Lukas deflates Darwin

[lee_merrill]

Talking about the transition from unicellular life to Ediacaran multicellular life, and the fact (among others) that even if you grant the most optimistic Ediacaran precursors to Cambrian animals, still 80% of the Cambrian phyla are unaccounted for.

Blessings,
Lee

[shunyadragon]

Talking about the transition from unicellular life to Ediacaran multicellular life, and the fact (among others) that even if you grant the most optimistic Ediacaran precursors to Cambrian animals, still 80% of the Cambrian phyla are unaccounted for.

Blessings,
Lee

Lucas 'Prince of Darkness?'
Basics? Your missing the basics of science.

You must be getting your refernces from perferated rolls.

[rogue06]

Talking about the transition from unicellular life to Ediacaran multicellular life, and the fact (among others) that even if you grant the most optimistic Ediacaran precursors to Cambrian animals, still 80% of the Cambrian phyla are unaccounted for.

Blessings,
Lee

Fifteen years ago: you can only account for 5% of the Cambrian phyla

Today: you can only account for 20% of the Cambrian phyla

Fifteen years from today: you can only account for 50% of the Cambrian phyla.

God of the ever shrinking gaps?

ETA: Is this guy including recently discovered Cambrian organisms (many have been found in just the past few years), which haven't even been completely identified yet -- meaning determining any potential relationships has to wait until that is done first? If so that would be the sort of dishonesty we have come to expect from your sources.

[Roy]

Talking about the transition from unicellular life to Ediacaran multicellular life, and the fact (among others) that even if you grant the most optimistic Ediacaran precursors to Cambrian animals, still 80% of the Cambrian phyla are unaccounted for.

Blessings,
Lee

41 seconds before the first lie - the fossil record in Darwin's time was not diametrically opposed to Darwin's ideas, nor did Darwin think it was.

Not too bad for a creationist video - it's normally earlier than that.

Apparently fossils of plants don't count towards Cambrian phyla. Then he says Spriggina doesn't have an obvious head, while showing a picture in which you can see one. He knows his audience well.

[rogue06]

41 seconds before the first lie - the fossil record in Darwin's time was not diametrically opposed to Darwin's ideas, nor did Darwin think it was.

Not too bad for a creationist video - it's normally earlier than that.

Apparently fossils of plants don't count towards Cambrian phyla. Then he says Spriggina doesn't have an obvious head, while showing a picture in which you can see one. He knows his audience well.

You made it further than I could. I swear I could feel my IQ dropping as I watched it.


In any case, here's something for Lee from a Christian source that doesn't have to rely on deception, dishonesty and their audience's ignorance: Does the Cambrian Explosion pose a challenge to evolution?

The “Cambrian Explosion” refers to the appearance in the fossil record of most major animal body plans about 543 million years ago. The new fossils appear in an interval of 20 million years or less. On evolutionary time scales, 20 million years is a rapid burst that appears to be inconsistent with the gradual pace of evolutionary change. However, rapid changes like this appear at other times in the fossil record, often following times of major extinction. The Cambrian Explosion does present a number of interesting and important research questions. It does not, however, challenge the fundamental correctness of the central thesis of evolution.

[...]

The Cambrian Explosion is often posed as a challenge for evolution because the sudden burst of change in the fossil record appears to be inconsistent with the more typical gradual pace of evolutionary change. However, although different in certain ways, there are other times of very rapid evolutionary change recorded in the fossil record—often following times of major extinction.

As noted rapid radiations of life typically take place when there are numerous ecological niches that are empty like what happens after a mass extinction event. This has been explained to Lee multiple times but to no avail. In one ear and out the other.

Not all scientists accept the idea that the Cambrian Explosion represents an unusually rapid evolutionary transition. The fossil record is notoriously incomplete, particularly for small and soft-bodied forms. Some researchers argue that the apparent rapid diversification of body plans is an artifact of an increase in the rate of fossilization, due in part to the evolution of skeletons, which fossilize more effectively.⁵ Many of the early Cambrian animals possessed some type of hard mineralized structures (spines, spicules, plates, etc.). In many cases these, often very tiny, mineralized structures are all that are found as fossils. There were major changes in marine environments and chemistry from the late Precambrian into the Cambrian, and these also may have impacted the rise of mineralized skeletons among previously soft-bodied organisms.⁶

The fact that prior to the Cambrian nearly all known life consisted of "squishies" -- soft-bodied organisms without the sort of parts that are typically preserved during fossilization -- is going to mean that aside from being over half a billion years old (the further in time we go back the less we can recover) that not much will be recorded in the fossil record. And yet, in spite of this, scientists have still discovered a remarkable amount. More importantly, nothing they've found constitutes a challenge to the central premise of evolution -- the descent of all living species from a common ancestor.

The article continues on, providing an accurate description of what is known about the Cambrian and what lived during it, something I doubt Lee has ever encountered outside of posts on Tweb. Maybe he'll read it and offer his "yeah buts"

[TheLurch]

I see we have another entry in Lee's long list of "I can't be bothered to actually make an argument, so I'll expect everyone else to watch this video/read this essay" posts.

