Evolution, one more argument against

loveofourlord said:

You guys still using cambrian period as if our understanding of it and the pre cambrian hasn't expanded to where the so called explosion kinda vanishes.

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The cambrian explosion kinda vanishes? Really? The following quotes suggest otherwise:

"[A] great variety and abundance of animal fossils appear in deposits dating from a geologically brief interval between about 530 to 520 Ma, early in the Cambrian period. During this time, nearly all the major living animal groups (phyla) that have skeletons first appeared as fossils (at least one appeared earlier) ...
This geologically ABRUPT and spectacular record of early animal life is called the Cambrian explosion." (Douglas Erwin and James Valentine, "The Cambrian Explosion", p. 5. emphasis added)

“The most conspicuous event in metazoan evolution was the dramatic origin of major new structures and body plans documented by the Cambrian explosion. Until 530 million years ago, multicellular animals consisted primarily of simple, soft-bodied forms, most of which have been identified from the fossil record as cnidarians and sponges. Then, WITHIN LESS THAN 10 MILLION YEARS, almost all of the advanced phyla appeared, including echinoderms, chordates, annelids, brachiopods, molluscs and a host of arthropods. The extreme speed of anatomical change and adaptive radiation during THIS BRIEF TIME PERIOD REQUIRES EXPLANATIONS THAT GO BEYOND THOSE PROPOSED FOR THE EVOLUTION OF SPECIES WITHIN THE MODERN BIOTA.” (Robert L. Carroll, “Towards a new evolutionary synthesis,” Trends in Ecology and Evolution, Vol. 15: 27-32 (January, 2000 , emphasis added.)

"An analysis by MIT geochronologist Samuel Bowring has shown that the main pulse of Cambrian morphological innovation occurred in a sedimentary sequence spanning NO MORE THAN 6 MILLION YEARS. Yet during this time representatives of AT LEAST SIXTEEN COMPLETELY NOVEL PHYLA AND ABOUT THIRTY CLASSES first appeared in the rock record. In a more recent paper using a slightly different dating scheme, Douglas Erwin and colleagues similarly show that THIRTEEN NEW PHYLA APPEAR IN A ROUGHLY appear in a roughly 6-MILLION-YEAR WINDOW."
(Stephen Meyer, "Darwin's Doubt", p. 73. emphasis added)

Buzzard3 said:

Why are they promoting acceptance of ToE? Faith doesn't need it - a Christian can accept an old earth and a fossil record spanning millions of years without accepting ToE.

Furthermore, theistic evolution cannot offer a sensible explanation for what happened to the (supposed) race of "souless humans" from which Adam was (supposedly) taken. That race apparently disappeared from the earth ... what happened to them?

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The obvious answer as to why there are Christians such as those of the biologos foundation, is that it is a reflection of God's creation. This is like asking why Christians argue that the sun is hot or why the moon isn't made of cheese, even though there is no theological benefit to doing so. We still reflect on God's works, regardless of if such ideas have no bearing on salvation. Flat earthers can presumably be saved even if they think the planet is flat, but that doesn't mean that it's unreasonable to become a sphere earther on the basis that it's not necessary for salvation.

Also, this is what many of us do for a living. We work with fossils and rocks and animals. And while it's ok for any average Joe to believe that the moon is made of cheese, for people who work with the moon and study the moon, it's offensive to have non-moon professionals suggest that maybe we are dishonest or don't know what we are talking about, despite our critics typically not even being familiar with the work that we are doing.

"nearly all the major living animal groups (phyla) that have skeletons first appeared as fossils"

Notice the caveaut with the above statement? "That have skeletons". Why would animals that have skeletons appear in the fossil record? Maybe because skeletons fossilize more readily than non skeletons. And in fact, several appeared earlier, cephalopods, cnidarians, annelids, and archaeocyathids all appeared earlier. In fact, genetic evidence suggests that most phyla predated the Cambrian, which is why the authors you quoted said "appeared as fossils", and not "first came into existence".

