Complete fossil sponges from the Cretaceous, 83.5 – 71.3 million years ago

_{Denyse O'Leary

December 24, 2014

Evolution, Intelligent Design, News, stasis}

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A very rare occurrence can be found in a unique Cretaceous fossil deposit in North Central Germany. A variety of highly unusual SEA SPONGE FOSSILS dating from a Campanian Era sea of the Cretaceous were preserved in FULL THREE DIMENSIONAL PRESERVATION retaining delicate anatomy seldom seen in prehistoric sponge fossils. The sponges found in this deposit comprise a very diverse breadth of anatomical varieties and nearly 180 different species. The fossils are found embedded in limestone host rock and were dug from subterranean deposits therefore, they were not exposed to the harsh elements and show no typical erosion or degradation of detail like so many sponge fossils of similar 3D preservation. These specific fossil sponges are so bizarre because the best specimens are completely lifelike with full three-dimensional preservation looking as if they were alive seconds ago before being turned to stone. We acquired a limited, old private collection of the finest specimens from the original excavator. When they are all gone, it is doubtful we will ever have this quality of sponge fossils to offer again.

The majority of the sponges we acquired are free from their matrix and show minute surface detail of all relative anatomy including the osculum (little mouth at top where the water was expelled), pores, pustules, bumps, internal chambers when broken, stem, signs of prehistoric predator damage incurred with once alive and in some cases, additional prehistoric life-forms attached to the outer surface. The color is natural white from the limestone with variations due to trace minerals.

Sounds as though they are for sale.

And you were wondering what to get your local science museum for Christmas?

It will be interesting to see whether their internal anatomy is different from that of today’s sponges. Bet not. Some arthropods haven’t changed much either.

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Hat tip: Philip Cunningham

Comments

"Every mother is similar to her daughter" & "just add 200 million years". Seriously, that is truly bogus. How can people believe that that crud explains Nature.ppolish_{December 26, 2014
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Aaaah BA, you are missing the point, once again, it seems to be an error common here. "Seqenenre, I don't believe in universal common descent." There is so much to work with here. First, the word 'believe'. Very problematic as we are dealing with physical knowns, that is heritable material along the maternal line. This requires no 'belief', it is a fact even you might be aware of. 'Belief' in, or not in, this fact is moot and pointless. You, 'accept' this fact or you 'deny' this fact. 'Belief' and 'faith' are perfectly useless here BA. fifthmonarchyman, you say because the boundary between species is blurred we cannot say when one species evolved clearly from another; correct? Scientists today are hard pressed to acknowledge a clear boundary between species; correct? Therefore evolution is incorrect as it is not observable in species to species change; possibly correct? I hope I got the gist of this extremely tired canard right, as this is a powerful argument for common descent, IF, you accept vast periods of time. You see, I use 'accept', rather than BA's and your tired fatuous 'belief' and 'faith' nonsense.You see, if we add 100s of millions of years to your tedious spiel, all becomes clear.rvb8_{December 26, 2014
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wd400 says, This is like complaning that night can’t follow day because every moment from dawn to midnight is very alike the one prior to it I say, I can at any moment tell you the time at my location. The more precise my measurement device the more clear the demarcation is and the more confident I can be. You and I might disagree about whether 2 hours before the dawn is early morning or the middle of the night but we can rely on modern atomic clocks and GMT to give the exact time down to the second. Physicists believe that the experience of time is realitve to the observer but most don't claim that time itself is an illusion. In fact time is considered to be a dimension like length and with the 2nd law the flow of time is considered to be fundamental property of the universe It's not like this at all with evolutionary biology. With Evolutionary Biology the better we can measure the properties of an organism the less sure we can be of exactly what species it belongs to. The most celebrated experts in the field talk as if the whole concept of species is an illusion Doesn't this give you a little pause? peacefifthmonarchyman_{December 26, 2014
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Seqenenre, I don't believe in universal common descent. The evidence simply is not there
"Once Eldredge and Gould had pointed out that stasis was equally important (“stasis is data” in Gould’s words), paleontologists all over the world saw that stasis was the general pattern, and that gradualism was rare—and that is still the consensus 40 years later." - Prothero http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/12-02-15/#feature
And unless you are privy to some blockbuster evidence that no one else seems to have access to, then I firmly believe your belief in common descent is based more on imagination rather than any hard substantiating evidence: But here is a simple question for you Seqenenre. Do you actually believe that unguided Darwinian processes, which have never been observed to create even a single gene/protein in the lab, created your brain?
