Darwins Doubt - Cambrian Explosion

[Subduction Zone]

Yes that Noah survived is a miracle and probably not possible without supernatural intervention. I would suspect that there were better boats that sunk at the time.

I am all for exploring the asteroid belt to find those chunks of Atlantis but to be honest I do not know if that theory is true or not. There is no biblical support for it except for the violence and destructive power of the flood on earth on the basis of which it is hypothesised.

You also discredit your own posts when you misuse the word "theory". The claim that asteroids are bits of the Earth is a WAG at best. A theory is a concept that is falsifiable, that means there must be reasonable tests that could show whether it is wrong. It needs to be well supported by evidence. That is not the case with Brown's "Hydroplate Theory". When you rely on the work of people that are incompetent at best you tend to look to be the same. It is not a wise debating technique.

 

[PsychoSarah]

The land was the last bit to be flooded which is why land animal fossils are generally found in the highest layers.

Yet, not all together or in the layers by order of which could swim the best. Shouldn't elephants be in a lower layer than, say, crocodiles?

The flood appears to have been far more than a simple raising of water levels. The springs of the deep opened which as we know today probably involved major seismic activity , tectonic plate movement, earthquakes and tsunamis.

I bolded the stuff that isn't in the bible.

The spontaneous creation of massive anoxic zones, rapidly moving currents of water burying everything in their path.

By that logic, certain locals should have high concentrations of organisms in every layer starting from the first layer in which there are fossils and ending suddenly at a final layer that marks where the last organism in that area died before it was buried. This is not what we observe.

So you are looking at superheated or toxic waters rising from below killing stuff from below, currents running at hundreds of miles an hour moving sideways and a continual and unrelenting torrential rainful shutting out the sunlight for more than 40 days under dark rain clouds

-_- another person that takes the 40 days literally, even though it's just an ancient phrase that means "a very long time". It's the same thing as taking this statement literally: "gosh, it took me forever to get my homework done".

 

[Motherofkittens]

What's with the Ad-hominem attacks? Sheesh.

[ I hit post too soon.]

That wasn't an ad-hominem, but even if it was it was definitely a non-fallacious ad-hominem.

To the OP
We don't know everything about everything yet, but the so called "Cambrian explosion " is not a problem. No more so than going to ancestry type places and it only going back a few 100 years.

 

[mindlight]

Yet, not all together or in the layers by order of which could swim the best. Shouldn't elephants be in a lower layer than, say, crocodiles?



I bolded the stuff that isn't in the bible.


By that logic, certain locals should have high concentrations of organisms in every layer starting from the first layer in which there are fossils and ending suddenly at a final layer that marks where the last organism in that area died before it was buried. This is not what we observe.



-_- another person that takes the 40 days literally, even though it's just an ancient phrase that means "a very long time". It's the same thing as taking this statement literally: "gosh, it took me forever to get my homework done".

I take scriptures literally where the style warrants that. Genesis is written in an historical style.

Honestly I have no idea about the fossil distribution by layers , it is one of my questions which I suspect will have to wait for the afterlife for a proper answer. But closeness to shore is the best answer I have heard.

Seismic activity, earthquakes and tectonic plate movement are logical consequences of the biblical description.

 

[Speedwell]

I take scriptures literally where the style warrants that. Genesis is written in an historical style.

What elements of style can you point to which indicate that Genesis was written as an historical-positivist narrative?

 

[mindlight]

You also discredit your own posts when you misuse the word "theory". The claim that asteroids are bits of the Earth is a WAG at best. A theory is a concept that is falsifiable, that means there must be reasonable tests that could show whether it is wrong. It needs to be well supported by evidence. That is not the case with Brown's "Hydroplate Theory". When you rely on the work of people that are incompetent at best you tend to look to be the same. It is not a wise debating technique.

The best way to disprove the asteroid theory is to send a spaceship to them to conduct a full set of tests.

You are an atheist evolutionist and making personal accusations against this guy Brown designed to marginalise him and diminish his appeal. I shall have to look the man up he comes highly recommended.

 

[mindlight]

What elements of style can you point to which indicate that Genesis was written as an historical-positivist narrative?

Did I use the word positivist

 

[Speedwell]

Did I use the word positivist

No, I did. There are, and have been, many ways of writing historical narrative. Historical positivism is, I believe, the historiographical category which comes closest to describing the "literal inerrancy" of creationism.

 

[PsychoSarah]

I take scriptures literally where the style warrants that. Genesis is written in an historical style.

