so where is the limit actually? 10 my? 20? 100? there is no such a limit.
try here:
"Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins said that the discovery of fossil mammals in Precambrian rocks would "completely blow evolution out of the water.
You are importing foreign assumptions that obscure the plain meaning of Scripture. It was literal water that fell from above. The opening of the windows allowed that to happen. If the water is literal, the windows are literal. Case closed.
I hate to say it depends, but it does. Think of (American) football officials spotting the forward progress of a ball carrier. Suppose the running back comes down around midfield, and the official spots the ball at the 49-and-a-half. Was the official right or wrong? Almost certainly, his decision is good enough. If he spots the ball at the 41 yard line, he is certainly wrong. Where is the boundary between right and wrong? What if he spots the ball at the 49? Probably OK. How about the 48-and-a-half? Probably wrong, but maybe defensible. How about the 47? Almost certainly wrong. And the 40 yard line would be indefensible.
As in football officiating, so in paleontology. There is no bright, numerical line between what can be accounted for by evolution and what cannot. But there are some things like Precambrian rabbit, or a Jurassic primate, that would be paradigm-shaking. They would be the equivalent of spotting the ball at the 40 when the runner was tackled at midfield.
So do you have any examples of Precambrian rabbits or Jurassic primates to offer?
EDIT: Fixed grammatical mistake.
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Okay, if you say so. Or, if the windows are figurative, then the water is figurative, and the heavens are also figurative. No mixing of the two allowed.
lets check this. so you are claiming that we cant push back species lets say by dozens my? we actually do have such examples:
http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2011/04/16/rsbl.2011.0228
Huh? Where did Chris make that claim?
@Dcscccc, did you read the article? I don’t think you understand what it says.
Meanwhile, how about answering Chris_Falter’s question:
So do you have any examples of Precambrian rabbits or Jurassic primates to offer?
Do you? Yes or no?
(I don’t think Dcscccc knows what “Precambrian rabbits” means. If he/she did, he/she wouldn’t have posted the royalsociety link. )
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i will answer your questions.but first answer mine:
thanks.
@dcscccc and I have gone around on these questions previously. S/he typically wantonly evades nuanced discussion and refuses to dig into the philosophy of science questions surrounding how science is actually done and what it might mean to falsify a theory, preferring instead to stick to facile oversimplifications and substance-less objections, pretending that these are in fact slam-dunk “gotchas.” I suspect you won’t see another response to your reasonable (reiteration of @Chris_Falter’s) questions, just as I didn’t see any to mine.
What is interesting, is that there are apparently as many mammal species in the “dinosaur layers”, as there are dinosaur species… 432 mammal species found so far. While it is true that many geologists are aware of mammals in these layers, the numbers and variety certainly do not attract much attention. So they evidently lived at the same time, in the same climates, and often in the same locations. Hmmm
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Really? That’s a surprise to the paleontologists I know who study them. Can you quantify your evidence that they “do not attract much attention”?
The reason why geologists don’t spend a lot of time on them while paleontologists do is because they are scientists conducting research into different specializations.
I love it! It’s that traditional tactic of making simply statements and then trying to imply that those statements are somehow a problem for scientists but somehow bolster the science-denialists’ argument.
It’s humorous on the one hand but also sad in how it reflects the state of science education in the USA today. These kinds of tactics actually gain traction and impress some people.
Time to move on. Nothing to see here.
What’s really sad is the continual adhominem perjoratives tossed into the ring by the trolls who never really read nor understand what the real posters are saying. As long as you equate every anti-evolutionary argument with “science-denialist”, you will simply reduce all the rest of your comments to sheer irrelevant nonsense. When you make a conscious effort to avoid making such a conflated equilibration, you may begin to achieve a wee bit of credibility.
Do you understand why paleontologists do not find Jurassic mammals to be a challenge to the theory of evolution?
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What’s interesting is that mammals could easily live in the same climatic conditions as dinosaurs. Those mammals and similar mammals still exist today, yet the dinosaurs do not. This implies that climate alone is not the criteria for why the dinosaurs do not exist today. In addition, the idea that the animals were small and so could hide from the dinosaurs also appears to be a flawed theory, a fallacy of conjecture. Predators in general are not larger than the largest mammals, and yet both larger animals and smaller animals that might be prey, continue to exist, whether giraffes, antelope, wildebeest, bison, rabbits, sheep, goats, mice, squirrels. There is no reasonable logic for the size of the mammals in the dino sediment layers, and there is no significant difference in the number of species of both kinds.
Paleontologists find the challenge to be surmountable, because they are flexible, and the theory itself is so flexible as to have no discernible shape; thus one never knows whether one is surmounting a challenge or sliding underneath it.
Hi @johnZ -
Actually some dinosaurs did not become extinct; instead they became the ancestors of birds.
Also, you are generalizing far too broadly by speaking of all dinosaurs as if they were the same. Some were large, some were small; some had feathers, some did not. When the climate was plunged into a terrible chill and food sources became extremely scarce, the (relatively) small feathered dinos were able to survive. As were the (relatively) small mammals that had fur.
