Evolution of Mammals Re-evaluated

AaxelB writes "A study described in the New York Times rethinks mammalian evolution. Specifically, that the mass extinction of the dinosaurs had relatively little impact on mammals and that the steps in mammals' evolution happened well before and long after the dinosaurs' death."

What About the Other Dinosaurs?

[Anonymous Coward]

Most paleontologists now think that birds descended from dinosaurs. So in a sense, even dinosaurs in one form escaped the calamity.

Don't forget varanus komodoensis [wikipedia.org] ... and Strom Thurman [wikipedia.org], he died out only four years ago and was the most prominent organism to escape the icy grasp of natural selection!

Re:What About the Other Dinosaurs?

[Anonymous Coward]

"...Dinosaurs were created on day 6 of the creation week approximately 6,000 years ago, along with other land animals, and therefore co-existed with humans."

"...Dinosaurs lived in harmony with other animals, (probably including in the Garden of Eden) eating only plants;" and "pairs of each dinosaur kind were taken onto Noah's Ark during the Great Flood and were preserved from drowning."

"Dinosaur bones originated during the mass killing of the Flood;" and "some descendants of those dinosaurs taken aboard the Ark still roam the earth today."

And you can look that up! [conservapedia.com]

Re:What About the Other Dinosaurs?

[wiredlogic]

And you can look that up!

"Conservapedia". That's a good one. Of course, I had to go to an authoritative source [wikipedia.org] to find out more facts about this aberration.

Re:What About the Other Dinosaurs?

[Monokeros]

Easy. Elephants, hippos, alligators, lions, polar bears, and kitty cats were the food for the dinosaurs. The dinosaurs made their way through the dragons, unicorns, hobbits and fairies by the time the flood ended and the rest were spared. They're living on a ranch in Montana now.

Re:What About the Other Dinosaurs?

[iminplaya]

They're living on a ranch in Montana now.

"Gonna be a dental floss tycoon [lyricsfreak.com]"

Re:What About the Other Dinosaurs?

[arminw]

....Saying God made them diet is cheating!......

The biblical record states that the animals come to Noah. It wouldn't be cheating if all those animals were babies or at least very young. There is nothing that says they had to be fully grown. Such little animals would eat much less and eventually grow up to reproduce.

Re:What About the Other Dinosaurs?

[truckaxle]

The biblical record states that the animals come to Noah.

The Noachian flood is falsifiable on so many different levels - it really only takes a few minutes of unbiased thinking.

Just how did these baby polar bears, kola bears, blind cave fish and blind mole rats make the oceanic journey and arrive in the Middle East.

Or better yet on the other end. Why is there *strong* geographic patterns of species distribution. For example, how did the marsupials almost exclusively arrive in Australia?). Biogeography, is only one of many different conclusive evidences that discount the Flood story.

Such little animals would eat much less and eventually grow up to reproduce.

I dunno I would not want to feed, baby elephants or grizzly bears, let alone baby Sauropods.

Re:What About the Other Dinosaurs?

[wiredlogic]

The Noachian flood is falsifiable on so many different levels - it really only takes a few minutes of unbiased thinking.

I'm not a creationist here, but there is a theory that a significant flood of the Black Sea [wikipedia.org] happened around 5600 BC. This would would have likely wiped out many settlements in the affected areas and have been recorded by the sirvivors as a significant event. While this is not a flood of truly global scale, it is a likely source for the Noah story.

With regard to the dinosaurs. I always thought that the explanation is that they didn't get on the ark and, subsequently, they all went the way of the unicorn.

Re:What About the Other Dinosaurs?

[Tatarize]

I don't find that flood story explanation is that compelling. There certainly was a local flood in the area. Most civilizations tend to settle next to water and water tends to have floods. However, beyond this I see little to no evidence that there was or even needs to be a historical source for a literary myth. Noah's Ark is almost certainly a rehashing of the Epic of Gilgamesh from the Sumerians and Babylonians. It is entirely possible that idea of a major flood comes from such an event. It is highly suggestive, but beyond providing very minor details for the setting it conveys almost nothing of the story. The source of the idea for the setting of the story has nothing to do with the setting itself much less the story proper. Such a comment does not explain any part of the 'why' in the question why does the story exist or any of the events in the story. It only suggest why they think floods might exist.

Well, Noah's ark is a myth through and through. Everything from about Genesis 1 to Exodus 40 is entirely fiction (probably true even through Revelations with an extremely minor caveated exception for Hezekiah, which actually has a secondary external source to verify some claims). The reason why the "dinosaurs missed the ark" isn't an acceptable answer is because biblical literalists take the Bible literally. The Bible says all the land animals got on the ark and all the land animals lived. So creationists jump through a huge number of hoops to save the fish who would be crushed by the water or explode because of the altered salt content, stop the plants from dying out, restoring the ecosystems to their previous state, putting all the different animals in the specific places that only they exist, explaining fossils, and providing a way for the dinosaurs to live... even though they went extinct 64 million years ago (save the birds which are part of a certain branch) and certainly aren't around today.

So oddly enough, to cling to a couple throw away words in a myth they insist the dinosaurs were alive and happy the last time Noah saw them, which would have been about the same time as the laws of physics were changed to make rainbows exist (Genesis 9:13) as a way of saying sorry for killing everybody (all-knowing deities should know better).

Re:What About the Other Dinosaurs?

[jotok]

Just a quick question, since you seem to have a ready answer--

When you say that these events are "not true," do you mean that it's not true in the sense that the literalists think it IS true? Ie, you think it is a story or a myth or something, but definately not literally true?

Or, do you take a more extreme position that absolutely nothing in the stories is true?
I'm thinking of Aesop's fables, where the story is almost certainly made up (as I do not know any talking foxes who desire grapes) and yet describes a truism of some kind.

As a Catholic I was taught that, so far as Genesis goes, the argument over whether or not events ocurred exactly as described was a waste of time. Rather, the "takeaway" from Genesis is that the earth (the universe, I suppose) is a made thing, with a specific purpose, and that it was generally considered "very good" although people have an innate tendency to fuck it up. Noah's flood is a story about obedience and God's propensity to pull a Joe Pesci from time to time, moreso than a literal account of the fate of this or that species.

Do you believe that these things are also "not true," and if so, in what meaning of the phrase?

Re:What About the Other Dinosaurs?

[steelfood]

The dieties in the old testament are not the all-powerful, all-knowing Diety in the new testament. The god in the old (who admits he is actually one among many in the first commandment through forbidding of the worship of the others) might be significantly more powerful than a mere human, and immortal to boot, but not nearly as "perfect" as the God in the new. Attempts to reconcile the two would only result in numerous logical inconsistencies. Why, for example, would an omniscient diety need to test believers. The omniscient already knows whether Abraham would sacrifice his own son. Further, if the diety of the old is not omniscient and perfectly good, then how did the death of Jesus transform said diety into one who is omniscient and perfectly good. And why was magic commonplace and an accepted part of life in the old but considered taboo in the new? Did said diety suddenly revise his stance when he ascended from mere god-dom to God-dom after the death of his supposed son?

