Evolution - Rescuing out-of-place Fossils

[PhantomGaze]

I never said there were a bunch of misplaced genra, I meant specific species fossils, and I don't think many are misplaced.

And yes, well aware of the homology issues. I need to learn to communicate better.

Oh gosh, I'm such a punk. I read your comment right the first time, then I went back and responded after I had forgotten the context and read something entirely different into it.

 

[PsychoSarah]

Oh gosh, I'm such a punk. I read your comment right the first time, then I went back and responded after I had forgotten the context and read something entirely different into it.

It happens, is all good.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Oh gosh, I'm such a punk. I read your comment right the first time, then I went back and responded after I had forgotten the context and read something entirely different into it.

We all make mistakes. I had the dating methods mixed up in this discussion leading to some confusion. As long as we own up to your errors there is no problem. It is when we make mistakes and try to justify them that causes disharmony.

 

[DerelictJunction]

As long as we own up to your errors there is no problem.

...just so we don't own up to our own.

 

[Subduction Zone]

...just so we don't own up to our own.

I guess I could have been a bit clearer there. But since I just before this admitted twice that I had screwed up my meaning should have been obvious.

 

[DerelictJunction]

And I'm not arguing either of those.

Not pushing you to come back to this thread...it's only been one day. Just keeping it on your radar screen.

 

[Loudmouth]

What I am claiming is the implications to the overall theory, that anachronisms can potentially be rescued by discarding old dates and re-dating the regions they're found in. This has implications for potential falsifiability and flies in the face of the familiar cry of evolutionists that their theory could be disproven by "discovering a single out of place fossil." Things clearly are not that black and white.

Unless you can show why the re-dating is innacurate, then all you are really doing is complaining that the results didn't go your way. What this really calls into question is how open to falsification your own ideas are. I think you have shown that you prefer one date over another purely because of your like or dislike of the conclusions they lead to. That points strongly towards bias and dogma.

 

[poikilotherm]

What I am claiming is the implications to the overall theory, that anachronisms can potentially be rescued by discarding old dates and re-dating the regions they're found in. This has implications for potential falsifiability and flies in the face of the familiar cry of evolutionists that their theory could be disproven by "discovering a single out of place fossil." Things clearly are not that black and white.

If ,my watch says it is two o`clock, my phone says its two o`clock, the town hall clock says its two o`clock and the two o`clock news has just come on, but the clock outside the jewelers says it is five o`clock - what time is it?

 

[lifepsyop]

Not pushing you to come back to this thread...it's only been one day. Just keeping it on your radar screen.

Hmm? I've stated my case. All I saw in response was basically the evolutionists' conviction that the researchers had made the right choice, as well as a bunch of strawmen that avoided what I was arguing.

The latest highlight was a comical blunder by Subduction Zone who accidentally argued against the wrong thing, thinking he was supporting the revised radiometric date.

 

[lifepsyop]

If ,my watch says it is two o`clock, my phone says its two o`clock, the town hall clock says its two o`clock and the two o`clock news has just come on, but the clock outside the jewelers says it is five o`clock - what time is it?

This is an opportunity for clarity. Now think about the implications of what you're saying here.

In other words,

Since everyone knows a certain fossil does not belong outside of X, we are therefore justified in re-interpreting its anomalous appearance as within X.

That is exactly the type of circular reasoning that works to insulate evolution theory from potential falsification.

 

[Loudmouth]

This is an opportunity for clarity. Now think about the implications of what you're saying here.

In other words,

Since everyone knows a certain fossil does not belong outside of X, we are therefore justified in re-interpreting its anomalous appearance as within X.

That is exactly the type of circular reasoning that works to insulate evolution theory from potential falsification.

They interpretted new evidence, and you haven't even tried to show that their interpretation is wrong.

 

[leftrightleftrightleft]

I'm no creationist, but I'm not sure why everyone jumped down lifepsyop's throat at the beginning of this thread. His posts are probably some of the better written of the creationists on this site.

