Welcome again to the Nonprofits, the weekly recorded show that addresses current events and news items from an atheist and humanist perspective. And there is nothing more human than talking about dinosaurs, right, Eli, we're talking about about dinosaurs.
Yeah, well actually no, probably not, but wake up, babe. New tetrapod just dropped. Until recently, all the available evidence suggested that the first tetrapods transition to land somewhere between three hundred and fifty nine to three hundred and sixty million years ago. However, new findings have challenged that model. In what is now Victoria, Australia, researchers uncovered lizard like footprints that preliminarily date back to somewhere around three hundred
and ninety five million years ago. So the most significant implication of this finding is that animals existed on land roughly forty million years prior, ear earlier than we previously thought they had. That is certainly a controversial claim because prior to this, the earliest known fossils were of possibly semi aquatic animals that existed after the Devonian period. These fossilized footprints placed land dwelling animals land dwelling four legged
vertebrates on land before the end of the Devonean period. However, these data are preliminary and therefore necessarily incomplete, so it's not time to change the textbooks yet. Peer review and further data collection will confirm or reject the new hypothesis. The story is from Popular Mechanics by Elizabeth reign On May nineteenth, twenty five.
So, while I am deeply disappointed that it's not dinosaurs, it is land land lizards. Right, that's what a tetrapod.
Is, something of the sort. Yeah, tetrapod is a four legged animal, tetra meaning four pod meaning.
Yeah, oh pod actually meaning feet yeah, tripod? No, you're right, thanks, But Okay, it's not time to change the textbooks yet. Why not we learned a thing, why can't we teach the new thing? True?
Great question, So, because I think it's actually really likely for a lot of people who don't really kind of understand these processes say look at this and say, like, oh, they can't even get the story straight. But what this means is that prior to this, we didn't have a reason to believe that there were animals on land. Prior to the oldest fossil we had found now this data that dates this fossil to the timeframe that it does
three hundred and ninety five million years ago. It's just preliminary data, and preliminary data is necessarily incomplete whenever we find it. So this is where peer review comes in. This is where like other archaeologists and experts are going to come in and take a look at either the pictures or the actual footprints themselves on location and see if they can come to some sort of consensus, and at that point we will start to change what the
model's being taught would say. Of course, I'm using the Royal wee as I'm not, are.
You, I'm really involved with the textbook creation.
Yeah, I know, not these textbooks.
So I do genuinely find this interesting and really fascinating. But I imagine, like I do, and I imagine most people have a really hard time connecting or having any kind of emotional bearing on this sort of thing at all. Cynthia, what does this mean to you? Does it matter? How do you feel?
Well? I think that the finding reminds us how scientific knowledge is always provisional and it's open to revision with new evidence. So the idea that tetrapods, the ancestors of all land vertebrates, includes ourselves, and we're walking around tens of millions of years earlier than thought, shifts our understanding of lives for conquest of lands. And even with this particular discovery, you know, the presence of clause is a key marker distinguishing the amine, the amnion, the amniotis, and
the amphibians. And the tracks suggest that tetrapods, the group including amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals including humans, were already walking on the land significantly earlier than the fossil bones wreckers actually previously shown. And moreover, the discovery actually calls into question the previously accepted impact of the n Devonian
mass extinction of the tetrapod evolution. So these footprints indicate that the evolution of tetrapods and continued relatively uninterrupted through this event, suggesting that tetrapods actually began diversifying earlier than
the more robustly more robustly rather than once believe. And I think that this actually shows how cool science really is, because like what we what we know about science is that, you know, you usually start out with a hypothesis and you test that a hypothesis to see if we can actually become you know, we can make it into a theory. Now,
theory is not necessarily truth per se. It is the closest thing to fact that we have based on the methodology of testing that we used in order for us to prove or disprove the hypothesis that was that was previously approsed. And then we also know that after you pose a hypothesis, even if it becomes a theory, that theory is still subjugated to question. It's still subjugated to even more methodology of testing to see if it is still the same the same closest thing to fact that
we had you know previously, you know before. So even to Eli's point, there's still more testing, there's still more you know, pontification, there's still more you know, relative you know, studies that have to be done in order for us to say that if this is an actual thing, cool discovery, great hazza, as you would say, Rob, well, but you know, but but we're not necessarily to the point where we're like really need to like, you know, overturn the previous theory to this one just yet.
So you might see me like looking around because I'm trying to find a hat just for a bit. But uh, what I want to do is put on my theist hat for just a second and say something like that was really lovely. And what I believe you just said is that science is incapable of establishing or determining truth. So what good is it?
Oh wow, that's exactly what I was not saying.
Because it's constantly changing, Then what good is it going to be doing for us?
