcy in 2007, the project was taken over by Colony Capital. In May 2009, construction stalled due to the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers. Triple Five Group announced intent to take over the mall in May 2011, and on July 31, 2013, officially gained control of the mall and the surrounding site.


title: American Dream Meadowlands

text: After a series of ownership changes, financing issues, construction delays, and legal challenges, construction stopped again in December 2016. In late June 2017, construction had resumed, after new financing had been secured, though the project would suffer a series of "chronically delayed" opening dates. Among the attractions that opened in 2019 were the Nickelodeon Universe theme park in October and the Big Snow American Dream ski slope in December. The DreamWorks Water Park, which was scheduled to open March 19, 2020, as well as the mall's retail shops and restaurants, were delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced the mall's temporary closure on March 8. Following Governor Phil Murphy's August 26 announcement that amusements could open with restrictions on September 1, Big Snow American Dream announced it would reopen on that date, while other amusements and the mall's first major retail outlets reopened on October 1.


title: American Dream Meadowlands

text: The Mills Corporation first began working on plans for a mall in the New Jersey Meadowlands in 1994. Meadowlands Mills, as it was called, would have been constructed on the Empire Tract, an area of of wetlands in Carlstadt, New Jersey. The tract was owned by Empire Ltd., a company which had purchased the land in 1961 and had been planning a major development since 1987. The commercial development would have consisted of of retail space, a hotel, and of office space on of the tract. To mitigate the heavy environmental impact, the remainder of the tract would have been converted into stormwater retention basins.


title: American Dream Meadowlands

text: After Empire and Mills announced their proposal in 1996, the project quickly became controversial and faced opposition from a variety of environmental and conservationist groups, as well as the tract's congressman, Steve Rothman. Opponents stated that the mall would have a devastating impact on the ecological health of the area, while the Mills Corporation defended its plans by arguing that the land was already devastated by pesticide usage and invasive common reeds.


title: American Dream Meadowlands

text: The Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service opposed the project after studying its potential environmental impact. However, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers conducted its own study which contradicted the EPA's findings and stated that the project was not a threat to the Meadowlands area. New Jersey governor Donald DiFrancesco announced plans to protect the area in 2001, encouraging the Mills Corporation to look at other potential sites in the region. His successor, Jim McGreevey, informed Mills the following year that the state government would not provide permits for the mall, effectively ending the project as originally proposed. The Empire Tract was later permanently protected by the Meadowlands Conservation Trust, which purchased it in 2005 and renamed it the Richard P. Kane Natural Area after a noted New Jersey conservationist.


title: American Dream Meadowlands

text: In July 2002, the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority (NJSEA) issued a request for proposal for a project in the area that was then the parking lot of the Continental Airlines Arena. The request was inspired by the Meadowlands Mills project as well as by plans to move the New Jersey Nets out of the arena, and involved significantly less environmental damage because it would be built on already developed land. The Mills Corporation retooled its earlier proposal for Meadowlands Mills to fit the new site, and partnered with Mack-Cali Realty Corporation to design Meadowlands Xanadu, a major multi-use development which would incorporate a renovated Continental Airlines Arena. The name was taken from Mills Corporation's Madrid Xanadú, a shopping mall in Spain which opened in 2003.


title: American Dream Meadowlands

text: NJSEA accepted several other proposals for developing the site. Westfield Group proposed Arena Place, an "urban village" and "town square" built around the arena. Hartz Mountain Industries and Forest City Realty Trust submitted plans for Expo Park at the Meadowlands, featuring an outlet mall, a convention center, an indoor racetrack, and three hotel buildings. Triple Five Group proposed MeadowFest America, which planned an adaptive reuse of the arena to create a retail and entertainment complex.


title: American Dream Meadowlands

text: Other proposals focused on the project's location in the Meadowlands Sports Complex. International Speedway Corporation envisioned plans for Sports City America, a development centered around the proposed Garden State International Speedway, a NASCAR racetrack seating 80,000. A consortium that included Paul Newman, Carl Haas, and Mario Andretti proposed Liberty Speedway and Family Theme Park, combining a racetrack with an amusement park and connecting the two with a monorail.


title: American Dream Meadowlands

text: In February 2003, the authority's board chose Mills Corporation and Mack-Cali's plan over the other two finalists, Westfield Group and Hartz Mountain Industries. The project was billed by Mills chairman and executive officer Laurence E. Siegel as "...a new standard for bringing lifestyle, recreation, sports and family entertainment offerings together in one location." Ground was broken on the complex on September 29, 2004, and, at the time, was expected to open two years later.


