Sponges on ancient ocean floors 100 million years before Cambrian period

@Patrick

:blush: what a good guess! Pretty soon all we’ll have to do is say, “Assertion #1.” “ Rebuttal #1.” “Counterargument #3.” “Riposte #4.” I’ll see your #4 and raise you assertion #20!!! And then the shouting starts. :roll_eyes:

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Why did it take your Omnipotent Designer 10-20 million years to come up a few dozen body plans? Where did all the information for the 3 billion years of life before the Cambrian come from? Where did all the information required for the re-radiation of life after the 5 known mass extinctions after the Cambrian come from? BTW 10-20 million years isn’t “quickly”.

Science says the information in genomes comes from the new genetic variations which happen every generation interacting with feedback from the local environment. Meyer says it was POOFED by the Magic Designer. Sorry but Meyer’s “Darwin’s Doubt” hand wave is the worst kind of unsupported pseudo-science. That’s why he makes his claim in popular press layman’s books instead of the primary scientific literature.

Meyer isn’t a paleontologist and has no formal training or experience in the subject. His book Darwin’s Doubt was rightly ridiculed by actual paleontologists as the incredibly sloppy and factually incorrect work of an incompetent amateur. One of the best critiques of Meyer’s incompetence came from paleontologist Donald Prothro

Read the rest of the scathing review with many detailed examples of Meyer’s blunders here.

Stephen Meyer’s Fumbling Bumbling Cambrian Amateur Follies

@Timothy_Horton

What is your scientific specialty? I ask this not to be snobby but to get a feel for how much you know about how much information it takes to assemble new radically different body plans. I can’t think of an analogy that is diverse enough to illustrate the challenge.

The omnipotent designer, as you called him, could have poofed everything into being but chose not to. I can give you my guess why, but it’s not scientific. But whatever happened during those 3 billion years, it didn’t happen without guidance. Assembling gene regulatory networks that actually build something coherent and resilient and functional AND unique multiple times is not going to happen by a random search sifted by selection. There isn’t enough time or selective power. 10-20 myr is peanuts compared to 3 billion years. Chimps and humans diverged 6 mya, rats and mice diverged 20 Mya. Yet we have echinoderms, crustaceans, various worms, priapulids, brachiopods, mollusks, even a primitive chordate in 10-20 myr time. ( I am speaking from memory here, I left out Ctenophora and Cnidaria and Porifera deliberately because they predate the Cambrian.) I am talking about fossil traces, not dates based phylogenetic analysis, which puts their origin earlier, but that is not backed up by fossil evidence.

BTW I doubt Meyer said things poofed into existence anywhere in his book.

I know you don’t like ID. I don’t know who you have encountered before who advocated ID. But not all advocates are the same. We do have rational scientific reasons for what we say. We do research (some of us) and publish papers.
We read the literature. And we publish popular press books, some of us. But then we are not the first to advocate a theory by publishing a popular book… And we are not the first to have a journal to support our work. There is Darwin, for example, and the journal Nature. From Wikipedia:

Janet Browne has proposed that “far more than any other science journal of the period, Nature was conceived, born, and raised to serve polemic purpose.” Many of the early editions of Nature consisted of articles written by members of a group that called itself the [X Club] Janet Browne has proposed that “far more than any other science journal of the period, Nature was conceived, born, and raised to serve polemic purpose.”[[13]] Many of the early editions of Nature consisted of articles written by members of a group that called itself the [X Club], a group of scientists known for having liberal, progressive, and somewhat controversial scientific beliefs relative to the time period.[[13]] Initiated by [Thomas Henry Huxley], the group consisted of such important scientists as Joseph Dalton Hooker, Herbert Spencer, and John Tyndall, along with another five scientists and mathematicians; these scientists were all avid supporters of Darwin’s theory of evolution as common descent, a theory which, during the latter half of the 19th century, received a great deal of criticism among more conservative groups of scientists.[15] Perhaps it was in part its scientific liberality that made Nature a longer-lasting success than its predecessors), a group of scientists known for having liberal, progressive, and somewhat controversial scientific beliefs relative to the time period.[13]

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@Agauger,

Isnt this where PeacefulScience adheres to God as the source? Only atheists would reject this solution.

Frankly, Ann, I don’t believe you know the answer to this. Moreover, I don’t believe the grand pronouncements made by ID proponents in this regard carry any weight at all.

The opposite end of the “vast, unimaginable amounts of new information” spectrum can be illustrated with a simple thought experiment. Thus, ask yourself - if each and every cell (1 trillion or cell) in the human body was specified by a unique combination of transcription factors, then how many such factors would we need? A thousand? Ten thousand? Millions?

