Insect found from 370 million years ago

_{Denyse O'Leary

August 2, 2012

Evolution, News}

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From “Humble bug plugs gap in fossil record” (News24, August 1, 2012), we learn,

Named Strudiella devonica, the eight-millimetre invertebrate – while in far from mint condition – is thought by researchers who published their findings in Nature on Wednesday to be the world’s oldest complete insect fossil.

Scientists until now had few if any confirmed insect fossils from between 385 and 325 million years ago, a period known as the Hexapoda Gap, William A Shear of Hampden-Sydney College wrote in a comment that accompanied the study.

Caution is urged, due to the poor state of preservation of the fossil, believed to be the larva of a winged insect.

It’s interesting that the reporting of the story follows the “plugging the gaps in the fossil record” theme, beloved of Christian Darwinists. One wonders when some starving hack will wake up and say to himself, “Wot! Insects, like modern insects, that date back to the Devonian period?”

The problem is that if we plug gaps by finding complex life forms earlier and earlier, slowly working our way back to near the origin of life, we make Darwinism less and less plausible.

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Comments

I D most certainly against evolution, yes? No, ID is compatible with guided 'top down' gradual evolution. ID is with incompatible with the 'bottom up' unguided evolution posited by neo-Darwinism! Myself I personally hold that the historical, and current, empirical evidence overwhelmingly indicates that Intelligent Design was implemented into life 'top down' at different points in time during in the earth's history instead of gradually. But no, ID is not incompatible with gradual evolution, it is only incompatible with the 'botton up' materialistic presupposition that undergirds neo-Darwinism: A. L. Hughes's New Non-Darwinian Mechanism of Adaption Was Discovered and Published in Detail by an ID Geneticist 25 Years Ago - Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig - December 2011 Excerpt: The original species had a greater genetic potential to adapt to all possible environments. In the course of time this broad capacity for adaptation has been steadily reduced in the respective habitats by the accumulation of slightly deleterious alleles (as well as total losses of genetic functions redundant for a habitat), with the exception, of course, of that part which was necessary for coping with a species' particular environment....By mutative reduction of the genetic potential, modifications became "heritable". -- As strange as it may at first sound, however, this has nothing to do with the inheritance of acquired characteristics. For the characteristics were not acquired evolutionarily, but existed from the very beginning due to the greater adaptability. In many species only the genetic functions necessary for coping with the corresponding environment have been preserved from this adaptability potential. The "remainder" has been lost by mutations (accumulation of slightly disadvantageous alleles) -- in the formation of secondary species. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/12/a_l_hughess_new053881.html The Law of Physicodynamic Insufficiency - Dr David L. Abel - November 2010 Excerpt: “If decision-node programming selections are made randomly or by law rather than with purposeful intent, no non-trivial (sophisticated) function will spontaneously arise.”,,, After ten years of continual republication of the null hypothesis with appeals for falsification, no falsification has been provided. The time has come to extend this null hypothesis into a formal scientific prediction: “No non trivial algorithmic/computational utility will ever arise from chance and/or necessity alone.” http://www-qa.scitopics.com/The_Law_of_Physicodynamic_Insufficiency.htmlbornagain77_{August 3, 2012
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bornagain77, "Evolution is not science!" I D most certainly against evolution, yes? sergiosergiomendes_{August 3, 2012
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Well CLAVDIVS, so Darwinism can hold that it predicted the most complex form of 'complete metamorphosis' to appear earliest in the fossil record with the finding of a Larva at 370 myo and can also, with no substantiating evidence whatsoever, hold that the much simpler 'incomplete metamorphosis' preceded it. Actually CLAVDIVS, regardless of what you may believe, this is actually another fine example of exactly why Darwinism is not science. It's all smoke and mirrors!bornagain77_{August 3, 2012
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bornagain77 @ 17
“discomforting to the science of evolution” Evolution is not science!
And once again you fail to defend your claim that "finding a larva of a insect is more of a problem for Darwinism to explain..." I showed how, far from being a problem, this was in fact expected back in 1999 as per the citation from Nature. You've not addressed this point. Instead you keep trying to branch off onto irrelevant topics. I'll leave it to the judgement of reasonable onlookers to guess why that might be the case. CheersCLAVDIVS_{August 3, 2012
