The Cambrian problem

[whois]

The answer to the Cambrian "problem" is simple. There isn't a problem. At least no one as you are posing it here. 25-40 million years is plenty of time for the evolution of new body plans, particularly given that there was little else filling those design spaces.

There are vastly more interesting questions though, like what combination of circumstances resulted in such comparatively rapid diversification and, why was it so rapid?

i find posts like this interesting.
we don't know how or why (because we have no proof) but we know it's a fact.
IOW, we don't know it was a natural process, but it's a fact it was.
do you realize how ridiculous that sounds?

 

[klutedavid]

Uniformitarianism does not mean that everything is exactly the same everywhere. It only means that the same processes we see today we would see in the past.

That is one mighty assumption you have there.

Apparently star formation is the deeper past, was much more rapid than present
day star formation.

 

[Shemjaza]

That is one mighty assumption you have there.

Apparently star formation is the deeper past, was much more rapid than present
day star formation.

Star formation or star evolution? Because larger stars used to be more common, but they don't live as long. It's not particularly mysterious, it's just a function of gravity. And we see their remnants all over the place.

 

[RickG]

i find posts like this interesting.
we don't know how or why (because we have no proof) but we know it's a fact.
IOW, we don't know it was a natural process, but it's a fact it was.
do you realize how ridiculous that sounds?

Yes, I absolutely realize how ridiculous that is. That is, what you just said. There is not a single physical scientific discipline that does not contribute to the information and understanding of the evidence we have concerning past environments and ecosystems. Conversely, you make an assertion that we don't know anything about the past with absolutely nothing to back that assertion up. Just because you don't understand the science doesn't make it wrong or go away.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Good design and engineering.
or
Stupidity, luck, chance, randomness, blind mutation,
and
no identified driving force of any kind.

Good job ignoring natural selection, which discards the bad and keeps the good.

What is life trying to do anyway?

In this context, survive and reproduce.

 

[essentialsaltes]

That is one mighty assumption you have there.

Apparently star formation is the deeper past, was much more rapid than present
day star formation.

Uniformitarianism is not that every result has always been the same, but that the same physical laws have applied, at least since shortly after the Big Bang. Different local conditions produce different results under the same laws.

 

[klutedavid]

Star formation or star evolution? Because larger stars used to be more common, but they don't live as long. It's not particularly mysterious, it's just a function of gravity. And we see their remnants all over the place.

Hello Shemjaza.

Star formation.

For more than a decade, astronomers have known that stars formed
more rapidly in the past compared to today. At present, only a few stars
form each year in a typical large spiral galaxy like the Milky Way, but
five to ten billion years ago, the same kind of galaxy formed stars ten times
more quickly.
(Explaining Faster Star Formation in the Past, March 10, 2010, by Dr. Jeff Zweerink)

 

[Loudmouth]

Hello LoudMouth.

You may know something about the Cambrian fossil layers.

When speaking of the Cambrian fossil beds, how many sites around the
world are there?

Also LoudMouth, where are these Cambrian fossil layers located?

I have no idea how many sites there are with fossils, but they are known to be rare. Even then, we have probably searched a tiny portion of the sites we do know about.

 

[Loudmouth]

Hello Shemjaza.

Star formation.

For more than a decade, astronomers have known that stars formed
more rapidly in the past compared to today. At present, only a few stars
form each year in a typical large spiral galaxy like the Milky Way, but
five to ten billion years ago, the same kind of galaxy formed stars ten times
more quickly.
(Explaining Faster Star Formation in the Past, March 10, 2010, by Dr. Jeff Zweerink)

That is to be expected from uniform laws. When there is more hydrogen, you get more stars and larger stars.

 

[pat34lee]

Star formation or star evolution? Because larger stars used to be more common, but they don't live as long. It's not particularly mysterious, it's just a function of gravity. And we see their remnants all over the place.

We don't see enough remnants for billions of years though, maybe a few thousand.

 

[pat34lee]

For more than a decade, astronomers have known that stars formed
more rapidly in the past compared to today.

You know what that is called in real life? A fairy tale.
There is no proof of stars evolving or being formed anywhere.
There is NO natural process that could force gases together
in concentrations high enough to form a star.

 

[Loudmouth]

We don't see enough remnants for billions of years though, maybe a few thousand.

"

1. Many more SNRs have been found, including many Stage 3 remnants older than 20,000 years. And the census is not over yet. If the universe is old, many SNRs should have reached the third, oldest stage, and that is what we see. The evidence contradicts a young universe, not an old one.
   
   
2. Davies's estimate of what proportion of SNRs should be visible to us is grossly oversimplified. It is impossible to say with certainty what proportion should be visible. Furthermore, he ignores data, including observations of possible old remnants, that would weaken his case.
   
   SNRs are relatively hard to see. They would not be visible for one million years, the figure Davies used in his calculations. A million years is the theoretical lifetime of a remnant; it will be visible for a much shorter time because of background noise and obscuring dust and interstellar matter. Fewer than 1 percent of SNRs last more than 100,000 years. It may be that as few as 15-20 percent of supernova events are visible at all through the interstellar matter.
   

1. Supernovas are evidence for an old universe in other ways:
2. Supernovas are evidence that stars have reached the end of their lifetime, which for many stars is billions of years.

• The formation of new stars indicates that many are second generation; the universe must be old enough for some stars to go through their entire lifetime and for the dust from their supernovas to collect into new stars.
• It takes time for the light from the supernovas to reach us. All supernovas and SNRs are more than 7,000 light-years from us. SN 1987A was 167,000 +/- 4,000 light years away.