Given it's from the Discovery Institute, it's safe to assume it's wrong without watching. I will save 15 minutes of my life by going with that safe assumption.

[lee_merrill]

Fifteen years ago: you can only account for 5% of the Cambrian phyla

Today: you can only account for 20% of the Cambrian phyla

Fifteen years from today: you can only account for 50% of the Cambrian phyla.

God of the ever shrinking gaps?

Well, first you have to demonstrate that the gaps are shrinking. Spriggina for instance was discovered in 1946, as was DIckinsonia. Spriggina was included as one of the best possible Cambrian precursors, and we're not progressing very far from that conclusion.

Is this guy including recently discovered Cambrian organisms (many have been found in just the past few years), which haven't even been completely identified yet -- meaning determining any potential relationships has to wait until that is done first?

Can you give me some examples?

Blessings,
Lee

[lee_merrill]

41 seconds before the first lie - the fossil record in Darwin's time was not diametrically opposed to Darwin's ideas, nor did Darwin think it was.

Well, he did think it was, and he proposed that as more fossils are uncovered, that the gaps would be filled, in particular, that the Cambrian precursors would be found. But such gaps remain.

Apparently fossils of plants don't count towards Cambrian phyla. Then he says Spriggina doesn't have an obvious head, while showing a picture in which you can see one.

And the Wikipedia article on Spriggina puts "head" in quotes, indicating that this may not be a fully formed head.

Source: Wikipedia

The first two segments formed a "head". The front segment had the shape of a horseshoe with a pair of depressions on its upper surface which may represent eyes.^[4] The second segment may have borne antennae.

Source

© Copyright Original Source

Blessings,
Lee

[lee_merrill]

The fact that prior to the Cambrian nearly all known life consisted of "squishies" -- soft-bodied organisms without the sort of parts that are typically preserved during fossilization -- is going to mean that aside from being over half a billion years old (the further in time we go back the less we can recover) that not much will be recorded in the fossil record.

Lukas (I spelled his name wrong) mentions though that a discovery was made of a site, the Maotianshan Shale, which has a wide range of soft-bodied animals, so the argument that the precursors cannot be found due to being soft-bodied is not plausible.

Blessings,
Lee

[lee_merrill]

Well, first you have to demonstrate that the gaps are shrinking. Spriggina for instance was discovered in 1946, as was DIckinsonia. Spriggina was included as one of the best possible Cambrian precursors, and we're not progressing very far from that conclusion.

ETA: I shouldn't have implied that Spriggina and Dickinsonia were part of the 4 possible precursors mentioned by Lukas, it is in doubt whether these are even to be classified as animals: "[They are] representatives of a new kingdom entirely separate from the animals" (Erwin et al., "The Origin of Animal Body Plans", American Scientist, 85 (1977) 132).

Blessings,
Lee

[rogue06]

Can you give me some examples?

Blessings,
Lee

Just posted something Relative of one of Cambrian Period's stranger critters discovered

[rogue06]

ETA: I shouldn't have implied that Spriggina and Dickinsonia were part of the 4 possible precursors mentioned by Lukas, it is in doubt whether these are even to be classified as animals: "[They are] representatives of a new kingdom entirely separate from the animals" (Erwin et al., "The Origin of Animal Body Plans", American Scientist, 85 (1977) 132).

Blessings,
Lee

1977? Is that your latest source and do you think that it is feasible that we just may have learned a thing or two in the intervening 45 years?

[rogue06]

Lukas (I spelled his name wrong) mentions though that a discovery was made of a site, the Maotianshan Shale, which has a wide range of soft-bodied animals, so the argument that the precursors cannot be found due to being soft-bodied is not plausible.

Blessings,
Lee

picardfacepalmthumb.jpg

Please pick up a basic book on paleontology and fossil formation.

[lee_merrill]

1977? Is that your latest source and do you think that it is feasible that we just may have learned a thing or two in the intervening 45 years?

I quote that to show that there has been a question of whether these are even animals.

Lukas (I spelled his name wrong) mentions though that a discovery was made of a site, the Maotianshan Shale, which has a wide range of soft-bodied animals, so the argument that the precursors cannot be found due to being soft-bodied is not plausible.

Please pick up a basic book on paleontology and fossil formation.

Do you dispute my point? If so, why?

Blessings,
Lee

[rogue06]

I quote that to show that there has been a question of whether these are even animals.


Do you dispute my point? If so, why?

Blessings,
Lee

Maybe 45 years ago. IIRC, Adolf Seilacher proposed the possibility that Spriggina might have been a frond-like organism (a rangeomorph?) some time back then. That was back when fossils there were far fewer fossils and the equipment to properly scan them was still in its early days.

The point is that bringing it up is about as pertinent as noting that in the 16th and early 17th cent. there was still a good bit of debate over whether any fossils were the remains of living organisms or simply just oddly shaped stones that formed naturally in the earth.