Cambrian Explosion

[Oncedeceived]

just for a moment, why are you so hooked on bringing "all present phyla" up all the time? You do know that phyla are an artificial man made construct and there is nothing especially special about them, don't you?

I am very aware that phyla are a manmade construct just as is most of the terms used in Science. They are special only in that the many forms that life took in this period, and that this fits with what Genesis predicts. I am "hooked" on bringing it in the argument due to it being representive of my views on Genesis.

 

[Jet Black]

I am very aware that phyla are a manmade construct just as is most of the terms used in Science. They are special only in that the many forms that life took in this period, and that this fits with what Genesis predicts. I am "hooked" on bringing it in the argument due to it being representive of my views on Genesis.

but that is only one particular way of grouping them that appeared during the cambrian. some of those phyla could have emerged prior to the cambrian - the cambrian is just when we first see them.

If genesis was written differently, you could look earlier into the precambrian to see the prokaryotes and eukaryotes emerge and treat them as all the forms of life, or you could look later to see all the orders emerge if it suited you. If you take a look at the first "down with phyla" article I linked to, you can see that the position of the nematode mouth in the neural or abneural position is easily alterable an has moved several times independently.

chordates and protostomes are fundamentally differentiated by the position of the mouth, and this difference is even more fundamental than the phyla. So if one of those nematodes had mutated well after the cambrian, say in the teriary, then not all the "phyla" evolved in the cambrian, since these nematodes have a fundamentally different bodyplan - look at figure 1b. you can see that a change within a phylum can effectively create a difference that should effectively give the organism its own whole new phylum. This renders the idea of the formation of the phyla as an argument a bit meaningless, because the changes that led to the modern phyla are no more distinct than the changes that led to the modern classes, orders, genus and species, it just happens to illustrate when they occured.

In short, by bringing the cambrian explosion and phyla into play, I think you are letting loose a bit of a red herring, because arguably you could take any of the arbitrary stages of classification and slot it into genesis wherever the relevant lines on animals forming come to be.

 

[Oncedeceived]

huh? what does that mean? i asked you what evidence would falsify the claim that grasses existed in the precambrian. what you said above does not answer that question, and does not appear to make any sense either.

Let me clarify. I was just saying that I had given some scenerios that my be valid for the verse. One being that grasses might have been present in the precambrian. As I had claimed when giving these scenerios, they can not be substanciated due to the poor fossil record of this period.

not only does the evidence not support the claim that grasses existed in the precambrian, but it clearly implies that they did not. do you agree or disagree?{/Quote]

I disagree. Here:
A study of fossil dinosaur dung has for the first time confirmed that the ancient reptiles ate grass. Grass was previously thought to have become common only after the dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago.
But grasses were probably not a very important part of dinosaur diets - the fossilised faeces show the big beasts ate many different types of plants.
However, the Science journal study suggests grass was possibly an important food for early mammals.
Caroline Strömberg from the Swedish Museum of Natural History and her colleagues studied phytoliths (mineral particles produced by grass and other plants) preserved in fossil dinosaur dung from central India.
Theory dumped
The 65-67 million-year-old dung fossils, or coprolites, are thought to have been made by so-called titanosaur sauropods; large, vegetarian dinosaurs.

Fossil grass phytoliths were found in the dinosaur dung

"It's difficult to tell how widespread [grass grazing] was," Ms Strömberg told the BBC News website, "Dinosaurs seem to have been indiscriminate feeders."
The study also sheds new light on the evolution of grass. Grasses are thought to have undergone a major diversification and geographic proliferation during the so-called Cenozoic, after the dinosaurs had gone extinct.
But the researchers found at least five different types of grass in the droppings.
This suggests grasses had already undergone substantial diversification in the Late Cretaceous, when the giant beasts still walked the Earth.
Defence mechanism
Many grasses today contain high levels of silica, which makes them tough and hard to chew. One theory proposes that this is an evolutionary defence against being eaten by herbivores.
This defence is traditionally thought to have been a response to large-scale grazing by mammals in the Cenozoic. But, if the theory is correct, it raises the possibility that grasses first began developing this defence in response to grazing by dinosaurs.
However, small mammals living alongside the dinosaurs may also have been grass feeders.
An enigmatic group of extinct mammals known as sudamericid gondwanatherians, which lived during the Late Cretaceous, show possible signs of adaptation to a grassy diet.
Their teeth are ideally suited for handling abrasive materials like grass. But because of grass's patchy presence in the fossil record, these features were interpreted as an adaptation to a semi-aquatic, or burrowing, lifestyle like that of modern beavers.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/11/1118_051118_grass_dinos_2.html

Grasses exist today on every continent except Antarctica, and many animals—including humans—depend on them for food.
Scientists have long believed that the now ubiquitous plants first began to spread and diversify some 70 to 60 million years ago.
Fossil evidence had suggested that grasses evolved along with early plant-eating mammals. Hoofed animals with high-crowned teeth suitable for chewing grass first began to appear about 25 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.
The researchers believe that various species of grass had spread before India became geographically isolated from other continents about 125 million years ago.

Now, as you can see it was probably at least 125 million years ago that grasses are believed to be present but during that whole period which is a long period I might add there is no fossil evidence to support that they even existed.

the evidence that grasses did not exist in the precambrian seems to me to be as strong as it possibly could be. i can't imagine what evidence would more strongly imply this, can you?

I think that the articles I provided do give support that they may have been present in the precambrian. Evidence is there that shows that the presence of grasses were around at least 125 million years without one fossil being found of them.

how can you claim that science supports your hypothesis, when you selectively ignore any evidence which suggests you are wrong? that's not how science works.

