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New Record-Setting Living Fossil Flabbergasts Scientists
Creation-Evolution Headlines ^ | 12/5/2003 | Creation-Evolution Headlines

Posted on 12/05/2003 3:26:16 PM PST by bondserv

New Record-Setting Living Fossil Flabbergasts Scientists   12/05/2003
A remarkably-detailed fossil ostracode, a type of crustacean, has been announced in the Dec. 5 issue of Science1 that is blowing the socks off its discoverers.  Erik Stokstad in a review of the discovery in the same issue2 explains its significance in the evolutionary picture of prehistory:

Over the past half-billion years [sic], evolution has dished up [sic] an almost endless variety of novelties: lungs, legs, eyes, wings, scales, feathers, fur.  So when paleontologists find a creature that doesn’t change, they take note.   (Emphasis added in all quotes.)
Two things about this fossil are exceptional.  (1) It has a “jaw-dropping” amount of detail, such that even small fragile parts and soft tissues were perfectly preserved.  (2) It is indistinguishable from modern ostracodes:
What’s most amazing, ostracode experts say, is how eerily similar the soft-tissue anatomy is to that of modern relatives.  “I was flabbergasted,” says Koen Martens, a zoologist at the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. 
This fossil, found near Herefordshire, U.K., was found in Silurian deposits estimated to be 425 million years old.  That means that its modern counterparts are living fossils, virtually unchanged for all that time:
Some ostracode specialists are stunned.  “This is a demonstration of unbelievable stability,” says Tom Cronin of the U.S. Geological Survey in Reston, Virginia.  Whereas ostracodes diversified [sic] into some 33,000 living and extinct species, “these guys have just been plodding along totally unfazed.
This fossil, named Colymbosathon, is also upsetting those who look for evolution in the genes:
Finding a modern cylindroleberid in the Silurian clashes with molecular data, which suggest that the group and related families originated relatively recently, says evolutionary biologist Todd Oakley of the University of California, Santa Barbara.  There’s no conflict for zoologist Anne Cohen, a research associate at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, who thinks Colymbosathon actually belongs to a long-extinct family.  In any case, the new fossil indicates that a basic ostracode body plan was already present in the Silurian.  It could also help [sic] sort out evolutionary relationships of fossil ostracodes.
David Horne (Queen Mary College, London) predicts more “long-lost evolutionary blueprints” [sic] may emerge from these deposits.  “The probability that they will find similarly preserved representatives of other ostracode lineages, and of other arthropods, is both high and extremely exciting.”
1Siveter et al., “An Ostracode Crustacean with Soft Parts from the Lower Silurian,” Science Dec. 5, 2003.
2Erik Stokstad, “Invertebrate Paleontology: Gutsy Fossil Sets Record for Staying the Course,” Science Volume 302, Number 5651, Issue of 5 Dec 2003, p. 1645.
This is just one more of many remarkable, astounding, flabbergasting examples of living fossils.  “Unbelievable stability” is not a prediction of Darwinism.  The Darwinian world is supposed to be a fluid world, filled with diversification, radiation, and innovation.  During the imaginary 425 million years, the continents moved all over the world, animals crawled onto the land and became geckos and crocodiles and birds and caribou.  Mountains rose and valleys sank, and glaciers repeatedly advanced and retreated over much of the planet.  Some animals moved back into the oceans and became whales, porpoises, manatees and sea lions in just a small fraction of this much time, and humans emerged from grunting chimpanzees, invented language and abstract thought, and conquered space.  Is it reasonable to assume that in this slow whirlwind of continuous dynamical change, these ostracodes just reproduced themselves over and over millions of times without any change whatsoever?
    Darwinists are caught in a crossfire of antagonistic evidence.  Only a well-armored Darwinist could be excited about incoming bombshells like this.  Only by wearing Kevlar-lined lead helmets around their brains can they keep the bullets from penetrating and the insides from exploding.


TOPICS: Science
KEYWORDS: colymbosathon; crustacean; godsgravesglyphs; ostracode; silurian
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To: snowballinhell
You want a video tape or a tax notice for your proof, but expect me take your absolute lack of proof as evidence.

I see. You want me to provide you with a proof that there is no such thing as proof in natural sciences, Whereas you are free as a lark to propound "scientific" theories in contradiction with current scientific findings. I'll show you mine as soon as you show me the proof that there is a natural distinction between speciation and hybredization.

I'll leave a space below for you to point out to me what must surely be the well-known proof of the theory of gravity.

?????

