Evolution - Rescuing out-of-place Fossils

[lifepsyop]

We are constantly told by evolutionists that if a fossil was ever found severely out of place, (like a mammal in the Paleozoic) that it would instantly falsify or overturn Evolution / Common Descent.

Here I will show an example of how such a type of event has occurred, and how subjective interpretations and rescue devices were employed to save the conventional evolutionary worldview.

Our story begins with a set of suspiciously bird-like footprints found in the rocks of the Santo Domingo formation in Argentina. This formation has been previously dated as the Upper Triassic (~220 million years old)


Here is a photograph of the footprints, and a link to the description
Geotimes - June 2002 - Bird Fossil Feet

Here is an official article in Nature on the discovery:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v417/n6892/full/nature00818.html#B11


Bird-like fossil footprints from the Late Triassic 2002

Here we describe well-preserved and abundant footprints with clearly avian characters from a Late Triassic redbed sequence of Argentina11, 12, at least 55 Myr before the first known skeletal record of birds. These footprints document the activities, in an environment interpreted as small ponds associated with ephemeral rivers, of an unknown group of Late Triassic theropods having some avian characters.


Here we can see evolutionists attempting to explain the tracks as being made by Theropod dinosaurs which happened to evolve bird-like feet early on. Obviously, they couldn't have been made by birds similar to modern day birds... because we're talking about the Triassic... around a hundred millions years before even primitive birds are supposed to have evolved.

Well, trouble came several years later, when more thorough diagnosis of the footprints revealed them to be indistinguishable from modern flight-based birds!

Application of neoichnological studies to behavioural and taphonomic interpretation of fossil bird-like tracks from lacustrine settings: The Late Triassic–Early Jurassic? Santo Domingo Formation, Argentina


Application of neoichnological studies to behavioural and taphonomic interpretation of fossil bird-like tracks from lacustrine settings: The Late Triassic–Early Jurassic? Santo Domingo Formation, Argentina 2009

Five of the behaviours recognised in the modern pond were inferred from the sixteen trackways distinguished on the fossil track surface, including walking, walking with a zig-zag path, short runs, probing, and landing with legs directed forward (possible trace of flight). The recognition of traces of flight (Volichnia), probing marks, and tracks showing morphology similar to modern shorebirds (G. dominguensis), strongly suggest an avian affinity for the producers of the fossil tracks and, in consequence, the Santo Domingo track site would be younger than supposed.


Highlighted is the religious commitment to Evolution on full display. The presence of a truly anachronistic fossil is itself *evidence* that the rocks which contain it can not possibly be dated correctly. The researchers *know* that the rocks must be of much more recent origin, all that's left is to try and "explain" it away.

So that is what they do.

http://www.sciencedi...040195112006907

Geological setting and paleomagnetism of the Eocene red beds of Laguna Brava Formation (Quebrada Santo Domingo, northwestern Argentina) 2013

The red bed succession cropping out in the Quebrada Santo Domingo in northwestern Argentina had been for long considered as Upper Triassic–Lower Jurassic in age based on weak radiometric and paleontological evidence. Preliminary paleomagnetic data confirmed the age and opened questions about the nature of fossil footprints with avian features discovered in the section. Recently the stratigraphic scheme was reviewed with the identification of previously unrecognized discontinuities, and a radiometric dating obtained in a tuff, indicated an Eocene age for the Laguna Brava Formation and the fossil bird footprints, much younger than the previously assigned. We present a detailed paleomagnetic study interpreted within a regional tectonic and stratigraphic framework, looking for an explanation for the misinterpretation of the preliminary paleomagnetic data. Journal article Highlights: Ambiguous interpretations arise, only resolved after precisely dating the rocks.


So we see the evolutionists appealing to various complex geologic processes to try and explain how a younger rock ended up in a much older formation. But ultimately they admit that their case comes down to radiometric dating. While a previously used dating method assigned a Triassic age to the rocks, they use another dating method to push the date nearly 200 million years into the future, assigning an Eocene (40 MYA) date to the bird footprints!

