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Author Topic:   It's a Sad Day For the Future Of American Children.
theman
Inactive Junior Member


Message 91 of 111 (67324)
11-18-2003 10:22 AM
Reply to: Message 90 by keith63
11-18-2003 9:58 AM


agreement
Amen to Keith63

This message is a reply to:
 Message 90 by keith63, posted 11-18-2003 9:58 AM keith63 has not replied

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NosyNed
Member
Posts: 8996
From: Canada
Joined: 04-04-2003


Message 92 of 111 (67327)
11-18-2003 10:44 AM
Reply to: Message 87 by keith63
11-18-2003 7:19 AM


That's it???
Funny, my kids don't have anything about the Miller/Urey experiment in their courses. Since it is about the origin of life and not evolution and it is a tiny detail I'm not surprised it isn't there.
The fossil record is an embarassment is it? LOL. Well we both agree it should be studied then. Especially the series which show transitions between kinds. Perhaps you would like to open a thread showing how it supports creation.
Of course, Darwin would have been concerned about the fossil record there was very little then. Now there is a huge amount and what we have found supports what he said.
As for your archeopteryx comment. The problem of putting it into a current taxon is exactly why it shows the transitions. We don't happen to have a family or order called birdtile or repird (bird-reptile) so we try to cram it into one or the other. It happens to have characteristics that belong to both taxa. There is a thread here that discusses that. If you want to make such a statement then defend it there.
Fine, you covered some smaller scale evolution.
What I get from your post is that you have NO "theory of creation" you have a few poor comments about the ToE. I would have no problem with all of those areas being dicussed in a science classroom. You, of course, have no problem adding a few more instructional-weeks to the current time spent on evolution.

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 Message 87 by keith63, posted 11-18-2003 7:19 AM keith63 has replied

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NosyNed
Member
Posts: 8996
From: Canada
Joined: 04-04-2003


Message 93 of 111 (67329)
11-18-2003 10:46 AM
Reply to: Message 90 by keith63
11-18-2003 9:58 AM


I am still waiting for the "other theory" that some individuals are demanding time (equal or not) for. If you want *more* time for evolutionary theory in classrooms, which seems to be what you are calling for, well, you sure won't have any arguement from me.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 90 by keith63, posted 11-18-2003 9:58 AM keith63 has not replied

NosyNed
Member
Posts: 8996
From: Canada
Joined: 04-04-2003


Message 94 of 111 (67330)
11-18-2003 10:46 AM
Reply to: Message 91 by theman
11-18-2003 10:22 AM


Re: agreement
Oh, theman, so you agree with more teaching of evolution too? Good!

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 Message 91 by theman, posted 11-18-2003 10:22 AM theman has not replied

keith63
Inactive Member


Message 95 of 111 (67337)
11-18-2003 11:17 AM
Reply to: Message 92 by NosyNed
11-18-2003 10:44 AM


That's it?? Isn't the fact that you can't produce amino acids in any appreciable amount enough to show that abiogenesis is impossible. I'm glad that your child's textbook has addressed the inconsistency. Not everyone has. It is still in the textbook used by my district (Miller/Levine pg 424). In there defence they do say that the ealy earth is now known to not be like that of the early earths atmosphere. However they say that new experiments have produced uracil and cytosine. What they don't say is that those are only two of the five nitrogen bases needed for DNA or RNA (RNA has uracil while DNA has thymine). I also don't see any amino acids produced in this new experiment. In order for any DNA or RNA to be replicated it takes at least 50 proteins to be decoded or replicated. The unfortunate thing for anyone holding on to some hope of a Godless evolution is that the 50 proteins just happen to be the products of the said DNA or RNA?
As far as the fossils, I have been studying them for years. Would you care to give me an example of how they show evolution. I've been showing you the papers and citations for my arguments, I think it's time you came up with some.
As far as the theory of Creation, what don't you get. Even the most primative cell is soo complex it could not be formed by abiogenesis therefor it had to be created. If God created things to reproduce after their kind, that's what the fossil record should show. (it does of course).
I've noticed from some of your other responces that you have a problem with a flood theory. I've always thought if evolutionists were smart they would grasp on to a flood theory because that could at least be used to attempt to explain the total lack of transition fossils. Also there are new studies on the Grand Canyon which shows that the Colorado river could not have carved the structure we see. The best explanation, according to geology publications, is that the structure was caused by a large flood.
As for your adding instructional time to evolution. As I still say in every reply, you don't have to add time you just have to tell it correctly!!!

