Presenting Anomalocaris: Look What Those Primitive Bacteria Turned Into
Life Blossomed
Here is an excellent animation well worth watching even if only for the animation itself. It also highlights how evolutionists take for granted, and think nothing of, their heroic narrative.
If by "highlights how evolutionists take for granted, and think nothing of, their heroic narrative" you mean that they don't state categorically that these are our best inferences based on our most parsimonious, yet provisional, scientific theories rather than absolute facts, then you could level this criticism at any programme on science - and other subjects.
How many astronomy programmes keep mentioning over and over again that everything you see is only our best inference and not absolute fact?
How many biography documentaries keep mentioning over and over again that everything you see is only our best inference and not absolute fact?
How many history programmes state over and over again that everything you see is only our best inference and not absolute fact?
It is generally just a given that these fields are provisional, not absolute. Do you really need it stated in every single sentence? We are adults, not children.
Moreover, it is nonsensical that you single out 'evolutionists' for this kind of criticism. Again, there ToE is not behaving, or being treated, in a way that differs from absolutely any other scientific theory.
In the following audio podcast, Dr. Stephen Meyer speaks on the insurmountable difficulty of extrapolating the neo-Darwinian mechanism of Random Mutation and Natural Selection as a explanation for the Cambrian Explosion:
Dr. Stephen Meyer: Why Are We Still Debating Darwin? pt. 2 - podcast http://intelligentdesign.podomatic.com/entry/2012-05-23T13_26_22-07_00
Darwin's Dilemma - Excellent Cambrian Explosion Movie http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWEsW7bO8P4
Darwin's Dilemma - The Cambrian Explosion - In Darwin's Own Words Excerpt: Consequently, if the theory be true, it is indisputable that, before the lowest Silurian or Cambrian stratum was deposited long periods elapsed, as long as, or probably far longer than, the whole interval from the Cambrian age to the present day; and that during these vast periods the world swarmed with living creatures… To the question why we do not find rich fossiliferous deposits belonging to these assumed earliest periods, I can give no satisfactory answer… The case at present must remain inexplicable; and may be truly urged as a valid argument against the views here entertained. [emphasis added] —Chapter IX, “On the Imperfection of the Geological Record,” On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin - fifth edition (1869), pp. 378-381. http://indigosociety.com/showthread.php?31808-Darwin-s-Dilemma-The-Cambrian-Explosion
Many times atheists will try to say that the 'bizarre' Ediacaran fossils were anscestor to the Cambrian fossils. That has now been shown to be false:
Australian Multicellular Fossils Point to Life On Land, Not at Sea, Geologist Proposes - Dec. 12, 2012 Excerpt: Ediacaran fossils, he said, represent "an independent evolutionary radiation of life on land that preceded by at least 20 million years the Cambrian evolutionary explosion of animals in the sea." Increased chemical weathering by large organisms on land may have been needed to fuel the demand of nutrient elements by Cambrian animals. Independent discoveries of Cambrian fossils comparable with Ediacaran ones is evidence, he said, that even in the Cambrian, more than 500 million years ago, life on land may have been larger and more complex than life in the sea. Retallack leaves open the possibility that some Ediacaran fossils found elsewhere in the world may not be land-based in origin, writing in his conclusion that the many different kinds of these fossils need to be tested and re-evaluated. "The key evidence for this new view is that the beds immediately below the cover sandstones in which they are preserved were fossil soils," he said. "In other words the fossils were covered by sand in life position at the top of the soils in which they grew. In addition, frost features and chemical composition of the fossil soils are evidence that they grew in cold dry soils, like lichens in tundra today, rather than in tropical marine lagoons." http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/12/121212134050.htm
related notes:
Plant or Animal? Mysterious Fossils Defy Classification Excerpt: "Animals in the Ediacaran Period are almost universally bizarre, and it is very difficult to place them in any modern animal phyla," Xiao told LiveScience. http://www.livescience.com/12883-plant-animal-mysterious-fossils-defy-classification.html
The Avalon Explosion: Excerpt: Ediacara fossils [575 to 542 million years ago (Ma)] represent Earth's oldest known complex macroscopic life forms,,, A comprehensive quantitative analysis of these fossils indicates that the oldest Ediacara assemblage—the Avalon assemblage (575 to 565 Ma)—already encompassed the full range of Ediacara morphospace. (i.e. they appeared abruptly in the fossil record and retained their same basic shape and form throughout their tenure in the fossil record before they went extinct prior to the Cambrian explosion.) http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/319/5859/81
R: How many biography documentaries keep mentioning over and over again that everything you see is only our best inference and not absolute fact?