Am I ignoring it, or are you?

perhaps, but nothing like finding a cow or grasses in the precambrian has EVER happened.

But it is possible that grasses did, and the possibility for a cow is zero to none.

that is quite a different matter. grasses were previously thought to have arrived 55mil years ago, and now we have records over 65mil years. that is the type of find we might expect. it is unreasonable to expect to find them 3 billion years earlier.

If they could exist for 125 million years without us finding them it is not to far a stretch to believe that they could have been in precambrian. Especially when they were first evolving. This evidence shows that there were at least five kinds of grasses in the dino dung. Yet no evidence other than this has ever been found.

well if they existed in the precambrian, they must have existed since then, right? unless of course they existed, went extinct, and then got re-created again 70 million years ago. is that what you're claiming?

As shown they did exist when they were not found in the fossil record yet they were present. So they need not evolve again. They could have been there all the time without any evidence.

and yet we find many earlier fossils of other plants, as you freely admit. grasses are no less likely to fossilize than many of the other earlier plants we have found. so why are those plants preserved, and not grass? not only is grass not found, but grass pollen, which has also been found fossilized, has never been found more than 70mil years ago. furthermore, our modern species that are adapted to living in grasslands, like horses, arrived in the fossil record around the same time. and then all of a sudden we find many fossilized grasses, pollens, horses, etc after this time period. why were they fossilized with such freqency afterwards, but almost not at all before hand? not even once over the period of more than 3 billion years?

I think these articles provide substanciation to my hypothesis.

come on now, you have to realize that this very strongly suggests grasses did not exist until then. do you admit this? if not, i would suspect you of lying.

Really? I don't think lying has any part in my presentation of my viewpoint and I take offense at the implication.

furthermore, i cannot think of evidenc we could possibly find that would suggest this more strongly. can you? what would it be?

No, I think that I have shown that the evidence is absent but not non-existent.

if you can't think of anything stronger, and you still say this claim has not been falsified, then obviously it would not be possible to falsify it, correct?

We have no record of the first life forms but we know they existed right? There are theories that ToE makes about that and they can not be falsified either. Does that make ToE falsified? Well the same is true for Creation. Even if this verse can not be proven or can not be falsified it does not mean that the whole of Genesis or Creation can be either.

it is extremely unlikely that they would have existed for 3.5 billion years, and not ever get fossilized once until 70mil years ago, and then suddenly get frequently fossilized afterwards.

I think I have shown that it is possible and maybe even likely.

you can claim that, but if the fossil record is too incomplete for us to evaluate your predictions, then they can't be falsifiable predictions, can they? evolution, on the other hand, makes prediction about what we should find in the present too, so we don't need the fossil record at all for evolution to be falsifiable.

So does Genesis.

secondly, and more importantly, finding a cow so earlier than sea life would NOT falsify your hypothesis, because you could always claim that sea life existed earlier, and we simply haven't found the fossils to prove it yet, EXACTLY as you are doing with the grasses example. if you can do that with grasses, you can do the same thing with your cow example.

That is a false statement. I could not.

there is also a possibility that leprechauns exist, but i have no reason to believe that it is so. likewise, i have no reason to believe that grasses existed before 70mil years ago.

Then it is you who is ignoring evidence.

yes you did, you said this:

part of the order is that grasses would have existed in the precambrian. you say the fossil record supports the order, how does it support this claim?

I conceded in the beginning that there is no evidence of grasses being in the precambrian but I have shown that the possibility exists that they could be.

any prediction of a hypothesis will falsify the entire hypothesis if the prediction is wrong. so either this prediction about grasses falsifies your hypothesis, or it is not a falsifiable prediction, would you agree?

Ridiculous. That is not how Science works and you know it.

 

[Oncedeceived]

but that is only one particular way of grouping them that appeared during the cambrian. some of those phyla could have emerged prior to the cambrian - the cambrian is just when we first see them.

If genesis was written differently, you could look earlier into the precambrian to see the prokaryotes and eukaryotes emerge and treat them as all the forms of life, or you could look later to see all the orders emerge if it suited you. If you take a look at the first "down with phyla" article I linked to, you can see that the position of the nematode mouth in the neural or abneural position is easily alterable an has moved several times independently.

chordates and protostomes are fundamentally differentiated by the position of the mouth, and this difference is even more fundamental than the phyla. So if one of those nematodes had mutated well after the cambrian, say in the teriary, then not all the "phyla" evolved in the cambrian, since these nematodes have a fundamentally different bodyplan - look at figure 1b. you can see that a change within a phylum can effectively create a difference that should effectively give the organism its own whole new phylum. This renders the idea of the formation of the phyla as an argument a bit meaningless, because the changes that led to the modern phyla are no more distinct than the changes that led to the modern classes, orders, genus and species, it just happens to illustrate when they occured.

In short, by bringing the cambrian explosion and phyla into play, I think you are letting loose a bit of a red herring, because arguably you could take any of the arbitrary stages of classification and slot it into genesis wherever the relevant lines on animals forming come to be.

I've got to get ready for work, if I have time I'll get back to this.

 

[Jet Black]

there is quite a difference between 125 and 525 million years. and the occurance of grass.

Grasses are members of the lillopsida, which are themselves members of the angiosperms, or the flowering plants. So grasses are a subset of a much larger set of plants, and they are not a very basal group either. This means that where we find the earliest traces of grass, we should also find rather alot of angiosperms. For a moment if we assume that the angiosperm fossils that we find are a representative random cross sample of those around at the time, then if we find only basal angiosperms, then it is fair to assume that there are no more modern angiosperms, and thus no grass (remember grasses are not basal).

