The Cambrian problem

[Jfrsmth]

And on that note, the fish that were present in the Cambrian was definitely unlike any fish around today.

Isn't the coalacanth: a cambrian fish, still hanging with us today?

This is not true, as even mentioned above. There are a handful of valid reasons as to why diversification may have been so sudden. Just to cite one...

"Early complex animals may have been nearly microscopic. Apparent fossil animals smaller than 0.2 mm have been found in the Doushantuo Formation, China, forty to fifty-five million years before the Cambrian (Chen et al. 2004)."

However, that is a big step from nearly microscopic to the larger organisms we find in the Cambrian period. Still, where are the transitional fossils as predicted by Darwin?

Again, this is just not true. Genetic evidence displays a branching pattern in the Precambrian. For example, that plants diverged from a common ancestor before fungi diverged from animals.

"Most of the animal phyla that are represented in the fossil record first appear, 'fully formed,' in the Cambrian some 550 million years ago...The fossil record is therefore of no help with respect to the origin and early diversification of the various animal phyla."

Source: http://www.evolutionnews.org/2008/01/darwins_failed_predictions_sli_12004658.html

And the answer to that is, the Cambrian explosion does not show all groups appearing together fully formed. Some animal groups appearing over many millions of years in forms greatly differ from the forms we see today.

"Many species remain virtually unchanged for millions of years, then suddenly disappear to be replaced by a quite different, but related, form. Moreover, most major groups of animals appear abruptly in the fossil record, fully formed, and with no fossils yet discovered that form a transition from their parent group."

Source: http://www.evolutionnews.org/2008/01/darwins_failed_predictions_sli_12004658.html

In fact, what is more interesting, is Precambrian fossils that have been found are only consistent with a branching pattern, and inconsistent with a sudden Cambrian origin like you are suggesting. Such as, bacteria appears way before multicellular organisms, and there are fossils giving evidence of transitionals leading to halkierids and arthropods.

"Most of the animal phyla that are represented in the fossil record first appear, 'fully formed,' in the Cambrian some 550 million years ago...The fossil record is therefore of no help with respect to the origin and early diversification of the various animal phyla."

Source: http://www.evolutionnews.org/2008/01/darwins_failed_predictions_sli_12004658.html

Now, the real question, considering all things said, is what YOU'RE saying true, or just another lie from the anti evolutionists camp?

It does indeed look like what he is saying is true from what the fossil records show. There is no denying that the fossils exist at those levels and relatively suddenly by evolutionary standards, in conflict with Darwin's predictions. Now, the interpretation based on worldviews is the bigger issue.

This thread question is not based on rhetoric, but on the science. It's an honest inquiry into the validity of evolution as science. Why must these discussions always degrade into emotional appeals?

 

[lasthero]

Oops, if evolution were "true" (i.e. accurate), the prediction made by Darwin of finding millions of transitional fossils would be verified

I'm unaware of Darwin making any such predictions, especially 'millions'. Can you quote where he said that, please. Also, what do you consider to be a transitional fossil? What should we be finding that we don't find?

 

[Jfrsmth]

Amazing! Something you probably read on a creationist website, or heard from the lips of a professional creationist, turned out to be in contradiction to the facts!

It took a few seconds for a creationist to make up some nonsense about "the Cambrian Explosion" being a stumper for evolution, and it took several posters here some minutes to marshall the facts that provide a refutation.

And this Cambrian nonsense will rear its head over and over again, because the professional creationists have no desire to tell the honest truth, and fix their errors. I just want to thank the people who, like Sisyphus, have to rebut these tired claims over and over again, in the hopes of providing a little valuable education about the truth of the matter.

Wow, your comments do not seem to be open to the possibility that evolution can be falsified by these questions.

 

[HitchSlap]

Wow, your comments do not seem to be open to the possibility that evolution can be falsified by these questions.

If you can topple ToE, knock yourself out.

 

[Jfrsmth]

I'm unaware of Darwin making any such predictions, especially 'millions'. Can you quote where he said that, please.

