In the mess that preceded the Cambrian explosion. Which is why they’re not there. Okay?
In “Liberals’ View of Darwin Unable to Evolve” (Human Events, August 31, 2011), Coulter riffs,
Any evidence contradicting the primitive religion of Darwinism — including, for example, the entire fossil record — they explain away with non-scientific excuses like “the dog ate our fossils.”
Jan Bergstrom, a paleontologist who examined the Chinese fossils, said the Cambrian Period was not “evolution,” it was “a revolution.”
So the Darwiniacs pretended they missed the newspaper that day.
Intelligent design scientists look at the evidence and develop their theories; Darwinists start with a theory and then rearrange the evidence.
These aren’t scientists. They are religious fanatics for whom evolution must be true so that they can explain to themselves why they are here, without God. (It’s an accident!)
Any evidence contradicting the primitive religion of Darwinism — including, for example, the entire fossil record — they explain away with non-scientific excuses like “the dog ate our fossils.”
Put another way, if the Cambrian is not a problem for Darwinism, Darwinism is not science. All real theories have problems, but Darwinism, like any cult, never has any problems – because evidence always takes second place to cult beliefs.
Darwin’s Dilemma explains:
See also: California Science Center answerable for canning non-Darwin film.
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Ann Coulter wields words and common sense like a sword to cut through the darwinists’ b.s. Rock on, Ann!!
You’re going to post stuff like this and then claim that ID isn’t creationism? Good luck with that, this is lowbrow antievolutionism on the level of the bad old days of the Bible-Science Newsletter.
Let’s get this right, shall we?
The creationists were at one time the most vocal anti-Darwinists. Now, however, it’s not just the creationists who doubt Darwin. You seem to be echoing the mantra that if it’s anti-Darwin, it’s creationism. Please try to get it right.
Nick,
Don’t get your panties in a knot just because people are pointing out major flws in your position.
The only person right in the OP is Bergstrom. The rest is Ann Coulter, a know-nothing about all things science, SAYING things.
The Cambrian explosion WAS a revolution. That’s when oxygen levels in the ocean finally got high enough so calcium would precipitate out of sea water. Which means that for the first time in history, animals could have teeth, shells and eventually bones.
Suddenly, any predator that managed to precipitate some calcium on its mouth could kill and eat ANYTHING! And any prey that coated itself with calcium was immune to everything else. You could have a lousy design and still survive and leave lots of descendents – until everybody had teeth / shells / bones and then the great shakeout started as the weird and inefficient designs got clobbered.
And while all this was happening, those brand new teeth shells and bones would fossilize – something that the old soft plants and animals almost never did and suddenly we had a fossil record.
Now what is so amazing about the Cambrian Explosion?
F/N According to Peter Ward and David Brownless in “Rare Earth” (a book that is featured on at least one ID web site) the earth may have also frozen over completely for millions of years and the Cambrian also marks the point where massive volcanism suddenly melted the world wide frozen ocean. Yet another reason why the Cambrian was a revolution.
That’s David Brownlee and the ID web site is Mike Gene’s.
In order for it to be science you need some way to test for this alleged revolution.
That sounds easy. But I’d really like to see something precipitate some calcium on its mouth or coat itself with calcium. The devil is in the details.
If you have ever debated a modern day Darwinist, you should know by now that they are not interested in fossils anymore. The fossil record does not support the gradualistic Darwinian theory of evolution. Darwinists these days are not interested in fossils, becuase it gives them alot of problems. Instead the Darwinists these day talk about “genes” only.
If you want an honest evolutionist then look at the work of the French Zoologist Pierre-Paul Grassé he admitted that if evolution had occured in the past, we should be able to see it in the fossil record only.
dmullenix, His name is DONALD Brownlee. As well, in a shining example of Darwinian imagination parading as hard science, dmullenix states:
The gaps in credible explanation, in this oft repeated Darwinian fairy tale are truly astonishing. Yet when looked at more soberly, instead of with just a eye for making up any evolutionary ‘just so story’ that we can imagine, we find that the most parsimonious explanation, by far, is that the primeval ‘toxic’ earth was slowly ‘terraformed’, over hundreds of millions of years, to finally allow the introduction of higher life forms at the Cambrian explosion:
‘terraforming’ continued:
‘terraforming’ continued;
‘terraforming’ continued:
“lowbrow antievolutionism” not nearly as low as you go Nick – what nerve!
File with:
“The Dog Ate My Morals”,
“The Dog Ate My Premises”
and
The Dog Ate My Principles”.
Nick,
You’re going to post stuff like this and then claim that Darwinism isn’t atheism?
Good luck with that, this is lowbrow bigotry on the level of the bad old days of eugenics and the gulag.
