The Cambrian Explosion - Creationists Last Hope

[insanecandycreep]

If Darwinism is so scientifically strong, why did biologists from elite universities such as Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge, and the U of Chicago find it necessary to hold a secretive meeting to discuss laying the groundwork for "post-Darwinian research"? See "The Altenburg 16" Quote from back cover, viewable on Amazon : "The scientific establishment has been somewhat scared of dealing rationally and openly with new evolutionary ideas because of its fear of the powerful creationist movement."

[urantivirus]

@insanecandycreep The ending of the quote I provided explains how any speciation would happen locally, in a small area. And it's not surprising that we don't find transitional fossils everywhere, because speciation with in a specific species isn't happening everywhere.

You need to take a look at some science books, my friend. You get all your info from creationist websites, word for word. Try taking a look at the evidence for evolution rather than finding people trying to debunking it.

[insanecandycreep]

@urantivirus The problem is that we don't find transitional fossils ANYWHERE, as my multiple quotes from multiple paleontologists demonstrate. Responding with an accusation of "quote mining" is both bizarre and laughably inadequate. A statement by a top paleontologist such as, "New species usually appear in the fossil record suddenly, not connected with their ancestors by a series of intermediates," is virtually impossible to take out of context. It means the same thing in any context.

[insanecandycreep]

Another fundamental point you are missing is that a truly scientifically supported theory cites EVIDENCE, not explanations and rationalizations for why the evidence is not there (such as "speciation would happen locally, in a small area" and that is why "it's not surprising that we don't find transitional fossils.")

[urantivirus]

@insanecandycreep There is more evidence for evolution than you can imagine, trust me. You just have to look for it, especially in America. And remember, quotes don't count as evidence in science. So far, that's all you've provided. Watch some youtube videos on the evidence for evolution or go to the talkorigins website. There are many transitional fossils and evidences for evolution that you probably never even knew existed. You need to look at both sides.

[insanecandycreep]

@urantivirus An article in Scientific American entitled "Confronting Science's Logical Limits" puts it, "a supercomputer programmed with the plausible rules for protein folding would need 10 to the 127th power years to find the final folded form for even a very short sequence consisting of just 100 amino acids." HOW ARE YOU GONNA GET AROUND THIS?? If you are like Richard Dawkins or Francis Crick you will appeal to aliens. See "Richard Dawkins admits to intelligent design" video on YouTube.

[insanecandycreep]

Yes, there is huge evidence for MICROevolution, but not macroevolution. Furthermore, you miss the fundamental point that Darwinian evolution only tries to explain the DIVERSIFICATION of life from a putative common ancestor. Explaining the ORIGIN of life thru random processes is what you need to do to get around the need for a creator. If you are like many prominent atheists, you will cite aliens as the cause of life on earth. See "Richard Dawkins admits to intelligent design" on YouTube.

[urantivirus]

@insanecandycreep If you're gonna quote people, don't quote people who are speaking outside of their field in science as evidence against evolution. That's all you've done so far.

[insanecandycreep]

@urantivirus So the evolutionary biologists and paleontologists that I quote are not qualified to talk about evolution? That's a novel argument. Creationists do not deny evolution as you continually assert.  Microevolution has been very well demonstrated. Macroevolution has never been demonstrated. But all of this is besides the point. Even if macroevolution were true, you are still stuck with explaining the origin of life. Can you explain it better than other atheists who say aliens did it?

[insanecandycreep]

"I can tell you as a result of my research about atoms this much: There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter."

--Nobel Prize winning physicist Max Planck, founder of quantum physics.

[insanecandycreep]

“Everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe–a spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble.”

–Albert Einstein

[insanecandycreep]

“Both religion and science require a belief in God. For believers, God is in the beginning, and for physicists He is at the end of all considerations… To the former He is the foundation, to the latter, the crown of the edifice of every generalized world view.”

--Nobel Prize winning physicist Max Planck, the founder of quantum physics.

[insanecandycreep]

“…This sense of wonder leads most scientists to a Superior Being – der Alte, the Old One, as Einstein affectionately called the Deity – a Superior Intelligence, the Lord of all Creation and Natural Law.”

–Abdus Salam, winner of the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work in electroweak theory. He is here quoted in his article entitled "Science and Religion."

Lots of evidence for microevolution, but not for macroevolution.