This is all off the top of my head. If you are convinced I’m just wrong, I’ll go find some links for you. But I think the conversation would be more productive if we focused on what paleontology actually claims.
Peace,
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I think you are a reasonably charitable and decent contributor, Chris. However, don’t you agree that this sentence above is not quite right? Just because a species was ancestor of birds, does not mean that they didn’t go extinct. Evolutionarily speaking, that is a nonsequitor.
And it is not I who speak of all dinosaurs as if they were the same… it is the generalization most commonly made , that dinosaurs have gone extinct. Today there is a claim that birds have not just descended from dinosaurs, but actually are dinosaurs… which is more semantics and arbitrary categorization at play. Today I learned that crocodiles are somewhat warm-blooded, not cold-blooded (foolish me to think that reptiles were all cold-blooded) , but mostly due to size, since they still require external heat since they don’t generate enough internally. So the postulation now seems to be that dinosaurs are somewhere between warm-blooded and cold-blooded, which is convenient of course, since it allows for more endless possibilities. But if so, then it makes more sense that crocodiles are dinosaurs, than birds are dinos.
We have mammals large and small in all environments across the globe. There is no reason for only small mammals to exist in the fossil record with the dinosaurs that have gone extinct. The large dinosaur herbivores were not hunted to extinction, and there is no reason why large mammal predators, or for that matter large mammal herbivores could not have found a reasonable niche. In fact, the larger size would often give them an advantage against predators, and it would be the young that would be most vulnerable, which is also true for the dinosaurs.
Food sources might become scarce, but so would the predators. Furthermore, food sources would not become scarce everywhere on the globe.
You are also confusing the conditions before the demise of the dinos with the aftereffect of the conditions which supposedly made them extinct.
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You write:
“We have mammals large and small in all environments across the globe. There is no reason for only small mammals to exist in the fossil record with the dinosaurs that have gone extinct. The large dinosaur herbivores were not hunted to extinction, and there is no reason why large mammal predators, or for that matter large mammal herbivores could not have found a reasonable niche. In fact, the larger size would often give them an advantage against predators, and it would be the young that would be most vulnerable, which is also true for the dinosaurs.”
Did you REALLY write this? Or are you quoting someone. If Young Earth Creationism were true … you would be right!
You are actually arguing with circular logic now. Since all the big dinosaurs are gone in the modern era we are left with the presumption that they WERE around until the Flood.
If they were around until the Flood, then SOMEWHERE ANYWHERE in the world there should be pre-flood bones for cows or horses or elephants or whales with dinosaur bones.
The fact this has NEVER been seen tells us that the young earth model is QUITE WRONG!
THEN …we offer a predictive hypothesis that explains/predicts that even HUMANS would not have successfully shared the earth with carnivorous dinosaurs!
Hi @johnZ - I hope this little communication of mine finds you doing well and doing good, by God’s grace.
My understanding is that biologists use the term pseudoextinction to refer to a species that evolves into a daughter species, and reserve the term extinction for the situation in which the last living member of the species dies without a descendant. Of course, I am not a biologist, so if you can find an authoritative source that says differently, I would be happy to change my terminology.
This is a plausible set of hypotheses. Unfortunately, it is not supported by the fossil record. Ultimately, any scientific hypothesis needs to be weighed against the evidence. The Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary, and the sharp distinction between fossil species on either side of it, is very well substantiated
Grace and peace,
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Sure, but I have not heard it postulated that many dinosaur species evolved into birds, but perhaps only one dinosaur species. Even so, the normal speculation for such an evolution is that a subset of the species would evolve into something new, while the original population would continue to exist. So you would have two different populations. In the case of dinosaurs, the original population would eventually go extinct. This would not be a pseudo extinction.
The point is that the fossil record does not jive with the rationale provided for it. There is not justification for the the “small animals hiding in holes from dino predators” theory, nor for the lack of potential niches for larger mammals. These are pseudo rationales, demonstrating the lack of explainability of the the larger overall theory.
Do you think you could WIPE OUT all the ants on the earth, personally, by hunting them? Or are ants just too small and inconsequential.
Heck… forget ants… just think about mice. Do you think you could hunt every mouse in your town, or your state, or your country?
They are too small and too prolific.
OK, the indisputable evidence is the following:
- An abundance of large dino fossils are found below the K-Pg boundary, and none are found above it.
- Very few medium-sized mammal fossils are found below the K-Pg boundary, and no large mammal fossils; but above the boundary, we see a rapid proliferation of mammal fossils of large size.
- The overwhelming majority of the geological science community date the K-Pg boundary at 66mya.
If you don’t like the existing conclusions of the paleontology community regarding these facts, please provide a better one.
(Note: I am not sure that you have represented the conclusions of paleontology accurately. But I will set that aside for now while you take the opportunity to advance your own interpretation of the fossil record.)
Peace,
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You are confusing the placement of fossils for the rationale. The rationale that large mammals couldn’t hide doesn’t work. Large dinosaur herbivores would not be able to hide any better, yet they existed.