January 13, 2016 | David F. Coppedge

Fossils that Defy Old Ages

Here are three things assumed to be old that look young. It’s only the presumption of old age that forces the claims of millions of years.

Mantis in amber: Fossil mantises are rare, Live Science says, but three have been found stuck in fossilized tree resin (amber) from Myanmar, Lebanon and Spain. “Sticky Amber Preserved Dinosaur-Age Insects for Millions of Years,” Laura Geggel writes, but do they really look 97, 105 and 128 million years old? They are assigned a Cretaceous label from the “age of dinosaurs” but they have the same kind of forelegs as modern-day mantises. The only thing they seem to lack is the “ultrasonic ‘ear’ on the metathorax (midbody) that helps today’s mantises avoid bat attacks.” This supposedly “developed in mantises during the Eocene, a period that lasted from 56 million to 33.9 million years ago.” How, exactly, did it “develop” and why did it take 31 million years to do it? Since fossil mantises are so rare, and living mantises are extremely diverse, how do the paleontologists know that (1) the “ear” escaped detection in their analysis of these fossils, or (2) that non-eared mantises are within the normal range of diversity for mantids? This is like quibbling about the lack of fog lights on a sedan; the rest of the creature is fully complex and capable. The article did not state if any original tissue remains inside the amber. The paper is published in the Journal of Cretaceous Research.

The early bird in China: PhysOrg announces a “New basal ornithuromorph bird found in China.” This fossil appears to be fully bird; it belongs to the “most derived [evolved] avian group in the Early Cretaceous” about the same period as the mantises mentioned above. What’s more to evolve in this early bird? It seems as much a flyer as a modern shorebird.

The new bird is preserved with its wings and legs fully outstretched, mimicking a dancer; and its manual claws are barely recurved; therefore, the new species is named Bellulornis rectusunguis to convey these features. A comprehensive phylogenetic analysis resolved the new taxon in a basal position that is only more derived than Archaeorhynchus and Jianchangornis among ornithuromorphs, increasing the morphological diversity of basal ornithuromorphs. The new specimen has a V-shaped furcula [wishbone] with a short hypocleidium, a feature otherwise known only in Schizooura among Cretaceous ornithuromorphs. We discuss the implications of the new taxon on the evolution of morphology of primitive ornithuromorphs, particularly of pectoral girdle, sternum and limb proportion pertaining to powered flight. The preserved gastroliths [crop stones for grinding food] and pedal morphology [feet] indicate herbivory and lakeshore adaption for this new species.

Billion-year proteins? Another article in PhysOrg has the headline, “Scientists identify fragments of proteins that already existed billions of years ago.” This is a misleading statement. They didn’t find any fragments from 3.5 billion years ago; they just examined existing proteins in living creatures and inferred an evolutionary history from them on the assumption that they evolved from simpler forms.

In a systematic analysis of modern proteins, they were able to identify 40 peptidic fragments that occur in seemingly unrelated proteins, yet bear striking resemblance in their sequences and structures. Based on their widespread occurrence in the most ancient proteins (e.g., ribosomal proteins) and on their involvement in basal functions (e.g., RNA-binding, DNA-binding), the authors propose that these fragments are the observable remnants of a primordial RNA-peptide world, a precursor form of the DNA-based life we know today.

If proteins are designed, instead, nobody would be surprised that a designer used similar structures in unrelated situations—just as software engineers re-use modules of code for different purposes. RNA binding and DNA binding are very complex functions. The words “precursor” and “primordial” use the power of suggestion to cause readers to envision a simpler world of life. Yet the writers of this article are fully aware that the simplest life is extremely complex. “Proteins and languages share many similarities – both, for instance, yield their meaning through a proper arrangement of basic building blocks.”

Millions and billions of years exist only in the imagination of secular materialists and evolutionists. Their ideology makes them refuse to accept the abundant evidence for design in mantises, birds, and living cells. The simplest protein defies a materialistic origin (source); the rest of the evolutionary tale is already falsified by that one fact.

 

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Comments

  • John_Michael says:

    The thought of Cells, DNA and RNA replicating
    for over three billion years is truly astonishing.
    Comparing that to what is understood about Genetic Entropy ( John Sanford).
    A recent creation would appear much more likely to be true.
    It sure seems to be a lot more reasonable.

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