Genes and Aging

[Tomk80]

As far as I know, at least tropical and subtropical amphibians show yearly bone growth marks. No idea what causes these, but they do have them.

 

[Naraoia]

What do I mean by "trillion-dollar question?" An ability to slow aging through genetic therapy would be a valuable skill worth trillions of dollars. That's all that I mean by that.

Thanks for the clarification.

I don't subscribe to the evolutionist ages/epocs (i.e. Paleozoic, Jurassic), so nothing I say will mesh with that paradigm. I definitely do not expect the "timing" to add up with respect to messing evolutionist theory with observation. I do not mean to insult, only to express what I believe.

Oh, you don't insult so long as you don't call us names for believing what we do

However, do you acknowledge the fact that fossils are grouped into distinct assemblages, and some types of fossil creatures are never found with other types? Further, do you acknowledge that this may represent a time sequence (whatever the time scale)?

Massive fossilized versions of almost every kind of plant and animal has been found:
Giant birds: http://www.amonline.net.au/birds/research/fossil_history.htm
Giant sea turtles: http://www.notesfromtheroad.com/westindies/bbc/bakers_bay_turtle1.htm ("No record of transitional species")

I see why you found it important to quote that bit. I assume you are quite happy to ignore the numerous instances where we do have detailed records of transitions. We can't observe every single tree grow from seed to mature plant. Is that a good reason to think that some trees don't develop like the ones we have seen growing?

Giant alligators: http://palaeo.gly.bris.ac.uk/Palaeofiles/Fossilgroups/Crocodylomorpha/Fossilrecord.html ("Scientists studying growth rings in the bone believe it was able to obtain its vast size by growing constantly throughout its 50-60 year life span.")

You are conflating the two giants here. Sarcosuchus, to which the above quote belongs, isn't an alligator, Deinosuchus, the other big croc, is Anyway, that's not the important thing. Important things are:

(1) I don't know if you noticed that both giant crocs mentioned on that page lived in the age of dinosaurs. They are also thought to be predators of large animals. Today, few land animals approach hadrosaur- or sauropod-size. So why would their predators (including crocs) grow so big? Maybe the variables aren't completely independent here?

(2) As far as I know modern crocs easily live as long as the estimate mentioned with Sarcosuchus. So giant crocs are no evidence that prehistoric giants lived longer than modern counterparts - only that they grew faster.

Giant insects: http://researchmag.asu.edu/stories/bugs.html ("The fossil evidence is abundant.")

For what is the fossil evidence abundant? You should've got used to the fact that we aren't easily impressed by a fancy line taken out of context. Anyway. If you've read the article, these giant insects disappear by the time dinosaurs take over. Why aren't they found together with dinosaurs (or any other gigantic land vertebrate)? Maybe they didn't live at the same time? Maybe their gigantism was caused by something different from vertebrate gigantism? Maybe it wasn't all the same pre-flood paradise?

Giant fungi: http://environment.newscientist.com/article/dn11701-mystery-prehistoric-fossil-verified-as-giant-fungus.html

Wow, thanks for posting that. I've never heard of the creature and it's rather cool. However, I don't see how this strengthens your point. This is a single instance of a giant fungus. Not like a trend or anything (I presume the 6-metre thing is a fruiting body? If that's the case it would only have been a temporary growth from an underground organism). AFAIK fungi continue to grow pretty huge (and old) today, even though they don't usually stick anything very big above the soil surface.

Moreover, the plants and animals contemporary with Prototaxites are fairly small, and that's hinted at in the article you've linked. Again, why don't all the giants occur together?

Giant deer: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/09/0906_050906_giant_deer.html

How about giant giraffes? Or other groups whose largest members are alive now? Horses are another example, off the top of my head. You probably wouldn't call modern (wild) horses, asses and zebras giants but I'm pretty sure you'd be hard pressed to find bigger prehistoric equids. Humans are also larger than most prehistoric relatives, or even earlier historic humans.

I could go on. I believe that gigantism in prehistoric plants and animals has multifactoral causes. 1) Incredible longevity in animals and plants that continually grow for their entire lifespan.

Maybe, in some cases. Or fast and long (but not incredibly so) growth.

2) Vastly better nutrition.

Evidence? Do all these giants come from bountiful ancient environments? I don't think so. I've read about a sauropod from the Djadochta Formation in Mongolia, which is commonly thought to represent a fairly arid palaeoenvironment. Sand dunes and all. I could probably find more examples if I looked but this one find is enough to cast doubt on this idea. How would the sauropods get all that vastly better nutrition in a desert?

3) 50% higher atmospheric oxygen content.

Which was quite a unique occurrence IIRC, and the only gigantism it more or less coincided with is that of insects and millipedes. Ok, perhaps you could count lycophytes and horsetails, but then trees have been big ever since then, only the sorts of trees growing that big changed a few times.

4) Undegraded, pristine genome.

Evidence?

5) Little or no selective pressure in favor of smaller animals.

Which disregards the countless small animals that coexisted with giants. Dinosaurs weren't all Brachiosaurus and T. rex.

One can compare the geneologies in Genesis and the detailed and precise factual accounts of the Flood in the Bible with the corresponding Sumerian accounts and the dozens of accounts from other cultures and see at once that the Genesis account is by far the most credible of all the accounts of which modern man is currently aware.

Please enlighten me, what makes it so?

As far as the scientific evidence is concerned, the evidence of a massive worldwide flood is completely manifest.

Where?

Evolutionists are very late to the game when it comes to accepting catastrophism, but the modern trend is heavily in favor of catastrophism, even if many scientists can't bring themselves to admit that it was a global flood and not a mega-asteroid. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catastrophism ("The dominant paradigm of geology has been uniformitarianism (also sometimes described as gradualism), but recently a more inclusive and integrated view of geologic events has developed resulting in a gradual change in the scientific consensus, reflecting acceptance of some catastrophic events.")

I thought you've been refuted on this catastrophism hogwash before, either in the abiogenesis thread or the star formation thread, I'm not sure. Does someone have the posts bookmarked?

 

[Tomk80]

The reason why gigantic insects could grow to enormous size was indeed probably the higher oxygen level. This is because insects get their oxygen through trachea, which is a passive process. So the size of the insects is determined by how deep the oxygen can go into the trachea. Higher concentration of oxygen, larger insects possible.

For reptiles, mammals and birds the oxygen is acquired actively. Because of this the size of the creature becomes independent of the oxygen levels for a large part. High levels of oxygen may even become toxic, because of the high reactivity of oxygen. Meaning that in environments with higher oxygen levels, organisms might in fact live shorter lives.