"Several reporters jumped on this claim from the University of York: “Protein the Clue to Solving a Darwinian Mystery: Scientists at the University of York provided the key to solving the evolutionary puzzle surrounding what Charles Darwin called the ‘strangest animals ever discovered’.” “The
South American native ungulate Macrauchenia patachonica had a number of remarkable adaptations, including the positioning of its nostrils high on its head,” Science Daily’s photo caption reads. “This implies that Macrauchenia may have had a mobile proboscis, as pictured here.” These native ungulates disappeared about 10,000 years ago, the article claims. The origin of these ungulates has been a mystery since Darwin’s days, the article says, because “With all of these conflicting signals, they couldn’t say whether these ungulates were related to giant rodents, or elephants, or camels — or what have you.”
Evidence, please: the scientists were able to collect collagen samples and sequence them. They sequenced “48 fossils of Toxodon platensis and Macrauchenia patachonica, the very species whose remains Darwin discovered 180 years ago in Uruguay and Argentina.” Live Science says that only 5 of them had any protein sequence information. On the basis of that, they determined that these animals were perissodactyls, “the group that includes horses, rhinos, and tapirs.” This makes them part of Laurasiatheria, one of the major groups of placental mammals. The relationship “corroborates a view held by some leading paleontologists that the ancestors migrated from North America 60 million years ago, probably just after the mass extinction that killed off non-avian dinosaurs and many other vertebrates.”
Evidence, please: the scientists were able to collect collagen samples and sequence them. They sequenced “48 fossils of Toxodon platensis and Macrauchenia patachonica, the very species whose remains Darwin discovered 180 years ago in Uruguay and Argentina.” Live Science says that only 5 of them had any protein sequence information. On the basis of that, they determined that these animals were perissodactyls, “the group that includes horses, rhinos, and tapirs.” This makes them part of Laurasiatheria, one of the major groups of placental mammals. The relationship “corroborates a view held by some leading paleontologists that the ancestors migrated from North America 60 million years ago, probably just after the mass extinction that killed off non-avian dinosaurs and many other vertebrates.”
Teacher comments: All that the evidence shows is that certain species of ungulates that lived in South America in the past are gone. That’s true of many species (saber-tooth cats, North American lions and camels, and many more). These complex mammals were full-fledged ungulates, adapted to their environment. Nothing is proved about their origin; ...But if they migrated, they already existed in North America... There is no evolution here, despite the repetitive name-dropping of Charles Darwin. Science Magazine says that only “subtle changes” were found in the collagen sequences. Creationists would have no problem with the microevolutionary variations described. There are also embarrassing admissions that soft tissue like collagen was found, but that DNA could not last in warm, wet conditions (Science Mag says that collagen can last 10 times as long as DNA). Fallacy of circular reasoning in claiming collagen can last for millions of years, just because the evolutionary dates for these fossils are tied to evolutionary assumptions. Some value for recovering collagen sequence information, but that’s not evidence for evolution. Grade: D-." CEH
And God made the beast of the earth after his kind,
Genesis 1:25
