For those wondering what "macroevolution" actually is...

[Job 33:6]

Yes, of course. My bad. I was confusing Cloudina with Claudina, the evolutionary ancestor of the giraffe.

I would recommend checking out the biologos website and language of God podcast. It helped me with challenging questions on biology.

 

[Shemjaza]

I don't expect you to understand - you're just a pawn in a spiritual battle that you're oblivious to.

Do you have a response yet to the fact that Christians who accept evolution outnumber atheists in the west?

You seek further and further details in your scoffing demands for specific kinds of evidence... then casually declare conspiracy theories and supernatural conflict.

 

[Buzzard3]

I wonder if this will work.

If someone made an argument that the above wasn't ancestral to trilobites, and therefore evolution wasn't true, it would be a rather poor argument for multiple reasons.

Controversial.

"Spriggina's affinity is currently unknown; it has been variously classified as an annelid worm, a rangeomorph-like frond, a variant of Charniodiscus, a proarticulatan, or an arthropod perhaps related to the trilobites, or even an extinct phylum. Lack of known segmented legs or limbs, and glide reflection instead of symmetric segments, suggest an arthropod classification is unlikely despite some superficial resemblance."
(Wikipedia "Spriggina")

"Trilobites made a sudden appearance in the fossil record. There appears to be a considerable evolutionary gap from possible earlier precursors such as Spriggina, which is found in the 550-million-year-old Ediacaran-age rocks of Australia, and thus predates trilobites by some 30 million years ...

Morphological similarities between trilobites and earlier arthropod-like creatures such as Spriggina, Parvancorina, and other "trilobitomorphs" of the Ediacaran period of the Precambrian are ambiguous enough to make a detailed analysis of their ancestry complex."
(Wikipedia "Trilobite")

"many Ediacaran experts, including McMenamin, have also noted that Spriggina specimens show no evidence of eyes, limbs, mouths, or anuses, most of which are known from fossil trilobites. Other paleontologists remain skeptical about whether Spriggina does in fact exhibit genal spines, noting that good specimens seem to show relatively smooth edges with no protruding spines. In addition, analysis of the best recent specimens of Spriggina shows that it does not exhibit bilateral symmetry, undermining earlier attempts to classify it as a bilaterian animal, and by implication an arthropod. Instead, Spriggina exhibits something called “glide symmetry” in which the body segments on either side of its midline are off set rather than aligned. As geologist Loren Babcock of Ohio State University notes, “The zipper-like body plans of some Ediacaran (Proterozoic) animals such as Dickinsonia and Spriggina involve right and left halves that are not perfect mirror images of each other.” The lack of such symmetry, a distinctive feature of all bilaterian animals, and the absence in Spriggina specimens of many other distinguishing features of trilobites, has left the classification of this enigmatic organism uncertain.
("Darwin's Doubt", pp. 82-83)

 

[Job 33:6]

Controversial.

"Spriggina's affinity is currently unknown; it has been variously classified as an annelid worm, a rangeomorph-like frond, a variant of Charniodiscus, a proarticulatan, or an arthropod perhaps related to the trilobites, or even an extinct phylum. Lack of known segmented legs or limbs, and glide reflection instead of symmetric segments, suggest an arthropod classification is unlikely despite some superficial resemblance."
(Wikipedia "Spriggina")

"Trilobites made a sudden appearance in the fossil record. There appears to be a considerable evolutionary gap from possible earlier precursors such as Spriggina, which is found in the 550-million-year-old Ediacaran-age rocks of Australia, and thus predates trilobites by some 30 million years ...

Morphological similarities between trilobites and earlier arthropod-like creatures such as Spriggina, Parvancorina, and other "trilobitomorphs" of the Ediacaran period of the Precambrian are ambiguous enough to make a detailed analysis of their ancestry complex."
(Wikipedia "Trilobite")

"many Ediacaran experts, including McMenamin, have also noted that Spriggina specimens show no evidence of eyes, limbs, mouths, or anuses, most of which are known from fossil trilobites. Other paleontologists remain skeptical about whether Spriggina does in fact exhibit genal spines, noting that good specimens seem to show relatively smooth edges with no protruding spines. In addition, analysis of the best recent specimens of Spriggina shows that it does not exhibit bilateral symmetry, undermining earlier attempts to classify it as a bilaterian animal, and by implication an arthropod. Instead, Spriggina exhibits something called “glide symmetry” in which the body segments on either side of its midline are off set rather than aligned. As geologist Loren Babcock of Ohio State University notes, “The zipper-like body plans of some Ediacaran (Proterozoic) animals such as Dickinsonia and Spriggina involve right and left halves that are not perfect mirror images of each other.” The lack of such symmetry, a distinctive feature of all bilaterian animals, and the absence in Spriggina specimens of many other distinguishing features of trilobites, has left the classification of this enigmatic organism uncertain.
("Darwin's Doubt", pp. 82-83)

Seems like a disingenuous response for reasons noted in my prior post. Also, spriggina is generally considered bilaterally symmetrical. And it may very well have had a mouth and eyes.