Don't forget that Christianity was historically a weapon used to control the masses. In order to control people through belief, original thought must be extinguished. Those are the easiest people to control: the ones who are so desperate for something--anything that might bring meaning to their life that they'll eat up every lie the controllers tell in order to keep them in line and remain in power.

The tale of Noah's ark is littered with signs of ignorance. Certainly, a flood could have happened way back when, and someone could have built a giant ark to live upon before that flood, and that person could have loved and kept all sorts of animals on said ark, but to say that the flood covered the whole world, and all the animals of the world were in the ark, would be quite impossible. Human technology and dominance has never been more advanced, and such a feat today would not be possible, simply because we have not yet categorized all the animals in the world, nor are we capable of building self-contained environments wherein the species within would survive for a long period of time. Both are due to the lack of knowledge, something that cannot be reconciled by the non-omniscient old testament diety. That, and even if both the knowledge and technology were sufficient at that time, such an ark would be of a fair enough size that it would have left enough traces for us to easily validate its existence. As such, we still don't know where it is, if there ever was one.

Personally, if the knowledge and technology existed for such a creation as described in the old testament, I would think that Noah actually took the ark and his family into space and never came back. After all, who would want to live on a planet that's controlled by such a wrathful diety in the first place?

God is Luv....

[truckaxle]

Most people, you being one, criticize the Bible, having never read it, let alone carefully studied it with an open mind. If you had, you would read passages like:

Sure like:

Deuteronomy
"As you approach a town to attack it, first offer its people terms for peace. If they accept your terms and open the gates to you, then all the people inside will serve you in forced labor. But if they refuse to make peace and prepare to fight, you must attack the town. When the LORD your God hands it over to you, kill every man in the town. But you may keep for yourselves all the women, children, livestock, and other plunder. You may enjoy the spoils of your enemies that the LORD your God has given you."

In this neat little passage we have slavery, genocide and rape by command of the god of the OT.

Here is something to describes the character of the god of the OT...

Exodus
"The LORD is a man of war: the LORD is his name."

And here is some more OT god mercy and graciousness and long-suffering. Obviously the love and mercy did not apply to young virgin children girls.

Numbers
"They warred against Midian, as YAHWEH commanded Moses, and killed every male. They killed the kings of Midian with the rest of their slain ... and they also slew Balaam the son of Beor with the sword. And the people of Israel took captive the women of Midian and their little ones; and they took as booty all their cattle, their flocks, and all their goods. All their cities in the places where they dwelt, and all their encampments, they burned with fire ... Moses was enraged ... 'So you spared the women ... kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has had sexual intercourse with a man but keep the virgins for yourselves ... divide them up evenly.'"

Now here we have clearly child rape. Keeping in mind that the Midians were pure evil (the standard apologetic response to the above passage) just how young do think these virgin children were? Does not your OT gods grace apply to them?

God hates evil, but loves people.

Is that why whenever the "spirit of the lord" moves within Sampson he goes out to kill people. Yup the love of people just is quite clear in the above passages.

In my experience biblical illiteracy is widespread among bible believers.

Finally the flood did come.

No it did not! The flood is a not only a myth but a borrowed myth. Check the story of Gilgamesh, of which sources predate any OT sources. Try to read something other than Christian Apologetics.

Further the proof the flood does not exists is clearly and abundantly obvious in Geology. Get out into the field take a book or surface geological map and look around and will encounter geological formations that deny the flood.

Re:What About the Other Dinosaurs?

[Tatarize]

My question is what color was the sky prior to Noah's flood?

Oddly enough, in the story, after God drowns everything for being completely evil. Man, woman, child, infant, fetus... all dead. God feels really really bad about it. Apparently he didn't think it through or know what was going to happen so in Genesis 9:9-13 he makes rainbows exist as a way to say, "I'm really sorry and will never do it again." -- However, rainbows are produced by a fairly trivial byproduct of the diffusion of white light through a medium. This is roughly why we have a blue sky. The light from the sun is diffused and the blue light is diffused more than the other colors. However, if this diffusion didn't exist before God screwed up by drowning everybody and everything (seems like a better solution than later sacrificing Himself to Himself to pay Himself for the debt mankind owes to Him and worse than just not keeping a grudge against people who didn't do anything wrong but somehow get the blame for some other mythological couple doing something wrong without the facilities to tell right from wrong), what color was the sky?

Re:What About the Other Dinosaurs?

[Yoozer]

The Noachian flood is falsifiable on so many different levels - it really only takes a few minutes of unbiased thinking.

And the idea of having 8 people shovel out massive amounts of manure. Every day. Goodness, what a job.

And the idea that if you rise all the waters you'll get a pressure-cooker of an atmosphere.

Not to mention the structural integrity of the boat.

Re:What About the Other Dinosaurs?

[Peter La Casse]

Just how did these baby polar bears, kola bears, blind cave fish and blind mole rats make the oceanic journey and arrive in the Middle East.

Magic.

Oh, you don't believe in magic? Then you don't need any more reason to disbelieve that a magical being caused a worldwide flood, but you'll need harder questions than those to convince people who do believe in magic that it doesn't really exist.

Re:What About the Other Dinosaurs?

[Citizen of Earth]

Just how did these baby polar bears, kola bears, blind cave fish and blind mole rats make the oceanic journey and arrive in the Middle East.

And once there, how did Noah have room for over 1.25-million different species of animals on his boat? Did Noah save the plants? How did they get there?

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:What About the Other Dinosaurs?

[Fordiman]

We'll have to call it early quantum state phenomenon - Only way to fit five-thousand species of mammal on the same boat...

Alternate theory

[Average_Joe_Sixpack]

Most sensible explanation [youtube.com]

Re:Alternate theory

[AeroIllini]

This is a good one too [youtube.com]

Magic man done it theory

[Bowling Moses]

A magic man done it! [youtube.com] With "forcey forces" of coursey.

Re:Magic man done it theory

[Fordiman]

That dude is hilarious. I saw him on Never Mind the Buzzcocks, the ep with the guy from Torchwood.

Re:Alternate theory

[franksands]

Sorry for the comment abuse, but I just had to post this comment from youtube:

evilc27 (2 hours ago)
The fact that we are born babies and evolve into people is evidence enough to dispel the myth of evolution. If we were born monkeys, then there would be billions of monkeys in the world as there are billions of people. This does not equate. People have called me stupid for expressing my facts, but I am far from stupid. I took an IQ test at my church school, and I scored 95. You cannot get more than 100% and so I am in the top 5% of the smartest people in the world. chew on that disbelievers.

