Cambrian Fossils Still a Dilemma for Darwinism 100 Years After Discovery of Burgess Shale

Evolution News & Views ^ | August 31, 2009 | Casey Luskin

[GodGunsGuts]

Cambrian Fossils Still a Dilemma for Darwinism 100 Years After Discovery of Burgess Shale

Exactly one hundred years ago leading American paleontologist Charles Doolittle Walcott (right) was hiking along Burgess Pass in the Canadian Rockies when he stumbled upon a slab of shale containing fossil crustaceans. His interest piqued, Wolcott made return trips to the Burgess Shale in the following years where he ultimately collected tens of thousands of fossils. Many of these fossils were extraordinarily well-preserved, and they were mysterious. They included strange forms like Anomalocaris, Opabinia, Wiwaxia, and Hallucigenia. These fossils revealed a mystery: like other Cambrian fauna, these strange soft-bodied fossils appeared in the fossil record abruptly, without evolutionary precursors.

Darwin himself was aware of this problem in his own day, writing that the lack of fossil evidence for the evolution of Cambrian trilobites "must at present remain inexplicable; and may be truely urged as a valid argument against the views here entertained." Nearly 150 years after Darwin penned those words, biology textbooks are still observing things like, "Most of the animal phyla that are represented in the fossil record first appear, 'fully formed,' in the Cambrian." Indeed, the striking appearance of animals in the Cambrian explosion is captured in a recent article in Nature article commemorating the 100th anniversary of Wolcott's discovery, stating that "virtually all animal groups alive today were present in Cambrian seas."

The Cambrian seas are now being brought back to life in a new video from Illustra Media titled "Darwin's Dilemma: The Mystery of the Cambrian Fossil Record," set to be released next month. With all the stunning animation and computer graphics we've grown accustomed to enjoying from Illustra, the film tells the story of Wolcott's discovery of the Burgess shale and both the beauty and scientific importance of the fossils he found. It also recounts attempts by paleontologists to explain away the abrupt appearance of major animal groups in the Cambrian explosion and offers the views of scientists who feel the best explanation for the bioinformational explosion recorded in Cambrian rocks is intelligent design.

We'll have more on this film in the next few weeks, but it's a good time to remember Wolcott's important discovery 100 years ago and the challenge it has brought to Darwinian thinking.

[GodGunsGuts]

Ping!

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[dirtboy]

The Burgess is Middle Cambrian and has rare fossils because it was formed in just the right conditions to capture sof features. There are a lot of other hard-bodied fossils in Early Cambrian formations, so the entire premise here is built upon a strawman - that there was some kind of void below the Burgess in the geological record.

[stormer]

So let me get this straight - does this prove that evolution is a fallacy or that the world is 6,000 years old?

[Phantom4]

This reminds me of the publishing a few years ago of the discovery of T. Tex remains that still contained soft bloody tissue. Immediately, thinking evolutionary heads, with an obvious commitment to an evolutionary point of view, began to buzz about how such tissues might have been preserved over eons of time via some sort of previously known mechanism, a period of time which would ordinarily indicate decompositon. No one even considered the possiblity that the tissues might have been orders of magnitude YOUNGER than “conventional wisdom” would dictate. I am not suggesting that this discovery PROVES that the T. Rex remains are young. I only point out the obvious narrow thinking.

Carl Sagan, and those of like mind, keep their ears tuned to static from other galaxies to find a nonrandom (”intelligetnly designed”???) sequence of signals that might indicate INTELLIGENCE. What desperate hypocrisy, as displayed in this auote of Richard Lewontin, a distinguished Harvard paleonotolgist:

“Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute.

Lewontin won’t even let God in the door, the evidence notwithstanding. With this sort of “closed shop” attitude, virually anything could be preached as orthoxdox to the masses, the facts be damned.

[-YYZ-]

See now, I always thought that the existence of fossils of strange forms of animals no longer in existence, at high altitudes in folded rock formations in the mountains, was more of a problem for young-earth creationism. Indeed it was just that sort of thing that made the idea of a young earth increasingly untenable to thinking people in the 19th century.

[B-Chan]

The former.

[SpeedRacer]

BTTT for later reading

[CharlesWayneCT]

Neither. You can’t prove “Evolution” is a fallacy, because it is a belief system that can be changed whenever necessary to fit whatever current facts are available.

And the absense of evidence can only show that a theory has no basis, not the theory is false. We’d have to dig every inch of the earth to “prove” there were no fossils; and even then, an Evolutionist could argue that conditions just weren’t right to capture the fossils we were looking for.

At best, this demonstrates the lack of evidence surrounding the Evolutionary myth of origins. Evolution as a scientific theory of genetic mutation occuring today is unaffected by this information, as it is observable science; the origins debate is about mythology and speculation which humanists steep in “scientific jargon” to try to back their belief system.

[CharlesWayneCT]

I don’t know why you would think that. Once you have postulated a world-wide flood, accompanied by cataclysmic shifts in rock formations, you can pretty much explain any fossils anywhere.

Plus, once you have postulated a creative God, that God can create anything, including things which will tend to give the unchosen a way to justify their unbelief.

[stormer]

[Ira_Louvin]

I must have overlooked the part where the author provided any evidence to support id/creationism/ cdesign proponentsists

Could someone please be so kind as to explain how this article provides any evidence supporting the pseudoscience of id/creationism/cdesign proponentsists?

[GodGunsGuts]

All excellent points. Thanks for your reply!

[Ha Ha Thats Very Logical]

the discovery of T. Tex remains that still contained soft bloody tissue

Nobody found T. Rex remains that contained "soft bloody tissue."

[GodGunsGuts]

You miss it every time. There’s a reason for that. Read Romans 1.

[GodGunsGuts]

Why would catastrophic mass burials in folded (not fractured) rock at high altitudes be a problem for biblical creationists?

[Ira_Louvin]

I did not see where Romans 1 was mentioned in this article.

Again I ask where in this article is there any evidence supporting the pseudoscience of id/creationism/cdesign proponentsists?

[GodGunsGuts]

I’m mentioning Romans 1 to explain why you are incapable of grasping the obvious.

[Ira_Louvin]

If it so obvious please be so kind as to show me where in this article the author provides any evidence to support the pseudoscience of id/creationism/cdesign proponentsists?