Uncommon Descent _{Serving The Intelligent Design Community}

Plasticity tampers with jaw fossil record?

_{Denyse O'Leary

August 19, 2016

Evolution, Neuroscience}

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Scientists use the fossil record to make judgments on the physiology and behavior of species. But are those interpretations correct? New research puts into question how we interpret the behavior of extinct organisms from their fossil remains, and the greater role of plasticity in determining evolution diversity.More. Paper. (paywall) – Matthew J. Ravosa, Rachel A. Menegaz, Jeremiah E. Scott, David J. Daegling, Kevin R. McAbee. Limitations of a morphological criterion of adaptive inference in the fossil record. Biological Reviews, 2015; DOI: 10.1111/brv.12199

See also: Alligators’ second jaw joint

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Comments

AHA. Indeed plasticity is one more thing that would interfere with drawing conclusions about creatures only evidence by fossil bones and not many. The behaviour also would be not certain. Creatures having changed or changing without selection means fossils are not certain evidence for how they evolved or acted. Something in this. Robert Byers

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