March 30, 2007

Mammals Didn't Branch Out As Soon As Dinosaurs Perished: So What?

Yeah, I know this sounds like a victory for creationists because if science is wrong about one thing, then all science is wrong. Just like the bible would be wrong if Pi wasn't 3.

It now looks like mammals branched out a little 65 million years ago, but waited another 10-15 million years to really diversify.

Science assumed that mammals evolved as soon as dinosaurs perished. This was based on the facts that mammals did branch out after the dinosaurs perished, and dinosaurs weren't around to stop the mammals from evolving. However, evolution usually only happens when it is needed to happen, so that species can increase their chance of survival.

What we do know is no animal larger than a house cat survived very long past the meteorite hit, or hits of around 65 million years ago. We do know that oxygen levels on earth were much higher than they are now, as well.

A large meteorite hit would most likely cut off sunlight (which is a big part of current theory), and most of the plant life on the planet died.

All that were left on land, were small detritivores (cool, I learned a new word). Food was a plenty for these animals, which included insects and little rodent like mammals.

When food is plentiful, and the environment stays somewhat stable, there is no need to evolve. Also, because the larger animals perished, what most likely happened is that large plants and trees died, causing large herbivores to die, causing large carnivores to have nothing to eat. They couldn't survive on the smaller animals who already knew how to hide from the big guys, more or less.

I don't think loss of trees and large plants was all there was to the dinosaurs demise, because they weren't quite cold blooded reptiles, and many small reptiles did survive. Studies have shown their body temperatures varied with size.
Body temperature and the abrupt change in oxygen content most likely was the greatest contributor to dinosaur extinction, but science doesn't know for sure YET. The jury is still out to why small dinosaurs also perished, or did they evolve into birds after the meteorite hit, or something else that went extinct?

Not knowing YET doesn't mean that God exists. And it definitely doesn't mean that because science doesn't know YET, that the earth is less than 10,000 years old and evolution didn't happen.

There is a good chance that the atmosphere slowly changed, or maybe abruptly changed around 50 million years ago, causing plants to get bigger and trees to grow again, which led to different food sources and a need for some animals to get bigger to have a greater chance of species survival.

Many headlines for the above story make it seem that the dinosaur's demise had no bearing on allowing mammals to evolve. The thing they are missing is that without the dinosaur's extinction, mammals would most likely never have got bigger than a small cat, or they would have been easy targets for snacking.

If the meteorite missed, dinosaurs would most likely be still dominating the planet, and only small mammals might still be here. Except for the free-range large mammals, the now highly intelligent dinosaurs bred on farms, for food.

I added these tectonics maps showing continental drift at three crucial times. Remember, placental mammals and marsupial mammals branched out around 110 million years ago. Placental mammals didn't make it to Australia for quite some time after the big asteroid hit.

Isolation of the marsupial mammals, coupled with plenty of food and shelter, probably had something to do with the fact that no Aussie animal developed their intelligence into anything that resembled man or bonobo or dolphin. Maybe next meteorite crash, the Australian little rodents that survive, will be the ones that lead to the most intelligent species on the planet, eventually.

For real science from real scientists on this topic, check out Sandwalk and Pharyngula.

42 comments:

  1. Which is why the majority of Australians have no problem in accepting evolution. The animals here are specific and quite weird in comparison to other continents - because of the geographical isolation.

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  2. Remember, placental mammals and marsupial mammals branched out around 110 years ago.

    Holy crap! You've become a YEC! ;-)

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  3. Hey BeepX2, do the Aboriginals mostly believe in evolution too?

    JA, at least someone reads my blog, thanks.
    Ok, I will correct it now, I can't have one mistake in my post or my whole post will be wrong according to Fundies.

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  4. RE BEAJ

    The few that I know personally do. The ones who are teachers, nurses, engineers etc.

    Aborigines who still live their traditional lifestyle are more likely to have retained their own cultural understandings of the world.

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  5. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  6. Over at Amy Proctor (remember?) they're falling over each other about the chocolate Jesus (Sweet Jesus!). Yep, the edible one without the loincloth. Anatomically correct apparently... how the f*ck do they know that?? Last time I looked the Bible doesn't show any pics of Jesus' dingdong...