This just made my day.

Re:Alternate theory

[Fordiman]

Gah!

Oh my god, I don't believe I've ever seen such unbridled stupid!

Honestly. With the mostly well assembled gramer and proper punctuation, I have to assume that was satire; you'd have to have an IQ below 75 to say that shit.

Wasn't this common knowledge?

[elhondo]

I had thought this point was actually a point of disagreement between Gould and Dawkins, with Dawkins pointing out that the cambrian explosion wasn't as sudden as Gould had pointed out. I think this particular point was discussed in Bryson's "A Brief History of Nearly Everything". I didn't think anyone still held this viewpoint about mammalian evolution anymore.

Re:Wasn't this common knowledge?

[AJWM]

What the hell does the cambrian explosion have to do with mammalian evolution? There's a several hundred million year time span between the two, and that's just to the beginning of the mammal line with the synapsids like dimetrodon. Add another hundred million or two before we get to anything that most people would consider mammalian.

Re:Wasn't this common knowledge?

[AJWM]

Evolution rate is determined (at the upper limit) by the gene change rate per generation. Whether that's "slow" or "fast" depends on how long a generation is and what niches are available for variant offspring to be more viable in than their progenitors. That latter is why we tend to see rapid speciation some recovery time after extinction events: a lot of niches are left empty by extinct species. (Obviously, though, those niches were temporarily absent or the previous occupiers wouldn't have gone exinct -- extending the definition of niche here a little to include criteria like "not raining flaming death from the skies" ;-) Although clearly, if a critter is well adapted to its environmental niche, mutations away from that optimum are going to be selected against -- which is why we still have critters like crocodiles and sharks (although we have variations of those).

Note that sex -- gene swapping -- greatly accelerates the rate of evolution (in terms of per generation, not necessarily in absolute time) since offspring are then no longer clones of their parents. That probably triggered the Cambrian explosion as much as anything else, although the fact that soft-bodied invertebrates tend not to leave much in the way of fossils may have exaggerated the explosion in the fossil record. I.e, it's not so much that there wasn't a huge diversity of multicellular lifeforms in the precambrian, it's that they were of a sort that tends not to leave easily detected fossils. (Fossil jellyfish, anyone? Or octopus, for that matter.)

Re:Wasn't this common knowledge?

[victorvodka]

Dude you said "cambrian" - there was a cambrian explosion too and perhaps that's what you mean. But here we're talking about the Cretaceous, 65 Million years ago instead of 600 Million years ago.

Hrmm...

[grub]

But can they shoehorn it into the framework of a 6000 year old Earth?

Re:Hrmm...

[mark-t]

Well, that all depends how you measure age.

If by *all* appearances something appears fully mature, is it? What if it was merely created to look that way so that it would be functional immediately, rather than waiting for however long it takes to be viable.

Of course, the anti-creationist might be inclined to criticize such a remark with the reflection that if that were so with the universe, how would we know that everything was not, for example, merely created yesterday, complete with all apparent history?

Well... in general, we wouldn't. Unless it was pointed out to us. Of course, even if it was, we would never be able to prove it, because the actuality the universe was younger than it appeared would not be perceivable from within the universe. Even our own sense of reason and logic would be bound by it because that would have been created just as the universe itself would have been. And no evidence within the universe could ever be uncovered to genuinely prove that it was young, simply because it would have been explicitly created in a mature state to provide immediate functionality and use.

But to be frank, whether you believe in Creation or not, it really doesn't matter whether you think the world is six thousand years old or nearly six billion. The earth doesn't appear to get offended at misguessing its age by a factor of a million or so, so don't sweat it.

If we spent as much time and effort into simply trying to get along with people who are different from ourselves or have different values as we do trying to prove that we are better than others, or that we are right and others are wrong, the world would be a far, far better place.

Evolution? I thought Jebus created the dinosaurs!

[Ralph Spoilsport]

How could it be true otherwise?

Here's an interesting question: how long did it take for creatures to speciate after the Permian extinction? I wonder if there was the same amount of lag-time after that disaster...

RS

Re:Evolution? I thought Jebus created the dinosaur

[rucs_hack]

I thought it was about six million years, could be wrong though.

The big thing was grass, it hadn't been around for most of the time the dinosours had existed. The domination of grasses after the CT event really helped the spread of species

Re:Evolution? I thought Jebus created the dinosaur

[rucs_hack]

I don't have a tv, although I do watch other peoples from time to time.

I have heard of the vegetation thing, but it was other flora, not grasses, so far as I understand, ferns or somesuch.

Re:Evolution? I thought Jebus created the dinosaur

[rucs_hack]

Oh yes, they were around, but only as a relatively minor plant. They became dominant after the CT event.

well, duh.

[Triv]

I've known about this since Sunday [youtube.com].

Triv

Shamelessly off-topic, but must be done...

[jeevesbond]

From Conservapedia [conservapedia.com]:

The Theory of evolution is a materialist explanation of the history of life on earth. Despite being the scientific standard, in the United States, there are a significant number of lay people who do not accept evolution. According to a CBS poll, only 13% of American adults believe humans evolved without divine guidance.

A CBS survey said there's no evolution! If 87% of people say there's no evolution then this article is a sham sir!

Back on-topic, what interests me is:

But the researchers conceded that much more research would be required to explain the delayed rise of present-day mammals.

If it wasn't the dinosaurs stopping the evolution of mammals (i.e. dinosaurs dominating the habitat), then what did? Could it be that the available habitats were just better suited to dinosaurs vs. mammals? That's the first thing that springs to mind (although am no paleontologist). As ever with this sort of thing, the finding raises more questions than it answers!

Re:Shamelessly off-topic, but must be done...

[geek]

Well, I may be corrected on this but I'll say it anyway since it's what I was taught in college. The median world temp around the peek of the dinosaurs was very high, somewhere around 130 to 140 degrees and there was a much larger amount of CO2 in the air. I would have assumed that as this changed mammals were given their chance at the top of the food chain.

I always interpreted mammalian evolution to be parallel with climate change. I suspect however many people would disagree.

Re:Shamelessly off-topic, but must be done...

[WalksOnDirt]

The higher temperature of the Cretaceous has already been referred to. Estimates suggest that at the beginning of the Cretaceous, the Global Mean Surface Temperature (GMST) was around 20C (about 5 hotter than today's value of 15C), and was about the same at the period's end - but peaked to a high of 25C in the Upper Cretaceous.

From http://www.bbm.me.uk/portsdown/PH_130_Envmnt.htm#t empr [bbm.me.uk]

Re:Shamelessly off-topic, but must be done...

[E++99]

According to a CBS poll, only 13% of American adults believe humans evolved without divine guidance.