So we see that anytime an anachronistic fossil is discovered, (completely out of order with evolutionary paradigm) they have a grab-bag of assumed geologic processes and dating methods at their disposal to potentially push that fossil hundreds of millions of years in either direction to save the theory. I don't see how the implications of this can be avoided, given the above series of events. Evolution theory has an assortment of rescue devices at hand for insulating itself from falsification of even severely conflicting fossils.

Again, as a reminder, the conflicting fossil data itself was used as primary evidence for a "bad date" that had to be "corrected". I am left wondering how many times this 'methodology' has quietly occurred in the past to save the theory from equally problematic anachronistic fossil finds.

 

[Seipai]

Your posts are too long and hard to read.

Bird-like footprints were not necessarily made by birds. There are no fossils of birds from that era, if you had those you might have something.

 

[PsychoSarah]

Wall of text with colors... How is anyone supposed to focus in an read that, let alone someone with ADHD like me?

 

[HitchSlap]

We are constantly told by evolutionists that if a fossil was ever found severely out of place, (like a mammal in the Paleozoic) that it would instantly falsify or overturn Evolution / Common Descent.

Here I will show an example of how such a type of event has occurred, and how subjective interpretations and rescue devices were employed to save the conventional evolutionary worldview.

Our story begins with a set of suspiciously bird-like footprints found in the rocks of the Santo Domingo formation in Argentina. This formation has been previously dated as the Upper Triassic (~220 million years old)


Here is a photograph of the footprints, and a link to the description
Geotimes - June 2002 - Bird Fossil Feet

Here is an official article in Nature on the discovery:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v417/n6892/full/nature00818.html#B11


Bird-like fossil footprints from the Late Triassic 2002

Here we describe well-preserved and abundant footprints with clearly avian characters from a Late Triassic redbed sequence of Argentina11, 12, at least 55 Myr before the first known skeletal record of birds. These footprints document the activities, in an environment interpreted as small ponds associated with ephemeral rivers, of an unknown group of Late Triassic theropods having some avian characters.


Here we can see evolutionists attempting to explain the tracks as being made by Theropod dinosaurs which happened to evolve bird-like feet early on. Obviously, they couldn't have been made by birds similar to modern day birds... because we're talking about the Triassic... around a hundred millions years before even primitive birds are supposed to have evolved.

Well, trouble came several years later, when more thorough diagnosis of the footprints revealed them to be indistinguishable from modern flight-based birds!

Application of neoichnological studies to behavioural and taphonomic interpretation of fossil bird-like tracks from lacustrine settings: The Late Triassic–Early Jurassic? Santo Domingo Formation, Argentina


Application of neoichnological studies to behavioural and taphonomic interpretation of fossil bird-like tracks from lacustrine settings: The Late Triassic–Early Jurassic? Santo Domingo Formation, Argentina 2009

Five of the behaviours recognised in the modern pond were inferred from the sixteen trackways distinguished on the fossil track surface, including walking, walking with a zig-zag path, short runs, probing, and landing with legs directed forward (possible trace of flight). The recognition of traces of flight (Volichnia), probing marks, and tracks showing morphology similar to modern shorebirds (G. dominguensis), strongly suggest an avian affinity for the producers of the fossil tracks and, in consequence, the Santo Domingo track site would be younger than supposed.


Highlighted is the religious commitment to Evolution on full display. The presence of a truly anachronistic fossil is itself *evidence* that the rocks which contain it can not possibly be dated correctly. The researchers *know* that the rocks must be of much more recent origin, all that's left is to try and "explain" it away.