Well, you know, because then my pushback would be specifically to the theis. First, it is that, but you consider truth fixed, and it's not. It's not. And and here's the thing. When we are always having these questions about what is the closest thing to fact versus not, and then you go to the old axiom of well, religious says this, therefore it is. We even found out that when religious said, religion said that the Son was a god, then actually did like some you know, making a pathic
is like, maybe that's not a god. Maybe that's like, you know, like a body like in space. Did the testing, did the method? Did the method in order for us to prove that's the case. And then we found out
that's the case. So now we declassified the sun as a deity and actually said, this is a natural phenomenon, and we have found that to be the case in any case, you know, and a lot of different things that we have you know, pushed towards this is like an actual like you know, religion or a spiritual thing. And then when we find out, oh, when we're actually like paying attention and doing like more testing, oh, this is a natural phenomenon.
Sure, but how can you determine that the so I'm just going to use the theist hat, how can you determine that the natural phenomenon is not just created, uh and established by the rule set of God like for example, So, Eli,
here's the thing. If science can't perfectly tell us the reality of what is because it's constantly changing, then I don't really find this to be different from say, any religion talking to any other religion and saying, well, you're wrong and I'm right, Because isn't that what the scientists are doing too? How can we possibly work on a set of belief systems that is, one on purpose constantly changing, and two made by people who disagree with each other.
Yeah, I think that's a totally fair question, And obviously, of course we hear stuff like that all the time. So here's essentially what it is. I kind of touched on it at the beginning, is that you don't come to a conclusion until you have a reason to come to that conclusion. We didn't have a reason to think that there were tetrapods on land three hundred and ninety five million years ago because we had never found any
evidence that that was the case. Now it seems like, once again preliminarily, it seems like we have found evidence that that is the case. So that's when we're going to start to say, like, oh, yeah, look, maybe there was.
And the purpose of peer review, like we mentioned, is that now that these researchers have reported and published their findings, anybody else Cynthia rabbah blah blah blah blaha, or myself or anybody else in the world can look at that paper and say I disagree with this and here's why, and you can write a review of that paper and send it to that journal. Are they going to publish it?
Probably not.
Maybe it depends on if it has merit and if it's well written, right, But that's the thing that anybody can do so when So that's where where we find this method to be a reliable one, because we're not relying on what what you know was written down one time, and we're never changing that no matter what we find
out or no matter what we learn. To the contrary, we're not just listening to one person's interpretation of you know what all of this means as we find it, we're getting a consensus from everybody who has preferably only those who have expertise in the field, who actually have knowledge that are caught up in the conversation, rather than
still catching up in the conversation. And that distinction, I think is where most people start to kind of muddy the waters between whether the whether scientists disagreeing with each other is the same things as non scientists disagreeing with each other.
Well, I completely understand and agree that we should be appealing to expertise, which is not necessarily the same thing as appealing to authority. But as you're saying, any anyone can participate in this, and ideally they develop the expertise such that they can speak intelligently on the subject. So are you saying it sounds like you just said that I rob the theist am invited and perhaps even challenged to participate in the scientific conquest of knowledge because I
absolutely don't believe that this occurred. Yeah, I can't do that.
Absolutely anybody can. Yeah. I would invite any theist, and you, Rob the theists especially to yeah, write a review about the findings that have been published and send it to I don't know the name of the journal that it was published in, but I can find out and we'll tell everybody what journal was published, and you can send your review, your peer review, to that journal and see it.
Soyll publish it. Whenever stuff like this comes up, I'm taking my non existent theist head off, or is that the bit whenever whenever stuff like this comes up, I think about So this is a little side bit I think a survivorship bias, because I'm sure you guys actually literally today I was just asked, Rob, how often do
you think about ancient Rome? And I'm going to be bringing it up right now with their roads, and I don't know if people think about this very often with the ancient Roman roads, and people are like, they don't build them like they used to accept they they probably did. We just have the ones that survived we don't know how many aren't here. So when it comes to fossils, we have no idea how many fossils we don't have.
We don't know to such an extent that it is actually impossible to even begin to think about how many we don't have. So that means that discoveries like this are even more profound and important because we have to keep our survivorship bias in check. But it also just continues to demonstrate just how much we've learned and how much more we have to learn. It is one of
those cases of it literally asks more questions. So what I would say is to people who are atheists, we hear is there is there a connection to the historicity of this because I know that, Uh, I can actually talk on this like atheists can have a religious experience that is a very specifically defined term, and people can think about the expansiveness of Earth and how we've been on here. Cynthia, do you have any kind of appreciation for how this has has gotten here or does it
not matter to you? It's okay if it doesn't matter. I get it's it's a lizard from a long ass time ago.