History books sometimes use idioms too, but I still have the sense to recognize them for what they are and know that idioms are not to be taken literally. It's known that times given in units of 40 are an idiom in ancient Hebrew that means "a very long time" and is not supposed to be taken as a literal time frame.

Honestly I have no idea about the fossil distribution by layers , it is one of my questions which I suspect will have to wait for the afterlife for a proper answer. But closeness to shore is the best answer I have heard.

-_- If the entire world flooded in, say, a day, do you honestly think that the crocodiles would have sunk before the elephants? Before gorillas, which can't swim? Why aren't hippos found in the exact same layers as the crocodiles when they live in the same type of environment?

Seismic activity, earthquakes and tectonic plate movement are logical consequences of the biblical description.

Irrelevant; not in the bible, and are you really going to try to apply "logical consequences" to an event you have claimed was so special that it defies radioactive dating methods?

 

[Job 33:6]

Aside from the variety of life found in the ediacaran, there is also cloudina and sinotubulites that also predate the cambrian explosion. The two latter are potential transitionals and or have morphological similarities to cambrian life, further leading up the cambrian.

Cloudinidae - Wikipedia

http://www.paleo.pan.pl/people/Dzik/Publications/Verdun.pdf

Abstract:
All of the structurally identifiable latest Ediacaran and earliest Cambrian infaunal trace fossils represent shelters of animals feeding above the sediment surface. It is the case with the most complete and oldest radiometrically dated Precambrian–Cambrian transition strata along the Khorbusuonka River in northern Siberia, in the basal Cambrian succession at Meishucun in southern China, richest in small shelly fossils, as well as in the type succession of the Vendian in Podolia, Ukraine. The oldest traces of feeding within the mud are known from no earlier than the late Tommotian of Siberia, Mongolia, Sweden, and Poland. This suggests that the inven-tion of hydraulic mechanisms of sediment penetration was enforced by predation, not by trophic needs. Various ways to protect the body by secretion of a mineral skeleton or building tubes by collected mineral grains were developed by other animals at the same time. Predation may thus appear to be the triggering mechanism for the ‘Cambrian explosion’. Subsequent increase in the depth of bioturbation resulted in a profound change of taphonomic conditions, artificially
enhancing the effects of evolution

 

[Job 33:6]

Yes Meyer addresses this rather feeble attempt to explain the problem away (Chapter on the Not missing fossils) that has been employed for what seem like ideological reasons as the evidence does not support them. For example 20 distinct Phyla type fossils spontaneously emerged in the Cambrian era. In the preceding pre- Cambian eras there were only 3 and they were not morphologically analogous to most of the forms that spontaneously emerged in the Cambrian era. The preCambian fossil precursors are missing and there is not really away around the problem for evolutionists. Gould tried by suggesting punctuated equilibrium (evolution by jerks as opposed to evolution by creeps) but the lack of experimental forms in the fossil record give no evidential grounds to support his theory.

As Budd and Jensens analysis of this concluded:

"The expected Darwinian pattern of a deep fossil history of the bilaterians, potentially showing their gradual development , stretching hundreds of millions of years into the Precambrian has singularly failed to materialise."

Also, the Cambrian explosion happened over some 30-50, to even 100 million years depending on the fossils you take into account leading up to the explosion itself.

The cambrian explosion didnt occur for some 80 million years after the appearance of soft bodied complex animals of the ediacaran. And it didnt occur until 40 million years after the earliest shelled organisms on the planet.

Darwin also was not aware of the rifting of rodinia and the end of snowball earth which preceded the cambrian "explosion".

But really, not only with the rifting of rodinia (shallow marine, warm temperate expansion) and the end of snowball earth, was the planet more hospitable. The cambrian explosion can also be attributed to the "explosion" of shelled animals vs prior soft bodied. It isnt so much that life simply appeared out of nowhere, rather shelled life, has "appeared", only it didnt appear instantaneously, as shelled life had predated the explosion by 40 million years. It exploded in an evolutionary arms race, combined with preferential fossilization of shelled organisms vs prior soft bodied organisms.

 

[Job 33:6]

As a Creationist I would have to say that millions of years is not spontaneous at all. But the ID guys are right in suggesting that some of the Phyla fossils that simply appeared without precursors in the Cambrian era are too complex to have evolved by chance in the relatively short time (by evolutionary standards and requirements) allotted to them by the geological record..

The cambrian explosion is predated by tens of millions of years, by soft bodied organisms. This is no brief amount of time, biologically speaking.

