Fossil Ordering Re-Visited

TranquilityBase says ::

"The order of fossils we put down to biogeography, differential mobility and hydrodynamic sorting."
Hydrodynamic sorting. http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jtrapani/jas.pdfThe above is a paper on hydrodynamic sorting of avian bones.Two features of this are interesting to me ::1) The effects of hydrodynamic sorting are being investigated
within a mainstream science context to understand it's impact
on paleontology and archeaology. Some of the references date
back to the 1960's and yet no-one is claiming that the fossil
sequences are soley caused in this way (that's my general
observation rather than directly about the paper).2) There is a section in the conclusion of the paper that indicates
that predicting where remains will fall is far too difficult
because the numbers of variables are high. This suggests to me
that hydrodynamic sorting cannot account for systematic order
in the fossil record (even within a single location, let alone
on a global scale), but can account for anomalies within the
fossil record (i.e. remains in unexpected locations).Differential MobilityAssuming this refers to ability to out-run the flood waters, or
to survive in a churning ocean, shouldn't we find collections of
fast animals in sediments at high elevations, with few if any
'slow' animals there ? Do we find that ?Why should a creature that can swim and/or live underwater appear
consitently lower in the fossil record than those that cannot.Ammonites spring to mind.Why should a velociraptor have a lower survival chance than a
wolf or lion under flood scenarios ?BiogeographyWhat do you mean by that ... sorry I've missed that one in my
reading.Do you mean where they lived originally ?
...like dinosaurs only lived in Montana, and bears only lived
in Michigan ?

quote:

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Originally posted by Tranquility Base:
Peter

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You've understood our intention pretty well.

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We are proposing that a mix of these mechanisms may explain the fossil record. In any one place all three are operating. We don't pretend that we've proven it.

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Remember we're also convinced that not all of the 'out of sequence' fossils are explainable by folding or washing in.

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That ref you commented on could also be construed as suggesting that while it might be too difficult to predict ordering, at the same time it may still acount for it.

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Wouldn't that last point be assuming order out of randomness that
most creationists use as an argument against ToE ?OK so it's not completely random, but the dynamics of the process
are so unpredictable that there would need to be some very
serious co-incidences going on globally to account for the
consistency in the fossil record.It seems to me that deposition over time, with some remains
being washed in/out etc. seems more likely than everything alive
at the same time and a nearly random process ordering them.
The other suggestions don't really make sense, because we see
animals that we have no reason to assume would fare differently
under the conditions of a flood in different layers of the
fossil record. Especially problematic are aquatic creatures that
only appear in the lower levels of the fossil record.

... and the survivability thing falls down further
when we consider that some individuals of the same
species would survive longer than others due to
natural variation within the population, and yet species
are pretty much located in the same strata.

I dunno ... I go on holiday for a week and a discussion
on fossil ordering (sans timescale) turns into a
'how old is all this stuff?' hoo-ha Seriously though ... I wasn't interested in how old the GC
is considered to be, but in the idea that the order which
has been observed in the fossil record was caused by hydrodynamic
sorting + survivability/mobility.Hydrodynamic sorting, based upon my reading of research papers
looking into the effects of flooding on archeology and paleontology
suggest to me that the process has far too many variables to
be considered deterministic ... that is it cannot explain a consitent
ordering, because it is, itself, a near as dash-it, random process.Mobility/survivability doesn't hold up for me, because there is
no logical reason why some elephants would have survived longer
than some stegosaurs or apatosaurs or some-such ... nor why
survivabity would lead to an ordering which could be interpreted
as a progression in time (however long or short).For fossils to have ALL been laid down after the flood, and the
representation in the record due to things like reproductive
rate is a new one on me.Suggesting that mammals tracks and remains wouldn't be in the
fossil record cause they breed slower (what about mice and rats?)
and don't live on mud flats (but they do have to go to rivers or
lakes or whatever to drink ... don't they?) also seems to be an
unsupportable assumption.I might start a co-existence thread based upon ecological
considerations like, for example, why would you get pumars (say)
and velociraptors in the same environment ... I'm not familiar
with a modern environment in which there are two large (relative to man) predatory species co-existing (could be wrong on that though ... absence
of knowledge isn't knowledge of absence )

They don't appear to be able to explain anything else
in the fossil record very well ... so I'm guessing not