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From: ethan@utastro.UUCP (Ethan Vishniac)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Re: Prediction or Observation?  II
Message-ID: <133@utastro.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 24-May-85 14:37:03 EDT
Article-I.D.: utastro.133
Posted: Fri May 24 14:37:03 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 27-May-85 06:36:53 EDT
References: <1127@uwmacc.UUCP>
Distribution: net
Organization: U. Texas, Astronomy, Austin, TX
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> 
> This is similar to the statement that's been thrown around about
> fossils of higher animals being found in early strata.  It has been
> said that this would falsify evolution.  It wouldn't.  All that
> happens is that the interpretation is changed to "it appears that this
> organism evolved earlier than was formerly realized.  Clearly then,
> it must have earlier ancestors than was supposed."  This is what in
> fact *actually* happens, for instance, with the bird fossils that were
> as old as _Archaeopteryx_.  "Too early" fossils don't make a dent.
>                                                                     |
> Paul DuBois     {allegra,ihnp4,seismo}!uwvax!uwmacc!dubois        --+--
>                                                                     |
   "Too early" fossils don't make a dent because none of the examples that
have come to light are particularly impressive.  I'll leave it as an
exercise to the reader to decide just why that might be the case.  The
statement stands that a strong anachronism would violate evolutionary
theory.  A trivial, and unrefuted example, would be the discovery of
the skeleton of a human being, or any other sufficiently modern mammal,
in really old strata.  The fossil record is quite rich for more than 600
million years into the past.  Why aren't human fossils found except in the
last few million years?  

   As for those bird fossils, could you give a reference to that?  (I think
you already did earlier but I've lost it.)  There are at least two important
points to keep in mind with them.  First, in what sense were the fossils
"modern"?  Someone else has already commented that other paleotologists
think they are probably pterosaurs.  The difference between birds and
pterosaurs are sufficiently numerous that I'm tempted to believe that the
fossils are extremely fragmentary and "modern" means that the bones are
hollow and fragile.  Second, archeopteryx could coexist with its descendants
as  long as it didn't directly compete with them.  The only real impossibility
is that its descendants couldn't predate it.

"Don't argue with a fool.      Ethan Vishniac
 Borrow his money."            {charm,ut-sally,ut-ngp,noao}!utastro!ethan
                               Department of Astronomy
                               University of Texas