Meyer is clearly vastly ignorant on this subject. But then, that's pretty much a prerequisite for being an anti-evolutionist (since most folks who actually *learn* the fundamentals of the field and bother to look at the evidence supporting it end up going, "oh, *now* I see...").
Not only can the "Cambrian explosion" be "accounted for by Darwinian theory, 'neo' or otherwise" -- it can even be accounted for by DARWIN HIMSELF, back in 1859. Why are creationist nitwits *so* far behind in their knowledge?
Here's what I posted the last time an anti-evolutionist had been reading too much creationist nonsense on the "Cambrian explosion", and not enough science journals... Now pay attention, class, there may be a quiz later.
Any further questions?For the next 3 billion years, little else but single- celled life forms ruled the planet. Then suddenly, in the Cambrian geological period, the earth is populated with a huge diversity of complex multicellular life forms.
Actually, there are many precambrian multicelled fossils. And in the Cambrian, there was much more diversity, but calling it a "huge diversity" is overstating the case. Life then was not even a large fraction as diverse as today's life.
This has always looked suspiciously like some form of creation event, and paleontologists frequently seemed rather embarrassed by the reality of the Cambrian Explosion.
I know of no paleontologists who are "embarrassed" by the Cambrian Explosion. And it only looks "suspiciously" like "some form of creation event" if you're actively looking to find one somewhere. It should also be noted that it looks "suspiciously" *NOT* like any kind of "creation event" mentioned in Genesis, so it's hardly any comfort to those hoping to confirm the Biblical account.
So, where is the documentation for the long history of the evolution of these creatures? The usual answer is that the necessary fossil layers prior to the Cambrian period have not been discovered yet. The fossils are just missing! Hmmm. . . . how convenient!
And how... expected! Fossils of *any* sort from 500+ million years ago are far and few between, for all of the obvious reasons. Strata from that ancient period are mostly deeply buried, destroyed by erosion, or destroyed by subduction. And the few samples which are reachable from the surface are seldom of the type suitable for fossilization of whatever may have lived then. Furthermore, Cambrian life was *ocean* life, and the fossil records of the critical events of those times may still be deep under some ocean today, making their discovery unlikely. So we have very few "snapshots" of life from that period, taken at instants in time at slivers of geography. It's no surprise that the key events of the Cambrian Explosion have not (yet?) been found.
This, after all, was Darwin's excuse and many evolutionists after him followed suit.
For the reasons given above. The author's sarcasm is offensive.
Well, recent discoveries from Canada, Greenland, China, Siberia, and Namibia document quite clearly that this period of biological creativity occurred in a geological instant virtually all around the globe. So, the usual excuse no longer holds water.
The fossils found to date in no way invalidate "the usual excuses", and in no way "document quite clearly that this period of biological creativity occurred in a geological instant virtually all around the globe".
They do indicate that in *those* locations, the creatures typical of the "Cambrian Explosion" SHOWED UP at those locations "in a geological instant". But that does NOT "document quite clearly" that the "period of biological creativity" occurred that quickly.
Even Darwin in 1859 realized that appearance in the fossil record does not necessarily indicate time of production -- so what excuse do the creationists have for forgetting this over and over again? From Darwin:
But we continually over-rate the perfection of the geological record, and falsely infer, because certain genera or families have not been found beneath a certain stage, that they did not exist before that stage. We continually forget how large the world is, compared with the area over which our geological formations have been carefully examined; we forget that groups of species may elsewhere have long existed and have slowly multiplied before they invaded the ancient archipelagoes of Europe and of the United States. We do not make due allowance for the enormous intervals of time, which have probably elapsed between our consecutive formations, -- longer perhaps in some cases than the time required for the accumulation of each formation. These intervals will have given time for the multiplication of species from some one or some few parent-forms; and in the succeeding formation such species will appear as If suddenly created.Another factor which Darwin could not have known about is continental drift -- lands have not only raised and lowered, as Darwin realized, but have also literally moved around on the face of the Earth and over time have opened or closed many land bridges, landlocked seas, and so on.I may here recall a remark formerly made, namely that it might require a long succession of ages to adapt an organism to some new and peculiar line of life, for instance to fly through the air; but that when this had been effected, and a few species had thus acquired a great advantage over other organisms, a comparatively short time would be necessary to produce many divergent forms, which would be able to spread rapidly and widely throughout the world.