A CBS survey said there's no evolution! If 87% of people say there's no evolution then this article is a sham sir!

There is no 87% saying there's no evolution. They are saying there's no MATERIALISTIC evolution. It's probably the 87% of us who believe that life itself has divine guidance. Whether evolution or anything else is random/mechanical or divine-influenced is a purely philosophical one, not a scientific one (at this point at least). That includes the arguement for "random mutation". There is obviously no evidence that the mutations which gave rise to speciations were "random" and not in some way directed, naturally or supernaturally, or otherwise forced in some particular direction. Once we arrive at a better understanding of how DNA works, perhaps it will be possible to form mathematical models to determine whether or not the "random mutation" theory is feasible. Maybe it's only feasible during intermittant radiation events that decimate populations by causing widespread mutations, leaving a few individuals with improvements, who go on to reproduce and build up populations again. Maybe it's not possible at all.

If it wasn't the dinosaurs stopping the evolution of mammals (i.e. dinosaurs dominating the habitat), then what did? Could it be that the available habitats were just better suited to dinosaurs vs. mammals?

But that supposes that this event was an inevitablity just waiting to happen. If you're going to ask that, you might as well ask what was stopping single-celled organisms from evolving into multi-celled organisms for 2 BILLION years. Awaiting an extremely unlikely series of random events? Awaiting a global radiation event? Awaiting divine influx? I don't know.

But a harsh environment doesn't stop evolution, it enables it. If a species has plenty of food and no significant predators, then a lot more will survive than just the fittest, and there will probably be many thousands of disadvantageous-but-not-fatal mutations passed on to the species for every advantageous one that comes along. Sex selection could mitigate this a little, maybe, but not much.

Re:Shamelessly off-topic, but must be done...

[Daniel Dvorkin]

There is obviously no evidence that the mutations which gave rise to speciations were "random" and not in some way directed, naturally or supernaturally, or otherwise forced in some particular direction.

"Obvious" if you ignore pretty much all work in molecular genetics at least since Watson and Crick.

Once we arrive at a better understanding of how DNA works, perhaps it will be possible to form mathematical models to determine whether or not the "random mutation" theory is feasible.

You mean, the way bioinformaticists and statistical geneticists do all the time, right now, and have been for years?

Maybe it's only feasible during intermittant radiation events that decimate populations by causing widespread mutations, leaving a few individuals with improvements, who go on to reproduce and build up populations again. Maybe it's not possible at all.

Do you have any data, at all, that would support either one of these hypotheses? Or are you just cut'n'pasting from some ID site somewhere?

Re:Shamelessly off-topic, but must be done...

[bogjobber]

There is obviously no evidence that the mutations which gave rise to speciations were "random" and not in some way directed, naturally or supernaturally, or otherwise forced in some particular direction.

Well, apparently you have your own definition about what is obvious. An *overwhelming* amount of evidence points to genetic mutations being random. Your claims have no scientific basis. None whatsoever. What you are saying is pure speculation, with absolutely no proof to back it up. Saying "sometime in the future our views may change" is not good enough. Go read a biology textbook, and stop trying to make a scientific justification for your faith. It doesn't work.

Re:conservapedia is satire

[Harry Coin]

Nope. It's not satire. It was created by Andrew Schlafly, son of arch-conservative anti-femininst Phillys Schlafly [wikipedia.org], and is used by her Eagle Forum [wikipedia.org].

If the ideas presented on that site induce laughter, it is because neoconservative ideas are completely ridiculous. Really, Mark Twain couldn't produce satire so deep. I honestly hope that the GOP uses that site as their definitive reference. Within two generations, they'll be too stupid to breed.

LIAR

[Doc Ruby]

Conservapedia is self-parody, but it is produced and maintained by "Conservatives" as a repository of official "Conservative" dogma. Because they think Wikipedia is "liberal", as they clearly state in their About [conservapedia.com] page. Typically Conservative, they're using the Wikipedia software for free, but don't even mutter a minimal thanks to Wikipedia - they just bash it.

Anonymous Conservative Coward is a typical Conservative: trying to have it both ways, all ways, whenever it's convenient. There is no "truth" for today's "Conservatives" (What are they "conserving"? They're wasters, reckless consumers and rampant destroyers.) So whenever they dart out from behind their favorite weasel words to make a clear statement, they're usually a joke, at least because they contradict whatever other statement they made before that was once convenient then.

"Reality has a well-known liberal bias." - Stephen Colbert [thinkprogress.org]

and that's sad...

[CasperIV]

Whats worse is that some of those surveyed might not be in Alabama...

Re:and that's sad...

[ksalter]

You're right, some might be from the Northeast (like Dover, PA for example). So us dumbass, inbred rednecks from Alabama do not have a lock on scientific ignorance and religious idiocy.

Damn, whatever will happen when the Deep South is no longer looked on as the primary source of bible beating, homophobic, racist, ignorant fundies? Unfortunately, when that day happens, it will be the entire US that is looked on as the primary source of bible beating, homophobic, racist, ignorant fundies.

Many mammalian lineages predate the K-T extinction

[saforrest]

If you read The Ancestor's Tale [amazon.com] by Richard Dawkins, you'll find that recent genetic evidence suggests that many of the distinct branches of modern mammals predate the K-T extinction.

In particular, by the time of the K-T extinction, I believe that the primate lineage had already separated from rodents, as well as the laurasiatheres [wikipedia.org] (all hoofed mammals, lions, tigers, bears, etc.), xenarthrans [slashdot.org] (armadillos, sloths, etc.), and afrotheres [wikipedia.org] (elephants, manatees, anteaters, etc.).

So, while most mammals in the Cretaceous may still have been tiny shrew-like creatures scurrying around in the underbrush, many of the modern lineages had already come into separate existence.

It is also interesting to read, in the book, that our nearest non-primate relatives aside from the tree shrews are rodents. I can sort of see it: give a mouse a little more finger dexterity and it wouldn't not that different from a lemur. It also might explain why rodents are such good laboratory specimens.

Re:Many mammalian lineages predate the K-T extinct

[rapett0]

While I am a programmer at heart I supposed, I do have a strong interest in biology (amongst other things). I just wanted to add to any geeks out there who have any interest at all in biology, read this book. I found it to be excellent on many levels. I am not here to do a book review, just wanted to say it comes highly recommened from someone *not* in the field. Also, if your in OC (SoCal), I think I saw a flyer that he gave a speech down in Laguna Beach a few months ago. Not sure if he is normally in the area or not.

Re:Many mammalian lineages predate the K-T extinct

[belg4mit]

>It also might explain why rodents are such good laboratory specimens.
See, you're actually assuming that they are good models, whereas it's not clear that they are.
Indeed, regardless of how good a model they are, they are rather used because of their size,
cost and fewer objections by laity. People want to save the cute bunnies (actually lagomorphs,
close cousins of the rodents), but most don't care about the white mice in the cage next to it.
And some people object to being compared to monkeys, apes or pigs :-P

Re:Many mammalian lineages predate the K-T extinct

[saforrest]

See, you're actually assuming that they are good models, whereas it's not clear that they are.