J: They don't just say "inference," Ritchie. They say "fact." And in many contexts, they actually mean UCA, not just change over time. They also say "naturalistic explanation." And yet no one has yet even conceived of a naturalistic explanation of UCA.
My point is why do they need to say 'inference' in every sentence? It is extremely impractical to begin every sentence with "To the best of our ability, we believe that..." or variations on it.
They say "fact."
Scientific fact. Which is provisional.
They also say "naturalistic explanation." And yet no one has yet even conceived of a naturalistic explanation of UCA.
That is a very odd-sounding point I am having a lot of trouble understanding. "All living creatures are descended from a universal common ancestor from which they have drifted genetically over billions of years by natural forces." That is a naturalistic explanation of UCA. You can contest how likely you think that is or how well-evidenced you think that is, but how can you deny that this is, in and of itself, an explanation?
R: My point is why do they need to say 'inference' in every sentence? It is extremely impractical to begin every sentence with "To the best of our ability, we believe that..." or variations on it.
J: Because it's not even a deductive or inductive inference. It's unlike rational inference. It requires a metaphysical stance that is arbitrary in nature.
R: That is a very odd-sounding point I am having a lot of trouble understanding. "All living creatures are descended from a universal common ancestor from which they have drifted genetically over billions of years by natural forces." That is a naturalistic explanation of UCA. You can contest how likely you think that is or how well-evidenced you think that is, but how can you deny that this is, in and of itself, an explanation?
J: That's an hypothesis. There is no known naturalistic explanation (i.e., event regularities applied to initial conditions) that renders that hypothesis anything other THAN a hypothesis.
This is why your claim of mechanism-less ID is of no avail. Because no one has yet shown that ANY sequence of mutations could result in ANY lineage from a precambrian single-celled organism to an extant mammal, reptile, or amphibian, for any succession of environments. No theory implies phenotypes from mutations that way. Thus your hypothesis is just as mechanism-less as ID/SA. So it's just as unfalsifiable.
Maybe a standard disclaimer would suffice. Something like: 'We do not know how life arose from dead matter, but still we believe it did. We have no idea how body plans arose or how they are implemented. We also have no clue why things don't completely fall apart - as they do, in fact, at the moment of death. We do not know what power holds off that moment — precisely for a lifetime, and not a moment longer.'
Wow. You haven't read anything from the scientific literature since the 1950's, if then. Right? Never heard of all the work on abiogenesis? Never heard of Hox genes and the development of body plans? Never heard of metabolic processes and why they break down?
Just once it would be nice to meet a Creationist who actually understood the science he was attacking.
Abiogenesis, RNA world. Is there any progress to be reported? It has been awfully quiet for quite some time now.
Hoxgenes. How can cells - hoxgenes or not - construct a body plan without overview and a director? What directs cells to their proper function and position. Science doesn't have a clue.
'Metabolic processes' is that some sort of answer?
So no progress on 'abiogenesis'? No surprise here. One simply cannot explain the whole from the parts. And you also provide no serious objections to my other statements.
Still too lazy to research the primary scientific literature? No surprises here. Wouldn't want to pollute your lily-white Creationist brain with any of that messy scientific data.
You forgot to give me your IDC explanation for the Cambrian era creatures documented in the OP, and the 2.5 BY of fossil evidence for life before them.
I do not consider you to be a machine nor myself. 'Intelligent design' seems to be about machines - just like neo-darwinism.
