Scientists discover ancient 'lost world' that rewrites history of life on Earth
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Re: Scientists discover ancient 'lost world' that rewrites history of life on Earth
#2Surely everything scientists discover 'rewrites' our understanding of something? That's the whole point isn't it? Interesting article though.
Re: Scientists discover ancient 'lost world' that rewrites history of life on Earth
#3Surely everything scientists discover 'rewrites' our understanding of something? That's the whole point isn't it? Interesting article though.
No, why? A discovery can fit in with your existing models, maybe even be predicted. You discover it, but you don't change your understanding, only expand it.
Re: Scientists discover ancient 'lost world' that rewrites history of life on Earth
#4Surely everything scientists discover 'rewrites' our understanding of something? That's the whole point isn't it? Interesting article though.
Lots of discoveries are confirmatory. We already believed relativity was true before we observed observing binary pulsars obeying it.
Re: Scientists discover ancient 'lost world' that rewrites history of life on Earth
#5Or not. Link now 404s. Looks like the article was withdrawn.
Re: Scientists discover ancient 'lost world' that rewrites history of life on Earth
#6Surely everything scientists discover 'rewrites' our understanding of something? That's the whole point isn't it? Interesting article though.
You're right of course, but some editor thought it too cumbersome (and not so sensational) to write "fills a major gap in our understanding of the early evolution of eukaryotes", so they wrote "history" instead which allows much more room for the imagination.
Re: Scientists discover ancient 'lost world' that rewrites history of life on Earth
#7This article linked to https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06170-w
> Lost world of complex life and the late rise of the eukaryotic crown
Re: Scientists discover ancient 'lost world' that rewrites history of life on Earth
#8Or not. Link now 404s. Looks like the article was withdrawn.
works fine for me?
Re: Scientists discover ancient 'lost world' that rewrites history of life on Earth
#9Or not. Link now 404s. Looks like the article was withdrawn.
PEBKAC
Re: Scientists discover ancient 'lost world' that rewrites history of life on Earth
#10Some many chances for early life to have hung on, delayed change, stalled evolution. These early organisms hung on for 100's of millions of years, dominating and out-competing later forms until gradually they were in turn out-competed.
Same with Dinosaurs! They dominated for 200M years. But for a chance asteroid we could still be a planet of dinosaurs. No sign of them giving up in the fossil record.
We find other planets with life, likely will be stalled in one of these cul-de-sacs. Our own existance can be explained by observer's paradox - we didn't get stalled which is why we're here which is why we can wonder about these things!