    Bill Donohue has been behaving just a tad unchristian over this, vowing to ruin the artist also financially. Nah, bring back burning at the stake is what I say. The artist's gonna burn in hell anyway... Sweet, sweet Lawd...

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  7. Sentinel: Meteorite. See this article you Jooo paranoid assmonkey.

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  8. BEAJ

    I can't believe how many anti-Semites this blog attracts. Shocking, it really is...

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  9. Gert, I solicited this freak, sort of.
    I went on invitation to Renegade Eye's blog post on Jews.
    This mentally person (The Sentinel) left a Jooo conspiracy comment. I went to his blog, and then bitch slapped him a bit.

    He is seriously mentally ill.

    Oh, I comment at Proctor's place too:)

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  10. You haven't bitch slapped me at all you muppet, you have just shown your self up- embarrassed yourself.

    Knock yourself out with that metal illness line- perhaps I need political re-education too.

    I am not really "anti-Semitic" either (a misnomer in any case) but seeing as you like to chuck around insults I thought I would give a go.

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  11. The Sentinel said...
    The only things to survive a meteor (not meteorite you clown) crash would be cockroaches and Jews.///////////

    No big diff, actually.

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  12. Sentinel, of course you aren't anti-semitic. Nobody is. It is just another Jooooooooish conspiracy.

    And yes, you are mentally ill.

    Your blog is the equivalent of that of one who believes the world is flat.

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  13. The first thing out of a jew's bag of tricks is the antisemite race card

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  14. See Rickey, I posted your two last comments to show how mentally ill both you and Sentinel are.
    I'm sure you could be very good buddies.

    Of course, you aren't anti-semitic either. Neither of you are, because there is no such thing as anti-semitism. Right?

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  15. Anyone who moderates comments is a fraud and weasel. You are only some kind of fringe element jew.

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  16. I moderate my board only because of you. You are mentally insane. You have a blog dedicated to me, and if I gave free reign, you would cut and paste to your hearts content.

    You know what, I've finally had it with you.

    Rickey, you are banned from now on.

    Go whine all you want. I have no idea why I let you post here for so long. You are a complete retard.

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  17. Really well written, interesting post.

    Your detractors being called mentally ill, means they are a problem solved by medication. They are people who if could, would shoot you in the head. They are a political problem, that has to be dealt with politically.

    I wonder if they can differentiate our different political inclinations?

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  18. Thanks Renegade Eye, I actually did spend a lot of time researching this post. And I am admittedly just a novice when it comes to science.

    Medication doesn't solve mental illness, it only controls it, and to my knowledge, it may control it to a varying degree.

    I also consider those brainwashed to be mentally ill, so it doesn't have to do with just the way the person is hardwired.

    Joooo haters are insane for the most part....again in varying degrees.

    Banning Rickey will destroy the poor widdle Joooo hater, but I don't care anymore.

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  19. Rickey:

    Bye, bye, Rickey, bye, bye.

    Now you can stick to that sick spoof blog of yours that no-one reads. You prick...

    I'm not gonna call you mentally ill: that would be too easy, as a pill might cure it. No, you're just a sad incorregible ignorant bastard that will go to his grave as the same idiot he was born as...

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  20. "Go whine all you want. I have no idea why I let you post here for so long. You are a complete retard."

    LOL!

    With regard to the later development of mammals, facts are facts, and theories should be squared to them accordingly. Creationists become so in love with a theory that they forget a theory is supposed to explain facts, not to disregard them. Of course, that is creationism's raison d'etre.

    If one could deduce specific conclusions from a theory, then you know the theory has something wrong with it. Newton's theory of gravitation, for example, doesn't predict how many planets our solar system must have. Likewise, any theory of evolution isn't not going to entail a specific sequence of development among species -- that is a matter of chance. Contingent matters can not be known through pure logic, despite what some anti-empirical rationalists may believe.

    A few writers like Dawkins write as if evolution is not a matter of chance, as if it were a matter of Spinoza-like necessity. They are in error.

