CBCnews wrote:The apparent gap in the fossil record between the fish-like and more advanced tetrapods was first written about by U.S. paleontologist Al Romer and has since been named "Romer's gap." To explain the gap, some paleontologists proposed that low oxygen during that period prevented tetrapods from evolving.
Now, Anderson, Chris Mansky of the Blue Beach Fossil Museum in Nova Scotia, and their collaborators have found and described fossils from at least four different kinds of tetrapods that lived during the early part of Romer's gap.
There are a lot of so called gaps in the process of evolution, but the most perplexing one has to be the missing links between fish and land animals. This particular gap now seems not to be a gap at all but inadequacies in the fossil record. Apparently a lot can happen in 30 million years, but until recently we just couldn't find the fossils to document it.
I love reading stuff like this, but I'm of the opinion that tetrapods, or amphibians, are separate to fish or land animals. If they evolved, then surely all the frogs (which have 5 back toes but only 4 at the front), and newts which have 4 all round, whilst lizards have 5, would've evolved over the millennia? They haven't.
Lizards're reptiles and lay eggs. Newts are similar to, but different from, salamanders. Newts return to the water to breed, but there are only a very few varieties of lizards which spend any time in it.
In a nutshell, I think that each creature was born with what it needs to survive, dependent on habitat. I can't see as creatures evolved in the way which'd like to be accepted. A fish is a fish. A land animal is a land animal. They have different breathing systems which allow them to live where they do, and if everything came from the sea, then they'd all be out of it by now - which of course they aren't.
...if everything came from the sea, then they'd all be out of it by now - which of course they aren't.
That's an interesting line of thought, but it doesn't represent how evolution works. When a new branch on a tree develops the trunk does not die off. If fish evolved into land animals, there is no reason to suspect the sea would soon be empty. The strongest survive in their natural habitat and a fish would not survive on land any better than a quadruped would survive under water. The alternative to evolution is to say that all the various forms of animals developed independently. That line of thought is a fallback to a belief in a mythical character who had nothing better to do one day than to experiment with creating various forms of life. I'm not suggesting that it is impossible for life to have begun in more than one location on this planet, but the evolution mechanism is clearly observable in the fossil record. The missing link protest is weak at best.
I don't discount what science believes, but I was echoing thoughts after having a debate about this subject one day. The majority conclusion was that we don't all come from amoebas or marine life, as these still remain in their habitats. As you say, Yogi, only the strongest survive, but in terms of evolving, I see no evidence of this happening in terms of a creature finding its way onto land and being able to survive and breed. It could maybe adapt briefly, but its young'd naturally return to the habitat it came from.
If you look at sea turtles, they bury their eggs in the sand, but as soon as these hatch, the young head towards the sea, no matter that they have legs which enable them to walk. No one teaches them to stay on the land or that they need to be back in the ocean, but instinct tells them where they need to be. The eggs are laid on sandy beaches because the developing young need air to breathe. The membrane inside the eggs allows this to happen, which couldn't if the eggs were deposited under water. I firmly believe that each life form's born into the environment where it can survive the best, and why I don't automatically agree with evolution taking place.
I don't believe in some mythical being having decided to create various life forms either. Where ever/however the first signs of life hit our planet, spores, or life in suspended animation probably floated around from elsewhere on the specks of matter which eventually formed our world, and when conditions were right - in our case needing oxygen, water and sunlight, these could've started to multiply where conditions were suitable; thus, some becoming active in water and others more suited to the land.
No one can really say how it all began, and I don't altogether go with the fact that "the evolution mechanism is clearly observable in the fossil record". Fossils merely record the petrified forms of plants and life forms from millions of years ago. Their demise could've come from several different sources - e.g. earthquakes, volcanic activity, tsunamis - and leave us with the impressions of what were once living in a particular area. Other, or related species probably survived because of where they were at the time of natural catastrophes, but with depleted food supplies, their young were probably born smaller in size. Scientists suggest that monitor lizards used to be far bigger than they are now, along with similar creatures which still survive to this day, but with changed habitats over millions of years, they've become smaller in order to procreate and some've died out completely. If adaption is evolution, then yes, some life forms managed it, but I personally think that each living thing is a separate entity. I've never believed that humans came from apes, the same as I don't believe that birds and animals, etc., came from the sea. Some might use the two in order to live, but I think that's the way it's always been. Nature gives everything a perfect purpose.
in terms of evolving, I see no evidence of this happening in terms of a creature finding its way onto land and being able to survive and breed.
The article I cited gives quite a bit of evidence of that particular scenario. You will not see any fish growing legs and roaming about a jungle in the lifetime of a human. Evolution takes millions of years to occur. The missing links from the fossil records that show how evolution might have occurred is not evidence that evolution theory is flawed. The new findings in Nova Scotia fill in some of the missing links. If nothing else the findings show how incomplete the record is. We do not have all the information that can be had (yet) but that incomplete record only tells us how some history has been lost, it does not debunk evolution. As you point out there have been global catastrophes which could make the record incomplete. But those catastrophes did not stop the evolution process.
There is no evidence that each unique species spontaneously sprouted and grew as individual lines of animal life. That perspective is a backwards look at the end product. Given all the discrepancies we see today it is difficult to see the common source of it all, But there is ample evidence for such if you look at the source and follow it's forward progress. I'll admit that many people choose to ignore the obvious in favor of creationism, but that is a matter of belief and not a matter of record.
No, no, I think you misunderstand me Yogi. I'm not in favour of creation - as in some god-like figure deciding that the earth was going to be populated by such and such, but I DO think that the DNA of living creatures came from elsewhere when conditions were suitable. The nucleotides had to've formed SOMEwhere, and if we believe that clumps of gas and dust formed the basis of our planet, we'd still have to've had sugars for strands of DNA to form. These wouldnt've evolved into the myriad of different life forms, BUT, this's just personal opinion. I could be persuaded to think differently if I read much deeper into this, and evidence was overwhelming.
We have to remember that whoever writes these fascinating theories - and they DO interest me - theory is all that they are. It doesn't make other possibilities wrong, but provides an alternative which seems feasible to the scientific mind.
