The Cambrian Explosion Questions Evolutionary Theory !

Originally posted by colin42
reply to post by Byrd

 

Wasnt you tempted to pocket a piece of the skull the prof spent years working on?

Imagine his face when you plonked it in place after all his work like a missing jigsaw piece.

Seriously -- no.

It was amazing to watch him working on it, and I was fascinated by how his trained eye could correctly match the pattern and shape with other fragments. I felt sympathy (because I couldn't match things as well as he could) when we had a piece that just didn't fit anywhere (it was always labeled and set aside.) He's such a great guy and it would be a betrayal of the amount of trust he has with me.

I tease him about other things, yes, but it never occurred to me to take a piece of anyone's work even just for fun.

Originally posted by Kayzar
reply to post by Byrd

 

I was saying this is inaccurate



Not this

Y'know, I actually DO agree with you here -- the "chimpification" of specimens has always annoyed me. We don't know how hairy they were or when they lost their hair (data (on lice, of all things) shows we were wearing clothing 170,000 years ago www.medicalnewstoday.com... -- which would be Australopithecus.)

I think the "chimpification" is to prevent people from gawking and going "OMG! THEY'RE NEKKID!" which would annoy the museum no end because that's not the point of the exhibit.

I have seen some new images from a German museum where they present the faces completely hairless (not even hair on top of the head), and they're quite fascinating. I prefer this presentation, to tell the truth.

You can tell about the muscle and overlying structure to some degree (that's how they reconstruct the faces of murder victims when only skeletal remains are found) -- and we do this in reconstructing how ancient animals looked (we also use other fossil evidence -- skin impression, etc.)

But I do agree -- presenting ancient human species as hairy knuckle dragging brutes is annoying to me.

Originally posted by Kailassa

Originally posted by Kayzar
reply to post by Byrd

 

I was saying this is inaccurate

Not this

I'm curious, Kayzar.
What's wrong with the reconstruction from the A.afarensis skeleton, and how do you belive it should look?

Re-read then re-post

Interesting responses, don't like the science represented and it's implications, attack the institute that performed the studies, a classic way to defend a viewpoint.

The scientific information presented seems solid to me.

One point that can't be denied is that the Cambrian period has an unusual burst of life, which seems to go against the gradual change theorized by evolution.

reply to post by MrXYZ

Originally posted by MrXYZ
Actually, there's an entire thread where people were asked to "debunk" evolution...we're several pages in, so far no one succeeded. Want to give it a shot and be the first one to achieve it?

Hey there,

I did a search but I couldn’t find this thread your talking about.

Where is the debunk evolution thread, I’d like to give it a shot…


- JC

reply to post by Blue_Jay33

I am only posting in this thread to add my endorsement to what Byrd said. Life is too short to spend watching videos. Can you explain, please, in your own words, why the Cambrian 'explosion' calls evolutionary theory into question? Then, if you like, we can debate that.

Since we are all literate, and words save so much time, how about a few from you, the OP, instead of some squawking head on a video?

Thank you.

Originally posted by Astyanax
reply to post by Blue_Jay33

 

I am only posting in this thread to add my endorsement to what Byrd said. Life is too short to spend watching videos. Can you explain, please, in your own words, why the Cambrian 'explosion' calls evolutionary theory into question? Then, if you like, we can debate that.

Since we are all literate, and words save so much time, how about a few from you, the OP, instead of some squawking head on a video?

Thank you.

It is pretty simple
"Without Gradualness we are back to miracle"
-The idea being that the cambrian explosion was exactly that an explosion of life. It also touches on that some life then was just as complex as it is today
- That getting a working protien fold by mutation in the time given is near impossible. And even if the protien folds were to come about that alone does not make the cells that make up a body as they are only instructions.

-

Originally posted by Kayzar
Yes on a small scale but certian traits being passed on will only go so far. You can pass on some traits to an extent but they do not change to the degree that shows how to get from one animal to another. Which is why in the 100s years of dog breeding there are no dogs with scales,wings or gills or even developing something like that.