I will now give a few examples to illustrate these remarks; and to show how liable we are to error in supposing that whole groups of species have suddenly been produced.
[many excellent examples snipped for length -- Darwin lists several examples from even his own day of fossils which were thought to have first appeared "suddenly" in certain formations with "no" prior appearance of fossils, only later to discover precursors in earlier formations]
Some few families of fish now have a confined range; the teleostean fish might formerly have had a similarly confined range, and after having been largely developed in some one sea, might have spread widely. Nor have we any right to suppose that the seas of the world have always been so freely open from south to north as they are at present. Even at this day, if the Malay Archipelago were converted into land, the tropical parts of the Indian Ocean would form a large and perfectly enclosed basin, in which any great group of marine animals might be multiplied; and here they would remain confined, until some of the species became adapted to a cooler climate, and were enabled to double the southern capes of Africa or Australia, and thus reach other and distant seas.
-- Charles Darwin, "On the Origin of Species", 1859
One of the most likely scenarios for the Cambrian Explosion, which creationists never seem to mention, is that the Cambrian life could have evolved in an inland sea for eons, and then finally continental drift broke open that sea to the wider oceans, "spilling" those life forms out to spread and populate the whole worldwide oceans. Any fossil formations from those oceans would show the "instant" appearance of those life forms out of "nowhere", just as Darwin pointed out 140+ years ago concerning animal migrations of various sorts.
Indeed, there are two lines of evidence which *strongly* support this scenario:
1. DNA evidence indicates that the various animal phyla had accumulated roughly 100 million years of independent evolution between their last common ancestor and the Cambrian era. So life did not diverge "suddenly" around the time of the Cambrian Explosion, it had been diverging for 100 million years already, somewhere.
2. The Cambrian was a period of the breakup of a "supercontinent". Most of the Earth's continental masses were jammed together for millions of years prior to the Cambrian, but during the Cambrian they were breaking up and drifting apart into separate continents. This is *exactly* when one would expect an inland sea (or inland "ocean") to break open and join up with the oceans as a whole, and it may thus be no coincidence that this is when the Cambrian "explosion" is seen to have occurred.
Such things have happened even in relatively "recent" times. Just 5.4 million years ago the Strait of Gibralter shifted enough apart to allow the Atlantic Ocean to pour in, filling what is now the Mediterranean Sea, causing the "sudden" appearance of Atlantic fish in the fossil record of that region.
While evolutionists are not exactly joining a creationist wave of conversion, they are being forced to ask tough questions concerning the nature of evolutionary change.
No they aren't. See above.
Darwin did not envision major evolutionary change happening this fast. Darwinism has always been characterized by slow gradual change that is imperceptible in our time frame.
Actually, no. On the same subject ("sudden" appearance of fossil forms), Darwin wrote:
We shall, perhaps, best perceive the improbability of our being enabled to connect species by numerous, fine, intermediate, fossil links, by asking ourselves whether, for instance, geologists at some future period will be able to prove, that our different breeds of cattle, sheep, horses, and dogs have descended from a single stock or from several aboriginal stocks [...] are really varieties or are, as it is called, specifically distinct. This could be effected only by the future geologist discovering in a fossil state numerous intermediate gradations; and such success seems to me improbable in the highest degree.Here Darwin was pointing out that new breeds can appear in just dozens or hundreds of years, and yet representative fossils of the transitions are unlikely to be produced or preserved, because they are so few in number (and fossilization is a rare event requiring special circumstances).Even so, Darwin's pessimism was overstated. Countless transitional fossils, including many gradual sequences, have been found, wonderfully supporting evolution in both large and small scopes. But Darwin's points still stand and explain why we'll likely never be able to recover *all* (or even a large majority) of such sequences.
Not, of course, that that will stop the creationists from pointing to any gaps in the fossil record, no matter how small, and sniggering about "missing links", no matter how many others have been found.
But the Cambrian explosion is anything but gradual, and identifiable intermediates are totally absent. Where are the ancestors?