There's a variety of things about this case that make me uneasy:

If the strata of the Laguna Brava formation had not contained the bird-like footprints, no one would have batted an eye and no one would have thought anything of it. The formation was confirmed to be late Triassic via 3 independent methods: fossil wood (Caminos et al., 1995), 40Ar/39Ar dating (Coughlin, 2001) and paleomagnetic studies (Vizan et al., 2005). That's pretty damning evidence to say it is Triassic.

This raises the question: how many other geological settings have been dated wildly wrong? If a formation has been dated 3 times via different methods and all methods independently verified the same age, and all of it was wrong by several hundred million years, that seriously throws into question a good chunk of the Earth's strata. Thats a really bad spot to be in as a geologist...

How sure are they that the new date is any better?

Furthermore, why is it so impossible to think that a therapod could make the tracks? The scientific community seemed to get in a tizzy about it and build these convoluted geological models that get Eocene rocks on top of Permian strata. They redid the radiometric dating (with U-Pb, not 40Ar/39Ar....why didn't they try using the same method as Coughlin (2001)?)

There was a paper written by Milner et al (2009) which talks about an early Jurassic therapod that has distincly bird-like tracks (specifically a 'reversed hallux'). (Title of the article: "Bird-like anatomy, posture, and behavior revealed by an early Jurassic theropod"). So there's already research out there to suggest that bird-like tracks should not be all that surprising in early Jurassic strata.


I would almost rather go with the original conclusions: the rock is late Triassic, as confirmed from 3 independent sources. A bird-like theropod made the tracks, as supported by Milner (2009).

The current conclusion seems far sketchier and convoluted. A 200 million year discontinuity that previous researchers missed? Three independent sources all being wrong simultaneously? A convoluted paleo-magnetic model that introduces block-shifting to get the poles to align? All this to explain away a set of tracks that had already been explained perfectly and consistently by the previous model...




And lastly, why the heck did Nature retract the original article? The authors did nothing wrong, did they? There was no malice or malpractice. And yet they retracted it. Why would a scientific journal want to retract articles after other articles disprove them? Isn't that what science is? Scientific progress depends on other people proving other people wrong. By retracting the article, you get rid of the trail that shows how that progress occurred.

There's a whole bunch of things about this case that just don't make sense to me.



Note: Of course, none of this even remotely supports a 6000-year old Earth. It's funny that lifepsyop is saying "Gotcha!", but the conclusion he's using is that the rock is still like 50 million years old...

 

[[serious]]

As an analogy, let's say that you are taking the limit of the following series: 1+2+3+4+5+6... and you find it equals -1/12. Well, first thing you do is check your math.

 

[Loudmouth]

And lastly, why the heck did Nature retract the original article? The authors did nothing wrong, did they? There was no malice or malpractice. And yet they retracted it.

Retraction does not always mean that there was malice or malpractice. It simply means that they are human and got enough wrong that their conclusions are meaningless. The retraction is meant to inform others that even the authors no longer accept their conclusions.

Why would a scientific journal want to retract articles after other articles disprove them? Isn't that what science is?

Papers are often retracted if the methodology is shown to be wrong or faulty. If you think you were measuring one thing but you were actually measuring another, then that is a big problem that can lead to retraction, even if the authors were completely honest with their findings.

 

[lifepsyop]

There's a variety of things about this case that make me uneasy:

If the strata of the Laguna Brava formation had not contained the bird-like footprints, no one would have batted an eye and no one would have thought anything of it. The formation was confirmed to be late Triassic via 3 independent methods: fossil wood (Caminos et al., 1995), 40Ar/39Ar dating (Coughlin, 2001) and paleomagnetic studies (Vizan et al., 2005). That's pretty damning evidence to say it is Triassic.