Stephen Talbott:"Dawkins and Dennett sometimes seem fixated upon design, presumably as a result of their severely constraining preoccupation with religion and with the “creationism” or “intelligent design” promulgated by some religious folks. Although the word has its legitimate uses, you will not find me speaking of design, simply because — as I’ve made abundantly clear in previous articles — organisms cannot be understood as having been designed, machine-like, whether by an engineer-God or a Blind Watchmaker elevat-ed to god-like status. If organisms participate in a higher life, it is a participation that works from within — at a deep level the ancients recognized as that of the logos informing all things. It is a sharing of the springs of life and being, not a mere receptivity to some sort of external mechanical tinkering modeled anthropocentrically on human engineering."
For the evolutionist inferring design from a non-human intelligent agent can not even be accepted as a possibility unless that being is visibly observed designing.
Evolutionists are really boxing themselves in. They apparently will accept NO evidence of non-human design as admissible. Evolution is capable of anything that is discovered in biology by default. Not just by default, but no design agents allowed to question their alleged fact.
IF something was designed by a non-human intelligent agent, evolutionists would have no metric and no means to even consider it. Everything by default is locked into ToE from the get go. They speak with forked tongue when they say they are open to alternate theories.
For the evolutionist inferring design from a non-human intelligent agent can not even be accepted as a possibility unless that being is visibly observed designing.
Who is trying to infer design? Especially from a non-human intelligent agent? I don't think that's the evolutionists...
They apparently will accept NO evidence of non-human design as admissible.
What evidence do you have? How do we detect design? That's the issue. Before we decide these, then there isn't any evidence of design to admit.
Evolution is capable of anything that is discovered in biology by default. Not just by default, but no design agents allowed to question their alleged fact.
Supernatural agents are certainly dismissed a priori. But science would be completely impossible if we did not.
IF something was designed by a non-human intelligent agent, evolutionists would have no metric and no means to even consider it.
That is true. But it is also applicable to every field and every theory in science. There is absolutely no reason to single ToE out for this criticism.
To all the Intelligent Design Creationists out there:
CH has been kind enough to provide a nice animation of what life in the early Cambrian may have looked like. There is no doubt that the creatures portrayed actually existed - there is ample fossil evidence of them, including trilobites with anomalocaris bite marks.
What I'd like to know is, how do these animals fit in the ID-Creationism scenario? At least one Creationists has said they're evidence of the original created 'kinds'. Is that true? Then where are the humans, cats, dogs, and the other extant species represented? What about the 2.5 billion years of fossil data (most single-celled animals) that we have from before the Cambrian era?
Sure be nice if you guys could come up with one consistent story.
CH has been kind enough to provide a nice animation of what life in the early Cambrian may have looked like.
Fake civility. Where is your usual accusation of liar for Jesus? Are you not a goddamn liar for Darwin? You are more transparent than crystal, Throaton. You proudly wear your hypocrisy on your sleeve. You ain't that smart. In fact you are stupid as sh!t. It's embarrassing, even for IDers, that the attackers sent to fight ID are so dense. Is there such a thing as a smart evolutionist? I doubt it. Darwin started a long tradition of cultivating mediocrity and stupidity in science.
What I'd like to know is, how do these animals fit in the ID-Creationism scenario? At least one Creationists has said they're evidence of the original created 'kinds'. Is that true? Then where are the humans, cats, dogs, and the other extant species represented?
What would humans be doing in the Cambrian sea, pray tell? Why do you insist on wrestling with the same stupid chicken sh!t creationist strawman day in and day out. This has been going on for many years. What are you, mentally challenged? Change your freaking tune, moron. This is lame, goddammit.
What about the 2.5 billion years of fossil data (most single-celled animals) that we have from before the Cambrian era?
Come on, jackass. You know there are no transition fossils leading to the Cambrian explosion. Your 2.5 billion years of fossil data is just a deceptive pile of crap. Nothing new here.
It is obvious that most Cambrian body plans are strikingly different designs than the aquatic lifeforms we can observe today. Does this imply that different designers designed life on earth? Absolutely. In fact, this is what the book of Genesis claims. While most Christians, especially Fundies (and bozos like Throaton here), believe that the Bible teaches that only one creator created everything, the book of Genesis insists that many Elohim (plural word meaning masters) worked on creating life on earth. This is evidenced by the many different design styles we see in nature. Heck, Genesis even hints that there was a prior creation that was destroyed.