Actually? I'm absolutely certain that we could develop dogs with scales, or some variety of wings or gliding apparatus. And I'd bet we could do it in under a hundred generations. An aquatic dog would probably be even easier than the flying dog - we've turned the critters into everything from canine cheetahs to canine ferret, making a canine seal wouldn't be at all hard. The gills would be a lot trickier. I'm not sure there's anything in the mammalian "floor plan" that could perform a gill-like function. About the closest I could think is doing like some turtles, and inhaling a big gulp of water into the rectum

Wouldn't be too unlikely, especially considering our lungs are modified from the digestive tract

Interesting that you bring up dogs. Know what the defining point of different species is? They are populations that do not interbreed. They can be functionally identical (As is the case with many beetles, birds, and reptiles) but if they do not breed together, then they are separate species.

There are many breeds of dogs that are quite incapable of breeding together without artificial fertilization, and another bunch for whom such crossbreeding would be fatal if successful. A chihuahua is, effectively, a different species from a great dane. They are crossfertile, if you add humans to the mix. But, left to their own devices, they are incapable of breeding. However, each breed can breed with intermediate breeds, which can mate with other intermediate breeds, and meet somewhere in the middle.

Thus, dogs are sort of an artificial "ring species"

With primitive society natural selection kind of goes away. With a functioning group the healthy take care of those who were not.

Natural selection never goes away. The pressures just change. Our technology enables us to at least somewhat ignore the trials of disease and injury, but our human environment creates a whole new set of pressures for success. This is still the process of natural selection; it's just that tigers aren't part of the equation for most people these days.

Originally posted by Astyanax
reply to post by Blue_Jay33

 

I am only posting in this thread to add my endorsement to what Byrd said. Life is too short to spend watching videos. Can you explain, please, in your own words, why the Cambrian 'explosion' calls evolutionary theory into question? Then, if you like, we can debate that.

Well, I'm certainly no creationist, but the argument goes that, apparently all the modern phyla of animals came into being in the early Cambrian, "as if created from nowhere", owing to the paucity of fossils in precambrian strata. Thus "explosion." The argument is pretty much that it's just so unlikely that all the world's phyla evolved in such a short time from one another, that either it "happened too fast for evolution" or "points towards creation."

Of course, the two flaws here are pretty obvious.

First, we do have precambrian animal fossils.The trick is, these critters are all soft-bodied. Things like jellyfish and worms don't really leave great fossil evidence for their existence, and what they do leave can often be mistaken for just a smear in a rock.

Second, we don't have a lot of precambrian rock, and what we DO have is generally pretty distorted by geological processes.

Third, fossils in general aren't that common. The fossil-to-population ratio is something like one in several hundred million; for every Triceratops you dig up, there were millions that lived alongside it, millions that lived before, and millions that lived after that DID NOT fossilize.

The "Cambrian explosion" is just an artifical construct that relies on ignoring these three facts. It's almost guaranteed that the major phyla of animal life evolved in dribs and drabs between the dawn of multicellularity and the Cambrian. it's just that conditions at hand prevent us from having fossils that show this.

It's like if I adopt a cat and assume it appeared out of nowhere because I have no evidence of its dam or sire.

reply to post by Joecroft


LINK

I recommend you skim through it quickly so you don't waste time with the following usual attacks that have already been disproven:

- Only micro-evolution...macro-evolution doesn't exist
- The universe is so complex, only a super-being could have done it
- Scientists can't explain XYZ, ergo a super-being did it
- Cambrian explosion was sooooo quick, ergo a super-being was involved in all of it
- Anything where you substitute a gap in knowledge with god, you aren't debunking evolution

Looking forward to your posts

I'd also ignore most posts by the MatrixTraveller because he's trying to debunk evolution through philosophy...if that's your approach too, just copy/paste his replies, and I'll copy/paste the old replies why you can't prove/disprove science with philosophy

reply to post by Blue_Jay33


Sooo you didn't bother reading the thread that you authored?

