Evolution Observed

[metis]

Raup was merely saying that Darwin's slow and steady was not how evolution occurred.

Yep.

BTW, ever hear of what some call "mosaic evolution"? It's like this: picture a species whereas there are scattered bands of them living in different locations, all evolving in their own way, only some of which may evolve to form new species.

This is the paradigm that I taught my anthro students, and it helped them to get a better picture of how evolution plays out.

 

[Polymath257]

I think you hit the nail on the head here:

Classical physics held that a handful of simple, 'immutable' laws + lots of time and space to randomly bump around in... was all that was required to account for all the wonders of physical reality.

Huh? When did it say that? Not in any *scientific*descriptions. Perhaps if you go back to Lucretius.

Notions of hidden, underlying specific instructions, guiding and determining exactly how physical reality would unfold.... were still the realm of religious pseudoscience.

And still are, by the way.

And if you were skeptical of the former, it was because you were not as smart as the 'scientists'.

Sound familiar at all?

No, actually. What you describe isn't familiar at all based on the actual history of physical sciences. Yes, I know you want to make an analogy with Darwinism. It isn't there.

Darwinism was a perfectly logical extension of the former, classical/ Victorian model of reality. Moving beyond classical physics was academically difficult, with uncomfortable ideological implications for many. This problem, is far far greater for Darwinism which is why so much of academia is still there..

Wrong. It is still there because there is a lot of evidence that natural selection is a real process. It may not describe *everything* (although even that is not clear yet). But it is a valid scientific theory.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Yep.

BTW, ever hear of what some call "mosaic evolution"? It's like this: picture a species whereas there are scattered bands of them living in different locations, all evolving in their own way, only some of which may evolve to form new species.

This is the paradigm that I taught my anthro students, and it helped them to get a better picture of how evolution plays out.

Interesting concept and I can see that. Different groups developed different positive traits that were later reintroduced into the larger groups once established. One thing with a very complicated process such as the evolution of life is that early attempts to describe it will be incomplete. That does not make the initial idea "wrong" it merely means that more needed to be discovered.

Even something as simple as gravity shows this. Galilean gravity, which is near surface gravity, Newtonian gravity, or classic mechanics that explains basic planetary motion, or Einstein's general relativity. Each was a correction and improvement on the prior. Each was incomplete, but less so. It does not mean that Galileo was "wrong", his gravity simply had limits over which it could be applied. Yet it is the gravity that almost everyone uses today. Newton got us to the Moon and back. Einstein's version is necessary for your phone to tell you where you are on the surface of the Earth (GPS depends relies upon special relativity). Improving older ideas does not make them go away and the will continue to be a history of how an idea arose in the first place. Darwin is a special demon for Bible literalists. The attacks on him will not go away for a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG time.

 

[Polymath257]

Interesting concept and I can see that. Different groups developed different positive traits that were later reintroduced into the larger groups once established. One thing with a very complicated process such as the evolution of life is that early attempts to describe it will be incomplete. That does not make the initial idea "wrong" it merely means that more needed to be discovered.

Even something as simple as gravity shows this. Galilean gravity, which is near surface gravity, Newtonian gravity, or classic mechanics that explains basic planetary motion, or Einstein's general relativity. Each was a correction and improvement on the prior. Each was incomplete, but less so. It does not mean that Galileo was "wrong", his gravity simply had limits over which it could be applied. Yet it is the gravity that almost everyone uses today. Newton got us to the Moon and back. Einstein's version is necessary for your phone to tell you where you are on the surface of the Earth (GPS depends relies upon special relativity). Improving older ideas does not make them go away and the will continue to be a history of how an idea arose in the first place. Darwin is a special demon for Bible literalists. The attacks on him will not go away for a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG time.

I see it as adding decimal places to our accuracy. For Galileo, it was about 2 significant figures. For Newton, it was 6 or 7, depending on the context. For general relativity, it is 10.

Darwin was, by analogy, about 2 decimal places. Modern synthesis was about 4 or 5 and now we are pushing 7 or 8 in evolutionary biology. Unfortunately, it is with probabilities.

 

[Jose Fly]

It appears that his strategy is to bring out this dead horse every time that he sees someone new.

