The Discontinuous Fossil Record Refutes Darwinian Gradualism

[lee_merrill]

Günter Bechly writes:

Source: Evolution News

When you have reached this point of mostly repetition, then you know that you have sampled enough to be sure that you have not missed much that is out there to find. ... In most groups of fossils, we have reached this point of demonstrable saturation, where we can be pretty confident that the distinct discontinuities that we find are data to be explained and not just sampling artifacts. There is another reason why we know this: If the gaps and discontinuities in the fossil record were just artifacts, they should more and more dissolve with our greatly increasing knowledge of the fossil record. But the opposite is the case. The more we know, the more acute these problems have become. ...

Of course, we have to consider the appropriate timescale in Earth history to estimate whether some event in the history of life is abrupt or not. In human history, we would not consider an event that lasts many years (say, decades or a century) to be abrupt. But in biological or geological terms, the appearance of a new group of organisms with a new body plan within, say, a window of time of 5-10 million years is very abrupt indeed. Why is this so? Because the average longevity of an invertebrate or vertebrate species (not an individual organism) varies between 2.5-10 million years. This means that a transition that required 5-10 million years happened within the lifespan of a single species! This is much too short to allow for Darwinian evolution to explain the required changes.

Source

© Copyright Original Source

Blessings,
Lee

[rogue06]

smiley yawn.gif

Oh. Sorry. This again

From a few years back when JohnMartin started a thread on this. Not much has changed.

And the fact of the matter is that we have extensive evidence of gradual changes taking place in the fossil record -- specifically among what is known as microfossils like those of the single-celled organisms foraminifera, radiolaria, diatoms and coccolithorids.

As noted by Donald Prothero in his book "Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters":

Source: Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters

In addition to their great abundance and diversity, microfossils are ideal for evolutionary studies for several other reasons. Cores of the sediments covering the deep-sea bottom have been taken by rotary drilling and by plunging a long tube into the sea bottom (piston coring), and both retrieve an almost continuous record of marine sedimentation over that part of the ocean floor. Some cores span many millions of years with no breaks or gaps what- soever. These cores can be precisely dated by methods such as stable isotope analysis and magnetic stratigraphy, as well as with the biostratigraphy of the microfossil groups themselves. Thus we can trace the history of many microfossil lineages through many millions of years over a single spot in the world, something that is impossible with the much less complete record of shallow marine invertebrates or land vertebrates. Finally, the biogeography of microfossils. Finally, the biogeography of microfossils is relatively simple. Most are confined to a few water masses where the ocean waters are of a given temperature, and these species range over that entire water mass (Prothero and Lazarus 1980).

© Copyright Original Source

A couple decades ago two Florida State marine micropaleontologists, Tony Arnold and Bill Parker compiled what is essentially an intact fossil record for a type of free-floating foraminifera that contains no so-called "missing links." The pair have recorded hundreds of speciation events in the history of the foraminifera they have examined which stretches over a nearly 70 million year period and say that transitional forms between various species aren't difficult at all to detect, making tracking ancestor species to their descendants easy to do.

image_20196.gif
Here is an example covering roughly 6½ million years

And there are still papers being published on fossil data that shows that gradualistic evolutionary change is still recognized as completely legitimate: Gradual evolution in bacteria: evidence from Bacillus systematic and here is an earlier one: Parallel gradualistic evolution of Ordovician trilobites.

[...]

As for the general message of the Evolution News piece...

tumblr_lrkceob4LR1qembizo1_500.jpg
The more things change...

[shunyadragon]

Günter Bechly writes:

Source: Evolution News

When you have reached this point of mostly repetition, then you know that you have sampled enough to be sure that you have not missed much that is out there to find. ... In most groups of fossils, we have reached this point of demonstrable saturation, where we can be pretty confident that the distinct discontinuities that we find are data to be explained and not just sampling artifacts. There is another reason why we know this: If the gaps and discontinuities in the fossil record were just artifacts, they should more and more dissolve with our greatly increasing knowledge of the fossil record. But the opposite is the case. The more we know, the more acute these problems have become. ...

Of course, we have to consider the appropriate timescale in Earth history to estimate whether some event in the history of life is abrupt or not. In human history, we would not consider an event that lasts many years (say, decades or a century) to be abrupt. But in biological or geological terms, the appearance of a new group of organisms with a new body plan within, say, a window of time of 5-10 million years is very abrupt indeed. Why is this so? Because the average longevity of an invertebrate or vertebrate species (not an individual organism) varies between 2.5-10 million years. This means that a transition that required 5-10 million years happened within the lifespan of a single species! This is much too short to allow for Darwinian evolution to explain the required changes.

Source

© Copyright Original Source

Blessings,
Lee

Again, again and again . . .