This raises the question: how many other geological settings have been dated wildly wrong? If a formation has been dated 3 times via different methods and all methods independently verified the same age, and all of it was wrong by several hundred million years, that seriously throws into question a good chunk of the Earth's strata. Thats a really bad spot to be in as a geologist...

How sure are they that the new date is any better?

Thank you, I couldn't have said it any better. They are rejecting a previous concordance of data, which has implications for geochronology in general.

Not only could countless stratigraphic regions be unknowingly misdated due to absence of an obvious "red flag" like an anchronism, but it also reveals the 'living' nature of geologic dates whereby an unknown amount of consilience can potentially be overturned if it means harmonizing evolution theory.

Furthermore, why is it so impossible to think that a therapod could make the tracks? The scientific community seemed to get in a tizzy about it and build these convoluted geological models that get Eocene rocks on top of Permian strata. They redid the radiometric dating (with U-Pb, not 40Ar/39Ar....why didn't they try using the same method as Coughlin (2001)?)

There was a paper written by Milner et al (2009) which talks about an early Jurassic therapod that has distincly bird-like tracks (specifically a 'reversed hallux'). (Title of the article: "Bird-like anatomy, posture, and behavior revealed by an early Jurassic theropod"). So there's already research out there to suggest that bird-like tracks should not be all that surprising in early Jurassic strata.

I would almost rather go with the original conclusions: the rock is late Triassic, as confirmed from 3 independent sources. A bird-like theropod made the tracks, as supported by Milner (2009).

I'm only going by what the researchers concluded about the trackways. The gist of it was that the tracks were extremely similar to those of modern shorebirds. It sounds like they were pretty thorough in comparative analysis. Would be interested to hear your thoughts on it.

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

The current conclusion seems far sketchier and convoluted. A 200 million year discontinuity that previous researchers missed? Three independent sources all being wrong simultaneously? A convoluted paleo-magnetic model that introduces block-shifting to get the poles to align? All this to explain away a set of tracks that had already been explained perfectly and consistently by the previous model...

And lastly, why the heck did Nature retract the original article? The authors did nothing wrong, did they? There was no malice or malpractice. And yet they retracted it. Why would a scientific journal want to retract articles after other articles disprove them? Isn't that what science is? Scientific progress depends on other people proving other people wrong. By retracting the article, you get rid of the trail that shows how that progress occurred.

There's a whole bunch of things about this case that just don't make sense to me.

Awhile ago I followed a discussion about that point. People watching the exchange were very discouraged about the retraction for the same reasons you outline. It only adds a big question mark to an already sketchy situation.

Note: Of course, none of this even remotely supports a 6000-year old Earth. It's funny that lifepsyop is saying "Gotcha!", but the conclusion he's using is that the rock is still like 50 million years old...

Please don't misunderstand me. I'm not claiming any of this is evidence for young earth creation. I'm simply pointing out the implications to evolution theory with regards to anachronistic fossils and falsifiability. Of course I would disagree with both Triassic and Eocene "dates"

 

[Loudmouth]

Thank you, I couldn't have said it any better. They are rejecting a previous concordance of data, which has implications for geochronology in general.

They rejected it because it was later discovered that the dated materials were not related to their sediments in the way they thought they were. New information came forward showing that their previous analysis was wrong.

The fact that you cling to the falsified analyses is a serious problem for your claims, not evolution or standard geology.

 

[lifepsyop]

Well this thread certainly got quiet all of the sudden.

 

[PsychoSarah]

Well this thread certainly got quiet all of the sudden.

I'm around, just so many long posts though...

 

[Seipai]

Well this thread certainly got quiet all of the sudden.

They are waiting for you to come up with something new.

Your original claim was shown to be wrong, and quite thoroughly too. If you want some more action come up with another example. If you have only one questionable, actually debunked, example then you can't expect people to keep showing how you were wrong.

 

[lasthero]

Well this thread certainly got quiet all of the sudden.

I know, right. It's almost like people have better things to do with their Saturday than talk to you.