That's all Guy does....beat dead horses into dust. It won't be long before he'll be going on about Darwinism being a Victorian era idea, Piltdown man, cars in junkyards, Hoyle and the big bang.......

 

[Jose Fly]

"Claims fall apart"?!
Those earlier fossils are mostly unicellular, and manifest no ancestral relationship to the fossils in the Cambrian! The Cambrian fossils appear abruptly, with no precursors evident.

What were you saying about dishonesty?

Multiple times I've posted specific examples of pre-Cambrian to Cambrian transitional fossils, and each time the post goes unaddressed. But that's the nature of creationism.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Huh? When did it say that? Not in any *scientific*descriptions. Perhaps if you go back to Lucretius.

'immutable' was Newton's word, but the concept remained until quantum mechanics showed things like space/time matter/energy to be far more malleable at a deeper level

I see it as adding decimal places to our accuracy. For Galileo, it was about 2 significant figures. For Newton, it was 6 or 7, depending on the context. For general relativity, it is 10.

Darwin was, by analogy, about 2 decimal places. Modern synthesis was about 4 or 5 and now we are pushing 7 or 8 in evolutionary biology. Unfortunately, it is with probabilities.

I agree with you, classical physics still works, apples still fall from trees, but I'm sure you understand why it was a fundamentally inadequate explanation for physical reality- & why trying to explain something like gravity with classical physics was doomed to paradoxical failure.

i.e. classical physics didn't just need tweaked, it needed an entirely new set of laws on an entirely new level, information required to underwrite what was once intuitively deemed immutable, but turned out to be a superficial illusion of sorts. If you want to describe that as adding decimal places... it's a subjective measure but that's okay, it's a fundamental shift in understanding either way.

So too (I submit to you!) with life.

Darwin thought that we should expect life to develop by the same general mechanism as the development of physics and chemistry that came before it.

I agree entirely with him, only now we know that this means highly specific predetermined instructions, blueprints, rather than Victorian age simple laws + random chance

 

[Guy Threepwood]

I know you want to make an analogy with Darwinism. It isn't there.

Okay then, so we have a theory that posits that basic natural laws and algorithms + random interactions + lots of time and space, are adequate to account for all observed characteristics of the subject in question. No deeper, hidden, guiding forces required to predetermine specifically how development will actually unfold.

You tell me, am I talking about classical physics in Darwin's time, or Darwinism today?

 

[Hockeycowboy]

You said that cambrian life appeared fully formed "with no precursors evident". That's false - life pre-dates the cambrian. The ancestors of cambrian lifeforms were pre-cambrian lifeforms, and we have lots of fossils of pre-cambrian life.

Christpher J. Lowe, from Stanford, in reviewing a work entitled “The Cambrian Explosion The Construction of Animal Biodiversity,” written by Douglas Erwin and James Valentine, experts on the Cambrian fossil record, admitted:

“The Ediacaran and Cambrian periods witnessed a phase of morphological innovation in animal evolution unrivaled in metazoan history, yet the proximate causes of this body plan revolution remain decidedly murky. The grand puzzle of the Cambrian explosion surely must rank as one of the most important outstanding mysteries in evolutionary biology. Evidence of early representatives of all the major animal phyla first appear abruptly in the Cambrian (starting 542 million years ago). This spectacular morphological diversity contrasts strongly with Precambrian deposits, which have yielded a sparse fossil record with small, morphologically ambiguous trace fossils or the enigmatic but elegant creatures of the Ediacaran fauna. Following the Cambrian, despite a rich fossil record that documents impressive morphological diversification among animals, no new body plans have been revealed, leaving the Cambrian as the apparent crucible of metazoan body plan innovation.“

— What Led to Metazoa's Big Bang?

There’s tons of other articles, verifying the same.

Conclusion: it’s only an ‘outstanding mystery’ for CDer’s, not for those supporting ID, like me, Meyer, Axe, et.al.