Please cite legitimate peer reviewed scientific sources, and NOT non-scientific sources with a religious agenda.

Read rogue06's post and that should end the thread.

[rogue06]

Again, again and again . . .

Please cite legitimate peer reviewed scientific sources, and NOT non-scientific sources with a religious agenda.

Read rogue06's post and that should end the thread.

I'd be happy with non-scientific sources with a religious agenda that at least strive to be honest. Evolution News doesn't even make a pretense.

[shunyadragon]

I'd be happy with non-scientific sources with a religious agenda that at least strive to be honest. Evolution News doesn't even make a pretense.

Interesting paradox and contradiction. The only way a non-scientific source can be honest is when it and of itself is cite peer reviewed honest scientific references accurately and completely.

[rogue06]

Interesting paradox and contradiction. The only way a non-scientific source can be honest is when it and of itself is cite peer reviewed honest scientific references accurately and completely.

You seem to hold that religious people can't be good scientists because they're too biased.

[shunyadragon]

You seem to hold that religious people can't be good scientists because they're too biased.

No. I am a religious person.
Again . . . Interesting paradox and contradiction. The only way a non-scientific source can be honest is when it and of itself is cite peer reviewed honest scientific references accurately and completely.

Your missing the context of the history of lee merrill citing non-scientific references with an ID religious agenda.

[rogue06]

No. I am a religious person.
Again . . . Interesting paradox and contradiction. The only way a non-scientific source can be honest is when it and of itself is cite peer reviewed honest scientific references accurately and completely.

Your missing the context of the history of lee merrill citing non-scientific references with an ID religious agenda.

So where do place groups like the American Scientific Affiliation or Biologos?

And I'm familiar with Lee.

[lee_merrill]

From a few years back when JohnMartin started a thread on this. Not much has changed.

Well, here is what Bechly means by a gap: "the appearance of a new group of organisms with a new body plan within, say, a window of time of 5-10 million years is very abrupt indeed." None of your examples address this. The Cambrian explosion and other radiations have remained unexplained, it appears they represent real discontinuities.

Blessings,
Lee

[rogue06]

Well, here is what Bechly means by a gap: "the appearance of a new group of organisms with a new body plan within, say, a window of time of 5-10 million years is very abrupt indeed." None of your examples address this. The Cambrian explosion and other radiations have remained unexplained, it appears they represent real discontinuities.

Blessings,
Lee

[TheLurch]

Well, here is what Bechly means by a gap: "the appearance of a new group of organisms with a new body plan within, say, a window of time of 5-10 million years is very abrupt indeed." None of your examples address this. The Cambrian explosion and other radiations have remained unexplained, it appears they represent real discontinuities.

No, that's wrong.

Really, i don't have to make any argument other than that, because there is no argument there to address. Some arbitrary length of time is labelled "very abrupt indeed", and we're just supposed to accept that? Based on what?

[Stoic]

Well, here is what Bechly means by a gap: "the appearance of a new group of organisms with a new body plan within, say, a window of time of 5-10 million years is very abrupt indeed." None of your examples address this. The Cambrian explosion and other radiations have remained unexplained, it appears they represent real discontinuities.

A case might be made that evolution occurred more rapidly during the Cambrian explosion than in more recent times, but I don't think that would be terribly hard to explain.

Once you have a complex body type that is well adapted to a particular ecological niche, selection pressure is likely to keep it from changing rapidly. Remove most of the species (especially predators), start with simple organisms, and allow for plenty of resources for those species that do exist, and a lot of that selection pressure is gone.

[rogue06]

No, that's wrong.

Really, i don't have to make any argument other than that, because there is no argument there to address. Some arbitrary length of time is labelled "very abrupt indeed", and we're just supposed to accept that? Based on what?

Moreover, what does he mean by "new group." I'm not familiar with that particular taxonomic ranking.

[shunyadragon]

So where do place groups like the American Scientific Affiliation or Biologos?

And I'm familiar with Lee.

My references are clear concerning Lee and his references that are non-scientific such as Discovery Institute and it's associates, and clearly with an agenda. As far as I know his does not include Biologos and American Scientific Affiliation.

Theistic Naturalism and Theistic Evolution are not the same as the Intelligent Design movement Lee promotes.

[lee_merrill]

Some arbitrary length of time is labelled "very abrupt indeed", and we're just supposed to accept that? Based on what?

Based on what Bechly says just after this: "... a window of time of 5-10 million years is very abrupt indeed. Why is this so? Because the average longevity of an invertebrate or vertebrate species (not an individual organism) varies between 2.5-10 million years. This means that a transition that required 5-10 million years happened within the lifespan of a single species! This is much too short to allow for Darwinian evolution to explain the required changes."

Blessings,
Lee