I am a nice person to nice people. Evolutionists are not very nice. They need to be taught a lesson. And a lesson is coming, a big one. LOL. They won't know where to hide.
Ritchie, evolutionists certainly won't infer design... that's their problem. It is not simply a matter of getting the quality of evidence for design at a particular level. My point is that anything short of the creator being observed creating falls short of evolutionist expectation. You speak with a forked tongue. Your methodology is flawed.
"Supernatural agents are certainly dismissed a priori."
What is supernatural anyway? It's a muddled term and unacceptable in serious discussion about design. God can't even be properly characterized as supernatural. Supernatural is probably closest to abiogenesis... believing that purely unguided chemicals can spontaneously turn into life. Somehow in eons past all this stuff was able to do what it can't and won't do now... but that's what you call good science.
Evolutionists reject ALL intelligent designers, except humans, by default. You're muddling the discussion with supernatural. Design by anyone except humans is by default out of the question. There is no conceivable biological configuration or discovery that evolutionists could potentially say was not the product of evolution. They have no methodology in place to analyze otherwise.
Evolutionists reject ALL intelligent designers, except humans, by default.
Tedford, why do you keep repeating this lie?
Science doesn't reject the idea of an external intelligent designer a priori. Science has just seen no positive evidence of one, and lots of positive evidence that one isn't necessary.
If you have such positive evidence for a Designer, you need to either present it to the scientific community or just shut up about it.
Then you say something like, 'let me see him' That proves my point. Unless you can observe a designer create, then this is the only acceptable evidence to even consider as potentially valid. Evolutionists will not consider that inference for design is acceptable under any circumstances. Which is ironic since most of what evolutionists believe about evolution has never been observed!
Really Neal? "Nature, in the broadest sense, is equivalent to the natural world, physical world, or material world. "Nature" refers to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. It ranges in scale from the subatomic to the cosmic."
Standard theology is God is an unchanging being,creator and sustainer of the universe, therefore outside of the material universe. Timeless and immaterial, do you believe otherwise?
Then you say something like, 'let me see him' That proves my point.
Nope, I might say ,exactly what did He design,when did He design it, and how do you know? The same as I would ask about any claim of knowledge. All things by the way that you demand the ToE provide.
Unless you can observe a designer create, then this is the only acceptable evidence to even consider as potentially valid.
Again that is basically what you are asking of the ToE. "Show me a new species. "
Personally there are levels of evidence, seeing someone actually doing it is the most convincing, but I didn't see my truck being built but am very convinced it was designed
Evolutionists will not consider that inference for design is acceptable under any circumstances.
Not with the present evidence that an intelligent designer is the cause for some undetermined something, lacking any mechanisms to implement the undetermined something.
Which is ironic since most of what evolutionists believe about evolution has never been observed!
You know what is even more ironic? Evolution has been observed more than your designer,more than the mechanism that your designer used. After all even you believe in microevolution, a micro Designer has never been observed either.
Thorton, May I dare point you to a few facts. Of course to do so is foolishness.
However, "science" has proposed one big bang. If so, then there are two simple possibilities: - No first cause -- an interesting possibility, - One first cause (possibly a group working in concert.)
"Science" holds to the view of one universal common ancestor. If so, then there are two simple possibilities: - No first cause -- an interesting possibility, - One first cause (possibly a group working in concert.)
The possibilities, therefore, are a single first cause agent, or first cause without an agent. A single cause of first life, whether that cause be intelligent or chance.
So, all polytheistic possibilities have been eliminated without reference to anything beyond current scientific understanding.
Evolutionists have their own theology that excludes all else. Evolutionists will not accept an unknown designer. They speak with a forked tongue again when they attempt to belittle a particular faith. It's all rhetoric. By default, evolutionists will accept NO designer (Christian or otherwise) unless perhaps, they see the designer designing. Design inference is not accepted. They demand to see the designer and will acknowledge nothing less.
The quality of the design inference does not even rise as a serious consideration. It's empty rhetoric on their side. Design inference is not accepted under any condition. This is why evolutionists always fall back to saying, 'show us your creator'.
