Replies

". . . Do you not see the bias you have built into your interpretation? You aren't looking to see if the evidence matches evolution. You are looking to see what evolution did. . . ."

No; I have looked at the evidence you presented which now places the origins of vertebrate life just before the Cambrian Period and judged that it is consistent with evolutionary theory because that evidence is for a very simple vertebrate now identified in fossil remains that expands the time period within which diverse forms of vertebrate life developed, previously placed exclusively within the so-called "Cambrian Explosion," from 50 million to 80 million years. The longer time period thus established gives a greater window of opportunity for the development of more complex forms of vertebrate life and undermines the Intelligent Design argument that the Cambrian Explosion occurred in too short a time period to be considered believable.

". . . No matter how inconsistent the evidence is with evolution, you will never notice. Because you have already assumed evolution must account for any set of evidence. . . ."

The only thing that could make this new evidence inconsistent would be the discovery of an era [or "period" or "age"] of life on earth after the dating of this fossil in which no forms of vertebrate life were present. The subsequent period to the Vendian is the Cambrian, which is filled with evidence of vertebrate life. Where is the inconsistency you mention?

". . . Charnia might have given you 30 million more years according to the evol timeframe, but it does mess up the sequence. Unless of course you find more fossils in that timeframe, you now have vertebrates coming before a lot of other phyla. . . ."

I defy you to name one phyla placed within the taxonomy of vertebrate life that is only dated as existing after the development of higher-order members. You only have to name one. I know of none and thus there is no inconsistency. But I'll await your response.

". . . The oil scenario doesn't surprise me. That they find oil in similar situations doesn't mean that their interpretation of what they are looking at is correct. Only that there is a correlation between oil and whatever identifiers they've focused on. . . ."

The logical format of the argument you have just presented is that Petroleum Geologists succeed in finding oil in spite of their errors. Do you know what the "identifiers they've focused on" [your words] actually are? They include radiometric dating of rock core samples to place the age of rock formations within the Geologic Column, an examination of fossilized remains from that rock to correlate with other known samples taken from formations already identified as being created during specific time periods, an examination of reduced carbon graphite deposits within rock samples from various parts of the formation [top to bottom if possible] to establish the length of time and breadth of development of plant life in the particular geologic period at that location, and more. Are you seriously arguing that they are in error in any and all of these? Note: The steps I have just listed are mutually dependent upon each other, since they all use radiometric dating.

Consider this argument. Here's a jigsaw puzzle (the subject is not all that important):

The pieces, when put together, reveal a picture. In the context of evolution, if these pieces were fossils, the analogy of the way we fit the pieces together is the anatomical structures of the fossils and their ages. We end up with the well-known tree of life, showing common descent with variation.

Now it's possible that someone could come along and claim that this isn't the only possible picture we could make with those pieces, and that the picture we're showing is merely the result of imposing our prejudices on the pieces.

That might be true, but only if it were possible to arrange the pieces in some other way (for example, if the pieces were all the same shape, so that any number of mosaic designs could be produced). But that's not what we're working with. We might challenge our skeptic to try his hand at re-arranging the pieces, but no, he won't do that.

We could also point out that DNA evidence shows a close, pre-existing relationship of the pieces that we've fitted together, thus confirming the picture; and that re-arranging the pieces would be inconsistent with such evidence. But somehow, notwithstanding any other way to arrange the pieces, the skeptic will always insist that the picture is the result of prejudice.