title: American Dream Meadowlands

text: In November 2006, Colony Capital purchased the project from Mills Corporation for $500 million and pushed the projected opening to 2008.


title: American Dream Meadowlands

text: By 2008, the colorfully gaudy exterior of the building, which is visible from the New Jersey Turnpike and New Jersey Route 3, began to draw criticism as an eyesore. Richard Codey, president of the New Jersey State Senate at the time, called the structure "yucky-looking". In 2011, then-Governor Chris Christie called it "an offense to the eyes as you drive up the turnpike" and "by far the ugliest damn building in New Jersey, and maybe America." After acquiring the project, Triple Five indicated the exterior would be repainted in a different color scheme.


title: American Dream Meadowlands

text: In May 2009, construction on Xanadu, which was nearly 80% complete (and whose common areas were about 88% complete), came to a halt after a subsidiary of bankrupt Lehman Brothers missed payments, causing other lenders to withdraw from the project, and lost $500 million worth of construction funding. Developers stated the mall was 70% leased at the time.


title: American Dream Meadowlands

text: In March 2009, the retailer Cabela's announced that it did not plan to open its Meadowlands location for another year, and subsequently gave "late 2010" as an estimated opening date. It would later pull out of the project by November 2010, following the collapse of Lehman Brothers and a halt to construction.


title: American Dream Meadowlands

text: In February 2010, Stephen Ross, owner of The Related Companies in Manhattan, stated that he could finish the project by the end of 2010, possibly with a new name and look. In May 2010, the NJSEA handed the project over to the Related Companies, and the "Xanadu" name had been dropped, changing the name to "The Meadowlands".


title: American Dream Meadowlands

text: On August 10, 2010, Colony Capital surrendered control of the development of the mall to five lenders. Four parties were noted to be interested in redeveloping the project. "The Wall Street Journal" on December 24, 2010, reported that Triple Five Group signed a letter of intent to invest in and finish the stalled mall. Triple Five proposed that the mall be expanded to include indoor amusement and a water park. Developers cut a deal with Deutsche Bank to provide an approximately $700 million loan to finish the project.


title: American Dream Meadowlands

text: On February 1, 2011, after a record-breaking month of snow for the area, a 50- to 60-foot-long section of the eastern wall had buckled, and a horizontal crease was apparent on the complex's indoor ski slope. Two days later, on February 3, after workers were attempting to melt snow from the ski slope's roof, ice build-up caused the eastern wall to fail and suffer a partial collapse along an approximately length of roof. Michael Beckerman, a spokesman for the project's lending group stated, "The Lender Group is aware of the damage to the roof caused by excessive snow and ice, but does not feel the damage affects the integrity of the structure. As such, the group has filed an insurance claim, and once the weather turns warmer, it will assess the damages and fix whatever is necessary."


title: American Dream Meadowlands

text: On April 29, 2011, the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority completed a deal with Triple Five Group, the owners of two of North America's largest malls: West Edmonton Mall and the Mall of America, who had previously proposed "MeadowFest America" for the New Jersey site in 2002, before the contract was awarded to Mills Corporation. Triple Five assumed ownership of the mall and renamed it "American Dream Meadowlands", announcing a tentative opening date of early 2014, to coincide with Super Bowl XLVIII at MetLife Stadium. The deal was officially announced on May 3, 2011. Among the changes to the project would an expansion to 3 million square feet, an 8.5-acre indoor glass-domed amusement park, water parks, and an ice skating rink. In July 2012 DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg announced that a DreamWorks Water Park would open at the mall.


title: American Dream Meadowlands

text: In June 2012, the Giants and the Jets sought an injunction against Triple Five from resuming construction after it took over the project from the Mills Corporation, stating that the addition of amusement and water parks at the site would adversely affect traffic at MetLife stadium on days when home games were played there, specifically 16 Sundays out of the year, the day of the week that Bergen County's Blue Law prohibits shopping, though not amusement parks. The teams contended that while the mall would be closed on Sundays, the amusement park would not, which would create traffic jams on game days, when between 20,000 and 25,000 vehicles would park at the complex. Traffic studies conducted by the team estimated that 7,700 spots would be added by the project, while developers stated that it would add only 63 more cars, as local residents would be wise enough to avoid the grounds at that time, and most tourists would take the rail link to the MetLife Stadium site rather than drive. Triple Five objected to the law's restriction because it would infringe upon their business. In July 2012 Triple Five countersued for what it called an improper campaign by the teams to preserve their monopoly at the site, while dissuading potential lenders from investing. On March 12, 2014, the parties reached a tentative settlement, agreeing to drop their lawsuits. Though specific details of the agreement were not made public, the agreement allowed the long-delayed project to move forward. Construction had been ongoing since November 2013, and was expected to pick up in early 2014. Although no timetable for completion was announced, the developer originally said it would take about 24 months to complete the project once construction began. That April, Triple Five released a revised design for the mall's exterior and confirmed a tentative opening date in late 2016, though by December 2014, it was reported that this would only be a partial opening.


