Why does controversy surround a fossil? why should doubt arise over the interpretation of a fossil??

Question

thankss (:

Answer 1

Fossils are seldom complete, typically they include only a small part of the original creature (ex from a dinosaur: a leg bone, fragments of a hip, a couple ribs, etc).  It depends on how the animal died.  If it died in a flood and was buried in river sediment while the body was still in one piece, it may be a complete fossil (assuming the rock that formed from the sediment was not broken up itself due to geologic action).  If the animal died and was eaten by scavengers, sections of the body may have been scattered around (some fossils are preserved because carnivors will "stash" meat in caves or bury it so they can eat it later).  The dating of when the animal died can be tricky.  If it is, for example, a fossil bone from an animal we have never seen before, then we will be able to date it if the bone was found with bones from animals or fossilized plant matter we have found before and know a lot about.  If the bone was found all by itself, then it is much more difficult to date and you have to use technology to test the fossil itself (radiocarbon dating and other methods)  and look at the rock it was found in.  Since the history of the earth is very long (4 1/ 2 billion years) and we have fairly limited fossil evidence from certain time periods, our best estimates will still be +/- millions of years in some cases.

And, of course, the amount of actual fossils we have varies a lot.  Plants and animals that lived in shallow lakes and near ocean shores are found in many places because there are lots of natural events that can easily bury these ecosystems.  For animals like primates that live in jungles and plains, the chances of dying and getting buried in a way that will create a fossil is much less.

I hope this helps.

Answer 2

Fossils are usually not complete. One dinosaur, Iguanodon, was described from a single tooth. Someone made a reconstruction of the animal based only on that. It was way off, as we discovered when more extensive fossil remains were found. I think the reconstruction (a statue) still exists, though.

Sometimes, people with an agenda will misinterpret fossil remains. This accounts for dinosaur footprints being misinterpreted as human ones. At least that was a semi-honest mistake. Some of the human footprints found in rock strata alongside those of dinosaurs showed chisel marks. That is blatant fakery, like the Cardiff Giant. The best-known example of fakery may be the Piltdown Man. We are still argiung over who was knowingly involved in that hoax.