Exposing the evolution theory. Part 1

IntroductionWith so many facts disputing the naturalistic theory I’ve decided to lay out the biggest ones individually. As this is presented to public school students as a fact Im going to use the higher scientific standards of evidence which is used in the applied sciences where evidence has to be 100% accurate. I may also use the standard of evidence beyond reasonable doubt as required by criminal law. Not the balance of probability which is used in civil law. That means anything speculative will be deemed unacceptable. A false representation of an evolutionary tree that would be typically presented as factual to young school kids.Part 1. The Cambrian explosion. Darwin’s Doubt.The Cambrian explosion of life has long been a major hurdle for the naturalistic theory. The fossil record shows the first three quarters of the earth’s history to have nothing but very simply structured organisms. Then all of the sudden, 542 million years ago, vast quantities of complex creatures emerged without any of the evolutionary precursors demanded from Darwin’s theory.In fact Darwin himself was perplexed by this event and in his book stated; It’s as though they were just planted there without any evolutionary history. He concluded that the fossil record was incomplete and said To the question of why we do not find rich fossil deposits belonging to theseperiods prior to the Cambrian system, I can give no satisfactory answer. This fact caused great doubt in Darwin’s mind. He proposed that the fossil evidence was yet to be found and that without it his theory would collapse.Since publishing his book, The origin of species, there have been new discoveries. Advanced life forms from the Cambrian era were discovered all around the world. However the findings only served to refute Darwin’s theory as there was no evolutionary species found for the Cambrian animals.It is clear that the fossil record does not support Darwin’s theory of a common ancestor but in fact it undoubtedly refutes it. Yet the Cambrian explosion is not even mentioned in many text books and when it is mentioned it is not presented as evidence against Darwin’s theory but instead as an event that requires no further justification.Similar situations also occur throughout time including the period after the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. This is where many modern animals, including primates, appear without any evolutionary evidence.From observing the fossil data of the pre Cambrian period we should find evidence of evolution and a common ancestor as predicted by Darwin. We find no such evidence therefore, as Darwin himself knew, the theory is falsified. It also fails both criminal and civil legal standards of evidence. The image shows Darwins prediction compared to the actual fossil dataEdited by Porkncheese, : No reason given.Edited by Porkncheese, : Change title due to popular demand

Thread copied here from the Exposing the naturalistic theory. Part 1 thread in the Proposed New Topics forum.

I was impressed that you intend to use the 'highest standard of evidence in you arguments but you then spoiled it by immediately not using any standards of evidence at all.Just taking your very first example of A false representation of an evolutionary tree that would be typically presented as factual to young school kids you need to show, 'with the highest standard of evidence' where that diagram is used in schools, to whom and when, then show where it is wrong and why any errors might give a fatally false impression to its intended audience. Finally you have to show why it affects the ToE's validity as settled science.Maybe when you've done that to everyone's satisfaction, you can move on to your second claim.

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Claim CC300:

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Complex life forms appear suddenly in the Cambrian explosion, with no ancestral fossils.

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Response:

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1. The Cambrian explosion was the seemingly sudden appearance of a variety of complex animals about 540 million years ago (Mya), but it was not the origin of complex life. Evidence of multicellular life from about 590 and 560 Mya appears in the Doushantuo Formation in China (Chen et al. 2000, 2004), and diverse fossil forms occurred before 555 Mya (Martin et al. 2000). (The Cambrian began 543 Mya., and the Cambrian explosion is considered by many to start with the first trilobites, about 530 Mya.) Testate amoebae are known from about 750 Mya (Porter and Knoll 2000). There are tracelike fossils more than 1,200 Mya in the Stirling Range Formation of Australia (Rasmussen et al. 2002). Eukaryotes (which have relatively complex cells) may have arisen 2,700 Mya, according to fossil chemical evidence (Brocks et al. 1999). Stromatolites show evidence of microbial life 3,430 Mya (Allwood et al. 2006). Fossil microorganisms may have been found from 3,465 Mya (Schopf 1993). There is isotopic evidence of sulfur-reducing bacteria from 3,470 Mya (Shen et al. 2001) and possible evidence of microbial etching of volcanic glass from 3,480 Mya (Furnes et al. 2004).
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2. There are transitional fossils within the Cambrian explosion fossils. For example, there are lobopods (basically worms with legs) which are intermediate between arthropods and worms (Conway Morris 1998).
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3. Only some phyla appear in the Cambrian explosion. In particular, all plants postdate the Cambrian, and flowering plants, by far the dominant form of land life today, only appeared about 140 Mya (Brown 1999).
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   Even among animals, not all types appear in the Cambrian. Cnidarians, sponges, and probably other phyla appeared before the Cambrian. Molecular evidence shows that at least six animal phyla are Precambrian (Wang et al. 1999). Bryozoans appear first in the Ordovician. Many other soft-bodied phyla do not appear in the fossil record until much later. Although many new animal forms appeared during the Cambrian, not all did. According to one reference (Collins 1994), eleven of thirty-two metazoan phyla appear during the Cambrian, one appears Precambrian, eight after the Cambrian, and twelve have no fossil record.
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   And that just considers phyla. Almost none of the animal groups that people think of as groups, such as mammals, reptiles, birds, insects, and spiders, appeared in the Cambrian. The fish that appeared in the Cambrian was unlike any fish alive today.
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4. There are some plausible explanations for why diversification may have been relatively sudden:
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   • The evolution of active predators in the late Precambrian likely spurred the coevolution of hard parts on other animals. These hard parts fossilize much more easily than the previous soft-bodied animals, leading to many more fossils but not necessarily more animals.
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   • Early complex animals may have been nearly microscopic. Apparent fossil animals smaller than 0.2 mm have been found in the Doushantuo Formation, China, forty to fifty-five million years before the Cambrian (Chen et al. 2004). Much of the early evolution could have simply been too small to see.
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   • The earth was just coming out of a global ice age at the beginning of the Cambrian (Hoffman 1998; Kerr 2000). A "snowball earth" before the Cambrian explosion may have hindered development of complexity or kept populations down so that fossils would be too rare to expect to find today. The more favorable environment after the snowball earth would have opened new niches for life to evolve into.
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   • Hox genes, which control much of an animal's basic body plan, were likely first evolving around that time. Development of these genes might have just then allowed the raw materials for body plans to diversify (Carroll 1997).
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   • Atmospheric oxygen may have increased at the start of the Cambrian (Canfield and Teske 1996; Logan et al. 1995; Thomas 1997).
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   • Planktonic grazers began producing fecal pellets that fell to the bottom of the ocean rapidly, profoundly changing the ocean state, especially its oxygenation (Logan et al. 1995).
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   • Unusual amounts of phosphate were deposited in shallow seas at the start of the Cambrian (Cook and Shergold 1986; Lipps and Signor 1992).
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5. Cambrian life was still unlike almost everything alive today. Although several phyla appear to have diverged in the Early Cambrian or before, most of the phylum-level body plans appear in the fossil record much later (Budd and Jensen 2000). Using number of cell types as a measure of complexity, we see that complexity has been increasing more or less constantly since the beginning of the Cambrian (Valentine et al. 1994).
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6. Major radiations of life forms have occurred at other times, too. One of the most extensive diversifications of life occurred in the Ordovician, for example (Miller 1997).

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References:

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{25, SEE LINK for details}

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Further Reading:
Conway Morris, Simon. 1998. The Crucible of Creation. Oxford.

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Conway Morris, Simon. 2000. The Cambrian "explosion": Slow-fuse or megatonnage? Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA 97(9): 4426-4429. (technical)

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Schopf, J. William. 2000. Solution to Darwin's dilemma: Discovery of the missing Precambrian record of life. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA 97(13): 6947-6953. Just a moment...

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Solution to Darwin's dilemma: Discovery of the missing Precambrian record of life

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Abstract

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In 1859, in On the Origin of Species, Darwin broached what he regarded to be the most vexing problem facing his theory of evolutionthe lack of a rich fossil record predating the rise of shelly invertebrates that marks the beginning of the Cambrian Period of geologic time (≈550 million years ago), an inexplicable absence that could be truly urged as a valid argument against his all embracing synthesis. For more than 100 years, the missing Precambrian history of life stood out as one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in natural science. But in recent decades, understanding of life's history has changed markedly as the documented fossil record has been extended seven-fold to some 3,500 million years ago, an age more than three-quarters that of the planet itself. This long-sought solution to Darwin's dilemma was set in motion by a small vanguard of workers who blazed the trail in the 1950s and 1960s, just as their course was charted by a few pioneering pathfinders of the previous century, a history of bold pronouncements, dashed dreams, search, and final discovery.

