Would you like to start a new thread on Meyer’s analysis of the Cambrian?
This thread is about Nelson’s review of the GAE, not Meyer’s analysis of the Cambrian. You are the one who is off-topic, not them.
Any number of professional paleontologists have made mincemeat out of Meyer’s ignorant ham-fisted attempts to explain the Cambrian explosion. For example here is a review of Darwin’s Doubt written by Dr. Donald Prothro , an actual highly respected and published member of the Paleontology community.
Stephen Meyer’s Fumbling Bumbling Cambrian Amateur Follies
I’m still waiting for your explanation for the 3.5 billion years of life before the Cambrian and the 5 major mass extinctions after the Cambrian. 
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Well, now @Timothy_Horton is off topic too 
I figured this would be split off like almost every conversation here ends up. 
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How did Meyer get into this? We were discussion Nelson.
@r_speir before I would even attempt to delve into the Cambrian, I require you to acknowledge the Earth is AT LEAST 600 million years old. I see no point in discussing events you think never happened in the first place. 
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Seems to me an artifact of classification
Paul Nelson:
As for “my thoughts on the actual thesis,” I’m unpersuaded, obviously – but mostly indifferent. The thesis of GAE lies downstream logically and evidentially of MN and common descent (whether UCD, or the common descent of the primates, is immaterial). As I find both MN and common descent (at the scale taken as given by GAE) to be false, GAE is not a proposal of any interest to me. I tried to make that plain in the last sentence of my review:
He makes it part of the discussion and so did I.
You are a [at a little bit of] a wise man. Best to stay clear of the the most powerful overthrow of your entire paradigm.
Ah, brilliant answer. See how you all’s science makes so much sense and is so convincing? Who wouldn’t rush to believe it.
This is actually totally an unequivocally false. Don’t you see?
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I know you would like it to be. Nelson and I both don’t know why that is though. Your entire thesis is an admixture of Bible accounts and paganism. Why would you care if it intersects or underscores UCD? You really do not understand us, do you? You never have understood though you claim to. No one who fears God like a YEC can walk away as easily as you did. There was a time you felt you were forced to make a choice, and that is exactly what you did. And frankly, we cannot understand you. Nor you us.
Anyway, I understand that you will bear all against Nelson in just few days. Your turn.
Why not try to understand me?
I did make a choice. I walked away from YEC because I trusted God’s Word over man’s word. I left my anti-evolution idols to follow Jesus. I do not regret my choice.
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He is YEC, though, even though he was not at that point arguing for it. He doesn’t believe there was such a thing as a Cambrian explosion, or even a Cambrian. I think @r_speir is some kind of OEC.
Here, try this.
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@r_speir was a Young Life Creationist, a type of YEC that thinks the earth is old, but seems to have recently slipped back into YEC.
OK. It’s hard to keep up.
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I’m not steering clear, I’m throwing down the gauntlet. If you support Meyer’s Top Down Design in the Cambrian argument, then you must also accept that the Cambrian era actually happened in geologic time. If you are consistent in your beliefs, then you must reject Meyer’s argument as well as evolution.
You bluffed. I called. 
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The one thing I can say about @r_speir is that we should be able to prove or disprove the accusation of paganism.
But I fear that he will never accept a correction on this matter.
He can’t provide evidence for such a transparently false claim. He is a minority here though, so I’ll be patient with him.
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This is tilting against windmills.
We all know how rain clouds are formed in the water cycle. And the Bible is full of references to God using rain in dramatic providential ways.
But nobody seriously suggests that the water cycle is a “fiction”, that God doesn’t use to fulfill his will.
The same can be said about evolutionary processes, and your reference to Cambrian life forms! Nothing is inexplicable when God is in charge of every mutation and every evolutionary step, right?
So on what Biblical warrant would you argue that God ignores the Water Cycle OR Evolution?
Read these two couplets in Genesis 1:20-21
“And God said, Let the waters bring forth … the moving creature … And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind…”
Genesis 1:24-25
“And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. And God made the beast [from] the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind…”
This is a virtual textual equation! God says “Let the Waters produce!” … and the text says the water produces … but that God is still doing the creating.
“Let the Earth/Land produce!” … and the text says the Earth produces its own kinds.
The author of Genesis would not accidentally make two pairs of verses wherein each couplet intentionally equates God’s role as creator with how the Waters or the Earth manifest the creation of creatures.
My point?:
Evolution is PART of God’s universe and part of his creative plan for populating the Earth. Nobody is ignoring everything. Scientists who are Christians embrace the unified [metaphysical] reality of God’s manifestation of Evolution and the myriad other natural laws and processes humans have discovered over the ages.
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Whoa! Paganism?! How did paganism get into this tent? For paganism to apply, you would have to show either that (1) @Swamidass is incorporating a non-Christian religion (especially an ancient pre-Christian religion) into his thesis, OR that (2) he is embracing some sort of nature worship. Where do you find that in the GAE? What definition of paganism are you assuming here, @r_speir?
For me it was not an easy walk. (I won’t try to speak for Dr. Swamidass’ experience.) It took me a lot of study, both in the Hebrew Bible and in the copious evidence God gives us in his creation.
Are you implying that only YECs fully fear God? How about OECs? Are they capable of fearing God? How about Christ-followers who aren’t sure how old the earth is and aren’t sure if Genesis addresses the age of the earth at all? Do they fear God?
Me too. I’m always amazed when Ken Ham describes his YECism as trusting God’s Word over man’s word. From reading his writings I can’t help but conclude that he has trusted Seventh Day Adventist prophet Ellen White and her associate George McReady Price and many others who have repackaged her message over what God has actually revealed in his scriptures and in his creation.
Yes. Jesus is far greater than any diatribe which denies what God has clearly revealed in his creation. And Jesus is great enough to call and expect all Christ-followers to work in unity to make disciples from all nations. That is of much greater importance. @R_speir, are you committed to that task of unity under the Great Commission? And can you and I agree on the importance of this kind of unity among Christ-followers:
13 Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 14 And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. — Colossians 3:13-14
Perhaps you can consider that Dr. Nelson is willing and able to engage in a very interesting and peaceful discussion in these threads while also accepting Dr. Swamidass and others of us as genuine Christ-followers. That’s one of many reasons why we so appreciate his participation here as he helps us to understand better his positions on these topics.
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Yes. Genesis and science agree: The waters and the land brought forth every MIN (kind, variety) of creature.
I appreciate the NLT Bible’s translation of Genesis 1:11.
Then God said, “Let the land sprout with vegetation—every sort of seed-bearing plant, and trees that grow seed-bearing fruit. These seeds will then produce the kinds of plants and trees from which they came.” And that is what happened.
Yes, Genesis and evolutionary biology agree on this: each organism produces offspring consistent with its MIN (variety, kind.) If ever we find organisms which do NOT produce offspring consistent with their MIN, that would be a powerful argument against the Theory of Evolution.
(Despite the strange anti-evolution rants of Ray Comfort et al, evolutionary biology does NOT claim that dogs can produce cats and crocodiles can produce ducks.)
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Can someone explain what @r_speir is referring to when he talks about “top down construction of body plans”?