Assessing the current sliming of Thomas Nagel (for tentatively doubting Darwin), evolutionary biologist and ecologist Joan Roughgarden noted, “What we see in evolution is stasis-conceptual stasis, in my view-where people are ardently defending their formulations from the early 70s.” But we see mostly stasis rather than evolution anyway in life forms themselves , as even Darwin’s man Donald Prothero is forced to admit.
I (news writer Denyse O’Leary) was surprised by the pattern when I added up all the instances where nothing much happens for millions or tens or hundreds of millions of years. But here’s a new one on me, because it was only recently published:
Researchers had previously believed that ichthyosaurs declined throughout the Jurassic Period, which lasted from 199 million to 145 million years ago, with the only survivors rapidly evolving to keep ahead of repeated extinction events. The new fossil, however, dates from the Cretaceous Period, which lasted from 145 million to 66 million years ago. It looks remarkably like its Jurassic brethren, revealing a surprising evolutionary status.
The fossil “represents an animal that seems ‘out of time’ for its age,” study researcher Valentin Fischer of the University of Liège in Belgium said in a statement.
Note: The last word in the first paragraph above should almost certainly read “stasis,” not “status.”
That usage error just shows you how unfamiliar Darwin-drenched reporters are with the realities of the history of life on Earth. Chances are, they do not know the term “stasis.” Or if they do, it is only from the flak aimed at them by Darwin’s hacks, advising them to ignore it as a key fact about life on Earth: Stasis = Evolution rarely happens.
Stanford biologist Joan Roughgarden, it should be noted, could be sneered at by tenured career Darwinists for having dissented in the past, for example at AAAS’s 169th meeting, February 17, 2003. Roughgarden is the author of Evolution’s Rainbow: Diversity, Gender and Sexuality in Nature and People (University of California Press, 2003). Of Darwin’s sexual selection, she has said, “The exceptions are so numerous they cry out for explanation.” The meeting she spoke at is headlined, “Darwin may have been wrong about sex. Or at least too narrow minded.”
Oooh, bad, bad, bad, when it might mean doubting Darwin, the greatest mind that ever accidentally evolved. Who had the best idea anyone ever had, the most powerful idea ever. Who, now long dead, pays a bunch of people’s salaries to spout stuff at students that just ain’t so, unhindered and largely unopposed.
Say what you want about Darwinists: They have the most genteel thugs.