Quotes are not a lesson. Especially when someone is deliberately pulling them out of context to mislead. I know you didn't do it because you haven't read the original material involved.
Let's look at some of them they all seem to be focussed on the same issue -- the Cambrian "explosion". However, I think that you will find, if you had up to date information, that there isn't so much of a problem as you might think after reading these quotes. To simply use these quotes alone would be very badly misleading. But I suspect that is the intention of your source.
This is being discussed in the thread noted below. Any further discussion should be taken there.
One of the major unsloved problems of geology and evolution is the occurrence of diversified, multi-cellular marine vertebrates in lower cambrian rocks on all the continents and their absence in rocks of greater age. (D. Axelrod, Science 128:7, 1958)
Note the date. This is not longer an unsolved problem.
See post 44 (and others ) in
Creationist Friendly Q&A
Since it is not longer a problem it might not be a good use of time in a high school classroom. However, some examples of the slow uncovering of evidence can be a good example of how science works.
Using material this dated is disengenous at best. Where id you get it from?
It is considered likely that all the animal phyla became distinct before the Cambrian, for they all appear fully formed, without intermediates connecting one form to another. (Douglas Futuyma, Evolutionary Biology, 2nd Edition, 1986, p.325)
So? Just what does this say? Nothing but that Futuyma recognized that there must have been previous evolution going on. As noted above some of that has been found. This would only be put in to be misleading which would not be honest to the students unless a long time was taken to explain the context.
The Cambrian strata of rocks, vintage about 600 million years [evolutionists are now dating the beginning of the Cambrian at about 530 million years], are the oldest in which we find most of the major invertebrate groups. And we find many of them already in an advanced state of evolution, the very first time they appear. It is as though they were just planted there, without any evolutionary history. (Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, 1987, p.229)
I can't find my copy right now, but having read this book I suspect that a bit more reading will find that this is an even more dishonest quoting out of context. I'll leave this for later or another to clarify.
If any event in life’s history resembles man’s creation myths, it is this sudden diversification of marine life when multi-cellular organisms took over as the dominant actors in ecology and evolution. Baffling (and embarrassing) to Darwin, this event still dazzles us and stands as a major biological revolution on a par with the invention of self-replication and the origin of the eukariotic cell. The animal phyla emerged out of the Precambrian mists with most of the attributes of their modern descendants. (Stefan Bengston, Nature, 345:765, 1990)
The only untrue part that this would be baffling or embarassing to evolutionary biologists. Darwin might have, indeed, been very surprised since he didn't realize just how quickly evolution can unfold. However, I would have to see what evidence this individual is basing his statment on. If it was a mistaken idea of a very, very short explosion or lack of knowledge of any precambrian fossils then he was simply making a comment on the view at the time. His embarassing comment I don't see. Perhaps you can explain that.
And so on.
I would in fact welcome these quotes being included in a public high school curriculum. They would be included with their full context. They would have any up to date information supplied.
Then the fact that some organizations would play with quotes like this would be discussed. These and many other examples would be used to warn students about believing those who choose to deceive. It might even take on a tone that would sound like a minister in a church warning about being fooled by the prince of lies.
ABE
Some further thoughts on what might be your point of this series of quotes.
First it makes no difference to evolutionary theory or the fact that (whatever happened before ) evolution happened after the Cambrian.
Second: it could be, and should be, pointed out when discussing the history of life on Earth that there were a few significant events that were different from the more "normal" evolutionary wanderings. One is the original origin of life. It would be important to point out how little and how much is known about this. Another is the series of mass extinctions that have occured and what the opening up of niches does for subsequent evolution. Another is the origin of multicellular life with special note that it occured after life had been on the planet for in excess of 2 Gyrs. The ideas as to why that is would be a useful discussion. Another one would be the diversification of that multicellular life into basic groups that we see now and why we should not be surprised at the events in the Cambrian and subsequent developments.
However, the problem is that I think you are talking about a single (or a couple) of high school biology classes. There simply isn't time to do it all right. Perhaps the issue is: "Should biology be dealing with the specifics (such as organs and such of extant animals (most of what is in biology now) or should it be dealing with the big picture (that is the overall evolution of life on earth). Can you do one without the other? If you don't have time for both which should be picked?
This message has been edited by NosyNed, 03-06-2005 19:04 AM
This message has been edited by NosyNed, 03-06-2005 19:06 AM
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