Beach Stroll Casts Further Doubt on Some Supposed Ediacaran Bilaterian Fossils

air bladder, animals, beach, beachcombing, bilaterian animals, brown algae, Cambrian Explosion, Cambrian News, convergent evolution, Ediacaran biota, Ediacaran fossils, Evolution, evolutionary theory, fauna, flora, fossil-hunting, fossils, hemichordate worms, holdfast, kelp, kelp stipe, Kingdom Protista, Margaretia dorus, Pacific Northwest, paleontology, plants, Precambrian strata, protists, rock hammer, Science (journal), tide-pooling, Western Washington
Over the past few days I’ve been discussing an important paper in the journal Science that reveals supposed Ediacaran bilaterian animal fossils (see here and here, with more to come). Meanwhile, this past weekend, I happened to go on a trip with friends here in Western Washington to do some tide-pooling, beach-combing, and fossil-hunting. We had a fantastic time enjoying the beauty of the inland-coastal Pacific Northwest. During our excursion, I also stumbled on a few things that, with that Science paper in mind, caught my attention. In one instance I found a kelp on the beach with its holdfast still nicely attached. A photo of it is at the top (the holdfast is near the pointy “pick” end of Read More › Source
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Giraffes and the Fossil Record: Bad News for Neo-Darwinism

common descent, common design, environmental shifts, Evolution, evolutionary lineage, evolutionary sequence, fossil record, geneticists, geological evidence, giraffe evolution, giraffes, giraffe’s neck, ID The Future, intermediates, Neo-Darwinism, paleontology, Samotherium major, silos, stasis, Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig, zoology
Dr. Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig highlights the discrepancies in the fossil record that cause the traditional Darwinian narrative to unravel. Source
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Like It Never Happened: Yunxian Skulls Reassigned Based on Evolution, Not Data

Archaeology, China, Chris Stringer, Denisovans, Evolution, evolutionary narrative, evolutionary timeline, Günter Bechly, hominins, Homo erectus, Homo longi, Homo sapiens, human evolution, Human Origins and Anthropology, London, media, morphological data, morphology, Natural History Museum, paleoanthropologists, paleontology, revision, Rick Potts, Science (journal), Science Advances, skulls, Susan Antón, Xiaobo Feng, Yunxian 2, Yunxian skulls
As Günter Bechly used to wryly observe, human evolution is a subject that is constantly being “rewritten,” often accompanied by much media fanfare. Source
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Be Prepared: Here Are Portable Neanderthal Toolkits

bear cave, Boy Scouts, Caverna Generosa, Denisovans, generosity, hierarchies, high altitudes, historical racism, human groups, Human Origins and Anthropology, hunter-gatheresr, intelligence, Italy, Journal of Quaternary Science, journeys, Lombard Prealps, motto, Neanderthals, paleontology, sensitivity, settlements, stereotypes, tools
Folks, that is impressive behavior. As David Coppedge says, let’s ditch the historical racism. Source
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New Paper Has Bad News for Popular “Oxygen Theory” of the Cambrian Explosion

Cambrian animals, Cambrian Explosion, clades, Darwin's Doubt, David Coppedge, Douglas Erwin, Evolution, evolutionary precursors, Gizmodo, Intelligent Design, James Valentine, oxygen, oxygen theory, oxygen trigger model, oxygenation, paleontologists, paleontology, partial pressure of oxygen, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, The Cambrian Explosion (book)
The technical paper acknowledges that this level of oxygenation, if sustained, would indeed “challenge the view” that oxygen was a trigger for animal evolution. Source
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No. 4 Story for 2025: Farewell to Günter Bechly

Cambridge, Casey Luskin, Center for Science and Culture, Charles Darwin, Christianity, Darwinian theory, Darwinism, Discovery Institute, England, Evolution News, evolutionary biology, Fossil Friday (series), fossil record, Germans, Germany, Günter Bechly, Human Origins, Icons of Evolution, Intelligent Design, intimidation, John West, Jonathan McLatchie, Jonathan Wells, Pacific Ocean, paleontology, Paul Nelson, Revolutionary: Michael Behe and the Mystery of Molecular Machines (film), Richard Sternberg, State Museum of Natural History, Stephen Meyer, Stuttgart, Theistic Evolution (book)
I told Richard Sternberg a story from own experience. I learned about more than paleontology from Bechly. Source
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The Neanderthal Story Keeps Evolving (Even if Nothing Else Does)

arithmetic, DNA, egg cells, footprints, genetics, Homo sapiens, Human Origins and Anthropology, James Woodford, modern humans, Monte Clérigo, Neanderthals, New Scientist, obstetrics, paleontology, Patrick Eppenberger, PIEZO1, population disparities, sperm, stillbirths, Switzerland, University of Seville, University of Zurich
The University of Seville announces that Neanderthal footprints found along Portugal’s Algarve coast have led to unexpected insights about Neanderthal culture. Source
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In Study of Human Psychology, the Power of “Maybe”

Antony Flew, artifacts, brain, cave art, death, dying, Gary Wenk, graveyard, human beings, Marilyn Mendoza, Michael Egnor, Neanderthals, near-death experiences, neuroscience, Neuroscience & Mind, Ohio State University, paleontology, periaqueductal gray, presumption of atheism, pseudoscience, psychology, Psychology Today, The Immortal Mind, There Is a God
This is not science and is not a good look for a psychology that purports to have some relationship with science. Source
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Skulls from China Said to Push Origin of Homo sapiens Back to 1 Million Years 

Ann Gauger, BBC, China, Chris Stringer, Denisovans, Evolution, fossil record, Homo heidelbergensis, Homo longi, Homo sapiens, homoplasy, Human Origins, Human Origins and Anthropology, Intelligent Design, Live Science, London, Middle Pleistocene, Natural History Museum, Neanderthals, Ola Hössjer, paleoanthropologists, paleontology, Science (journal), skulls, Yunxian skulls
How many times have we been told that some new paleoanthropological find is “rewriting the story of human evolution”? Source
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Casey Luskin Answers Common Objections to Intelligent Design

"God of the gaps", Australopithecus afarensis, bipedalism, bird groups, Casey Luskin, co-option, Darwinian predictions, evolutionary timeline, flowering plants, fossil record, hand bones, Homo (genus), Human Origins and Anthropology, humans, ID The Future, intelligence, Intelligent Design, Irreducible Complexity, irreducibly complex systems, Jacob Vasquez, Junk DNA, knuckle-walkers, land plants, Lucy (fossil), mammals, naturalism, naturalism in the gaps, paleontology, pelvis, scientific knowledge, tree branches, type III secretion system
Dr. Luskin highlights a “large unbridged gap” in the fossil record between ape-like species like Lucy and human-like species. Source
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