title: American Dream Meadowlands

text: By May 2013, progress on the project was delayed further by financing, permitting, and a lawsuit filed by the New York Giants and New York Jets over traffic concerns. Triple Five officially took ownership of the mall on July 31, 2013, with construction set to start in late August of that year, despite the lawsuit. Construction officially began in November and the developer estimated it would take approximately 24 months to complete the project.


title: American Dream Meadowlands

text: In June 2015, the New Jersey Local Finance Board approved a tax-sharing plan between East Rutherford and Triple Five. In August 2015, the New Jersey Economic Development Authority reauthorized a $390 million potential tax break for the project. These steps were intended to set the stage for a sale of up to $1 billion in government bonds to raise money to complete the project in time for its new projected completion in the second half of 2017.


title: American Dream Meadowlands

text: In April 2016, a planned bond issue fell through. In July 2016, construction appeared to have stopped, the developers were trying to obtain $1 billion in additional financing, and the projected completion date had slipped again, to 2018. In August 2016, the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority announced an $800 million bond issue intended to finance further construction of the mall.


title: American Dream Meadowlands

text: In September 2016, Triple Five Group announced that the indoor amusement park space would be occupied by Nickelodeon Universe, which would feature two world record-holding roller coasters. The TMNT Shellraiser, a Euro-Fighter, would hold the record for the steepest roller coaster drop at 121.5 degrees, and is based on a model seen at two other locations in the United States. The second coaster, a Spinning Coaster called The Shredder, consists of four-passenger cars that spin on a vertical axis as it progresses down the coaster's track, and is the world's tallest and longest free spinning coaster, at 1,600 feet. The water park is DreamWorks Water Park, which will feature attractions such as Shrek's Soggy Swamp, Kung Fu Panda Zone and Madagascar Rain Forest. The park's centerpiece will be the world's largest indoor wave pool, measuring 1.5 acres and holding 1.5 million gallons of water, and the world's second-tallest body slide, starting from a height of 142 feet and featuring a 50-foot free fall. The completed American Dream spans 3 million square feet and consists of 55 percent entertainment facilities and 45 percent retail locations. Planned entertainment venues included nightclubs, a 26-screen movie theater and 3,000-seat performing arts theater. The mall would house 450 retail shops, and more than 100 dining options, including approximately 20 full-service restaurants, a first-of-its kind kosher food hall, and a 38,000 square foot gourmet food court with 18 vendors and chef demonstrations operated by the youth-driven food and culture website Munchies. The project would also include a parking lot with 33,000 spaces, an on-site bus hub, and a train station. Triple Five projected 40 million people to visit the mall each year, half of whom would be drawn from the 62 million tourists who visit the tri-state area annually.


title: American Dream Meadowlands

text: On December 22, 2016, work on the project stopped again. Financing from the 2016 bond issue was delayed until 2017. In May of that year, the developers secured $1.67 billion in construction financing from a syndicate led by JPMorgan Chase, and by the following month, work had resumed.


title: American Dream Meadowlands

text: In June 2018, the developer indicated that most of the complex was scheduled to open in early 2019, though the water park would open at the end of 2019. In August 2018, a Triple Five executive, Tony Amrlin, specified that the project was 68% complete and would open in April 2019. That November, it was announced that September 2019 would be the water park's opening date.


title: American Dream Meadowlands

text: In August 2018, Triple Five revealed that H&M, Uniqlo, and Zara would open stores at the mall; the three stores would be those companies' largest mall-based flagship locations. On September 25, 2018, the New Jersey Hall of Fame announced that they would be permanently moving to American Dream. On March 12, 2019, Barneys New York announced that it would open a flagship store at the mall, its only one in New Jersey. However, the firm announced in October 2019 that as part of its Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization, it would close most of its stores, without specifying whether the one at American Dream would be one of the few to remain open.


title: American Dream Meadowlands

text: On March 8, 2019, Governor Phil Murphy indicated that the mall complex would open that June, but on March 25, Triple 5 Group announced that the project would open in August. On May 20, Triple Five announced that the mall's opening date had again been moved to later in the year, and that some retailers would not open until the 2019 holiday season or early 2020. It revealed that tenants would include Tiffany & Co., Watches of Switzerland, Dolce & Gabbana, Moncler and the experimental retailer Fourpost, which operates a store at Triple Five's other mall property, The Mall of America. Triple Five also revealed more of the complex's attractions and common areas, which were planned to feature rotating art installations and attractions.