Another thing that grasses produce by the bucketload is pollen. Pollen gets absolutely everywhere. Pollen is difficult to destroy and fossilizes readily, and there no evidence of grass pollen prior to the early tertiary.

The earliest angiosperms that we find occur about 140 million years ago, prior to this we don't find angiosperms at all, never mind grasses. remember that grasses are not a basal group of angiosperm, so to suggest that grasses would be in the cambrian or precambrian, is to suggest that the more basal angiosperm members must have been there too, in extremely small numbers, but with extremely large variety. that's a bit odd, no?

While grasses are wind pollinated, they have flowers - so in essence they have specialised from the insect pollinated (that's what flowers are for) plants back to wind pollinated. The insect pollinated plants themselves evolved from wind pollinated plants, the gymnosperms. The earliest known gymnosperms did not occur until 395mya, which is a bit better, we are still a hundred million years off the cambrian, and even the precambrian. again, gymnosperms produce lots of pollen, and we just don't see it in the early rocks. So we have no evidence of the ancestors to the angiosperms which themselves are the ancestors to the grasses as far back as the cambrian.

this is just looking at the plants. Other aspects of the angiosperms is that many are insect pollinated, if we have angiosperms, we should have pollinating insects, and polleniverous insects, and we don't find them in the cambrian or precambrian either.

so I think the argument that grasses did not exist in the cambrian is pretty cut and dry, since we don't even find evidence of the next two or three taxa upwards back in the cambrian either.

the argument is hence basically the same as not finding cows in the cambrian. sure there could have been a couple of rogue cows around that far back, but the ancestors of cows are early mammals, and the ancestors of those are the therapsids, and the ancestors of those are reptiles, go back to amphibians and the early tetrapods and finally the vertebrates, and we don't get tetrapods in the cambrian and only find the most basal of jawed vertabrates there.

 

[caravelair]

Let me clarify. I was just saying that I had given some scenerios that my be valid for the verse. One being that grasses might have been present in the precambrian. As I had claimed when giving these scenerios, they can not be substanciated due to the poor fossil record of this period.

but that has nothing to do with what i was asking. i was asking you what possible evidence we could ever find that would falsify the notion that grasses existed in the precambrian. you have been totally avoiding this question. please answer it, or admit that nothing would falsify this to you.

Now, as you can see it was probably at least 125 million years ago that grasses are believed to be present but during that whole period which is a long period I might add there is no fossil evidence to support that they even existed.

so grasses existed 125 million years ago, and you think this is evidence that they existed 3.5 billion years ago? by what you said, we have no evidence of them for a period of about 50 million years. do you realize that this is less than 1.5% of the time between now and the precambrian, right?

I think that the articles I provided do give support that they may have been present in the precambrian.

that is NOT what i asked you. i asked what evidence we could possibly find that would more strongly imply that they did NOT exist in the precambrian, than the evidence we have today. PLEASE ANSWER THIS QUESTION. what evidence could we ever possibly find that would falsify the idea that grasses existed in the precambrian?

Evidence is there that shows that the presence of grasses were around at least 125 million years without one fossil being found of them.

you mean 55 million years without them being found. this is a tiny fraction of the time between now and the precambrian.

Am I ignoring it, or are you?

you are. you have already shown that you will ignore whatever evidence contradicts you. i am not the only person on this thread to point that out, jet black noticed it too.

But it is possible that grasses did, and the possibility for a cow is zero to none.

the chances of finding either in the precambrian is equally low.

If they could exist for 125 million years without us finding them it is not to far a stretch to believe that they could have been in precambrian.

we didn't find them for 55 million years, not 125. and yes, it IS a HUGE stretch to say that they existed for SEVENTY TIMES as long without leaving any trace, and remember, it's not just grasses, it's fruit bearing trees, and a whole host of other types of plants.

No, I think that I have shown that the evidence is absent but not non-existent.

THAT IS NOT WHAT I ASKED. PLEASE stop avoiding this question:

if the evidence we have now does not show that grasses did not exist in the precambrian, then WHAT POSSIBLE EVIDENCE COULD WE EVER FIND THAT WOULD SHOW THIS?

We have no record of the first life forms but we know they existed right?

again you did not answer my question! instead you turn it around and ask me one. would you please give me the simply courtesy of answering a question when i ask it? is it possible to falsify the claim that grasses existed in the precambrian, or not?

There are theories that ToE makes about that and they can not be falsified either. Does that make ToE falsified?

no, i think you misunderstand. having an unfalsifiable prediction does not mean a theory is falsified. in order for a theory to be scientific, it must be falsifiable. in order for it to be falsifiable, it must make falsifiable predictions. let's grant for the sake of argument, that it is impossible to falsify a prediction about what we should find in the precambrian. fine, it doesn't matter for evolution because evolution makes OTHER predictions that CAN be falsified, like nested hierarchy, and present day biogeography. your predictions, on the other hand, seem to be all unfalsifiable, like this one about the grasses. you prediction is the order in genesis. if any aspect of this appears to be wrong, you can just use the same exact copout you are using with grasses, and say that they did exist earlier, we just haven't found the evidence yet!

Well the same is true for Creation. Even if this verse can not be proven or can not be falsified it does not mean that the whole of Genesis or Creation can be either.

then please show me a falsifiable prediction of genesis. so far you have failed to do so.

I think I have shown that it is possible and maybe even likely.

finding grasses 125 million years ago does NOT make it likely that they existed more than 3 billion years earlier.