Human brain has more switches than all computers on Earth - November 2010 Excerpt: They found that the brain's complexity is beyond anything they'd imagined, almost to the point of being beyond belief, says Stephen Smith, a professor of molecular and cellular physiology and senior author of the paper describing the study: ...One synapse, by itself, is more like a microprocessor--with both memory-storage and information-processing elements--than a mere on/off switch. In fact, one synapse may contain on the order of 1,000 molecular-scale switches. A single human brain has more switches than all the computers and routers and Internet connections on Earth. http://news.cnet.com/8301-27083_3-20023112-247.html "Complexity Brake" Defies Evolution - August 8, 2012 Excerpt: Consider a neuronal synapse -- the presynaptic terminal has an estimated 1000 distinct proteins. Fully analyzing their possible interactions would take about 2000 years. Or consider the task of fully characterizing the visual cortex of the mouse -- about 2 million neurons. Under the extreme assumption that the neurons in these systems can all interact with each other, analyzing the various combinations will take about 10 million years..., even though it is assumed that the underlying technology speeds up by an order of magnitude each year. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/08/complexity_brak062961.html Component placement optimization in the brain – 1994 As he comments [106], “To current limits of accuracy … the actual placement appears to be the best of all possible layouts; this constitutes strong evidence of perfect optimization.,, among about 40,000,000 alternative layout orderings, the actual ganglion placement in fact requires the least total connection length. http://www.jneurosci.org/content/14/4/2418.abstract
Seqenenre, if you truly believe that all that is just an accident of time and chance you have far more blind faith than any Jihadist who believes 70 virgins await him in heaven for killing people by his own suicide. It would take some pretty spectacular evidence for me to believe as such, and yet, as pointed out previously, not even a single gene/protein of evidence arises in support for Darwinian claims. And seeing as how much care and craftsmanship went into fashioning your very own brain, are you not the least bit interested in meeting the One who put your brain together? Quote, Verse and Music:
"The only human emotion I could feel was pure, unrelenting, unconditional love. Take the unconditional love a mother has for a child and amplify it a thousand fold, then multiply exponentially. The result of your equation would be as a grain of sand is to all the beaches in the world. So, too, is the comparison between the love we experience on earth to what I felt during my experience. This love is so strong, that words like "love" make the description seem obscene. It was the most powerful and compelling feeling. But, it was so much more. I felt the presence of angels. I felt the presence of joyous souls, and they described to me a hundred lifetimes worth of knowledge about our divinity. Simultaneous to the deliverance of this knowledge, I knew I was in the presence of God. I never wanted to leave, never." Near Death Experience Testimony Acts 26:13-15 at midday, O king, along the road I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, shining around me and those who journeyed with me. And when we all had fallen to the ground, I heard a voice speaking to me and saying in the Hebrew language, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’ So I said, ‘Who are You, Lord?’ And He said, ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. Thrive - Casting Crowns lyric: "It’s time for us to more than just survive We were made to thrive" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQ71RWJhS_M
bornagain77_{December 26, 2014
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Seqenenre,
As every mother is of the same species as her daughter, how then do we have a pikaia (or some similar species) at one end of my family tree and me, a human being, at the other end?