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"discomforting to the science of evolution" Evolution is not science! Is evolution pseudoscience? Excerpt:,,, Thus, of the ten characteristics of pseudoscience listed in the Skeptic’s Dictionary, evolution meets nine. Few other?pseudosciences — astrology, astral projection, alien abduction, crystal power, or whatever — would meet so many. http://creation.com/is-evolution-pseudoscience "nobody to date has yet found a demarcation criterion according to which Darwin(ism) can be described as scientific" - Imre Lakatos (November 9, 1922 – February 2, 1974) a philosopher of mathematics and science, quote was as stated in 1973 LSE Scientific Method Lecture http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imre_Lakatos#Darwin.27s_theory Science and Pseudoscience - Imre Lakatos - exposing Darwinism as a ‘degenerate science program’, as a pseudoscience, using Lakatos's rigid criteria https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LpGd3smTV1RwmEXC25IAEKMjiypBl5VJq9ssfv4JgeM/edit C.S. Lewis: creationist and anti-evolutionist Excerpt: "In 1951 C S Lewis wrote that evolution was “the central and radical lie in the whole web of falsehood that now governs our lives” and modern civilization. Evolution, Lewis explained, is a picture of reality that has resulted from imagination and is “not the logical result of what is vaguely called ‘modern science’.” http://creation.com/c-s-lewisbornagain77_{August 2, 2012
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bornagain77 @ 15
But of course CLAVDIVS nothing ever falsifies neo-Darwinism in the neo-Darwinist’s mind (oh I’m sorry CLAV I forgot that neo-Darwinists deny they even have a ‘mind’ to begin with!)! Well regardless of what you, and other Darwinists, think (in your deterministic heads) neo-Darwinism is dead:
Well I'm not a determinist so your comments are completely irrelevant. Also, I notice you forgot to explain exactly how finding the oldest complete insect fossil is discomforting to the science of evolution. Instead you raised a whole lot of other irrelevant topics. So it appears your comment @ 9 are incorrect, which is what I was pointing out. CheersCLAVDIVS_{August 2, 2012
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But of course CLAVDIVS nothing ever falsifies neo-Darwinism in the neo-Darwinist's mind (oh I'm sorry CLAV I forgot that neo-Darwinists deny they even have a 'mind' to begin with!)! Well regardless of what you, and other Darwinists, think (in your deterministic heads) neo-Darwinism is dead:
The Fate of Darwinism: Evolution After the Modern Synthesis - David J. Depew and Bruce H. Weber - 2011 Excerpt: We trace the history of the Modern Evolutionary Synthesis, and of genetic Darwinism generally, with a view to showing why, even in its current versions, it can no longer serve as a general framework for evolutionary theory. The main reason is empirical. Genetical Darwinism cannot accommodate the role of development (and of genes in development) in many evolutionary processes.,,, http://www.springerlink.com/content/845x02v03g3t7002/
Genetic Entropy, a principle which stands in direct opposition of the primary claim of neo-Darwinian evolution, lends itself quite well to mathematical analysis by computer simulation:
Using Computer Simulation to Understand Mutation Accumulation Dynamics and Genetic Load: Excerpt: We apply a biologically realistic forward-time population genetics program to study human mutation accumulation under a wide-range of circumstances.,, Our numerical simulations consistently show that deleterious mutations accumulate linearly across a large portion of the relevant parameter space. http://bioinformatics.cau.edu.cn/lecture/chinaproof.pdf MENDEL’S ACCOUNTANT: J. SANFORD†, J. BAUMGARDNER‡, W. BREWER§, P. GIBSON¶, AND W. REMINE http://mendelsaccount.sourceforge.net
Here is a short sweet overview of Mendel's Accountant and the deep flaws revealed by population genetics with neo-Darwinism:
Using Numerical Simulation to Test the Validity of Neo-Darwinian Theory (Mendel's Accountant) Excerpt of Conclusion: This (computer) program (Mendel’s Accountant) is a powerful teaching and research tool. It reveals that all of the traditional theoretical problems that have been raised about evolutionary genetic theory are in fact very real and are empirically verifiable in a scientifically rigorous manner. As a consequence, evolutionary genetic theory now has no theoretical support—it is an indefensible scientific model. Rigorous analysis of evolutionary genetic theory consistently indicates that the entire enterprise is actually bankrupt. http://radaractive.blogspot.com/2010/06/god-versus-darwin-when-macro-evolution.html
neo-Darwinian evolution simply has no rigorous mathematical foundation with which we can rigorously analyze it in any computer simulation. This includes any supposed 'Evolutionary Algorithm' that has been 'intelligently designed' by programmers (explain that to me!) to simulate Darwinian evolution::
Refutation of Evolutionary Algorithms https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1h33EC4yg29Ve59XYJN_nJoipZLKIgupT6lBtsaVQsUs Accounting for Variations - Dr. David Berlinski: - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aW2GkDkimkE "No human investigation can be called true science without passing through mathematical tests." Leonardo Da Vinci
bornagain77_{August 2, 2012
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johnnyb @ 10 Oops. Let me try again.