So does Genesis.

what falsifiable predictions does it make?

That is a false statement. I could not.

how can you possibly claim that? that is the EXACT same defense you are using RIGHT NOW with grasses. we have not found grasses until billions of years after the precambrian, but you are claiming that it's possible they existed then and we just haven't found the fossils yet. suppose we found a cow in the precambrian, earlier than any sea life. you could do the EXACT same thing. you could say that it's possible that sea life existed earlier and we just haven't found fossils of it yet. after all the first life was soft bodied, which rarely fossilizes! you can't claim that you wouldn't do this, because if that were true, you wouldn't be doing the same thing with grasses right now. and that is why this prediction is not falsifiable.

I conceded in the beginning that there is no evidence of grasses being in the precambrian but I have shown that the possibility exists that they could be.

i disagree, but what is more important is that this is not a falsifiable prediction.

Ridiculous. That is not how Science works and you know it.

i do not know that, i know that that IS how science works. general relativity predicts that light will be bent by gravity. if we ever see that this doesn't happen, then bye bye relativity! it would be falsified, and therefore it must not be correct. evolution predicts a twin nested hierarchy, find pegasus, or a minotaur, or a centaur, then common descent is falsified, gone.

 

[Jet Black]

so grasses existed 125 million years ago, and you think this is evidence that they existed 3.5 billion years ago? by what you said, we have no evidence of them for a period of about 50 million years. do you realize that this is less than 1.5% of the time between now and the precambrian, right?

the precambrian is only 590 million years ago. so 125 million years is more like 1/4 or 25% of the time between now and then. not that this percentage is a particularly useful number.

 

[caravelair]

the precambrian is only 590 million years ago. so 125 million years is more like 1/4 or 25% of the time between now and then. not that this percentage is a particularly useful number.

that's the end of the precambrian, but genesis says plants were there before any other life, so they should have been there since the beginning of the precambrian. if i'm not mistaken, we have found life forms around 3.5 billions years ago, have we not? so if grasses were around first, then they should have been around since then.

 

[Godfixated]

The reason why the whole idea of the Cambrian Explosion is kind of ludicrous and, subsequently, the whole geologic column, it doesn't show up the same way all over the earth. There are many places where the timeline is skewed and even reversed. Take the Swiss Alps for instance, the column is upside down and we are finding species that are supposed to be much older are above the species that are much younger. But, this is handled like all other failures of evolution it seems, by keeping it on the down low.

 

[dad]

that's the end of the precambrian, but genesis says plants were there before any other life, so they should have been there since the beginning of the precambrian. if i'm not mistaken, we have found life forms around 3.5 billions years ago, have we not? so if grasses were around first, then they should have been around since then.

They were around, but only in the Eden area, so we don't see them at large in the fossil record.

 

[Jet Black]

The reason why the whole idea of the Cambrian Explosion is kind of ludicrous and, subsequently, the whole geologic column, it doesn't show up the same way all over the earth. There are many places where the timeline is skewed and even reversed. Take the Swiss Alps for instance, the column is upside down and we are finding species that are supposed to be much older are above the species that are much younger. But, this is handled like all other failures of evolution it seems, by keeping it on the down low.

my suggestion to you is that you don't talk about things in which you obviously have no knowledge as if you are some kind of authority on the matter, because it makes you look like a fool. Far better would be to ask questions instead like "don't the reversed stata in the alps present a problem for evolution"

 

[Oncedeceived]

there is quite a difference between 125 and 525 million years. and the occurance of grass.

Grasses are members of the lillopsida, which are themselves members of the angiosperms, or the flowering plants. So grasses are a subset of a much larger set of plants, and they are not a very basal group either. This means that where we find the earliest traces of grass, we should also find rather alot of angiosperms. For a moment if we assume that the angiosperm fossils that we find are a representative random cross sample of those around at the time, then if we find only basal angiosperms, then it is fair to assume that there are no more modern angiosperms, and thus no grass (remember grasses are not basal).

Again, absence does not mean non-existance. As I have shown in the article that I presented, there were five different types of grasses all of which where only found in the fossilized dino dung and not a single fossil of grass (or pollen) has been found in that time period . So it is in evidence that grass in fact many types of grass were present in this time period but it was not fossilized.

Another thing that grasses produce by the bucketload is pollen. Pollen gets absolutely everywhere. Pollen is difficult to destroy and fossilizes readily, and there no evidence of grass pollen prior to the early tertiary.

This is true, but the discovery of the fossilized dung is evidence that they were in fact found in the Cretaceous and some evidence may have been found as early as the Jurassic. Now you know that they just didn't appear spontaneously, they had to have been around longer than that for there to have been five different types.

The earliest angiosperms that we find occur about 140 million years ago, prior to this we don't find angiosperms at all, never mind grasses.

It is believed (for now) that they evolved in the Jurassic (208 to 146) and yet we see that five types of grasses were present during this time or shortly thereafter which means that they were possibly found earlier and maybe much earlier.

remember that grasses are not a basal group of angiosperm, so to suggest that grasses would be in the cambrian or precambrian, is to suggest that the more basal angiosperm members must have been there too, in extremely small numbers, but with extremely large variety. that's a bit odd, no?

It would not be unusual for precursors of each to evolve much earlier that would not fit in the basal or non-basal group at all. It would then be difficult to 'find' them because we would not even know what we were looking for.