Yes, that's true.

It may well be that any old mammal would do, and mice are merely good because they are small (and for breeding purposes, they have a very short generational cycle and large litters).

I suppose what I was trying to suggest was that mice may be particularly good to compare for specific genetic reasons beyond the obvious ones I just mentioned. Though any argument about our particular closeness to mice could be made about any other rodent or lagomorph just as easily: mice are just as close to us as the cute bunnies are, and as the R.O.U.s would be if they existed.

Yes, and....

[Conspiracy_Of_Doves]

Specifically, that the mass extinction of the dinosaurs had relatively little impact on mammals and that the steps in mammals' evolution happened well before and long after the dinosaurs' death.

Do they think that those steps ever could have taken place if the dinosaurs were still around?

Re:Yes, and....

[jc42]

Do they think that those steps ever could have taken place if the dinosaurs were still around?

Actually, Stephen Jay Gould wrote a fair amount on this topic, as part of his "contingency" hhypothesis. This is the idea that a fair part of evolutionary development is random and accidental, and if we could reset the clock to an earlier time, things would develop differently.

He viewed the K-T extinction event as a "natural experiment" with this. Before it, there was wide diversity in both dinosaurs and mammals, but the large animals were dinosaurs. Afterwards, when things settled down, there was wide diversity in both dinosaurs (which we now call "birds") and mammals, but the large animals are mostly mammals.

Gould argued that this wasn't because back then, dinosaurs were superior, while mammals are superior now. It's more because the first time around, dinosaurs accidentally got hit by mutations that gave them the large-animal niches, and the second time around it was the mammals that got those mutations. But at smaller sizes, which is most of the ecosystem, both dinosaurs and mammals (and reptiles) were of roughly equal diversity 70 million years ago as they are today.

And, let's face it, spectacular as the giant beasts may be, it's really the mice and sparrows (and anoles) that are the important species. They'll all be around when we're long extinct, no matter what kills us.

Of course, there is a major extinction event going on right now that's wiping out most of the large species. And it's well understood what caused it this time: humans. So whatever species develops intelligence in another 10 or 50 million years will have another major extinction event to analyze and argue over. I wonder what they'll conclude?

Is Creationism Imaginary?

[nbritton]

Evolution:
x + 2 + 3 + 5 + 7 + y + 13 = 42

Creationism:
x^2 + 43 = 42

Re:Is Creationism Imaginary?

[vga_init]

uhh... x = i ?

The i is for "intelligence."

Re:From a friend

[Tackhead]

> a similar analysis for birds, published recently in the journal Biology Letters, revealed that more than 40 avian lineages survived the mass extinctions. Most paleontologists now think that birds descended from dinosaurs. So in a sense, even dinosaurs in one form escaped the calamity.

In other words, chicken tastes like dinosaur!

(In Creationist America and Lysenkoist Russia, dinosaurs taste like chicken!)

Re:From a friend

[Cro Magnon]

So in a sense, even dinosaurs in one form escaped the calamity. I found it pretty cool.

It's not so "cool" having to clean dinosaur droppings off my car, though.

OT: They're not cavemen.

[zippthorne]

They're just scruffy house-dwellers with poor hygiene. So they're like one step up from hippies.

What kind of marketing genius dreams up an entire campaign involving alleged cave-people who don't exhibit the only qualifying criterion for that status that exists? i.e. living in a cave.

Re:OT: They're not cavemen.

[zippthorne]

More of an idiot savant.

not necessarily as a result of the ads, I know about the Government Employees Insurance Corporation, but I neither have it, nor intend on purchasing it. I was suckered by the much more relevant-to-car-insurance ad campaign by Progressive.

Re:OT: They're not cavemen.

[jotok]

I'm sorry, but this needs to be said: somewhere, the dude that came up with that ad campaign is lighting cigars with hundred-dollar bills, and he's the idiot?

Ok. How's that DeVry education serving you, sonny jim?

Re:OT: They're not cavemen.

[zippthorne]

He's not lighting MY hundred dollar bills. He put the word geico on my mind, but not in a way that makes me want to actually buy anything from them. If I'm typical, then he's not lighting any dollar bills. If I'm not typical, then most people didn't notice the absurdity of alleged cavemen not actually living in caves; that part of the plan is a failure.

Unless that part of the plan didn't exist, and only happened by accident. Which brings us back to the concept of an idiot savant.

Re:From a friend

[thePig]

Can it be because there is more selection pressure due to the dinosaurs?
If there is more selection pressure, more the chance of diverging to new species.
And when dinosaurs died out, the mammals had a field day.

Re:Miss Leading title

[gardyloo]

Speaking of misleading titles! I got all excited about your post's title, anticipating a link to some Miss Universe-type website. Instead, all I got was a one-sentence comment.

Re:Sadly, probably so

[gardyloo]

But then again, I suppose your core beliefs don't really reflect that people are worth respecting.

Perhaps the parent poster believes that people's ideas are worth respecting.

Re:Sadly, probably so

[Fordiman]

The only 'evolutionist agenda' is a subset of the scientific agenda: to promote the understanding of how the universe works, and to investigate the universe to widen our understanding.

The only thing that causes evolutionary theory to stand out as a pariah is that it interferes with the credibility of religion. So it becomes an 'agenda', rather than a subset of biological science to those who are offended by the offense to their imaginary friend.

Can't deal with reality? Sorry, that's not my problem. Want to espouse your unsupported view? As with any semi-academic forum, you'd better be prepared for a debate - and as with any internet-based forum, you'd better be prepared for flaming.

Re:Re-evaluation

[zappepcs]

Yeah, sure. This one species of mammals is totally different from all the rest of them.

Not to bait flames here, but the evidence for divine creation is pretty damned weak if you take into account all the imperfect humans that had to be involved in bringing us 'his word'... while the evidence for evolution is getting stronger all the time, and this little theory of evolution doesn't mind a few corrections here and there. It's a bit tolerant of the process of discovery.

Re:Re-evaluation

[micromuncher]

This story demonstrates the strength of science and the evolution theory. Science is obligated to examine and correct itself based on evidence and this evidence doesn't shake evolution one bit.

And creationism demands blind faith to discount fact, history, and science. Who is to say that the creationists are wrong, because by their definition you cannot argue with them :-)

Re:Re-evaluation

[Oligonicella]

So, you propose that because we are humans, somehow we should ignore the tons (literally) of evolutionary evidence concerning our origins? Nope.

Re:Re-evaluation

[ChrisMaple]

The purpose of having words, sentences, and languages is to express thoughts. Throwing together phrases in defiance of sense defeats this purpose.