Something to consider. If God created the universe, He possesses a different nature (not supernatural) than our time-space universe elements. By default then, he would be invisible to us unless He made an exception to his fundamental nature. Ironically, evolutionists speculate about multiverses they can not see or detect, but not being able to see God is a show stopper for them. Millions of people have related a tangible personal experience with God. Some evolutionists may dismiss this as delusional, but they have not disproven it. They live in a world where ToE is in sad shape, but their worldview only allows them to double down on it because design inference is not allowed. The contradicting data is like the hot coffee in the morning, but they refuse to drink.
The quality of the design inference does not even rise as a serious consideration. It's empty rhetoric on their side. Design inference is not accepted under any condition.
Tedford, is it asking too much of you to present science's actual position without lying?
A design inference would certainly be accepted providing there is sufficient positive evidence for it. To date all you IDiots have offered is the subjective "this is too complex to have evolved so it must be designed!". Your personal incredulity isn't objective scientific evidence.
This is why evolutionists always fall back to saying, 'show us your creator'.
Another lie. Showing the Creator would be positive evidence but so would showing evidence for the mechanisms used, and the timeline, and the source of raw materials. You clowns don't have anything to offer in the way of positive evidence.
"Millions of people have related a tangible personal experience with God. Some evolutionists may dismiss this as delusional, but they have not disproven it."
I and a bunch of my friends have a tangible, personal relationship with Fifi the pink unicorn god and the FSM. We party together in the night clubs on Venus and Mercury every Friday night, and we also often meet up with Dr. Who for trips through time and space in the Tardis.
Since neither you, nor "evolutionists", nor anyone else can disprove that, it must be true, right?
When people first started seeing crop circles, they assumed that they were designed by intelligent agents. They considered the possibility that they were made by extra-terrestrials. Details like who, how, why were unknown. But nobody ever considered the possibility that crop circles weren't designed.
When people first started seeing crop circles, they assumed that they were designed by intelligent agents. They considered the possibility that they were made by extra-terrestrials. Details like who, how, why were unknown.
So then what happened?
Did people start an immediate investigation into the physical mechanisms by which they were created, and the identity of the agencies likely responsible?
Or did they go "OOOOH, must be an Intelligent Designer! Let's go pass legislation to force schools to let us teach it in science classes!"
But nobody ever considered the possibility that crop circles weren't designed.
Not true at all. Wind vortexes have been known for centuries to be able to create circular patterns of downed crops. It's only when the perps started creating impressions with commonly human used symbols that people became suspicious.
""""Did people start an immediate investigation into the physical mechanisms by which they were created, and the identity of the agencies likely responsible?""""
But the first things they did was to assume that it was designed. So the investigation into mechanisms isn't relevent.
But the first things they did was to assume that it was designed.
Only when the patterns started appearing with commonly used human symbols.
So the investigation into mechanisms isn't relevent.
Of course it is. The search for mechanisms began immediately. And no one with an IQ over room temperature Celsius ever though they were the work of mysterious space aliens.
And Darwin didn't know anything about the mechanisms behind mutations and such. So does that mean that ToE was invalid?
Darwin did propose a mechanism for evolution - natural selection. He just didn't know what carried forward the heritable traits.
One thing he didn't do is go "Gee, I haven't figured it all out yet so I'll just declare GAWDDIDIT!! and quit here."
Science kept right on investigating as it still does today. Creationists sit on their lazy keisters, stay ignorant, and watch everyone else do the work to understand.
There aren't any who use their religion as an integral part of the actual scientific work, no.
What a lie. At this time, there are teams of people doing research on abiogenesis based on the purely religious belief that life arose from non-life entirely by random chance, A lot of time and money is being spent on trying to detect an intelligent signal from faraway star systems based on the religious belief that, since life can arise from dirt all by itself, then there must be millions upon millions of other bodies out there where life has evolved to the point of creating alien civilizations smart enough to have discovered how to use EM radiation for communication. It would be laughable if it weren't so pathetic. But you know me, I still laugh at morons like you.
