Animal life 'significantly older

[Christa]

Traces of animal life have been found in rocks dating back 635 million years.

The evidence takes the form of chemical markers that are highly distinctive of sponges when they die and their bodies break down in rock-forming sediments.

The discovery in Oman pushes back the earliest accepted date for animal life on Earth by tens of millions of years.

Scientists tell Nature magazine that the creatures' existence will help them understand better what the planet looked like all that time ago.

Full article:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7871099.stm

[MNDemNY]

1. Nonsense. The earth is not nearly that old. God is just messin' with us, testing our faith.

[Christa]

2. How could I have forgotten?

:dilemma:

[MNDemNY]

3. You'll be fine, just say some hail mary's or some such sh#t.

Just don't let it happen again. Remember science is for those who can't handle the "truth".

[yellowcanine]

4. The Catholic church does not consider belief in evolution or an old earth to be a sin.

As a church, anyway. I don't know about those peckerheads who want to pretend Vatican II doesn't matter.

[MNDemNY]

7. That's mighty white of them.

[sakabatou]

5. You know those radio-watchamacalits are innaccurate

Kent Hovind said so!

[laconicsax]

6. He should know--he's in a federal prison.

[eppur_se_muova]

8. Note these are earlier animals, not earliest organisms ...

earliest organisms are more than 3 billion years old.

http://www.pnas.org/content/97/13/6947.full