Into what? Crocobirds? Smithsonian Magazine is anxious for us to know that they are NOT “living fossils.” They have evolved a lot, we are told, though admittedly they are evolving around in a circle. It would be interesting to know why stasis became such a threatening concept in some quarters.
stasis
Three-eyed dinosaur shrimp are NOT living fossils!, docent insists
Despite the fact that they go back 350 million years to the Devonian period.
Stanford: Plants evolved complexity in two rapid bursts — 250 million years apart
Researcher: “The most surprising thing is this kind of stasis, this plateau in complexity after the initial evolution of seeds and then the total change that happened when flowering plants started diversifying,” said lead study author Andrew Leslie, an assistant professor of geological sciences at Stanford’s School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences (Stanford Earth). “The reproductive structures look different in all these plants, but they all have about the same number of parts during that stasis.”
Reptile’s skull changed little in 22 million years
At ScienceDaily: “”Basically, in anything except living fossils, you don’t go 22 million years without evolving,” said [Louis] Jacobs, professor emeritus of Earth Sciences at SMU and president of ISEM at SMU.” (Well, first, if that’s true, maybe they were the “living fossils” of their day. Maybe it is not even that unusual. Any chance there is a pattern here that devotion to Darwinism prevents people from seeing?)
At Mind Matters News: Do brains really evolve? The horseshoe crab’s brain didn’t
At Science News: “The preserved central nervous system lends insight into the ancient crab’s behavior, the researchers say. Because the fossil brain is so similar to the brains of modern horseshoe crabs, Bicknell says, it’s safe to say the ancient animal’s walking, breathing and even feeding habits were probably similar to horseshoe crabs’ today, including eating with their legs. “
Fossil spores on land pushed back 20 million years
The big story here isn’t about the disconnect between molecular and fossil data; it’s about how early on more complex life forms got started (all that complexity in such a short time isn’t looking good for random mutations).
Botanist Margaret Helder asks: How can a “simple” or “primitive” sponge surprise engineers with its optimal physics?
Helder: A team of Italian and American scientists researching this topic declared that the sponges display “exceptional structural properties” which enable them to thrive. In fact, their study reveals “mechanisms of extraordinary adaptation to live in the abyss.”
What we have learned from ancient brains is that evolution did not happen to them
Researchers: Even to the untrained eye, a comparison of the fossil’s nervous system with that of a modern horseshoe crab (below) leaves little question that the same structures are found in both species, despite them being separated by 310 million years.
Oldest continuous human habitation pegged at Wonderwerk, 1.8 million years ago
ScienceAlert: “the new findings are now thought to be the earliest sign of continuous prehistoric human living inside a cave – with the use of fire and tools in one fixed location indoors.” Funny how our ancestors get smarter every time we look at them.
Would you believe… that the brain-eye connection evolved 100 million years earlier than believed?
Isn’t this becoming a trend? Textbook Darwinism is surely a hindrance to the student who must learn and regurgitate the “narrative” while, if the interest is there, learning the facts by other means.
Researchers: Microbes have been “at an evolutionary standstill” for 175 million years
Researcher: “The best explanation we have at the moment is that these microbes did not change much since their physical locations separated during the breakup of supercontinent Pangaea, about 175 million years ago,” Stepanauskas said. “They appear to be living fossils from those days. That sounds quite crazy and goes against the contemporary understanding of microbial evolution.”
Researchers: First organism to breathe oxygen appeared 3.1 billion years ago
But the Great Oxidation Event didn’t occur until 500 million years later. Sounds like the unfolding of a plan, actually.
We are similar to Ediacaran animals? Well, that’s stasis for you!
The similarity doesn’t sound convincing but then Darwinian narratives don’t need to sound convincing; they just need to sound comforting to Darwinians.
Researchers: Huge coelacanth fish is “not a living fossil”
For all practical purposes, the coelacanth is a “living fossil,” in the sense that it is an example of stasis. It wanders a bit genetically over millions of years but doesn’t change much over hundreds of millions of years. Could we say the same of most vertebrates?
Has the Smithsonian converted to creationism about crocodiles?
At the Smithsonian: Surviving crocodiles did not change throughout millions of years because they arrived at an equilibrium where they were efficient and versatile enough that they did not need to evolve to exist, reports the Conversation.