 

[Subduction Zone]

'immutable' was Newton's word, but the concept remained until quantum mechanics showed things like space/time matter/energy to be far more malleable at a deeper level



I agree with you, classical physics still works, apples still fall from trees, but I'm sure you understand why it was a fundamentally inadequate explanation for physical reality- & why trying to explain something like gravity with classical physics was doomed to paradoxical failure.

i.e. classical physics didn't just need tweaked, it needed an entirely new set of laws on an entirely new level, information required to underwrite what was once intuitively deemed immutable, but turned out to be a superficial illusion of sorts. If you want to describe that as adding decimal places... it's a subjective measure but that's okay, it's a fundamental shift in understanding either way.

So too (I submit to you!) with life.

Darwin thought that we should expect life to develop by the same general mechanism as the development of physics and chemistry that came before it.

I agree entirely with him, only now we know that this means highly specific predetermined instructions, blueprints, rather than Victorian age simple laws + random chance

And yet you continue to get even the basics of Darwin's concept wrong. Creationists continually misrepresent the theory and try to claim "random chance". It is variation. Insurance people would probably be very quick to grasp the concept. In any population there is going to be variation, there is more than one cause of variation, random mutations being just one of them. And even so with a large enough population those variations are not all that "random". There is no evidence at all of "highly specific predetermined instructions, blueprints, rather than Victorian age simple laws + random chance", at least none that I have ever seen. Where is your scientific evidence for this? Or are you merely talking out of an inappropriate orifice?

 

[ImmortalFlame]

Christpher J. Lowe, from Stanford, in reviewing a work entitled “The Cambrian Explosion The Construction of Animal Biodiversity,” written by Douglas Erwin and James Valentine, experts on the Cambrian fossil record, admitted:

“The Ediacaran and Cambrian periods witnessed a phase of morphological innovation in animal evolution unrivaled in metazoan history, yet the proximate causes of this body plan revolution remain decidedly murky. The grand puzzle of the Cambrian explosion surely must rank as one of the most important outstanding mysteries in evolutionary biology. Evidence of early representatives of all the major animal phyla first appear abruptly in the Cambrian (starting 542 million years ago). This spectacular morphological diversity contrasts strongly with Precambrian deposits, which have yielded a sparse fossil record with small, morphologically ambiguous trace fossils or the enigmatic but elegant creatures of the Ediacaran fauna. Following the Cambrian, despite a rich fossil record that documents impressive morphological diversification among animals, no new body plans have been revealed, leaving the Cambrian as the apparent crucible of metazoan body plan innovation.“

— What Led to Metazoa's Big Bang?

There’s tons of other articles, verifying the same.

Conclusion: it’s only an ‘outstanding mystery’ for CDer’s, not for those supporting ID, like me, Meyer, Axe, et.al.

What do you think that quote is actually saying, because it definitely isn't saying that the cambrian explosion had NO precursors, just that it was a very rapid evolutionary event when compared to the precursors.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Christpher J. Lowe, from Stanford, in reviewing a work entitled “The Cambrian Explosion The Construction of Animal Biodiversity,” written by Douglas Erwin and James Valentine, experts on the Cambrian fossil record, admitted:

“The Ediacaran and Cambrian periods witnessed a phase of morphological innovation in animal evolution unrivaled in metazoan history, yet the proximate causes of this body plan revolution remain decidedly murky. The grand puzzle of the Cambrian explosion surely must rank as one of the most important outstanding mysteries in evolutionary biology. Evidence of early representatives of all the major animal phyla first appear abruptly in the Cambrian (starting 542 million years ago). This spectacular morphological diversity contrasts strongly with Precambrian deposits, which have yielded a sparse fossil record with small, morphologically ambiguous trace fossils or the enigmatic but elegant creatures of the Ediacaran fauna. Following the Cambrian, despite a rich fossil record that documents impressive morphological diversification among animals, no new body plans have been revealed, leaving the Cambrian as the apparent crucible of metazoan body plan innovation.“

— What Led to Metazoa's Big Bang?

There’s tons of other articles, verifying the same.

Conclusion: it’s only an ‘outstanding mystery’ for CDer’s, not for those supporting ID, like me, Meyer, Axe, et.al.

Sorry, it appears to be a huge mystery to you too. Tell me, where is the evidence for ID? Unanswered questions for the other side is never evidence for your side.

 

[Hockeycowboy]

Multiple times I've posted specific examples of pre-Cambrian to Cambrian transitional fossils, and each time the post goes unaddressed. But that's the nature of creationism.

