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.”
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.
There were changes, but the individuals exhibiting the change were not successful, not fit, did not survive.
There is more and more evidence that adaptation to an environment is preprogrammed in. The finches would adapt back and forth to the changes in conditions, suggesting it is part of their intelligently designed mechanism.
Darwin was and is wrong! Keep watching the journals. Link
For example, clams, snails, octipi, "intelligent designers"
Are "intelligent designers" further evolved. I tend to believe we are. :-)
Sigh. Yet again a creationist reveals that he doesn't have a clue what "Darwinism" actually predicts, or any real understanding of the thing he attempts to debate against. This is called a "straw man attack", since it's like declaring victory after beating up a scarecrow instead of a real opponent.
You say "“Unbelievable stability” is not a prediction of Darwinism.". Well gee, let's see what Darwin himself actually predicted, shall we?
Species of different genera and classes have not changed at the same rate, or in the same degree. In the oldest tertiary beds a few living shells may still be found in the midst of a multitude of extinct forms. Falconer has given a striking instance of a similar fact, in an existing crocodile associated with many strange and lost mammals and reptiles in the sub-Himalayan deposits. The Silurian Lingula differs but little from the living species of this genus; whereas most of the other Silurian Molluscs and all the Crustaceans have changed greatly. The productions of the land seem to change at a quicker rate than those of the sea, of which a striking instance has lately been observed in Switzerland. There is some reason to believe that organisms, considered high in the scale of nature, change more quickly than those that are low: though there are exceptions to this rule. The amount of organic change, as Pictet has remarked, does not strictly correspond with the succession of our geological formations; so that between each two consecutive formations, the forms of life have seldom changed in exactly the same degree. Yet if we compare any but the most closely related formations, all the species will be found to have undergone some change. When a species has once disappeared from the face of the earth, we have reason to believe that the same identical form never reappears. The strongest apparent exception to this latter rule, is that of the so- called `colonies' of M. Barrande, which intrude for a period in the midst of an older formation, and then allow the pre- existing fauna to reappear; but Lyell's explanation, namely, that it is a case of temporary migration from a distinct geographical province, seems to me satisfactory.So gibber about how "stability" for some species is not a prediction of Darwinism all you like, but you're completely and ignorantly wrong. It most certainly *is* a prediction of Darwinism, and has been since 1859. You're only 144 years behind in your scientific knowledge, which at least puts you well ahead of the many young-Earth creationists who are blissfully unaware of the 18th Century (not a typo) evidence for an old Earth (the vast age of the Earth was accepted of necessity long before either Darwin or radiometric dating were even around, contrary to what the YECs would have you believe).These several facts accord well with my theory. I believe in no fixed law of development, causing all the inhabitants of a country to change abruptly, or simultaneously, or to an equal degree. The process of modification must be extremely slow. The variability of each species is quite independent of that of all others. Whether such variability be taken advantage of by natural selection, and whether the variations be accumulated to a greater or lesser amount, thus causing a greater or lesser amount of modification in the varying species, depends on many complex contingencies, -- on the variability being of a beneficial nature, on the power of intercrossing, on the rate of breeding, on the slowly changing physical conditions of the country, and more especially on the nature of the other inhabitants with which the varying species comes into competition. Hence it is by no means surprising that one species should retain the same identical form much longer than others; or, if changing, that it should change less. We see the same fact in geographical distribution; for instance, in the land-shells and coleopterous insects of Madeira having come to differ considerably from their nearest allies on the continent of Europe, whereas the marine shells and birds have remained unaltered. We can perhaps understand the apparently quicker rate of change in terrestrial and in more highly organised productions compared with marine and lower productions, by the more complex relations of the higher beings to their organic and inorganic conditions of life, as explained in a former chapter.
-- Charles Darwin, "On the Origin of Species"
If you want to disagree with what Darwin *actually* said on the matter, feel free, but you do your position a disservice when you reveal that you haven't the slightest idea what predictions he actually made, while not letting that stop you from attacking what you made up about what he said or didn't say.
It's as if creationists believe a priori that evolution must be stupid and wrong and dishonest, therefore any stupid, wrong, and dishonest thing the creationists dream up about evolution must actually be a position that evolutionists hold and therefore a valid target. I can think of no other explanation for such behavior.
It would be refreshing if for a change creationists would actually learn what evolutionary science *actually* says and then provided arguments against *that*. Instead, almost without exception I have to spend my time explaining to them why they're finding fault with what they *imagine* evolution is about instead of what it actually *is* about.
It's like someone arguing against the Bible on the grounds that Adam and Mary wouldn't have been able to get Moses on the ark in order to evade the Four Horsemen. All too many creationist critiques of evolution are similarly based on poorly grasped and jumbled bits and pieces of the actual big picture.
Do even *you* believe this hyperbole?
This discovery is intriguing in a "well would you look at *that*" sort of way, but your orgasm over your hope that it is any sort of "bombshell" that somehow causes any problems for evolutionary science is just goofy.
WOW! I didn't know that. No wonder Moses was not on the ark. :-)
On a more serious note, you are so right in that post. I hope folks read it completely and truly ponder what you are trying to convey.
Well.. I'm TRYING to, but my doctor suggests that I REMOVE the polyps. Maybe they'll allow me to digest food more efficiently and I can eat less, but who knows??
Yes. Creation Science is an oxymoron. Creation Science is bludgeoning with willful ignorance.
The same people will be back again dumb as a stump tomorrow with the same posts you have rebutted so well today. It's the name of the game. It's all they have. When you join a cult, what's outside of it doesn't count for much anyway. The only real world is what's inside.
Just to clear things up, the commentary within the article (In Green) was not provided by me (bondserv). It was provided by the staff at Creation-Evolution Headlines.
You guys play rough!
Reality is a harsh mistress.
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