Every mother is similar to her daughter, but where you draw the line from one species to the next in a single evolving lineage (rather than divergent lineages) is pretty arbitrary. This is like complaning that night can't follow day because every moment from dawn to midnight is very alike the one prior to itwd400_{December 26, 2014
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PPolish, Are you joking? How does ID deal with this devastating flaw in evolutionary biology?wd400_{December 26, 2014
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"How do we have a pikaia at one end of my family tree and me at the other end?" Yes, Seqenenre, that is a tough one. Here is another tough one: You have 2 Parents, 4 Grandparents, 8 Great grandparents, 16 Great Great grandparents etc. Go back 30 or so generations and your relatives outnumber the total human population.ppolish_{December 26, 2014
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I may have phrased my question the wrong way. I'll try again: First, three assumptions: An average generation time of 10 years. Every living being has at least one parent (let's call her mother). Every daughter (well, almost every daughter) is of the same species as her mother. Three questions: Do you agree with me that my own personal great, great, great (repeat 10 million times) grandmother who lived 100 million years ago certainly was not a human being? Do you agree with me that my own personal great, great, great (repeat 30 million times) grandmother who lived 300 million years ago certainly was not a mammal? And do you agree with me that my own personal great, great, great (repeat 51 million times) grandmother who lived 510 million years ago might have been an individual pikaia? (Imagine a line of 51 million dots, each dot representing a single birth and the next dot representing the birth of the mother of the previous dot: the first dot is my birth, the last dot is a pikaia mother giving birth to a daughter.) The problem: As every mother is of the same species as her daughter, how then do we have a pikaia (or some similar species) at one end of my family tree and me, a human being, at the other end?Seqenenre_{December 26, 2014
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Rvb8, you forget the other authority BA appeals to: Scientists. If he thinks they support his bizarre views then they are smart cookies and deserve his admiration. Of course, the very same scientists can be complete morons if it turns out, for example, that they are "Darwinists".hrun0815_{December 25, 2014
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Seqenenre, BA is incapable of answering a question without both ridiculing authority (of researchers and scientists) and then appealing to authority; BA, Luskin, really? I also note his 'authority' is North American based, largely DI based, and with a noticeable absence of people concerned with evolutionary biology. Appealing to ICR, Discovery, Luskin, and youtube, does not a convincing scientific argument make. Perhaps organizations outside the US actively researching ID predictions and observations, may serve your argument with more credibility than, little to none?rvb8_{December 25, 2014
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Moreover, the supposed genetic evidence for Human evolution is far less robust than many people believe,,,
Podcast - Richard Sternberg PhD - On Human Origins: Is Our Genome Full of Junk DNA? Part 2. (Major Differences in higher level chromosome spatial organization) 5:30 minute mark quote: "Basically the dolphin genome is almost wholly identical to the human genome,, yet no one would argue that bottle-nose dolphins are our sister species" http://www.discovery.org/multimedia/audio/2014/11/on-human-origins-is-our-genome-full-of-junk-dna-pt-2/ Kangaroo genes close to humans Excerpt: Australia's kangaroos are genetically similar to humans,,, "There are a few differences, we have a few more of this, a few less of that, but they are the same genes and a lot of them are in the same order," ,,,"We thought they'd be completely scrambled, but they're not. There is great chunks of the human genome which is sitting right there in the kangaroo genome," http://www.reuters.com/article/science%20News/idUSTRE4AH1P020081118 Human Origins(?) by Brian Thomas, M.S. - December 20, 2013 Excerpt: Three major pillars supporting a human-chimp link crashed in 2013. 1. Genetic similarity (70% instead of 98%) 2. beta-globin pseudogene (functional instead of leftover junk) 3. Chromosome 2 fusion site (encodes a functional feature within an important gene instead of a being a fusion site) All three key genetic pillars of human evolution (for Darwinists) turned out to be specious—overstatements based on ignorance of genetic function. http://www.icr.org/article/7867/ The Myth of 98% Genetic Similarity and Chromosome Fusion between Humans and Chimps - Jeffrey Tomkins PhD. - video https://vimeo.com/95287522
bornagain77_{December 25, 2014
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Seqenenre, your question presupposes Universal Common Descent. Yet, the fossil record, despite what you may believe, does not support Universal Common Descent. Thus your question is asking ID to explain a non-existent fact of the fossil record. Neo-Darwinism, since it is not a hard science, is much more suited to explaining non-existent and imaginary facts than ID is. (although ID is not incompatible with Universal Common Descent if that would have been the pattern found in the fossil record) Moreover, contrary to the 'march of man' cartoon drawings you may have been taught in grade school,,
“We have all seen the canonical parade of apes, each one becoming more human. We know that, as a depiction of evolution, this line-up is tosh (i.e. nonsense). Yet we cling to it. Ideas of what human evolution ought to have been like still colour our debates.” Henry Gee, editor of Nature (478, 6 October 2011, page 34, doi:10.1038/478034a),
,,there is no nice, neat, progession of fossils from ape to man:
Skull "Rewrites" Story of Human Evolution -- Again - Casey Luskin - October 22, 2013 Excerpt: "There is a big gap in the fossil record," Zollikofer told NBC News. "I would put a question mark there. Of course it would be nice to say this was the last common ancestor of Neanderthals and us, but we simply don't know." - http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/10/skull_rewrites_078221.html “A number of hominid crania are known from sites in eastern and southern Africa in the 400- to 200-thousand-year range, but none of them looks like a close antecedent of the anatomically distinctive Homo sapiens…Even allowing for the poor record we have of our close extinct kin, Homo sapiens appears as distinctive and unprecedented…there is certainly no evidence to support the notion that we gradually became who we inherently are over an extended period, in either the physical or the intellectual sense.” Dr. Ian Tattersall: – paleoanthropologist – emeritus curator of the American Museum of Natural History – (Masters of the Planet, 2012) Man is indeed as unique, as different from all other animals, as had been traditionally claimed by theologians and philosophers. Evolutionist Ernst Mayr (What Evolution Is. 2001)
In the following podcasts, Casey Luskin, speaking at a recent Science and Human Origins conference, discusses why the fossil evidence doesn’t support the claim that humans evolved from some ape-like precursors.
