(June 27, 2020 at 1:32 pm)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote:(June 27, 2020 at 11:36 am)Brian37 Wrote: Except the 99% of life that did not.
You are right to point out distinctions.
The worst I have to worry about with my cat is his digging his nose in my ear every morning telling me to feed him. A cat like what you just pictured would kill me.
No, Brian, you’re misunderstanding what TGN said. Literally EVERYTHING that is currently alive survived all major and minor extinction events. The evidence of this is so brutally obvious that it doesn’t need explaining, but I’ll have a go.
-All life on Earth (you, me, Tardigrades, camels, penguins, cats) is descended from a common ancestor.
-This ancestor, via reproduction, mutation, and selection, formed multiple lines of descent.
-These lines, through the same processes, formed their own lines. And so on and so on.
-Everything alive today represents the current state of one or more if these lines of descent.
-Therefore, the ancestor species of living camels did not go extinct.
This doesn’t mean that there are no extinct species - there obviously are. What it means is that from the very first living organism to you is that there is a solid, unbroken chain of descent that never went extinct. This is true for every single living organism we see today.
I hope this clears it up a little.
Boru
Your point is taken but I believe that the claim was that humans didn't survive the last five extinctions. This is correct. Our distant ancestors survived them. The ones that saw the K/T fireworks were likely some form of tree rat that was barely a primate. Claiming that humans survived the last five extinctions would be akin to claiming that you fought in the Punic War because your great-great-grandfather was Italian.