So that is what they do.

http://www.sciencedi...040195112006907

Geological setting and paleomagnetism of the Eocene red beds of Laguna Brava Formation (Quebrada Santo Domingo, northwestern Argentina) 2013

The red bed succession cropping out in the Quebrada Santo Domingo in northwestern Argentina had been for long considered as Upper Triassic–Lower Jurassic in age based on weak radiometric and paleontological evidence. Preliminary paleomagnetic data confirmed the age and opened questions about the nature of fossil footprints with avian features discovered in the section. Recently the stratigraphic scheme was reviewed with the identification of previously unrecognized discontinuities, and a radiometric dating obtained in a tuff, indicated an Eocene age for the Laguna Brava Formation and the fossil bird footprints, much younger than the previously assigned. We present a detailed paleomagnetic study interpreted within a regional tectonic and stratigraphic framework, looking for an explanation for the misinterpretation of the preliminary paleomagnetic data. Journal article Highlights: Ambiguous interpretations arise, only resolved after precisely dating the rocks.


So we see the evolutionists appealing to various complex geologic processes to try and explain how a younger rock ended up in a much older formation. But ultimately they admit that their case comes down to radiometric dating. While a previously used dating method assigned a Triassic age to the rocks, they use another dating method to push the date nearly 200 million years into the future, assigning an Eocene (40 MYA) date to the bird footprints!

So we see that anytime an anachronistic fossil is discovered, (completely out of order with evolutionary paradigm) they have a grab-bag of assumed geologic processes and dating methods at their disposal to potentially push that fossil hundreds of millions of years in either direction to save the theory. I don't see how the implications of this can be avoided, given the above series of events. Evolution theory has an assortment of rescue devices at hand for insulating itself from falsification of even severely conflicting fossils.

Again, as a reminder, the conflicting fossil data itself was used as primary evidence for a "bad date" that had to be "corrected". I am left wondering how many times this 'methodology' has quietly occurred in the past to save the theory from equally problematic anachronistic fossil finds.

Your Nobel Prize awaits.*

* I think.

 

[PsychoSarah]

Your Nobel Prize awaits.*

* I think.

Except that many dinosaurs had birdlike feet -_- which makes sense because modern birds are descendants of dinosaurs.

 

[[serious]]

Theropods in the triassic? What sorcery is this!?!

 

[lifepsyop]

Except that many dinosaurs had birdlike feet -_- which makes sense because modern birds are descendants of dinosaurs.

You should read the full post. You are right that this is what evolutionists originally assumed but upon closer examination they were forced to accept that the prints were made by volant birds very similar to modern day shorebirds.

The only remaining choices were to completely overturn a major convention of evolution theory, or change the dates of the rocks the fossils were found in.

 

[Subduction Zone]

You should read the full post. You are right that this is what evolutionists originally assumed but upon closer examination they were forced to accept that the prints were made by volant birds very similar to modern day shorebirds.

The only remaining choices were to completely overturn a major convention of evolution theory, or change the dates of the rocks the fossils were found in.

Perhaps if you knew how to write a legible post it would help.

I have serious doubts about your claims, but will check into it.

I have seen this in the past and it seemed the conclusion was that the prints were only "bird-like".

 

[Shemjaza]

Bird like prints! From an era with bird like animals!

 

[biggles53]

Unbelievable....!! New data was used to revise a prior understanding....!!

This is monstrous....!

What a waste of time........so when my maths students get an incorrect answer in solving an equation, it would be dishonest and unfair of me to have them check back through their working, to see if they made an error....!

 

[Subduction Zone]

Seriously it looks like they may have had an errant date for that formation. I am totally unfamiliar with the geology of Argentina, but if one is in a poorly mapped mountainous region it it understandable how an error could have been made in the dating of one particular stratum. Where I went to school we did very little work with the local geology since it was very boring, very easy to read flat, unfolded beds. We had a field geology class that was worth nine credits. It was a very intense class we took in Colorado, close to a thousand miles away from our school. There we could work on some real geology. And even that area was not well mapped in the U.S.. In a section that I was mapping we came across a thrust fault that had not been mapped before. And that was in the U.S. where one would have thought everything had been mapped to death.

