Real Science Friday: CRSQ's Paper: The Origin of Trees Pt. 2

[Jefferson]

CRSQ's Paper: The Origin of Trees Pt. 2

This is the show from Friday July 29th, 2011.

BEST QUOTE OF THE SHOW:

My experience is geology students that I talk to, and sometimes professors, they don't like to talk about polystrate trees because one polystrate tree demolishes their theory of how that coal seam was formed.

SUMMARY:



* Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Trees: Real Science Friday co-hosts Bob Enyart and Fred Williams discuss the current Creation Research Society Quarterly paper, The Origin of Trees, by Tom Hennigan and Jerry Bergman.

* Trouble for Tree Evolution: Some organisms don't readily fossilize because they're made of soft body parts. Trees are made OF WOOD. And they supposedly evolved from non-trees starting 370 million years ago. So since countless millions of fossils have been documented, it should be easy to trace the evolution of trees. Oops. It's not. Paleobotanists document that to them the evolution of trees is a great mystery that simply has not been documented in the fossil record. "The first trees existing in the fossil record were clearly trees," concludes Hennigan and Bergman (and a whole lot of other scientists). Also, modern resin and modern seeds appear in the fossil record before they supposedly evolved. Discrediting evolution is like shooting fish in an oak barrel. (And speaking of fish... perhaps we have an Origin of Fish show in our future!

Today’s Resource: Getting the BEL Science Pack, learn and have a great time, support Bob Enyart Live, and save a lot of money, all at the same time! You can consider our BELScience Pack and enjoy:

- Dr. Guillermo Gonzalez’ Privileged Planet (clip)
- Illustra Media’s Unlocking the Mystery of Life (clip)
- Walt Brown’s In the Beginning
- Bob Enyart’s Age of the Earth Debate between him and a geo-physicist, and
- Bob's Genesis: Creation verse-by-verse Bible Study!
And have you browsed through the entire Science Department in our KGOV Store? Check out especially Bob’s interviews with a great scientist in Walt Brown Week! You’ll also love Bob's debate aboutJunk DNA with famous evolutionist Dr. Eugenie Scott, and the superb kids' radio programming, Jonathan Park: The Adventure Begins! And Bob strongly recommends that you subscribe to CMI’s tremendousCreation magazine and Ken Ham's Answers magazine! Or to order any of our BEL and 3rd-party resources, just call us at 1-800-8Enyart.

 

[Jukia]

Just more expectations from Pastor Enyart and his minions for all the information all the time. Sorry it doen't work that way.

 

[The Barbarian]

There are polystrate trees forming in the shallows of a man-made lake flooded a few decades ago. A few thousand years of marshweeds and fallen trees among the standing ones, and it gets buried.

And some creationist in ages to come will look at them and declare that it had to be sudden burial.

And the fossil record includes the "almost-trees" like Aneurophyton and Tetraxylopteris.

 

[Alate_One]

Trees can evolve from "non-trees" rather easily since the only thing that separates a tree from a "non-tree" is height and longevity. And the only thing that separates a tree from a shrub is the number of stems and the height.

Herbaceous plants evolved into shrubs and trees in Hawaii.

Very obviously related plants can be shrubs trees and herbaceous plants, all in the same family. Sometimes they can even cross.

Creationists haven't the slightest clue when it comes to plants, I think. :chuckle:

 

[The Barbarian]

I've only taken a few courses in botany, myself. But it's not hard to find evidence for transitional fossils between other plants and trees.

 

[Jukia]

I've only taken a few courses in botany, myself. But it's not hard to find evidence for transitional fossils between other plants and trees.

Well, thats not what Pastor Bob's quote mine claims.

 

[Alate_One]

Well, thats not what Pastor Bob's quote mine claims.

The fossil record is relatively scant, in terms of plants. But it's not really the wood that's always what's important, it's the flowers or sporangia and gametophytes in the case of non-flowering plants. you can imagine how hard it is to find fossils of those. And of course connecting the flowers and the leaves and the stems and trunks of trees can be quite difficult.

The evolution of vascularity is relatively well documented in the fossil records and once plants are vascular and sufficiently efficient, they can become trees.

Rhynia is the first fossil vascular plant.

This is a modern vascular plant stem and root.

You can tell the change in relative complexity between the fossil and modern plants.

If you're interested in the details on the evolution of the earliest trees, this is a pretty good summary

 

[Jukia]

When I was a little kid and visited my grandparents house in northeast PA we used to find plant leaf fossils in what I took to be piles of slate and shale left over from either mining or railroad cuts. Wish I had kept them.

