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The Story of Life in 25 Fossils by Donald R. Prothero

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Re: The Story of Life in 25 Fossils by Donald R. Prothero

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djkirk wrote:Good point GEO and Taylor, I agree.
We can revisit this idea anytime. Perhaps we can invite the author to an online chat session after we've discussed the book. We've done that before.

I think we can just start discussing the book right here. Since there's only three of us, I don't see the necessity for having 25 different threads. But I'm just tossing ideas out and really have no preference either way.

I don't know yet how much Prothero will tackle Creationist dogma that rejects evolution, but I think some of that is inevitable. For this discussion I'd suggest that we focus as much as possible on the evidence that shows how evolution works rather than get bogged down by arguments against Creationism. (This is a reminder to myself as anything.) I think we can assume that evolution is true for purposes of this discussion. If this thread gets too far off topic, we can simply create a separate thread.

Edit: On the other hand, we can present the Creationist argument to Fossil X and discuss how the evidence holds up. ?

I haven't started reading yet, but the author opens Chapter 1 with this quote from Darwin's Origin of Species, which is often referred to as "Darwin's Dilemma":
Darwin wrote:If the theory (of evolution) be true, it is indisputable that before the lowest Cambrian strata was deposited, long periods elapsed . . . and the world swarmed with living creatures. (Yet) to the question why we do not find rich fossiliferous deposits belonging to these earlier periods . . . I can give no satisfactory answer.
Where is all that fossil evidence for these earlier life forms? I can't wait to find out.

You guys, please check in when you get your books! I'll keep posting "filler" to bump this thread in hopes of getting others to join in.
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Re: The Story of Life in 25 Fossils by Donald R. Prothero

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Hey Geo :) I like the idea of a casual discussion layout. I should have my copy by this coming weekend, so till I'm reading I'll just try and add my thoughts to the subject as we go along.

Darwin's dilemma seems an appropriate place to start as the Precambrian and Cambrian explosion are somewhat in question exactly for the seeming lack of undeniable fossil evidence. It will be interesting to see if Prothero can put to rest that controversial period of earths evolution.
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Re: The Story of Life in 25 Fossils by Donald R. Prothero

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I ordered my book yesterday. I'll let you know when I get it.
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Re: The Story of Life in 25 Fossils by Donald R. Prothero

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From the first chapter, here's an artist's conception of shallow tidal pools that gave rise to early life on our planet. Here are microbial mats, a primitive kind of bacteria that has existed for billions of years on our planet.

Image
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Re: The Story of Life in 25 Fossils by Donald R. Prothero

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My book arrived yesterday, reading away.
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Re: The Story of Life in 25 Fossils by Donald R. Prothero

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djkirk wrote:My book arrived yesterday, reading away.
Good deal. I've read chapter one. It's fairly straightforward narrative about some of the early hits and misses in paleontology. We see the ability of science to correct itself. For example, in 1868, Thomas Huxley misidentified "Bathybius" fossil as an early primitive organism, but it turned out to be a precipitate of calcium sulfate. Huxley admitted his mistake and published a correction in Nature Journal. Prothero describes our very human tendency to find meaning in patterns, which frequently turn out to be just naturally occurring. As such, modern paleontologists have to be skeptical of new discoveries.

What is remarkable to me is that paleontology has come so far in a relatively short period of time. We know so much about the geologic timescale and when certain life forms came into being by scrutinizing the fossil record. And that's the focus of this book, a sort of history of paleontology.

By the way, there are some photos of Shark Bay in Australia, one of the few places in the world where we can still find stromatolites—rock-like structures built by microbes (single-celled cyanobacteria).

http://www.sharkbay.org.au/nature-of-sh ... lites.aspx
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Re: The Story of Life in 25 Fossils by Donald R. Prothero

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I've finished reading and am ready anytime.
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Re: The Story of Life in 25 Fossils by Donald R. Prothero

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djkirk wrote:I've finished reading and am ready anytime.
Finished reading the book? Or the first chapter?

But regardless, what are your thoughts so far?
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Re: The Story of Life in 25 Fossils by Donald R. Prothero

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Chapter 2 highlights the Ediacaran (pre-Cambrian) fossils that are roughly categorized as worms, sea pens and sea jellies. These ancient life forms may have been similar to life forms that live today (such as coral and jelly fish), but this connection is uncertain, according to Prothero. These are all aquatic animals, by the way. One of the early organisms is called “Charnia”—a “frond-like Ediacaran lifeform with segmented, leaf-like ridges branching alternately to the right and left from a zig-zag medial suture (thus exhibiting glide reflection, or opposite isometry).”

from Wikipedia:
The living organism was a type of life form that grew on the sea floor and is believed to have fed on nutrients in the water. Despite Charnia's fern-like appearance, it is not a plant or alga because the nature of the fossilbeds where specimens have been found demonstrate that it originally lived in deep water, well below the photic zone where photosynthesis can occur.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charnia

If you recall from one of my earlier comments, scientists have wondered about the existence of pre-Cambrian fossils. Prothero quotes Darwin from the Origin of Species:
Darwin wrote:If the theory (of evolution) be true, it is indisputable that before the lowest Cambrian strata was deposited, long periods elapsed . . . and the world swarmed with living creatures. (Yet) to the question why we do not find rich fossiliferous deposits belonging to these earlier periods . . . I can give no satisfactory answer.
Prothero hints at some of these answers in Ch. 1 and continues in Ch. 2. For almost 85 percent of earth’s geologic history (from 3.5 billion to about 650 millions years ago), there were no creatures large enough to make visible fossils. Which is why stromatolites are so prominent of the earliest fossils because they are the only life form large enough to be seen without a microscope.

In the preCambrian era, most of the life forms were soft-bodied, so fossil evidence is understandably very hard to come by. The only fossils are impressions in the sandstones or mudstones on the sea bottoms, so there are no actual complete fossils as there are of, for example, the later trilobites, which had hard shells (like crabs) and were therefore much more likely to be preserved as fossils.

Think of the modern day jelly fish. How would something like that be fossilized?

The big question we are left with at the end of Chapter 2 is how did the shelled creatures come along and what took them so long?
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Re: The Story of Life in 25 Fossils by Donald R. Prothero

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I've finished reading the entire book. Agree with both your posts. The Charnia is certainly interesting. It kind of makes you wonder if mother nature was trying out a system for an efficient method of transferring nutrients within an organism.

I like Prothero's style. I've mainly been reading up on human evolution for the past couple of years, and this is my first look into the evolution of all life. Many of the books I've read start with a fossil and move on. Prothero describes a fossil and looks in both directions.
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