title: American Dream Meadowlands

text: In June 2019, American Dream announced a 10-year partnership with The Coca-Cola Company and its local bottling partner Liberty Coca-Cola Beverages, which would fully-integrate the Coca-Cola brand throughout the property, and would include a branded eatery.


title: American Dream Meadowlands

text: On July 3, 2019, officials from Triple Five announced that the opening date of the mall would be October 25. Later that month, "Crain's New York Business" reported that the Asian-American supermarket chain H Mart would open a store at American Dream, which in addition to that chain's typical selection of Asian and international food items, would feature the chain's "Market Eatery" venue for top national and international food concepts and chefs, as well as New Jersey's first "Let Them Talk Bar and Stage" that would feature live music, craft cocktails, entertainment and weekly events. The store will staff a combined 70 to 100 full-time and part-time employees.


title: American Dream Meadowlands

text: On September 20, 2019, Triple Five announced that the mall would open in four stages it refers to as "chapters". In October 2019, the mall's much-criticized colorful exterior was repainted white. Triple Five also announced that the ski slope would be covered in a mural painted by a Canadian artist collective, set to be completed in 2020. Much of the facade facing the Turnpike would be covered in dynamic LED displays.


title: American Dream Meadowlands

text: On October 25, 2019, the mall opened its first chapter, an ice-skating rink and a Nickelodeon Universe indoor theme park, which contained more than 35 rides and attractions. The next chapter, the DreamWorks Water Park, was set to open on November 27, 2019. However, on November 21, 2019, the company announced that they were postponing the water park opening until March 19, 2020. The next chapter, the Big Snow American Dream ski slope, opened on December 5, 2019.


title: American Dream Meadowlands

text: The final chapter, consisting of the mall's 350 shops and over 100 restaurants, was branded "In Grand Style", and planned for a March 2020 opening. However, on February 27, 2020, NJ.com reported that the mall's enclave of luxury stores called The Collections would open in September 2020. On February 19, 2020, Sea Life announced it would open its location at American Dream on April 23, 2020.


title: American Dream Meadowlands

text: On March 8, the mall closed, which Triple Five Worldwide announced was a temporary measure resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic in New Jersey, thus again delaying the opening of its retail shops and the DreamWorks Water Park. That same day, it was announced that Forever 21 pulled out of American Dream, due to the company filing for bankruptcy.


title: American Dream Meadowlands

text: In April 2020, Triple Five announced that the proportion of the retail tenants at the mall would be smaller, as the mall would consist of approximately 70% entertainment and 30% retail. Among the newly announced entertainment venues would be a trampoline park, eight more rides to Nickelodeon Universe, and interactive museums featuring elaborate props and backdrops. Plans were also in the works for several hotels that would connect to the mall via skybridges, with the area zoned for 3,500 hotel rooms. That same month, the mall partnered with Hackensack Meridian Health and Agile Urgent Care to open a drive-through testing site primarily for local police, first responders, and frontline health care workers.


title: American Dream Meadowlands

text: On May 5, 2020, it was announced that Lord & Taylor would no longer be a tenant at American Dream, due to the company's decision to liquidate all of its stores as soon as the company reopened, in anticipation of a bankruptcy process brought about by the pandemic.


title: American Dream Meadowlands

text: On June 24, GNC announced that it would also no longer operate a store at the mall. Barneys New York had also withdrawn from American Dream, and several other tenants were considering canceling their leases or reducing their space at the mall.


title: American Dream Meadowlands

text: Governor Phil Murphy announced on August 26 that amusements could open with restrictions on September 1, prompting Big Snow American Dream to announce it would reopen on that date.


title: American Dream Meadowlands

text: On September 3, 2020, Triple Five announced that on October 1, American Dream would reopen its amusement park, water park, ice rink, and mini-golf arcade, each of which would limit patrons to 25% of capacity. The mall would also unveil its first major retail tenants, 17 of which had been given certificates of occupancy and were ready to open. Among these were H&M, Primark, Zara, and It'SUGAR, with indications that others would be announced closer to the date of reopening. On September 29, 2020, it was announced that the Sea Life Aquarium and the Legoland Discovery Center would open at some point in early 2021.


title: American Dream Meadowlands

text: On September 9, 2020, American Dream and Hackensack Meridian Health announced a ten-year partnership. The partnership includes opening a urgent care center at the complex, helping the complex reopen during the COVID-19 pandemic, and having pop-up events at American Dream about health and wellness.