2014 - podcast - Casey Luskin - On Human Origins: What the Fossils Tell Us, part 1 http://www.discovery.org/multimedia/audio/2014/12/on-human-origins-what-the-fossils-tell-us/ podcast - Casey Luskin - On Human Origins: What the Fossils Tell Us, part 2 http://www.discovery.org/multimedia/audio/2014/12/on-human-origins-what-the-fossils-tell-us-pt-2/ podcast - Casey Luskin - On Human Origins: What the Fossils Tell Us, part 3 http://www.discovery.org/multimedia/audio/2014/12/on-human-origins-what-the-fossils-tell-us-pt-3/ podcast - Casey Luskin - On Human Origins: What the Fossils Tell Us, part 4 http://www.discovery.org/multimedia/audio/2014/12/on-human-origins-what-the-fossils-tell-us-pt-4/ Human/Ape Common Ancestry: Following the Evidence - Casey Luskin - June 2011 Excerpt: So the researchers constructed an evolutionary tree based on 129 skull and tooth measurements for living hominoids, including gorillas, chimpanzees, orangutans and humans, and did the same with 62 measurements recorded on Old World monkeys, including baboons, mangabeys and macaques. They also drew upon published molecular phylogenies. At the outset, Wood and Collard assumed the molecular evidence was correct. “There were so many different lines of genetic evidence pointing in one direction,” Collard explains. But no matter how the computer analysis was run, the molecular and morphological trees could not be made to match15 (see figure, below). Collard says this casts grave doubt on the reliability of using morphological evidence to determine the fine details of evolutionary trees for higher primates. “It is saying it is positively misleading,” he says. The abstract of the pair’s paper stated provocatively that “existing phylogenetic hypotheses about human evolution are unlikely to be reliable”.[10] http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/06/following_the_evidence_where_i047161.html#comment-9266481
bornagain77_{December 25, 2014
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That is all very interesting, but does not answer my question: So we start with a human and 510 million years earlier we have a tiny worm-fish like creature. Yet each daughter being born in this long line of maternal descent is of the same species as her mother. What is the explanation offered by Intelligent Design for this?Seqenenre_{December 25, 2014
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Seqenenre, What is the Darwinian explanation for this?
What Types of Evolution Does the Cambrian Explosion Challenge? - Stephen Meyer - video - (challenges Universal Common Descent and the Mechanism of Random Variation/Natural Selection) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaF7t5wRFtA&list=UUUMhP2x7_7psVO-H4MJFpAQ Cambrian Explosion Ruins Darwin's Tree of Life (2 minutes in 24 hour day) - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQKxkUb_AAg
, as Dr. Wells points out in the preceding video, Darwin predicted that minor differences (diversity) between species would gradually appear first and then the differences would grow larger (disparity) between species as time went on. i.e. universal common descent as depicted in Darwin's tree of life. What Darwin predicted should be familiar to everyone and is easily represented in the following graph.,,,
The Theory - Diversity precedes Disparity - graph http://www.veritas-ucsb.org/JOURNEY/IMAGES/F.gif
But that 'tree pattern' that Darwin predicted is not what is found in the fossil record. The fossil record reveals that disparity (the greatest differences) precedes diversity (the smaller differences), which is the exact opposite pattern for what Darwin's theory predicted.