But regardless, there are many reasons that the above argument just isn't reasonable. One being that, if critics of evolution have to dwelve into the deep depths of the precambrian, where fossils transition to microscopic soft bodied species, it just looks bad for their position in light of the next 600 million years of fossils.

It would be like going through recordings of Michael Jordan's life and finding a video of when he was 10 years old, watching him miss a free throw, and then saying that he was never a good basketball player.

And what that does is, it put God in a box that is ever decreasing in size. Because what happens is, and this keeps happening hundreds of times over, people do find indisputable ancestors to various species. And then critics say, well what's the ancestor of that ancestor? Until they go so far back that they start arguing about precambrian (typically metamorphosed and ancient billion year old rock, the oldest of the old) microscopic soft bodied organisms (that don't have bones and so are less likely to be fossilized and are so tiny that they're less likely to be seen at all).

Meanwhile, in the precambrian, you still have a whole collection of bilaterians, cnidarians, mollusks, sponges, annelids etc. And the best counter you find is "well that animal doesn't have an anus!" Even though it's actually likely that spriggina did in fact have an anus, and you get people saying that it wasn't bilaterally symmetrical, yet anyone with two eyeballs can draw a line down the center of it's body and see that it is symmetrical on either side of the line.

But critics would rather argue the minutia of details, unknowingly pushing God into a smaller and smaller and smaller box as more ancestral fossils continue to pour out of the fossil record.

Remember, in Darwin's time, there were no transitional fossils. Literally not a single one was known.

So the question is, do you want to keep pushing God into a smaller and smaller box, or do you want to just give God credit for the fossil succession? I think the latter is the inevitable conclusion for theists

 

[Astrid]

How many times have you ignored genetic evidence?

After a while it stops being ignorance and becomes wilful dishonesty.

Ha. You leave out willful ignorance and cognitive dissonance.

We' ve never seen a well informed creationist
in a forum, though some are at least a little more
sophidticated than " how come still monkeys.
For those few creationists out there who are educated,
those are reduced to denial and intellectual dishonesty.

' ...lf all the data in the universe turned against yec, I
would still be yec"

 

[Job 33:6]

Seems like a disingenuous response for reasons noted in my prior post. Also, spriggina is generally considered bilaterally symmetrical. And it may very well have had a mouth and eyes.

But regardless, there are many reasons that the above argument just isn't reasonable. One being that, if critics of evolution have to dwelve into the deep depths of the precambrian, where fossils transition to microscopic soft bodied species, it just looks bad for their position in light of the next 600 million years of fossils.

It would be like going through recordings of Michael Jordan's life and finding a video of when he was 10 years old, watching him miss a free throw, and then saying that he was never a good basketball player.

And what that does is, it put God in a box that is ever decreasing in size. Because what happens is, and this keeps happening hundreds of times over, people do find indisputable ancestors to various species. And then critics say, well what's the ancestor of that ancestor? Until they go so far back that they start arguing about precambrian (typically metamorphosed and ancient billion year old rock, the oldest of the old) microscopic soft bodied organisms (that don't have bones and so are less likely to be fossilized and are so tiny that they're less likely to be seen at all).

Meanwhile, in the precambrian, you still have a whole collection of bilaterians, cnidarians, mollusks, sponges, annelids etc. And the best counter you find is "well that animal doesn't have an anus!" Even though it's actually likely that spriggina did in fact have an anus, and you get people saying that it wasn't bilaterally symmetrical, yet anyone with two eyeballs can draw a line down the center of it's body and see that it is symmetrical on either side of the line.

But critics would rather argue the minutia of details, unknowingly pushing God into a smaller and smaller and smaller box as more ancestral fossils continue to pour out of the fossil record.

Remember, in Darwin's time, there were no transitional fossils. Literally not a single one was known.

So the question is, do you want to keep pushing God into a smaller and smaller box, or do you want to just give God credit for the fossil succession? I think the latter is the inevitable conclusion for theists

It could also be noted that glide symmetry is observed in extant species today. If someone wanted to argue that spriggina wasn't ancestral to trilobites (though it just so happens to look very similar to them), you'd only be arguing that it's glide symmetry would make it more annelid like, given that annelids have glide symmetry. Suggesting it was ancestral to annelids.

 

[Buzzard3]

Seems like a disingenuous response for reasons noted in my prior post.

