31 replies to this topic

[k_nitin_r]

Dinosaurs went extinct before we came into being so it is hard to understand how they lived or if they even existed. If you look at the way a detective examines a crime scene and determines what may have happened without having been there at the time of the crime, you can imagine what scientists and researchers do to study dinosaurs. Whenever fossils are collected, scientists and researchers attempt to connect their new findings with findings of the past. They try to fit everything together as pieces of a puzzle. When you get a set of bones, you cannot necessarily fit them together as they were intended. To understand how the bones fit together, existing fossils are compared and based on the evolution theory, scientists determine how the parts should fit together. For example, think of the eyes of all species living today. Based on most of the species that we know, we can tell that almost all species have two eyes located horizontally adjacent to each other, barring a few exceptions.

It is hard to think of ourselves as a part of an evolution that started off from the ocean. We do not have the ability to breathe underwater. We do not have reptilian scales like birds do on their feet. Because we are so different from the fish and water-dwelling unicellular microbes that were supposedly the common point of almost all species, it is hard to imagine that the two could be somehow related. All of the species (or at least almost all of the species) of plants that contain chlorophyll are known to use sunlight to turn water and carbon dioxide into glucose and oxygen. Therefore based on the knowledge that we have of existing plants, we can determine that just about any other plant fossil that we find containing chlorophyll was a producer of oxygen (and a consumer too, when they do not have access to light, water, or carbon dioxide).

[Bikerman]

k_nitin_r, on 05 April 2012 - 02:55 AM, said:

For example, think of the eyes of all species living today. Based on most of the species that we know, we can tell that almost all species have two eyes located horizontally adjacent to each other, barring a few exceptions.

Sorry but that just isn't true.
There are somewhere over 50,000 species of Spider - none of which have two eyes. Then we have many other species of insect, crustaceon and arachnid with more than 2 eyes.

Quote

it is hard to imagine that the two could be somehow related. All of the species (or at least almost all of the species) of plants that contain chlorophyll are known to use sunlight to turn water and carbon dioxide into glucose and oxygen.

Since the function of chrolophyl is to do exactly that, then it would be extremely unlikely to find a plant which possessed chlorophyl and DIDN'T metabolise in such a manner...

Quote

Therefore based on the knowledge that we have of existing plants, we can determine that just about any other plant fossil that we find containing chlorophyll was a producer of oxygen (and a consumer too, when they do not have access to light, water, or carbon dioxide).

But that actually tells us very little.