[insanecandycreep]

University of Bristol (England) bacteriologist Alan H. Linton:

“None [evidence] exists in the literature claiming that one species has been shown to evolve into another. Bacteria, the simplest form of independent life, are ideal for this kind of study, with generation times of twenty to thirty minutes, and populations achieved after eighteen hours. But throughout 150 years of the science of bacteriology, there is no evidence that one species of bacteria has changed into another…"

[insanecandycreep]

LOL! So then why isn't the 2nd law of thermodynamics suspended for dead bodies exposed to sunlight?!?!

A dead body lying in the sunlight (on Earth) is a closed system, but lifeless chemicals exposed to sunlight are not in a closed system and therefore can bypass the 2nd law of thermodynamics and become life??!! Did I get that right? Is THAT your reasoning?!

[insanecandycreep]

Ok monkeytail2002. If extremely prominent atheist biologists cannot come up with a better explanation for the origin of life than this, what makes you think that you can do so? How are you going to get around the second law of thermodynamics, which says that entropy (the measure of disorder in a system) tends to increase over time? This law is the reason that dead bodies decompose, rather than re-compose. Show me a place in nature where something not alive becomes more complex by itself.

[ketsan]

@insanecandycreep "How are you going to get around the second law of thermodynamics" if you understood the second law of thermodynamics you'd know that it only applies to closed systems. Dead bodies are closed systems, Earth is not. We get all our energy from the sun which means that entropy is kept at bay so the second law doesn't apply to evolution.

[insanecandycreep]

Hey atheist darwinists! ...Got a question for ya: Do you believe that the origin of life on earth can be explained by the fact that it was brought here by aliens from outer space? (Atheist biologists such as Richard Dawkins and Francis Crick seem to think so). Bizarre, far fetched claim? Type "Richard Dawkins admits to intelligent design" in the YouTube search box and watch the video to see what I mean. How many atheists vote for the Klingons? Romulons?

[monkeytail2002]

@insanecandycreep Darwin did not study abiogenesis, his book is the origin of species not the origin of life. Not all atheists think the same, you do not have to subscribe to the Theory of Evolution to be an atheist. Your question is pointless. What one atheist thinks is not what another one will think so what Dawkins or Crick think is not valid in this question.

[insanecandycreep]

Hey atheist darwinists! ...Got a question for ya: Do you believe that the origin of life on earth can be explained by the fact that it was brought here by aliens from outer space? (Atheist biologists such as Richard Dawkins and Francis Crick seem to think so). Bizarre, far fetched claim? Type "Richard Dawkins admits to intelligent design" in the YouTube search box and watch the video to see what I mean.

[synsei1]

@insanecandycreep Dawkins doesn't believe that little green men brought life on Earth, he gave that as an example of an hypothesis that would be more plausible that "God did it". That line has of course been quote-mined by creationist. IMO, aliens bringing life on earth is another creation myth ignoring the question of how these aliens came to life to begin with.

[insanecandycreep]

@synsei1 Nope, sorry. Watch the YouTube video "Richard Dawkins admits to Intelligent Design." He mentions the idea in response to Stein's question, "What do you think is the possibility that intelligent design might turn out to be the answer to some issues in genetics?" He clearly does think it is a plausible hypothesis....unmistakable. This is clear evidence that he realizes that intelligence must have been involved in the origin of life.

[insanecandycreep]

Johns Hopkins University paleontologist Stephen Stanley says, “The known fossil record fails to document a single example of phyletic evolution accomplishing a major morphologic transition and hence offers no evidence that the gradualistic model can be valid.”

Atheists have to come up with a better reply than crying "quote mining" if they want to be taken seriously. It is virtually impossible to make a case that such categorical statements were "taken out of context."

[insanecandycreep]

David Raup, former curator of geology at Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History, put it this way:

“Well, we are now about 120 years after Darwin… ironically, we have even fewer examples of evolutionary transition than we had in Darwin’s time. By this I mean that some of the classic cases of Darwinian change in the fossil record, such as the evolution of the horse in North America, have had to be discarded or modified as a result of more detailed information.”

[lukipelaSOD]

well... at least they don't posit something along the lines of "God did it."

[insanecandycreep]

@lukipelaSOD No, they posited something immensely more absurd than "God did it." Atheist biologists such as Dawkins, Crick and others would NEVER support such an absurd hypothesis if they weren't 100% certain that random, unintelligent processes cannot explain the origin of life on earth.

OK, life came from aliens from outer space. How did the aliens emerge from lifeless chemicals? "Some sort of Darwinian process" according to Dawkins. Yeah, that's a really logical argument!