I forgot to mention that Spriggina fossils have been found in only one location - the Flinders Ranges in South Australia ... unlike triolobite fossils, which are found all over the world.

 

[Job 33:6]

I forgot to mention that Spriggina fossils have been found in only one location - the Flinders Ranges in South Australia ... unlike triolobite fossils, which are found all over the world.

Life has to begin somewhere, does it not?

You have to understand the concept of the evolutionary arms race. Think about the garden of Eden, God began people somewhere. This same logic holds true in evolution.

Trilobites are like the 21st century where they've become dominant and their feature have become a staple. The ediacaran would be more akin to the garden of Eden, where life first arrives, there is little predatory competition and so life diverges in many unpredictable and bizarre ways. Then once ideal forms of predation come into existence, life then is driven toward fixated and successful trilobite features.

And that's why a lot of early animals were soft bodied. They didn't evolve shells yet. But when they did, it stuck. Same with teeth. Animals didn't have teeth back then, but when they evolved teeth, everything since has had teeth.

The ediacaran is the beginning of beginnings with macro fossils. It doesn't really get earlier than that well, we are pushing earlier with microscopic fossils and soft bodied ones, but in practical terms, it is the beginning.

And I'm not saying that this is what scripture was talking about, I'm just drawing an analogy.

 

[Buzzard3]

Seems like a disingenuous response for reasons noted in my prior post. Also, spriggina is generally considered bilaterally symmetrical. And it may very well have had a mouth and eyes.

But regardless, there are many reasons that the above argument just isn't reasonable. One being that, if critics of evolution have to dwelve into the deep depths of the precambrian, where fossils transition to microscopic soft bodied species, it just looks bad for their position in light of the next 600 million years of fossils.

It would be like going through recordings of Michael Jordan's life and finding a video of when he was 10 years old, watching him miss a free throw, and then saying that he was never a good basketball player.

And what that does is, it put God in a box that is ever decreasing in size. Because what happens is, and this keeps happening hundreds of times over, people do find indisputable ancestors to various species. And then critics say, well what's the ancestor of that ancestor? Until they go so far back that they start arguing about precambrian (typically metamorphosed and ancient billion year old rock, the oldest of the old) microscopic soft bodied organisms (that don't have bones and so are less likely to be fossilized and are so tiny that they're less likely to be seen at all).

Meanwhile, in the precambrian, you still have a whole collection of bilaterians, cnidarians, mollusks, sponges, annelids etc. And the best counter you find is "well that animal doesn't have an anus!" Even though it's actually likely that spriggina did in fact have an anus, and you get people saying that it wasn't bilaterally symmetrical, yet anyone with two eyeballs can draw a line down the center of it's body and see that it is symmetrical on either side of the line.

But critics would rather argue the minutia of details, unknowingly pushing God into a smaller and smaller and smaller box as more ancestral fossils continue to pour out of the fossil record.

Remember, in Darwin's time, there were no transitional fossils. Literally not a single one was known.

So the question is, do you want to keep pushing God into a smaller and smaller box, or do you want to just give God credit for the fossil succession? I think the latter is the inevitable conclusion for theists

I give God the credit for the history of life on earth ... whatever that history is, which cannot be known.

 

[Job 33:6]

Life has to begin somewhere, does it not?

You have to understand the concept of the evolutionary arms race. Think about the garden of Eden, God began people somewhere. This same logic holds true in evolution.

Trilobites are like the 21st century where they've become dominant and their feature have become a staple. The ediacaran would be more akin to the garden of Eden, where life first arrives, there is little predatory competition and so life diverges in many unpredictable and bizarre ways. Then once ideal forms of predation come into existence, life then is driven toward fixated and successful trilobite features.

And that's why a lot of early animals were soft bodied. They didn't evolve shells yet. But when they did, it stuck. Same with teeth. Animals didn't have teeth back then, but when they evolved teeth, everything since has had teeth.

The ediacaran is the beginning of beginnings with macro fossils. It doesn't really get earlier than that well, we are pushing earlier with microscopic fossils and soft bodied ones, but in practical terms, it is the beginning.

And I'm not saying that this is what scripture was talking about, I'm just drawing an analogy.

And this is why critics assault on ediacaran fossils just comes off as disingenuous. It's like that analogy I gave with Michael Jordan. The scientific community watches a decade of professional basketball and concludes "yes, this man is a great basketball player", then critics come along and they find the earliest video recording of little Michael Jordan in 5th grade basketball where he misses a free throw and they'll say "ah hah! See! He's not good at the game!".

