http://www.news24.com/MyNews24/Evolution-how-it-works-20150417
The statements and questions from Lardo Stander were:
[i]Siebert, YEC's and ToE's aside, I think what Danie and others are implying is if the Coelacanth was presumed extinct almost 400million years ago but then rediscovered in 1938, looking like the same fish (broadly speaking), it would somehow seem as if it escaped the effects of evolution, speciation, natural selection, change or whatever else?[/i]
It's a very quick answer. Prokaryotes still look broadly speaking, the same. Same as eukaryotes. Our cells are eukaryotes. Just collections of eukarytes. Prokaryotes are still around us. Eukaryotes still are all around us.
The Theory of Evolution doesn't say that life has to change. The theory of evolution provides the mechanism of how life changes.
I’ll look at the sentences or statemenrts or questions from Lardo. The first part of the question, actually a statement, was:
[i]Siebert, YEC's and ToE's aside, I think what Danie and others are implying is if the Coelacanth was presumed extinct ….[/i]Coelacanths were not presumed extinct. Their extinction was concluded based on the fact that no Coelacanth fossils have been found in upper oceanic strata on land and no living Coelacanth has come under attention of scientists till 1938. Fishermen tend to sell or eat their catches before showing them to scientists…
Lardo goes on:[i]Could you perhaps explain how this could happen, that a species does not change over a period as long as 400 odd million years?[/i]
This can be explained very easily. The Coelacanths are not a species.
The living coelacanth is not a living fossil in the very strict sense that members of the species L. [i]chaumnae[/i] itself have ever been found as a fossil. In fact, no other species assignable to the Genus [i]Latimeria[/i] has been found as a fossil either. [i]Latimeria[/i] and the Cretaceous fossil Genus [i]Macropoma[/i] are quite closely related, and we could possibly include them in the same family. Beyond that, all fossil Coelacanths belong to the order Coelacanthini.
Furthermore, the living Coelacanths live in the deep sea. When they die and then in the rare event of those bones getting fossilised in those deep sea sediments; those deep sea rocks are unlikely to walk to get onto land for us to find those fossils. Even if the sea level drops by hundreds of meters. Lardo goes on:[i]… looking like the same fish (broadly speaking), it would somehow seem as if it escaped the effects of evolution, speciation, natural selection, change or whatever else?[/i]
Nope. Not at all.
The Coelacanths found in the Indian Ocean are neither the same “type” of Coelacanth fossils that have been found in rocks that are 360 million years old nor the same "type" of Coelacanth found in shallow marine strata that are about 80 million years old.
The 360 million year old Coelacanths are smaller, lack certain internal structures found in modern Coelacanths and belong to a different genera and suborder. The modern Coelacanths belong to a different genera than the 80 million year genera, too.
Technically speaking, the modern coelacanth of the genus Latimera has no fossil record. Only the order and suborder that it belongs to has.
Reference: [i] Coelacanth[/i]. W. W. Norton & Company, New York and London, 1991. ISBN 0-393-02956-5.
Largo goes on:[i]-Could you perhaps explain how this could happen, that a species does not change over a period as long as 400 odd million years?-[/i]
Yes. The Coelecanths are not a species.
Species change. All the time.
Prokaryotes. Eukaryotes. Sharks. They’re not the same species as their common ancestors, but they’re still amongst us. Nothing special about it. Like prokaryotes. Still around.
Lardo, could you provide me with an example of where species are poofed into existence?