Fundamentalist Christian Alert - Another article of evolution!

Well enough of the advertising theme, if I don't stop now I'll be forced to go for a long boozy advertising lunch and it's only 10:00am.

The debate is hotting up at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis at the University of California, Santa Barbara on the issue of the ascendancy of biodiversity, that is the hypothesis that the number of species is growing over time. Current records support this hypothesis but is this just a result of sampling error? After all newer fossils are nearer the top and more easily found and common sense would indicate that the older a fossil is the more likely it is to be destroyed by some event.

Correcting for sampling error John Alroy, a palaeontologist with the centre, has produced a modified estimation of biodiversity over time that shows a much more cyclical nature to the creation and extinction of species. This has been made possible by an on line database that is made freely available by the centre on their website. It contains 30,000 fossil collections currently and is still growing.

Not everyone agrees, as is the nature of science. Andrew Smith, an invertebrate palaeontologist at London's Natural History Museum says "What is it with these statistians poking their noses into our safe little world. Shouldn't they be focusing on predicting the tattslotto numbers?"

Nature has an interesting article. Read it here.

If you suspect that your neighbour, based on his intellect, is a close relative of a pre-cambrian mollusc you can interogate the database for yourself, click here.