Millions of years is no assault on gradualism. It's simply more accelerated than normal, but nobody's demonstrated how this is beyond the scope of evolution. Oh, and I've already pointed out that the source is intellectually dishonest, provided a counter-video which you simply dismissed with an ad hominem attack and you've ignored every legitimate scientific response to the claims made.

Hell, I didn't even bother to attack the source, though I did draw a comparison between the Discovery Institute (whose members feature prominently in the video) and YouTube user Thunderf00t with regard to volume of scientific publication.

I could attack the source, as they so rightly deserve to be attacked, but that is an issue for another thread on the topic of their wrongdoing, as it doesn't do anything to show how wrong they are. The simple fact that they act as if lifeforms sprang out of nowhere when it was relatively quick change over millions of years is the reality.

These videos are a waste of time devoted solely to a straw man.

I have an alternative thread title for you:

The Creationist Movement Questions The Omnipotence of God.

How come all the creationists don't realize that they are committing the most profound blasphemy? They pretend to know the mind of God. Worse, they suggest that God can only do things they can understand easily.

reply to post by Aeons

How come all the creationists don't realize that they are committing the most profound blasphemy?

Same reaon why you think creationist means you believe in god.

reply to post by madnessinmysoul


They aren't interested in a rational discussion, they just wanna preach, and then blatantly ignore every single information that contradicts their irrational belief.

Originally posted by MrXYZ
reply to post by madnessinmysoul

 

They aren't interested in a rational discussion, they just wanna preach, and then blatantly ignore every single information that contradicts their irrational belief.

And how did you arrive at this conclusion?

Originally posted by Kayzar

Originally posted by MrXYZ
reply to post by madnessinmysoul

 

They aren't interested in a rational discussion, they just wanna preach, and then blatantly ignore every single information that contradicts their irrational belief.

And how did you arrive at this conclusion?

Well, mostly because of all the times Bluejay said he'll ignore facts that contradict his worldview (like in this thread). Also, pretty vocal creationists like Randyvs publicly stated that they won't let anything supersede their belief...that was just a day ago in a thread he started

I mean, comon' right in this thread Bluejay said he can't be assed to look at the stuff that might contradict his videos. He's done so right here, so it's not as if their ignorance is in question

double post

Originally posted by MrXYZ

Originally posted by Kayzar

Originally posted by MrXYZ
reply to post by madnessinmysoul

 

They aren't interested in a rational discussion, they just wanna preach, and then blatantly ignore every single information that contradicts their irrational belief.

And how did you arrive at this conclusion?

Well, mostly because of all the times Bluejay said he'll ignore facts that contradict his worldview (like in this thread). Also, pretty vocal creationists like Randyvs publicly stated that they won't let anything supersede their belief...that was just a day ago in a thread he started

I mean, comon' right in this thread Bluejay said he can't be assed to look at the stuff that might contradict his videos. He's done so right here, so it's not as if their ignorance is in question

So "they" are in fact only Bluejay and Randyvs (who is not even in this thread), is that correct?

Because this is ATS I am going to throw this out there, what about an alternative theory to the Cambrian explosion, that it wasn't God at all but, but an another intelligent life form in the universe seeding the planet with life?

The video's presented says nothing about an almighty Creator, it just says this is all too complicated and relatively quick not to have had something smarter help it along. It never said what that smarter source is, perhaps it is implied, of coarse we are pre-disposed to accept or reject what we think it is implying based on our personal worldview

But really once I thought about it, I realized that if you watch these videos without bias either way, theist or atheist, that other option has a level of legitimate interest, intelligence begets intelligent design, it is a basic fundamental truth in the non-biological world.

If we all step away from our preconceived idea's you can't help but wonder what is the source of the intelligence?

reply to post by Blue_Jay33


But there's no evidence or proof of such an intelligence!! That's the whole point. You are essentially saying "scientists can't explain this...ergo a super intelligence is responsible". That's not science, that's making stuff up and falling for god of the gaps!