Paleontologist article (Introduction)
by David Turell 
, Sunday, November 09, 2014, 14:54 (3455 days ago)
Why his work is important:-http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/09/opinion/sunday/prehistorys-brilliant-future.html?emc=edit_th_20141109&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=60788861&_r=0-"WITHIN a morning, we knew we had stumbled upon something extraordinary: Dozens of dinosaur skeletons, scores of delicate mammal and lizard skeletons, nests of eggs with embryos, and nesting dinosaurs were splayed out on the surface of a rocky amphitheater not much larger than a baseball field. The oviraptors found nesting on a brood of eggs were the first hard evidence, only hypothesized until then, of parental care among dinosaurs.-"Fossils from the Gobi, as well as strata in northern China, also include extraordinary specimens of tiny, shrewlike mammals that point the way toward the origins of the modern group of mammals that includes us. The new discoveries continue to pile up, including a report last week on a remarkably preserved skull of a 70-million-year-old groundhog-like mammal from Madagascar.-"Since 2000, we have identified five early hominins, our close prehistoric relatives. And if you think that the fossil record deals only with such changes in million-year scales, think again. Just 50,000 years ago — a blink of an eye in the deep time of paleontology — there were at least three, and maybe four, species of the human lineages cohabiting on this planet. Yet within that span of time, only our own species made it through the evolutionary sieve."-H. sapiens, Neanderthal, Denisovans, Hobbits (nickname) are the four.
Paleontologist article
DAVID: Why his work is important: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/09/opinion/sunday/prehistorys-brilliant-future.html?emc=... a wonderful article! You can feel the excitement of discovery.-Tony, please read this and then tell me if you still think evolutionists are motivated by a desire (conscious or unconscious) to escape from moral accountability.-In the context of our discussion on "balance", David, I was struck by this little snippet: "The fossil record tells us that mass extinction events were so devastating that it took hundreds of thousands, even millions, of years for the few species that survived to once again diversify and flourish and for ecosystems to recover."-You will no doubt continue to insist that "at each period of history, the Earth and life have maintained a careful successful balance", and these mass extinctions were all part of the great plan, but perhaps you can at least understand why some of us consider that it's not unreasonable to doubt your theory.-A special thank you for a special article.
Paleontologist article
by David Turell , Sunday, November 09, 2014, 16:02 (3455 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: In the context of our discussion on "balance", David, I was struck by this little snippet: > > "The fossil record tells us that mass extinction events were so devastating that it took hundreds of thousands, even millions, of years for the few species that survived to once again diversify and flourish and for ecosystems to recover." > > You will no doubt continue to insist that "at each period of history, the Earth and life have maintained a careful successful balance", and these mass extinctions were all part of the great plan, but perhaps you can at least understand why some of us consider that it's not unreasonable to doubt your theory.-In the Permian extinction 90% of all species were destroyed. But obviously red in tooth and claw persisted and the survivors ate or photosynthesized.