Are you saying that they didn’t precipitate calcium? The fossil record says they did – in spades.
No, we’re very interested in fossils. It’s certainly not creationists or IDists who are digging them up and studying them. Darwin was puzzled by the lack of fossils before the Cambrian, but we know now that lack of oxygen kept teeth, shells and bones from forming and this prevented most pre-cambrian fossils. The only remaining puzzle was why individual species so often appear suddenly and Stephen J. Gould answered that with punctuated equilibrium. Changes get swamped out in large interbreeding groups, but if a small group gets isolated from the crowd then new genes quickly produce visible changes to the species. Once that new species grows to large enough numbers, they start leaving fossils and shazam, a new species is found.
One way you can track the discovery of new transitional fossils is to watch web sites like this one. They tend to have major kerfuffles whenever a particularly good one is found, especially if it was exactly where and when evolutionary theory predicted it. Remember Tiktaalik? Right smack dab between plain old fish and the earliest tetrapods and right where it was supposed to be in age. Can anybody name a fossil that matches ID theory like that?
You’re right that volutionists are fascinated by DNA. It mirrors evolution as revealed by the fossil record so well that it provides powerful additional evidence that evolution occurred.
Thanks for the correction. I was relying on memory. And surprise! For once, I agree with you. “Terraforming” is exactly what happened. The earth wasn’t toxic at the time, though – there was abundant life and it was doing just fine until the terraforming bacteria started to release oxygen – which WAS a highly toxic substance to the living creatures at that time. Oxygen affected them about the same way fluorine or chlorine affects modern life. It just tore them right up. Eventually, of course, organisms evolved ways to protect themselves against oxygen and today most non-photosynthesizing organisms get the energy they need to be multi-cellular by oxidizing their food. Bless those little bacteria. Neither we nor the fossil record would exist without them.
Yes, Dmullenix, we remember Tiktaalik. Why would we forget?
Don’t you see that the “sudden appearance” of new body plans and species is completely contrary to the predictions of the theory of evolution? Punctuated equilibrium is merely an exercise in moving the goal posts. If you haven’t watched it yet, take the time to view “Darwin’s Dilemma” you can see it online, for free, and it will explain to you the scale of the problem that you think can be covered up by entirely unsupported appeals to “punctuated equilibrium”.
dmullenix states:
Yet it appears dmullenix’s is as faulty checking his imagination as he is in checking his memory for He then goes on to state:
Yet the little fact dmullenix leaves out of his imaginative (without substance) ‘excuse’ for neo-Darwinism is that higher life-forms cannot exist without oxygen, for oxygen reactions, on the ‘molecular-machine’ scale, provides the necessary energy for vastly increased metabolism of higher lifeforms, even though on the molecular scale of ‘free floating’ organic molecules, Oxygen is a very ‘thermodynamic obeying’, one might even say ‘poisonous’, element since Oxygen quickly reacts with such free floating organic molecules to ‘rip them apart’ to their ‘simpler’ thermodynamically stable form;
notes:
Further notes that dmullenix will probably ignore:
etc.. etc..
BA, thanks for your patience and expertise in dealing with people who, when caught with their hand in the cookie jar, besmeared with chocolate, say “what cookie jar?” 🙂
No problem TG. I really wouldn’t call it expertise so much as I would call it holding Darwinists accountable to even a minimal amount of scientific plausibility, which or course, even a minimal level of scientific integrity, is unable to be maintained by them.
Footnote”
On The Non-Evidence For The Endosymbiotic Origin Of The Mitochondria – JonathanM – March 2011
Conclusion: To conclude, while one can find examples of similarity between eukaryotic mitochondria and bacterial cells, other cases also reveal stark differences. In addition, the sheer lack of a mechanistic basis for mitochondrial endosymbiotic assimilation ought to — at the very least — cause us to raise an eyebrow and expect some fairly spectacular evidence for the claim being made. At present, however, such evidence does not exist — and justifiably gives one pause for scepticism.
http://www.uncommondescent.com.....ochondria/
dmullenix,
I’m pointing out how easy you make it sound.
Calcium does not enable animals to have teeth, shells, or bones, even though those things require it. That’s a bit like saying, “We have lots of sand, which means that now we can have big-screen plasma TVs.” Sand does not explain TVs, amino acids do not explain life, and calcium does not explain teeth or shells.
dmullenix,
I’m pointing out how easy you make it sound.
Calcium does not enable animals to have teeth, shells, or bones, even though those things require it. That’s a bit like saying, “We have lots of sand, which means that now we can have big-screen plasma TVs.” Sand does not explain TVs, amino acids do not explain life, and calcium does not explain teeth or shells.
further note to ‘terraforming’; It is interesting to point out how extremely finely-tuned bacterial life is to the needs of higher life forms which are above them:
So you don’t see gradualism in the single fossil we’ve found of Tiktaalik? Well, guess evolution is doomed. Ditto with finding footprints of another tetrapod a few million years earlier. So much for the so-called “bush” those crazy evolutionists talk about.