 

[Subduction Zone]

The best way to disprove the asteroid theory is to send a spaceship to them to conduct a full set of tests.

You are an atheist evolutionist and making personal accusations against this guy Brown designed to marginalise him and diminish his appeal. I shall have to look the man up he comes highly recommended.

No, it is disproven by simple Newtonian physics. There simply is not enough energy in anything falling from the Earth to send an object into space. When we get very rare meteorites from Mars those are the result of a very high energy meteorite or asteroid striking Mars from far outside of its gravity well:

Martian meteorite - Wikipedia

Just because an uneducated or dishonest person makes a crazy claim does not mean that we need to take him seriously. You need to refer to real scientists, not pretenders and wannabes.

 

[Job 33:6]

The land was the last bit to be flooded which is why land animal fossils are generally found in the highest layers.

This just isn't true. This is just completely made up and there is no scientific basis for it.

 

[Almost there]

[ I hit post too soon.]

That wasn't an ad-hominem, but even if it was it was definitely a non-fallacious ad-hominem.

To the OP
We don't know everything about everything yet, but the so called "Cambrian explosion " is not a problem. No more so than going to ancestry type places and it only going back a few 100 years.

I don't think the cambrian explosion is a problem either. It's a "thing" because current evolution theory can't explain it.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I don't think the cambrian explosion is a problem either. It's a "thing" because current evolution theory can't explain it.

Why do you think that it can't be explained? The fact is that creationists won't let themselves understand the explanation. No one in the scientific community thinks that it is a problem at all today.

 

[Ophiolite]

Why do you think that it can't be explained? The fact is that creationists won't let themselves understand the explanation. No one in the scientific community thinks that it is a problem at all today.

With respect, it is definitely a problem. If there were no problems there would be no need of science. It is an interesting problem because we have not yet determined a solution to it, though several plausible possibilities exist. You are correct that it is not a problem in the sense that creationists mean it. i.e. It is not an insurmountable problem.

 

[Almost there]

Why do you think that it can't be explained? The fact is that creationists won't let themselves understand the explanation. No one in the scientific community thinks that it is a problem at all today.

I simply don't buy the explanations I've heard.

The main issue in all of this is that folks on both sides trust some authority regarding the information they receive and use to form their opinion, but different people trust different authorities.

And both sides have valid reasons to trust as well as distrust the authorities on the subject. This is why I follow this more for comic relief these days.

Why is it comic relief? Because nobody was there. Nobody KNOWS how things happen. Both the ID and Evolution sides have explanations that are technically possible, but neither can be proven to be the answer, so in the end it is just two religions arguing against each other. I know which side I'm on and I'm good with that. As I've followed this debate for going on 40 years I've only seen evidence to bolster my position, so I'm still good with it.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I simply don't buy the explanations I've heard.

That is simply because of your ignorance and bias. Here is a little test for you, is there any reliable evidence to the contrary? Your personal interpretation of the Bible does not count as being reliable.

The main issue in all of this is that folks on both sides trust some authority regarding the information they receive and use to form their opinion, but different people trust different authorities.

There are no valid authorities that oppose this. Once again, people that base their beliefs upon their personal interpretation of the Bible are not authorities.

And both sides have valid reasons to trust as well as distrust the authorities on the subject. This is why I follow this more for comic relief these days.

Really? I have yet to see a valid authority that opposes the theory.

Why is it comic relief? Because nobody was there. Nobody KNOWS how things happen. Both the ID and Evolution sides have explanations that are technically possible, but neither can be proven to be the answer, so in the end it is just two religions arguing against each other. I know which side I'm on and I'm good with that. As I've followed this debate for going on 40 years I've only seen evidence to bolster my position, so I'm still good with it.

And this shows that I was correct in all of my statements. One does not have to be there. The ID side does not have an explanation. You have been lied to. And you do not appear to understand the nature of evidence either. But stick with your false beliefs. You and yours are slowly going extinct, every year more and more people accept reality.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Yes I have done some reading. The current mainstream view is:

" Almost all present animal phyla appeared during this period"

That is to say while some Phyla appeared in the Ediacaran era before that of the Cambrian the vast majority appeared without precursors in the Cambrian era.

Yet, the mainstream view doesn't consider this problematic at all in context of evolution theory. So, what's that about?

Attempts to rescue the theory of evolution from this problem by using phylogenetic linkages are not based on much actual physical evidence.

Except, off course, the actual physical evidence known as phylogenetics.