141 posted on 12/07/2003 9:55:44 AM PST by donh
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To: snowballinhell
Sporadic missing fossils? Every single transitional missing fossil is sporadic? I think you need to google sporadic to get the proper meaning of that word.

What, pray tell, are they missing FROM? I'll tell you--a continuous record of morphological continuity embedded in monotonically increasing order in a continuous record of geological sequence. Matched nicely, one might add, in later days, by mutational distance comparisons amongst living phyla.

Like the hybridization vs. speciation scam, this one is based on pretending there is a natural meaning to man-made, artificial classification barriers. All fossils are "transitional", in that they are sporadic snapshots of a world teeming with species, only a tiny few examples of which manage the remarkable feat of dying without being broken up and incorporated into other living creatures. When times are turbulant, creatures change faster, and opportunities to fossilize are rarer--so the fossil "gaps" you're so fond of are exactly what you would expect to see in interzonal geographic layers: when times are turbulent.

142 posted on 12/07/2003 10:08:43 AM PST by donh
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To: bondserv
Exhibitions of deductive logic fall on deaf ears to those on the other side.

Science does not lay much stock in deductive logic. Science largely relies on inductive logic. See if you can find an aristotalian proof somewhere in the pages of "Nature" or "Science".

143 posted on 12/07/2003 10:10:52 AM PST by donh
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To: xzins
This adds credibility to Behe's mathematical model which says outside influence was needed.

Behe's model has zero credibility to a statistician. To calculate the odds of an event, you need a numerically specified state-space, and a numerically specified selection criteria within that state-space. Neither Behe, nor anyone else, has any idea whatsoever what the state-space and selection criteria actually were that produced life.

144 posted on 12/07/2003 10:15:20 AM PST by donh
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To: snowballinhell
So what miraculous intervention do the "Somebodies of consequence in biological sciences" attribute the beginnings of life today,

Most biologists just don't think about origins questions, but those that do, do not pin much hope on miraculous intervention by Venusians. Just painfully slow responses of increasingly stubbornly persistent pre-DNA congeries of adhering, self-sustaining entities. See Wolfram, See Woese, and see Kauffman for current best musings on the subject.

145 posted on 12/07/2003 10:22:43 AM PST by donh
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To: snowballinhell
the "seeds came from outer space" idea

This is not an answer to the fundamental question of how life originates--it just puts off the question by a few billion years.

146 posted on 12/07/2003 10:24:32 AM PST by donh
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To: donh; Alamo-Girl
Oh, please.

In short, there's a million threads and a gazillion posts on FR on this subject. Both sides.

Go read them again. And again. And again.

Same old arguments.

It would be nice if someone said something different, wouldn't it? :>)
147 posted on 12/07/2003 10:28:12 AM PST by xzins (Proud to be Army!)
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To: donh
It could be a commitment to lurk, waiting, for example, for a less laughable argument to surface.

Could be???


I'll let HIM (if he is still around) answer what it COULD BE.
The data stands on it's own-- your spin of it just makes you look silly [not laughable].
148 posted on 12/07/2003 11:36:40 AM PST by Elsie (Don't believe every prophecy you hear: especially *** ones........)
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To: donh
To calculate the odds of an event, you need a numerically specified state-space, and a numerically specified selection criteria within that state-space.

And to be a believer in Evolution, none of these things are required.

149 posted on 12/07/2003 11:40:32 AM PST by Elsie (Don't believe every prophecy you hear: especially *** ones........)
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To: donh
So what it's going to be, in one post you hold up evidence of variation as proof for evolution, in the next post lack of evidence as proof of evolution. Whats it going to be or are we now onto the " Well if there is fossil (of which millions have been found)evidence we say it was slow but if we can't find any , then those mutations were fast.
So if you find a fossil with any sort of a change after the fact, does it then move into the category of slow change to fit your ever evolving theory??

Which is it The no body of consequence supports the primordially soup, or per you latest post, they don't have an opinion at all.

Hold on if life is so simple to create because of it's "painfully slow responses of increasingly stubbornly persistent pre-DNA congeries of adhering, self-sustaining entities" I think I'll brew me up a batch of life (maybe I can get it to mow the lawn).

When times are turbulant, creatures change faster, and opportunities to fossilize are rarer--so the fossil "gaps" you're so fond of are exactly what you would expect to see in interzonal geographic layers: when times are turbulent.

Yes this is very true if you use the second hole stuffer theory, problem being is WE HAVE fossils from "turbulent period" which show NO change.

Donh all you have done here is posted over and over evidence of variation, but nothing but conjecture for inter species evolution. The vast variation in Canis for example does not preclude that a Great Dane evolved from a Chihuahua.