title: American Dream Meadowlands

text: On October 1, 2020, American Dream officially reopened. That same day, NJ.com reported that Coca-Cola Eats, a Coca-Cola themed food court, would open later in the month, and that Munchies, a gourmet food court, would open by the end of the year. It was also announced that the luxury stores, anchored by Saks 5th Avenue, would open in March 2021, with hotels to be added in the near future.


title: American Dream Meadowlands

text: On March 10, 2021, NJ.com reported that Sea Life Aquarium and Legoland Discovery Center would open at the mall on May 4. However, on April 21, 2021, American Dream announced that they were postponing the opening date of the Sea Life Aquarium and Legoland Discovery Center, which eventually opened officially on May 29.


title: American Dream Meadowlands

text: On July 8, 2021, American Dream announced that The Avenue, the luxury wing of the complex consisting of over 20 retailers and upscale eateries and named for its anchor store, Saks 5th Avenue, would open on September 17, 2021, as would the mall's Ferris Wheel. That August, the Oreo Café opened on the third floor of the mall's candy and novelty store IT'SUGAR. The eatery, which sells Oreo-themed desserts and beverages, was the first of its kind.


title: American Dream Meadowlands

text: On September 14, 2021, Hasbro announced that the company would open a branded game room at American Dream called The Game Room powered by Hasbro. The venue, which is the first of its kind, would include an arcade platform with video games and interactive amusements like Skee Golf. It was scheduled to open near the SeaLife Aquarium in 2022.


title: American Dream Meadowlands

text: In the early hours of September 25, 2021, the ski slope caught fire, but no injuries were reported. In the weeks after the fire, the mall's management announced that repairs would take months to be completed.


title: American Dream Meadowlands

text: In December 2021, NJ.com reported that Toys R Us would open a 20,000 square foot, two-story global flagship store at American Dream. In light of the pandemic-related closings of its stores at Garden State Plaza in Paramus, New Jersey and The Galleria mall in Houston, Texas, this would be the company's only brick and mortar store until that company's July 2022 comeback, and would open in the middle of the month, in time for holiday shopping.


title: American Dream Meadowlands

text: In May 2022 Bloomberg News reported that the mall reported nearly $60 million in losses in 2021, a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, a September 2021 fire at the Big SNOW ski slope that closed that venue until early 2022, and delays in openings for some stores and attractions. The mall's expenses totaled $232.4 million, but its revenue reached only $173 million. In June 2022, the mall made a late payment to its bondholders of $13.9 million, but remained behind on its payments, including interest on the bond payment that its owners missed on June 1, which put them in default. This prompted East Rutherford Mayor Jeffrey Lahullier to state that same month, "The mall's definitely in trouble, there's no doubt in my mind."


title: American Dream Meadowlands

text: On September 4, 2022, YouTuber Jimmy Donaldson opened the first brick and mortar location of MrBeast Burger, which until then had been a delivery-only service utilizing virtual restaurants. The opening attracted thousands of fans to the mall.


title: American Dream Meadowlands

text: On October 17, 2022, LMNTS, a luxury streetwear and lifestyle retailer, opened its first East Coast store at American Dream.


title: American Dream Meadowlands

text: Announced in February 2008, PepsiCo agreed to pay $100 million for a ten-year sponsorship of Pepsi Globe, a London Eye-style ferris wheel built facing the New Jersey Turnpike that would measure , and feature 26 glass enclosed, climate controlled gondolas that would take 20 people on 25-minute rides. Its planned opening was in 2009. It would be the largest Ferris wheel in America, but it drew much criticism from local residents and politicians who viewed it as an eyesore, and who voiced concerns about both safety and its obstruction of views of Manhattan's skyline across the Hudson River, which they feared would hurt property values and damage the image of the local communities. PepsiCo eventually withdrew their sponsorship of the ferris wheel, which would no longer be branded with that company's name or logo. By 2015, the ferris wheel was still being planned, but had been rechristened the Observation Wheel, and would be only feet in diameter, though it would retain the same number of gondolas. The wheel was again renamed The Dream Wheel by the time it opened on April 13, 2022.


title: American Dream Meadowlands

text: Since 2021, American Dream's ice rink has been home to a hockey initiation program sponsored by the NHL's New Jersey Devils. In September 2022, American Dream was named as the main home ice for the Metropolitan Riveters of the Premier Hockey Federation, a professional women's hockey league.


