Quote: Originally Posted by darkbeaver
(Natural News) A surprising new study is casting serious doubt on the popular theory that modern animals are the result of millions of years of evolution. After looking at the mitochondrial DNA of thousands of animal species, including humans, researchers reached the stunning conclusion that nearly every species dates back just 100,000 to 200,000 years.
The study was carried out by the
University of Basel
’s David S. Thaler and
The Rockefeller University
’s Mark Young Stoeckle. According to the conventional narrative of evolution involving adaption based on genetic mutations and survival of the fittest, one would expect older species and those with big populations spread across the planet to have greater genetic variation. However, the researchers actually found that 90 percent of the animal species have mitochondrial DNA variation that is similarly low.
The lack of variation in humans is really easy to explain. Every single person on Earth is directly related to the roughly 5,000 humans who survived a catastrophic super volcano eruption around 75,000 years ago.
In fact, the theory as you describe it isn't really a consensus theory. Scientists have been arguing forever about the actual mechanics. Hence why it's still a theory and not a law of science. There have been several reboots throughout the history of life on Earth, so it's quite unlikely that modern animals are the result of millions of years of evolution.
What we DO know though is that once life first appeared on Earth, it was never fully wiped out in any of the extinction level events. The genetic code tells us this is so.
This is why it's been long thought that modern animals are the result of millions of years of evolution. Everything on the planet, living and long, long dead, is related. And sorry to burst your bubble but, from a genome perspective there is not a whole lot of difference between a modern raptor and a Jurassic raptor. Not a whole lot of difference between an emu or ostrich and a theropod either.
BUT, looking at evolution we can see repeating patterns. Giraffes are the modern mammal equivalent of sauropods. Not nearly as massive but that long neck gives it access to food it doesn't have to compete with any other species for.
Rhinos are the modern mammal equivalent of the ceratopsians with that horn on their face. Some even have two.
Now, here's the difference between Evolutionary Theory and the "consensus" on AGW. Evolution is a generally accepted fact within the scientific community. However, nobody is sitting on their fat asses proclaiming the science to be settled. They are still trying to discover the mechanism behind evolution. Just because they have generally "settled" on an explanation does not mean they have stopped looking and experimenting. Whereas the advocacy science of AGW has firmly stated the science is settled because they apparently fully understand the mechanism behind climate change. A "consensus" that was held by roughly 32% of scientists and dropping daily as more and more start to question just how much humans are actually responsible for.
But, going back to 75,000 years ago again, it's quite likely that other land-based and shallow water species fared as poorly as humans did thus reducing their variability today.