Why I tend to skip over your posts:
“Yet it appears dmullenix’s is as faulty checking his imagination as he is in checking his memory for He then goes on to state:
“Oxygen affected them about the same way fluorine or chlorine affects modern life. It just tore them right up.”
Yet the little fact dmullenix leaves out of his imaginative (without substance) ‘excuse’ for neo-Darwinism is that higher life-forms cannot exist without oxygen, for oxygen reactions, on the ‘molecular-machine’ scale – blah blah blah”
What I wrote right after that: “Eventually, of course, organisms evolved ways to protect themselves against oxygen and today most non-photosynthesizing organisms get the energy they need to be multi-cellular by oxidizing their food. Bless those little bacteria. Neither we nor the fossil record would exist without them.”
Dmullenix, clearly you don’t get it with Tiktaalik either so let me spell it out for you: it’s not a missing link.
Did you watch “Darwin’s Dilemma” yet?
dmullenix, why I tend to consider you to be disingenuous: you state:
Other than your blind faith in the atheistic materialism of Darwinism, do you have any hard ‘demonstrated’ scientific proof whatsoever??? Perhaps you would like to cite the peer-reviewed papers that refute Doug Axe’s work???
Chris, have you read the actual papers on Tiktaalik?
And why are you talking about the “sudden appearance of new body plans” in this context? And what do you mean by “Punctuated equilibrium is merely an exercise in moving the goalposts”?
It’s true that “I don’t get it” 🙂 Tiktaaliks were a spectacularly successful prediction of Darwinian theory, right down to the place in which they were found! It seems to me that those the authors of those articles you linked to are the ones who “don’t get it”!
I’m no palaeontologist, but “I know a man who can” as the AA ad used to say, actually two (Per Ahlberg and Martin Brazeau)- let me know if you want me to ask them anything 🙂
Darwinism isn’t atheism, Gil.
…
…
click here for a hint:
Thank you for your honesty Will Provine.
1- Academe January 1987 pp.51-52 †
2-Evolutionary Progress (1988) p. 65 †
3- “Evolution: Free will and punishment and meaning in life” 1998 Darwin Day Keynote Address 1 2 †
4- No Free Will (1999) p.123
5- Provine, W.B., Origins Research 16(1), p.9, 1994.
Umm Tiktaalik was not a successful prediction of anything as it was found in the wrong place and wrong strata- that is according to Neil Shubin’s nook “Your Inner Fish”.
Ya see Shubin said he was looking where he did because there wasn’t any evidence of tetrapods before 385 million years ago but there was evidence for tetrapods 365 mya- therefor it made scientific sense to look between 365-385 mya. Then along comes a new find that pushes tetrapods back to before 390 mya and that renders Tiktaalik as a mosaic rather than a transition.
Cut to the chase Elizabeth: are you saying Tiktaalik is a missing link or not. Because if you are, you’re wrong. If you’re not, then you’re just wasting my time. Again.
Joseph, that’s sort of funny 🙂
How could it have been found “in the wrong place and wrong strata” when they, um, actually found it?
In the place and strata they predicted they would?
No, the Zachalmie find doesn’t render Tiktaalik as a mosaic. I can link you to an interesting discussion about that if you like.
First of all, Chris, I’m rejecting the term “missing link”. For a start, if you find it, it isn’t missing, and for a second, it depends what you mean by “link”. Tiktaaliks were almost certainly not ancestral to anything that survives today, and may even have gone extinct before evolving into anything much like Tiktaaliks. But they are “transitional” in the sense that they can be fitted very beautifully into the phylogeny of fish-tetrapods.
Here is part of a discussion with Per Ahlberg on Talk Rational – Dean is quoting an earlier post of Per’s here:
http://talkrational.org/showth.....post937654
And Per replies here:
http://talkrational.org/showth.....post938394
An interesting relevant post from Per on another thread is here:
http://talkrational.org/showth.....post691409
When have I wasted your time, Chris? Your time is your own – you are free to respond to me or ignore me as you wish.
Cheers
Lizzie
Tiktaaliks were almost certainly not ancestral to anything that survives today, and may even have gone extinct before evolving into anything much like Tiktaaliks.
Thank-you, I’ll take that as a “No, Tiktaalik is not a missing link”.
Elizabeth Liddle:
Again according to Neil Shubin himself:
The new data has tetrapods appearing over 390 million years ago, meaning the 365 million year end of bracket now gets moved to that 390+ million year mark. IOW his brackets were wrong because the data he used to form them was wrong.