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Replies to this message:
 Message 99 by sidelined, posted 11-18-2003 11:53 AM keith63 has replied
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roxrkool
Member (Idle past 988 days)
Posts: 1497
From: Nevada
Joined: 03-23-2003


Message 96 of 111 (67338)
11-18-2003 11:19 AM
Reply to: Message 89 by keith63
11-18-2003 9:42 AM


You haven't explained how the Miller/Urey experiment is wrong. Unless that information is in the AIG link you provided (which I cannot access for some reason). I don't think anyone is disputing the fact that oxygen has always been present on earth, but it was in the form of CO, CO2, H2O, etc, not as free oxygen.
The early atmosphere itself was possibly composed of NH3, CH4, and H2, whereas only a tiny fraction of the early atmosphere was composed of free exygen. This free oxygen was likely due to photochemical reactions. Most, if not all, of the free oxygen was immediately taken up by oxidation reactions to produce CO2, H2O.
Evidence for lack of abundant free oxygen is in the rocks. Anything on the surface of this planet is subjected to oxidation, especially those rich in Fe: soils, rocks, sediments, etc. And it wasn't until about 2.5 billion years ago that there is any record of oxidation of rocks, soils, sediments.
As for archaeopteryx, I think you are still missing the point. You aren't grasping what a transitional fossil represents. Every living thing you see around you is a transitional form, as are all the fossils in the rock record. These fossils do not represent one single line of descent, but many hundreds of thousands.
Archaeopteryx is simply one of thousands of forms that developed from the same ancestors (note the plural!) as dinosaurs that MAY have been an ancestor of birds - but not necessarily. It has characteristics that make it bird-like and some that are dinosaur-like. You can't deny that. And those very simple reasons make it transitional.
quote:
keith63:
If creation was right we should find a perfect recycling earth, which we do.
Equilibration is found all through nature.
quote:
We should find no transitional fossils, which we don’t.
You are wrong. We do. Hundreds and thousands of them. Every fossil is in fact a transitional fossil. Your lack of vision here is an artifact of not understanding the classification nuances involved in pigeon-holing life.
[quote]And since the bible said we could eat anything on earth, we should be able to take any living thing, eat it, and turn it into our bodies. Since we are all made of the same material it is possible for us to do this.[\quote]
What does this have to do with evolution? Is this part of your "perfect earth" scenario?
quote:
You see the same evidence when looked at with an open mind can actually be used to support creation better than evolution. Were are your missing links?
keith, the only way you can use any science to support creationism is to ignore 99% of it.
Evolution is overwhelmingly supported by all the natural sciences. Creationism must pick and choose what it is supported by.
[This message has been edited by roxrkool, 11-18-2003]

This message is a reply to:
 Message 89 by keith63, posted 11-18-2003 9:42 AM keith63 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 100 by keith63, posted 11-18-2003 11:55 AM roxrkool has replied

PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 97 of 111 (67339)
11-18-2003 11:19 AM
Reply to: Message 89 by keith63
11-18-2003 9:42 AM


The Miller-Urey experiment is not wrong. It was done and the results were as reported - and it does show that the abiotic synthesis of amino acids is relatively simple, an important result.
And there are serious doubts concerning the claim that oxygen was present in any significant amounts at the relevant period
On poitns 2 and 3 how did I make your poitn for you ? I pointed out that being classified as a bird had nothing to do with whether it was an intermediate or not. i.e. that your point was fundamentally mistaken.
Have you checked out the list of dinosaurian features seen in archaeopteryx ? Do you understand that it is only the presence of identifiable feathers that caused archaeopteryx to be originally identified as a bird in the first place ? And recent discoveries are strongly confirming the dinosaur-bird link.
So how do you explain all the links that have been FOUND ?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 89 by keith63, posted 11-18-2003 9:42 AM keith63 has not replied

Quetzal
Member (Idle past 5872 days)
Posts: 3228
Joined: 01-09-2002


Message 98 of 111 (67342)
11-18-2003 11:44 AM
Reply to: Message 87 by keith63
11-18-2003 7:19 AM


