More Convergent Evolution Claimed for Dino-Era Mammal

A chipmunk-size mammal with Popeye-like forearms and beaver-like teeth resembling an armadillo?  That’s how the discoverers are describing the fossil they named Fruitafossor, a small mammal found near Fruita, Colorado and reported in Science.¹  They think it dug burrows and ate termites.  Of special interest were the open-root teeth like those of the beaver.  Lead researcher Zhe-Xi Luo told National Geographic News, “These peculiar teeth in an otherwise very primitive Jurassic mammal were puzzling, as these teeth weren’t supposed to appear until much later, when the armadillos evolved 50 million years ago, and again still later in form of the African aardvark.”
    They claim this lineage was unrelated to later burrowing and gnawing mammals.  It went extinct, without leaving the instructions for their specialized teeth and claws for the latecomers, who had to figure it out all over from scratch.  MSNBC echoed this explanation without question: “The discovery shows that anteaters, armadillos and other creatures that dig up insects evolved their specialized abilities several times during the history of the world,” it regurgitates.  “This is known as convergent evolution.”

¹Zhe-Xi Luo and John R. Wible, “A Late Jurassic Digging Mammal and Early Mammalian Diversification,” Science, Vol 308, Issue 5718, 103-107 , 1 April 2005, [DOI: 10.1126/science.1108875].

Science reporters can be such toadies.  They accept whatever a Darwin Party priest croaks like it is the message of the gods, and just dish it out sans jargon for the masses but with all the baloney left in.  Why don’t they ever grill the priesthood with hard questions like they do with politicians?  A skeleton was found in Colorado of an extinct small mammal.  That’s it.  The rest of the tale about 150 million years and convergent evolution is all made up.  Suppose students turned this trick on their teachers.  How did all three of you come up with nearly identical term papers, she asks?  Your explanation: convergent Googlution.  Good luck on your report card.
    The Darwin Party gets away with this trick because nobody calls them on the carpet for it and calls it what it is: baloney.  What do you mean, these teeth “weren’t supposed to appear” for another 100 million years?  Has Tinkerbell forgotten her script?  (See 03/11/2005 commentary.)  Did you count how many zaps from her mutation wand were required for the first open-root teeth to be functional?  Gnaw.  You can bet it took a lot – not just for the tooth shape, but for the enamel, the root, the fit to the jaw, and the software to use them.  How many Fruitafossors had to die of starvation before they got it right?  Where are all the transitional forms?  Can “specialized abilities” just “evolve” without that being equivalent to a miracle?  If you can’t begin to explain the tooth, the whole tooth, and nothing but the tooth by evolution, then don’t expect us to believe this particular set of miracles happened three times by convergent evolution, whatever that is.  The rest of us are sick and tired of this charade and can’t take it any more.  Join the Society for Pulling Back the Curtain from the Wizards of Ostentation.