[lukipelaSOD]

@insanecandycreep The cambrian explosion makes good reasonable sense though. Once multi-cellular organisms arise, there are going to be an abundance of different forms from the base organisms because comparatively, they're all more successful than the single celled creatures and can propigate. As these begin to compete with one another, the more successful ones beat out the others and the least successful die out, narrowing the tree again. That make any sense?

[insanecandycreep]

@lukipelaSOD OK, but you are skimming over the fact that all of the major phyla appeared in the fossil record suddenly and fully formed with absolutely no evidence of ancestors. So suggesting that there is a "tree" is absurd. Type "Cambrian Explosion - Part 1 of 2" in the youtube search box and watch the 2 part video with the guy staring into the microscope. In this video, you will see that the whole "tree of life" concept has been completely debunked by the fossil record.

[Phaseme0810]

i just want you guys 2 think about this God made water creatures first

[urantivirus]

Wow, last hope is right. What are they trying to prove? We haven't found fossils of man in the cambrian explosion. So even if god created all the animals from the cambrian explosion, we evolved from those animals. We evolved from other apes. They haven't disproved evolution at all. They're not even trying. They are only pushing farward the time in which evolution started.

[insanecandycreep]

@urantivirus They haven't found fossils of man in the cambrian explosion because man originated in a later such "explosion." The cambrian is just the first of such explosions. Please study Harvard University paleontologists Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldridge's thesis of "punctuated equilibrium" which was meant to explain these repeated sudden explosions of life without ancestors in the fossil record.

[insanecandycreep]

@urantivirus No, man was not found in the Cambrian. But his appearance was sudden, as is the case with ALL new forms of life. See all of my quotes to which atheists can only respond by making empty cries of "quote mining." Please see my quotes from Raup, Mayr, Stanley, Simpson, Linton, etc... Just ask and I will provide more. Many of these quotes are categorical in their declarations and are therefore virtually impossible to take out of context.

[urantivirus]

@insanecandycreep You don't understand a god damn thing. You quote mined Ernst and the quote I provided explains why some things seem to appear abruptly. Mans appearance wasn't sudden at all and we've found many gradual forms. My cry of quote mine wasn't empty, I finished your quote. You just don't understand any of it. And you if think evolution is empty philosophy without fossils then you are truly ignorant. Every relevant field of science agrees with biological evolution.

[insanecandycreep]

@urantivirus "Quote mining!?" Please explain how the additional quote from Ernst explains away the suddenness with which ALL novel life forms appear in the fossil record. Guess what: you won't be able to... You furnish the quote but don't understand what it means. No, I don't think evolution is empty philosophy. Microevolution (changes within species) has been demonstrated very soundly. But no new species has ever evolved from another species (see, for example my quote form Stanley above).

[insanecandycreep]

Respond to this video... "Wherever we look at the living biota, . . . discontinuities are overwhelmingly frequent. . . . The discontinuities are even more striking in the fossil record. New species usually appear in the fossil record suddenly, not connected with their ancestors by a series of intermediates." ("What Evolution Is", by Ernst Mayr p. 189). OK, there, what RELEVANT part did I leave out there? Mayr, again, was probably the most important biologist of the last 50 yrs.

[urantivirus]

@insanecandycreep Can you offer a link or search tag to find the entire quote? You seem to only have the exact same incomplete quote that Casey Luskin provided. Why would Ernst still believe in evolution if he think it has so many holes? Because you are mostly quote mining him. You are being dishonest and trying to change what he said and how he said it. Why do you get all your quotes from creationists? Can't you do any of your own research?

[h2omanz]

Evolutionist found a bunny in the Cambrian, but hide it.

Conspiracy.......

[insanecandycreep]

@h2omanz Nope, sorry, the Cambrian explosion is just the first of many such "explosions" of life without ancestors in the fossil record. Harvard University paleontologists Niles Eldridge and Stephen Jay Gould came up with their theory of "punctuated equilibrium" to explain these explosions. "Bunnies" appeared in a subsequent "explosion." Try again.

[h2omanz]

@insanecandycreep

1. Lol, 1yr later, try again.. Was a joke, did you not get that? However seriously, and 'scientifically' Punc. Equil is better labeled a desperate excuse for the absence of phylum gradualism, the excuses do and will get more ridiculous in order to keep ToE afloat, The late Gould was another one of the theory's saviors. Since proof of transition has always been lacking and why wouldn't it, it simply doesn't exist.

