Cambrian explosion: Burgess Shale: punctuated equilibrium

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Jazer

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Charles Darwin saw Cambrian explosion as one of the main objections that could be made against his theory of evolution by natural selection. That was before The Burgess Shale was discovered by palaeontologist Charles Walcott in 1909. Although it was not until the time of Stephen Jay Gould’s that Darwins theory was in the most trouble. So Gould came up with the theory of punctuated equilibrium to keep Darwins theory of slow gradual change over long periods of time from going down the tube. Talk about changing the rules and moving the goal post. Clearly they make this stuff up as they go along and I think they get more of it in their creative writting class then anywhere else. All ranting aside, the bottom line is if you want to make or break Darwins theory the Cambrian Explosion is where all the action is. "Evolution" tends to take the same proteins and put them together in the same way in many different species that do NOT have a common ancestor. This has got to be difficult for a theory of common decent to explain. I could go on but I have already started about five discussions here already.
 

Split Rock

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Charles Darwin saw Cambrian explosion as one of the main objections that could be made against his theory of evolution by natural selection. That was before The Burgess Shale was discovered by palaeontologist Charles Walcott in 1909. Although it was not until the time of Stephen Jay Gould’s that Darwins theory was in the most trouble. So Gould came up with the theory of punctuated equilibrium to keep Darwins theory of slow gradual change over long periods of time from going down the tube. Talk about changing the rules and moving the goal post. Clearly they make this stuff up as they go along and I think they get more of it in their creative writting class then anywhere else. All ranting aside, the bottom line is if you want to make or break Darwins theory the Cambrian Explosion is where all the action is. "Evolution" tends to take the same proteins and put them together in the same way in many different species that do NOT have a common ancestor. This has got to be difficult for a theory of common decent to explain. I could go on but I have already started about five discussions here already.

So, where did all the species from the Cambrian come from, and why are they all extinct? How come so many look nothing like anything alive today?
Here are a few: Yeah...I dig nature. It's whatever.: Burgess Shale
 
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So, where did all the species from the Cambrian come from, and why are they all extinct?
Creationists have an answer for you. God created them. As far as extinction Gould's theory is that Evolution is VERY random. According to Gould if you started all over again all the species would come out VERY different, even if conditions were identical. There is another theory. That elements can only be assembled one way. So anywhere you go in the universe life is going to be pretty much the same as what we find here. This is supported by the fact that you have many proteins assemble in identical ways despite the fact that there is no common ancestor. As far as extinct Science has pretty well determined that conditions change so that they can no longer support the existing life and it then goes extinct.
 
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JanetReed

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Charles Darwin saw Cambrian explosion as one of the main objections that could be made against his theory of evolution by natural selection. That was before The Burgess Shale was discovered by palaeontologist Charles Walcott in 1909. Although it was not until the time of Stephen Jay Gould’s that Darwins theory was in the most trouble. So Gould came up with the theory of punctuated equilibrium to keep Darwins theory of slow gradual change over long periods of time from going down the tube. Talk about changing the rules and moving the goal post. Clearly they make this stuff up as they go along and I think they get more of it in their creative writting class then anywhere else. All ranting aside, the bottom line is if you want to make or break Darwins theory the Cambrian Explosion is where all the action is. "Evolution" tends to take the same proteins and put them together in the same way in many different species that do NOT have a common ancestor. This has got to be difficult for a theory of common decent to explain. I could go on but I have already started about five discussions here already.
Yes I find it fascinating as well, those darn scientists keep making things up and changing the rules it's a wonder evolution works at all, but it does.

It's a pity that the discussions you start have no substance, if they did they might last a little longer than they do.
 
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Yes I find it fascinating as well

It's a pity that the discussions you start have no substance, if they did they might last a little longer than they do.
Cambrian explosion: Burgess Shale: punctuated equilibrium has no substance. Nothing to say about Darwin, Walcott or Gould? Then I guess the theory of evolution is DOA. If we did not call genetics evolution there would be no theory. Wow I am surprised that your theory was so easy to falsify.
 
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juvenissun

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So, where did all the species from the Cambrian come from, and why are they all extinct? How come so many look nothing like anything alive today?
Here are a few: Yeah...I dig nature. It's whatever.: Burgess Shale

So we have a feature in evolution which says: evolving FAST! because the environment is changing fast.

