Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Earliest known DEvolution in an animal at 518 mya

Denyse O'Leary
March 2, 2020
Evolution, Intelligent Design
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The worm lost its back legs and built itself a tube to live in instead:

Facivermis yunnanicus was a worm-like creature from the Cambrian period, when the first complex animals evolved in the seas. It was under 10 centimetres long and had five pairs of spiny legs on its front half, while its rear end was swollen.

Michael Marshall, “Weird worm is earliest known animal to evolve away body parts” at New Scientist

Paper. (open access)

So yunnanicus started out more complex and evolved to be LESS complex. Maybe Darwinism can explain that more easily than it can explain most evolution because we are looking at a loss of information.

See also: Devolution: Getting back to the simple life

Comments
Isn't evolution wonderful ? Always full of surprises... ! https://www.veteranstoday.com/2020/03/03/are-you-my-mother/Axel
March 4, 2020
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I'm not sure that building a tube should be considered devolution. It's super-common as a strategy, but it takes more planning and anticipation than just moving around. Among familiar critters like birds and humans, we regard nests and houses as signs of intelligence.polistra
March 3, 2020
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Jim Thibodeau, thank you for demonstrating the universal common descent is a pipe dream.ET
March 3, 2020
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Speaking of 'betterment': could the edit function be allowed again?Truthfreedom
March 3, 2020
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The BIG PROBLEM for naturalism is that, under a materialist/ evolutiveparadigm, it can not coherently explain the concepts: 'better', 'progress'. 'Better' for what? If there is not purpose, there can be neither betterment nor progress. Stuff happens. It is pretty common knowledge among rational people that naturalism is a barrage of non-sense and glaring contradictions. Day in and day out. 150Truthfreedom
March 3, 2020
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One of Gould’s essays showed that for mathematical reasons it does on average result in progress, at least early on, but on average does not mean monotonically. He wrote that like 40 or 50 years ago, it’s pretty common knowledge among biologists.Jim Thibodeau
March 3, 2020
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https://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/misconceptions_faq.php Misconceptions about evolution ”Evolution results in progress; organisms are always getting better through evolution.” https://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/misconceptions_faq.php#a3 Stephen J. Gould wrote several essays about this misconception too.Jim Thibodeau
March 3, 2020
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It has previously been hard to determine exactly what kind of animal F. yunnanicus was. “People have said it’s all kinds of things over the years".
Of course a bunch of monkeys' cousins dressed up in labcoats (a.k.a. scientists) can not know anything . Our brains are very poorly designed. Our whole body is a botched job.Truthfreedom
March 3, 2020
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This article appears to agree https://news.yahoo.com/evolution-famous-march-progress-image-151329373.htmles58
March 2, 2020
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