If Darwinism were true, we should expect to see continual evolution in everything. Thus, the existence of identical forms from deep in the fossil record is disconfirming for Darwinism. The pattern of discontinuous and coordinated change also found is confirmational for ID.
I believe the only model of origins that expects continual evolution along lineages (anagenesis) in everything is the creationist orchard model. Since this is not observed, the creationist orchard model is refuted. The modern science of evolution expects more frequent splitting of lineages (cladogenesis) and significantly less frequent anagenesis. This matches what is observed in the fossil record, so modern evolution science is supported. The scientific explanation for the complex, integrated process of metamorphosis is that it is an incremental development of the process of moulting. There is considerable fossil, morphological and biochemical evidence for this hypothesis. CheersCLAVDIVS_{August 2, 2012
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johnnyb @ 10
If Darwinism were true, we should expect to see continual evolution in everything. Thus, the existence of identical forms from deep in the fossil record is disconfirming for Darwinism. The pattern of discontinuous and coordinated change also found is confirmational for ID.
I believe the only model of origins that expects continual evolution along lineages (anagenesis) in everything is the creationist orchard model. Since this is not observed, the creationists orchard model is refuted. The modern science of evolution expects fresplitting of lineagesCLAVDIVS_{August 2, 2012
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Bornagain77 @ 9
CLAVDIVS you state: “Actually, this (370 myo Larva) was expected.” And exactly how is finding a larva as the world’s oldest complete insect fossil comforting to Darwinian thought?? A Larva represents the most complex stage of ‘complete metamorphosis’ and your paper conjectures that ‘incomplete metamorphosis’ preceded ‘complete metamorphosis’! Perhaps you would care to present hard evidence instead of just imagination to support your position that pronymph preceded larval?
And exactly how is finding the oldest complete insect fossil discomforting to the science of evolution? The evidence shows complex metazoa arose over 600 million years ago, so an insect from 370 million years ago is simply no big surprise at all. And, of course, the hard empirical evidence is presented in the cited paper from Nature, amongst many others. That you don't accept it doesn't make the evidence disappear - evidence doesn't need to be convincing to you in order to count as evidence for reasonable people. CheersCLAVDIVS_{August 2, 2012
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I should add that without knowledge of the specific mechanism or history, it doesn't prove either one, but it does make indications.johnnyb_{August 2, 2012
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sergio - The relationship between this an ID is this - ID supposes that large amounts of information does not evolve by haphazard mechanisms. Instead, as a result of design, informational changes must be coordinated and all-at-once. If Darwinism were true, we should expect to see continual evolution in everything. Thus, the existence of identical forms from deep in the fossil record is disconfirming for Darwinism. The pattern of discontinuous and coordinated change also found is confirmational for ID.johnnyb_{August 2, 2012
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CLAVDIVS you state:
"Actually, this (370 myo Larva) was expected."
And exactly how is finding a larva as the world's oldest complete insect fossil comforting to Darwinian thought?? A Larva represents the most complex stage of 'complete metamorphosis' and your paper conjectures that 'incomplete metamorphosis' preceded 'complete metamorphosis'! Perhaps you would care to present hard evidence instead of just imagination to support your position that pronymph preceded larval? As to the fact that you have no actual empirical evidence for your conjecture, but only 'just so' stories here are a few notes:
Experimental Evolution in Fruit Flies (35 years of trying to force fruit flies to evolve in the laboratory fails, spectacularly) - October 2010 Excerpt: "Despite decades of sustained selection in relatively small, sexually reproducing laboratory populations, selection did not lead to the fixation of newly arising unconditionally advantageous alleles.,,, "This research really upends the dominant paradigm about how species evolve," said ecology and evolutionary biology professor Anthony Long, the primary investigator. http://www.arn.org/blogs/index.php/literature/2010/10/07/experimental_evolution_in_fruit_flies 'No matter what we do to a fruit fly embryo there are only three possible outcomes, a normal fruit fly, a defective fruit fly, or a dead fruit fly. What we never see is primary speciation much less macro-evolution' – Jonathan Wells Darwin's Theory - Fruit Flies and Stable Morphology - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZJTIwRY0bs
bornagain77_{August 2, 2012
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timothya at 6 and CLAVDIVS at 7: In one sense it was expected but in another, if the fossil pans out, it demonstrates complexity and stasis, not the sort of thing one would want in order to demonstrate Darwinism. It's not our readers who should have a problem with the dating.News_{August 2, 2012
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bornagain @ 2