There's quite a bit in this post that is in error. I'd be happy to expand on any of the following responses with citations from either primary or secondary (mostly books) literature if desired.
1. Miller/Urey experiment. We have now known for years that the early earths atmosphere looked nothing like the organic soup Miller and Urey used in their experiment. Oxygen has always been in the atmosphere and if you mix oxygen into any mix you can't get the amino acids they produced. If you can't get the starting material then you certainly can't get started and the whole macroevolutionary idea becomes a mute point.
In the first place, Miller's experiment was merely designed to show that a simple gas mixture could give rise to biologically significant molecules when acted upon by a "natural" energy source. Although his putative atmosphere has been called into question (rather than the strongly reducing atmosphere of Miller, a more weakly reducing atmosphere of mostly CO2 and nitrogen is more in line with the geology), a number of other researchers (such as Orgel, Szathmary, etc) have since shown peptide and amino acid formation under other conditions. Moreover, it apparently doesn't require ANY atmosphere, as discovered in the Murchison meteorite (the same amino acids found by Miller in almost the same proportions).
In the second place, your statement concerning oxygen is at best misleading. Yes, oxygen has always been a component of the Earth's atmosphere. However, the existence of extensive BIFs and large pyrite inclusions in the oldest depositions show that the amount of oxygen was exceptionally low in the early atmosphere - around 1% of current levels. This state of affairs continued until around 1.8 gya - when BIFs disappear from the geological column (see, for example, the Gunflint Formation or the geology of the Belcher Islands). The presence of siderite and uraninite from gravel beds older than than about 2.2 gya - and their absence from younger beds - is another indicator of the lack of signficant quantities of atmospheric or oceanic oxygen in the good old days. Finally, the absence of red beds prior to 2.2 gya - and their subsequent presence obviously - is a final indicator that oxygen only became a factor in the second half of Earth's history.
At least in the textbook I most routinely refer to (Futuyma, D, 1998 "Evolutionary Biology" 3d edition, Sinauer), especially Chapter 7 ppg 166-168, discusses both the pluses and minuses of Miller's experiments.
Another point about the Miller/Urey experiment that never hits the text books. Their experiment produced tar which really messes up their results so they remove the tar. Now correct me if I'm wrong but that is intellegence. Also the experiment produced both right and left handed amino acids and only left handed ones are found in living things.
The evolution of homochirality is being debated on another thread, so I won't bother to derail this one. Since you're a teacher, you probably have access to Bailey, JM 1998 RNA-directed amino acid homochirality FASEB Journal 12:503-507, or look up Ghadiri's work in Saghatelian, A., Yokobayashi, Y., Soltani, K., & Ghadiri, M. R., 2001, "A chiroselective peptide replicator" Nature 409:797-801.
2. The fossil record is an imbarrassment to evolutionists. If you were really to evaluate the fossil record with an open mind you would see that it really supports the creation model which says that things reproduced after their "kind."
You might want to expand on this a bit - what aspects of the fossil record support "created kinds"? What is a kind, anyway? Please be specific - use reference to actual fossils to support your assertion.
3. Darwin himself said that the fossil evidence was his weakest point but he was confident that more fossils would be found. Well they have and what we find our all the major phyla already formed with no transitions, just like the bible said we would.
I beg your pardon? What does "all major phyla already formed with no transitions" mean? Which phyla, specifically, and when (relatively speaking) did these form?
4. Peppered moths turning black, bacteria becoming resistant to antibiotics, and finch beaks getting larger are not evidences of macroevolution. They are simply populations expressing variation which already exists. What a huge leap evolutionists make. You might as well say that if you cross a dark mouse with a white mouse and you get a dark mouse then it's possible to turn a mouse into a donkey.
I actually covered a similar topic in the Micro/Macro thread here. Feel free to jump in there with any questions.
Why don't the textbooks mention that in the finch population the years after the drought, which caused their beaks to become larger, their beaks went right back to their normal size. No genetic changs, just expressions of variation which already existed.
If you're referring to the Grants' observation of beak variation in their Geospiza species during the early 1980's drought, then no one ever attempted to call the variation "evolution". As you pointed out, it was a temporary change in allele frequencies in the population caused by environmental pressures. It was, however, quite a graphic demonstration of the eliminative power of natural selection. It was way too short a timeframe for the changes to become permanent - although there's no reason to assume the changes wouldn't have persisted ("evolved") if the environmental change had been permanent. AFAIK, this particular example isn't taught as anything more than what it is - natural selection in action.
OTOH, if you're attempting to refute the evolution of Darwin's 14 finch species from a blue-backed grassquit (Volatinia jacarina) - IOW, all of island biogeography - you'd better be prepared to refute all of the modern molecular and genetic evidence that links them. Besides, I don't think they're much more than illustrative. I prefer the Tenrecidae of Madagascar for discussion of island biogeography if you want to go down this route.
Most all of the problems you mention aren't problems except to creationists. Textbooks generally only cover basic concepts and provide some examples, especially at secondary school level. They don't generally have either the space or time to deal with every single issue - they provide concensus. I'm unfamiliar with the text you said you used - perhaps you could give the complete title? However, the ones I have seen are fairly good, and most biology texts that aren't devoted specifically to evolution (like Futuyma's) generally have such a huge amount of material to cover that evolution is pretty small potatoes - although I like the treatment in Daniel, Ortleb and Biggs' 1997 "Life Science", McGraw-Hill (6th and 7th grade) that my #1 daughter used last year. Of course, she was in a good school going through a middle years International Baccalaureate program...

