Finally, we need to wrestle with the fact that the vast majority of the creatures God has made no longer walk the earth. God could have created in any way he wanted to, but he chose to do so in a particular way. Fossils—ancient, beautiful, and fascinating—give us clues about how.
John Tiktaalik in the Field Museum, Chicago. Join us to receive the latest articles, podcasts, videos, and more, and help us show how science and faith work hand in hand. Humans appear very late in the history of life. The fossil record clearly shows that many creatures died before humans appeared.
If God is good, how can we account for the enormous amount of suffering caused by predation, disease, and natural disasters? This article summarizes multiple independent lines of evidence that evolution is the best scientific description of the process by which life has diversified. The Cambrian Explosion does present a number of important research questions. It does not, however, challenge the fundamental correctness of the central thesis of evolution.
Davis Young and Ralph Stearley discuss the historical development of Young-Earth Creationism and its relationship with science, especially mainstream views of sedimentary rock and the fossil record. Potts tells Jim stories of excavations in China and southern Kenya and of people encountering the exhibit on Human Origins around the US.
My scholarly research focuses on paleontology, especially regarding the evolution of whales. If you had told my year-old self that I would end up in this career, there is absolutely no way I would have believed you. Does science have anything to say about why so many cultures have dragon legends? Fossils are rare, plentiful, and diverse Fossils are the remains or traces of ancient organisms, preserved over the ages in rock, amber, tar, ice, or another medium.
Fossilization is an extremely rare event, but fossils are plentiful. How can this be? What do the sheer number, diversity, and strangeness of extinct creatures like the mosasaurs, and the vast ages over which they lived, tell us about God and his world? What is BioLogos? Subscribe Now What is BioLogos? Table of Contents Fossils are rare, plentiful, and diverse Fossil distribution in sedimentary rocks is highly ordered Transitional fossils are plentiful The transition to land: sea creatures to land animals Fossils tell us about God.
Common Question. Did death occur before the Fall? Is historical science reliable? What is the evidence for evolution? Does the Cambrian Explosion pose a challenge to evolution? Article Advanced. Podcast Episode. Featuring guest Rick Potts. By James Kidder. Personal Story. By Ryan Bebej. By Christy Hemphill. Guest Cart. It looks like your cart is empty! Evidence for early forms of life comes from fossils.
By studying fossils, scientists can learn how much or how little organisms have changed as life developed on Earth. There are gaps in the fossil record because many early forms of life were soft-bodied, which means that they have left few traces behind.
What traces there were may have been destroyed by geological activity. This is why scientists cannot be certain about how life began. Fossils provide a snap shot of the past and allow us to study how much or how little organisms have changed as life developed on Earth. Evolutionary trees are used to represent the relationships between organisms. Minerals precipitate from the groundwater, occupying the empty spaces.
This process can occur in very small spaces, such as within the cell wall of a plant cell. Small-scale permineralization can produce very detailed fossils.
For permineralization to occur, the organism must be covered by sediment soon after death, or soon after the initial decay process. The degree to which the remains are decayed when covered determines the later details of the fossil.
Fossils usually consist of the portion of the organisms that was partially mineralized during life, such as the bones and teeth of vertebrates or the chitinous or calcareous exoskeletons of invertebrates. However, other fossils contain traces of skin, feathers or even soft tissues. Fossils may also consist of the marks left behind by the organism while it was alive, such as footprints or feces. These types of fossils are called trace fossils, or ichnofossils, as opposed to body fossils.
Past life may also leave some markers that cannot be seen but can be detected in the form of biochemical signals; these are known as chemofossils or biomarkers. The totality of fossils, both discovered and undiscovered, and their placement in fossiliferous fossil-containing rock formations and sedimentary layers strata is known as the fossil record.
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