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In 1950, when Ledyard Stebbins' Variation and Evolution in Plants (1) first appeared, the known history of lifethe familiar progression from spore-producing to seed-producing to flowering plants, from marine invertebrates to fish, amphibians, then reptiles, birds, and mammalsextended only to the beginning of the Cambrian Period of the Phanerozoic Eon, roughly 550 million years ago. Now, after a half-century of discoveries, life's history looks strikingly differentan immense early fossil record, unknown and assumed unknowable, has been uncovered to reveal an evolutionary progression dominated by microbes that stretches seven times farther into the geologic past than previously was known. This essay is an abbreviated history of how and by whom the known antiquity of life has been steadily extended, and of lessons learned in this still ongoing hunt for life's beginnings.

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Full paper follows giving details and referencesYour thesis is refuted by the evidence of (a) precambrian fossils that have been found, and (b) the cambrian "explosion" occurred over millions of years and is characterized by the evolution of hard parts that fossilze easily. This too is false.

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THE THERAPSID--MAMMAL TRANSITIONAL SERIES

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Although Archaeopteryx is by far the best-known of the transitional fossils, it is not the only one, or even the best. The fossil transition from reptile to mammal is one of the most extensive and well-studied of all the transitions, and detailed series of fossils demonstrate how this transition was accomplished. It is not, therefore, surprising that the creationists do not talk much about the reptile-mammal series, and when they do, most of what they say is demonstrably untrue.

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The mammals are believed to have evolved from a class of Permian and Triassic reptiles known as therapsids. Taxonomically, mammals are distinguished by a number of features, the most obvious of which are hair (even such aquatic mammals as whales and dolphins still retain bristly hairs in their skin), and the presence of mammary glands which secrete milk, used to nourish the young. Neither of these structures is preserved in the fossil record, but fortunately, mammals can also be distinguished by a number of skeletal characteristics (particularly in the skull and teeth). In particular, mammals are distinguished from reptiles by a number of skeletal traits. Reptiles have a much larger number of individual bones in their skulls than do mammals. In reptiles, the teeth are all of the same shape, and although they vary slightly in size, they all have the same simple cone-shaped form. Mammals, however, possess a number of different types of teeth in their jaws, from the flat, multi-cusped molar teeth to the sharp cone-shaped canines. In reptiles, the lower jaw is made up of a number of different bones, and the jaw joint is formed between the quadrate bone in the skull and the angular bone in the jaw. In mammals, by contrast, the lower jaw is made up of a single bone, the dentary, which articulates with the squamosal bone in the skull to form the jaw joint. Reptiles also have a single bone in the middle ear, the stapes. In mammals, there are three bones in the middle ear, the malleus, incus and stapes (also known as the hammer, anvil and stirrup). At the top of the skull, reptiles have a small hole through which the pineal body, or "third eye", extends--this is absent in mammals. Finally, the reptilian skull is attached to the spine by a single point of contact, the occipital condyle. In mammals, the occipital condyle is double-faced.

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Paleontologists point out that the therapsids possessed many of the characteristics of both reptiles and mammals:

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More at THE THERAPSID--MAMMAL TRANSITIONAL SERIES LINK including the evolution of the mammal ear ("... reptiles, as we have noted, have one bone in the middle ear and several bones in the lower jaw, and mammals have three bones in the middle ear and only one bone in the lower jaw. On the other hand, the jaw joints in the reptile are formed from different bones than they are in the mammalian skull. ...").The evolution of mammals was well underway before 65 million years ago. We talked about the evolution of primates before in Message 109 of thread True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing -- which was in response to Message 89 (which you edited to delete information, however I had a pre-edit version that I posted in Message 106).Note on symbols used:

└─┬─A
└─B

A and B are sister clades with a common ancestor, and an equivalent cladogram would be

└─┬─B
└─A

while

└─A
└─B

shows A is a parent clade and B is a daughter (nested) clade

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Palaeos Website:

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Cynodontia
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Therapsida
│
└─Cynodontia
├─Procynosuchidae
└─┬─Galesauridae
└─Eucynodontia
├─Cynognathia
│ ├─Cynognathidae
│ └─Tritylodontidae
└─Probainognathia
├─Tritheledontidae
└─Mammaliaformes
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Mammalia: Overview
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Mammaliaformes
│
└─Mammalia
├─Australosphenida
│ ├─Ausktribosphenidae
│ └─Monotremata
└─┬─Triconodonta
└─┬─Spalacotheroidea
└─Cladotheria
├─Dryolestoidea
└─Theria
│
├─Metatheria
└─Eutheria
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Archonta
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Eutheria
├─Laurasiatheria
├?─Chiroptera
└─Euarchontaglires
├─Anagalida (incl. Glires)
└─Archonta
├─┬─Scandentia
│ └─Dermoptera
└─Primatomorpha
╞═Plesiadapiformes
└─Primates

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(Note this site is interactive and you can move up and down the cladograms.)Also see the Primate Cladogram I developed to flesh out the bushiness of evolution since out last discussion and reduce the apparent linear evolution by filling some branches from Primates to Humans.That's two falsified assertions you made in your post. One you were corrected on earlier, but left the discussion when you got disturbed by the responses.Not learning from past mistakes is a sign of someone with very strong beliefs that their knowledge is correct, and who are unwilling to adapt their learning when they are shown what they believe is wrong. This is not skepticism, it is denial.EnjoyEdited by RAZD, : .Edited by RAZD, : .Edited by RAZD, : .Edited by RAZD, : ..