This message is a reply to:
 Message 87 by keith63, posted 11-18-2003 7:19 AM keith63 has replied

Replies to this message:
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sidelined
Member (Idle past 5908 days)
Posts: 3435
From: Edmonton Alberta Canada
Joined: 08-30-2003


Message 99 of 111 (67345)
11-18-2003 11:53 AM
Reply to: Message 95 by keith63
11-18-2003 11:17 AM


keith63
Isn't the fact that you can't produce amino acids in any appreciable amount enough to show that abiogenesis is impossible.
I do hope you are joking.If abiogenesis is impossible then how do you propose it occured?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 95 by keith63, posted 11-18-2003 11:17 AM keith63 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 102 by keith63, posted 11-18-2003 12:09 PM sidelined has replied

keith63
Inactive Member


Message 100 of 111 (67346)
11-18-2003 11:55 AM
Reply to: Message 96 by roxrkool
11-18-2003 11:19 AM


The newest research I have seen shows that free oxygen was available as far back as we go and there is oxidation in rocks. Even the textbook used in my school district (Miller/Levine pg 424) admits that there was oxygen in the environment. So I would think that if an evolutionary textbook admitted to that then their must be the research behind it.
As far as transitional fossils are concerned I consider a transitional fossil to be something in-between one species and another. For example Where is the fossil of the mammals which couldn't quite live in the ocean but still couldn't live on land? Since they supposedly would have drowned when they first tried to live in the water I am assuming that maybe some of their remains would be preserved in sand or silt or something.
As far as Archaeopteryx is concerned I have read and provided the citation showing it is just a bird.
As far as the equilibrium of the earth is concerned I agree it does show equilibration. You couldn't have designed a more perfect system it you tried. Our waste products are used by plants and we use their waste in a perfect system. My point is that it really takes some audacity, and a lot of make believe, to think that a system as complex and perfect as our world could assemble itself by accident. To borrow a phrase, you wouldn't find a watch and think that it assembled itself. Therefore when you find something as amazingly complex as the simplest cell with all its machinery, how can you say that is an accident. It has more information than the most complex computer program we know of.
And to make my point more clearly, If you did find a watch you could take it into the lab, and with some intelligence, you could replicate it. I would like to see someone do that with a cell.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 96 by roxrkool, posted 11-18-2003 11:19 AM roxrkool has replied

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roxrkool
Member (Idle past 988 days)
Posts: 1497
From: Nevada
Joined: 03-23-2003