“Why, if species have descended from other species by insensibly fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms.”

-The Origin of the Species, Chapter 6: Difficulties on Theory, Charles Darwin
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/origin/chapter6.html

Could we say "innumerable" might indicate "millions"? Actually, millions is a conservative number compared to innumerable.

Also, what do you consider to be a transitional fossil? What should we be finding that we don't find?

I did not say "transitional fossil," Darwin did. He may want to explain that.

Yes, what exactly is a transitional fossil? What we see in the fossils are just different "species"; why do they have to be "transforming" into anything? That is an assumption made by evolution that cannot be falsified because it is related to the imaginations of men (i.e. a worldview).

The creationist looks at the fossils and says a creature died (maybe one still around or one extinct). But the evolutionist looks at the fossils and says, wow, that one is changing into that one. How do you verify that? Science starts with falsifiable / verifiable questions.

 

[RickG]

Rather than inundate our discussion with all of that "reading" do you think you might just give us the gist of it?

Certainly. They are links to the scientific literature that demonstrate that indeed what the person claimed did not exist do infarct exist. What you did not include was the posters comment I was addressing, a multitude of different species, families, genera, etc. Here it is: "In other word, you don't see the speciation of animals producing different genera, then the continuation of morphological evolution producing animals that can be divided into different families and then orders.rue."

Oops, if evolution were "true" (i.e. accurate), the prediction made by Darwin of finding millions of transitional fossils would be verified, but it is is not. The Cambrian explosion falsifies Darwin's hypothesis of evolution / common decent.

A good example of an out of context concern by Darwin about the lack of fossils to explain evolution more clearly. What Darwin knew then is a drop in the bucket compared to what we know today.

That kind of changes the subject from the point made, i.e. why no "ancestral" lineage?

The poster was not happy that I destroyed his argument for the need of transition fossils which are not necessary to see evolution.

56 million years, as you said is a relatively short time. How could all of that diversity suddenly arise through evolutionary processes? What is the minimum number of transitional forms that would be needed to go from one creature to another? 1 big, huge jump? 2 big steps? 10,000 steps? 50,000 steps? Either it happens in very long "gradual" processes (as Darwin predicted) or it happens suddenly (a new hypothesis would then be warranted - you cannot have both). Darwin predicted millions of transitional fossils leading from one creature to another, but the point of this question is that we do not see that.

Geologically speaking, 56 million years is quite a long time; however, it is plenty of time for life forms to evolve and diversify. Also, understand we are talking about Phyla when we say all phyla appeared by the Cambrian Period. That has nothing to do with species, families, genera, etc.. Furthermore, there were life forms well before the Cambrian.

Again, rather than bog down our discussion with all of that "reading" do you think you might just give us the gist?

My gist was showing that 'creation science' claims about the Cambrian Period were either unfounded or incorrect. Perhaps you can explain the fossil record distributed throughout the geologic column without evolution. If evolution were false, would we not find fossils of all life forms in all layers of sedimentary strata?

 

[Jfrsmth]

If you can topple ToE, knock yourself out.

It cannot be "toppled" when we are dealing with worldviews, and unshakable belief. The science is there but evolutionists are covering their ears, and get really upset when anything else stirs things up in their religious belief (often, the same as some Christians / creationists).

 

[lasthero]

“Why, if species have descended from other species by insensibly fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms.”

-The Origin of the Species, Chapter 6: Difficulties on Theory, Charles Darwin
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/origin/chapter6.html

Could we say "innumerable" might indicate "millions"? Actually, millions is a conservative number compared to innumerable.

You do know he wrote stuff after that sentence, don't you?

Yes, what exactly is a transitional fossil?

Well, since you're the one saying they don't exist, it would help if you gave us some definition.

 

[Jfrsmth]

Really? What science have the creationists presented? All I have seen from them is baseless claims with zero evidence to back it.

Isn't the question posted in this thread a presentation of science that questions the validity of evolution? The rocks show what they show, how we interpret them is a different story.

