Re: paleonet fossils and molecular data

[Peter Paul Smolka <smolka@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 10 Sep 2002, Gilles Cuny wrote:

> Date: Tue, 10 Sep 2002 16:06:40 +0200
> From: Gilles Cuny <gilles@savik.geomus.ku.dk>
> Reply-To: paleonet@nhm.ac.uk
> To: paleonet@nhm.ac.uk
> Subject: Re: paleonet fossils and molecular data
>
> On 10 Sep 2002, at 14:17, John V Jackson wrote:
>
> > You will find that subject is yet another example of palaeontologists
> > resisting science in order to protect their own interests.
>
> Does that mean that science is only about molecular studies and
> that palaeontologists have nothing to say? I thought that science
> was more open-minded.....
> Cheers,
> Gilles.
>
>
>
> Dr. Gilles Cuny
> Geological Museum, University of Copenhagen
> ุster Voldgade 5-7, 1350 Copenhagen K, Denmark
> Tel: (45) 3532 2364, Fax: (45) 3532 2325
>
>
Dear Gilles,
Dear John,

first of all I must say that I did not read the quoted papers.

In principle, for all of us, I see the exciting question not
in an "either or" issue but in "why are, if applicable, both
correct, under which circumstances can this be the case, and
under which not".

Reason: To deduce (metaphorical) from remains of crashed planes
(in the sense of aviation) that around 1900 the first motorflight
took place is a reasonable issue. Even if the oldest available
"plane fossils" date back to 1910.

The same applies to "motorcar fossils".

Reasoning about a "car-plane-split" around 1890 is possible
(even though a chemical analysis of "motoroil fossils" might not
indicate any split before 1920).

Taking that metaphor as a start:

Do both hard remains (fossils) and molecular data document the same?

Or is it even more exciting to document BOTH changes independently?

Such as: While in the bones a change (split) appears to occur around
n m.y. in the microbiological counterpart it appears at m m.y. (earlier)?

Maybe any animal (including we) is subject to any genetic impact
(such as by eating) all the time (not only genetically modified
crop but crop in general).

In some cases this might be accompanied by changes in the hard parts;
in some cases potentially only enzymes and related change (and that is
then documented in different DNS analyses).

Thus I do think that a discussion on "who is right" and "who ignores
something" does not lead us to progress.

Learning (in the next decades to come) more about "which method
documents for which fossil class which change for which time"
could be quite fascinating (including seeing different times of
changes in the same fossil through different methods (hard parts,
DNS, etc.)).

Best regards, Peter


**********************************************************************
Dr. Peter P. Smolka
University Muenster
Geological Institute
Corrensstr. 24
D-48149 Muenster

Tel.: +49/251/833-3989   +49/2533/4401
Fax:  +49/251/833-3989   +49/2533/4401
E-Mail: smolka@uni-muenster.de
E-Mail: PSmolka@T-Online.de
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