Any practical use for Universal Common Ancestor?

Your straw-man unwittingly raises a pertinent point - believing life on earth is 6000 years old would certainly contradict the science surrounding radioactive decay. But as for the study of disease and stellar movements, I can't see how such a belief would affect them in any way. How many religionists are still YECs? In the Catholic Church (population 1.2 billion), there seems to be relatively few. YECs probably represent only a small (vocal) minority of religionists. Er, no ... you're confused ... PE is a theory that attempts to explain an observation. PE is also an untestable theory, and is therefore nothing more than a pseudo-scientific story. Too easy! The genealogies from the first humans are recorded in the Bible (an historical document) - from which it can be calculated that man was created less than 10,000 years ago. Homo sapiens have been dated as 200, 000 years old? HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!! Deary me ... the delusions and nonsense you evolutionists are forced to come up with!

The theory of common descent certainly offers me no practical use, but the OP asks if the ToCD offers any practical use to applied science - so far none have come to light.

The OP concerns only science. By asking me for a practical use for a religious belief you are going beyond the bounds of science. Not true. Scientific evidence of an old earth was presented to me (on another site) and I eventually accepted it ... which forced me to radically reinterpret the Biblical accounts of creation.Edited by Dredge, : No reason given.

In that case, it's failed. ToE can't explain the Cambrian explosion, for starters. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but your atheist belief system (aka evolution) is contradicted by the evidence.

Exhibit A: Most (if not all) of the novel organisms that appear during the Cambrian explosion have no fossil ancestors. Sorry to deliver the depressing news.

It strikes me that you've got the worst of all possible positions here. You tell us that you accept that the earth and the creatures in it are millions of years old and that you accept evolution. Or at least some bits of it that you ad hoc prefer.Then you tell us that man himself is less than 10,000 years old and you know that by adding up mythical bible story characters' ages. The earth and all the organisms on it is old but man is young and presumably did not evolve, but was created.It's hard to unpick this mess but it strikes me that you must therefore think that Adam and Eve were real and Noah and his Flood happened. So all modern animals evolved in the last 4,000 years? And all humans came from Noah's family? And all those human fossils and descendants are imaginary?God knows why you're confusing yourself with niche arguments about what happened in the Cambrian.

Fifth time: "medicine."

Prove it. Proving a negative is always good for a laugh.Whoopsie,, we have an explanation. There's a big difference between "have no explanation" and "have an explanation an ignoramus dislikes".

And, given that soft bodies don't fossilize well, so what?

Recent research suggests that the period prior to the Cambrian explosion saw the gradual evolution of a "genetic tool kit" of genes that govern developmental processes. Once assembled, this genetic tool kit enabled an unprecedented period of evolutionary experimentation -- and competition. Many forms seen in the fossil record of the Cambrian disappeared without trace. Once the body plans that proved most successful came to dominate the biosphere, evolution never had such a free hand again, and evolutionary change was limited to relatively minor tinkering with the body plans that already existed.

This is a science forum. If you want to make a faith based argument you need to move this to a faith forum. We have plenty of those.BTW- your bible is not a historical document. This is off topic. If you want to discuss, open a thread in the Faith forums.Admin- Really? Is it not obvious that Dredge has no interest in any science based explanation. All he is going to do is hand wave it away with a reference to some book he believes has magical secrets. According to the rules of this site, this thread needs to be shut down.Edited by Theodoric, : No reason given.Edited by Theodoric, : No reason given.

Fine, common descent is not useful to you, nor in the area of your choosing. Other people find it useful in their areas of interest.Thank you for your opinion. What is going to be your next revelation?

Except that even Darwin had an explanation a century and a half ago. That basic explanation still stands. Another argument by assertion. Your opinion is noted.

Now there's a cogent argument!I'm sure that everyone here is now convinced. Why have you held back such profound reasoning till now?

No, the YEC model, combined with the evidence, deprives all that extremely rapid evolution of even that much time. Jean Léopold Nicolas Frédéric, Baron Cuvier (1769 - 1832), AKA "The Founding Father of Paleontology", developed the practice of extrapolating information about an organism based on a few pieces. He was also a staunch opponent of evolution (being before Darwin, evolution in his time was mostly Lamarckian). A young-earther (a default position at the time), his examination of a wide variety of Egyptian mummies brought back by Napoleon, including many animal mummies, revealed no anatomical difference between ancient (c. 1000 BCE) and modern species. He interpreted that to be evidence against evolution, but that would only be the case within a young-earth time framework.You would allow YECs a 4,000-year window for their ridiculously extreme rates of evolution, but Cuvier reduces that down to 1,000 years at most. Since he's now come out explicitly as a YEC, I'm waiting for him to make that standard bunny-blunder claim. I'm sure that he'll revert to standard YEC behavior and avoid presenting any evidence to support YEC.