Evolutionary Just-so Stories (part 3 of n)...

Mass Extinction! Mass Extinction! Mass Extinction! That's what you usually hear about in any discussion of life's history on Earth. Take the K-T Event. That's the one that took out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. We're told that anywhere from 50 - 70% of all species were wiped out across the globe in a short period. This was brought about, more than likely, by the meeting between the Earth and a 10km wide asteroid (or comet). Ouch. Now I can understand the sensational aspect of describing such an event, but how come no one ever screams: Mass Speciation! Mass Speciation! Mass Speciation! Take that K-T Event (again). We're told that the aftermath of that catastrophe was that it gave mammals a chance to spread across, and dominate, the globe. Supposedly a small, shrew-like animal survived the impact and evolved into the diversity we see today. We're typically told that the wasted landscape was "fertile" ground for evolution to work. But there's a problem with that scenario in that the sedimentary data indicates a period of about 10,000 years following the K-T Event in which no fossils exist and then, BOOM!, the appearance of a multitude of new, large species of animals. This explosion of species is a Mass Speciation event and is completely unexplainable with neo-Darwinian models. Reasons to Believe has broadcast reports regarding these discoveries just this past month and also back in 2002. UPDATE: Per Ed's comment, I am attempting to clarify just where the data source for this claim by Hugh Ross is found. The only link I have found so far refers to a 10,000 year period between the Triassic - Jurassic periods and not the K-T boundary. Although the rapid speciation of new and different dinosaurs between the Triassic and Jurassic periods is another anamoly for the evolutionary paradigm, I would still like to clarify just which 10,000 year period is being researched. Note also that the determination of the 10,000 year period was not due to radiometric dating but to analysis of sedimentary layering. UPDATE 2: Here is an excerpt from the Science magazine abstract with regards to the Triassic - Jurassic boundary:

Analysis of tetrapod footprints and skeletal material from more than 70 localities in eastern North America shows that large theropod dinosaurs appeared less than 10,000 years after the Triassic-Jurassic boundary...

Comments on radiometric dating are off-course regarding this post.