Message 101 of 111 (67348)
11-18-2003 11:59 AM
Reply to: Message 95 by keith63
11-18-2003 11:17 AM


quote:
That's it?? Isn't the fact that you can't produce amino acids in any appreciable amount enough to show that abiogenesis is impossible.
Haven't amino acids have been found in meteorites, specifically the Murchison meteorite? I'm not sure they are the correct amino acids, but it appears the earth is not the only place amino acids occur.
Along with studying fossils, have you also been studying the geologic record? If you know anything about rocks and geology and how the fossils are distributed, you will see how much time has passed. Different organism appear and die off at different points within the geologic column. Life starts off as a simpler form and gradually, through time, becomes more variable, complex, etc. The most plausible explanation is evolution.
The fact that a cell appears "too complex" to you is evidence of your lack of understanding, not of creation.
As for the flood (I guess you don't know your geology!), there is absolutely no evidence for it at all. Nowhere. It did not occur.
And seeing as rivers all over the world are cutting canyons, what evidence points to an alternative process of formation for the Grand Canyon? Please post your geology citations.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 95 by keith63, posted 11-18-2003 11:17 AM keith63 has not replied

keith63
Inactive Member


Message 102 of 111 (67356)
11-18-2003 12:09 PM
Reply to: Message 99 by sidelined
11-18-2003 11:53 AM


In order for abiogenesis to happen you would have to have the following.
1. Amino acids in the thousands would have to accidentally bump into each other in an exact order. Sir Fredrick Hoyle calculated the chances of that happening to be 1 in 10 to the 40,000. That's like finding the winning lottery ticket on the ground each week for over 1000 years.
2. You would also have to have nucleotides forming accidentally with over 6,000,000 bases. (the simplest we know of) I don't even know what the odds of that are.
3. You would also have to have the order of the DNA or RNA to just coincidently be in the correct order to code for those hundreds of proteins you produced.
By the way DNA not only codes for those proteins but also determines how they will fold to be of any use. If you remember the lock and key model of an enzyme you will recall that it is this precise shape that determines how and what and enzyme catalyzes.
4. If you got that far you would then a cell membrane made from a lipid by layer to spontaneously surround this magnificent mass of self assemblage.
5. All of course would then burst because of the osmosis problem that all cells face due to the high quantity of organic material in the cell.
6. So this would have to happen billions of times and then become destroyed until some lucky cell happens to have a cell wall spontaneously form around it to prevent it from bursting.
You know you are right that does sound plausible. HA Ha
Obviously I propose that it would take intelligence (GOD). It takes a tremendous amount just to understand it.

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
 Message 103 by sidelined, posted 11-18-2003 12:23 PM keith63 has replied

sidelined
Member (Idle past 5908 days)
Posts: 3435
From: Edmonton Alberta Canada
Joined: 08-30-2003


Message 103 of 111 (67361)
11-18-2003 12:23 PM
Reply to: Message 102 by keith63
11-18-2003 12:09 PM


keith63
Now my good man explain how God does it?What mechanism of nature does he use?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 102 by keith63, posted 11-18-2003 12:09 PM keith63 has replied

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keith63
Inactive Member


Message 104 of 111 (67367)
11-18-2003 12:48 PM
Reply to: Message 103 by sidelined
11-18-2003 12:23 PM


He obviously used DNA or RNA and the protein machinery which goes with it. The way he did it is one of those questions I will ask him when I stand before him someday. I asume it's using powers similar to those he uses to help Isreal defeat all their enemies in six days when they declared themselves a nation. It's the same way he kept the nation of Isreal alive through all the attempts to eleminate them, when most of those doing the eleminating have disapeared into history. (Asserians, babylonians, cananites, hitites, jubusites) The bible says that Isreal will be here and hated by every nation on Earth but they will continue and build a temple on the temple mount. And here they are, in controll of Jeruselem and they have all the materils to build this temple stored away in the city. And I do believe that except for the United States all nations on Earth are against them. So if the Bible is correct on these points, I don't see why it couldn't be correct on this one.
It also says in the Bible that the things which are seen are created by that which is unseen. That can be taken as God the unseen or it could also be very profetic and talking about atoms and subatomic particles, in which case that would be astonishing correct.
I would challenge anyone to disprove the Bible. I hear a lot of people saying it is false but I don't hear anyone saying why. I know of several people who have undertaken the task (Lee Stroble for one) Lee Stroble was mad that his wife became a Christian and he decided to disprove the bible. He was the leading court reporter for the Washington Post I think. And guess what he found?
So if nothing and chance can make a living cell, how come we can't with all our intelligence and learning?