I know that cold hard facts should trump what we wish to be true, but for a question as fundamental as the origin of our own existence, maybe it works the other way.

This is just nonsense. For fundamental and crucial things, it is of the highest importance to use the rules of logic that make human understanding possible.

Re:Re-evaluation

[arminw]

....I'll give you the option for divine creation if you give me the option for evolution.......

The constitution guarantees that you can believe either one or anything else you want. The government is not supposed to prefer one religion above another. However, the evolutionary religion has managed to sell itself as science and illegally gets billions of dollars of tax money. Maybe it is time the ACLU sued the government for supporting religion.

Re:Re-evaluation

[fucksl4shd0t]

As a firm Turdist, what do I get when I tell you the difference between evolution and natural selection?

Re:Surprise, but not a showstopper

[Oligonicella]

Evolution is a theory of science, not a parlor talk theory. There is no faith in evolution, only vast reams of empirical data supporting it.

Re:Surprise, but not a showstopper

[ajs]

Evolution is a theory of science, not a parlor talk theory. There is no faith in evolution, only vast reams of empirical data supporting it.

That over-states the case rather drastically. First off, there's an awful lot of faith in evolution, and that's actually a point that far too many folks who defend evolution blindly should accept, otherwise they get blindsided with the news that ... shock, some corner of the theory was actually wrong.

There's faith in the idea that what we observe is representative of what happened before recorded history. There's faith that empiricism is generally valid (watch how many people leap to defend empiricism and tell me that that's not faith). There's faith that the vast majority of collected data hasn't been tampered with. There's faith that, on the whole, scientists are conscientious about their work, and do not seek to deceive. There is even faith that no one is holding a gun to the heads of everyone who has ever worked in the field to gather data, and telling them to lie.

I happen to share all of this faith, as I think it's a fair set of assumptions on which to base one's faith (as opposed to invisible men in the sky, to paraphrase George Carlin). That doesn't mean that it's anything other than faith, however. Fundamentally, all of this can be boiled down to a faith in Occam's Razor, a principle which was the straw that broke the camel's back in terms of convincing the budding, and as yet unnamed scientific movement that the Church wasn't necessarily wrong (they didn't go that far for another 50-100 years), but that they were not the only authority on which to base the evaluation of truth. Occam's Razor leads directly to the explosion of thought surrounding empiricism in the Renaissance, and ultimately to what we call science, today. That we rely on this grounding in pre-Renaissance thought to this day is an often-explored and frequently questioned element of faith in the process that we call the scientific method.

As for the vast reams of facts supporting evolution... there are vast reams of fact supporting a lot of crazy ideas. What's interesting about evolution is that those facts corroborate each other in intricate ways that would be very difficult to unravel as a whole. Certain facts may turn out to support conclusions which they did not originally seem to point to, but the whole has many more inter-related facts on which to stand.

Re:Surprise, but not a showstopper

[fucksl4shd0t]

It all boils down to faith, indeed. Because without it, we would each be forced as individuals to verify and review all of science, and if we had to do that before we could accept it, we'd still be breaking flint into flakes to attach to the end of sticks and hoping it doesn't rain today.

The choice in who to place your faith in is similarly simple. Do I trust millions, consisting of my peers, colleagues, friends, and family with a modern viewpoint and the benefit of education? Or do I trust what by today's standards are a handful of illiterate and superstitious people whose very existence can't even be known for certain, based on books whose original copies have long since been destroyed?

Re:Surprise, but not a showstopper

[testpoint]

I have recently examined the Marzeah Papyrus (7th century B.C.), fragments of the dead sea scrolls, septuagint leviticus , septuagint exodus and Gospel of John fragments all from the 3rd century A.D. Modern, nonparaphrased, versions of the Bible, corresponding to these fragments are accurately translated.

Many of the original writers and earliest translators could write and speak multiple languages. While you might consider them superstitious they weren't illiterate. William Tyndale, a 16th century scholar and translator was fluent in eight languages. His work influenced Shakespear and the King James version of the Bible.

Tyndale was strangled and burned at the stake because a version of the Bible that could be read by all, transferred power from the King and the Pope to the church, which Tyndale translated as congregation or congress (people) rather than church (hierarchy). Many credit Tyndale and his translation for furthering the concepts of representative democracy, individual responsibility, and equality.

Re:Surprise, but not a showstopper

[ajs]

I think the point was that the ORIGINAL texts (of which the, admitedly ancient text you refer to are mere copies) are lost to history. We'll never know if they're quite the same as what we're looking at, and certainly the Catholic church had a couple of rounds of eliminating books that they considered to be non-canon ... and when I say eliminating, I mean hunting down every copy and burning them.

As for the literacy thing... you're correct insofar as the new testament goes, but the OT is another matter. Many of the stories told therin are believed to be word-of-mouth tales that were told through generations before being committed to the written word, and there's no evidence that the original tellers read or wrote any language.

Sure, there were brilliant Christians, Jews, Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists and members of many other faiths. That's not really the point. The people who created those religions and told us that invisible men in the sky were talking to them all died many, many generations ago (even Smith, the founder of Mormanism is long since dead, and that's a RECENT religion). We have no reason to believe that these people could forsee the social issues present hundreds or thousands of years later, nor that they understood the world around them well enough to craft a book that would speak to issues which would take other men millenia to figure out. Only if we appeal to the existance of invisible men in the sky can we believe that these books would continue to maintain any relevance other than historical.

Re:Surprise, but not a showstopper

[Dasher42]

Faith in evolution? Faith? Quoth Dan Barker:

"Truth does not demand belief. Scientists do not join hands every Sunday, singing, "Yes, gravity is real! I will have faith! I will be strong! I believe in my heart that what goes up, up, up must come down, down. down. Amen!" If they did, we would think they were pretty insecure about it." :)

Re:Surprise, but not a showstopper

[Hognoxious]

Evolutionary is just a theory, not a law

It's neither - it's an adjective, meaning of, or pertaining to, evolution.

Re:This is Great

[Coryoth]

Until the next "re-thinking." Will we ever have hard evidence, or just thought experiments?

But we do have hard evidence - indeed it was hard evidence that helped lead to this rethinking. Recently there have been a number of finds of surprisingly large mammals that are much older than had previously been expected. They include a beaver like (pre)-mammal [wikipedia.org] from the Jurassic that was almost half a metre long, discovered in 2004, and two species large carnivorous mammal from the cretaceous [wikipedia.org] (dated to about 130 million years ago - or 65 million years prior to the dinosaur extenction) which were discovered in 2000 and 2005. Such large mammals (relatively speaking) during the time of the dinosaurs draws into question the previous belief that mammals were restricted to small rat/mouse like scavengers at that time. Instead we see evidence of large, active, meat eating mammals. This implies that mammals were rather less marginalised during the dinosaurs "reign" than previously thought, and imples that mammal evolutionary history needs to be rethought accordingly.