Sir Isaac Newton's based his science on the religious belief that the perfect workings of nature are amenable to our understanding because we were created in the image of the Elohim. At the end of his life, after trying in vain to find a cause for inertial motion, Newton (erroneously, in my opinion) ascribed the cause of inertial motion to God's direct and constant intervention.
So yes, people use their religious beliefs to do science all the time. What is infuriating is seeing jackasses (like atheist propagandist and liar Throaton here) hard at work trying to convince the public that atheists and evolutionists are not a bunch of brain-dead religionists. And the assholes are almost succeeding. They have already convinced Western governments that their chicken feather voodoo religion is actually science and should be taught in school as science.
Boy, have they got an unpleasant surprise coming. I'll enjoy watching them squirm with a bag of Cheetos in one hand, a beer in the other and a smirk on my face. LOL.
All that yapping and flapping by ID-Creationisms' best and brightest, yet not one of you clowns even attempted an IDC explanation for the animals depicted in the OP and the fossil record of life for the preceding 2.5 billion years.
Big brave IDC scientists you are, ready for IDC to win the day.
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If by "highlights how evolutionists take for granted, and think nothing of, their heroic narrative" you mean that they don't state categorically that these are our best inferences based on our most parsimonious, yet provisional, scientific theories rather than absolute facts, then you could level this criticism at any programme on science - and other subjects.
ReplyDeleteHow many astronomy programmes keep mentioning over and over again that everything you see is only our best inference and not absolute fact?
How many biography documentaries keep mentioning over and over again that everything you see is only our best inference and not absolute fact?
How many history programmes state over and over again that everything you see is only our best inference and not absolute fact?
It is generally just a given that these fields are provisional, not absolute. Do you really need it stated in every single sentence? We are adults, not children.
Moreover, it is nonsensical that you single out 'evolutionists' for this kind of criticism. Again, there ToE is not behaving, or being treated, in a way that differs from absolutely any other scientific theory.
In the following audio podcast, Dr. Stephen Meyer speaks on the insurmountable difficulty of extrapolating the neo-Darwinian mechanism of Random Mutation and Natural Selection as a explanation for the Cambrian Explosion:
DeleteDr. Stephen Meyer: Why Are We Still Debating Darwin? pt. 2 - podcast
http://intelligentdesign.podomatic.com/entry/2012-05-23T13_26_22-07_00
Darwin's Dilemma - Excellent Cambrian Explosion Movie
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWEsW7bO8P4
Darwin's Dilemma - The Cambrian Explosion - In Darwin's Own Words
Excerpt: Consequently, if the theory be true, it is indisputable that, before the lowest Silurian or Cambrian stratum was deposited long periods elapsed, as long as, or probably far longer than, the whole interval from the Cambrian age to the present day; and that during these vast periods the world swarmed with living creatures…
To the question why we do not find rich fossiliferous deposits belonging to these assumed earliest periods, I can give no satisfactory answer…
The case at present must remain inexplicable; and may be truly urged as a valid argument against the views here entertained. [emphasis added]
—Chapter IX, “On the Imperfection of the Geological Record,” On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin - fifth edition (1869), pp. 378-381.
http://indigosociety.com/showthread.php?31808-Darwin-s-Dilemma-The-Cambrian-Explosion
Many times atheists will try to say that the 'bizarre' Ediacaran fossils were anscestor to the Cambrian fossils. That has now been shown to be false:
DeleteAustralian Multicellular Fossils Point to Life On Land, Not at Sea, Geologist Proposes - Dec. 12, 2012
Excerpt: Ediacaran fossils, he said, represent "an independent evolutionary radiation of life on land that preceded by at least 20 million years the Cambrian evolutionary explosion of animals in the sea." Increased chemical weathering by large organisms on land may have been needed to fuel the demand of nutrient elements by Cambrian animals. Independent discoveries of Cambrian fossils comparable with Ediacaran ones is evidence, he said, that even in the Cambrian, more than 500 million years ago, life on land may have been larger and more complex than life in the sea.
Retallack leaves open the possibility that some Ediacaran fossils found elsewhere in the world may not be land-based in origin, writing in his conclusion that the many different kinds of these fossils need to be tested and re-evaluated.
