Cambrian explosion

A new study is out trying to find the LUCA (Last Universal Common Ancestor). Needless to say, things got even worse for those who place their belief in Darwinian thinking. Because the Concluding Remarks section is so devastating, I’m blockquoting the whole thing: Our work furnishes a new variable for the assessment of protein family evolution which compliments previous approaches based on conserved presence and phylogenetic topology. Using phylogenetic tree based approaches of the type used here, only limited information can be gained about the LUCA, leaving specific details on physiology largely speculative. Analysis of proteins such as the reverse gyrase, hydrogenase, and nitrogenase discussed here and elsewhere (Boyd et al., 2011a, b; Catchpole and Forterre, 2019) does not support Read More ›

From 518 million years ago: The remains document the Cambrian explosion, a rapid flourishing of life-forms, and include many organisms never seen before — even at the most famous Cambrian fossil site, Canada’s Burgess Shale Carolyn Gramling, “Science News’ favorite fossils of 2019” at Science News So even more fossils just popped into existence, just like that. No wonder even Darwin had doubts. From 290 million to 280 million years ago: For such an ancient critter, O. pabsti — one of the earliest amniotes, a group that includes reptiles and mammals — had a surprisingly efficient gait Carolyn Gramling, “Science News’ favorite fossils of 2019” at Science News So the long, long Darwinian period when the creature just stumbled uncertainly Read More ›

For some years, it has not been the practice of many Catholics to question Darwinism. Most got sucked years ago into some muddle according to which the great theologian Thomas Aquinas didn’t supposedly think there could be such a thing as observable design in nature because that would make God a “tinkerer.” Some tinker. Anyway, it was interesting to see that, just recently, a California Catholic paper has started to smell the coffee at last and picked up on George Weigel’s article from First Things: The empirical evidence suggests that the notions of a purposeful Creator and a purposeful creation cannot be dismissed as mere pre-modern mythology. That may help a few Nones out of the materialist bogs in which Read More ›

The Cambrian Explosion, demonstrated time and again to be an ‘explosion,’ is a problem for Darwinian theory. Darwin postulated gradualsim; in fact, he insisted upon it when pressed by supporters to modulate this position of his. The problem is that multiple life forms are required to “build” new life forms. You need lots of species for higher taxa to accumulate over time. But we see almost the complete opposite in the Cambrian Explosion. Steven Meyer wrote a book about this: Darwin’s Dilemna. Now there’s more. Another ‘explosion’ during the Ordivician. The authors of a study published in Paleogeography, Paleoclimatology, Paleoecology had this to say: The early evolution of animal life on Earth is a complex and fascinating subject. The Cambrian Read More ›

Dear readers, It has been far too long since my last post, occasioned by the fact that I have entirely too many irons in the fire. I hope you will forgive this brief “drive-by” post, with a request for some help and information. One of the common refrains that comes up regarding the fossil record, or regarding claims about biodiversity and the evolution of species more generally, is that the vast majority of species that have ever lived on the Earth have gone extinct. This is often phrased as “99% of species that have ever lived have gone extinct” or similar wording. (Occasionally someone will temper the number to 98% or 95% or some other nearby figure, but 99% seems Read More ›