Paleo-Myth Number 2: Fossil Bias Blinds Us

Let's do a little mental exercise.

Consider one of the more epic movie franchises in history, say the Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, the Godfather films. Now imagine you have never seen these movies nor read the books that inspired them. You are allowed to watch the films, but you must watch them backwards. And you are not allowed to watch continual sequences of the film but only particular, random frames. At first you see maybe one frame every minute or so, but the deeper you get the longer are the gaps between the frames. Not only that but the frames that you are allowed to see are getting blurrier and blurrier, as if the editor spilled his coffee on them. Sometimes you can only make out vague shapes and figures but can not distinguish actual faces. Now imagine some of the problems and challenges that may arise in trying to decipher a coherent plot outline. For our purposes let's imagine the trilogy you are trying to outline is The Lord of the Rings. Now you will undoubtedly see a lot of Frodo and possibly many of the major characters- but you would probably miss many of the more minor characters and possibly even some of the major characters. But what you would miss most of all would be the subtle evolution of the characters. Would you catch the transformation of Gandalf the Grey into Gandalf the White? What if you missed the scene where Frodo had a falling out with Samwise? Would you ever realize Smeagol was once like a hobbit? What if you just never saw Sauron? The dissolution of the fellowship? Would you be able to figure out the trajectory of Aragorn from a ranger to the king?

And if you think about the problems and pitfalls of such an endeavor you will probably come to a greater appreciation of the pitfalls of deciphering the fossil record into a coherent story.

Now, I am not the first person to make this analogy and I don't recall exactly recall where I first heard it but I think it is very useful and dovetails into the particular myth I want to address and that has to do with any notion that the fossil record is complete or that we should even expect any kind of coherent narrative to be immediately evident. Fossil bias due to taphonomic processes, the pull of the recent, lack of exposed rocks and lack of proper sedimentation in many areas all contribute to a woefully inadequate picture of life evolving through time. Finding the proper suite of fossils that paint a logical evolutionary trajectory of any group of animals, say for instance whales, horses, or even hominids is the exception rather than the rule and even in these cases there are a lot of stop gaps and conjecture.

Maiacetus. John Klausmeyer

And this is an important line of reasoning to invoke because one of the chief arguments invoked against evolution is "where are all the missing links?" Again it should be noted that the very question itself is not properly in line with how evolution works because the very notion of missing link implies that there is some set goal, some final destination and this is very much not how evolution works. Evolution is a blind, grasping compromise of the anatomical/behavioral possibilities for an organism in a given environment. There is no final product. The organism you see now, or look at in the fossil record, is the optimal fit that was achieved at that particular time in that particular environment. It is not perfect nor is it sub-optimal.

If you view evolution as the unifying concept in modern biology, and therefore all of the major subsets including but not limited to anthropology, medicine, genetics, and of course paleontology, should we who favor this view as the prism from which to view the story of life.... should we be more strident in our defense of evolution?

Russ Meyer(L). Roger Ebert(R)defender of evolution

If you are like me you probably have got in at least one, but possibly many, heated exchanges with people who not only disavow evolution but subscribe to a young earth narrative. And if you are like me, you probably quickly realized the futility of the argument you got yourself into. And, like me, you will probably argue for evolution again anyways.... if not for the zealots who will not change, but for the fence sitters.

Being a warrior for evolution is a daunting task, but since schools so often fail in providing a good solid foundation for grasping evolution, it depends on people who care and understand what evolution means to pull up the slack. And this ultimately leads to arguments with people adherent to young earth/intelligent design/creationist beliefs. Remember you probably will not change their mind, but to any fence sitters on the sideline your argument does matter. Here is your reference to combating their arguments. An Index to Creationist Claims.

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Paleo-Myth Number 3: The "Living Fossil" Dilemma

Ok, its time to make a concerted effort to wrap up this paleo-myth series. I have had the list completed for quite some time but, you know, other stuff grabs my attention and blah, blah, blah. But at least I have no shortage of stuff I want to write about so I should not be complaining too much.

Goblin Shark. wiki

Anyways, today I want to write about the concept and use of the term "living fossils" and how- useful to some extent- it is one of the more abused and misapplied concept in biological discourse. You may recall that I did a piece a while ago on crocodiles and how the entrenched concept of crocs as static unchanging river lurkers is simply not true. And this pop science mantra of "living fossil" is often applied to cycads, sharks, ferns, marsupials, and conifers among others. But the application of this term can be misleading, for instance all extant cycads show evidence of Tertiary origin and may actually be diversifying presently. The main problem I find is that the term 'living fossil" implies a sort of biological anachronimism, a creature out of place and time for which evolution has abated all together. And this is the big danger I find in throwing around the term "living fossil" because it suggests that evolution will stop and start as if under some internal control or suggests a type of evolutionary senility. And this is why I prefer to speak of living fossils as relict species and not as "living fossils". The term "living fossil" also suggests a lack of adaptive vitality- that the species is not well adapted to its environment. But, in truth what often occurs is that environments diminish in size and, through no fault of its own, the critter adapted to this environment diminishes in number with it. From our perspective we see a creature/family limited in diversity and number due not to any intrinsic maladaptive qualities but simply a loss of the correct conditions it thrives in. And sometimes, due to anthropogenic intervention, these relict species can be redistributed throughout the world- such as in the case of Gingko trees, Dawn redwoods and Wollemii pine.

And this concept of "living fossils" and the associated misconceptions that commence from its use also contribute sometimes to a view of whole ecosystems/communities sharing characters consistent with a veritable "lost world". And one of the more consistently put forth habitats that purportedly displays such a character is the abyssal realm of the deep ocean. And at first glance this cold, isolated, dark, pressurized realm would seem to be the ideal place to expect some long lost tribe of relict critters to persist. Indeed once a group adapted to such a realm you would expect them to enjoy a particularly long tenure there would you not? And for this reason the famed deep sea vent communities have been suggested as not only representing some of the oldest communities of life on this planet, but have also been suggested to represent the start of life itself on this planet. Except they are not. And the reason that deep sea vent communities and most likely all deep abyssal life in general occasionally goes through a major evolutionary reset is summed up in two words: anoxic events.

(c) Emory Kristof. Nat Geo

The deep ocean is not isolated from harm or from surface events/calamities. And every so often the ocean experiences a little bit of a hiccup, killing everything. You see even if life has found a way to get around the whole photosynthetic pathway thing, life, for the most part, still has not got around the whole lack of oxygen thing. And so, every once in a while pretty much the whole deep sea biota is extinguished and hence our deep sea vent critters are just a little shy of 65 million years old.

So, in summary, the term "living fossil" is, at best I would argue, a loaded term. I prefer the term "relict species" but even here we run into trouble because, barring concrete evidence of cryptic hominids, we ourselves are a relict species. After all we are the last in line of a formerly much more diverse radiation of bipedal apes?

Hoatzin. wiki

Cheers!!!


Pertinencia

Novel Tools for an Old Lineage

Simosuchus and the problem with living fossils

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