As far as using lack of gravity between galaxies as an argument for accepting lack of evidence for evolution is a big leap, I could just as well used that analogy of proof of GOD, we can all make that little leap can't we?

And please the Fido and Fluffy and the kids link?
150 posted on 12/07/2003 11:42:41 AM PST by snowballinhell (Me thinks something is afoot)
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To: Elsie
Could have, possibly, might, may have, maybe, appears to have, given enough time......

THESE are stock and trade of the "E" folks.


Their literature is FULL of them.
151 posted on 12/07/2003 11:42:48 AM PST by Elsie (Don't believe every prophecy you hear: especially *** ones........)
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To: donh
You want a video tape or a tax notice for your proof, but expect me take your absolute lack of proof as evidence.
I see. You want me to provide you with a proof that there is no such thing as proof in natural sciences, Whereas you are free as a lark to propound "scientific" theories in contradiction with current scientific findings. I'll show you mine as soon as you show me the proof that there is a natural distinction between speciation and hybredization.

I'll leave a space below for you to point out to me what must surely be the well-known proof of the theory of gravity.

?????


Current scientific findings- what a joke
When they stop announcing "well we are going to have to completely rethink everything we know about... because we have just discovered..." on a daily basis.

30 yrs ago if you didn't buy the primordial soup theory, you were a mental midget, now it's Punc EQ, what's next?

And if you want proof of the LAW of gravity hold a large rock above your head and let go, I'm sure you will have a revelation.
152 posted on 12/07/2003 12:00:45 PM PST by snowballinhell (Me thinks something is afoot)
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To: donh
the "seeds came from outer space" idea

This is not an answer to the fundamental question of how life originates--it just puts off the question by a few billion years.

No it says that what could not happen here must have happened elsewhere.

153 posted on 12/07/2003 12:03:22 PM PST by snowballinhell (Me thinks something is afoot)
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To: snowballinhell
And if you want proof of the LAW of gravity hold a large rock above your head and let go, I'm sure you will have a revelation.

That is not a proof. That is a flawed inductive demonstration. Try it in a non-rotating satellite in stable earth orbit, and your revelation turns into horse manure.

154 posted on 12/07/2003 12:28:59 PM PST by donh
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To: snowballinhell
No it says that what could not happen here must have happened elsewhere.

Even if you hold your breath until you turn blue, the theory of panspermia does not address the question of life's initial origins from lifeless organic debris. It merely evades the base question.

155 posted on 12/07/2003 12:32:57 PM PST by donh
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To: snowballinhell
Current scientific findings- what a joke When they stop announcing "well we are going to have to completely rethink everything we know about... because we have just discovered..." on a daily basis.

That is exactly right. Because science does not represent itself to be absolute, unquestioning truth, science is always ready to bow to better evidence. Unlike certain theologically inspired institutions I could name, who, because of their absolute assurance of their lock on TRUTH, felt justified in burning jews, witches, and scientists who disagreed with them.

156 posted on 12/07/2003 12:35:57 PM PST by donh
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To: Elsie
The data stands on it's own

Indeed it does. PH made no visible commitment to go away, he said the basic thesis here was laughable and he didn't need to ping anyone, or comment further.

-- your spin of it just makes you look silly [not laughable].

As opposed to spending time and energy insisting PH honor an invisible contract to go away?

157 posted on 12/07/2003 12:41:52 PM PST by donh
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To: Elsie
And to be a believer in Evolution, none of these things are required.

Right. because classical evolutionary theorists do not spend energy on origins. Like Darwin, they take origins as a given to work from, and not their problem to address.

158 posted on 12/07/2003 12:44:02 PM PST by donh
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To: donh
That is exactly right. Because science does not represent itself to be absolute, unquestioning truth, science is always ready to bow to better evidence.

So why are you so convinced of the theory of evolution, is not really just an idea, which changes constantly in light of new data, moving further and further away from the original concept.

Is it not the scientists being the current "witch burners" to anyone who disagrees with their entrenched "ideas", ask any scientist who is not working to prove entrenched "ideas", how open minded "the establishment" is.
159 posted on 12/07/2003 12:47:24 PM PST by snowballinhell (Me thinks something is afoot)
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To: xzins
Go read them again. And again. And again.

/ Same old arguments.

It would be nice if someone said something different, wouldn't it? :>)

It would. Unfortunately, the creationist attack on science curriculum continues unabated in courts and in front of school boards, even as we speak, so I will continue to retrace the same old subjects, in every way that I can think of, over and over. If it's getting to you, please feel free to read other threads.

160 posted on 12/07/2003 12:48:20 PM PST by donh
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