Fossils – Page 65

VIEW HEADLINES ONLY

Small Hobbit Brain Means Little

February 7, 2010

Central in the debate whether Homo floresiensis (nicknamed hobbits) were human is the matter of their small brains. Could diminutive human-like skeletons really be human with such small skulls? (cf. 03/04/2005). Scientists at the University of Cambridge conducted a detailed analysis of brain size vs. body size for a number of primates. They […]

Darwin and Evolution

Scientists Divine Deep Time in Dead Fish

January 30, 2010

Scientific experiments can certainly take on a wide variety of methods, from recreating the atmosphere of Titan to testing a drug on a genetic disease. But if educators want to encourage students to become scientists, they had best keep silent about “some very unpleasant experiments” at the University of Leicester reported by the BBC News. […]

Birds

Incredible Creatures that Support Evolution?

January 29, 2010

Paleontologists and biologists continue to uncover animals past and present that exhibit amazing diversity. Some of them are so weird and unexpected, they are almost unbelievable. Usually, the news media are quick to tally up points for Darwin by explaining to lay people how they shed light on evolution. But in the “discovery” stage of […]

Darwin and Evolution

Evolutionary Biogeography Requires Imagination

January 22, 2010

Biogeography – the study of the distribution of species – has been an important part of evolutionary theory, and has often been used as evidence for evolution. Some recent findings about plants and animals should give scientists caution about trying to divine too much evolutionary history from locations of present-day organisms and fossils. […]

Fossils

Specious Theories Obey the Law of Inertia

January 15, 2010

Last March, scientists publishing in Geology falsified the so-called “Permian Extinction,” calling it a “non-event.” (see 03/09/2009). Not only was there no smoking gun of a catastrophe in the rocks, the scientists said that the “claims of rapid vertebrate recovery… also must be called into question.” Our commentary at the time wondered how long it […]

Fossils

Flying Fossils Found

January 7, 2010

A population of insects called “living fossils” has been located in Australia. These tiny insects, called ancient greenling damselflies, have no living relatives. Their closest relatives disappeared from the fossil record 250 to 300 million years ago in the geological column, according to The Age and Heidelberg Leader. The wingspan of the insects is only […]

Darwin and Evolution

Tiktaalik Demoted to Has-Been

January 6, 2010

The highly-publicized tetrapod missing link or “fish-a-pod” that made headlines in 2006 (05/03/2006) has been dethroned by new findings in Poland. Trackways said to be 18 million years older than Tiktaalik, showing digits and alternating steps, were announced today in Nature.1 The authors said, “They force a radical reassessment of the timing, ecology and environmental […]

Fossils

Evolution News From Down Unda

December 18, 2009

Australia and New Zealand contain some of the most unique and distinctive flora and fauna in the world. Evolutionary explanations for some of these animals and plants have come to light in the press recently. Koala: Did you know there are extinct koalas? Science Daily reported about work by Aussie biologists to understand the evolution […]

Birds

Contenders Vie for Stupid Evolution Quote of the Week

December 13, 2009

Creation-Evolution Headlines needs reader feedback to rank this week’s winners. Some of these articles are so over the top, giving Darwin credit for anything and everything, it’s a wonder the Darwinists themselves don’t censor them – just to avoid public embarrassment. Evolve! Sing Along: New Scientist is letting you take part in the evolutionary process […]

Dinosaurs

Darwin vs. the Fossils

December 11, 2009

What could be more iconic to evolution than dinosaurs and the horse series? Museums often display skeletons of these animals as proof of evolution. The real story told in scientific papers is often very different. Two recent studies present major, serious challenges to Darwin’s theory. Horse series: The old straight-line chart of horse evolution from […]

Darwin and Evolution

Ardi Party Is Over

November 25, 2009

The hubbub over Ardipithecus (10/02/2009) may have been premature. Despite 600 pages of material submitted to Science in October, many doubts and questions remain about the status of this hominin, or hominid, or whatever it was (the nomenclature is confusing and inconsistent even among paleoanthropologists). In an article by Katherine Harmon in the pro-evolutionary magazine […]

Birds

Evolutionary Explanation Is Always a Work in Progress

November 19, 2009

As evolutionary biologists examine diverse plants and animals, it seems they are never able to give a definitive answer as to how they got that way. Their work merely begins or continues to search for clues. Like mothers, their work is never done. At least this provides them job security. Box jellyfish: There are about […]

Early Man

Darwinizing Everything

November 16, 2009

150 years after The Origin of Species, it’s clear that Darwin succeeded in one thing: granting biologists free rein to speculate about how everything under the sun evolved. Anything not understood, or seemingly contrary to the law of natural selection, or to previous speculations, can be shuttled off to future research. Noble amoebas: You may […]

Fossils

Soft Muscle Tissue Found in Fossil Salamander

November 6, 2009

More soft tissue has been found in a fossil – this time in a salamander said to be 18 million years old. The article on PhysOrg called it “the highest quality soft tissue preservation ever documented in the fossil record.” Unlike the previous discoveries of fossil tissue inside bone or amber, the recognizable […]

Fossils

No Evolution in 58 Million Years

October 30, 2009

“Plant fossils give first real picture of earliest Neotropical rainforests,” announced a press release from University of Florida. The fossils from Colombia show that “many of the dominant plant families existing in today’s Neotropical rainforests – including legumes, palms, avocado and banana – have maintained their ecological dominance despite major changes in South America’s climate […]

All Posts by Date

[archives type="yearly" cat_id="9"]