"The key evidence for this new view is that the beds immediately below the cover sandstones in which they are preserved were fossil soils," he said. "In other words the fossils were covered by sand in life position at the top of the soils in which they grew. In addition, frost features and chemical composition of the fossil soils are evidence that they grew in cold dry soils, like lichens in tundra today, rather than in tropical marine lagoons."
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/12/121212134050.htm
related notes:
Plant or Animal? Mysterious Fossils Defy Classification
Excerpt: "Animals in the Ediacaran Period are almost universally bizarre, and it is very difficult to place them in any modern animal phyla," Xiao told LiveScience.
http://www.livescience.com/12883-plant-animal-mysterious-fossils-defy-classification.html
The Avalon Explosion:
Excerpt: Ediacara fossils [575 to 542 million years ago (Ma)] represent Earth's oldest known complex macroscopic life forms,,, A comprehensive quantitative analysis of these fossils indicates that the oldest Ediacara assemblage—the Avalon assemblage (575 to 565 Ma)—already encompassed the full range of Ediacara morphospace. (i.e. they appeared abruptly in the fossil record and retained their same basic shape and form throughout their tenure in the fossil record before they went extinct prior to the Cambrian explosion.)
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/319/5859/81
R: How many biography documentaries keep mentioning over and over again that everything you see is only our best inference and not absolute fact?
ReplyDeleteJ: They don't just say "inference," Ritchie. They say "fact." And in many contexts, they actually mean UCA, not just change over time. They also say "naturalistic explanation." And yet no one has yet even conceived of a naturalistic explanation of UCA.
They don't just say "inference," Ritchie.
DeleteMy point is why do they need to say 'inference' in every sentence? It is extremely impractical to begin every sentence with "To the best of our ability, we believe that..." or variations on it.
They say "fact."
Scientific fact. Which is provisional.
They also say "naturalistic explanation." And yet no one has yet even conceived of a naturalistic explanation of UCA.
That is a very odd-sounding point I am having a lot of trouble understanding. "All living creatures are descended from a universal common ancestor from which they have drifted genetically over billions of years by natural forces." That is a naturalistic explanation of UCA. You can contest how likely you think that is or how well-evidenced you think that is, but how can you deny that this is, in and of itself, an explanation?
R: My point is why do they need to say 'inference' in every sentence? It is extremely impractical to begin every sentence with "To the best of our ability, we believe that..." or variations on it.
DeleteJ: Because it's not even a deductive or inductive inference. It's unlike rational inference. It requires a metaphysical stance that is arbitrary in nature.
R: That is a very odd-sounding point I am having a lot of trouble understanding. "All living creatures are descended from a universal common ancestor from which they have drifted genetically over billions of years by natural forces." That is a naturalistic explanation of UCA. You can contest how likely you think that is or how well-evidenced you think that is, but how can you deny that this is, in and of itself, an explanation?
J: That's an hypothesis. There is no known naturalistic explanation (i.e., event regularities applied to initial conditions) that renders that hypothesis anything other THAN a hypothesis.
This is why your claim of mechanism-less ID is of no avail. Because no one has yet shown that ANY sequence of mutations could result in ANY lineage from a precambrian single-celled organism to an extant mammal, reptile, or amphibian, for any succession of environments. No theory implies phenotypes from mutations that way. Thus your hypothesis is just as mechanism-less as ID/SA. So it's just as unfalsifiable.
Maybe a standard disclaimer would suffice. Something like:
ReplyDelete'We do not know how life arose from dead matter, but still we believe it did. We have no idea how body plans arose or how they are implemented. We also have no clue why things don't completely fall apart - as they do, in fact, at the moment of death. We do not know what power holds off that moment — precisely for a lifetime, and not a moment longer.'
Wow. You haven't read anything from the scientific literature since the 1950's, if then. Right? Never heard of all the work on abiogenesis? Never heard of Hox genes and the development of body plans? Never heard of metabolic processes and why they break down?
DeleteJust once it would be nice to meet a Creationist who actually understood the science he was attacking.
@Thorton
DeleteAbiogenesis, RNA world. Is there any progress to be reported? It has been awfully quiet for quite some time now.
