politburo diktat 2.0

Study Re-evaluates Evolution of Mammals

This is a “wow.” The creationist misinterpretations will be annoying, but who cares. This is a fascinating news.

The mass extinction that wiped out dinosaurs and other life 65 million years ago apparently did not, contrary to conventional wisdom, immediately clear the way for the rise of today’s mammals.

In fact, the ancestral branches of most mammals, including primates, rodents and hoofed animals, emerged long before the global extinction and survived it more or less intact. But it was not until at least 10 million to 15 million years afterward that the lineages of living mammals began to flourish in number and diversity.

Some mammals did benefit from the extinction, but these were not closely related to extant lineages and most of them soon died off.

These are the surprising conclusions of a comprehensive study of molecular and fossil data on 4,510 of the 4,554 mammal species known to exist today. The researchers are to report the findings in Thursday’s issue of the journal Nature, and they said this is the first virtually complete species-level study of existing mammals.

While I am evo-blogging, here’s a PZ Myers piece on how mutations add to DNA, and how a creationist is certain that such has never been observed, even though it’s routine:

Pharyngula: A straightforward example of creationist error

A creationist, Rob McEwen, left me a little comment here which lists a number of his objections to evolution. It’s a classic example of the genre, and well illustrates the problem we have. The poor fellow has been grossly misinformed, but is utterly convinced that he has the truth. I’m not going to dismantle his entire line of blather (thanks to Loren Petrich, who has already briefly pointed out the flaws in his thinking), but I do want to show what I mean with one example.