The Cambrian Explosion (Moved from Physical and Life Sciences Forum)

[Radrook]

Prior to the Cambrian explosion, most organisms were simple, composed of individual cells occasionally organized into colonies. Over the following 70 to 80 million years, the rate of diversification accelerated by an order of magnitude[note 3] and the diversity of life began to resemble that of today.[11] Almost all the present phyla appeared during this period,[12][13] with the exception of Bryozoa, which made its earliest known appearance in the Lower Ordovician.[14]

The Cambrian explosion has generated extensive scientific debate. The seemingly rapid appearance of fossils in the "Primordial Strata" was noted as early as the 1840s,[15] and in 1859 Charles Darwin discussed it as one of the main objections that could be made against the theory of evolution by natural selection.

Cambrian explosion - Wikipedia

 

[Kylie]

Explosion is a terrible word for it. It wasn't a sudden thing. It's not like all those new life forms evolved overnight. It actually took place over a period of about 20 or 25 million years.

And it wasn't that new life forms were created. It's just that the life forms evolved structures that fossilised more easily.

So not the evidence for creationism that many creationists hope it is.

That video seems to be pretty much creationist propaganda. Have a look at 1 hour, 17 minutes and 40 seconds. "We should consider intelligent design..."

 

[Radrook]

Explosion is a terrible word for it. It wasn't a sudden thing. It's not like all those new life forms evolved overnight. It actually took place over a period of about 20 or 25 million years.

And it wasn't that new life forms were created. It's just that the life forms evolved structures that fossilised more easily.

So not the evidence for creationism that many creationists hope it is.

That video seems to be pretty much creationist propaganda. Have a look at 1 hour, 17 minutes and 40 seconds. "We should consider intelligent design..."

The term "explosion" was coined by atheist evolutionists because geologically speaking it happened in an astonishingly geologically short period of time and not because it is believed to have happened instantaneously.

[Correction: the term was not coined by atheist evolutionists]


Neither are the non-atheist scientists in the video claiming that it happened instantaneously. If indeed you consider the term "explosion" " a terrible description, then you need to take it up with the atheist scientists who prefer to describe it that way.

The following is taken from an atheist evolutionist website:

The Cambrian Explosion:



For most of the nearly 4 billion years that life has existed on Earth, evolution produced little beyond bacteria, plankton, and multi-celled algae. But beginning about 600 million years ago in the Precambrian, the fossil record speaks of more rapid change. First, there was the rise and fall of mysterious creatures of the Ediacaran fauna, named for the fossil site in Australia where they were first discovered. Some of these animals may have belonged to groups that survive today, but others don't seem at all related to animals we know.

Then, between about 570 and 530 million years ago, another burst of diversification occurred, with the eventual appearance of the lineages of almost all animals living today. This stunning and unique evolutionary flowering is termed the "Cambrian explosion," taking the name of the geological age in whose early part it occurred. But it was not as rapid as an explosion: the changes seems to have happened in a range of about 30 million years, and some stages took 5 to 10 million years....



The question of how so many immense changes occurred in such a short time is one that stirs scientists. Why did many fundamentally different body plans evolve so early and in such profusion?

Evolution: Library: The Cambrian Explosion

 

[USincognito]

ediacaran biota - Google Scholar

 

[USincognito]

The term "explosion" was coined by atheist evolutionists

You really need to stop making stuff up if you want to be taken seriously.

Harry B. Whittington - Wikipedia
>> Harry Blackmore Whittington FRS (24 March 1916 – 20 June 2010) was a British palaeontologist who made a major contribution to the study of fossils of the Burgess Shale and other Cambrian fauna.[1] His works are largely responsible for the concept of Cambrian explosion, <<

>> Whittington, as was his family, remained a Christian his entire life, belonging to Methodist Church. His first professional careers were directly due to his religious connections. Judson College in Burma and Ginling Women's College in China were Christian, specifically Methodist-supported institutions. <<

The following is taken from an atheist evolutionist website:

PBS is not an "atheist evolutionist website". You're being very, very dishonest.

 

[Radrook]

ediacaran biota - Google Scholar

Your link led me to this:

Paleontological Research

Our study also accentuates the Cambrian Explosion, which put an end to the peaceful “Garden of Ediacara”. Not only did the former rulers become extinct or restricted to less favorable environments, but the radiation of metazoan phyla was also accompanied by an ecological revolution that established a new and more dangerous world, which persists to the present day.