title: American Dream Meadowlands

text: Public transportation to American Dream Meadowlands' on-site bus hub and train station is provided by NJ Transit. Direct local and express bus service to American Dream includes the following NJ Transit Bus lines:


title: American Dream Meadowlands

text: For travel by rail, the Meadowlands station is the western terminus for the Meadowlands Rail Line, located at the Meadowlands Sports Complex next to American Dream. However, that line is not being operated daily for American Dream, but solely during events at the stadium. NJ Transit stated that daily rail service could be added "once the rail system is resilient enough that doing so won't adversely affect NJ Transit commuters."


title: American Dream Meadowlands

text: Multi-modal service is provided by NY Waterway, which provides a package service consisting of ferry service from Manhattan to Weehawken Port Imperial in Weehawken, followed by a bus for the remaining 6.5 miles to the mall. Passengers can also take the bus without a ferry connection.


title: American Dream Meadowlands

text: Motorists traveling to the location are accommodated with a 33,000-space parking lot. American Dream initially announced plans to charge for daily parking, but changed this, charging patrons only when events were held at MetLife Stadium. By August 2021, this was amended again to make parking free for the first hour, after which motorists would be charged $3.00 USD. As of 2022, parking is free for the first 30 minutes and costs $5.00 for any additional time.


title: American Dream Meadowlands

text: American Dream runs a fleet of several helicopters to offer luxury transportation for wealthy international tourists and residents from the roof of the mall's Saks Fifth Avenue store.


title: American Dream Meadowlands

text: Opposition to the idea of building a permanent shopping center within the Meadowlands Sports Complex centered on traffic and environmental concerns. The project is being built on state-owned land, as the NJSEA is a state agency, and $81.3 million was spent on transportation improvements such as new off and on ramps and a train station at the Sports Complex. Some have also called the mall a "colossal real estate nightmare", and "perhaps the worst retail failure ever".


title: American Dream Meadowlands

text: The project was also criticized by environmentalists who issued a complaint on July 10, 2012, that draft permits approved by the Army Corps of Engineers would allow five more acres of wetlands to be destroyed for the project, which had already filled in more than seven. Jeff Tittel, director of the New Jersey chapter of the Sierra Club, stated, "This project will increase traffic and flooding while taking business away from existing stores. This project is the Super Bowl of Sprawl and the American Dream is a commuter's nightmare."


title: American Dream Meadowlands

text: In May 2006, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced it was formally investigating the Mills Corporation, the original developer of the property, after it announced that it was restating four years of earnings due to executive misconduct and accounting errors. Later in the year, an analyst at Bank of America Securities pushed Mills Corporation to drop the project, citing the signs of cost overruns.


title: American Dream Meadowlands

text: In 2007 the Federal Aviation Administration expressed concerns about the height of the Ferris wheel, which at the time was planned to be , which the FAA feared would affect local air traffic to and from Teterboro Airport.


title: American Dream Meadowlands

text: In June 2012, the New York Giants and the New York Jets filed a lawsuit against Triple Five, seeking to halt construction. The lawsuit claimed that the addition of amusement and water parks at the site would adversely affect traffic at MetLife stadium on days when home games were played there, specifically 16 Sundays out of the year, the day of the week that Bergen County's Blue Law prohibits shopping, though not amusement parks. The teams contended that while the mall would be closed on Sundays, the amusement park would not, which would create traffic jams on game days when up to 25,000 vehicles would park at the complex. Traffic studies conducted by the team estimated that 7,700 spots would be added by the project; the developers countered that the amusement parks would add only 63 more cars, claiming that local residents would be wise enough to avoid visiting on a game day, and most tourists would take the rail link rather than drive. In July 2012 Triple Five countersued for what it called an improper campaign by the teams to preserve their monopoly at the site while dissuading potential lenders from investing. On March 12, 2014, the parties reached a tentative settlement, agreeing to drop their lawsuits, which allowed the project to move forward.


title: American Dream Meadowlands

text: In February 2015, U.S. federal prosecutors accused Joe Ferriero, former chairman of the Bergen County Democratic Organization and New Jersey political power broker, of bribery, fraud, and racketeering charges. The charges included an allegation that Mills Corporation paid Ferriero $1.7 million over the course of several years as a bribe or extortion to maintain Ferriero's political support for their development bid on the Xanadu project against rivals Hartz Mountain Industries. James Dausch, a former Mills Corporation employee testified that the $1.7 million was paid for Ferriero's consulting, not as a bribe. Dausch's testimony detailed much of the development bid process, including paid lobbyists positioning Mills with Governor Jim McGreevey, then Governor Richard Codey, as well as with Senator Robert Menendez. In April 2015, Ferriero was found guilty on five counts, but not on the Mills Corporation racketeering charges.


