From the Economist:
In the fourth of our series of articles on scientific mysteries we ask why, a mere 542m years ago, animal life suddenly took off
Oh, we mean Steve Meyer, author of Darwin’s Doubt, about the Cambrian explosion of life forms over half a billion years ago.
Just look at how Darwin’s Econo followers handle the question:
There is, however, one other thought—that the Cambrian explosion is not the fundamental mystery it seems to be. The true mystery, rather, is the Ediacaran, whose animals really did appear out of nowhere, and then vanished for reasons unknown before the Cambrian got going.
The fossil record is full of sudden cast changes like this. They are known as mass extinctions. …
In a mass extinction the board of life is cleared of many pieces by an external event, such as the asteroid strike that did for the dinosaurs. It then takes several million years for replacements to evolve from whatever is left. Those remnants might have been (as Mesozoic mammals were) insignificant in the previous regime. In the case of the Ediacaran, given how long ago it was and how few of its rocks are available for inspection, they might thus remain almost undetected by palaeontologists. Arkarua, known from a single site in Australia, may be an example of one of these cryptic animals-in-waiting.
It is true that no evidence of an extinction-causing event has been found in rocks that straddle the Ediacaran and Cambrian periods, but several later mass extinctions have no known cause, either. And, if such an extinction did happen, it is perfectly plausible that some unidentified Ediacaran triploblasts went on to play the role of the Mesozoic mammals by emerging from obscurity when the competition had been eliminated. In the chaotic aftermath of the extinction, they would have been able to multiply, diversify and drive each other’s evolution (by such means as hunting one another) in ways that foreshadowed those of the modern world, red in tooth and claw. More.
This is pathetic. “One other thought… not the fundamental mystery it seems to be” “It is true that no evidence… ” “it is perfectly plausible” “would have been”
And it is not about extinctions, but masses of new life forms.
Hey, vote for naturalism in science. Pay taxes for it. Scrimp for your taxes for it. Kowtow to ‘crats for it.
It is a money pit, but we will be approved by the people who collect the money.
We won’t get any science but that doesn’t matter—we will get the good opinion of twerps, twits, airheads, and bimbos, and that will be of more use in the days ahead.
Alternatively, we could go back to being free peoples, having honest discussions. Of course, we would be unpopular among educrats, new atheists, and – in some religious circles – headbangers for the DarwinJesus. Count the cost.
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