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echo: evolution
to: All
from: Malcolm
date: 2004-12-18 16:23:00
subject: Re: Question about plants

"Servo"  wrote
> I have a question.  Can anyone explain the lack of evolution in
> plantlife?  Most of the plants alive today remain unchanged from those
> found in the fossil record.
>
This sounds like you've been reading creationist literature.
There are many errors of fact in such writings, not I think usually due to
deliberate lying, but to the fact that creationist tend to copy statements
uncritically from each other. If one, maybe perfectly innocently, gets the
wrong end of the stick, the error percolates through the creationist
community.

Plants show an evolution from the first simple algae and mosses, to vascular
plants, and finally to flowering plants and grasses. If you look at a
reconstruction of a carboniferous forest you will see what look like a cross
between a palm and a giant fern, quite different from moden trees.

You can find some examples of "living fossils". For instance the
ginkgo tree
still exists, and is very similar to fossil specimens from the Permian.
However it is solitary survivor, modern trees with entirely different leaf
morphologies are now dominant.

The germ of truth in the statement is that plants don't have calcified
shells or bones, so fossilise only rarely, and that they can alter their
shape in response to environmental conditions, so subtle distinctions
between species cannot be determined by looking at gross fossil morphology
alone. However there is no evidence that plants evolve at any different rate
from animals.
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