While grasses are wind pollinated, they have flowers - so in essence they have specialised from the insect pollinated (that's what flowers are for) plants back to wind pollinated. The insect pollinated plants themselves evolved from wind pollinated plants, the gymnosperms. The earliest known gymnosperms did not occur until 395mya, which is a bit better, we are still a hundred million years off the cambrian, and even the precambrian

You just told me that 125 million years is a short time period and yet here you are claiming that it is far removed. Which is it.

. again, gymnosperms produce lots of pollen, and we just don't see it in the early rocks. So we have no evidence of the ancestors to the angiosperms which themselves are the ancestors to the grasses as far back as the cambrian.

We have no evidence in the Cretaceous but they were there. Don't you admit that it is possible that there were there and we just haven't discovered any evidence as of yet.

this is just looking at the plants. Other aspects of the angiosperms is that many are insect pollinated, if we have angiosperms, we should have pollinating insects, and polleniverous insects, and we don't find them in the cambrian or precambrian either.

It is very possible even probable that the earliest insects could have been soft bodied and hard to fossilize. In fact, I have read an article and I will try to find it that supports my view on this.

the argument is hence basically the same as not finding cows in the cambrian. sure there could have been a couple of rogue cows around that far back, but the ancestors of cows are early mammals, and the ancestors of those are the therapsids, and the ancestors of those are reptiles, go back to amphibians and the early tetrapods and finally the vertebrates, and we don't get tetrapods in the cambrian and only find the most basal of jawed vertabrates there.

I hope you are not serious. It is far from a rogue cow or two. Are you claiming that the possibility of finding grasses in the precambrian is as unlikely as finding cows???

 

[Oncedeceived]

but that has nothing to do with what i was asking. i was asking you what possible evidence we could ever find that would falsify the notion that grasses existed in the precambrian. you have been totally avoiding this question. please answer it, or admit that nothing would falsify this to you.

I have answered it, several times I believe. Here is one just a few posts up:
We have no record of the first life forms but we know they existed right? There are theories that ToE makes about that and they can not be falsified either. Does that make ToE falsified? Well the same is true for Creation. Even if this verse can not be proven or can not be falsified it does not mean that the whole of Genesis or Creation can be either.

that is NOT what i asked you. i asked what evidence we could possibly find that would more strongly imply that they did NOT exist in the precambrian, than the evidence we have today. PLEASE ANSWER THIS QUESTION. what evidence could we ever possibly find that would falsify the idea that grasses existed in the precambrian?

It is not falsifible, but as I have shown, ToE has theories that can not be falsified as well.

you mean 55 million years without them being found. this is a tiny fraction of the time between now and the precambrian.

No I mean 125 million years. The article which I presented gives support to this.

you are. you have already shown that you will ignore whatever evidence contradicts you. i am not the only person on this thread to point that out, jet black noticed it too.

What am I ignoring?

the chances of finding either in the precambrian is equally low.

Do you honestly believe this?

we didn't find them for 55 million years, not 125.

We found them in the Cretaceous period which is 146 to 65 mya, and that was five kinds. Don't you think that it would be rather strange that they just spontaniously arrived in five different ways in this period?

THAT IS NOT WHAT I ASKED. PLEASE stop avoiding this question:

Please notice that I have.

again you did not answer my question! instead you turn it around and ask me one. would you please give me the simply courtesy of answering a question when i ask it? is it possible to falsify the claim that grasses existed in the precambrian, or not?

You ask me questions, I ask you questions...I thought that was what debate was all about.

no, i think you misunderstand. having an unfalsifiable prediction does not mean a theory is falsified. in order for a theory to be scientific, it must be falsifiable. in order for it to be falsifiable, it must make falsifiable predictions. let's grant for the sake of argument, that it is impossible to falsify a prediction about what we should find in the precambrian. fine, it doesn't matter for evolution because evolution makes OTHER predictions that CAN be falsified, like nested hierarchy, and present day biogeography. your predictions, on the other hand, seem to be all unfalsifiable, like this one about the grasses. you prediction is the order in genesis. if any aspect of this appears to be wrong, you can just use the same exact copout you are using with grasses, and say that they did exist earlier, we just haven't found the evidence yet!

Like I said, so does Genesis.

then please show me a falsifiable prediction of genesis. so far you have failed to do so.

Yes, I have. You are ignoring it. There is an order with man coming last in that order. If mankind came earlier that would falsify Genesis. If mammals came before sea life, that would falsify Genesis.

how can you possibly claim that? that is the EXACT same defense you are using RIGHT NOW with grasses. we have not found grasses until billions of years after the precambrian, but you are claiming that it's possible they existed then and we just haven't found the fossils yet. suppose we found a cow in the precambrian, earlier than any sea life. you could do the EXACT same thing. you could say that it's possible that sea life existed earlier and we just haven't found fossils of it yet. after all the first life was soft bodied, which rarely fossilizes! you can't claim that you wouldn't do this, because if that were true, you wouldn't be doing the same thing with grasses right now. and that is why this prediction is not falsifiable.

I think that I have given valid reason behind this veiwpoint. I will bring in more support if you wish.

 

[Edx]

Yes, I have. You are ignoring it. There is an order with man coming last in that order. If mankind came earlier that would falsify Genesis. If mammals came before sea life, that would falsify Genesis..

How about the order that the earth was created before the sun? How about the order that plant life was created before the sun?

Oops! Genesis falsified.