Never seen any

Multiple times I've posted specific examples of pre-Cambrian to Cambrian transitional fossils, and each time the post goes unaddressed. But that's the nature of creationism.

How can you, when the experts who’ve closely studied the evidence admit these life forms appeared abruptly? How can you tell if these so-called transitional, long-dead fossils even had offspring? Please.

 

[Hockeycowboy]

What do you think that quote is actually saying, because it definitely isn't saying that the cambrian explosion had NO precursors, just that it was a very rapid evolutionary event when compared to the precursors.

Of course they can’t say that! Such a statement would destroy their naturalistic POV, to which they’re committed. Plus, they’d probably lose their job. Lol.

 

[Hockeycowboy]

Sorry, it appears to be a huge mystery to you too. Tell me, where is the evidence for ID? Unanswered questions for the other side is never evidence for your side.

Oh, I’m well aware that lack of evidence is not evidence...but it does raise questions. Like, with such finely detailed fossils discovered in the Cambrian shale, why does the fossil record not reveal an earlier phylogeny of previous ancestors?? No mystery to me. The much-touted ‘ToL’ is more like a bush, with many roots!
I guess it’s beyond your comprehension....that’s ok, you might get it one day.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Never seen any

Or perhaps merely denied them.

How can you, when the experts who’ve closely studied the evidence admit these life forms appeared abruptly? How can you tell if these so-called transitional, long-dead fossils even had offspring? Please.

You need to define "abruptly". In a geological sense the appearance is abrupt, but for those that believe the creation myth it was still aeons long. Perhaps this will help in your understanding of the phrase "Cambrian explosion":

"Then, between about 570 and 530 million years ago, another burst of diversification occurred, with the eventual appearance of the lineages of almost all animals living today. This stunning and unique evolutionary flowering is termed the "Cambrian explosion," taking the name of the geological age in whose early part it occurred. But it was not as rapid as an explosion: the changes seems to have happened in a range of about 30 million years, and some stages took 5 to 10 million years."

Evolution: Library: The Cambrian Explosion

Even the most sudden of appearances still took on the order of 5 million years to develop. Not exactly what the average person would call an explosion if they were observing it happen.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

Of course they can’t say that! Such a statement would destroy their naturalistic POV, to which they’re committed. Plus, they’d probably lose their job. Lol.

So you're suggesting that they're lying (despite the fact I have literally shown you a gallery of pre-cambrian fossils)?

 

[ImmortalFlame]

Never seen any

You are a liar. I linked you to a gallery of them.

How can you, when the experts who’ve closely studied the evidence admit these life forms appeared abruptly?

Please quote a single expert on the subject who explicitly said that the cambrian fossils had NO precursors.

How can you tell if these so-called transitional, long-dead fossils even had offspring? Please.

How do you know your ancestors had children?

 

[Subduction Zone]

Oh, I’m well aware that lack of evidence is not evidence...but it does raise questions. Like, with such finely detailed fossils discovered in the Cambrian shale, why does the fossil record not reveal an earlier phylogeny of previous ancestors?? No mystery to me. The much-touted ‘ToL’ is more like a bush, with many roots!
I guess it’s beyond your comprehension....that’s ok, you might get it one day.

No, that is merely beyond your comprehension. I understand why the record is lacking.

Let me try to keep this simple. The most important development of the Cambrian was the evolution of hard body parts. That not only allowed for a huge increase in variation. It also allowed those changes to be preserved in the fossil record. Precambrian fossils are rare for the same reason that jellyfish fossils are very rare. Soft body parts are only preserved very poorly if at all.

You see we have scientific evidence for our beliefs. Our beliefs are testable. You have no evidence for your beliefs because the scientists on your side tend to be cowards. Real scientists "put up or shut up" by using scientific hypotheses. These are testable, refutable concepts. They are the basis of scientific evidence. If one is afraid to test one's ideas then by definition one has no evidence for one's ideas. All one has are ad hoc explanations. And those are worthless in the world of science.

 

[Jose Fly]

it’s only an ‘outstanding mystery’ for CDer’s, not for those supporting ID, like me, Meyer, Axe, et.al.

What exactly is ID creationism's explanation?