Actually finding a larva of a insect is more of a problem for Darwinism to explain than finding stasis in a 370 million year old insect would have been to explain (as if 370 million years of stasis) that was not bad enough to explain), since finding a ‘larva’ gives strong indication that that the ‘dual life cycle’ of metamorphosis was present from the very beginning...
Actually, this was expected.
Our hypothesis for the evolution of metamorphosis is based on the premise that basal insects actually have three distinct life forms: pronymph, nymph and adult. We propose that these are directly comparable to the larval, pupal and adult stages of the Holometabola. --- Truman J W & Riddiford L M, "The origins of insect metamorphosis", Nature Vol 401, 30 Sep 1999 p.451
CheersCLAVDIVS_{August 2, 2012
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OP said: "The problem is that if we plug gaps by finding complex life forms earlier and earlier, slowly working our way back to near the origin of life, we make Darwinism less and less plausible." Wait a second. The report says the fossil plugs a gap between older invertebrate fossils and younger ones. Do you have any evidence of its relative complexity compared to the known older and younger fossils? Some of your readers may have a problem with the 370My dating. Do you have any comment on that topic?timothya_{August 2, 2012
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here is a video on the same topic:
Ancient Fossils That Have Not Changed For Millions Of Years - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4113820
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See this interesting post by Christopher Taylor, an evolutionary entomologist: "I was going to write a post today on Strudiella devonica, the new fossil insect described from the Late Devonian of Belgium in today's Nature (Garrouste et al. 2012). Unfortunately, there's a limit to what I can really say. The stratigraphic significance of the specimen is undeniable: it sits well within a gap of about sixty million years that previously divided the earlier known insect fossils from the lower Devonian from the earliest known unequivocal winged insects in the mid-Carboniferous. Unfortunately, and I say this in the nicest possible way, the specimen itself is roadkill: http://coo.fieldofscience.com/2012/08/a-devonian-pterygote.htmlEnezio E. De Almeida Filho_{August 2, 2012
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sergiomendes for examples of stasis in insect fossils (and other types of fossils), that go back millions of years, that is much clearer to see the stasis in, this following Muslim website has a very good collection of photographs:
THE FOSSILS IN THE CREATION MUSEUM - 1000's of pictures of ancient 'living' fossils that have not changed for millions of years: http://www.fossil-museum.com/fossils/?page=0&limit=30
bornagain77_{August 2, 2012
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as to:
believed to be the larva of a winged insect.
Actually finding a larva of a insect is more of a problem for Darwinism to explain than finding stasis in a 370 million year old insect would have been to explain (as if 370 million years of stasis) that was not bad enough to explain), since finding a 'larva' gives strong indication that that the 'dual life cycle' of metamorphosis was present from the very beginning: Notes: The complexity of the life cycles, of many of the different phyla found in the Cambrian Explosion, were anything but simple:
Metamorphosis Is Widespread - Ann Gauger - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkD-jd1imaI The Enigma of Metamorphosis Is Hardly Limited to Butterflies - October 2011 Excerpt: Even more mysteriously, it appears that the most ancient phyla were metamorphic from the beginning, based on the few larval forms that have been preserved. This suggests that these Cambrian animals had not one but two or more developmental stages at the outset,,,, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/10/the_enigma_of_metamorphosis_is051541.html A Mathematician Explains the Irreducible Complexity of Metamorphosis - November 2011 Excerpt: Now we are not talking about climbing Mount Improbable, we are talking about building a bridge across an enormous chasm, between caterpillar and butterfly. ,, Until construction of this extremely long and complicated bridge is almost complete, it is a bridge to nowhere. Unless a butterfly (or another organism capable of reproduction) comes out at the end, the chrysalis only serves as a casket for the caterpillar, which cannot reproduce. Now we do not have to simply imagine uses for not-quite-watertight vacuum chamber traps, we have to imagine a selective advantage for committing suicide before you are able to reproduce, and that is a more difficult challenge! http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/11/the_irreducible_complexity_of052461.html Life Cycles of Insects - Metamorphosis - video trailer http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5867193301785656504
bornagain77_{August 2, 2012
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News, "One wonders when some starving hack will wake up and say to himself, “Wot! Insects, like modern insects, that date back to the Devonian period?”" from fossil picture very difficult to have seen insect look like modern insect. What affect to I D? sergiosergiomendes_{August 2, 2012
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