title: American Dream Meadowlands

text: The State of New Jersey, through the New Jersey Sports and Exhibition Authority, issued $1.15 billion in tax-free bonds to support the project. These unrated bonds yielded 6.625% when first issued. They were part of a suite of tax concessions negotiated with the state and the City of Hackensack.


title: Nigersaurus

text: Nigersaurus is a genus of rebbachisaurid sauropod dinosaur that lived during the middle Cretaceous period, about 115 to 105 million years ago. It was discovered in the Elrhaz Formation in an area called Gadoufaoua, in Niger. Fossils of this dinosaur were first described in 1976, but it was only named Nigersaurus taqueti in 1999, after further and more complete remains were found and described. The genus name means "Niger reptile", and the specific name honours the palaeontologist Philippe Taquet, who discovered the first remains.


title: Nigersaurus

text: Small for a sauropod, "Nigersaurus" was about long, and had a short neck. It weighed around , comparable to a modern elephant. Its skull was very specialised for feeding, with large fenestrae and thin bones. It had a wide muzzle filled with more than 500 teeth, which were replaced at a rapid rate: around every 14 days. The jaws may have borne a keratinous sheath. Unlike other tetrapods, the tooth-bearing bones of its jaws were rotated transversely relative to the rest of the skull, so that all of its teeth were located far to the front. Its skeleton was highly pneumatised (filled with air spaces connected to air sacs), but the limbs were robustly built.


title: Nigersaurus

text: "Nigersaurus" and its closest relatives are grouped within the subfamily Rebbachisaurinae (formerly thought to be grouped in the eponymous Nigersaurinae) of the family Rebbachisauridae, which is part of the sauropod superfamily Diplodocoidea. "Nigersaurus" was probably a browser, and fed with its head close to the ground. The region of its brain that detected smell was underdeveloped, although its brain size was comparable to that of other dinosaurs. There has been debate on whether its head was habitually held downwards, or horizontally like other sauropods. It lived in a riparian habitat, and its diet probably consisted of soft plants, such as ferns, horsetails, and angiosperms. It is one of the most common fossil vertebrates found in the area, and shared its habitat with other dinosaurian megaherbivores, as well as large theropods and crocodylomorphs.


title: Nigersaurus

text: Remains thought to belong to "Nigersaurus" were first discovered during a 1965–1972 expedition to the Republic of Niger led by French paleontologist Philippe Taquet, and first mentioned in a paper published in 1976. Although a common genus, the dinosaur had been poorly known until more material of other individuals was discovered during expeditions led by American palaeontologist Paul Sereno in 1997 and 2000. The limited understanding of the genus was the result of poor preservation of its remains, which arises from the delicate and highly pneumatic construction (filled with air spaces connected to air sacs) of the skull and skeleton, in turn causing disarticulation of the fossils. Some of the skull fossils were so thin that a strong light beam was visible through them. Therefore, no intact skulls or articulated skeletons have been found, and these specimens represent the most complete known rebbachisaurid remains.


title: Nigersaurus

text: "Nigersaurus" was named and described in more detail by Sereno and colleagues only in 1999, based on remains of newly found individuals. The same article also named "Jobaria", another sauropod from Niger. The genus name "Nigersaurus" ("Niger reptile") is a reference to the country where it was discovered, and the specific name "taqueti" honours Taquet, who was the first to organise large-scale palaeontological expeditions to Niger. The holotype specimen (MNN GAD512) consists of a partial skull and neck. Limb material and a scapula (shoulder blade) found nearby were also referred to the same specimen. These fossils are housed at the National Museum of Niger.


title: Nigersaurus

text: Sereno and the American palaeontologist Jeffrey A. Wilson provided the first detailed description of the skull and feeding adaptations in 2005. In 2007, a more detailed description of the skeleton was published by Sereno ad colleagues, based on a specimen discovered ten years earlier. The fossils, along with a reconstructed skeleton mount and a plastic model of the head and neck, were subsequently presented at the National Geographic Society in Washington. "Nigersaurus" was dubbed a "Mesozoic cow" in the press, and Sereno stressed that it was the most unusual dinosaur he had ever seen. He likened its physical appearance to Darth Vader and a vacuum cleaner, and compared its tooth shear with a conveyor belt and sharpened piano keys.


title: Nigersaurus

text: Numerous "Nigersaurus" specimens collected by French and American expeditions remain to be described. Teeth similar to those of "Nigersaurus" have been found on the Isle of Wight and in Brazil, but it is unknown whether they belonged to relatives of this taxon, or to titanosaurs, whose remains have been found in the vicinity. A lower jaw assigned to the titanosaur "Antarctosaurus" is likewise similar to that of "Nigersaurus", but may have evolved convergently.


