Fossil discovery helps bridge gap between Ediacaran animals & those from the Cambrian

[rogue06]

But they don't sound very certain: "The pores or punctae may be homologous to those of similar size in brachiopods, extinct tommotiids, and microconchids, and to pseudopunctae in bryozoans, which house setae and other sensory structures."

Facepalm stooges.jpg

I've already dealt with your carefully cherrypicked quote mine when you first brought it up, which naturally you ignored or already forgot.

[lee_merrill]

I've already dealt with your carefully cherrypicked quote mine when you first brought it up, which naturally you ignored or already forgot.

You responded with morphological comparisons, I was quoting from the tissue comparison part. And I was responding to your claim: "So finding fossilized soft tissue has been a game changer and has allowed the researchers to identify linkages with other animals with far more certainty." Certainty seems not to be part and parcel of their view.

Blessings,
Lee

[TheLurch]

Certainty seems not to be part and parcel of their view.

Certainty isn't a major part of ANY scientist's view, because science by its very nature is tentative and subject to revision.

Come on, you have to know better than that.

[lee_merrill]

Certainty isn't a major part of ANY scientist's view, because science by its very nature is tentative and subject to revision.

Come on, you have to know better than that.

Well, I certainly(!) don't mean 100% certainty.

Blessings,
Lee

[TheLurch]

Well, I certainly(!) don't mean 100% certainty.

Then stop pretending that appropriately cautious language is meaningful.

[rogue06]

Certainty isn't a major part of ANY scientist's view, because science by its very nature is tentative and subject to revision.

Come on, you have to know better than that.

Exactly. In science essentially everything is regarded as provisional since it is understood that we don't know everything and that there is always the possibility a new discovery may arise which overturns what we thought we knew about something. Even if the possibility is exceedingly small. That is why a scientist should never declare that something "proves" anything. As the saying goes, proof is for alcohol (and mathematics) not science.

Although some see this as a supposed weakness^[1], it is in fact one of science's greatest strengths.

This is why a good scientist should be ready to abandon whatever he thinks he knows if it is shown to be incorrect and to follow the evidence.

I posted this in "New genes required for the Cambrian explosion" but I'll repeat it here since it is pertinent

This view has been expressed repeatedly by legitimate scientists. For instance:

• "If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties." --Francis Bacon in Book I of The Advancement of Learning 1605
• "I keep my theories on the tips of my fingers so that the merest breath of fact can blow them away." --Michael Faraday
• "I have steadily endeavored to keep my mind free so as to give up any hypothesis, however much beloved, as soon as the facts are opposed to it." --Charles Darwin (who also wrote: "A scientific man ought to have no wishes, no affections - a mere heart of stone.")
• "Sit down before a fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abysses nature leads, or you shall learn nothing." --Thomas Henry Huxley
• "The hallmark of science is not the question 'Do I wish to believe this?' but the question 'What is the evidence?' It is this demand for evidence, this habit of cultivated skepticism, that is most characteristic of the scientific way of thought." --Douglas Futuyma
• "A scientist should every morning eat one of his favorite theories for breakfast." --Konrad Lorenz
• "Any real systematist [or scientist in general] has to be ready to heave all that he or she believes in, consider it crap, and move on, in the face of new evidence." --Mark Norell (in his Unearthing the Dragon)
• "In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day." --Carl Sagan

1. as can be seen in this AnswersinGenesis comic mocking the idea that science isn't dogmatic and willing to change when new information becomes available

089.jpg

[rogue06]

In order to emphasize the significance of the diversification, I would guess. And finding one or two animals in the late Ediacaran that are pre-Cambrians animals does little to reduce that significance.

Blessings,
Lee

You'd guess wrong.

There has been a constant drum beat from both creationists and Intelligent Design proponents for years claiming that the various types of life forms we see in the Cambrian arose suddenly and without predecessors from earlier periods. And how the evidence that scientists did have of predecessors from pre-Cambrian times like the Ediacaran was somewhat speculative and therefore could be summarily dismissed and denied.

Two examples of this should suffice.

Phillip E. Johnson, the lawyer who the I.D. community fondly refers to as the godfather and "Mahatma" of their movement, declared that "The 'Cambrian Explosion' is the sudden appearance of the major animal groups (phyla) in the rocks of the Cambrian era, without apparent ancestors."

And Carl Weiland, founder of Creation Ministries International (CMI -- after the acrimonious split with Ken Ham and AnswersinGenesis) and publisher of the magazine Creation Ex Nihilo and later renamed the Journal of Creation proclaimed that, "Creationists have long pointed out the problem for evolutionary theory, namely that all the major groups (phyla) of life which we know today appear in the Cambrian with no evolutionary ancestors. ... There are no groups which have been identified as ancestral to any of the phyla, and geographically these phyla 'seem to have appeared suddenly and simultaneously'."

Aside from the fact this claim was even then demonstrably untrue since some phyla such as sponges, annelids and cnidarians clearly arose earlier in pre-Cambrian times, this assertion has now been completely deflated and shown to be erroneous.

So now you find yourself forced to handwave off this central pillar^[1] of evolution denialism, pretending that it is insignificant:

Neither I nor they (I would say) would think that very significant.

And how does this new discovery "affect the force of their argument"? It obliterates it.








1. Frank Sherwin of the Institute for Creation Research (ICR, the organization that the father of the modern creationist movement, Henry Morris founded) called it one of the "four irrefutable arguments to expose gaping holes in evolution"

[lee_merrill]

So now you find yourself forced to handwave off this central pillar^[1] of evolution denialism, pretending that it is insignificant

But how is this a central pillar? Having a few animals predate the Cambrian explosion does little to explain the Cambrian diverification.

