Look, Capt. Kirk, they've discovered traces of the genesis effect.
Posted on 11/18/2004 12:13:11 PM PST by Conservomax
I found this article and I thought it might make for an interesting FR thread.
As poster I have no real opinion on the article. It is somewhat interesting to see the Cambrian through the eyes of this author.
Good read. Thanks.
Science keeps being surprised by the complexity of man. Two weeks ago on ScienceDaily.com, they reported the discovery of a unique protein that enables hearing. Science has a long way to go before even getting a rudimentary understanding of life's complexities.
I majored in Geology at the University of New Orleans (known affectionately to locals as 13th grade)
I had a fantastic Historical Geology professor who used to talk about the Cambrian explosion all the time as the weakest link in the whole theory of evolution as the origin of life on earth. He believed in it, was confident the answers would come in time, and he knew I was a creationist. We had great, friendly discussions about the whole thing.
I am pleased to see this type of article being published to welcome reception. There's far too much hard-headed, vicious antagonism on both sides of the debate.
Believing you're right doesn't mean you have to be a jerk, ya know?
There's little point in speculating about how long the Cambrian explosion "should have" taken. All we know are the morphologies of the creatures. We don't know much about their genetic distance from each other. It doesn't take many mutations to effect huge morphological differences.
This is obsolete stuff. Preambrian fossils are being found. There's the problem that most of the precambrian rocks have been melted, squeezed or otherwised deformed, but stuff is being found, and it does not support this article.
Welcome to Free Republic. It is indeed addictive. It must be challenging being a Christian college student these days. It may be somewhat like living in Oregon, one of the bluest blue states, home of more wacky alternative religions than you can shake a stick at.
God Bless.
In Evolutionary Race, Humans Went the Extra Mile, Study Says
And I find the book 100 Billion Suns absolutely fascinating!!!
" The major evolutionary innovations represented in the Cambrian would ordinarily require at least tens of millions of years to accomplish. Some might even suggest over 100 million years would be required"
My favorite argumentative tidbit in the discussion is the simple fact that there isn't enough time in the fossil record for the complexity and diversity in existence for it to have happened gradually and according to the mechanisms described by reigning theory.
For each and every single change that is beneficial to spring up, take hold in a population, and then resist additional changes that spring up and take hold, and then compound to form advantageous systems and forms.. it's just not possible in the time frame given.
Just for something like "organs" or "skin" or "vascular system" or "stomach acid" to evolve into a usable form from gradualism , one tiny mutation at a time, would take more time than you could possibly account for. Genetics doesn't work like that, except in comic books and movies. One little mutation can do something like suppress a protein, or make a fruit fly's legs come out of his antenna sockets, but it doesn't give rise to complex, completely non-existent beneficial structures.
Evolution is not a theory about the origin of life on earth. It's a theory about the origin of species on earth. The two are not the same thing.
Where's that picture of the 50's dude with the caption "Not this sh!t again"?
Science has a long way to go before even getting a rudimentary understanding of GOD'S complexities.....
"It doesn't take many mutations to effect huge morphological differences"
That's inferred, because the only way it can be studied apart from in the fossil record is in a lab, and even then, things can be rearranged or taken out, but not introduced from nothing.
i.e you can make a rat without a stomach, let's say, but you can't put vertebra in a worm.
......
(:^)
Well it's collection of biological theories. Some of which are obvious and some are very very contentious. It's like like Solomon's proverbs.
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