An Error Occurred Setting Your User Cookie

 

[Radrook]

You really need to stop making stuff up if you want to be taken seriously.

Harry B. Whittington - Wikipedia
>> Harry Blackmore Whittington FRS (24 March 1916 – 20 June 2010) was a British palaeontologist who made a major contribution to the study of fossils of the Burgess Shale and other Cambrian fauna.[1] His works are largely responsible for the concept of Cambrian explosion, <<

>> Whittington, as was his family, remained a Christian his entire life, belonging to Methodist Church. His first professional careers were directly due to his religious connections. Judson College in Burma and Ginling Women's College in China were Christian, specifically Methodist-supported institutions. <<



PBS is not an "atheist evolutionist website". You're being very, very dishonest.

I was unaware that the term had that particular origin. I strove to find its origin via google but nothing came up. So I hastily assumed it had been coined by atheist evolutionists. My apologies. Also you are right. I should not tag a site as as atheistic without ascertaining first whether it deserves that title. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.

BTW
That doesn't explain why atheist-evolutionists accept that term and still use it. Neither does it invalidate comparing it to an explosion in geologically temporal terms.

 

[USincognito]

Your link led me to this:

Uh huh... and what do you think that means?

 

[USincognito]

BTW
That doesn't explain why atheist-evolutionists accept that term and still use it.

Probably the same reason Methodist-evolutionists, Sunni-evolutionists, Reformed-evolutionists, Catholic-evolutionists, Buddhist-evolutionists, etc. etc. etc. accept and still use it.

 

[Radrook]

Uh huh... and what do you think that means?

It uses the term Cambrian explosion.

 

[Radrook]

Probably the same reason Methodist-evolutionists, Sunni-evolutionists, Reformed-evolutionists, Catholic-evolutionists, Buddhist-evolutionists, etc. etc. etc. accept and still use it.

Yes but if indeed it is a terrible scientific misnomer as you claimed that it is-then for the sake of scientific accuracy atheistic evolutionists would have discarded it long ago. Yet they continue to employ it as an accurate description of what geologically occurred. In short, no-one in the scientific community shares your idiosyncratic opinion.

 

[USincognito]

It uses the term Cambrian explosion.

And what? What does that have to do with the Edicaran biota existing before the Cambrian and some modern metazoan (animal) phyla being present in the Ediacaran?

 

[USincognito]

Yes but if indeed it is a terrible scientific misnomer as you claimed...

I didn't, @KTS Kylie did. I agree with her that it's a misnomer, but it's one that has been in use for a long time and there's no good reason to change it.

 

[quatona]

Yes but if indeed it is a terrible scientific misnomer as you claimed that it is-then for the sake of scientific accuracy atheistic evolutionists would have discarded it long ago. Yet they continue to employ it as an accurate description of what geologically occurred. In short, no-one in the scientific community shares your idiosyncratic opinion.

Were explosives involved?

 

[Radrook]

Were explosives involved?

Now THAT is silly! It's a figure of speech and idiomatic expression just as in explosive diarrhea, or explosive personality which indicates a relatively sudden and swift unexpected occurrence. RELATIVELY

 

[quatona]

Now THAT is silly! It's a figure of speech and idiomatic expression

BINGO!

RELATIVELY

BINGO again.

 

[Radrook]

BINGO!

BINGO again.

But no one ever claimed that it is an actual literal explosion. So your objection is against an imaginary argument. That the phenomenon was relatively sudden is a well-known fact as is the fact that it indeed has induced bafflement among evolutionists..

 

[Everybodyknows]

Now THAT is silly! It's a figure of speech and idiomatic expression just as in explosive diarrhea, or explosive personality which indicates a relatively sudden and swift unexpected occurrence. RELATIVELY

Perhaps it was explosive diarrea that caused life to evolve at such a break-neck pace hence the name.

 

[quatona]

But no one ever claimed that it is an actual literal explosion. So your objection is against an imaginary argument.

As long as you interprete this term accordingly I have no objections, at all.

 

[Larniavc]

That doesn't explain why atheist-evolutionists accept that term and still use it. Neither does it invalidate comparing it to an explosion in geologically temporal terms.

In what way do these issues matter?

That is to say: assuming people in the field use these terms what are you inferring from it.