In fact, arthropod trackways appear millions of years before body fossils, suggesting that these animals were in fact alive millions of years before their fossils appeared. This is further evidenced by the existence of rare soft bodied lagerstaaten in the early Cambrian, where soft bodied animals on rare occasions did fossilize in the early Cambrian. Which collective is further substantiated by evidence in genetics research that also suggests that most phylum predated the Cambrian.

All the evidence clearly suggests that the Cambrian explosion, which spans multiple tens of millions of years, is not an abrupt appearance of life, but rather is a rapid appearance of fossils as a product of evolution of bones and shells. Animals didn't have shells, they didn't fossilize, they evolved shells, then gave a superficial "explosion" of appearance.

SkovandOfMitzae said:

Someone mentioned that they think “evolution” is the greatest tool of atheism. But that’s not true

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You are referring to William Provine, who said "Evolution is the greatest engine of evolution ever invented."
Provine was himself an atheist and an evolutionist.

Isaiah 41:10 said:

The obvious answer as to why there are Christians such as those of the biologos foundation, is that it is a reflection of God's creation. This is like asking why Christians argue that the sun is hot or why the moon isn't made of cheese, even though there is no theological benefit to doing so. We still reflect on God's works, regardless of if such ideas have no bearing on salvation. Flat earthers can presumably be saved even if they think the planet is flat, but that doesn't mean that it's unreasonable to become a sphere earther on the basis that it's not necessary for salvation.


"nearly all the major living animal groups (phyla) that have skeletons first appeared as fossils"

Notice the caveaut with the above statement? "That have skeletons". Why would animals that have skeletons appear in the fossil record? Maybe because skeletons fossilize more readily than non skeletons. And in fact, several appeared earlier, cephalopods, cnidarians, annelids, and archaeocyathids all appeared earlier. In fact, genetic evidence suggests that most phyla predated the Cambrian, which is why the authors you quoted said "appeared as fossils", and not "first came into existence".

In fact, arthropod trackways appear millions of years before body fossils, suggesting that these animals were in fact alive millions of years before their fossils appeared. This is further evidenced by the existence of rare soft bodied lagerstaaten in the early Cambrian, where soft bodied animals on rare occasions did fossilize in the early Cambrian. Which collective is further substantiated by evidence in genetics research that also suggests that most phylum predated the Cambrian.

All the evidence clearly suggests that the Cambrian explosion, which spans multiple tens of millions of years, is not an abrupt appearance of life, but rather is a rapid appearance of fossils as a product of evolution of bones and shells. Animals didn't have shells, they didn't fossilize, they evolved shells, then gave a superficial "explosion" of appearance.

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Isaiah 41:10 said:

Sure. Critics will forever argue that there aren't enough fossils. So even if 100 more fossils were discovered linking major groups tomorrow, they'd still just call for more fossils between those links.

The reality is that every single time a fossil is found linking two groups, even if it's just of one single species, it completely defies all odds that such a thing would even exist if not for common descent. Consider a single tetrapod transitional of the Devonian. You have billions of years of rock layers in which this animal could be found. An entire planet of rock where it could be found. And yet, it just so happens to be in just the right layer of just the right period of time, of just the right lithology, of just the right morphological traits. 99% of possibilities would prove evolution wrong, and yet, in just a single find, we observe that 1% chance that vindicates the theory. And this happens over and over and over again. And so to get around this, we end up in this strange situation where we have to deny the age of the earth, or move toward the mysterious position of intelligent design, which doesn't really have any clear evidence behind itself but rather is based souly on an alleged lack of fossils. But of course, an argument against one thing has never been an argument for something else.

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Paul-Pierre Grasse (1895-1985) was a zoologist and one of France's most respected scientists. He believed evolution had occured and based that belief on the fossil record ... but he vehmently opposed the Darwinian explanation for that evolution. He believed science will never be able to explain evolution.

Isaiah 41:10 said:

All the evidence clearly suggests that the Cambrian explosion, which spans multiple tens of millions of years, is not an abrupt appearance of life, but rather is a rapid appearance of fossils as a product of evolution of bones and shells. Animals didn't have shells, they didn't fossilize, they evolved shells, then gave a superficial "explosion" of appearance.

