I know that MacDonald does not believe that there were bears or birds in the Permian, and I think the oft-quoted excerpt clearly indicates that he does not, but that does not negate what he actually found. The tracks are mysterious to him because of his views about evolutionary timescales. My point in bringing it up is stated very well by the next part of the Smithsonian article that you quoted:
"He suspects, however, that conventional theories about precisely who was walking around in Permian times, and how they did so, will end up being revised, perhaps extensively, once these tracks are studied in detail."What if there were bears in the Permian? Would such a find generate any doubt about Darwinian evolution itself in those predisposed to believe it? In other words, I just think that promises to abandon belief in Darwinian evolution itself based on a find like a mammal in the Permian are overstated.
Cordially,
This is where you're wrong. The skeleton of a modern human in one million year old strata. The skull of a modern mammal in one-hundred million year old strata. The distinctinve spores of a flowering plant in two-million year old strata. Two biologically similar animals with vastly different genomes. Any one of these things would *disprove* evolutionary theory, and scientists would have no choice but to go back to the drawing board.
However, scientists have not yet made such a discovery. All previous studies and fossil finds have supported the theory.
The popular consensus among certain groups of people seems to be there is a conspiricy to hide such discoveries, but, as Ben Franklin said, three may keep a secret if two of them are dead.
The ToE is tightly defined regarding the development of mammals by taxonomy, DNA relationships, and the extensive reptilian to mammalian transitional fossil record. It is not an overstatement at all to say that finding a true mammal in the Devonian time period would obliterate the ToE.
Finding a footprint that just reminds us of a bear's, on the other hand, merely indicates the possibility of a previously undiscovered evolutionary branch. That would certainly qualify as a find worthy of an extensive revision of the ToE regarding the Permian Age, though, and that is what MacDonald was saying.