New Archeological Finds

Organisms Refusing to Evolve Over Millions of Years, by Elysse Baumbach, 1/15/16

Several more cases of “extreme stasis” have turned up, calling into question Darwin’s notion of constant, gradual change over millions of years.

Earlier human migration: Science Magazine reports evidence of mammoth bones in Siberia that indicate hunting and butchering by humans, 10,000 years earlier than evolutionists presumed people should have been up those cold climes. 

New Scientist’s headline reads, “Humans adapted to Arctic life 10,000 years earlier than thought.” The bones are claimed to be 45,000 years old; that means that humans were essentially the same as us—intelligent, adaptable and capable—for at least 8 times all recorded human history (actually, much longer: they believe upright, thinking hominins existed for 1–2 million years).

That phrase “earlier than thought” shows up a lot in evolutionary studies. It means that evolutionists are surprised at cases of early appearance and stasis. This pattern stretches into much longer time periods in the following examples.

Tree shrews refused to evolve for 34 million years, Science Magazine says. A new fossil doubles its period of stasis. It has a “living fossil” story to tell:

Tree shrews are often held up as being living fossils, presumably very similar to our own earliest primate ancestor.

The dearth of actual fossils of these small tropical mammals, however, has meant that much of this conclusion has been speculative. Li and Ni describe a new fossil tree shrew that is exceedingly similar to the extant pen-tailed tree shrew (Ptilocercus lowii), yet twice as old as any previously described sister taxa. The fossil suggests that this tree shrew has gone nearly unchanged since the Oligocene (over 34 million years ago).

Squid stasis for a much longer period was reported in Live Science. Belemnites are members of the Cephalopod (head-foot) class that includes octopuses, squid and cuttlefish.

Fossils found in Solnhofen, Germany (home of Archaeopteryx and other exceptionally-detailed fossils of the Jurassic Period) show that one species was already highly skilled. “Generally speaking, Acanthoteuthis’ fins and bullet-shaped body, much like modern squids’, suggest that it would be a good swimmer,” the article says.

The Jurassic is claimed to span from 200 to 145 million years ago. Noting that cephalopods date back even farther, “500 million years,” the article points out that squid like this possessed balance-sensing organs (statocysts), muscles, cartilage, a digestive system, and 10 arms. Cephalopods also exquisite eyes as complex as those of mammals, yet are not related to any tetrapods in the evolutionary scheme.

For a type of animal that is abundant today, this squid had an awful long time to evolve into something else, but it didn’t. Its statocysts, for instance, “resembled structures found in pelagic squid” that swim in the same oceans today.

Crustacean stasis: A division of crustaceans called branchiopods includes many living species, including water fleas and fairy shrimp. Current Biology published a find with a headline that tells all: “A 365-Million-Year-Old Freshwater Community Reveals Morphological and Ecological Stasis in Branchiopod Crustaceans.” This phylum dates to the Cambrian Explosion. Early fossils of branchiopods have been found in fossil beds as widely dispersed as Canada, Scotland and Sweden. This new find in Belgium tops them all, yet look strangely familiar:

Here we report the discovery of an ephemeral pool branchiopod community from the 365-million-year-old Strud locality of Belgium. It is characterized by new anostracans and spinicaudatans, closely resembling extant species, and the earliest notostracan, Strudops goldenbergi.

These branchiopods released resting eggs into the sediment in a manner similar to their modern representatives. We infer that this reproductive strategy was critical to overcoming environmental constraints such as seasonal desiccation imposed by living on land. The pioneer colonization of ephemeral freshwater pools by branchiopods in the Devonian was followed by remarkable ecological and morphological stasis that persists to the present day.

http://creationrevolution.com/organisms-refusing-to-evolve-over-millions-of-years/

Comments

Darwin proposed a fanciful theory of evolution. During his lifetime 1809 – 1882 he spent his time cataloging the species and organized them into categories. He was looking for a narrative to explain what he had cataloged.  His theory of evolution was based on what had been observed, but not proven. It is still an unproven theory.

If these archeologists have dated their discoveries accurately, we have evidence that humans were living and hunting 1 to 2 million years ago. That squares with the claim to have found a 2 million year old mitochondrial eve in Africa.

This is not settled science. So far, creation and evolution remain unproven but our advances in genetics and further finds should help to add facts to this puzzle. Funding will be harder as we slide into global recession. This science is interesting but not critical.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader