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To: mikeus_maximus
It has a "just so" type explanation, but not a good one. It has no explanation for the Cambrian explosion

It isn't a "just so" explaination. It is a specific explaination that the origin of mammals occured in the early Triassic (where early mammals are reptile-like - yet another "coincidence" that supports evolution). The cambrian being long before this point must therefore contain no mammals.

If you were really confident that the theory of evolution was flawed you could go grab a spade, take yourself down to the grand canyon and route around in cambrian layers for mammal fossils. See the theory is testable. So what are you waiting for?

And on top of all that, it has yet to explain, how complex organic compounds (a) existed or (b) were assembled by chance less mathematically probable than throwing a box full of letters into the air to create code more complex than a Shakespearan sonnet-- Millions of times over and independently.

Irrelevant. The fact of evolution is that evolution on earth has occured in history beyond doubt. How it happened is the theoretical part, and a seperate question.

551 posted on 08/17/2005 9:10:27 AM PDT by bobdsmith
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To: bobdsmith
The cambrian being long before this point must therefore contain no mammals.

Indeed it does not, and one has to wonder why creationists don't wonder why not?

Supposedly, the Cambrian is a problem for evolution, even as we find deep roots and tiny prototypes for the Cambrian fauna, and multiple lines of evidence that some "independent" phyla evolved from some others. But what about how the Cambrian fits into creationism?

Yes, where are those mammals? Where are Adam and Eve?

Where are the land animals of any sort whatever? Amphibians seem to have crawled out in the Devonian, which is later. Where are the very earliest insects? Again, in the Devonian. Later. None in the Cambrian. Reptiles? After the amphibians, rather as evolution would suggest. (We think the reptiles EVOLVED FROM the amphibians, so naturally the amphibians should be first.) Birds? Later. After the reptiles. How about that? Anyway, none in the Cambrian.

Flowering plants? Much later. None in the Cambrian. All the insect types that need flowering plants? You guessed it. Later yet.

To be fair, fish of a sort have been found in the Cambrian, but what a sort! Looks like an Amphioxus just starting to grow a head, or one of those hatchling lampreys that looks like an amphioxus. IOW, very primitive and barely has the features that allow it to be classified as it is. One might almost say it looks like evidence that things are evolving.

We have a lot of new phyla (body plans) in the Cambrian, yes, but these forms are remarkably similar in size scale. They're simple and generalized relative to later forms. In evolutionary terms, they're not very diverged from each other yet.

Funny, that. When creationists mention the Cambrian, they don't talk about this stuff. You'd think enquiring minds would want answers. (Oh, wait!)

556 posted on 08/17/2005 9:40:23 AM PDT by VadeRetro (Liberalism is a cancer on society. Creationism is a cancer on conservatism.)
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To: bobdsmith
Irrelevant. The fact of evolution is that evolution on earth has occured in history beyond doubt. How it happened is the theoretical part, and a seperate question.

How can complex biochemical organization be irrelevent, when the "fact" of evolution is a mere inference and not an observable event? Wouldn't evidence contrary to that inference be relevent? It is certainly is in any court of law I've practiced in. Really, you've just given a splendid exmaple of the kind of "faith" no intellectually honest person can hold.

But more to your argument about the Cambrian record--it too rests on a large assumption. I'll let you figure out what it is.

569 posted on 08/17/2005 10:17:29 AM PDT by mikeus_maximus (Hillary for Prez! -(The Whitehouse wants its china back; China wants the Whitehouse back))
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