KK> I think I have something to offer to this conversation.
In the 1800's there were people known as bone pickers that
collected the bones of bison, took them to railheads and sold them
by the pound. The bones were then taken to the east to be
ground into fertilizer. Towards the end of their era people started
soaking the bones in streams in order to squeeze a little more
money out of the fertilizer companies as the bones were becoming
scarce.
Nowadays Renolds Aluminum pays more for *flattened* aluminum
cans. Mmmmm
Before this bit of human exploitation Native Americans used many
different methods of killing Bison. One method documented by the
Lewis and Clark Expedition was frightening the bison into
stampeding off river bluffs. I would surmise that these bones would
be carried downstream and dispersed and or worn to shreds in the
current. Still some might be covered with sediment and undergo
the process of fossilization. But this process must take a very long
time, moreso than a hundred years? That is to say if that the bison
bone beat the odds of finding the conditions needed for
fossilization.
The process of fossilization and what would be considered an
artifact of this process is what I'm curious about. When I have time
I'll have to read about it. (Right now I'm reading about the
Handicap Principle or Zahavi's Theory; very interesting.
Comments?)
One could probably go back further in time and document the
movement of the European Wisent from Siberia across the Bering
Strait land bridge into Alaska, Canada and United States. (Bison
are considered descendants of Wisent and this animal was nearly
wiped off the planet during WW2 but that's another story.)
Again you would probably find evidence of human exploitation
along with animal predation for this beast. If one reads about the
amounts of bison in human written history you do indeed find that
these critters roamed the plains by the thousands or maybe
millions. I don't see how that necessarily would mean that you
should find their fossils "common."
It is also interesting to consider what I call "fossilmania." We get
many calls from people who are sure they have found a fossil. I
assume people get excited over this topic because of the
popularization of it in films. Most often what they have found is
what is known as a pseudofossil. However, every now and then
something does show up completely unexpected. Alas, Missouri
isn't known for its fossils. We have crinoids (sp?) more than
anything.
With every rock, rock depression being carefully scrutinized by so
many eyes who knows what might show up.
>>>And this raises a major frustration I have about the issue of
>> creation/evolution. Well meaning honest people like you,
wanting to deal
>
>> with the problem of evolution, read books written by people
who never did
>
>> sufficient research to ensure that their facts were correct. Then
you
>trust
>> them, because you think they have done the work they should
have done.
>
>I run into the same problem with evolutionists. They make
pronouncements
>assuming evolution to be true when it isn't. The people you are
quoting
>are very intricately detailed in their observations but those are just
>that, not experiments that have been scientifically verified and
>repeatable.
KK> This is what I remember from my personal studies in American
History and interest in Animals.
Respectfully,
Kevin