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  21. Yes, I think it is time to remove ricky as well. He has had ample opportunity to discuss and chooses not to offer anything except attacks on people's character. Time to move him on.

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  22. Jason, it depends how you define chance. Genes are constantly mutating, so there is potential for evolution all the time. When an environment changes even slightly, the genes that allow for certain traits to become predominant win out.

    The environmental changes occur by chance, you could say, especially when a meteorite hits the planet, but take the evolution of the giraffes neck for instance, the early giraffe like animals had more to eat the bigger their neck. The big neck genes won out over time.
    It might have been by chance that those horse like animals were there in the first place and that trees starting growing larger due to more sunlight or even the trees fight for sunlight.

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  23. My God you are one boring, arrogant and pretentious buffoon aint ya?

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  24. Wow, the 'sentinel' IS an assmonkey.
    "Commies & Jews & gays, oh my!"
    I guess they should do a study on whether or not too much Faux news rots the brain.
    Oh wait, the Joooos own that too.

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  25. Sentinel:

    How come humanity never disappoints me when it comes to serving up idiocy? Just when I thought I'd seen the worst in blogging and you show up, right on cue...

    I think you must have been sexually abused as a child...

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  26. Truly pathetic and somewhat sinister- you fantasies about child hood sexual molestation because you disagree with someone's opinion.

    It reveals a very nasty, twisted inner soul and it seems to be a peculiar trait amongst the left.

    I had these accusations a while back from some other warped men and it culminated in them posting graphic details of pedophile abuse on my blog (the only comments I have ever deleted.)

    The details were so minute and graphic that I can only assume that either they were practising pedophiles or they had very, very vivid imaginations.

    It seems to be the way of the projectionist.

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  27. The Sentinel, Gert was only speculating why you are such a whack job. Were you just born that way?

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  28. Its the truth and facts that you have a problem with- and the people relaying them.

    A weak position by weak people always reults in argumentum ad hominem- be it that the dissenter is "mentally ill", or has "been sexually abused as a child" or is some kind of "denier"- whatever baseless and facile label is used the end goal is the same: The stifling of dissent with hysterical abuse rather then rational discussions.

    Ironically, most of the labels and accusation made usualy suit the accuser far better then the target.

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  29. How do these trolls find you? :)

    The most common dinosaur on farms these days is the chicken. I would exactly call them highly intelligent.

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  30. Sentinel, your whining is pathetic. I know your type. You drool for any articles that reinforce your paranoid delusions. That is why you link articles by the likes of Mark Glenn and call them well researched facts.

    When refuted with evidence, you then bash the sources, as you did yesterday when I posted on your blog that Israel warned Bush about Al Qaeda. It goes against your Jooo paranoia, so you dismiss it. Instead, you love believing bullshit, like Goldman Sachs was warned about the 9/11 attacks.

    Take your tin foil hat and peddle your mentally ill delusions elsewhere, nitwit.

    Do some homework: Israel warned Bush.

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  31. Sentinel:

    Types like you always complain no one wants to debate with them but debating with you would be like trying to debate with the Flat Earth Society or the Jehovah's Witnesses: time consuming and utterly useless.

    What's more, your "blaagh" is full of anti-Semitic nonsense. Come clean and publish the entire Protocols of Zion, it would save you much time.

    I'm usually not one for name-calling or ad hominem, generally speaking at least, but with idiots like you that's really all that can be done.

    You're now also banned from my blog. Please also ban me from yours: that will put your readership total at a solid minus one. Or perhaps even the square root of -1... that's an imaginary number. Perhaps you and Wickey could form an alliance: "The Most Inept anti-Semites of the Internet Alliance", something like that...

    Fuck off and go cry to mummy: "nobody understands me (boohoo)"...

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  32. gary mcgarth,

    This troll found me and posted numerous insults on my blog.

    beaj,

    "I know your type."

    I doubt it. Stick to dogs, people aint your thing.