 

[caravelair]

I have answered it, several times I believe. Here is one just a few posts up:
We have no record of the first life forms but we know they existed right? There are theories that ToE makes about that and they can not be falsified either. Does that make ToE falsified? Well the same is true for Creation. Even if this verse can not be proven or can not be falsified it does not mean that the whole of Genesis or Creation can be either.

you did not answer, you said even if it can't be falsified. that does not tell me whether you think it can be falsifed or not. i am not asking you to make excuses, i'm just asking whether you think it is falsifiable or not. apparantly you are implying that it is not, but i wish you would come out and say it directly.

by the way, i think jet black's comment about the fossilization of pollen sort of puts the nail in the coffin on that one. pollen fossilizes easily, so why did we not ever see it once until 140 million years ago? no pollen AT ALL for over 3 billion years, and then all of a sudden it's all over the place? how could evidence possibly suggest more strongly that something didn't exist until then? personally, i think that this IS falsifiable, and that it has been falsified. the only way to get out of saying it has been falsified is to play this game of evidence that hasn't been found, and say it's unfalsifiable. of course, that would make every other claim you make about order in the fossil record unfalsifiable too.

It is not falsifible,

thank you!

...but as I have shown, ToE has theories that can not be falsified as well.

but evolution does have many falsifiable predictions, whereas none of your predictions about order can possibly be any more falsifiable than the grass one, because they are the exact same type of prediction.

No I mean 125 million years. The article which I presented gives support to this.

the article says they were found 125 million years ago. since we find them 70 million years ago, and more recently, that is a gap of 55 million years. and i'll bet we've found pollen during that gap too.

What am I ignoring?

for example, the evidence that grasses did not exist until more recently than you claim.

Do you honestly believe this?

yes, of course i do. that is what the evidence indicates, that they did not evolve until much more recently. why would i believe otherwise?

We found them in the Cretaceous period which is 146 to 65 mya, and that was five kinds. Don't you think that it would be rather strange that they just spontaniously arrived in five different ways in this period?

from what i saw, your article said 125mya. and no, i don't think that is so strange, that's how evolution works. and of course, you still have that pollen problem to deal with.

Please notice that I have.

i do not see that you have directly answered this question anywhere. i will assume that this means your answer is "it is impossible to have evidence that more strongly indicates grasses did not exist in the precambrian than the evidence we have now". would you agree with this statement?

You ask me questions, I ask you questions...I thought that was what debate was all about.

but there's no point in asking questions if you do not expect an answer!

Like I said, so does Genesis.

so does genesis what? make falsifiable predictions? then what are they?

Yes, I have. You are ignoring it. There is an order with man coming last in that order. If mankind came earlier that would falsify Genesis. If mammals came before sea life, that would falsify Genesis.

and if sea life came before grasses, that would falsify genesis... oh wait.

i am not ignoring anything. i am just pointing out, that none of your order predictions can possibly be any more falsifiable than the one about grasses. grasses are supposed to come before sea life. they didn't, so you claim that "they were there earlier and we just haven't found the evidence yet." sea life is supposed to come before mammals, but if that wasn't what we found, then you could claim that sea life "was there earlier, and we just haven't found the evidence yet." if you are allowed to play this game and say that your grass prediction is unfalsifiable, then all of your other predictions about the fossil record must also be unfalsifiable, because you can play the exact same game with any of them!

how is the evidence that grasses did not exist in the precambrian any less strong than the evidence that mammals did not?

I think that I have given valid reason behind this veiwpoint. I will bring in more support if you wish.

yes, i would like to see how you justify the idea that any of those predictions are any more falsifiable than the grass one.

 

[caravelair]

How about the order that the earth was created before the sun? How about the order that plant life was created before the sun?

Oops! Genesis falsified.

no, see... the creationist method is to ignore the falsifying evidence. filter it out so that only uncontradictory evidence remains. so you see, genesis is only falsified by the flawed naturalist scientific method! you know, the one that doesn't allow for miracles and other untestable claims?

 

[Oncedeceived]

How about the order that the earth was created before the sun? How about the order that plant life was created before the sun?

Oops! Genesis falsified.

1. Earth before sun: I would like to see the evidence that you feel provides proof that the sun was formed before the earth.

2. I applaud you, this is the most valid argument against precambrian grasses, plants. It creates a problem for my hypothesis for them. I have also provided another scenerio in my theory which has merit in this case. But to stay with the scenerio that I have been discussing I will provide some valid argument for plant life without sunlight.

First land plants and fungi changed earth's climate, paving the way for explosive evolution of land animals, new gene study suggests

[SIZE=-1] Full size image available through contact[/SIZE]