Could an error have been made in the prior dating of the straum? Yes, that is always a possibility. You only have grounds for complaint if they were certain of the date.

You need to do better than this.

 

[USincognito]

Here is an official article in Nature on the discovery:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v417/n6892/full/nature00818.html#B11

Did you notice two links at the top? One where the dating of the strata was challenged and another where the paper was retracted based on the new dating? Ricardo Melchor, the lead author in the first paper, was involved in both of them.

Why don't you address the dating issues raised in the challenge instead of merely asserting, "see what they did"?

 

[Styx87]

The title said "Fossils"... the title implied plural. I expected to see more than a few Theropod fossils which were inaccurately dated and then redated and placed exactly where we'd expect to find them.

Where are the fossil bunnies walking along side tiktalik and piltdown man?! I demand insects in the Cambrian! Where are the chimeras?!

 

[lifepsyop]

Could an error have been made in the prior dating of the straum? Yes, that is always a possibility. You only have grounds for complaint if they were certain of the date.

Rather a silly objection, SZ. Many varying levels of "certainty" could be reinterpreted as being in error in light of contradictory data. Even a robustly dated formation could be interpreted as "fortuitously" returning an erroneous concordance. And I don't see any statements about the Santo Domingo formation being "uncertainly dated" prior to this discovery. Seems that revelation only occurred after problematic fossils showed up. I wonder how many other regions on Earth could suddenly become "uncertainly dated" if need be?

Read again the 2009 paper's conclusions. They were 'certain' that the rocks must be younger than Triassic based on the presence of relatively modern looking bird tracks. Thus, before researchers even tried to figure out how the rocks could be younger, they had already made up their minds that the rocks *must* be younger, based not on evidence but on making the data fit evolution theory.

"The recognition of traces of flight (Volichnia), probing marks, and tracks showing morphology similar to modern shorebirds (G. dominguensis), strongly suggest an avian affinity for the producers of the fossil tracks and, in consequence, the Santo Domingo track site would be younger than supposed."

Should we be surprised that researchers found "evidence" that the rocks are younger when they began their analysis with that conclusion?

 

[Atheos canadensis]

Did you notice two links at the top? One where the dating of the strata was challenged and another where the paper was retracted based on the new dating? Ricardo Melchor, the lead author in the first paper, was involved in both of them.

Why don't you address the dating issues raised in the challenge instead of merely asserting, "see what they did"?

Because the conspiracy theory is easier and aligns with his views better, I assume.

 

[PsychoSarah]

Rather a silly objection, SZ. Many varying levels of "certainty" could be reinterpreted as being in error in light of contradictory data. Even a robustly dated formation could be interpreted as "fortuitously" returning an erroneous concordance. And I don't see any statements about the Santo Domingo formation being "uncertainly dated" prior to this discovery. Seems that revelation only occurred after problematic fossils showed up. I wonder how many other regions on Earth could suddenly become "uncertainly dated" if need be?

Read again the 2009 paper's conclusions. They were 'certain' that the rocks must be younger than Triassic based on the presence of relatively modern looking bird tracks. Thus, before researchers even tried to figure out how the rocks could be younger, they had already made up their minds that the rocks *must* be younger, based not on evidence but on making the data fit evolution theory.

"The recognition of traces of flight (Volichnia), probing marks, and tracks showing morphology similar to modern shorebirds (G. dominguensis), strongly suggest an avian affinity for the producers of the fossil tracks and, in consequence, the Santo Domingo track site would be younger than supposed."

Should we be surprised that researchers found "evidence" that the rocks are younger when they began their analysis with that conclusion?

Um, did you not notice that the paper was retracted on the grounds of poor dating? Someone else already posted it...

 

[lifepsyop]

Did you notice two links at the top? One where the dating of the strata was challenged and another where the paper was retracted based on the new dating? Ricardo Melchor, the lead author in the first paper, was involved in both of them.

Uh, yea, that is whole point of the OP.