Well as as a as a Hoovian. I always had a soft heart for the Silurians, you know, since they predated humankind, and if you are human Hoovian AnyWho. But as far as like humanity is concerned, and especially when it comes so like this, you know, tetrapolineage. The discovery actually deepens the connection that we have to a distant wild world, and it reminds us that our place in the natural world is shaped by an ancient history of adaptation, survival,
and change. And it also underscores the importance of scientific humility and curiosity, continuously questioning and refining our understanding of our past. You know, I think that it's like really important, and I know that like some people have a tendency to dismiss this, that the history of a thing helps define a thing. Now we are more understanding of where we may be as a society or even as an individual,
depending on what has happened before. And I know, as a person who is a student of history, and that's one of my favorite subjects and has been for a very long time, that finding out the history, even from a personal point of view, really helps open my eyes and understanding to why I am the person that I
am today. And a cool thing about against science is that you know, especially when we're looking at archaeology and paleontology, that it definitely relies on, you know, adaptive history of the planet itself in order for us to make that type of connection to from where you know, our ancestry came from versus now, and why the earth and life has developed the way that it has, and even give us like an idea of what would possibly become in the future as far as like how we're going to
develop as a species and also how we may even develop as a society. So I think it's important for us to really be able to like lean into these subject matters in order for us to really get a better idea of, like, you know, who we are and where we're going.
I agree, I was, I was just thinking, and I disagreed with myself. But the idea was, if you believe system is such that if something like this could not exist, and therefore you disbelieve it, is it possible for you to even enjoy or appreciate, come to understand that level of knowledge of the before times? Effectively? Can we think about that as something that has happened prior and that it does affect us? Is that even a question that makes sense? But I disagree to myself instantly because then
I remember that there's I forget what it's called. It's a very famous theist who has it, but it's that museum of the creationist museum. Yeah, where the humans are with the dinosaurs.
So oh that would be Kent Hoven.
No, yeah, you're right, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a.
That's Dinah Land, Yes, in Alabama.
So the fact that that exists current too, I as an atheist, going, WHOA, this is neat and like informs my understanding of the past. It feels like there's something just so much more human about wanting to understand the past, no matter where you get your information from. So eli, where should I get my information from?
Is there?
How should I go about learning the past?
I mean it's really hard to be for us, you know, the royal us, to get a good grasp of what went on in the ancient past, specifically because even in recorded history we kind of like fragments of some things that some people wrote down, but like you know, the everyday lives aren't being documented, and then when you get to the ancient past, there wasn't anybody to write it down.
You have to wait until you find something that suggests something, and then you can really only find out like the most assumptionless implication of that suggestion of whatever you find. So it is really difficult. But that is kind of like I said, why you know, scientists rarely change their perspectives or their worldviews or like entire models based on one person interpreting something in a certain way.
I think that happens to Well, if you're saying that it is very rarely the case that a single person changes all of the understood knowledge of that, do you think that's because are you aware of the trope of the sociologists that would go back go out in like the early nineteen hundreds with a like a pick in one hand, or the archaeologists with pick in one hand and a Bible in the other, where they would go out into Egypt during the Egyptology graze and like dig
things up and then go ah, well, let me interpret this from my traditional Christian background like this, This is why it seems to me that it's so important that all of this information not knowledge, because knowledge is human. All of this information gets filtered through many minds that we can better interpret it.
And that's exactly where I was going. It's because that is a very point. I think an individual will contradict the you know, the scientific consensus based on you know, one interpretation, but the scientific consensus rarely changes based on
one interpretation. And that's why, like you said, Rob, we get many, many minds to review data, to look at information and analyze it and interpret it and say, based on everything that we know that is relevant to this thing that we can think of as we're writing this, this either does or does not comport with what we understand to be reality. And could there be a mistake, Yeah, certainly, but we need to find that before we just assume that there is one there and throughout the whole thing.
And I think that one more thing, if I just piggyback off of what Eli was mentioning, is that we have to also understand that one individual, regardless of how educated they are, can still hold different biases when it comes to the information that they actually you know, consume and it's going and how they interpret it versus how it should be you know, actually seen are going to be two different things. So that is why we have
peer review. That is why it's important for us to have, as you all mentioned, many minds to really weigh in on a subject matter so that we can get close the closest thing to fact is possible because we had many eyes, with many with many people who possess certain knowledges to actually interpret the information that's in front of them at that time.
I think that's perfect. Honestly, I genuinely think that that's really insightful, because what we cannot have, it seems to me, is any individual person be able to dictate what is truth. And then that's how you get people with dinosaurs. So I was just going to cut it there and then go hey,