[h2omanz]

2.So in order to keep ToE scientific, answers/theories must be devised as a form of 'evidence' to feed ideology/philosophy. Punc E creates more holes than it was intended to fill, this is a typical result of a non-truth.

[insanecandycreep]

@h2omanz Sorry, I goofed that up. But you are right on the money. George Gaylord Simpson, who was by many accounts the greatest paleontologist of the 20th century said:

“…every paleontologist knows, that most new species, genera, and families, and that nearly all categories above the level of families appear in the record suddenly and are not led up to by known, gradual, completely continuous transitional sequences.” (Major Features of Evolution, 1953 p. 360)

[rrpostalagain]

@insanecandycreep Wow. 1953 textbook there, huh?

[insanecandycreep]

@rrpostalagain Oh, you wan't something newer? "Taxa recognized as orders during the (Precambrian-Cambrian) transition chiefly appear without connection to an ancestral clade via a fossil intermediate. There are no chains of taxa leading gradually from an ancestral condition to the new ordinal body type. Orders thus appear as rather distinctive subdivisions of classes rather than as being segments in some sort of morphological continuum." (Biologists Valentine, Awramik, Signor, and Sadler, 1991).

[urantivirus]

@insanecandycreep You act like the cambrian explosion and punctuated equilibrium are the same thing. Can you give an example of another "explosion" which involves just about every species on earth evolving quickly? And by quickly I mean tens of millions of years, like the cambrian explosion. The cambrian explosion was an event, punctuated equilibrium is something that occurs in a species. Name another one of these "explosions" and don't just give me the name of an animal.

[insanecandycreep]

@urantivirus Leading evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr: “Paleontologists had long been aware of a seeming contradiction between Darwin’s postulate of gradualism … and the actual findings of paleontology. Following phyletic lines through time seemed to reveal only minimal gradual changes but no clear evidence for any change of a species into a different genus or for the gradual origin of an evolutionary novelty. Anything truly novel always seemed to appear quite abruptly in the fossil record.”

[urantivirus]

@insanecandycreep It's funny, I found your quote in the quote mine project at talkorigins. You failed to provide another example of a cambrian like "explosion". Instead you quote mine one evolutionary biologist's opinion on paleontology(not his field of science). You do know that Ernst is a strong believer in evolution? He's also a naturalist, so he probably doesn't even believe in a creator. You need to look to other places for answers other than creationist propaganda.

[insanecandycreep]

@urantivirus You found my quote in the quote mine project? ....And this is significant for what reason? Yes, Ernst is a strong believer in evolution.... for reasons that are clearly ideological rather than logical. Yes, he is a naturalist and so doesn't believe in a creator, so his quote is all the more significant: When a person admits something that is contrary to his worldview, it is because the evidence is so strong.  Because this is an admission by an evolutionist, the impact is HUGE.

[urantivirus]

@insanecandycreep Wow, you spend a lot of time commenting on this video. And all you do is bring up topics in science you hope other people won't know about. When that doesn't work you start quoting scientists individual opinions, as if that mattered, or just quote mining other scientists who don't agree with you. You don't know how any of the science works. Your response to me, the quote, made no sense. It didn't answer any of my questions.

[urantivirus]

@insanecandycreep Here, let me finish that quote for you.

"...Anything truly novel always seemed to appear quite abruptly in the fossil record. During the synthesis it became clear that since new evolutionary departures seem to take place almost invariably in localized isolated populations, it is not surprising that the fossil record does not reflect these sequences. A purely vertical approach is unable to resolve the seeming contradictions." Ernst Mayr

[insanecandycreep]

@urantivirus OK, you finished the quote. Good job. Now please explain how this resolves the problem of the fossil record contradicting Darwinism. The simple fact is that virtually NOBODY in paleontology still believes in Darwinian gradualism. Mayr's quote reveals that ALL species appearing are in an "explosive" fashion. Mayr again: "Anything truly novel always seemed to appear quite abruptly in the fossil record.” Without ANY fossil evidence, Darwinism is just empty materialist philosophy.

[insanecandycreep]

@h2omanz Bunnies didn't appear in the Cambrian, but they did appear suddenly in the fossil record with no evidence of ancestors, just as ALL new life forms have. See my quotes from Linton, Stanley, Raup, Simpson, Stanley, etc.. If that is not enough, just ask and I will provide more. Darwinism works great on paper, but not in reality. Please try to produce a response more substantive than empty cries of "quote mining."