 

[Alate_One]

When I was a little kid and visited my grandparents house in northeast PA we used to find plant leaf fossils in what I took to be piles of slate and shale left over from either mining or railroad cuts. Wish I had kept them.

Leaf fossils are usually not very informative, though they are cool looking. I'd love to have a few. My dad hit a rock while mowing when I was about 5 years old. There was a lizard (I think) inside of it, and . . my mother threw it away. :madmad:

 

[Jukia]

Leaf fossils are usually not very informative, though they are cool looking. I'd love to have a few. My dad hit a rock while mowing when I was about 5 years old. There was a lizard (I think) inside of it, and . . my mother threw it away. :madmad:

My recollection is that the leaves were very ferny looking. I have not been back there in years. Maybe the next family reunion!

 

[Alate_One]

My recollection is that the leaves were very ferny looking.

That's the problem. Nearly all plants of the coal-age forests have "ferny" leaves, whether they were actually ferns or not.

Here's an exceptionally preserved coal age forest

I have not been back there in years. Maybe the next family reunion!

Sounds like fun!

 

[Jukia]

Sounds like fun!

Is, and now we are all just about so old that my sister is trying to figure out if we can all fit into one wing of a convalescent home! But I think it would need a liquor store next door---lots of Irish!!

 

[Frayed Knot]

But it's not really the wood that's always what's important, it's the flowers or sporangia and gametophytes in the case of non-flowering plants. you can imagine how hard it is to find fossils of those.

A friend of mine has a business that dates layers of rock based on the microfossils they contain, and these microfossils are typically spores of various kinds (as is my understanding of his work). Apparently they're pretty abundant, and someone who knows what he's looking for can date the rocks to a fairly narrow range by knowing the characteristics of the spores during the past ages.

Companies that want to drill for oil will drill out core samples and provide him with them at various depths and from various sites in the area. He determines how the underground layers are curved in three dimensions, and from that they figure where oil is likely to accumulate.

Oh wait - all these fossils are from the flood, so none of that technique works.

 

[Alate_One]

A friend of mine has a business that dates layers of rock based on the microfossils they contain, and these microfossils are typically spores of various kinds (as is my understanding of his work). Apparently they're pretty abundant, and someone who knows what he's looking for can date the rocks to a fairly narrow range by knowing the characteristics of the spores during the past ages.

Yep I've read about those techniques before, tho I wasn't aware spores were used to find oil. I know that pollen is what's used to date the appearance of flowering plants.

Oh wait - all these fossils are from the flood, so none of that technique works

:chuckle:

 

[fool]

When I was a little kid and visited my grandparents house in northeast PA we used to find plant leaf fossils in what I took to be piles of slate and shale left over from either mining or railroad cuts. Wish I had kept them.

I've got two fossils in my living room floor, I did a slate boarder around the wood and everyone says it looks awesome. I got the slate on clearence at Bed Bath and Beyond and the crate said China on it.
Anyone know what one of them things is worth? (I got it for $1/sq.ft but they were "ungauged" which means they split the peices and put them in a box however they split so a piece could be 7/8 in. on one corner and 1/2 in. on another so I paid for it dearly in all the extra thinset I had to use to float these things in there flat and level not to mention the time)

 

[One Eyed Jack]

A friend of mine has a business that dates layers of rock based on the microfossils they contain, and these microfossils are typically spores of various kinds (as is my understanding of his work). Apparently they're pretty abundant, and someone who knows what he's looking for can date the rocks to a fairly narrow range by knowing the characteristics of the spores during the past ages.

Index fossils. That's how they always date sedimentary layers.

Companies that want to drill for oil will drill out core samples and provide him with them at various depths and from various sites in the area. He determines how the underground layers are curved in three dimensions, and from that they figure where oil is likely to accumulate.

Oh wait - all these fossils are from the flood, so none of that technique works.

Why wouldn't it work for oil?

 

[The Barbarian]

Index fossils. That's how they always date sedimentary layers.

That can be done. But that only gives you relative dates, no absolute time. That was possible only when Rutherford realized that different radioactive isotopes have different half-lives.

Sedimentary layers can then be more accurately dated by the ages of adjoining igneous rock.

 

[One Eyed Jack]

That can be done. But that only gives you relative dates, no absolute time. That was possible only when Rutherford realized that different radioactive isotopes have different half-lives.

Sedimentary layers can then be more accurately dated by the ages of adjoining igneous rock.

That often produces a range as well.

"Well, sometime between these two eruptions..."

 

[The Barbarian]

That often produces a range as well.

"Well, sometime between these two eruptions..."

That's why we sometimes don't know precisely. But there are other clues we can use to get the most likely date with the smallest error.