Meanwhile the fossil record is just littered, and is ever expanding, with these interesting life forms that are bilaterally symmetrical, or are glide symmetrical or have affinities with cnidarians or annelids or sponges or mollusks etc. And just like with any Paleozoic or mesozoic species, or Cenozoic species, critics keep asking for ancestors, then when the ancestor is found they ask for the ancestor of the ancestor, until they have so many ancestors that they're driven into crazy old Archean aged rock with microbes where they're trying to argue that there should be fossils for endosymbiotic microbe ancestors.

And it's just silly. It just makes critics look bad running down that road. But even worse, it makes God look small. In my opinion.

 

[Job 33:6]

I give God the credit for the history of life on earth ... whatever that history is, which cannot be known.

There are many things that are known, quite clearly. Which is why guys like ah, oh what's his name, dembski? It's why these guys write books on bizarre ancient fossils. Because they know they'd get chewed up if they touched anything in the last 500 million years, so they have to reach toward 1 billion year old rocks.

I'll mention this again, but even if we assumed spriggina had no relation to trilobites (though most could quite easily see morphological resemblance), the alternative in suggesting glide symmetry (which is bilateral given that the left side reflects it's right side), even if we assumed it wasn't ancestral to trilobites, it would simply push it into a category of annelids making it more ancestral to worms.

It's fine to critique fossils for the sake of arguing if it's ancestral to A or ancestral to B, but to say "we don't know therefore it's neither and has no relation to anything" just isn't going to fly, given that we have the next 500 million years of fossils of a very clear cladistics based order.

It's like watching Michael Jordan play basketball over 10 years, he's shooting 3s and dunking on people, and then dembski pulls up a recording of a 10 year old Jordan missing a free throw and argues that he's not actually Michael Jordan because the resemblance isn't perfect.

Some people might buy this kind of logic. But then when that ancestral trilobite is found, what do they do? Well, I guess they'll be writing books on the precambrian explosion next, then the early Proterozoic explosion, then the Archean explosion etc.

Meanwhile the people have watched Jordan play for a decade watch the critics, scratching our heads at what feels like dishonesty.

 

[Job 33:6]

For more on Cambrian species, I'd recommend people check out Gould's Wonderful life. Other good books are Protheros the story of life in 25 fossils, Neil Shubins inner fish of course, Protheros bringing fossils to life,

@Buzzard3 does that dembski book say anything about tiktaalik?

 

[Astrid]

I forgot to mention that Spriggina fossils have been found in only one location - the Flinders Ranges in South Australia ... unlike triolobite fossils, which are found all over the world.

There have been many species known from
part of one specimen.
That is not likely to mean thats all there ever was,
no complete organism, no ancestors, no relatives.

Others have vanished from the fossil record for millions
of years and turned up alive.

Paleontology is not real well funded, there's a lot of
exploration that does not get done.

 

[Shemjaza]

I give God the credit for the history of life on earth ... whatever that history is, which cannot be known.

Odd come back to evidence that allows people to know things.

 

[Buzzard3]

You leave out willful ignorance and cognitive dissonance.

We' ve never seen a well informed creationist

Spoken like a true Darwinist missionary, whose only reason for being on this Christian site is to spread the gospel of evolution.

 

[Astrid]

Spoken like a true Darwinist missionary, whose only reason for being on this Christian site is to spread the gospel of evolution.

Being unable to handle facts,
now you are just being silly.

Or not "just". Its insulting falsehood too.

 

[Job 33:6]

Enjoys the nostalgic evolution "debate". Takes me back a decade or so. Grabs popcorn*.

 

[Astrid]

Enjoys the nostalgic evolution "debate". Takes me back a decade or so. Grabs popcorn*.

So " above it all" are we?

 

[Shemjaza]

Spoken like a true Darwinist missionary, whose only reason for being on this Christian site is to spread the gospel of evolution.

So why do so many Christians accept it without it harming their faith?

How do you respond to YEC declarations about literal world wide floods and 6000 years?

 

[Job 33:6]

So " above it all" are we?

I am.

I remember it like it was yesterday. When I first learned about the fossil succession. It was back in, well, maybe 2008? Has it really been that long? And it was before I knew what evolution was. And in looking at fossils and rock types I had wondered "what could have done this?". And over the next decade or so, or even to this very day, I continue to hunt fossils, maybe a few times a year making trips out, seeing what I can find. Yet not once, not a single time, was I ever surprised by what I had found. Of all my collection, each fossil fitting seamlessly into the succession I had discover those years ago.

These days we find stragglers, perhaps feeling enlightened by intelligent design advocates, testing their ideas. Though these ideas were already tested and continue to be tested, all those years ago.

We know where the conversation leads, but we can't help but entertain it again anyway. Re-living the glory days of our newfound experiences and awareness.