 

[RickG]

Isn't the question posted in this thread a presentation of science that questions the validity of evolution? The rocks show what they show, how we interpret them is a different story.

The problem is that information presented by those who reject evolution is not a different interpretation of the rocks and what they show, rather, a distortion or misrepresentation of that same evidence. I have yet to see any geological science presented by the creation science community that actually uses the same data as they claim mainstream science does. Do you have an example where the same science is used?

 

[Loudmouth]

Oops, if evolution were "true" (i.e. accurate), the prediction made by Darwin of finding millions of transitional fossils would be verified, but it is is not.

Darwin made no such prediction. In fact, he predicted that evolution could produce fossils that suddenly appear.

"We do not make due allowance for the enormous intervals of time, which have probably elapsed between our consecutive formations, longer perhaps in some cases than the time required for the accumulation of each formation. These intervals will have given time for the multiplication of species from some one or some few parent-forms; and in the succeeding formation such species will appear as if suddenly created."
--Charles Darwin, "Origin of Species"
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/origin/chapter9.html

Darwin spent an entire chapter explaining why evolution would not produce millions of transitional fossils. Perhaps you should read it.

That kind of changes the subject from the point made, i.e. why no "ancestral" lineage?

How did you determine that there are no ancestral lineages?

56 million years, as you said is a relatively short time. How could all of that diversity suddenly arise through evolutionary processes? What is the minimum number of transitional forms that would be needed to go from one creature to another? 1 big, huge jump? 2 big steps? 10,000 steps? 50,000 steps? Either it happens in very long "gradual" processes (as Darwin predicted) or it happens suddenly (a new hypothesis would then be warranted - you cannot have both). Darwin predicted millions of transitional fossils leading from one creature to another, but the point of this question is that we do not see that.

Again, Darwin did not predict that we would find millions of finely graduated transitional fossils. Read more here:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/origin/chapter9.html

The mistake you are making is conflating the terms transitional form and transitional fossil. There is absolutely no guarantee that all transitional forms will have fossilized, will have survived to modern times, and will be accessible to humans looking for fossils. You could be sitting on top of a previously unknown transitional fossil right now.

 

[HitchSlap]

It cannot be "toppled" when we are dealing with worldviews, and unshakable belief. The science is there but evolutionists are covering their ears, and get really upset when anything else stirs things up in their religious belief (often, the same as some Christians / creationists).

Do you suffer from paranoia?

 

[RickG]

Isn't the coalacanth: a cambrian fish, still hanging with us today?

No it is not. The earliest known coalacanth did not appear until the Devonian.

 

[Loudmouth]

Isn't the coalacanth: a cambrian fish, still hanging with us today?

There are hundreds of species of coelacanths. There is no "The" coelacanth. The two modern species are not found anywhere in the fossil record. No coelacanth is found in the Cambrian. In fact, the closest thing to a fish in the Cambrian looks like this:

They don't even have bones. They are certainly a long ways away from being lobed finned fish.

However, that is a big step from nearly microscopic to the larger organisms we find in the Cambrian period. Still, where are the transitional fossils as predicted by Darwin?

Perhaps you should learn what Darwin actually predicted.

"Most of the animal phyla that are represented in the fossil record first appear, 'fully formed,' in the Cambrian some 550 million years ago...The fossil record is therefore of no help with respect to the origin and early diversification of the various animal phyla."

Source: http://www.evolutionnews.org/2008/01/darwins_failed_predictions_sli_12004658.html

How do you determine if a fossil is fully formed? This is just more double speak from a creationist website.

"Many species remain virtually unchanged for millions of years, then suddenly disappear to be replaced by a quite different, but related, form. Moreover, most major groups of animals appear abruptly in the fossil record, fully formed, and with no fossils yet discovered that form a transition from their parent group."

