Paleontologist Gunter Bechly looks at the claim that the Cambrian animals evolved from a long train of ancestors who somehow all just disappeared without a trace and finds it, well, unconvincing:
Ediacaran
550 million-year-old digestive tract more like worm than coral
It’s the oldest found to date.
Ediacaran life contrasted with Cambrian life to shape Darwinian tale
In reality, we don’t know that earlier Ediacarans didn’t “evolve” the ability to form shells or skeletons. True, we haven’t found any yet. But some of us can’t help remembering the “bombshell” of Neanderthal art. Why was it a bombshell? Because Darwinians had staked a claim on the idea that Neanderthals couldn’t “do” art. This is likely just an another attempt to shape the history of life as a Darwinian fairytale.
Key points in plant evolution featured “fundamental genomic novelties”
Researchers: “This approach reveals an unprecedented level of fundamental genomic novelties in two nodes related to the origin of land plants: the first in the origin of streptophytes during the Ediacaran and another in the ancestor of land plants in the Ordovician.” Stuck for what to call this, some of us would call it creationism.
Researchers: Animal embryos evolved before animals
Well, now that Zhu mentions it, hadn’t we better be sure that there are no adult stages before we make such dramatic claims? Otherwise, what we really have is another early Ediacaran complex animal which, while a marvellous find, is not the one Darwinians would be hoping for.
New Scientist tries to undermine Cambrian explosion
The Ediacaran creatures are fascinating predecessors to be sure. They will likely turn out to be explosions of life, just like the Cambrian, but often not clearly related to it.
The worm that was making those tracks 551–539 million years ago may be found
The claim that the worm challenges the Cambrian explosion which followed this Ediacaran period is weird because we knew there were worms in the Ediacaran on account of the tracks (and comb jellies too) but the explosion of multi-faceted life in the Cambrian is a unique event in any case.
Gunter Bechly: Ediacaran fossil paper is “junk science”
Dickinsonia, he says, is not an animal.
Researchers: Dickinsonia (571–541 mya) could have had mouth and guts
Associate Professor Jochen Brocks commented, “These fossils comprise our best window into earliest animal evolution and are the key to understanding our own deep origins.” Yes, in the sense that sudden emergence rather than a long, slow Darwinian process seems more likely all the time.
Oldest animal turns out to be 40 million years older than 558 mya
MOVE over, Dickinsonia. This 558-million-year-old creature was named the earliest known animal last year, but New Scientist can now exclusively reveal one that existed even earlier – by more than 40 million years. (paywall) Graham Lawton, “Exclusive: 600-million-year old blobs are earliest animals ever found” at New Scientist Note: They are described at New Scientist Read More…
Why did bigger, more complex organisms get started earlier in deep oceans?
A new paper tests the hypothesis that stable temperature was the key — cold but stable.
Researchers: Ediacaran to Cambrian transition took “less than 410,000 years”
Even if these researchers are a teensy bit optimistic about their pinpoint accuracy, the pattern is clear: The history of life is becoming a field markedly less favorable to hand-waving. And note, in 410,000 years, the transition from the multicellular but simple Ediacaran life forms to the diverse Cambrian life forms is supposed to have taken place purely by natural selection acting on random mutation (Darwinism). Aw, come on.
Gunter Bechly: Dickinsonia is NOT likely an animal
Rather, he thinks, it is an unknown type of life form, which belonged to “an alien clade,” not certainly related to later life forms. Readers will recall that fats (sterols) were recently recovered from a 558 million-year-old fossil entity, Dickinsonia, which was previously uncertainly classified but is now classified as an animal as a result. Read More…
Rob Sheldon: How we know the 558 mya animal Dickinsonia remains really contained fats
Recently, some readers asked whether the recent Dickinsonia fossil “fats” find from 558 mya featured cholesterol. Our physics color commentator Rob Sheldon explains further: Cholesterol was not found by these researchers, nor did they make announcements of soft tissue in a fossil. What they did find were the breakdown products of cholesterol called “sterols”. Plants make Read More…
Fats recovered from Ediacaran fossil, 558 mya, shows that animals then were “large,” “abundant”
Yes, you read that right and our physics color commentator Rob Sheldon explains why it was possible below. From ScienceDaily: Scientists from The Australian National University (ANU) and overseas have discovered molecules of fat in an ancient fossil to reveal the earliest confirmed animal in the geological record that lived on Earth 558 million years Read More…