Cambrian Explosion Disproves Evolution?

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"Cambrian Explosion Disproves Evolution?" This is a clip from The Atheist Experience #650 ("Apologetics FAIL. Martin and Tracie talk about the ways Christian apologetics are failures.") with Tracie Harris and Martin Wagner: http://blip.tv/file/3413711

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The Cambrian explosion or Cambrian radiation was the relatively rapid appearance, over a period of many million years, of most major groups of complex animals around 530 million years ago, as found in the fossil record.

This was accompanied by a major diversification of other organisms, including animals, phytoplankton, and calcimicrobes.

Before about 580 million years ago, most organisms were simple, composed of individual cells occasionally organized into colonies. Over the following 70 or 80 million years the rate of evolution accelerated by an order of magnitude (as defined in terms of the extinction and origination rate of species) and the diversity of life began to resemble todays.

The Cambrian explosion has generated extensive scientific debate. The seemingly rapid appearance of fossils in the Primordial Strata was noted as early as the mid 19th century, and Charles Darwin saw it as one of the main objections that could be made against his theory of evolution by natural selection.

The long-running puzzlement about the appearance of the Cambrian fauna, seemingly abruptly and from nowhere, centers on three key points: whether there really was a mass diversification of complex organisms over a relatively short period of time during the early Cambrian; what might have caused such rapid change; and what it would imply about the origin and evolution of animals.

Interpretation is difficult due to a limited supply of evidence, based mainly on an incomplete fossil record and chemical signatures left in Cambrian rocks.

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambrian_explosion

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Category:

Education

Tags:

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• explosion
• radiation
• disproves
• proof
• evolution
• theory
• darwin
• creationism
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• diversification
• species
• natural
• selection

[gleehmee]

@ryanhashton NOT hypocritical. and not what they generally say. Do not use CREATIONIST websites for scientific facts.

Atheism is a position taken on religious matters, therefore to be in the business of atheism is to be in the business of religions.

Where as creationism is a religious position lying about multiple scientific positions.

Often a creationist wont know the difference between cosmology and evolution, what does that tell you?

[jamesmaseobrown]

"Let's talk about evolutionary"

With a statement like that, you know exactly how educated this guy is: Not educated at all.

This is yet another example of how religion keeps people ignorant.

[SlashDotDash121]

God is a light bulb! Finally someone can explain it term I can understand!

Derp herp ,derpity derp!

[Estragon17]

@DnBPossibly

Problem is... where have you ever seen a theist who makes a good argument for their god?

[DnBPossibly]

@jamesmaseobrown Because never in the history of the world has there been an ignorant non-theist? Hypocrisy.

[shredder767]

I love how theists cannot provide evidence to support their god assertion so they will vehemently try to disprove proven theories. It is pathetic.

[JEdgarWallace]

@Tooopper Yeah, that's fine. Ditto.

[Tooopper]

@JEdgarWallace I made a few mess-ups on my comment. "Hold" should be "think." I was going to put something else but I changed my mind and forgot to change the wording. Mahbad.

[Tooopper]

@JEdgarWallace It doesn't. That's true, but it is still a theory that is backed up by evidence, so many people still hold that evidence leans towards it being fact. Still, whether it plays a role in creationism or atheism is completely up to personal interpretation. That is why there are also some creationists who believe in evolution. From my understanding, the atheists in this show don't see evolution as the sole reason they don't believe. That's why I don't care too much.

[JEdgarWallace]

@Tooopper It doesn't though, does it? I mean, any scientist worth their salt will agree that we have no idea just how life started. We can kind of agree what happened after the first single-celled organism appeared, but before that? Nothing. And I don't even agree that the fossil record as it stands now truly shows any evidence for macroevolution. It shows microevolution (ie within species) but nothing more. But again, I don't really care all that much.

[Tooopper]

@JEdgarWallace It doesn't exactly disprove it, but it does provide a basis for atheist to go by. It somewhat supports that life grew by itself independently and not by a god, but some people say that God just jump-started existence as evolution did the rest. There are many interpretations on what role evolution plays in existence. Whether any of it is true, I guess depends on the individual for the time being.  At least, this is what I think.

[S0vereignX]

it immediately occurred to me that the caller didn't event have any clue what the Big Bang even is, rendering the rest of his argument completely irrelevant