The Actual Fossil Evidence- Disparity precedes Diversity - graph http://www.veritas-ucsb.org/JOURNEY/IMAGES/G.gif Investigating Evolution: The Cambrian Explosion Part 1 – (4:45 minute mark - upside-down fossil record) video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DkbmuRhXRY Part 2 – video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZFM48XIXnk Timeline graphic on Cambrian Explosion from 'Darwin's Doubt' (Disparity preceding Diversity) http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/07/its_darwins_dou074341.html
Moreover, there are 'yawning chasms' in the 'morphological space' between the phyla which suddenly appeared in the Cambrian Explosion,,,
"Over the past 150 years or so, paleontologists have found many representatives of the phyla that were well-known in Darwin’s time (by analogy, the equivalent of the three primary colors) and a few completely new forms altogether (by analogy, some other distinct colors such as green and orange, perhaps). And, of course, within these phyla, there is a great deal of variety. Nevertheless, the analogy holds at least insofar as the differences in form between any member of one phylum and any member of another phylum are vast, and paleontologists have utterly failed to find forms that would fill these yawning chasms in what biotechnologists call “morphological space.” In other words, they have failed to find the paleolontogical equivalent of the numerous finely graded intermediate colors (Oedleton blue, dusty rose, gun barrel gray, magenta, etc.) that interior designers covet. Instead, extensive sampling of the fossil record has confirmed a strikingly discontinuous pattern in which representatives of the major phyla stand in stark isolation from members of other phyla, without intermediate forms filling the intervening morphological space." Stephen Meyer - Darwin’s Doubt (p. 70)
Moreover, this top down pattern in the fossil record, which is the complete opposite pattern as Darwin predicted for the fossil record, is not only found in the Cambrian Explosion, but this 'top down', disparity preceding diversity, pattern is found in the fossil record subsequent to the Cambrian explosion as well.
Scientific study turns understanding about evolution on its head – July 30, 2013 Excerpt: evolutionary biologists,,, looked at nearly one hundred fossil groups to test the notion that it takes groups of animals many millions of years to reach their maximum diversity of form. Contrary to popular belief, not all animal groups continued to evolve fundamentally new morphologies through time. The majority actually achieved their greatest diversity of form (disparity) relatively early in their histories. ,,,Dr Matthew Wills said: “This pattern, known as ‘early high disparity’, turns the traditional V-shaped cone model of evolution on its head. What is equally surprising in our findings is that groups of animals are likely to show early-high disparity regardless of when they originated over the last half a billion years. This isn’t a phenomenon particularly associated with the first radiation of animals (in the Cambrian Explosion), or periods in the immediate wake of mass extinctions.”,,, Author Martin Hughes, continued: “Our work implies that there must be constraints on the range of forms within animal groups, and that these limits are often hit relatively early on. Co-author Dr Sylvain Gerber, added: “A key question now is what prevents groups from generating fundamentally new forms later on in their evolution.,,, http://phys.org/news/2013-07-scientific-evolution.html “In virtually all cases a new taxon appears for the first time in the fossil record with most definitive features already present, and practically no known stem-group forms.” TS Kemp - Fossils and Evolution,– Curator of Zoological Collections, Oxford University, Oxford Uni Press, p246, 1999 “What is missing are the many intermediate forms hypothesized by Darwin, and the continual divergence of major lineages into the morphospace between distinct adaptive types.” Robert L Carroll (born 1938) – vertebrate paleontologist who specialises in Paleozoic and Mesozoic amphibians
bornagain77_{December 25, 2014
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Everyone has his/her own line of maternal descent into the prehistoric past, unless ofcourse you think the earth is only 6000 years old. One hundred million years ago your personal ancestor certainly was not a human. Three hundred million years ago your ancestor was not even a mammal. Five hundred million years ago your personal ancestor probably was not even a fish. A possible personal ancestor 510 million years ago could have been an individual pikaia. So we start with a human and 510 million years earlier we have a tiny worm-fish like creature. Yet each daughter being born in this long line of maternal descent is of the same species as her mother. What is the explanation offered by Intelligent Design for this?Seqenenre_{December 25, 2014
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I must be missing something. rvb8: If someone quotes from a primary source shouldn’t they make that primary source freely accessible? Mung: No. rvb8: No.Mung_{December 24, 2014
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No mung, just the title,author, and perhaps page number. i really can use the net I just need BA and yourself to tell me the actual situation and origins of the quote; not second hand, or via a cousin's brother, who had a friend.rvb8_{December 24, 2014
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rvb8:
If someone quotes from a primary source shouldn’t they make that primary source freely accessible?
