{"id":870,"date":"2009-01-20T06:42:44","date_gmt":"2009-01-20T11:42:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.flascience.org\/wp\/?p=870"},"modified":"2009-02-28T14:14:32","modified_gmt":"2009-02-28T19:14:32","slug":"age-of-earth-is-wrong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=870","title":{"rendered":"A few million years off"},"content":{"rendered":"

Florida Citizens for Science vice president Joe Meert led a team that made an important discovery<\/a>. That research is in the journal Precambrian Research, as well as in National Geographic and The Christian Science Monitor. He found out that the known age of a certain Indian basin is off a few million years, which solves a number of problems that had popped up before. (I don’t have a lot of time to look into this, but I’m pretty sure this is “old” news, so I don’t know why the UF news site is publishing the item now. In any case, it’s still a worthwhile read.)<\/p>\n

The 500-million-year discrepancy is controversial in the science world.<\/p>\n

The findings could alter aspects of the theory of evolution. Scientists have always believed in a Cambrian explosion resulting in a rapid appearance of most major groups of complex, multi-cellular animals, Meert explained.<\/p>\n

Yet multi-cellular life, in the form of soft-bodied Ediacaran organisms, was discovered in the Vindhyan basin, leading Meert and co-authors to suggest that the explosion may have been more of a slow burn.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

[edited: I corrected the post title and some post text. The age of the entire earth was not at question, but rather the age of a particular Indian basin. I blame my mistake on early morning posting.]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Florida Citizens for Science vice president Joe Meert led a team that made an important discovery. That research is in the journal Precambrian Research, as well as in National Geographic and The Christian Science Monitor. He found out that the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcZNLl-e2","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1442,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1442","url_meta":{"origin":870,"position":0},"title":"Creationist featured in article","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"December 13, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Florida-based creationist Gary Parker has been featured in many newspaper articles over the years. The latest one in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune is pretty much standard feature-article fare. But it does offer voices that take his creationist beliefs to task, including former Florida Citizens for Science board member Joe Meert. University\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1242,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1242","url_meta":{"origin":870,"position":1},"title":"Three in the news","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"January 2, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"There were a few articles in the news recently featuring your very own Florida Citizens for Science folks! Joe Meert is in the news for his science work: Discovery by UF geologist rekindles debate on origins of multi-cellular life A recent discovery by a University of Florida geologist may lend\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 2 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 2 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1242#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":649,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=649","url_meta":{"origin":870,"position":2},"title":"FCS member in National Geographic","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"July 14, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Florida Citizen for Science's very own Joe Meert (currently our vice president) can be found on the National Geographic website. Congratulations, Joe! India's Vindhyan Basins have hidden their age well\u00e2\u20ac\u201dby as much as 500 million years, according to controversial new research. The basins, which stretch across a 39,000-square-mile (100,000-square-kilometer) swath\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 3 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 3 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=649#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":798,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=798","url_meta":{"origin":870,"position":3},"title":"Single-Celled Giant Upends Early Evolution-Or Does it?","author":"Jonathan Smith","date":"November 21, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"ScienceDaily (Nov. 21, 2008)\u00e2\u20ac\u201d Groove-like tracks on the ocean floor made by giant deep-sea single-celled organisms could lead to new insights into the evolutionary origin of animals, says biologist Mikhail \"Misha\" Matz from The University of Texas at Austin. \"If our giant protists were alive 600 million years ago and\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1259,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1259","url_meta":{"origin":870,"position":4},"title":"Congratulations, Joe!","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"March 5, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Florida Citizens for Science board member Joe Meert has been a busy guy. He's now gone all Hollywood on us. Geological sciences professor advises filmmakers. Joe Meert may not be a movie star, but what this geologist knows about the history of the Earth was essential in making a new\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":178,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=178","url_meta":{"origin":870,"position":5},"title":"Spider senses are tingling","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"March 13, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Joe Meert over at Science, AntiScience and Geology feels a little paranoid about a Florida Junk Science Elimination Act. Joe digs into the background of the act and the people involved and concludes: In other words, these 'junk science' bills are simply a backdoor to allow junk science into the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Alert"","block_context":{"text":"Alert","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=6"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=870"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}