This message is a reply to:
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keith63
Inactive Member


Message 105 of 111 (67371)
11-18-2003 1:04 PM
Reply to: Message 98 by Quetzal
11-18-2003 11:44 AM


Here are a few articles on the kinds and the fossil record.
"...every paleontologist knows, that most new species, genera, and families, and that nearly all categories above the level of families appear in the record suddenly and are not led up to by known, gradual, completely continuous transitional sequences." (Major Features of Evolution, 1953 p. 360)
Speaking of the highest level of animal classification, evolutionist Philip Handler claimed that:
"Some 25 major phyla are recognized for all the animals, and in virtually not a single case is there fossil evidence to demonstrate what the common ancestry of any two phyla looked like." (Biology and the Future of Man, 1970 p. 506)
As for the lowest level of taxonomic classification, the popular evolutionist Steven J. Gould said:
"In any local area, a species does not arise gradually by the steady transformation of its ancestors; it appears all at once and fully formed." (Natural History, 86:12-16)
This, of course, is exactly what creationists would expect to find.
Raup writes:
"We are now about 120 years after Darwin and the knowledge of the fossil record has been greatly expanded. We now have a quarter of a million fossil species but the situation hasn't changed much -- ironically, we have even fewer examples of evolutionary transition than we had in Darwin's time. By this I mean that some of the classic cases of Darwinian change in the fossil record such as the evolution of the horse in North America, have had to be discarded or modified as a result of more detailed information." (Field Museum of Natural History Bulletin, 50:22-29)
The Fossil Record
The Only Direct Evidence.
CARL DUNBAR, Yale, "Although the comparative study of living animals and plants may give very convincing circumstantial evidence, fossils provide the only historical, documentary evidence that life has evolved from simpler to more and more complex forms." HISTORICAL GEOLOGY, p. 47
S. M. Stanley, Johns Hopkins, "It is doubtful whether, in the absence of fossils, the idea of evolution would represent anything more than an outrageous hypothesis. ...The fossil record and only the fossil record provides direct evidence of major sequential changes in the Earth's biota." NEW EVOLUTIONARY TIMETABLE, p.72, 1981
HISTORICAL — NOT EMPIRICAL, JOHN H. HORNER "...paleontology is a historical science, a science based on circumstantial evidence, after the fact. We can never reach hard and fast conclusions in our study of ancient plants and animals... These days it’s easy to go through school for a good many years, sometimes even through college, without ever hearing that some sciences are historical or by nature inconclusive." Dinosaur Lives, 1997, p.19
In Their "Beginning": Sudden; Complex; Diverse; Every Animal Phylum; Assumed History Missing
STEPHEN J. GOULD, HARVARD, "The Cambrian Explosion occurred in a geological moment, and we have reason to think that all major anatomical designs may have made their evolutionary appearance at that time. ...not only the phylum Chordata itself, but also all its major divisions, arose within the Cambrian Explosion. So much for chordate uniqueness... Contrary to Darwin's expectation that new data would reveal gradualistic continuity with slow and steady expansion, all major discoveries of the past century have only heightened the massiveness and geological abruptness of this formative event..." Nature, Vol.377, 26 10/95, p.682
Preston Cloud & Martin F. Glaessner, "Ever since Darwin, the geologically abrupt appearance and rapid diversification of early animal life have fascinated biologist and students of Earth history alike....This interval, plus Early Cambrian, was the time during which metazoan life diversified into nearly all of the major phyla and most of the invertebrate classes and orders subsequently known." Science, Aug.27, 1982
RICHARD Monastersky, Earth Science Ed., Science News, "The remarkably complex forms of animals we see today suddenly appeared. ...This moment, right at the start of the Earth's Cambrian Period...marks the evolutionary explosion that filled the seas with the earth's first complex creatures. ...‘This is Genesis material,’ gushed one researcher. ...demonstrates that the large animal phyla of today were present already in the early Cambrian and that they were as distinct from each other as they are today...a menagerie of clam cousins, sponges, segmented worms, and other invertevrates that would seem vaguely familiar to any scuba diver." Discover, p.40, 4/93