No. The answer is 40. It follows pretty simply that the combinatorial possibilities resident in the thousands of genes percolating in the biosphere at the time of origination of animals are far more than sufficient to permit new avenues in evolution. To be sure, new combinations, new interactions, new networks are needed, but no new genes. (In principle, that is.)

You want to claim that untold amounts of new information were needed at the dawn of multicellular life? Then prove it. Experimentally, not with reference to inappropriate and incorrect “calculations” that have nothing to do with biology or biochemistry.

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Now that I am have re-engaged into my Information Theory understanding that I got from Claude Shannon himself, I am ready to take you on (or anyone else) on your information arguments. The information arguments in ID are really lacking in sound Information Theory foundation as @swamidass and I found out conversing with @EricMH

The question presupposes that we start with information, and then use that information to build a body to a plan.

But maybe we actually started with the bodies that we found and then, after the fact, invented the idea of body plans. Maybe body plans are better thought of as spandrels.

No, Information Theory and evolutionary science does not recognize God as the source of where the information necessary to build an animal came from. From evolutionary science we know that the information to build an animal resides in the DNA of its parent.

@Art, I might also say that evolutionists must demonstrate that evolution is capable of the task, rather than making hypothetical claims.

Where does your number 40 come from?

Thanks,
Ann

Any takers for this question?

I’m not sure where it comes from myself. Curious to here your answer.

It would be really nice if these discussions could take place in such a way that any individual who supports a given position is not considered to be a proxy for that position, and, as such, has to constantly suffer the consequences of every historical offense ever committed by that group. Can we not just, as individuals, have conversations with one another? Talk about the points? To me, whenever I read someone attacking the character of a person or group, I immediately assume that they don’t have a good argument.

Please, discuss the points and stop berating individuals. There are so many great conversations from which there is much to be learned. These personal attacks are simply nauseating and they have no educational value whatsoever.

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It is this God of the Gaps argument that scientists balk at. How can you claim that there are no precursors after searching such a tiny, tiny percentage of the fossil record? I think it is a very poor assumption to think that our fossil collections are complete or that we have a fossil for every species that existed over that period.

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Will you expect that, in time, we will see precursors to the aforementioned body plans that otherwise seem to appear fully formed? Discovering fossils that provide a clear pathway to these new body types would certainly overcome the “Cambrian explosion” argument.

Don’t get mad, because I’m just asking (remember, you are a friendly atheist)… but, if the fossil record is vastly incomplete, then the fossil record does not support an evolutionary pathway to the new body types found in the Cambrian layers. So, how does this quote, above, vary from the God of the Gaps accusation? It seems as though the evidence is the key. If it exists, then the “Cambrian explosion” argument goes away. If the evidence does not exist, then one can hardly criticize another for questioning the lack of evidence. Speculative future evidence is certainly not evidence, right?

Moreover, I don’t think that people claim that there are no precursors, they claim, as you have, that there is an incredible lack of precursors that have been discovered. (This is certainly what should be claimed.) Everyone should also agree that, if discovered, the criticism would be invalid.

That is precisely the reason why this matters.

Actually, this is pretty close to what they claim. They also claim that it was sudden, not 40 million years.

Ann Gauger, for instance, states it fairly, I believe.

But what about the other parts of my comment? I feel as though you really keyed in on the least significant aspects. Do those who hold to an evolutionary viewpoint (one that believes that evolution is solely responsible for the existence of all species on the planet) expect to see fossil evidence for these body plans that otherwise seem to appear fully formed? And what about the God of the Gaps argument?

Is it not responsible for all of us to say that evidence, not the lack of evidence, is the foundation upon which our arguments should be made? I think that we’re all truth seekers here. The evidence should be borne out over time and conclusions can be drawn. But, for now at least, this seems to be an open chapter.

Thoughts?

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Also it would be better, imo, to avoid statements of the “they say” sort and quote or cite a specific claim.

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First, what does “fully formed” even mean? How do you determine if a species is fully formed? What are the criteria?

More to the point, I have no idea what we will find in the future. All I do know is that we have searched a tiny, tiny fraction of the Earth for fossils. How in the world can you say that there are no precursors after searching such a small portion of the Earth?

That isn’t true because of Gish’s Law. For every new transitional fossil found there are now two new gaps. It is a fool’s errand to think that evidence will impact the YEC/OEC community. For example, here are quite a few transitionals and the YEC/OEC community just ignores them:

I do get a bit frustrated at times, but never mad. :wink:

The fossil record does support evolution because the theory of evolution predicts a nested hierarchy. The fossils we have fall into the predicted nested hierarchy. The theory of evolution makes no predictions about the rate of preservation or the rate of discovery, so gaps are not a problem.

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Darwin seemed to think it was a problem, and absence of evidence for a theory is always problem.