The largest genetic study ever performed to learn when land plants and fungi first appeared on the Earth has revealed a plausible biological cause for two major climate events: the Snowball Earth eras, when ice periodically covered the globe, and the era called the Cambrian Explosion, which produced the first fossils of almost all major categories of animals living today.
According to the authors of the study, which will be published in the 10 August 2001 issue of the journal Science, plants paved the way for the evolution of land animals by simultaneously increasing the percentage of oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere and decreasing the percentage of carbon dioxide, a powerful greenhouse gas.
"Our research shows that land plants and fungi evolved much earlier than previously thought--before the Snowball Earth and Cambrian Explosion events--suggesting their presence could have had a profound effect on the climate and the evolution of life on Earth," says Blair Hedges, an evolutionary biologist and leader of the Penn State research team that performed the study.
The researchers found that land plants had evolved on Earth by about 700 million years ago and land fungi by about 1,300 million years ago--much earlier than previous estimates of around 480 million years ago, which were based on the earliest fossils of those organisms.
Prior to this study, it was believed that Earth's landscape at that time was covered with barren rocks harboring nothing more than some bacteria and possibly some algae. No undisputed fossils of the earliest land plants and fungi have been found in rocks formed during the Precambrian period, says Hedges, possibly because their primitive bodies were too soft to turn into fossils.
The early appearance on the land of fungi and plants suggests their plausible role in both the mysterious lowering of the Earth's surface temperature during the series of Snowball Earth events roughly 750 million to 580 million years ago and the sudden appearance of many new species of fossil animals during the Cambrian Explosion era roughly 530 million years ago.
"Both the lowering of the Earth's surface temperature and the evolution of many new types of animals could result from a decrease in atmospheric carbon dioxide and a rise in oxygen caused by the presence on land of lichen fungi and plants at this time, which our research suggests," Hedges says.
"An increase in land plant abundance may have occurred at the time just before the period known as the Cambrian Explosion, when the next Snowball Earth period failed to occur because temperatures did not get quite cold enough," Hedges says. "The plants conceivably boosted oxygen levels in the atmosphere high enough for animals to develop skeletons, grow larger, and diversify."
Lichens are believed to have been the first fungi to team up with photosynthesizing organisms like cyanobacteria and green algae. Lichens can live without rain for months, providing protection for photosynthesizing organisms, which produce oxygen and release it into the atmosphere.
The researchers suggest that the pioneer lichen fungi, which produce acids strong enough to dissolve rocks, also could have helped to reduce carbon dioxide. When washed away by rainwater, the calcium released from the lichen-encrusted rocks eventually forms calcium carbonate limestone in the ocean, preventing the carbon atoms from forming the greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, in the atmosphere.
Land plants also can lower levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. They have molecules called lignins, which contain carbon but do not readily decompose. After the plant dies, some of its carbon remains locked up in the lignins and can become buried in the Earth through geologic processes, preventing those carbon atoms from returning to the atmosphere and effectively lowering atmospheric carbon dioxide.
"The Earth cools when you take away carbon dioxide," Hedges says. "Other factors such as the location of the continents may have had some effect in cooling the atmosphere and creating periods of Snowball Earth, but I suspect the biggest cooling effect came from the reduction of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by fungi and plants, which we have shown were living on the land at that time."
Fossil fuels like coal and oil are made from plant material, containing carbon that was taken out of the atmosphere and buried in swamps millions of years ago. Releasing those same carbon atoms back into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels appears to be causing the Earth to get warmer again, according to many studies.
Hedges and his research team made their surprising discoveries about the early appearance on Earth of the first land plants and fungi by studying as many of the genes as possible of their descendants--the species of plants and fungi living today. They began by sifting through their molecular fingerprints--the unique sequences of amino-acid building blocks--in many thousands of genes from hundreds of species archived in the public gene-sequence databases.
Eventually, they found 119 genes common to living species of fungi, plants, and animals that met the researchers' stringent criteria for use as "molecular clocks." Previous studies had used a single gene. By detailed comparisons of the amino-acid sequences of individual genes among numbers of species, the scientists identified those genes that had accumulated mutations at a fairly constant rate relative to one another during their evolution. "Because mutations start occurring at regular intervals in these genes as soon as a new species evolves--like the ticking of a clock--we can use them to trace the evolutionary history of a species back to its time of origin," Hedges explains.
The scientists calibrated each of their gene clocks with evolutionary events well established by fossil studies, primarily those in the history of animals. Using these known dates as secure calibration points, and the mutation rate for each of the constant-rate genes as a timing device, the researchers were able to determine how long ago each of the species originated.
Hedges says his research might help in the search for life on other planets by providing a link between the different stages of life's evolution on Earth and the timing of events in the chemical evolution of Earth's atmosphere, such as the rise in oxygen. "Possibly the early history of life on Earth can give us clues for predicting the kinds of lifeforms that are likely to exist on planets in other solar systems from the chemical content of their atmospheres," Hedges says.

###​

In addition to Hedges, the Penn State research team includes Daniel S. Heckman, an undergraduate student whose senior honors thesis formed part of this research; David M. Geiser, assistant professor of plant pathology; and undergraduate students Brooke R. Eidell; Rebecca L. Stauffer; and Natalie L. Kardos. This research was supported, in part, by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration through the Penn State Astrobiology Research Center.

This was to support that precambrian plant life existed. Now for the sunlight problem.

E.T. Life-Forms Might Resemble Newly Discovered Microbial Community

Image: NASA
Far below a mountain range in Idaho, in hydrothermal waters circulating through igneous rocks, lurks a unique community of microbes that may one day help scientists find similar forms of life on other planets. According to a report published today in the journal Nature, the newly discovered organisms are "unlike any previously described on earth."

Indeed, the researchers assert that, based on what scientists know about the subsurface chemistry of Mars, this novel ecosystem resembles what might be expected on the Red Planet. In fact, they chose the site for exactly that reason. "The water deep within these volcanic rocks has been isolated from the surface for thousands of years," explains study co-author Francis Chappelle of the U.S. Geological Survey. "It is devoid of measurable organic matter, but contains significant amounts of hydrogen." The team discovered that this hydrogen was being put to good use. More than 90 percent of the new microorganisms belong to a primitive group known as the Archaea. But unlike Earth environments in which organisms feed on organic matter produced by plants from sunlight energy, this habitat completely lacks sunlight. "In this case," Lovley notes, "the Archaea were methane-producing microorganisms that live by combining hydrogen with carbon dioxide to make methane gas." The finding provides the first evidence that certain microorganisms can survive without sunlight and can instead exploit hydrogen gas released from deep within the earth's surface as an energy source. "Now that such a community has been discovered, we can use it to test hypotheses about hydrogen-based subsurface life," Lovley explains, "and use these findings to develop strategies for searching for similar microbial communities on other planets." --Sarah Graham