Source: http://www.evolutionnews.org/2008/01/darwins_failed_predictions_sli_12004658.html

"We do not make due allowance for the enormous intervals of time, which have probably elapsed between our consecutive formations, longer perhaps in some cases than the time required for the accumulation of each formation. These intervals will have given time for the multiplication of species from some one or some few parent-forms; and in the succeeding formation such species will appear as if suddenly created."--Charles Darwin, "Origin of Species"

Hmm, just what Darwin predicted we should see with evolution.

It does indeed look like what he is saying is true from what the fossil records show. There is no denying that the fossils exist at those levels and relatively suddenly by evolutionary standards, in conflict with Darwin's predictions.

And once again with the mispreresented prediction.

Perhaps you can answer this question. Why don't we find a single mammal, bird, reptile, amphibian, lobe finned fish, shark, whale, or octopus anywhere in the Cambrian? Why is it that the only vertebrates we can find of any kind are really simple fish that don't even have bones yet?

 

[Jfrsmth]

Certainly. They are links to the scientific literature that demonstrate that indeed what the person claimed did not exist do infarct exist. What you did not include was the posters comment I was addressing, a multitude of different species, families, genera, etc. Here it is: "In other word, you don't see the speciation of animals producing different genera, then the continuation of morphological evolution producing animals that can be divided into different families and then orders.rue."

Thanks!

So, please correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that basically saying that we lack fossils that demonstrate changes in one form to another? In other words, there is no (logical) "progression"?

A good example of an out of context concern by Darwin about the lack of fossils to explain evolution more clearly. What Darwin knew then is a drop in the bucket compared to what we know today.

What do we know today, as it relates to this question? The idea of the question seems to be, why the absence of abundant (evolutionist-termed) "transitional" fossils prior to the Cambrian period?

The poster was not happy that I destroyed his argument for the need of transition fossils which are not necessary to see evolution.

Isn't evolution based on the idea that all life is the result of descent with modification which over millions of years has resulted in the variety of life we see today? Isn't the prediction of Darwin's evolution that there would be "innumerable" transitional fossils?

Which would it be, no need for fossils to verify the hypothesis or the need for fossils to verify the hypothesis? I'm not clear.

Geologically speaking, 56 million years is quite a long time; however, it is plenty of time for life forms to evolve and diversify. Also, understand we are talking about Phyla when we say all phyla appeared by the Cambrian Period. That has nothing to do with species, families, genera, etc.. Furthermore, there were life forms well before the Cambrian.

Doesn't "life forms" before Cambrian present a big step to the phyla you are referring to. Animals alone represent 32-39 phyla, not including invertebrate, and plant life. So, that is the question, why the relatively sudden appearance as compared to the pre-cambrian era? What is the estimated number of transitions need to go from these pre-cambrian forms to the cambrian forms? Multiply that times 32-39. Where are they?

My gist was showing that 'creation science' claims about the Cambrian Period were either unfounded or incorrect. Perhaps you can explain the fossil record distributed throughout the geologic column without evolution. If evolution were false, would we not find fossils of all life forms in all layers of sedimentary strata?

"If evolution were false..." Your statement includes your assumption based on worldview, i.e. "we would not find...". However, there is no denying the fossils are there. There is no denying that there is some relative order associated with them. But that's all we can observe. Everything else is speculation or assumption based on worldview.

For example, The creationist looks at the fossils and says a creature died (maybe one still around or one extinct). But the evolutionist looks at the fossils and says, wow, that one is changing into that one. How do you verify that? Science starts with falsifiable / verifiable questions.

Could the fossil arrangement also be the result of a worldwide cataclysmic event or other as of yet unknown form of geological layering? Must they be the result of millions of years of death and birth with mutations and slight modifications from one form to another that suggests we are all just here by accident and by purely naturalistic means (i.e. no need for God)? We only have "bones in the dirt".

Nevertheless, evolutionists see the fossils one way, and creationists see them another way. It is a never-ending discussion because it involves beliefs and worldviews.

RickG, I appreciate your civility in your responses. Thank you. I just want to discuss the science, not debate worldviews.