Re:This is Great

[Coryoth]

I should add that these fossil discoveries lead to various people taking a more serious look at the presumed facts of mammal evolution and were the catalyst for a "rethink", however there is even more "hard evidence" in the paper cited by the NYT article which was a far more detailed study looking at far more fossil (and apparently molecular) evidence.

Trolly trolly troll troll.

[SatanicPuppy]

Re-Thinking? Well, hell if you knew it wasn't right, why didn't you say so before?

Jeez.

See, this is why Creationism is right...No rethinking required. Ever.

Re:Trolly trolly troll troll.

[fabs64]

or just thinking, conveniently enough ;-)

Re:Trolly trolly troll troll.

[mrbluze]

See, this is why Creationism is right...No rethinking required. Ever.

If people only said things because they really knew they were right, then the silence would be, well, golden! I don't 'think' we'd even have to deal with Creationism either!

Look out, R.O.U.S.!

[deoxyribonucleose]

Recently there have been a number of finds of surprisingly large mammals that are much older than had previously been expected. They include a beaver like (pre)-mammal from the Jurassic that was almost half a metre long, discovered in 2004, /.../

"Rodents Of Unusual Size? I don't think they exist." http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093779/quotes [imdb.com]

Re:This is Great

[corbettw]

I'm neither a evolutionary biologist nor a paleontologist, but hopefully one of the people reading this is (or at least claims to be on Wikipedia) and can answer a question for me:

I was always under the impression that the reason it was presumed small rodents were the only ones to exist with the dinosaurs is because if they were any larger, they would've been wiped out by the K-T extinction event. If there were large mammals that existed with the dinosaurs, and if they were in the same distinct groups that exist today as another poster said, then do we need to go back and question the importance of the K-T event? Especially since dinosaurs didn't so much go extinct as they evolved into birds, maybe having a ginormous hunk of space rock crash into the planet isn't as cataclysmic as we have been assuming all this time (for the planet as a whole, that is, it would certainly do a number on your neighborhood).

Any experts out there who can quash my thinking and point out the flaw in this line of inquiry?

Re:This is Great

[Xeriar]

I'm no expert, but it would appear that the surprise is, in fact, that some of these larger specimens actually survived. It's been known for some time that primates diverged about 69 million years ago, for example, and it seems that more orders are being added to the list.

Re:This is Great

[cens0r]

It wasn't clear from the article, but I assumed that the large existing mammals and birds died off as well. What the article stated was the the lineages already had split. So there was a proto-primate and other proto groups. The actually surviving species may have been quite small though.

Re:This is Great

[Fordiman]

"Nobody has EVER made a fossil. NO fossils are being made anywhere today, especially by any slow, gradual process, sometimes imagined by evolutionists."

Two words: Snow Mummies.

"To prevent this, a dead body needs to be put in an environment that prevents all microorganisms from feeding on the remains and oxygen must be excluded."

Hm. Like drowning in tar?

"A sudden disastrous upheaval such as the Biblical flood could certainly account for fossils."

Yes. Because there are no waterborne microorganisms.

Read as "Naturally occuring semi-modern fossils"

"The unwarranted assumption (faith) is that such radioactive decay rates have never varied over the vast periods of time evolutionists need in order to make their assertions seem plausible."

In order for radioactive decay rates to change, there would need to be some fundamental changes in a number of unary (ie: they equal 1) quantum constants. These constants only exist to translate from conventional units of measurement into quantum units. I would submit that you need to show evidence to suggest that any QED constant has drifted by any small percent over the time we've known about them.

Seriously. Is it that you're trolling on purpose, or are you actually someone who is *just* educated enough to sound this stupid?

Re:"Rethinking"

[Kozar_The_Malignant]

A. Coward wrote:

Until the next "re-thinking." Will we ever have hard evidence, or just thought experiments?

Actually, the ideas contained in the Nature article are based on new, hard evidence, not a "rethinking" of thought experiments. Or didn't you read the linked NYT article? That's how science works.

Re:"Rethinking"

[Kozar_The_Malignant]

Or didn't you read the linked NYT article? That's how science works.

By reading NYT articles? Is that where you get all your scientific facts?

No, but it was linked in the main article and gave a reasonably accurate synopsis of the Nature article. Nature has an abstract [nature.com] of the article on their website, but you must be a paying subscriber to read the full article online, which few /.ers are, I assume. You can read the full text at any university library and at many public libraries. Which of these do you plan to do to confirm your original statement?

Re:Science rethinking.

[flitty]

Science is often championed as being very sure... especially evolution,

I'm calling you on this rediculous statement. Science is only as sure as they can prove. You'll hardly find a scientist who, under new evidence or studies, will say "nope, the way we used to believe is more correct, and i'll be damned if i take your new evidence into consideration!"
Sounds more like religion to me.

Re:Science rethinking.

[RatBastard]

A valid question. That evolution happens is a known fact. That animals adapt over the generations and change to the point that disparate isolated populations can no longer interbreed is a fact. What is constantly being reevaluated is the actual mechanisms that drive this change. Early assumptions are reexamined when they don't hold up to scrutiny. Theories are revised when we discover that things are more complex than we thought. Natural selection (higher survival potential) does not explain creatures like Peacocks and birds of paradise. We examine what is going on and discover that sexual selection (breeding age members choosing mates for particular reasons) is also at work. While the Peacock's tail is an impediment to personal survival, the extravagance of it tells females that the male is healthy, strong, has good genes and would make a good choice as a father to their offspring.

And then there is the subject of this article: which is not the whys and wherefores, but the histories of evolution. They are not reevaluating the means of evolution, just the details of the timetables of when things happened. Much like a police officer looking at a crime scene and sorting out what happened when, discovering a new piece of evidence or talking to a new witness and adjusting the description to fit the facts.

Re:Science rethinking.

[Coryoth]

Does it raise questions in no one else's mind when it is quite consistently being "rethought?" It seems it should not be dogmatically asserted as it is now, nor should a "rethinking" be taken in stride as if it's entirely normal behavior for science. And yes, I know it's not a scientific fact, it is a scientific theory, as most scientific thoughts are - but most school kids don't know much of the difference between "fact" and "scientific theory." It's simply taught...Maybe informative materials should be re-evaluated when the theory itself is re-evaluated.

