Subject:
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Re: Problems with Darwin's theory
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Tue, 6 Feb 2001 17:17:36 GMT
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Viewed:
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743 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Bruce Schlickbernd writes:
> In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Tim Culberson writes:
> > I promised I wouldn't re-enter this debate but...
> >
> >
> > > And something else here-- there really are very very very very few fossils
> > > that we've found compared with the number of living beings on Earth in the
> > > last billion years or so. I'd consider us EXTREMELY lucky to get one sample
> > > of every species, let alone any of the so-deemed 'transition' fossils.
> >
> > I find it interesting that you do in fact find it extremely lucky. I
> > also find it EXTREMELY convenient that vast majority of these
> > (supposedly) few fossils just happen to be of non-extinct animals living
> > today compared with (your belief of) the millions of other living beings
> > that have lived on the earth for the past billion years or so --- namely
> > those mysterious transition fossils.
Um, well, let's see--the majority may be of animals of a similar
*type* (e.g., "teleost fish" or "reptiles") but very, very few
are of the same species (or even genus). The most common living
fossils cited are the coelecanth (genus Latimera), which IIRC
has no fossil representatives, as it's cartilaginous; subclass
(or is it class now?) Chondrichthyes--aka sharks--whose living
genii are unknown before the Miocene, roughly 20 MYA; or the
cockroach, which is a generic name applied to an incredible
number of species. So animals of similar family or plan can
occupy a niche for hundreds of millions of years, so what? They
can still show adeptness for radiation into new niches and
sometimes--like trilobites, crinoids, placoderms, and sauropods--
even successful animals sometimes meet their demise.
(As a postscript to the trilobite story: The Horseshoe Crab
is still alive, well, and ugly along the eastern coast of the
USA--and the last survivor of the ammonite family, the chambered
nautilus, is still jetting around the Pacific.)
So similar isn't the same. Find me a species and genus--a single
one--that is 200 million years old by fossil-date reckoning, much
less a majority of species known. Good luck!
> Mount Cadiz, southern California. An exposed abuttement of Cambrian and
> Precambrian rock. Zillions of Trilobites. Hip deep in them. Zillions may
> be an underestimate.
Oh cool! I've wondered where that was. I've seen pictures of the
exposed strata--have you been lucky enough to be there in person?
I want to go to California...dumb luck being born in a part of the
US that got shaven down to the Devonian by those dagnab glaciers.
And, for some reason, we don't have many trilobites.
On the other hand, I have lots of cool brachiopods (another critter
that's no longer with us, and common as dirt in the Palaeozoic seas).
best
Lindsay
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Problems with Darwin's theory
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| (...) Yup, been there, done that. I think it was for a class in stratigraphy many years ago. It was the quietest place I have ever experienced in my life. We weren't out there for the trilobites (and well noted about the Horseshoe crab), but you (...) (24 years ago, 6-Feb-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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