title: Nigersaurus

text: Like all sauropods, "Nigersaurus" was a quadruped with a small head, thick hind legs, and a prominent tail. Among that clade, "Nigersaurus" was fairly small, with a body length of only and a femur reaching only ; it may have weighed around , comparable to a modern elephant. It had a short neck for a sauropod, with thirteen cervical vertebrae. Nearly all rebbachisaurids had relatively short necks and a length of or less. The only members of the family that reached the size of larger sauropods were "Rebbachisaurus" and "Maraapunisaurus".


title: Nigersaurus

text: The skull of "Nigersaurus" was delicate, with the four side fenestrae (openings in the skull) larger than in other sauropodomorphs. The total area of bone connecting the muzzle to the back of the skull was only . These connecting struts of bones were usually less than thick. Despite this, the skull was resistant to the sustained shearing of the teeth. Another unique trait it had among sauropodomorphs was a closed supratemporal fenestra. The nasal openings, the bony nostrils, were elongated. Though the nasal bones are not completely known, it appears the front margin of the bony nostril was closer to the snout than in other diplodocoids. The snout was also proportionately shorter, and the tooth row was not at all prognathous, the snout tip not protruding relative to the remainder of the tooth series. "Nigersaurus" was distinct in that its (which formed much of the skull-roof) was elongate (much narrower than long), and had a marked cerebral fossa (a depression on the surface of this bone inside the head). The maxillary tooth row was in its entirety transversely rotated, its normal rear 90° everted towards the front. This was matched by an identical rotation of the dentary of the lower jaw. This transverse orientation of the upper and lower tooth rows was unique to the dinosaur. Due to this configuration, no other tetrapod had all of its teeth located as far to the front as "Nigersaurus".


title: Nigersaurus

text: The slender teeth had slightly curved tooth crowns, which were oval in cross-section. The crowns were distinct in having prominent ridges on the margins of their midline and sides. The teeth in the lower jaw may have been 20–30% smaller than those in the upper jaw, but few are known, and they are of uncertain maturity. Apart from this, the teeth were identical. Under each active tooth there was a column of nine replacement teeth within the jaw. With 68 columns in the upper jaws and 60 columns in the lower jaws, these so-called dental batteries (also present in hadrosaurs and ceratopsians) comprised a total of more than 500 active and replacement teeth. Dental batteries erupted in unison, not each column individually. The enamel on the teeth of "Nigersaurus" was highly asymmetrical, ten times thicker on the outwards facing side than on the inner side. This condition is otherwise known only in advanced ornithischians.


title: Nigersaurus

text: "Nigersaurus" did not exhibit the same modifications seen in the jaws of other dinosaurs with dental batteries, or mammals with elaborate chewing functions. The lower jaw was L-shaped and divided into the subcylindrical transverse ramus, which contained the teeth, and the back ramus, which was more lightweight and was the location for most of the muscle attachments. It was distinct in that the tooth row expanded to the sides from the plane of the main ramus of the lower jaw. The jaws also contained several fenestrae, including five that are not present in other sauropods. The front ends of the jaws had grooves that indicate the presence of a keratinous (horny) sheath. "Nigersaurus" is the only known tetrapod animal to have had jaws wider than the skull and teeth that extended laterally across the front. The snout was even broader than those of the "duck-billed" hadrosaurs.


title: Nigersaurus

text: "Nigersaurus" was distinct in that its (back) vertebrae had paired pneumatic spaces at the base of the (the spines that projected upwards from the vertebrae). The presacral vertebrae (vertebrae in front of the sacrum) were heavily pneumatised to the point where the column consisted of a series of hollow "shells", each divided by a thin septum in the middle. It had little to no cancellous bone, making the centra thin bone plates filled with air spaces. The vertebral arches were so heavily pierced by extensions of the external air sacs that of their side walls little remained but thick intersecting laminae, the ridges between the pneumatic openings. The vertebrae of the tail, however, did have solid centra. The pelvic and pectoral girdle bones were very thin also, often only several millimetres thick. It had a prominent rugosity (a roughly wrinkled area) on the midline aspect of the scapular blade's base, a distinguishing feature. Like other sauropods, its limbs were robust, contrasting with the extremely lightweight construction of the rest of the skeleton. The limbs were not as specialised as the rest of the skeleton, and the front legs of "Nigersaurus" were about two-thirds the length of the back legs, as in most diplodocoids.