    "You drool for any articles that reinforce your paranoid delusions"

    That Mossad spy in the US? That is paranoid, or a fact? Just as Mossad were caught out spying in NZ recently? Just as a recent major drugs investigation in the US was scuppered by Mossad? That out of the 6 companies that are responsible for 96% of the world media output, 5 ae owned by Jews? etc etc


    "When refuted with evidence, you then bash the sources, as you did yesterday when I posted on your blog that Israel warned Bush about Al Qaeda"

    You posted a blog as a source of evidence, and it is not. I only post credible sources.

    Ironically, you new "evidence" - through google- relies on the very "conspiracy sites" you attempt to scorn.


    "Take your tin foil hat and peddle your mentally ill delusions elsewhere, nitwit."

    You are just another attack muppet with nothing to say and no idea.

    You obviously get off put yourself up as a Jew for targeting so you can play the victim and spokesman. That you deny any Zionist conspiracy is laughable- as if you would be privy to it.

    You are a waste of my time and you sought me out.


    gert,

    "I'm usually not one for name-calling or ad hominem"

    Really? And that child sex abuse crap seemed to just flow from you.


    "but with idiots like you that's really all that can be done."

    Of course. You re better then me aint ya. Your special.


    "Fuck off and go cry to mummy: "nobody understands me (boohoo)"... "

    As usual with this medium, it gives licence for dutch courage statements. I can guarantee that you would not say that to my face.

    Your just another internet hardman.


    In conclusion, the author of this blog sought me out and left insults on my blog- if there is a troll here it is him.

    I have no desire to engage with him, or any others on this blog any further. It is a complete waste of time and wholly unproductive for both "camps."

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  33. Yes Sentinel, Mark Glenn is representative of the credible sources you use. LMAOAY.

    My blog didn't sought you out, you posted an old Fox news story on the Renegade Eye, and I had to go look who would be retarded enough to do it.

    That Fox clip is over 4 years old, and Israel and the US are still best of buddies.

    No one denies that the Mossad spies everywhere. The US spies everywhere too.

    Yes, the big Joooooooooooish conspiracy won't let me in. But luckily we have imbeciles like you with their tin hats to expose International Jewry.

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  34. I'm starting to think sentinel is just Rickey in disguise. Like Rickey, it decided to spray-paint some obscenities in my comment section.

    You find trolls amusing, I guess. I just remove their comments; no arguments, no warnings. If they go beyond a certain point (as Rickey did, with explicit lies in the nature of criminal charges), I report them to the Blogger admins.

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  35. Gary, I don't think they are the same retard. I don't find trolls amusing, but I do like laughing.

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  36. Oh, way up there I (obviously) meant to say that I wouldn't call chickens highly intelligent.

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  37. Gary, a chicken never had to evolve to be intelligent, because they lay so many darn eggs and have had plenty of food and shelter and they have many other predators so they never made to ape IQ status.

    Sorry about the Sentinel Virus you have now.

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  38. Yeah, sentinel dropped by, kept spouting vacuous swear words till I turned moderation on. Then claimed VICTORY! & said I was 'hiding'. No link to his blog - not a surprising tactic for someone who sees boogeymen behind every tree & under every rock.
    He should seriously look up the word 'Thorazine'.

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  39. That could be Rickey. Sentinel links his blog here in the comments.
    Rickey is going around using my ID Beaj and linking to my blog, giving people the impression it is me. He is a common ID thief. He is also leaving retarded comments on Digg and Netscape.

    Rickey and Sentinel belong in the same straight jacket. They are true psychos.

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  40. I only post under my blog name- so whatever problems you are having are nothing to do with me.

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  41. sentinel:
    If it's not you (the name is nemesis), then my apologies.
    I called you an assmonkey, & then the 1st post mentioned the word - ergo, I assumed it was you.
    Since you're looking over your shoulder every few seconds, I'd guess you have some serious neck problems.

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  42. Lisa, the mammals couldn't get too big, or they would have been easy food for the dinosaurs. But I'm OK with have a rodent looking mammal as a great grandparents (to the power of 20 or 30), I've accepted it.
    Many of the commenters here are Atheist, only a few are Jews too.

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