Why don't you address the dating issues raised in the challenge instead of merely asserting, "see what they did"?

If you had bothered to read it, you would see that nearly the whole OP concerns the challenged dating.

*note to all* Please take the time to read instead of walking into the room flailing your arms and throwing things. There's already been a couple comments berating me for not knowing the tracks were made by Theropod dinosaurs, even though I already explained in the OP that the researchers themselves have rejected that hypothesis.

 

[PsychoSarah]

Uh, yea, that is whole point of the OP.



If you had bothered to read it, you would see that nearly the whole OP concerns the challenged dating.

*note to all* Please take the time to read instead of walking into the room flailing your arms and throwing things. There's already been a couple comments berating me for not knowing the tracks were made by Theropod dinosaurs, even though I already explained in the OP that the researchers themselves have already rejected that hypothesis.

Ok, look, sometimes people goof when they date stuff, so other people go out and redo the tests themselves. If the numbers consistently don't match with the original presented date, a dating error probably happened on the part of the person who did it initially.

 

[lifepsyop]

Unbelievable....!! New data was used to revise a prior understanding....!!

This is monstrous....!

What a waste of time........so when my maths students get an incorrect answer in solving an equation, it would be dishonest and unfair of me to have them check back through their working, to see if they made an error....!

Couple of problems.

1. The researchers were using imaginary data to draw conclusions before researching the supposed 'error'. They let evolution theory dictate that the rocks they were investigating could not possibly be as old as they had been dated.

2. There was no "error-checking" process. They threw a different dating method at the rocks and got a different date. Is that one 'correct'? Who knows? It is not uncommon to get substantially different dates with different dating methods. (blamed on interference of natural processes) How many different dates could be pulled out of the ground all over the world right now if evolutionists needed to push a rock forward or backward in time?

 

[DerelictJunction]

We are constantly told by evolutionists that if a fossil was ever found severely out of place, (like a mammal in the Paleozoic) that it would instantly falsify or overturn Evolution / Common Descent.
......
......

Highlighted is the religious commitment to Evolution on full display. The presence of a truly anachronistic fossil is itself *evidence* that the rocks which contain it can not possibly be dated correctly. The researchers *know* that the rocks must be of much more recent origin, all that's left is to try and "explain" it away..

Are you saying that it is "religious commitment" for a person to thoroughly investigate something that is an anomaly within the body of knowledge currently understood by that person?

Let's say you watch your friend run her automobile until it stopped from lack of fuel. Then she fills the fuel tank from a hose connected to the water spigot at her house. You both get in the car, she starts it up and drives you 100 miles without stopping at any fuel station.
Would you then decide that all your knowledge about the workings of internal combustion engines was entirely false...OR...would you investigate this anomaly further?

So we see that anytime an anachronistic fossil is discovered, (completely out of order with evolutionary paradigm) they have a grab-bag of assumed geologic processes and dating methods at their disposal to potentially push that fossil hundreds of millions of years in either direction to save the theory. I don't see how the implications of this can be avoided, given the above series of events. Evolution theory has an assortment of rescue devices at hand for insulating itself from falsification of even severely conflicting fossils.

Again, as a reminder, the conflicting fossil data itself was used as primary evidence for a "bad date" that had to be "corrected". I am left wondering how many times this 'methodology' has quietly occurred in the past to save the theory from equally problematic anachronistic fossil finds.

You say that the process used to get new (more accurate?) dates for the strata was contrived and faulty. That's all well and good but it is just your opinion. Perhaps it would be better if you showed how it is faulty.
What particular geologic processes were invoked by those geologists and what evidence shows the invoking of that process to be in error?

Maybe you have accidently stumbled onto something here.
Why not encourage the folks at Answer in Genesis to send some of the geologists they have on payroll to investigate? They should be chomping at the bit to show that the process used to change the dating of the strata was contrived and faulty.
They surely have enough money to mount an expedition to the area to investigate the geology and obtain samples.
I wonder why they haven't done that already.