Blessings,
Lee

[rogue06]

But how is this a central pillar? Having a few animals predate the Cambrian explosion does little to explain the Cambrian diverification.

Blessings,
Lee

For years a central pillar or one of the "four irrefutable arguments to expose gaping holes in evolution" has been that there are no pre-Cambrian ancestors but as we can see here it is no time to ignore that and start moving the goal posts since that argument has gone down in flames.


goalpost.gif

[lee_merrill]

I must repeat, how is this a central pillar? Having a few animals predate the Cambrian explosion does little to explain the Cambrian diversification.

Blessings,
Lee

[HMS_Beagle]

I must repeat, how is this a central pillar? Having a few animals predate the Cambrian explosion does little to explain the Cambrian diversification.

Blessings,
Lee

Lee are you a Poe? I'd hate to think anyone in the real world could be so stupid and disingenuous.

[rogue06]

I must repeat, how is this a central pillar? Having a few animals predate the Cambrian explosion does little to explain the Cambrian diversification.

Blessings,
Lee

To which I'll reiterate, for years a central pillar or one of the "four irrefutable arguments to expose gaping holes in evolution" has been that there are no pre-Cambrian ancestors but as we can see here it is no time to ignore that and start moving the goal posts since that argument has gone down in flames.

It was the evolution deniers among I.D. and creationists who made it one of the "four irrefutable arguments to expose gaping holes in evolution" and now that this has been shown to be false it is time to pretend otherwise and do exactly what you are doing here. Namely changing the criterion.

575a1560-4b83-40b0-bce6-f55489d417e5.jpg

[lee_merrill]

To which I'll reiterate, for years a central pillar or one of the "four irrefutable arguments to expose gaping holes in evolution" has been that there are no pre-Cambrian ancestors but as we can see here it is no time to ignore that and start moving the goal posts since that argument has gone down in flames.

It was the evolution deniers among I.D. and creationists who made it one of the "four irrefutable arguments to expose gaping holes in evolution" and now that this has been shown to be false it is time to pretend otherwise and do exactly what you are doing here. Namely changing the criterion.

But all this does not address my question, "Having a few animals predate the Cambrian explosion does little to explain the Cambrian diversification."

Blessings,
Lee

[TheLurch]

But all this does not address my question, "Having a few animals predate the Cambrian explosion does little to explain the Cambrian diversification."

That's not a question, it's a statement, and a false one.

We know that the fossils we see represent only a fraction of the total diversity of life. So, having a few examples of pre-Cambrian bilaterians indicates that there was a larger diversity prior to the explosion, and thus less total diversification to explain. It also extends the time available for that diversification. And, by identifying a common ancestor for different groups, we can better recognize which changes were actually required, and which novel features predated the explosion.

For all these reasons and probably more i can't think of off the top of my head, the discoveries of these animals provides a great deal of context regarding what actually happened during the Cambrian explosion. They help us understand what actually needs to be explained.

[rogue06]

You'd guess wrong.

There has been a constant drum beat from both creationists and Intelligent Design proponents for years claiming that the various types of life forms we see in the Cambrian arose suddenly and without predecessors from earlier periods. And how the evidence that scientists did have of predecessors from pre-Cambrian times like the Ediacaran was somewhat speculative and therefore could be summarily dismissed and denied.

Two examples of this should suffice.

Phillip E. Johnson, the lawyer who the I.D. community fondly refers to as the godfather and "Mahatma" of their movement, declared that "The 'Cambrian Explosion' is the sudden appearance of the major animal groups (phyla) in the rocks of the Cambrian era, without apparent ancestors."

And Carl Weiland, founder of Creation Ministries International (CMI -- after the acrimonious split with Ken Ham and AnswersinGenesis) and publisher of the magazine Creation Ex Nihilo and later renamed the Journal of Creation proclaimed that, "Creationists have long pointed out the problem for evolutionary theory, namely that all the major groups (phyla) of life which we know today appear in the Cambrian with no evolutionary ancestors. ... There are no groups which have been identified as ancestral to any of the phyla, and geographically these phyla 'seem to have appeared suddenly and simultaneously'."

Aside from the fact this claim was even then demonstrably untrue since some phyla such as sponges, annelids and cnidarians clearly arose earlier in pre-Cambrian times, this assertion has now been completely deflated and shown to be erroneous.

So now you find yourself forced to handwave off this central pillar^[1] of evolution denialism, pretending that it is insignificant:


And how does this new discovery "affect the force of their argument"? It obliterates it.




1. Frank Sherwin of the Institute for Creation Research (ICR, the organization that the father of the modern creationist movement, Henry Morris founded) called it one of the "four irrefutable arguments to expose gaping holes in evolution"

It is rather frustrating that after decades of proponents of I.D. and creationists (Cdesign Proponentsists ) harping about there being no ancestors for Cambrian life forms (Lee's buddy Stephen Meyer devoted something like two chapters in his book Darwin's Doubt prattling on about it and the Discovery Institute produced an entire movie Darwin’s Dilemma dedicated to espousing this assertion), but now Lee seeks to dissimulate the notion that finding an example of just such a precursor is no big deal and quickly wants to shift the issue to something else and act like that's what it was all along (move the goal posts).

It's just as disingenuous to have claimed that it is impossible for something to attain a speed of 100mph (that's 161kph for all of you not in the U.S.) and when shown incontrovertible evidence that it can in fact do so to then act like the issue was never really about that but instead about how fast can it reach 100mph.