Most convincing ... Part II

[johnZ]

Continuing the discussion from Executive Summary of the Most Convincing Lines of Evidence:

@gbrooks9

3, The fact that possums are found elsewhere rather destroys the marsupial argument. The fact that Australian marsupials are not found elsewhere is not surprising. Apparently 70% of marsupials are found on Australia, and the rest found elsewhere

@johnZ

No John, it doesn’t.

Because what it would mean in an EVOLUTION scenario is:

1) You are right … Dying in the flood doesn’t equal extinction. But NONE of the placental mammals that once lived in Australia (we think more than 50 million years ago) survived ANYWHERE ELSE. So… they MUST have become extinct during the flood. You think they survived the flood, got on the raft with the other marsupials and then COMMITTED SUICIDE ?

2) So why would Marsupials get on a raft … but no placentals? That doesn’t make any sense… unless you are writing a fairy tale.

3) marsupial possums became such an efficient species, they survived all the competition the placental mammals threw at them.

1. Your reasoning is strange to me. But first, it is important to realize that absence of fossils does not mean absence of specie. So remember it is the fossils that are absent… we are not sure about the actual animals. Secondly, the presumption of 50 my ago is the problem. Secondly, you are not clear whether the marsupials that went extinct (the fossils that have no clear living descendants) are the ones that got on the log rafts… my thinking is that the ones that survived got on the log rafts, not the ones that died.

2. No one ever said that placentals did not get on log rafts, but obviously if you have two of a kind, they cannot go to more than one place. Thus, some kind of separation of various kinds and types is more logical than if all types were on all islands and continents. Of course, animals could also transfer by various means from one continent to another by later log rafts, floating debris, land bridges, swimming, ice floes, etc.

3. The idea of efficiency is an adhoc catch-all. It is a poor explanation for the various types of diversity, as well as the extinctions. Most ecosystems have an incredible diversity, including numerous scales and diversity of efficiencies as well. One species does not throw competition at another as if competition was a survival manual. While some species follow others, or find smaller niches, probably only humans are interested in the extinction of certain species that can harm them, such as poisonous snakes, killer bees, ebola virus, and in some cases, marauding elephants, tigers, lions, grizzlies.

[gbrooks9 (George Brooks)]

@johnZ

Your reasoning is strange to me. But first, it is important to realize that absence of fossils does not mean absence of specie. So remember it is the fossils that are absent… we are not sure about the actual animals. Secondly, the presumption of 50 my ago is the problem. Secondly, you are not clear whether the marsupials that went extinct (the fossils that have no clear living descendants) are the ones that got on the log rafts… my thinking is that the ones that survived got on the log rafts, not the ones that died.

@johnZ

You sound rather confused. 1) There were no rafts of MULTIPLE PAIRS OF DIFFERENT KINDS OF MARSUPIALS. How is it that you take a wildly speculative idea and then rely on it as evidence?

A) The ONLY way that multiple kinds of marsupial populations can be found on Australia is because they wandered onto the future Australia while it was still connected to the rest of the continents.

B) The ONLY way that multiple kinds of placental populations cannot be found on Australia ALIVE is because the placentals we know today were not yet living near Australia (and/or not yet existent) when Australia separated from the other continents.

C) The fact that marsupials are diverse and populous on Australia but NOT anywhere else is the evidence that placentals out-competed marsupials in almost every ecological niche.

D) We know this is evidence because it is unrealistic to think HUMANS are responsible for the difference in distribution between Marsupials in Australia and just-about-everywhere-else.