[FONT=geneva,arial,verdana][SIZE=+1] Hidden Oceans Could Still Support Life[/SIZE][/FONT]​

[FONT=geneva,arial,verdana][SIZE=-1] PRESS RELEASE
Date Released: Friday, June 15, 2001
Source: SETI Institute[/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT=geneva,arial,verdana][SIZE=-1]

Could life thrive where the Sun never shines? The answer to this unorthodox question bears directly on the tantalizing possibility that life exists in the hidden, perpetually dark oceans that are thought to shroud some of Jupiter's moons, most prominently Europa.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=geneva,arial,verdana][SIZE=-1]Recent work by Christopher Chyba (SETI Institute) and Kevin Hand (Stanford University) suggests that there may be ways to nourish biology on watery environments where the Sun's rays don't penetrate. The two researchers have published their work in the June 15 issue of Science.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=geneva,arial,verdana][SIZE=-1]"Most surface life on Earth - on land or in the seas - depends on photosynthesis," notes Chyba. "The first link in the food chain is chlorophyll's conversion of sunlight into chemically stored energy. But imagine an ocean on Europa, a huge, bottled-up body of water capped with miles of ice. Photosynthesis isn't going to work there. Nonetheless, there are other ways to make a metabolic living in those dark seas."[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=geneva,arial,verdana][SIZE=-1]Recent results from NASA's Galileo spacecraft have strongly suggested the presence of subsurface oceans not only on Europa, but also its sister moons, Callisto and Ganymede. Since liquid water is usually considered a prerequisite for the development of life, these nearby worlds are intriguing locales to search for extraterrestrial biology.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=geneva,arial,verdana][SIZE=-1]However, more than water is required. An energy source is necessary to support life. Chyba and Hand point out that this is usually obtained by oxidation-reduction reactions in which two substances (for example, carbon and oxygen) bond to share an electron, releasing energy during the reaction. An important oxidizing agent in Earth's oceans is molecular oxygen (O2), the product of photosynthesis. But one would expect this to be in short supply in the inky abysses of the Jovian moons.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=geneva,arial,verdana][SIZE=-1]However, Chyba and Hand note that Europa's icy exterior is routinely bombarded with high-speed particles accelerated in Jupiter's magnetosphere. When they slam into the Europan ice, they form oxidants such as H2O2 and O2. If, as could be the case, this surface food supply eventually gets churned into the ocean below, it could provide sustenance to a substantial biomass.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=geneva,arial,verdana][SIZE=-1]"We can't be certain at this point whether the oxidants would actually make it into the water, even over geological time scales," says Chyba. "But if not, there are other mechanisms that might be a source for molecular oxygen in the oceans."[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=geneva,arial,verdana][SIZE=-1]One of these is the radioactive decay of a potassium isotope 40K, which would be present in both the ice crust and the liquid water. The decay splits water molecules and produces O2. Although the quantity of oxidant produced in this way is less than could be supplied by the surface effects of charged particles, it would still be enough to support a biosphere.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=geneva,arial,verdana][SIZE=-1]"Obviously, we don't know if life exists on these moons," Chyba emphasizes, "but at least we can say that if the oceans are there, the compounds that could supply energy for life seem likely to be present."[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=geneva,arial,verdana][SIZE=-1]For further information, contact:[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=geneva,arial,verdana][SIZE=-1]Christopher Chyba, SETI Institute[/SIZE][/FONT]

 

[Oncedeceived]

I got up late so now I haven't anymore time. Sorry

 

[Jet Black]

I hope you are not serious. It is far from a rogue cow or two. Are you claiming that the possibility of finding grasses in the precambrian is as unlikely as finding cows???

yes. you are claiming basically that several taxonomic levels of plants - angiosperms, gymnosperms, vascular plants and their pollen along with their related fauna, just happen to have not fossilized for hundreds of millions of years. For hundreds of millions of years we are just unlucky to have not found a single example of Viridiplantae?

I could say the same about the mammals couldn't I? and if not, why not? Perhaps all the therapsids were wandering round in the precambrian just luckily managing to avoid fossilization along with the vascular plants, while some groups split off to form the mammals, ungulates and so on.

It is very possible even probable that the earliest insects could have been soft bodied and hard to fossilize. In fact, I have read an article and I will try to find it that supports my view on this.

no no, I mean the earliest pollinating or polleniverous insects. to get away with your suggestion you would end up relying on rather alot of convergent evolution, since the soft bodied polliniverous insects would have to evolve to look as if they are the descendents of the hard bodied insects that have the appearange of being their ancestors. Unless of course there are a bunch of other soft bodied pollinating basal insects that we haven't actually found yet that died off for a few hundred million years though existed right up to the silurian when we first see the vascular plants, but then died off when the hard bodied insects (after all this time) finally got round to being pollinating and polleniverous insects?

 

[caravelair]

yes. you are claiming basically that several taxonomic levels of plants - angiosperms, gymnosperms, vascular plants and their pollen along with their related fauna, just happen to have not fossilized for hundreds of millions of years. For hundreds of millions of years we are just unlucky to have not found a single example of Viridiplantae?

I could say the same about the mammals couldn't I? and if not, why not? Perhaps all the therapsids were wandering round in the precambrian just luckily managing to avoid fossilization along with the vascular plants, while some groups split off to form the mammals, ungulates and so on.

that's exactly what i've been saying - either the order in genesis is falsified, or it is entirely unfalsifiable. take your pick. i vote for the former, but either way, it ain't science.