The fossils are like a few pages saved from a grand, crumbling book. The molecular clock reads the whole story written in the genes, but it ticks at a rate we must guess. They disagree because we are still learning how to set that clock—was evolution faster in the early dawn, or slower?
In my lab, we see it when we calibrate: use one fossil, get one date; choose another, the millions of years shift. My own father worked with machines where a single worn gear could throw off the whole timing. It reminds me that both the rock and the gene are truths, but we are the ones adjusting the hands.
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