What on earth is 'the naturalistic theory'?Edited by Pressie, : No reason given.

It’s funny that these facts should be posted so shortly after this thread New Cambrian Discoveries

I had never used naturalistic theory before, so I googled it and the 1st 3 hits were this thread. I assume you decided to to use that term because you picked it up from some creationist or another and wanted some all inclusive Big Bang to the Theory of Evolution target.I will not spend any time defending naturalistic theory because it is not a concept I spent any of my scientific career thinking about and it certainly is not a subject I have heard colleagues discussing at conferences or in the literature. Do you have some examples of evidence that is 100% accurate?When you say higher scientific standards of evidence could you explain what you mean?What are higher scientific standards of evidence and what are they higher than?Are these higher standards listed in a "standards of evidence handbook"?Oh, and do you have a list of what you call applied sciences? I'm guessing you mean kids 8-10 years old. Do you have a source for this diagram? I agree it is a pretty crappy representation of the evolution of animal life as understood in biology today.That's all I have time for right now.Edited by Tanypteryx, : spelling

How did you determine that the fossils found in the Cambrian have no evolutionary precursors?

Sudden is hardly an accurate description for events that took place over a period of 30-50 million years."Without any of the evolutionary precursors demanded from Darwin’s theory" is simply not the case in 2018. Numerous fossils of ancestral species to many Cambrian species have been discovered and more are being found as new fossil bearing formations are discovered.I don't know about "demanded from Darwin's theory", but the modern Theory of Evolution predicts that ancestors of Cambrian fossil species existed and that some may have left fossils. This prediction has turned out to be true as more Precambrian fossils are being found.

It's 'darwinism' for people that don't want to be labeled creationist, but post creationist arguments.Enjoy

What do you mean by advanced? Do you have some examples?Advanced compared to what?All around the world implies that they are found everywhere, but actually they are only found in a few scattered localities around the planet. Only a very small percentage of exposed Cambrian rocks contain fossils from the early Cambrian, such as those found in the Burgess Shales.ABE: Minnemooseus pointed out an error in my timing for the Burgess Shales Message 12

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I believe, however, that the Burgess Shale is actually middle Cambrian (per Wikipedia- Cambrian=541 to 485.4 mya (million years ago); Burgess Shale=508 mya; I also seem to recall your cite site saying the Burgess was 40 million years into the Cambrian).

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What? What is your definition of evolutionary species?Species that evolved?Species that are evolving?Species that will evolve?Do you mean transitional species? Since it is clear to you I assume you can support this. Well, neither is E=MC^2. Scientists have been complaining about the quality of information in science and math textbooks for decades. Most science textbooks for grades 7-12 in the U.S. are not written by scientists.If you are trying to blame science for the piss poor quality of primary and high school texts you don't know what you are talking about.If you want to learn about science there are plenty of good books, popular, as well as college texts, all the way to highly technical books by specialists. Well, that would be because it is not evidence against Darwin's theory. Textbooks may be crappy, but you wouldn't want them to put in clear lies about science, would you?I have no idea what you mean by "an event that requires no further justification." Sadly, you have been completely misinformed. I hope it wasn't by one of those crappy high school texbooks, but there have been many excellent books written about life during the Cretaceous and after the extinction event.The animals that survived the extinction event and that left descendants and fossils have been studied intently and scientists know a lot about them. Yep, and we do. Well, Darwin didn't get everything correct, but the best thing about science, it builds on what we learned in the past, and tries to correct mistakes in the past.We realized that it would probably be impossible to look at a fossil of a single celled common ancestor and determine if it was an ancestor or not.Recently, molecular analysis from living organisms has started to give us data on how they are related. At the same time this may guide us in describing what characters the common ancestor had. As I said earlier, you are sadly misinformed. We have abundant evidence of evolution in the past and in the present. The Theory of Evolution itself has evolved a lot in the almost 160 years since Origin of Species and you are going to have to study the modern theory if you want to falsify it. Well, sadly for you, you forgot that you need to present valid evidence to support a case for an alternate theory that explains life better than the Theory of Evolution.All you did was bumble an attempt to poke holes in a theory that is 160 years out of date. The only way you're going to succeed is with a lot of study.Edited by Tanypteryx, : Correct dates of Burgess ShalesEdited by Tanypteryx, : spelleing

