Migration Theory Overturned: “Mammals Went Crazy” – Or Did Darwinists?

The discovery of an elephant shrew fossil in Wyoming badlands said to be 54 million years old is causing a stir.  Elephant shrews were thought to be endemic to Africa, the alleged cradle of mammals.  This find hints not only that elephant shrews may have originated in North America instead, but also that “there may have been a great deal more interchange in terms of how animals moved around the world as the continents broke up than previously thought,” according to EurekAlert.  A press release from U of Florida worries that this “raises questions about the origin of African mammals.”
    The Stupid Evolution Quote of the Week award goes to Jonathan Bloch of the University of Florida, who explained the theory of adaptive radiation in terms appropriate for a juvenile audience: “After the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, there was an explosion of diversity,” he said. “Mammals had a huge celebration with all the big predators gone and they just kind of took over.  They went crazy, filling all the open ecological niches they couldn’t have exploited while the dinosaurs were still around.”

Apparently Mr. Bloch had not heard that some mammals had dinosaurs for breakfast (see 01/12/2005 entry).  He seems a staunch believer in the “if you build it, they will come” theory of evolution (see 01/28/2005 commentary), yet doesn’t seem alarmed that yet another plank in the evolutionary platform has just been removed.  Crazy is in the eye of the beholder.