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In that case, there should be fossil evidence of transitionals between soft-bodied animals and animals with endo- and exo-skeletons.

Isaiah 41:10 said:

All the evidence clearly suggests that the Cambrian explosion, which spans multiple tens of millions of years, is not an abrupt appearance of life, but rather is a rapid appearance of fossils as a product of evolution of bones and shells. Animals didn't have shells, they didn't fossilize, they evolved shells, then gave a superficial "explosion" of appearance.

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You might find this article by paleontologist Günter Bechly interesting:

The Demise of the Artifact Hypothesis | Evolution News

SkovandOfMitzae said:

Someone mentioned that they think “evolution” is the greatest tool of atheism. But that’s not true. Science does not make someone become an atheist. What leads to someone becoming an atheist is being told that the only interpretation of the Bible is the interpretation of young earth far right Christians. So they know science and decency undermines that view and so they are lead to falsely believe the choice is accepting science or accepting pseudoscience. But the reality is that there are more choices. Such as accepting science and faith like Evolutionary Creationist vs science and atheism. Thank God literally for the biblical
Scholars and scientists who are dedicated Christians and out there writing books, blogs and videos based on faith and academia to showcase theistic evolution.

Also macroevolution and adaptation is the same process. Microevolution refers to the evolutionary studies of microorganisms.

Roughly 1/3rd of scientists are Christian in America.

As stated the only answer for the fossil record, and genetic tree of life, is speciation. The reason why dolphins are aquatic tetrapods is because they use to be land animals. It’s why if you look at the skeletal system of a dolphin vs a shark you’ll notice their convergence is really just the general form. Their bones and organs look quite different.

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What is the difference between Evolutionary Creation and Theistic Evolution? Is there a difference?

Buzzard3 said:

Why are they promoting acceptance of ToE? Faith doesn't need it - a Christian can accept an old earth and a fossil record spanning millions of years without accepting ToE.

Furthermore, theistic evolution cannot offer a sensible explanation for what happened to the (supposed) race of "souless humans" from which Adam was (supposedly) taken. That race apparently disappeared from the earth ... what happened to them?

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I have wondered about this myself. The same problem exists for some versions of the gap theory that claim there was a pre-Adamic race.

Buzzard3 said:

In that case, there should be clear fossil evidence of transitionals between soft-bodied animals and animals with endo- and exo-skeletons.

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The animals of soft bodied are the animals with Endo and exo skeletons. Research lagerstaaten.

Are you really asking for evidence of precambrian transitional arthropods between soft bodied arthropods and shelled arthropods despite all of them being arthropods?

It's one thing to ask for a turtle with half a shell of the late Triassic:
Heroes in a half-shell show how turtles evolved

It's not the same to ask for precambrian animals (of which much of precambrian rock has been recycled and metamorphosed around the planet), some perhaps even microscopic as identified with microshellies which predate the Cambrian, and to expect people to take such an argument seriously.

But dare I take a stab at it anyway, some cambrian animals had cartilage before they had bone, marking a transition between soft bodied annelids and hard spined later chordates:
Pikaia - Wikipedia

What's next? A request for a transition between worms with cartilage notocords and worms with boney spines? The requests become unreasonable in light of an incredible collection of fossils over the next 600 million years of history.

Another interesting detail, arthropod molting is first observed in the Burgess shale. Suggesting that the evolution of shells may have begun as a "sweat" or "excretion" of calcium carbonate waste from early animals which calcified to form shells as they do today. It's not even clear that there would be a transition between shelled and non shelled in this case. What would an intermediate shell even be made of, but not the same mineral that makes up shells?

BPPLEE said:

I have wondered about this myself. The same problem exists for some versions of the gap theory that claim there was a pre-Adamic race.

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Theistic evolutions usually claim that the offspring of Adam and Eve - ie, humans with souls - interbred with the "souless" humans and this somehow eventually resulted in the disappearance of the "souless" race. Sounds like perfect nonsesnse to me.