Could you give me an idea on how fast is this fast evolution? Was speciation much faster right after the dinosaur was gone?
 
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Charles Darwin saw Cambrian explosion as one of the main objections that could be made against his theory of evolution by natural selection. That was before The Burgess Shale was discovered by palaeontologist Charles Walcott in 1909. Although it was not until the time of Stephen Jay Gould’s that Darwins theory was in the most trouble. So Gould came up with the theory of punctuated equilibrium to keep Darwins theory of slow gradual change over long periods of time from going down the tube. Talk about changing the rules and moving the goal post. Clearly they make this stuff up as they go along and I think they get more of it in their creative writting class then anywhere else. All ranting aside, the bottom line is if you want to make or break Darwins theory the Cambrian Explosion is where all the action is. "Evolution" tends to take the same proteins and put them together in the same way in many different species that do NOT have a common ancestor. This has got to be difficult for a theory of common decent to explain. I could go on but I have already started about five discussions here already.

Makes me wonder, have you ever read Darwins, "On the origin of Species" and do you actually know what the Cambrian Explosion actually entails?
 
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NailsII

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Charles Darwin saw Cambrian explosion as one of the main objections that could be made against his theory of evolution by natural selection. That was before The Burgess Shale was discovered by palaeontologist Charles Walcott in 1909. Although it was not until the time of Stephen Jay Gould’s that Darwins theory was in the most trouble. So Gould came up with the theory of punctuated equilibrium to keep Darwins theory of slow gradual change over long periods of time from going down the tube. Talk about changing the rules and moving the goal post. Clearly they make this stuff up as they go along and I think they get more of it in their creative writting class then anywhere else. All ranting aside, the bottom line is if you want to make or break Darwins theory the Cambrian Explosion is where all the action is. "Evolution" tends to take the same proteins and put them together in the same way in many different species that do NOT have a common ancestor. This has got to be difficult for a theory of common decent to explain. I could go on but I have already started about five discussions here already.
Not quite correct unfortunately.
Darwin actuallly stated near the end of Origin that if it couldn't be shown that complex organs - such as the eye - could have evolved gradually, step by step, then his theory would fail.
Of course, Darwin himself knew that many different animals have many different types of eye, so he could see the hallmarks of gradual progression already.
The most notable way to disprove evolution would be to find a fossil out of place - a rabbit in the pre-Cambrian, for example. Note how this has never been found, even though any such find would almost guarantee someone a Nobel prize.
The Cambrian explosion does not falsify evolution, because there are fossils from before this rapid speciation event - and these earlier fossils are, suprise suprsise, simpler forms of life such as stromatolites and impressions of jellyfish. Clearly there was life before the Cambrian, it just so happens that - for a variety of reasons, there was over a period of around 20 million years (hardly an explosion on any other timescale than geological) where life rapidly evolved into differing forms..

Punctuated Equilibriam is a description of the evidence, it would appear that there were times of stability and times of rapid change in earth's history. When looked at with geological upheaval, this is not suprising.
Continents move, climates change and natural disasters wipe out many forms of life in the blink of an eye (again in geological time).

Most famously, the extinction event near the end of the K-T boundarty shown the demise of some rather famous large lizards and the planet is easy pickings for another animal to dominate the land. Birds and mammals seem to have benefitted from this event; the lack of predation has allowed them to thrive, multiply and diversify - and become the apex predators themselves in some cases.

This isn't "making stuff up", it is forming new opinions based on new evidence - the more evidence is available, the more accurate the theory which describes it.
Only through revelation would we have a complete picture that never changes with very little, if any, evidence. If evolution by natural selection had been revealed to Darwin by some supernatural power, he would almost certainly have got everything right instead of most things right.

I also would like you to back up your last statement with some evidence, as I am not aware of exactly the same proteins being found in unrelated forms of life. Perhaps you could enlighten us on this.


So we have a feature in evolution which says: evolving FAST! because the environment is changing fast.

Could you give me an idea on how fast is this fast evolution? Was speciation much faster right after the dinosaur was gone?
It isn't so much a feature, but maybe I could give you an example.

