B-Day

It's my birthday and I've a fair number of thank you cards to write, but I'm exhausted. Working a 12 hour day, 9 of which is vigerous exersize, is great for the pay check, but it leaves you wiped out.

The Conservative View of Paleontology

Aparently, Fox News, the product of conservative billionaire Rupert Murdock's personal love affair with media filters, has an evolution and paleontology web page. Even more amazing, the page includes statements indicating that the eart is over 6,000 years old and that perhaps not all creatures were created at the same time. At the same time though, there is a story on its front page about how well the creation museum in Kentucky is doing, and all of the stories have headlines that would make any thinking follower of evolution and paleontology news cringe. For example "Living fossil not so primitive after all!" This was in reference to a study published about the whether the symetrical fin of the coelocanth is the primitive condition or one derived after its lineage branched off from our own. A discovery of one of the oldest coelocanth fossils shows that it is in fact the derived condition. Not so primitive huh? Beyond the fact that primitive is a relative term, it doesnt change the fact that the coelocanth has remained relatively unchanged in close to 390 million years. Also, one would expect some evolution in that time. Furthermore, the use of the coelocanth limb as a model for pre-tetrapod limb design isn't completely bunk, the elements are all still there, its just their proportions that are a bit off.

I'm not dead, I'm in Vernal, Utah

I came here at the end of July after an unreasonably hot (105 F) paleo survey in La Quinta, CA. I'll be here until it starts to snow. My time here has re-confirmed for me that fossil hunting, next to golf, is not only one of the best ways to ruin a good walk, but is simultaneously one of the most frustrating and rewarding activities that I can do. More on this later, hopefully pics too. Once again, I'm not dead, just kind of cut off from the outside world.