the coelacanth has been added to endangered species list.
65 million years, and now it's in trouble?
Actually, the species is nowhere near that old. This is the sort of subtlety that's always fudged in overviews of evolution, thereby leaving openings for creationists. The average life span of a species is just a few million years. Even when we have almost identical forms persisting over hundreds of millions of years, paleontologists find it necessary to separate them on the specific level. Given the time frame, we really don't have much data on large life forms, but even with the tiny (and plentiful) foraminifers, we find dividing lines, rather than transitional species. This is what forced the idea of "punctuated equilibrium", as opposed to the old notion of gradations from form to form. You can line up a crossopterygian (200 mil yrs ago, with lungs), a cretaceous lobe-fin (65 mil, no lungs), and today's coelacanth, and say they are related, but they are not the same, and the actual line of descent is by no means clear. When science sees mystery as a weakness, and religion claims certainty as dogma, they've got it backwards both ways.
Nova does the Coelacanth, including footage of the living fish in its environment, and an interview with the now 95 year-old Ms. Latimer, who “started” the whole thing in 1938.
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- dave 4-19-2000 1:18 pm
65 million years, and now it's in trouble?
Actually, the species is nowhere near that old. This is the sort of subtlety that's always fudged in overviews of evolution, thereby leaving openings for creationists. The average life span of a species is just a few million years. Even when we have almost identical forms persisting over hundreds of millions of years, paleontologists find it necessary to separate them on the specific level. Given the time frame, we really don't have much data on large life forms, but even with the tiny (and plentiful) foraminifers, we find dividing lines, rather than transitional species. This is what forced the idea of "punctuated equilibrium", as opposed to the old notion of gradations from form to form. You can line up a crossopterygian (200 mil yrs ago, with lungs), a cretaceous lobe-fin (65 mil, no lungs), and today's coelacanth, and say they are related, but they are not the same, and the actual line of descent is by no means clear. When science sees mystery as a weakness, and religion claims certainty as dogma, they've got it backwards both ways.
- alex 4-19-2000 3:47 pm [add a comment]
Nova does the Coelacanth, including footage of the living fish in its environment, and an interview with the now 95 year-old Ms. Latimer, who “started” the whole thing in 1938.
- alex 1-22-2003 4:46 am [add a comment]