Scientists Baffled

A recent article as MSNBC.COM is headlined:
Floral ‘Big Bang’ led to stunning diversity: Origin of flowering plants, called angiosperms, has long baffled scientistsOne wonders why they are baffled.

You can go to the article to read the whole thing. I have extracted below what I believe are the relevant passages, along with [my comments].

From the ubiquitous daisy to the fantastical orchid, flowering plant species are as diverse as they are numerous. Turns out, these bloomers went through an evolutionary "Big Bang" [of course, the Big Bang theory is little more than a retelling of Genesis 1, with some mathematical window dressing] of sorts some 130 million years ago, a brief era of explosive floral diversification at a time when dinosaurs walked the Earth.

The origin of flowering plants called angiosperms has long baffled scientists [this is baffling only if one assumes that Darwinian evolution is true], with Charles Darwin famously referring to the plant puzzler as an "abominable mystery."

"One of the reasons why it's been hard to understand evolutionary relationships among the major groups of flowering plants is because they diversified over such a short time frame," said researcher Robert Jansen, professor of integrative biology at the University of Texas at Austin. [Alternatively, it may be hard to understand the evolutionary relationships if there are none.]
…

Pam and UF colleague Doug Soltis analyzed 61 genes from 45 plant species, while another team led by Jansen analyzed 81 genes from 64 plant species. Both groups focused on the genomes of the chloroplast, an organelle shared by all green plants that is responsible for their ability to photosynthesize.

Then, they arranged the gene sequences into diagrams to reflect the relationships among plant lineages throughout evolutionary history. [Note the assumption that “evolutionary history” is real.] From the length of the diagrams' branches along with known rates of genetic change, the teams estimated that three lineages went through a major diversification in an evolutionary "blink of an eye." [Genesis 1: 11 Then God said, "Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds." And it was so. 12 The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.]

As for the cause of the explosion of plant diversity, that's still a floral mystery. Perhaps a major climatic event was the trigger, the researchers suggest. Another idea is that a new evolutionary trait, such as the development of a plant's water-conducting tube, jumpstarted the diversification. [Now, the whole point of Darwinian evolution is that there is no such thing as a “jumpstart” to diversification. It is all the result of gradual changes accumulating over time.]

It is not much of a challenge to find baffled scientists. Their devotion to the theory of evolution limits their options, often including only explanations that simply don't work. When confronted with the problem, they come up with fairy tales: some trait (which they cannot identify) came into being (in a way they cannot describe) to "jumpstart" diversification (something that is not supposed to happen, anyway.)