I think we should be clear on what is being re-thought here. The theory of evolution itself, that variation and descent, combined with selective pressure, will lead to complex organisms with the appearance of design, is not being rethought. The theory that evolution via natural selection is responsible for the diversity of species of life on earth is not being rethought. All that is being rethought is the particular history regarding the evolution of mammals. That the theory of evolution can be used to explain this particular history, but there are unknown factors in the specifics of the history, so the particular explanation provided as the most likely by evolutionary theory may change as particular facts regarding the particular history of a particular line of organisms changes. Let's consider an analogy: the theory of gravity is a relatively well accepted theory. It can be used to provide an explanation for the history of the development of solar systems, and has been used as a basis for developing a theory as to how our particular solar system developed. As it happens, that particular history is being rethought [newscientist.com], as we don't know all the facts about the particular history of our particular solar system. As the available facts regarding the particular history of a particular solar system (ours) have changed, the explanation of that particular theory furnished by the theory of gravity has changed. You have no more reason to think that "informative materials regarding the theory" of gravity should be re-evaluated than you do with regard to "informative materials regarding the theory" of evolution.

Re:Science rethinking.

[Fordiman]

Summary:
Evolution, the historical record of species evolution on earth is being rethought, as there is new evidence to refine our understanding of it, and is as yet theoretical.

Evolution, the process of speciation (the forking off of species) and adaptation through natural selection, is quite firmly proven.

Get a clue retard

[nbritton]

Evolution:
1 + 2 + x + y + 5 = 15

Creationism:
x^2 + 1 = 0

Re:Science rethinking.

[fucksl4shd0t]

but most school kids don't know much of the difference between "fact" and "scientific theory."

That's because there isn't a difference. When you say "theory", the scientific term that most matches it is "hypothesis". "Scientific theory" means "fact". At least, as far as translating technical scientific jargon into vernacular is concerned, that's how it is.

Re:Specific Gene?

[rucs_hack]

Your analogy of a freak accident isn't far wrong. It is a mistake to think of evolution as a planned process. That's where a lot of creationists try to poke holes in it by saying "what's the use of half an eye" The argument makes the assumption that an eye was the intended goal, but there was no intention.

It goes like this. Animal A and animal B are attacked by animal C. Animal A has some cells on its skin that are light sensitive, even if only a tiny bit. Neither A B or C have eyes, so animal A escapes because it gets spooked by s small change it the minimal light level it detects, but C catches B because it hasn't managed to get away (leaving out the means by which C is able to hunt).

So Animal A gets to breed, the light sensitive cell patch mutation is reinforced. Random changes to it that improve its detection of predators mean that favorable mutations survive, and eventually you have a whole eye.

Simplified, but you get the point? It's very much random

As for the survival of Mammals, well we're generalists, or were at the time, like rats, we could live off anything. That meant a dead dino was as good a meal as anything, and we could eat worms, bugs, absolutely anything, so we lived.

Then we speciated, and became the wide variety that exists today.

It is not that we are warm blooded that helped us spread. It is that we are able to adapt without waiting for evolution. Need a thicker coat? Go get one of that animal over there and wear it. Need to live in this area that is dominated by another species? Kill them off and take over. We have the bigger brain, we were capable of abstract thought and planning for the future. That was the deciding factor.

Incidentally, there is a theory that crocs and alligators survived the CT event because they were able to survive in the delta's on dead animals washed down the rivers. scavenger's are at an advantage when there is a mass die off, especially when they can go for very long periods between meals and actually prefer putrid meat.

Our young are not born fully developed because humans have much bigger brains, and these cannot be pre programmed to know what to do with the body from birth beyond the autonomic nervous systemm without a far longer gestation period. Its a consequence of evolving as a creature that lives in packs/groups, we can afford to birth our young in a weak state, which gives the advantage that our adults are back to the essentials of pack survival fast while the young are able to be cared for We do not have the ability to walk away after being born. Strangely though, newborns can swim, I have no idea why this might be, unless the aquatuic ape theory is correct.

Some mammals are specialised now (Panda's are an easy to research example), if there was another mass extinction, most mammals, likely including us, would die, unless we had some far more impressive technology, certainly the human species would be drastically hit. Rats and so on would probably make it, for the same reason we managed to survive the CT event, since we were that size at the time.

Hope that helps with some of your questions

Re:Specific Gene?

[jc42]

... a lot of creationists try to poke holes in it by saying "what's the use of half an eye" ...

It's perhaps worth mentioning that in the past couple years, researchers have discovered a very early stage of a "half eye" that has been developing for only around a millions years or so. Google for "brittle-star eye" to read about it.

It's pretty clear that this new eye is of survival value to the starfish that have it, although it is barely able to resolve anything. Its angular resolution is only around a degree or so, so the sun and moon are each less than one pixel on their visual screens. But they can detect large things moving around in their environment, and that's a good enough advantage over other starfish.

These critters' eyes are of interest to us, to, because they have evolved an interesting high-quality lense that optical researchers are trying to duplicate. It's possible that artificial brittle-star lenses might appear in some of our video equipment in the near future.

Re:Devine 'evolution'

[rucs_hack]

alas putting the argument initially in such a confrontational way doesn't help.

You need to get them to really debate. Most won't, and spout the same stuff over and over.

Thing is, two centuries ago everyone was a creationist, we would have been as well, there was no alternative. They are however fighting a losing battle if you look at the numbers. It will likely be another century before creationism is dead, and then only maybe.

Re:Devine 'evolution'

[91degrees]

My problem is understanding why the creationists are so obsessed with evolution being wrong. After all, Heliocentrism vs. Geocentrism has all the same merits (i.e. we can see the sun goes round the earth, proving the opposite to the layman is difficult, Heliocentrism is a theory, literal interpretation of the bible says the arth is the centre of the solar system), biut doesn't cause nearly as much debate.

Re:Devine 'evolution'

[rucs_hack]

If non creationists were wrong, it would be that there was another scientific reason for evolution, or, as with what happened with Newtons work in Einstein's time, it could turn out that evolution/natural selection alone are woefully inadequate explanations.

We would absorb the new information, reprint our textbooks and move on, no worries.

If a creationist is proved wrong then the very basis of their personal world view or power base (if they are considered to have authority due to their assertion of their views) is removed. Everything they believe would have to be questioned, and new things, like proof based learning would have to be adopted for them to survive. That's a tall order, and too much for many to cope with, so they are fighting it.

Re:Devine 'evolution'

[steelfood]

There's mathematics and physics around geocentrism. Math cannot be disproven and physics is much harder to argue against (like the pinciples of centripetal force, momentum, and gravity for example). For example, how does one account for the seasons and the position of the sun in the sky during those seasons in a heliocentric model? One cannot. If the world is spherical or near spherical, the sun cannot revolve around the earth in the way a spring might (because the period of one "solar revolution" doesn't change with the seasons) AND reverse directions every winter/summer without an external force constantly acting upon it.

Besides, there's no contest to the moon revolving around the earth, and the sun's path is definitely different from the moon's. If the sun also revolved around the earth and the above was possible, wouldn't the moon exhibit the same or a similar orbit?