Imagine two animals which live side-by-side in an ecosystem. One is a predator, one is prey. The predator effectively guides the evolution of the prey, as any weaker individuals are more likely to be eaten, and as such have fewer offspring. If the predator dies out, perhaps through climate change or diseae, the prey species no longer has such a strict control on which animals will reproduce. This means that its gene pool can grow more diverse, and if the population becomes split into two different groups which no longer interbreed (ie the disaster that wiped out the predator was geological in nature, such as the introduction of a larger river that they could not cross) then the two populations would be able to diversify and eventually become different species.

The same could be said of a predator which evolves a new trait, such as a keener sense of smell or a slight increase in speed/manouverability.

We live on a dynamic planet, things change over time and life has been able to adapt to these changes and flourish.

The timescale involved would depend on many things, such as the size of the population and its normal reproduction rate.

In short, there are pressures which limit populations.
Remove these properties and these populations can grow and diversify.

I hope that answers your question.
 
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JanetReed

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It's a pity that the discussions you start have no substance, if they did they might last a little longer than they do.

Cambrian explosion: Burgess Shale: punctuated equilibrium has no substance. Nothing to say about Darwin, Walcott or Gould? Then I guess the theory of evolution is DOA. If we did not call genetics evolution there would be no theory. Wow I am surprised that your theory was so easy to falsify.
They have substance it's your arguments that don't.
 
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Clearly there was life before the Cambrian
Yes but what you do not have is a record of common ancestors needed to show that something evolved. So the end result is still the same of something from nothing. At least nothing you have a record of. So this continues to be the biggest challange evolutions have to deal with. They keep saying that this is a result of that but they never produce the common ancestor that life was suppose to have evolved from.
 
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NailsII

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Yes but what you do not have is a record of common ancestors needed to show that something evolved. So the end result is still the same of something from nothing. At least nothing you have a record of. So this continues to be the biggest challange evolutions have to deal with. They keep saying that this is a result of that but they never produce the common ancestor that life was suppose to have evolved from.
It doesn't mater what has been found, you would still deny it.

What has been found is evidence of multicellular life before the Cambrian, and that is all that is required to say that your assertion (that all life sprang into existance in one small geological time frame) is false.

If someone claimed to have found the first living organism, the ancestor of all life, I would not believe them.
Such outrageous claims require some pretty outrageous evidence, and I doubt that any one could prove that it was a direct ancestor, as opposed to a very similar animal who was closely related to the direct common ancestor.

The only outrageous claims that are deemed acceptable in society are backed up by scripture and revelation - that is why you will hear scientists saying "it is likely to be", not "it definately is".

In reality, evolutionary theory is not challenged by your poor understanding of the evidence, and postulations of "something from nothing" - because religious ideologies share this dilema but don't admit that it is problematic. Life didn't evolve from nothing, that much is certain.
The biological building blocks - organic chemicals, amino acids and bases appear to be fairly widespread in space, so we can safely say that life didn't just come from nowhere.

You should keep looking for your pre-Cambrian lagomorph...
 
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Split Rock

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Creationists have an answer for you. God created them. As far as extinction Gould's theory is that Evolution is VERY random. According to Gould if you started all over again all the species would come out VERY different, even if conditions were identical. There is another theory. That elements can only be assembled one way. So anywhere you go in the universe life is going to be pretty much the same as what we find here. This is supported by the fact that you have many proteins assemble in identical ways despite the fact that there is no common ancestor. As far as extinct Science has pretty well determined that conditions change so that they can no longer support the existing life and it then goes extinct.

So, these organisms all went extinct... then what? Did your god create new organisms (whales, fish, shrimp, crabs, lobsters, etc.) to replace them? If not, and they were always there, why aren't they represented in the Burgess Shale, or any other Cambrian formation?
 
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Naraoia

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Charles Darwin saw Cambrian explosion as one of the main objections that could be made against his theory of evolution by natural selection.
That's because the oldest fossils Charles Darwin knew were trilobites.