Without any data that puts Tiktaalik before the arrival of tetrapods, and no one knows when that was, Tiktaalik was NOT what they were looking for- that is if you listen to what they say.
1- Saying Tiktaalik is a transitional is question-begging
2- According to Shubin in “Your Inner Fish” Tiktaalik was not what he was looking for- see comment 7 below
to Chris- they found it so it ain’t missing. But as far as anyone knows it was a stand-alone population, ie not diverged from anything.
Hi Joseph,
Missing links, in the widest sense of the term, are supposed to provide the clinching evolutionary connection between otherwise discontinuous species, families, classes, etc. They’re all the fossils that Darwin predicted would be found if his theory was true, but that no-one ever did find. Missing links are yet another failed evolutionist prediction.
Whatever they found in Tiktaalik, it was certainly not a missing link.
I think you aren’t listening to what they say, Joseph 🙂
For a start, think about what you are saying with those “brackets”. Clearly the earliest tetrapods must predate any extant tetrapods. So if there are amphibians dating from 365 mya, then the earliest tetrapods must be older than that. Shubin and colleagues figured out that there should be tetrapods at least 15 million years older than that, and, from the places they would have lived, where they were likely to be fossilised, and where that strata would be near the surface. And they got it absolutely right – they found tetrapods with just the right transitional features in those exact rocks.
Finding earlier tetropods doesn’t infirm that prediction at all – as it couldn’t really, seeing as the prediction came true and they found them! But finding that group of transitional tetrapods certainly doesn’t rule out earlier tetrapods. It’s how the features fit into the systematics that matters. As Martin Brazeau pointed out:
Elizabeth Liddle:
I have.
They must post-date the transition.
Not if those are the earliest, which is what Shubin wrongly thought.
Geez Liz- they were looking for the TRANSITION not a tetrapod. And according to the quote I provided you are totally wrong.
Also calls for intermediate characteristics is just a call on our classification scheme- meaning it ain’t as neat as we like to think.
But anyway I will go with what Shubin wrote- why he was looking where he did- ya see there isn’t anything in the theory of evolution that states transitional forms will remain around millions of years after the transition took place. HOWEVER, as Shubin pointed out, the place to look for evidence of the transition is BETWEEN two points- one being where only one point is, ie fish and the other where tetrapods existed.
Elizabeth,
The fossil record should show-> fish-> transitions to tetrapods-> tetrapods
Right now it shows fish-> tetrapods-> transition to tetrapods
Is that the successful prediction you are talking about?
No, it doesn’t show that. It shows that tetrapods are descended from fish, and that the earliest descendents included a population of tiktaaliks, in one region, which is now Northern Canada, and another population, somewhat earlier, in what is now Poland.
or rather from fish-like ancestors of modern fish and tetrapods.
The fossil record shows fish-> tetrapods-> fishapods. Tiktaalik has not been found in strata predating tetrapods.
And again you are question-begging- the fossil record does not show tetrapods are descended from fish. Only genetics can do that and so far there isn’t any genetic evidence that demonstrates the changes required are even possible via Darwinian processes.
Cladistics can be done with both fossil evidence and genetic evidence.
Joseph, your argument seems to be based on the fallacy that there is a single line of “ascent” in which each population is some kind of “improvement” on the previous. That is not the way even Darwin conceived it, and certainly not the modern biological model. Take a look at the phylogenies in this post:
http://talkrational.org/showth.....post937654
Not all populations undergo the same adaptations.
Cladistics is based on synamorphies, ie a common design. There still isn’t any genetic evidence that demonstrates the changes required are even possble.
My argument is based on what Shubin wrote in his book. My argument does not depend on any single line of descent, just logic and reason- in order for something to be a transition it has to be between the two points- that is the very definition of the word.
Also if Shubin had the data from Poland he would not have looked where he did.
Well, it isn’t the definition of transition when it comes to evolution. In fact it’s not a word with a precise definition even – some people will say that all organisms that leave offspring are “transitional”.
And if Shubin had hadn’t looked where he did, he wouldn’t have found Tiktaaliks. Now that we have the data from Poland, there’s reason to look for Tiktaaliks in rather earlier strata as well.
Oh, and “synamorphy” doesn’t mean “common design”. It means a “shared trait”. You don’t need genetics to determine traits, and in fact not all genetic sequences have phenotypic effects, i.e. confer traits. Some of the most interesting ones don’t.
Elizabeth Liddle:
So evolution needs to rewrite definitions to suit its needs? Beyond pathetic.
Right and a shered trait is a common design.
Traits are determined by genes.
Yes I know.
And there STILL isn’t any genetic evidence that demonstrates the changes required are even possible.