Furthermore, human with souls mating with humans without souls would have amounted to bestiality.

And the minds and behaviour of humans with souls would have been so different to souless humans that the two forms would have been utterly incompatible as mates.

Isaiah 41:10 said:

The animals of soft bodied are the animals with Endo and exo skeletons.

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Soft-bodied animals are those with endo- and exo-skeletons?

Buzzard3 said:

Soft-bodied animals are those with endo- and exo-skeletons?

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As noted above, arthropods are arthropods, worms are worms. It's not like we're talking about a frog evolving into a bird. The animals with shells and bones are largely the same or similar as their predecessors without shells or bones. Such as pikaia predating metazoans with boney spines.

Isaiah 41:10 said:

As noted above, arthropods are arthropods, worms are worms. It's not like we're talking about a frog evolving into a bird. The animals with shells and bones are largely the same or similar as their predecessors without shells or bones. Such as pikaia predating metazoans with boney spines.

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I can already see what's coming next. "But some scientists have debated this species as having been a divergent clade that went extinct".

Well sure, as is the case with every animal in all of the fossil succession.

But what could critics ever say about the presence of such an animal with it's specific features, being present where they are and not anywhere else or at any other time or in any other place on earth?

It only makes sense that such a discovery would be made, in light of evolution.

Find such features or such an animal as having first appeared anywhere else and evolution could easily be disproven, and yet here we are, a worm with a cartilage notochord right where evolution just so happens to predict that such a thing would be.

Imagine if an animal with a boney spine appeared before an animal without or before one with a cartilage notocord? How easily we could use it to disprove evolution. And yet, that's not the case. It's never the case in the trillions of fossils that have been discovered for any feature that any animal has.

Ever.

Isaiah 41:10 said:

I can already see what's coming next. "But some scientists have debated this species as having been a divergent clade that went extinct".

Well sure, as is the case with every animal in all of the fossil succession.

But what could critics ever say about the presence of such an animal with it's specific features, being present where they are and not anywhere else or at any other time or in any other place on earth?

It only makes sense that such a discovery would be made, in light of evolution.

Find such features or such an animal as having first appeared anywhere else and evolution could easily be disproven, and yet here we are, a worm with a cartilage notochord right where evolution just so happens to predict that such a thing would be.

Imagine if an animal with a boney spine appeared before an animal without or before one with a cartilage notocord? How easily we could use it to disprove evolution. And yet, that's not the case. It's never the case in the trillions of fossils that have been discovered for any feature that any animal has.

Ever.

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And I'll keep digging. Genetics explicitly and with high precision matches this very order we see in fossils. Genetic cladistic matches fossil cladistics. Which tells us that the fossil succession is a product of genetics.

Ie. Mammals DNA is more similar to reptiles than to amphibians, fish more similar to amphibians than reptiles, birds more similar to reptiles than to mammals etc. All the way down to the finest of levels at individual species. This just so happens to reflect temporal succession in the earth, bird fossils come after reptiles, mammals are closer to reptiles than to amphibians, fish appear closer to amphibian appearance than to reptiles etc. Etc.

Well, what about genetics could possibly result in morphological change over time? What could it possibly be? Why or how could genetics precisely match the depths of animals in the earth? Why can we literally predict how many feet underground an animal will be, based on DNA?

Well, it just so happens that there are things called mutations. The same way we conduct DNA forensics to establish family trees today, matches the exact way we use DNA to make family trees of fossils in the earth.

And there is no logical case against this, but the most obvious conclusion of descent by modification.

