Cambrian Explosion

[Baggins]

i'm not sure if they are able to match up fossilized pollen with grasses specifically. keep in mind these wouldn't be the species of grass we see today, so their pollen may have been different. nevertheless, the argument could easily be extended to angiosperms in general, so then we wouldn't have this problem.

Angiosperm pollen is easily discriminated from pollen of other plant types, and as we have stated it is ubiquitous in the fossil record since their evolution. I have a hard time believing that their could be angiosperms/grasses in the geological record that left no trace.

It seems to me this is a totally baseless hypothesis, you might as well say there were blue whales in the pre-cambrian. It would be a lot harder to disprove as their fossils are so rare, rarity has never been a problem with angiosperm pollen

 

[Jet Black]

How can something be "possible"in that it can be capable of happening, existing, or being true without contridicting proven facts, laws or circumstances and still remain implausible.

it's physically possible that the water in my mug could have got there by quantum mechanical tunneling all the way from Europa, but not particularly plausible.

Things may be possible, but unreasonable.

 

[Oncedeceived]

Angiosperm pollen is easily discriminated from pollen of other plant types, and as we have stated it is ubiquitous in the fossil record since their evolution. I have a hard time believing that their could be angiosperms/grasses in the geological record that left no trace.

It seems to me this is a totally baseless hypothesis, you might as well say there were blue whales in the pre-cambrian. It would be a lot harder to disprove as their fossils are so rare, rarity has never been a problem with angiosperm pollen

There were at least ...at least...55 million years that grasses were present that they have absolutely no evidence in the fossil record. So your statement that the are ubiquitous in the fossil record since their evolution is entirely false.

They did indeed exist and left no trace in the geological record. So believe it.

 

[Oncedeceived]

really? sounds interesting, what is the evidence?

http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/102/16/5892

Don't have time for the rest of your post.

 

[Jet Black]

sorry, I am losing things here a little. Is it still your position that there were grasses in the cambrian/precabrian?

 

[caravelair]

http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/102/16/5892

Don't have time for the rest of your post.

that's interesting. thanks for the link.

that's about specimens from 400mya though, which is after the precambrian, and still leaves us with possibly 3 billion years of asexual evolution. this point isn't really an important part of our discussion though, it's a bit of a sidetrack.

 

[Mallon]

They did indeed exist and left no trace in the geological record. So believe it.

Don't forget to believe in unicorns as well. Because they're in the Bible.

 

[caravelair]

Don't forget to believe in unicorns as well. Because they're in the Bible.

in her defense, she did offer some support for that claim earlier in the thread:

http://www.christianforums.com/showpost.php?p=22669868&postcount=163

but after reading the article again, a little more closely i see that it didn't quite say what she thought...

Grass was previously thought to have become common only after the dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago.

But the grass minerals in the Indian coprolites were much older than the hoofed mammals and were already diverse. Five different species were evident, which means that grasses likely diversified substantially before the end of the late Cretaceous.

these are talking about grasses becoming more common and more diverse, it is not talking about when they first evolved. the article does not say that they are now believed to have evolved earlier than previously thought, it says they are now believed to have diversified and become more common earlier.

mallon, do you know of any good websites that show a continuous pollen record? that would probably be useful in our discussion.

 

[Mallon]

mallon, do you know of any good websites that show a continuous pollen record?

Not really. I do vertebrates.

But a quick search revealed this:

http://www.paldat.org/

 

[Baggins]

There were at least ...at least...55 million years that grasses were present that they have absolutely no evidence in the fossil record. So your statement that the are ubiquitous in the fossil record since their evolution is entirely false.

They did indeed exist and left no trace in the geological record. So believe it.

You still provide no evidence to back up this claim. And I see from reading further into the thread that your claim comes from a mis-reading of a paper on the development of angiosperms.

Do you withdraw your claim of Pre-Cambrian grasses now?

 

[Oncedeceived]

sorry, I am losing things here a little. Is it still your position that there were grasses in the cambrian/precabrian?