Richard Dawkins, Cambridge, "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. Needless to say, this appearance of sudden planting has delighted creationists. ...the only alternative explanation of the sudden appearance of so many complex animal types in the Cambrian era is divine creation...", The Blind Watchmaker, 1986, p229-230
TREES & FISH IN CAMBRIAN, John Repetski, U.S.Geol. Survey, "The oldest land plants now known are from the Early Cambrian... Approximately 60 Cambrian spore-genera are now on record...represent 6 different groups of vascular plants..." Evolution, V.13, 6/'59, p.264. Daniel I. Axelrod, UCLA, "This report of fish material from Upper Cambrian rocks further extends the record of the vertebrates by approximately 40 million years." [WY, OK, WA, NV, ID, AR] Science, Vol.200, 5 May, 1978, p.529
PATCH FAILED, "Over the decades, evolutionary theorists beginning with Charles Darwin have tried to argue that the appearance of multicelled animals during the Cambrian merely seemed sudden, and in fact had been preceded by a lengthy period of evolution for which the geological record was missing. But this explanation, while it patched over a hole in an otherwise masterly theory, now seems increasingly unsatisfactory. Since 1987, discoveries of major fossil beds in Greenland, in China, in Siberia, and now in Namibia have shown that the period of biological innovation occurred at virtually the same instant in geologic time all around the world. ...just as the peculiar behavior of light forced physicists to conclude that Newton's laws were incomplete, so the Cambrian explosion has caused experts to wonder if the twin Darwinian imperatives of genetic variation and natural selection provide an adequate framework for understanding evolution..." Time, 12/4, 1995, p.67, 74
BLIND FAITH, Douglas Futuyma, "It is considered likely that all the animal phyla became distinct before or during the Cambrian, for they all appear fully formed, without intermediates connecting one form to another." EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY, 1985, p.325
"Trees" Contradicted By Fossils, From Some Similarities, Ignoring Others
SEPARATE LIVING KINDS" Stephen J. Gould, Harvard, "Our modern phyla represent designs of great distinctness, yet our diverse world contains nothing in between sponges, corals, insects, snails, sea urchins, and fishes (to choose standard representatives of the most prominent phyla).", Natural History, p.15, Oct. 1990
SEPRATE FOSSIL KINDS" Valentine (U. CA) & Erwin (MI St.), "If we were to expect to find ancestors to or intermediates between higher taxa, it would be the rocks of the late Precambrian to Ordivician times, when the bulk of the world's higher animal taxa evolved. Yet traditional alliances are unknown or unconfirmed for any of the phyla or classes appearing then.", Development As An Evolutionary Process, p.84, 1987.
"TREES" NOT FROM FOSSILS, Steven J. Gould, Harvard, "The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of the fossils.", Nat.His., V.86, p.13
STORY TIME, COLIN PATTERSON, Senior Paleontologist, British Museum of Nat. History, "You say I should at least 'show a photo of the fossil from which each type or organism was derived.' I will lay it on the line--there is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument." "It is easy enough to make up stories of how one form gave rise to another.... But such stories are not part of science, for there is no way of putting them to the test. .... I don't think we shall ever have any access to any form of tree which we can call factual." HARPER'S, Feb.1984, p.56
ARBITRARY ARRANGEMENT, R.H.Dott, U.of Wis. & R.L.Batten, Columbia, AMNH, "We have arranged the groups in a traditional way with the 'simplest' forms first, and progressively more complex groups following. This particular arrangement is arbitrary and depends on what definition of 'complexity' you wish to choose. ...things are alike because they are related, and the less they look alike, the further removed they are from their common ancestor." EVOLUTION OF THE EARTH, p.602
Unrelated Look-Alikes, J.Z.Young, Prof. of Anatomy, Oxford, "...similar features repeatedly appear in distinct lines. ...Parallel evolution is so common that it is almost a rule that detailed study of any group produces a confused taxonomy. Investigators are unable to distinguish populations that are parallel new developments from those truly descended from each other." LIFE OF THE VERTEBRATES, p.779
similarity IS NoT genetic, Sir Gavin Debeer, Prof. Embry., U.London, Director BMNH, "It is now clear that the pride with which it was assumed that the inheritance of homologous structures from a common ancestor explained homology was misplaced; for such inheritance cannot be ascribed to identity of genes. The attempt to find homologous genes has been given up as hopeless." Oxford Biology Reader, p.16, Homology an Unsolved Problem

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