Buzzard3 said:

The cambrian explosion kinda vanishes? Really? The following quotes suggest otherwise:

"[A] great variety and abundance of animal fossils appear in deposits dating from a geologically brief interval between about 530 to 520 Ma, early in the Cambrian period. During this time, nearly all the major living animal groups (phyla) that have skeletons first appeared as fossils (at least one appeared earlier) ...
This geologically ABRUPT and spectacular record of early animal life is called the Cambrian explosion." (Douglas Erwin and James Valentine, "The Cambrian Explosion", p. 5. emphasis added)

“The most conspicuous event in metazoan evolution was the dramatic origin of major new structures and body plans documented by the Cambrian explosion. Until 530 million years ago, multicellular animals consisted primarily of simple, soft-bodied forms, most of which have been identified from the fossil record as cnidarians and sponges. Then, WITHIN LESS THAN 10 MILLION YEARS, almost all of the advanced phyla appeared, including echinoderms, chordates, annelids, brachiopods, molluscs and a host of arthropods. The extreme speed of anatomical change and adaptive radiation during THIS BRIEF TIME PERIOD REQUIRES EXPLANATIONS THAT GO BEYOND THOSE PROPOSED FOR THE EVOLUTION OF SPECIES WITHIN THE MODERN BIOTA.” (Robert L. Carroll, “Towards a new evolutionary synthesis,” Trends in Ecology and Evolution, Vol. 15: 27-32 (January, 2000 , emphasis added.)

"An analysis by MIT geochronologist Samuel Bowring has shown that the main pulse of Cambrian morphological innovation occurred in a sedimentary sequence spanning NO MORE THAN 6 MILLION YEARS. Yet during this time representatives of AT LEAST SIXTEEN COMPLETELY NOVEL PHYLA AND ABOUT THIRTY CLASSES first appeared in the rock record. In a more recent paper using a slightly different dating scheme, Douglas Erwin and colleagues similarly show that THIRTEEN NEW PHYLA APPEAR IN A ROUGHLY appear in a roughly 6-MILLION-YEAR WINDOW."
(Stephen Meyer, "Darwin's Doubt", p. 73. emphasis added)

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Your first one kinda proves my point, "With skeletons." most forms before the cambrian didn't have skeletons why they don't preserve as often but certainly do more then before.

Second one from 2000, we barely had any feather dinosaur fossils back then, now we have more tons. So uhhh yeah, plus again they are talking about fossils with skeletons.

And quoting a creationists isn't going to win you anything.

Buzzard3 said:

Why are they promoting acceptance of ToE? Faith doesn't need it - a Christian can accept an old earth and a fossil record spanning millions of years without accepting ToE.

Furthermore, theistic evolution cannot offer a sensible explanation for what happened to the (supposed) race of "souless humans" from which Adam was (supposedly) taken. That race apparently disappeared from the earth ... what happened to them?

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the Bible says everything is a soul. Even animals are souls. I suggest looking up soul on biblehub and seeing all the ways it’s used .

Strong's Hebrew: 5315. נָ֫פֶשׁ (nephesh) -- a soul, living being, life, self, person, desire, passion, appetite, emotion

Especially pay attention to the places it’s translated as creature in genesis.

Also genesis 1-11 writing style does not match that of a history or biography but most closely matches mythological full of symbolism much like revelation and psalms 74.

BPPLEE said:

What is the difference between Evolutionary Creation and Theistic Evolution? Is there a difference?

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No. They are same. More and more are using evolutionary creationism , like myself, to reclaim the word creationism from those who use it for young earth or old earth creationism. So when you get disciples raised up in a literalistic concordistic biblical worldview and look up creationism they are more likely to find EC and learn of a different path when they are confronted with reality that upholds science.

Also for everyone’s benefit here is a really good podcast episode by two scientists (specifically paleontologist) on the Cambrian “explosion”.

Episode 9 – The Cambrian Explosion

SkovandOfMitzae said:

Also for everyone’s benefit here is a really good podcast episode by two scientists (specifically paleontologist) on the Cambrian “explosion”.

Episode 9 – The Cambrian Explosion

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I listen to the biologos podcast quite a bit. Is this podcast more secular or Christian? Sometimes I come across Christian scientists on YouTube that enjoyable to listen to.

One possibility for the Cambrian explosion is that the rifting of rodinia and warming of seas after earths prior ice age produced an environment ideal for the evolutionary arms race to take place.