 

[bhsmte]

It cannot be "toppled" when we are dealing with worldviews, and unshakable belief. The science is there but evolutionists are covering their ears, and get really upset when anything else stirs things up in their religious belief (often, the same as some Christians / creationists).

Projection!

 

[Jfrsmth]

No it is not. The earliest known coalacanth did not appear until the Devonian.

Sorry, my mistake. Thank you.

"Coelacanths (seel-a-canths) were once known only from fossils and were thought to have gone extinct approximately 65 million years ago (mya), during the great extinction in which the dinosaurs disappeared. The most recent fossil record dates from about 80 mya but the earliest records date back as far as approximately 360 mya. At one time coelacanths were a large group comprising about 90 valid species that were distributed worldwide in both marine and freshwaters. Today, there are two known living species."

Source: http://vertebrates.si.edu/fishes/coelacanth/coelacanth_wider.html

 

[HitchSlap]

Could the fossil arrangement also be the result of a worldwide cataclysmic event or other as of yet unknown form of geological layering? Must they be the result of millions of years of death and birth with mutations and slight modifications from one form to another that suggests we are all just here by accident and by purely naturalistic means (i.e. no need for God)? We only have "bones in the dirt".

Even if there was a "worldwide cataclysmic event," why would we expect it to distribute the fossils in the geological progression that we see? Additionally, the only person who has mentioned "worldview" as being relevant, is you, because it's the only reason you're a creationist.

 

[Jfrsmth]

Even if there was a "worldwide cataclysmic event," why would we expect it to distribute the fossils in the geological progression that we see? Additionally, the only person who has mentioned "worldview" as being relevant, is you, because it's the only reason you're a creationist.

There are possible layering mechanisms that are being discussed such as ecological zonation, differential escape, biogeographic zonation, tectonic activty... (http://creationwiki.org/Flood_geology)

Evolutionism is very much a worldview of naturalistic origins and progression:

1. A theory of biological evolution, especially that formulated by Charles Darwin.
2. Advocacy of or belief in biological evolution.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/evolutionism

Evolutionism is a world-view, which seeks to explain every aspect of this world in which we live. It encompasses a wide variety of topics, from astronomy to chemistry to biology. At its core, it teaches that there were different stages in the evolution of our universe

http://www.allaboutphilosophy.org/evolutionism.htm

a person who supports a policy of gradual growth or development rather than sudden change or expansion.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/evolutionism

The science (facts) is there, the interpretation is a result of worldviews - trying to make sense of the world around us, the universe.

 

[HitchSlap]

There are possible layering mechanisms that are being discussed such as ecological zonation, differential escape, biogeographic zonation, tectonic activty... (http://creationwiki.org/Flood_geology)

Evolutionism is very much a worldview of naturalistic origins and progression:

1. A theory of biological evolution, especially that formulated by Charles Darwin.
2. Advocacy of or belief in biological evolution.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/evolutionism

Evolutionism is a world-view, which seeks to explain every aspect of this world in which we live. It encompasses a wide variety of topics, from astronomy to chemistry to biology. At its core, it teaches that there were different stages in the evolution of our universe

http://www.allaboutphilosophy.org/evolutionism.htm

a person who supports a policy of gradual growth or development rather than sudden change or expansion.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/evolutionism

The science (facts) is there, the interpretation is a result of worldviews - trying to make sense of the world around us, the universe.

ToE is simply the best explanation for the diversity and biodistribution of life, and enjoys multiple independent lines of evidence. In fact, there are no competing theories; it's the only game in town.

Unfortunately for you, you're in the unenviable position of having to defend silly, nonsensical explanations that only fool the gullible, indoctrinated and ignorant. In spite of what professional creationists tell you, there is no controversy, as academia the world over uses ToE everyday for the advancement of our understanding of the natural sciences. Whereas creationism is not used at any academic institution or lab, and has contributed not one thing to our collective understanding of science.

I'll ask you what I've asked other cdesign proponentsists; When Dr. Shubin discovered T. roseae, did he use ToE to predict where he might find her, or did he use creationism?