Kudos for the link.I believe, however, that the Burgess Shale is actually middle Cambrian (per Wikipedia- Cambrian=541 to 485.4 mya (million years ago); Burgess Shale=508 mya; I also seem to recall your cite site saying the Burgess was 40 million years into the Cambrian).Anyway, this makes me wonder what the fossil record is for the 541 to 508 mya period. Too tired and/or lazy to do the research myself.MooseEdited by Minnemooseus, : Add Wikipedia links.

Thanks for the information. Like you said tired....

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Anyway, this makes me wonder what the fossil record is for the 541 to 508 mya period. Too tired and/or lazy to do the research myself.

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There are some pretty amazing fossils from Chengjiang dated at 518 mya.

I have to agree with Tanypteryx's concerns (Message 7). Just what the hell are you talking about when you say "naturalistic theory"?When I started college in 1969, one of the first classes I enrolled in was Logic (admittedly inspired by CDR Spock, what with Star Trek:TOS having just been cancelled for the second and final time). One of the many things that I learned in that class is a basic rule in all valid debates: the first order of business is to define all your terms and come to an agreement with your opponent what those terms mean. That is vitally necessary to ensure that both sides are talking about the same things. Without that necessary first order of business, the two sides will end up just talking past each other by using the same words but with entirely different meanings. That kind of situation would defeat the very purpose of a valid debate, but rather it would support the efforts of one side to deceive the audience. That is exactly what creationist debates are about and how they operate.For example, Aron Ra and Kent Hovind are having a YouTube debate. Aron Ra keeps working with the actual definition of evolution whereas Kent Hovind clings to his own misrepresentation of evolution -- HINT: when a creationist starts talking about different kinds of evolution including stellar evolution, then he is practicing Kent Hovind's deception. Thus Hovind repeatedly makes assertions about "evolutionism" (another red flag for creationist deception) which have absolutely nothing to do with actual evolution while ignoring all attempts to explain to him what evolution actually is.Another problem with creationism's "evolutionism" is that they explicitly define it as being "atheistic", whereas that is not even remotely true of the science of evolution. The point is that creationists have created a misrepresentation of evolution which is loaded with a plethora of prejudice. Imagine entering a creationist debate snake-oil show as the opponent of the creationist. He's called a creationist, so what should you be called? When your opponent refers to you as an "evolutionist", you think that that sounds about right so you accept it without thinking too much about it. Well, you just played into his hands. The creationist portion of the audience which is usually in the majority knows the keywords and hears an admission of being an "evolutionist" as an admission of being an atheist as well as admitting to being dedicated to attacking and destroying Christianity. Of course, you as the opponent to the creationist believe no such things, but that is still what the creationist audience members see you as admitting to.So then, here you are wanting to refute some stupid creationist strawman which you call "the naturalistic theory". Typical dishonest deceptive creationist trick. Well, fuck you and fuck your stupid evil deceptive God of Lies (contrasted with the Christian God of Truth). Sorry, but you really do need to do much better that that.So what do you need to do? Well, the first step would be that you need to present what your "naturalistic theory" is supposed to be. Completely. What are your assumptions? What are your precise definitions of all terms? IOW, just what the hell are you talking about? Of course, you also need to be ready and willing to engage in sincere discussion with the other side in order to arrive at common terms and common definitions.Until you do that, we have absolutely no idea just what the fuck you are talking about. In that case, nothing you could possibly say could possible be of any value at all. It was on an episode of Nova that I first heard of the "Intelligence Design" founder lawyer Phillip Johnson and his book, "Darwin On Trial" (1991, though somehow my memory of that episode keeps trying to place it a decade earlier). His main point, which you have just echoed, is that courtroom rules of evidence must be applied to the work of science.At the time, my immediate response was, "What a fucking idiot!" Science is not a courtroom procedure, but rather a police investigation. Applying courtroom rules to science as it conducts an investigation would prevent that investigation from ever happening. Rather, courtroom rules of evidence apply to the end results of an investigation. A police investigation needs to follow all possible clues, not only "evidence 'beyond reasonable doubt'". Trying to apply rules to science that are contrary to the nature of science is complete and utter bullshit deception.