SkepticThinker
Veteran Member
I stopped reading here:If you’d look through my posting history, @Little Dragon , you’d see I’ve pasted links to many papers. On this topic, here you go:
Paleontologist Buries Another Proposed Cambrian Precursor | Evolution News
Günter Bechly explains why the Precambrian fossil Namacalathus fails as a transitional precursor to the Cambrian explosion.evolutionnews.org
Here’s a paper highlighting more evidence:
More Cambrian Woes for Evolution | Evolution News
New fossils continue to put pressure on the evolutionary narrative of gradualism.
Here’s another one that is even newer:
Biology Journal Betrays Cause for Darwin Doubt | Evolution News
The strength of a theory can be gauged by how well it stands up to attacks and how well it incorporates new evidence.
And the Cambrian evidence keeps on eroding evolutionists’ hopes:
Jellyfish Originated in the Cambrian Explosion | Evolution News
Remarkably, these animals can be placed within the crown group of the living cnidarian clade Medusozoa, which is not exactly what Darwinists should expect.
You might not like the website, but look up their sources; Evolution News rarely posts anything, without linking supporting data from evolutionist sources.
Don’t call me a “sausage” (whatever that’s s’posed to mean, I doubt it’s flattering). Ad homs, like name-calling (and attacking a person’s knowledge and ethics like @shunyadragon tries), only makes the attacker’s arguments look weak.
And shunyadragon, you once again misrepresented what I said. Referencing Colin Patterson & S. J. Gould, I didn’t say they bemoaned “aspects of evolution.”
I said they bemoaned “the evidence the fossil record provides” in support of it.
Because they did….
“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…. 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…”
(Gould, Nature, Vol.377, 26 10/95, p.682).
And that was in 1995! The gap for evolution proponents to explain is even greater now, since the time frame for the Cambrian explosion has been narrowed even more.
“Gradualism, the idea that all change must be smooth, slow, and steady, was never read from the rocks."
Stephen Jay Gould, “An Early Start,” Natural History 87, February 1978): 24.
(Transitionals, anyone?)
There’s no wonder he proposed the controversial “punctuated equilibrium” with Niles Eldredge.
—————————-
Colin Patterson:
"Gradualism is a concept I believe in, not just because of Darwin’s authority, but because my understanding of genetics seems to demand it. Yet Gould and the American Museum people [i.e., Eldredge] are hard to contradict when they say there are no transitional fossils. As a paleontologist myself, I am much occupied with the philosophical problems of identifying ancestral forms in the fossil record. You say that I should at least ‘show a photo of the fossil from which each type of organism was derived.’ I will lay it on the line – there is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument.
The reason is that statements about ancestry and descent are not applicable in the fossil record. Is Archaeopteryx the ancestor of all birds? Perhaps yes, perhaps no: there is no way of answering the question. It is easy enough to make up stories of how one form gave rise to another, and to find reasons why the stages should be favoured by natural selection. But such stories are not part of science, for there is no way to put them to the test."
Colin Patterson to Luther Sunderland, April 10, 1979, quoted in Luther D. Sunderland, Darwin’s Enigma: Fossils and Other Problems, 4th ed. (El Cajon, CA: Master Book Publishers, 1988), 89.
There are other quotes from CD evolution proponents which TalkOrigins has commented on also, but they rarely present substantial rebuttals.
I hope you check them out!
So long.
“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…. 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…”
“Gradualism, the idea that all change must be smooth, slow, and steady, was never read from the rocks."
Stephen Jay Gould, “An Early Start,” Natural History 87, February 1978): 24.
(Transitionals, anyone?)
When he was alive, Stephen Jay Gould often chastised creationists for constantly taking his quotes out of context in order to make it look like he doesn't accept evolution when in fact he does:
Since we proposed punctuated equilibria to explain trends, it is infuriating to be quoted again and again by creationists—whether through design or stupidity, I do not know—as admitting that the fossil record includes no transitional forms. Transitional forms are generally lacking at the species level, but they are abundant between larger groups. Yet a pamphlet entitled "Harvard Scientists Agree Evolution Is a Hoax" states: "The facts of punctuated equilibrium which Gould and Eldredge…are forcing Darwinists to swallow fit the picture that Bryan insisted on, and which God has revealed to us in the Bible."
You need to do better than Stephen Jay Gould quote mines from 30 years ago if you want to convince anybody of anything. I see you notice that they are, in fact, quotes mines, but chose to post them (again) anyway. That doesn't bode well for your arguments.