No. I have an extensive library of primary source material. I paid for these books so that I could quote from the primary source material. You want me to give them to you for free? Sorry, not going to happen.Mung_{December 24, 2014
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Says the Darwinian troll afraid to look up the quote just two clicks away,,, and then sit back and sneer about us being afraid to challenge our theory. ,,, Yes do lecture us on being open minded, throw in a few ad hominems and praise the Darwinian sewer sites you visit as being cutting edge science rather than the atheistic garbage dumps they really are. Other than that, may you and yours have a very Merry Christmas! :)bornagain77_{December 24, 2014
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If someone quotes from a primary source shouldn't they make that primary source freely accessible? No, I'm not going to chase down any of BAs quotes simply because he chooses to generally make them wildly abstruse and confines his comments to this echo chamber. I post at Pandas sometimes, at Coyne's site sometimes, at Phyrangula, at the SkepticalZone sometimes, and at the unbelievably dense Townhall upon occasion, and here sometimes. Of these six the first four are easily accessible the fifth makes you jump through hoops. I was banned here in 2005 after some Dover observations, it may have been by Dembsky (the non-witness, witness) himself. Why is it that conservative sites are so afraid of comment and information? Part of this fear is embodied in the near delusional desire to appear a font of reasonable researched wisdom. To be this actually requires Primary research, at a recognised university, research facility, or corporation. It is not achieved by the dropping of secondary quotes on to a sounding board of like minded souls, to hear them congratulate you upon your erudite research and interpretation. Go beyond your borders gentlemen, I know it's scary and that you will be mocked, however isn't that how all great ideas have been forged?rvb8_{December 24, 2014
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rvb8 2 "Of course now that humans are causing huge alterations in ocean acidity, salinity, and temperature, who knows?" Ocean alkalinity (not acidity, that's below 7.0 pH) has changed only slightly the last 250 years, from 8.2 (mildly alkaline) to 8.1 (mildly alkaline). Even that is shaky, because the error bar in measuring pH was greater than 0.1 250 years ago. So there has been no huge alteration in ocean acidity, much less one caused by human activity.anthropic_{December 24, 2014
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Indeed, rvb8 appears incapable of following a simple succession of links. Therefore, BA77 must have quote-mined Prothero. Pathetic. Laughable. Exactly the sort of thing I asked Santa to bring me for Christmas!Mung_{December 24, 2014
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Look up the piece yourself. You made a claim and it is wrong. i.e. Do your own homework!bornagain77_{December 24, 2014
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Your bit quote from Prothero is one you bit quote from 'Uncommon' 2012. I won't play your quote mining games, and I won't go searching for the entire context of the quote or the complete quote. You do that. Connect me to the entire speech, or piece, or I will simply conclude you are following your usual tactic of mis-quoting, ill-quoting, cherry picking, deliberate deception. Please try to give context, Uncommondescent, and Denyse are poor at this, you are downright disingenuous.rvb8_{December 24, 2014
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and yet,,, In four of the biggest climatic-vegetational events of the last 50 million years, the mammals and birds show no noticeable change in response to changing climates. No matter how many presentations I give where I show these data, no one (including myself) has a good explanation yet for such widespread stasis despite the obvious selective pressures of changing climate. Rather than answers, we have more questions— Donald Prothero – American paleontologist, geologist, and author who specializes in mammalian paleontology. The fossil record Is not your friend. Go figure, I guess that makes you a fossil record denier?bornagain77_{December 24, 2014
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"There are lots of people out there who accept science when it's convenient; but there's a lot of things science tells us they don't want to hear and so then they reject those so-called inconvenient truths. And so this sort of weird, little way of doing things is not only true of creationists, it's true of climate deniers, it's true of AIDS deniers, anti-vaccers, a whole bunch of various kinds of alternative medicines---it's a very common thread." Do you mean this D. Prothero 'born'? Two of your other directs go to 'evolutionnews' a trusted source. the Smithsonian link needs context which you habitually and willfully never provide. However I do know 'energy efficiency' could be one of many selective pressures, another might be that getting to a place faster than a bi-pedal chimp could, could save your life, regardless of energy expenditure. Time to introduce biblical quotes?rvb8_{December 24, 2014