See above. If they still exist (i.e, were actually fossilized, and the fossils have survived), they are in the localized strata underlying some ancient landlocked sea, wherever it may have been. In time, we may find it -- or not. The fossil record is neither complete nor perfect nor fully reachable by humanity.
What conditions could have prompted this frenzy of creativity? Is there some form of unknowable evolutionary mechanism at work?
Only if the things which Darwin wrote in 1859 are "unknowable"... Which I suppose it is to creationists, who perpetually seem unaware of what he actually wrote before they set out to "disprove" it.
All the known phyla, except one, along with the oddities with which I began this discussion, first appear in the Cambrian period.
Errrrnnntt!! Actually many phyla "first appear" long after the Cambrian.
There are no ancestors.
The author is invited to explain how he "knows" that the pre-cambrian creatures known from fossils are *not* the ancestors of the Cambrian fauna...
Fossil experts used to think that the Cambrian lasted 75 million years. But even that seemed to be a pretty short time for all this evolutionary change. Eventually the Cambrian was shortened to only 30 million years. And if that wasn't bad enough, the time frame of the real work of bringing all these different creatures into existence was limited to the first five to ten million years of the Cambrian. This is extraordinarily fast!
Yet again, the *appearance* in the fossil record (the parts we know, that is) occurred over a "short" period. But this (AGAIN) does not prove that the *development* necessarily occurred in such a short time. See above.
The potential answers to that dilemma are only creating more questions, questions that evolutionists may never be able to answer.
Yawn. Or they may already have and the author is unaware of it.
This notion of the gradualness of the evolutionary process was deeply reinforced with the discovery of DNA and the genetic code. DNA operates as an informational code for the development of an organism from a single cell to an adult and also regulates all the chemical processes that go on in cells. Mutations, or mistakes in the code had to have very minor effects. Disruption of the blueprint would be very sensitive. The small changes brought about by mutations would have to be cumulative over very long periods of time to bring about significant evolutionary changes.
This is hogwash. If anything, understanding of DNA has revealed how relatively *large* changes can occur due to small DNA mutations.
This necessity of gradualism
There is no such "necessity".
How could animals as diverse as arthropods, molluscs, jellyfish, and even primitive vertebrates all appear within a time span of only 5-10 million years with no ancestors and no intermediates?
They could "appear" (note even the author has to admit that this is only an *appearance* of speed) in the fossil record within a short timespan via migration -- just as Darwin pointed out in 1859.
Evolution just doesn't work this way.
Someone needs to read their Darwin again.
Fossil experts and biologists are only beginning to wrestle with this thorny dilemma. Some think that genes which control the process of development from a fertilized egg to an adult, the so- called Hox genes, may have reached a critical mass which led to an explosion of complexity.
Hey, I thought the author just claimed that DNA "proves" that mutations can only bring about "gradual" change? *smirk*.
Genetic information does not just spontaneously arise from random DNA sequences.
Through evolution, it most certainly does.
In fact, a question that is just as perplexing as how this explosion of diversity could occur so fast, is why hasn't such drastic change ever happened in the 500 million years since? The same basic body plans that arose in the Cambrian remain surprisingly constant ever since. Apparently, the most significant biological changes in the history of the earth occurred in less than ten million years, and for 500 million years afterward, this level of change never happened again. Why not?
Oh, puh-leaze.... Creationists like to harp on the "body plan" mantra as if it somehow has Huge Significance, but tell me this -- which shows more "significant biological changes" -- the difference between a Cambrian spineless worm and a Cambrian worm with a (very primitive) spinal column (two of the "body plans" creationists get excited about)... or the difference between a Cambrian worm with a very primitive spinal column and, say, a modern Golden Retriever dog (one of the chordate worm's distant descendants)?
This may seem like a simple question, but it is far more complicated than it appears.
Actually, it appears not just simple, but overly simplistic.
The speculations will therefore be wild and uncontrollable since there will be no way to test these theories. Fossils leave no trace of their genetic organization. We may never be able to know how this marvelous burst of creativity occurred.
Utter horse manure!
Fossils most certainly do "leave traces of their genetic organization" -- in their living descendants.
The author is obviously totally ignorant of the vast numbers of scientific papers which reconstruct early evolution by examining similarities and differences in the DNA of modern living things.