• "

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CE/CE401.html

 

[Loudmouth]

You know what that is called in real life? A fairy tale.
There is no proof of stars evolving or being formed anywhere.
There is NO natural process that could force gases together
in concentrations high enough to form a star.

You have never heard of gravity?

 

[Dr GS Hurd]

Hello SZ.

Just curious, wondering whether all geological strata are uniform world wide?

http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/cambrian/cambloc.html

 

[Dr GS Hurd]

Hello SZ.

Just curious, wondering whether all geological strata are uniform world wide?

The basic geological column is found in marine basins around the world;

 

[klutedavid]

The basic geological column is found in marine basins around the world;
Hello Dr GS Hurd.

Thanks for the information.

 

[SkyWriting]

Replicate. Even worms do it with gusto.

And for what reason?
How does a sack of minerals benefit from being alive?

 

[SkyWriting]

The basic geological column is found in marine basins around the world;

As the Bible explained:

8 "He raises the poor from the dust, He lifts the needy from the ash heap To make them sit with nobles, And inherit a seat of honor;
For the pillars of the earth are the LORD'S, And He set the world on them.

 

[PsychoSarah]

Do those that have faith in evolutionism realize that when the cambrian fossils are examined it is seen that the major phyla and classes of animals suddenly appear fully developed in the cambrian strata with no ancestral linage leading up to the many different phyla and classes.

This is incorrect. The cambrian "explosion" took place over the course of 200 or so million years. hardly all at once. And there are ancestral fossils, tons, in fact. Plus, precambrian fossils also exist. bacteria predate the cambrian entirely.

In other word, you don't see the speciation of animals producing different genera, then the continuation of morphological evolution producing animals that can be divided into different families and then orders.

Incorrect, while it is certainly difficult to categorize precambrian life, given how odd and simple most of it was, certain organisms, such as bacteria from that time, can be identified and placed. However, given that many of the phyla at the time have long since died out, of course there wouldn't be categories to put these creatures into... yet. There are also these weird multicellular organisms with combinations of plantlike and animal-like traits... I am not even sure there is a Kingdom level of classification that can accommodate that.

Instead, as mentioned above, the cambrian geological record contains fossilized animals that are very diverse in the hierarchy of the taxonomical rank and show no sign of a slow divergence from a common ancestor....the mutations are not show to add up.

200 million years may be fast in the context of evolution, but not even close to "all created in a day" fast. Additionally, there are many "explosions" of diversity like that; they just primarily occur after mass extinctions.

The theory belonging to evolutionism tells us that all life evolved from a common ancestor. This hypothesis is taught as fact in our schools and even presented from time to time on this forum as the truth. But is it true or just another lie from the camps of evolutionism which have been kept secret?

The question becomes:

Why do the major phyla and classes of animals suddenly appear fully developed in the cambrian fossils with no ancestral linage leading up to the phyla and classes that are found fossilized there as the T.O.E. predict they should?

They do have lineages, although it is harder to trace them due to how old and fragile the fossils are. Most fossils end up eroding away long before we can discover them, and the older they are, the more likely this is to happen. But the fossils do exist. http://blog.everythingdinosaur.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/charnia_fossils.jpg http://static.palaeontologyonline.com/Cam_Figure_3.jpg http://www.evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/evo101/images/ediacarans.gif it certainly doesn't help how different they appear from modern life forms.

Additionally, while universal common ancestor is often paired with evolution as a theory, evolution is not dependent on it, nor would it be disproven if there were multiple original ancestors to modern life. It's just viewed as far less likely.

Instead, a major problem for evolutionism is recognized. The geological record has fossilized animals that are very diverse in the hierarchy of the taxonomical rank and show no sign of a slow divergence from a common ancestor. The animals found in the cambrian strata are already divided into different phyla and classes.

For one thing, WE classify animals into categories, they do not come "prepackaged" into nice groups for us. In fact, the ones on the borders between phyla are argued about constantly. Additionally, evolution is not uniform; depending on the environment, rate of mutation, and reproduction speed, species will evolve faster or slower. The cambrian explosion has a cause: increased oxygen in our atmosphere making it possible for alternative means of cellular survival to exist that previously could not. Prior to that point, the size of multicellular organisms was exceedingly limited. It basically opened up a bunch of niches like an extinction event would, which is why "explosions" of evolution tend to follow mass extinctions.

The only problem I see for evolution is a misunderstanding of what the cambrian explosion was.

The bedrock, or the basement strata of rocks don't present descent with modification as the theory of evolutionism calls for. In fact, one could claim that it appears to be pretty much up-side-down.

Upside down? Hardly, that would make trilobite fossils be on top of ancient mammal ones, or something similarly ridiculous. Additionally, the fossils that age may be rare, but they aren't so rare that we can't see some decent with modification. http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/files/2013/03/trilobiterichness.png enjoy the trilobites, I always do.

 

[Gracchus]

There is no proof of stars evolving or being formed anywhere.

But we do see regions where stars are in the process of forming. As denser regions of gas and dust collapse under the force of gravity heat is released, and when the collapse has led to interior pressures and temperatures high enough, Hydrogen is fused to Helium, producing enough energy to balance the gravitational collapse, and a star is born.

There is NO natural process that could force gases together in concentrations high enough to form a star.

Gravity is one way to do it. On a much smaller scale, a shock wave, such as that produced by a nuclear fission reaction is another.
Science "knows" more than any one person can begin to understand.

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." --- Hamlet (1.5.167-8), Hamlet to Horatio.