[urantivirus]

@insanecandycreep "Yes, he is a naturalist and so doesn't believe in a creator, so his quote is all the more significan"

Yeah, if you're not quote mining him. Otherwise you're just being dishonest. And that's exactly what you are, incredibly dishonest. You just dismiss claims of quote mining, calling them empty cries.

[h2oboy1000]

@insanecandycreep

What? Direct your comments to the correct person, feel free to reread, repeat again if necessary.

[ogirv101]

Regardless of the time period, it is an accelerated rate of evolution following order of magnitude! The probability of this happening is very low, how else can you have evolution if it's not indirectly guided?

[GetMeThere1]

What a phoney position. Would creationists REALLY be satisfied saying a "creator" created the species seen in the Cambrian, and then they evolved from there? Hardly.

If creationists want to see the Cambrian as a created "start" for life, then they have to accept virtually ALL the evolutionary tree they want to reject.

[barnielebron]

@GetMeThere1 Some are just full of pride to accept that there is One more powerful than them and smarter than them. Some are just to ashamed to accept the fact that they are not gonna win, LOL! It's just all about pride deep inside.

[Freeze01]

Time has never been the creationists best friend. They need a super-evolution for their flood story to work and give the variety we see today if it had to be done in 4000 years.

It is to be logic that they dont understand what 20-40 million years means (the period can even be considered up to 80 million years).

[rrpostalagain]

@Freeze01Very often it seems to me that creationists seem to be really bad at judging "scale". In general, people are really bad at conceptualizing large numbers. But so many times I've heard statements that make me wonder if these people even have a hint at the amount of time we are dealing with for some of these things. It's as if they can't see something happen within their lifetime, then everything else is just "a long time" with no difference between 200 yrs vs 80M yrs.

[insanecandycreep]

@rrpostalagain As an article from Scientific American Magazine entitled "Confronting Sciences Logical Limits" notes: “It has been estimated that a supercomputer applying plausible rules for protein folding would need 10 to the 127th power years to find the final folded form for even a very short sequence consisting of just 100 amino acids.” The problem is, the universe is only about 15 billion years old.

[rrpostalagain]

@insanecandycreep So people are impressed by large numbers and are remarkably bad at knowing what they mean. We don't have a good enough picture of what happened to make these probabilities very meaningful. Plus, unlikely things happen all the time. If they do come up with a way for life to have happened and it legitimately determined to be possible on phenomenally rare occasions. the proper reaction would be "holy shit, it's really possible, not teleological nonsense.

[insanecandycreep]

Time is irrelevant. Bare probabilities are causally inert. Take the statement, "If a person could live long enough, that person would eventually win the lottery." This statement is false because no matter how long one lives, one must actually play the lottery to win the lottery. Buying lottery tickets on a regular basis is the causal mechanism that allows the bare probability of a lottery win to result in an actual lottery win. No intelligence, no causal mechanisms, no matter how much time.

[synsei1]

The really dumb point is they call 20 to 40 million years "all of a sudden" The word explosion is quite inappropriate in fact.

One of these guys mistakes "nobody understands" for "I don't understand"

[magick205]

@sybsei1: One of the things that is also skimmed over is that the 50 million years of the Cambrian period is not much more than the distance from now back to the dionsaurs. And of course, they leave out all of the life of the Ediacaran biota. Selective reporting, half truths. More creationist BS.

[insanecandycreep]

@synsei1 No, it was actually 10 million years. And, yes, this is a "blink of an eye in geologic terms" as U of C Berkley biologist James Valentine puts it.

[ReligiouslyAtheist]

I can't believe they got Samuel L. Jackson to narrate such non sense

[proudfootz]

Excellent - another case of cretinists misunderstanding science (whether deliberately or from pure ignorance) and twisting it into support for their primitive beliefs.

[insanecandycreep]

@proudfootz Oh yeah, and Darwinists' belief in such brilliant things as aliens bringing life here from outer space as an explanation for the origin of life is a very sophisticated alternative to divine design. Atheist biologist Francis Crick endorsed the idea in his book in his book "Life Itself" and Richard Dawkins can be seen endorsing the idea in the YouTube video "Richard Dawkins admits to intelligent design." Fred Hoyle, Chandra Wickramsinge are just a couple other atheists to endorse it.

[proudfootz]

@insanecandycreep

The universe is full of the chemicals of life - no reason to think it impossible for life to have come to this planet from another source.

However, there is no evidence of any life being created or designed by 'spirits' - in fact no evidence of such spirits either.

Plenty of evidence for evolution, though.