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
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.
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.)
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.
Hope you are enjoying a wonderful weekend. You are making assumptions that I think might be too simplistic. A variety of factors could have been at work:
Large herbivore dinosaurs had adaptations such as “armor” (e.g., the triceratops) which mammals did not have.
The environmental niches that could have supported large mammals were already occupied by large dinosaurs, who were very effective competitors.
I am no expert in paleontology, but I would recommend that you read popular literature from practicing paleontologists to acquire a better understanding of what you are criticizing.
First, many large herbivore dinosaurs did not have “armor”, yet they survived. Their offspring would have been vulnerable, just as young offspring are today. The big cats can and do sometimes capture medium sized crocodiles for lunch. (check your youtube for evidence) Most niches permit a large variety of inhabitants… we see hippos and crocodiles and elephants sharing the same water bodies, and other mammals drinking from them. Many mammals even today are very adaptive, going from drylands to wetlands sometimes on a daily basis. I think we generally assume that the niches that dinosaurs lived in in the past still have similar habitats today, although fewer of them. Yet, no dinosaurs, generally.
The habitat rationalizations just don’t work. Disease, genetic deterioration, combined with predation of young, possibly after a large climatic upheaval, are more likely reasons for extinction.
I am disagreeing with the rationale that was earlier provided in some of these discussions that the reason that large mammals did not coexist with large dinosaurs (reptiles) is because the large predator dinosaurs would have decimated them, and there were thus no niches sufficiently safe for large mammals, even though small mammals could survive and escape the voracious dinos. This rationale for why only small mammals and not large mammals existed in the fossil record at the time of the dinos, simply fails. I did not bring up the original comment, and do not know where it came from, nor where the rationale came from. George brooks alludes and defends this idea of small mammals being able to hide in his reference to mice hiding in nooks and crannies. This is the rationale for why small mammals survived and larger ones did not. I am merely saying this is false reasoning, since larger herbivore dinos did survive, so why not the mammals? The rationale provides no real explanation, so another must be found.
I think you are misunderstanding the reasoning. The reasoning would be that large mammals never developed when dinosaurs were present, not that they existed but did not survive. It was only when there was a shift in the ecosystem and the dinosaurs died off and mammals became top of the food chain in a given area that large mammals emerged. It is the same reasoning why large marsupials are dominant in Australia, not large mammals. Small mammals were introduced to the environment much later, and the large animal/top of the food chain niche was already filled by marsupials. In the absence of competition from mammals, marsupials (Diprotodon) at one point grew to two tons. The terror birds of of South America were dominant large animals until climate change and the arrival of large mammal species from North America. Large animals of any kind emerge when their smaller ancestors gain the top niche on the predator chain.
you need first to define what “fossil out of order” mean. do you agree with this definition: “fossil out of order is a fossil that appear in the fossil record before its suppose ancestor”? (for example a human before a monkey).
A true fossil out of order would be a human fossil prior to the emergence of primates, or a pre-Cambrian rabbit. But there aren’t any examples of this, just like there aren’t any examples of human fossils being found at the same time as dinosaurs. In fact some YECs know this, and try to make up their own arguments to explain why we don’t find them.
No, because fossils can become displaced in the fossil record. Additionally, I am not confident that you understand what the fossil record is or how it should be read.
so you are claiming that mammal that date about 400 my will not disprove the evolution theory then(fossil that appear in the fossil record before its suppose ancestor=mammal before reptile).sorry but its not a science.