Because there must be some way they got to the New World:
Darwin knew that the fossil record did not support his theory of gradual increase in complexity through time but hoped that new fossil discoveries would fill in the narrative. 170 years of collecting has not helped. The Cambrian explosion is perhaps the best-known mismatch, but there are others. Adding to the difficulty, different dating methods often conflict with each other.
Monkeying with the Data
It would have been convenient for evolutionists if Africa and South America had split after monkeys had evolved, but they didn’t. This left them with klutzy explanations of how Old World monkeys evolved in Africa after the split, and then got to South America to become New World monkeys. The common story now is that they rafted over on vegetation across the Atlantic — a curious speculation, considering that sea captains these days never witness monkey families rafting out in the mid-Atlantic without fresh water or food.
In PNAS, Campbell et al. manage to pull widely different dates for two sites in eastern Peru closer together. They had to struggle, though, with disagreements between different dating methods for nearby sites. In any case, their work did not help get the monkeys across the ocean. Peru is very far inland from Brazil where a raft might have washed ashore, so time for migration must be factored in. Watching the evolutionists monkeying with the data and hiding their difficulties with euphemisms (“trans-Atlantic dispersal”) is entertaining if not pitiful.
Evolution News, “Fossil Follies from Around the Science Literature” at Evolution News and Science Today (November 3, 2021)
Reading this stuff helps us sympathize with King Kong. When he finally does get to New York…
Note: We got an Access Denied message when trying to scout out the Campbell et al. paper so it doesn’t sound like it’s open access.
Rafting monkeys is one of my favorite things to bring up to evolutionists to show them how far you have to go in order to make their theory even remotely plausible. They usually deny or hand wave it off because they can’t come to rational grips with it.
I thought the monkey’s got to the New World on Noah’s ark, just like all the other animals…..
Chuck, seriously…. do you BELIEVE that monkeys rafted across the ocean?
PS: i bet you never heard of rafting monkey theory… i bet you never heard of old and new world monkeys….
Is that the one that ran aground in Kentucky?
I think that is the prevailing theory…..
Chuck, that is not what i have asked
So once again, if you can….
Do YOU believe that monkey rafted across the ocean?
My point has been proven.
This mixes in with Dawkins and his typing monkeys.
A raft without sails or oars basically doesn’t go anywhere. It just rocks back and forth. You’d need a million Ape Arks, all equipped with kegs of fresh water and dried fruit, to get the chance that one of the Arks might catch just the right combination of wind and waves to get across.
All that is being suggested is that, millions of years ago when the Atlantic Ocean was much narrower than it is now, it is possible that Old World monkeys drifted across on mats of vegetation.
Maybe monkeys are much older than we think and were on both what became Africa and South America as they drifted apart. We just haven’t found the fossils yet.
Seversky imagines that the continents were close enough 35 million years ago to make the ‘rafting monkey’ journey feasible, yet the separation of the continents 35 million years ago was still very substantial and thus does not alleviate the problem for Darwinists.
Seversky also appeals to that old Darwinian saw, “We just haven’t found the fossils yet.”
And so it goes, no matter how badly the fossil record actually is for Darwinian presuppositions, Darwinists simply refuse to ever accept that the fossil record looks nothing like what Charles Darwin predicted.
The Seversky Defence – “We just haven’t found the fossils yet.”
Translated: “The fossils will be found, tomorrow; it doesn’t matter which one of the million fossil trails is being referred to.”
The Chuck Darwin Defence, – “Let’s talk about something else.”
If substantial shortcomings in a hypothesis are exposed it is no defence to raise a childish bleat, “Well, you think of a better one”; the shortcoming of the hypothesis always remains to be dealt with.
Seversky,
35,000,000 years ago there was no ice in Antarctica. Antarctica had a tropical rain-forest. The water level, due to lack of ice, was considerably higher than it is today. There would have been more water to cross and less land above the water than today.
The chances of floating debris carrying monkeys would have been less likely to occur.
https://www.science20.com/news_releases/why_did_ice_antarctica_suddenly_appear_35_million_years_ago_co2_says_study
When the Great Ice Age started, the water turned to ice and the level dropped significantly over time. Zealandia, the 8th continent, was mostly above the water. That is when the crossing most likely took place.
The timeline does not work out:
Of related note:
At about the 35 minute mark of the preceding video Dr. Ross speaks of repeated glaciation events from the past 450,000 years with the climate then (uncharacteristically) stabilizing for the last 9000 years or so. These repeated glaciation events were necessary to produce the nutrient rich soils of the plains of the world that could support the large population of humans that we now have.
Seems Dr. Hugh Ross’s video link that I cited is dead.
So here is another talk he gave on the same subject, around the 13 minute mark, of repeated glaciation events from the past 450,000 years with the climate then (uncharacteristically) stabilizing for the last 9000 years or so. These repeated glaciation events were necessary to produce the nutrient rich soils of the plains of the world that could support the large population of humans that we now have.
So if rafting is supposed to be a realistic option for this trans-Atlantic exchange, wouldn’t you expect to see it more between closer locales? Don’t you think you’d see lemur populations on the African continent, and non-lemur primates in Madagascar? The two landmasses are what, 350-400 miles apart? I would think you’d see more exchange, at least in one direction, if not both. Or am I missing something here?