I said the possiblity exists, that is all. I have never claimed that grasses were in the precambrian/cambrian. I said that I have no proof or evidence to support that premise.

 

[Oncedeceived]

that's interesting. thanks for the link.

that's about specimens from 400mya though, which is after the precambrian, and still leaves us with possibly 3 billion years of asexual evolution. this point isn't really an important part of our discussion though, it's a bit of a sidetrack.

You said that it sounded interesting so I provided the link. I said that reproduction was earlier than once thought and gave you the link which I was talking about. The fact that it is relatively unimportant to our discussion was already determined prior to me providing it.

 

[caravelair]

I said the possiblity exists, that is all. I have never claimed that grasses were in the precambrian/cambrian. I said that I have no proof or evidence to support that premise.

but if i'm not mistaken, you do claim that this is a prediction of genesis, and that it has not been falsified, correct?

 

[caravelair]

You said that it sounded interesting so I provided the link. I said that reproduction was earlier than once thought and gave you the link which I was talking about. The fact that it is relatively unimportant to our discussion was already determined prior to me providing it.

well, thanks for providing it anyways.

 

[Oncedeceived]

Don't forget to believe in unicorns as well. Because they're in the Bible.

I provided a link that presented the evidence of grasses being present for at least 55 million years (perhaps longer) without fossil evidence of pollen being present, or fossil evidence of the grass itself. Now if you would like to discuss this I will be glad to do so, but lets keep to the points okay?

 

[Oncedeceived]

You still provide no evidence to back up this claim. And I see from reading further into the thread that your claim comes from a mis-reading of a paper on the development of angiosperms.

Do you withdraw your claim of Pre-Cambrian grasses now?

No, my claim does not come from mis-reading a paper on angiosperms. I am not claiming that there is support of grasses being in the precambrian or cambrian. I am claiming that the possibility exists and I am using some of these materials for support of that possibility only. I have already conceded that this premise is not supported by any evidence we have today.

 

[Oncedeceived]

but if i'm not mistaken, you do claim that this is a prediction of genesis, and that it has not been falsified, correct?

That is the trouble with these long threads, so much is lost in the time from beginnning to end.

What I said is that I held two theories of how plants and trees being in the order they were in Genesis. 1. That the beginning of all plant/tree linage was established in the very beginning with blue algae. 2. That plant/trees evolved in the precambrian and were destroyed or that they were present but we don't have evidence for them now.

 

[Jet Black]

I said the possiblity exists, that is all. I have never claimed that grasses were in the precambrian/cambrian. I said that I have no proof or evidence to support that premise.

but if your interpretation of geneisis is correct, there should have been grasses in the cambrian/precambrian, right?

 

[Oncedeceived]

but if your interpretation of geneisis is correct, there should have been grasses in the cambrian/precambrian, right?

(by me)11 And God said: 'Let the earth put forth grass, herb yielding seed, and fruit-tree bearing fruit after its kind, wherein is the seed thereof, upon the earth.' And it was so. 12 And the earth brought forth grass, herb yielding seed after its kind, and tree bearing fruit, wherein is the seed thereof, after its kind; and God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening and there was morning, a third day. {P}

There are two points to consider in interpreting this verse. The first is that there is no evidence to support this verse. The second has two possible meanings which could be valid. The first of the two is that there is no evidence of this due to plate tectonics, it is a well known fact that the earliest surface of the earth is probably lost for all time due to movement. The second is that all plants and trees have their beginings from green algae which is the first life form on earth.

I concede that "evidence" to support my viewpoint on this is interpretive at best and so I will consider this verse somewhat of a gap in the conclusions I hold.

So, I feel that with my interpretation one of these two scenerios would be valid. Personally, I find the second more in line with probability. But it is possible that the first is true. Either way, this is a unsupported premise I hold. I have never said otherwise.

 

[Jet Black]

I just wanted to be clear. thankyou. So is there anything in your scenario that would falsify it, while not falsifying evolution? (I may have asked this already, but forgotten, sorry if that's the case)