Mormons and Evangelical fundies just can't accept that the Earth isn't just six thousand years old and they aren't the direct descendants of a "white" Adam and a "white" Eve made out of clay in the image of a "white" Sky Daddy who himself was copied from the Greco-Roman conception of Zeus Olympus / Jupiter Optimus Maximus who is just another version of the Proto-Indo-European Dyeus Pitar.

You evolved on this planet from simple organisms become what you are now.

If there is any miracle of creation, that's what it is.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/07/29/fossils-canada-sponge-animals/

Elizabeth Turner, a professor at Laurentian University in Ontario, chanced upon the fossilized structures in rock formations while doing field work as a graduate student in the country’s remote northwest more than two decades ago.

Recently, she went back to collect more samples and — aided by present-day advances in the study of far more modern sponges, which are simple aquatic animals with dense yet porous skeletons — she became confident enough in her theory to publish her findings in the journal Nature.

Scientists believe life on Earth emerged around 3.5 billion years ago. The earliest animals appeared much later, but exactly when is still the subject of debate because of a lack of fossilized evidence.


“The fossil record you see in a museum or geology teaching lab, fossils of animals, appear in the rock record in rocks that are younger than 540 million years,” Turner told The Washington Post. “Me suggesting that I have possibly found evidence of the bodies of sponges 890 million years ago seems pretty radical right at the outset.”

The oldest undisputed fossils date back to the Cambrian period when animals first developed hard skeletons, exoskeletons and shells, which were more likely to be preserved. Turner’s discovery could help prove the scientific theory that sponges existed before those more complicated creatures.

Examined under a microscope, the tiny sections of rock Turner uncovered contain a meshwork of three-dimensional structures — branching out in a distinctive way and rejoining — that closely resembles modern sponge skeletons.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 07/29/2021 12:55PM by anybody.

I continually worry how discoveries such as this will affect The Cat.

These are like the flippers in an arcade pinball machine and I see him being sent randomly flying into new paths of shattering discovery.


Also, sponges are NOT mentioned in the bible, so ...

We contain 0.00023% sponge DNA, and Denisovans contain 0.00021% and Michio Kaku, just because. ;)

This is a big deal. The fossil record is nearly non-existent prior to the Cambrian Explosion, as the article points out.

Makes sense. Nothings changed in 890 million years or so. Sponges. Skeletons or no, the world is still mostly a bunch of sponges sucking the life out of everything they come in contact with. They've ruined the oceans and forests and are sucking the life out of each other for the most part. But at least they do it in style in their Teslas, Private Jets, and Armani suits all from their mansions, penthouses and seats in congress.

Sponge: Someone who takes advantage of the generosity of others. Like say, Mormon God and his gang. Or Western society living off the poverty they create in the rest of the technicolored world. And everyone who wants someone else to make their life better.

Yes. I'm in a mood today.

Personally, I prefer the term parasite, from the Greek, meaning to eat at another's table.

Works for me.

Anyone who is impressed with a 890 million year old fossil hasn’t met Russell M Nelson or Dallin H Oaks.