That was before The Burgess Shale was discovered by palaeontologist Charles Walcott in 1909. Although it was not until the time of Stephen Jay Gould’s that Darwins theory was in the most trouble. So Gould came up with the theory of punctuated equilibrium to keep Darwins theory of slow gradual change over long periods of time from going down the tube.
Gould (and Niles Eldredge, let's not forget his co-author!) came up with PE to reconcile evolutionary theory with fossil evidence. PE isn't really anti-Darwinian, whatever Gould himself might want to believe. Darwin never said that all evolutionary change must proceed at the same rate - and also, the appearance of abrupt change is partly because of migration, not simply sudden evolutionary events. The basic idea is that new species often form in small, isolated populations that evolve rapidly but aren't likely to leave fossils. Thus, we only get to see the new form if/when it spreads and replaces the parent species.

Again, here is a good breakdown of what PE really says.

Talk about changing the rules and moving the goal post. Clearly they make this stuff up as they go along and I think they get more of it in their creative writting class then anywhere else. All ranting aside, the bottom line is if you want to make or break Darwins theory the Cambrian Explosion is where all the action is. "Evolution" tends to take the same proteins and put them together in the same way in many different species that do NOT have a common ancestor.
Wut?

This has got to be difficult for a theory of common decent to explain. I could go on but I have already started about five discussions here already.
Common deScent. I think I've corrected your spelling a few times before...

Creationists have an answer for you. God created them. As far as extinction Gould's theory is that Evolution is VERY random. According to Gould if you started all over again all the species would come out VERY different, even if conditions were identical.
Chaotic is probably a better word than random. Gould was big on the idea of contingency, that is, coincidences of history determining the future. These aren't necessarily random - they are just unpredictable and unlikely to occur the same way twice.

There is another theory. That elements can only be assembled one way. So anywhere you go in the universe life is going to be pretty much the same as what we find here. This is supported by the fact that you have many proteins assemble in identical ways despite the fact that there is no common ancestor.
Hey hey hey, what "no common ancestor"? I think you are going to need some backing for such a radical claim.

As far as extinct Science has pretty well determined that conditions change so that they can no longer support the existing life and it then goes extinct.
What?

The Cambrian explosion does not falsify evolution, because there are fossils from before this rapid speciation event - and these earlier fossils are, suprise suprsise, simpler forms of life such as stromatolites and impressions of jellyfish.
Are any of the Ediacaran fossils convincingly from jellyfish? :scratch: I have a vague recollection that most of the Precambrian "jellyfish" fossils are more likely to be holdfasts of Charnia type creatures. Not that those couldn't be cnidarian, but I think the oldest relatively secure actual jellyfish is Cambrian.

Also, sponges. Earlest branching living phylum of animals, one of the simplest animal body plans, and... possibly the earliest fossil appearance?

Clearly there was life before the Cambrian, it just so happens that - for a variety of reasons, there was over a period of around 20 million years (hardly an explosion on any other timescale than geological) where life rapidly evolved into differing forms..
It's also worth nothing that it almost definitely had a "fuse" much longer than 20 million years. Both molecular clock methods (which I somewhat mistrust) and Ediacaran fossils that can be classified into major subgroups of animals provide strong evidence that the main lineages that "exploded" in the Cambrian had started diverging way before that. (I think Kimberella is the best-evidenced one, at least lophotrochozoan and probably stem mollusc. And holy cow, I just found this paper and I'm totally downloading it. Mineralised sclerites??? [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse] why didn't I know about this??? *cough* :sorry: Got a bit carried away there...)

Punctuated Equilibriam is a description of the evidence, it would appear that there were times of stability and times of rapid change in earth's history. When looked at with geological upheaval, this is not suprising.
Continents move, climates change and natural disasters wipe out many forms of life in the blink of an eye (again in geological time).
Incidentally, I'm fairly sure that Origin discusses some remarkably PE-like ideas. I know I was very surprised upon reading it, because I'd been "trained" to view Darwinism and PE as contradictory.

Most famously, the extinction event near the end of the K-T boundarty shown the demise of some rather famous large lizards...
I hope you mean mosasaurs. At least they really were large lizards. Non-avian dinosaurs... definitely not lizards, and far from universally large.

I also would like you to back up your last statement with some evidence, as I am not aware of exactly the same proteins being found in unrelated forms of life. Perhaps you could enlighten us on this.
If Doug Theobald can be believed, there is no such thing as "unrelated forms of life", anyway.