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Donald Prothero: In evolution, stasis was general, gradualism rare, and that’s the consensus 40 years on - February 2012 Excerpt: In four of the biggest climatic-vegetational events of the last 50 million years, the mammals and birds show no noticeable change in response to changing climates. No matter how many presentations I give where I show these data, no one (including myself) has a good explanation yet for such widespread stasis despite the obvious selective pressures of changing climate. Rather than answers, we have more questions— Donald Prothero - American paleontologist, geologist, and author who specializes in mammalian paleontology. https://uncommondescent.com/darwinism/donald-prothero-in-evolution-stasis-was-the-general-pattern-gradualism-was-rare-and-that-is-still-the-consensus-40-years-later/ Difficulty with Darwinian Accounts of How Human Bipedalism Developed - David Klinghoffer - February 21, 2013 Excerpt: A Darwinian evolutionary bedtime story tells of how proto-man achieved his upright walking status when the forests of his native East Africa turned to savannas. That was 4 to 6 million years ago, and the theory was that our ancestors stood up in order to be able to look around themselves over the sea of grasslands, which would have been irrelevant in the forests of old. A team of researchers led by USC's Sarah J. Feakins, writing in the journal Geology, detonate that tidy explanation with their finding that the savannas, going back 12 million years, had already been there more than 6 million years when the wonderful transition to bipedalism took place ("Northeast African vegetation change over 12 m.y."). http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/02/another_difficu069411.html As well, about half way down in the following article, Casey Luskin reveals that many supposed human ancestors are found in wooded areas, which questions the 'savanna hypothesis' from yet another angle. For Neil Tyson and Cosmos, Serious Scientific Controversies Are All a Thing of the Past - Casey Luskin May 6, 2014 http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/05/for_neil_tyson_085291.html Energy Efficiency Doesn’t Explain Human Walking? Sept. 17, 2012 Excerpt: To evaluate whether energy efficiency played a role in the evolution of upright walking, Halsey and White note that hominids should be compared to their closest relatives. For example, if human walking is more efficient than chimpanzee walking than you would expect based on chance alone, then it lends support to the energy-efficiency explanation. But that’s not what the researchers found. In fact, the energetic differences between humans and chimpanzees are smaller than the differences between very closely related species that share the same type of locomotion, such as red deer versus reindeer or African dogs versus Arctic foxes. In some cases, even different species within the same genus, such as different types of chipmunks, have greater variation in their walking efficiencies than humans and chimps do. http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/hominids/2012/09/energy-efficiency-doesnt-explain-human-walking/bornagain77_{December 24, 2014
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"It will be interesting to see if their internal anatomy is different from today's sponges. Bet not." You implicitly imply that they should evolve today to be a more advanced walking, talking, spiritual, sponge? Why should they? Unlike primates their environment (polar to temperate, to tropical clear oceans) has not changed. Therefore environmental pressure to develop new body plans is next to non-existent. I point you to the shark, which although evolving minor new characteristics (size, colour, temperature tolerance) has no need to evolve radically as its environment over the last 200 million years has remained remarkably stable. Of course now that humans are causing huge alterations in ocean acidity, salinity, and temperature, who knows?rvb8_{December 24, 2014
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here are the links: Complete Fossil Sponges - 83.5 - 71.3 million years ago - pictures A very rare occurrence can be found in a unique Cretaceous fossil deposit in North Central Germany. A variety of highly unusual SEA SPONGE FOSSILS dating from a Campanian Era sea of the Cretaceous were preserved in FULL THREE DIMENSIONAL PRESERVATION retaining delicate anatomy seldom seen in prehistoric sponge fossils.,,, Sponges belong to the scientific group called PORIFERA. These creatures have an origin that dates back to over 500 million years ago. http://www.paleodirect.com/imgset3/spngrf1.jpg http://www.paleodirect.com/pgset2/sp004.htm Ancient sponge fossil http://www.paleodirect.com/imgset3/sp004gh.jpg Modern sponge http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_fSwq5if0Fs/UIhOSKgwFyI/AAAAAAAAADk/YuYAcBkVb9Q/s320/57c.jpg Barrel and Chimney Sponges Filtering Water - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7E1rq7zHLc Dr. Stephen Meyer: Darwin's Dilemma - The Significance of Sponge Embryos - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPs8E7y0ySsbornagain77_{December 24, 2014
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