Yes but what you do not have is a record of common ancestors needed to show that something evolved. So the end result is still the same of something from nothing.
I don't think most people are aware how well-documented the origin of some major groups is. I'm an animal person, so I can give you examples from animals. Arthropods are probably the best case - the Cambrian is home to a whole range of creatures that range from essentially worms with legs, much like water bears and velvet worms today (e.g. Aysheaia and other "lobopods"), through creatures with obviously jointed bodies and limbs (e.g. anomalocaridids), and a wide variety of definitive arthropods that are various distances away from living or better-known extinct groups (such as these trilobite relatives). Echinoderms are another rich one, though I think people can't quite agree whether creatures like helicoplacoids actually represent ancestral conditions or secondary modifications of the "classical" echinoderm body plan. Brachiopods and their possible tommotiid ancestors also come to mind. And then there are molluscs, with Kimberella appearing bang in the middle of the Ediacaran.

At least nothing you have a record of.
So... yeah, that's kind of dead wrong.

So this continues to be the biggest challange evolutions have to deal with. They keep saying that this is a result of that but they never produce the common ancestor that life was suppose to have evolved from.
Please tell me how you would go about finding and identifying the remains of the universal common ancestor. The last universal common ancestor was just a simple (proto)cell without any special features, and its fossils, if preserved by some astronomically immense stroke of luck, would probably have nothing other than their age to suggest their significance. The evidence for universal common ancestry lies in molecular biology, not fossils. (Hello, near-universal not-quite-optimal genetic code!)
 
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Hey hey hey, what "no common ancestor"? I think you are going to need some backing for such a radical claim.
It is not my claim. In fact the belief is fairly standard among astro physics people looking for life on other planets: "The physical conditions are the same everywhere in the Universe: the galaxies contain stars, stars have gaseous or / and telluric planets, planets are constituted by infinity of chemical elements as hydrogen, carbon, water..."http://www.astronoo.com/articles/areWeAlone-en.html

The elements are the same, the laws are the same, even gravity is the same. So life is going to end up the same. I did construction for to long. You can not divorce structure from outward appearance. Stone building look like they are built out of stone. Iron building look like they are built out of iron. That is why the eiffel tower looks different from a pyramid. The elements or material they use is different.

"Something astonishing has happened in the universe. There has arisen a thing called life—flamboyant, rambunctious, gregarious form of matter, qualitatively different from rocks, gas, and dust, yet made of the same stuff, the same humdrum elements lying around everywhere." Life Beyond Earth Article, Extraterrestrial Life Information, Facts -- National Geographic

Incidentally, I'm fairly sure that Origin discusses some remarkably PE-like ideas. I know I was very surprised upon reading it, because I'd been "trained" to view Darwinism and PE as contradictory.
I thought he had a whole chapter on it. He did address the issue.
 
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Naraoia

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Where did my post go? :confused:

Jazer, your claim was, I quote, that "you have many proteins assemble in identical ways despite the fact that there is no common ancestor."

None of what you wrote in response to me is in any way relevant to the above.

What proteins do you mean, and where is your evidence that there is no common ancestor?
 
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Naraoia

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Oh, I believe in a common ancestor. Their name was adam and eve, they lived 6,000 years ago in the Euphrates river valley in the Middle East.
Stop changing the subject. We weren't talking about that common ancestor. What proteins did you mean?
 
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juvenissun

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Stop changing the subject. We weren't talking about that common ancestor. What proteins did you mean?

Let me review the idea of common ancestor.

All current lives should have a common ancestor, BECAUSE all DNAs share a significant part of genes. The different part is caused by evolution.

Is that the idea?
 
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Let me review the idea of common ancestor.

All current lives should have a common ancestor, BECAUSE all DNAs share a significant part of genes. The different part is caused by evolution.

Is that the idea?
Part of the idea. Yes, some genes/proteins are shared by (nearly) everything alive (cytochrome c is a well-known example). And it's not just that some genes are shared - when you compare their similarities and differences, they are not random but fall onto a tree of life. All organisms also use nearly the same genetic code to translate their genes into proteins.
 
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