Hoxgenes. How can cells - hoxgenes or not - construct a body plan without overview and a director? What directs cells to their proper function and position. Science doesn't have a clue.
'Metabolic processes' is that some sort of answer?
So the answer is you've never read a single thing from the actual scientific literature.
DeleteComfortable willful ignorance is still ignorance. Whatever floats your boat I suppose.
Ready to give me the IDC explanation for these Cambrian animals?
@Thorton
DeleteSo no progress on 'abiogenesis'? No surprise here. One simply cannot explain the whole from the parts.
And you also provide no serious objections to my other statements.
Still too lazy to research the primary scientific literature? No surprises here. Wouldn't want to pollute your lily-white Creationist brain with any of that messy scientific data.
DeleteYou forgot to give me your IDC explanation for the Cambrian era creatures documented in the OP, and the 2.5 BY of fossil evidence for life before them.
Science has a good explanation. Why don't you?
@Thornton
DeleteI do not consider you to be a machine nor myself. 'Intelligent design' seems to be about machines - just like neo-darwinism.
Stephen Talbott:"Dawkins and Dennett sometimes seem fixated upon design, presumably as a result of their severely constraining preoccupation with religion and with the “creationism” or “intelligent design” promulgated by some religious folks.
Although the word has its legitimate uses, you will not find me speaking of design, simply because — as I’ve made abundantly clear in previous articles — organisms cannot be understood as having been designed, machine-like, whether by an engineer-God or a Blind Watchmaker elevat-ed to god-like status. If organisms participate in a higher life, it is a participation that works from within — at a deep level the ancients recognized as that of the logos informing all things. It is a sharing of the springs of life and being, not a mere receptivity to some sort of external mechanical tinkering modeled anthropocentrically on human engineering."
For the evolutionist inferring design from a non-human intelligent agent can not even be accepted as a possibility unless that being is visibly observed designing.
ReplyDeleteEvolutionists are really boxing themselves in. They apparently will accept NO evidence of non-human design as admissible. Evolution is capable of anything that is discovered in biology by default. Not just by default, but no design agents allowed to question their alleged fact.
IF something was designed by a non-human intelligent agent, evolutionists would have no metric and no means to even consider it. Everything by default is locked into ToE from the get go. They speak with forked tongue when they say they are open to alternate theories.
Tedford the Slow
DeleteThey apparently will accept NO evidence of non-human design as admissible.
Sure we will. You have any that hasn't proved false when subjected to the slightest scientific scrutiny?
Sorry that evolutionary biology confuses and scares you so badly Tedford, but "My Bible tells me so!!" still isn't scientific evidence.
For the evolutionist inferring design from a non-human intelligent agent can not even be accepted as a possibility unless that being is visibly observed designing.
DeleteWho is trying to infer design? Especially from a non-human intelligent agent? I don't think that's the evolutionists...
They apparently will accept NO evidence of non-human design as admissible.
What evidence do you have? How do we detect design? That's the issue. Before we decide these, then there isn't any evidence of design to admit.
Evolution is capable of anything that is discovered in biology by default. Not just by default, but no design agents allowed to question their alleged fact.
Supernatural agents are certainly dismissed a priori. But science would be completely impossible if we did not.
IF something was designed by a non-human intelligent agent, evolutionists would have no metric and no means to even consider it.
That is true. But it is also applicable to every field and every theory in science. There is absolutely no reason to single ToE out for this criticism.
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteTo all the Intelligent Design Creationists out there:
ReplyDeleteCH has been kind enough to provide a nice animation of what life in the early Cambrian may have looked like. There is no doubt that the creatures portrayed actually existed - there is ample fossil evidence of them, including trilobites with anomalocaris bite marks.
What I'd like to know is, how do these animals fit in the ID-Creationism scenario? At least one Creationists has said they're evidence of the original created 'kinds'. Is that true? Then where are the humans, cats, dogs, and the other extant species represented? What about the 2.5 billion years of fossil data (most single-celled animals) that we have from before the Cambrian era?
Sure be nice if you guys could come up with one consistent story.
Anyone?
Anyone, anyone?
DeleteThroaton, the jackass:
DeleteCH has been kind enough to provide a nice animation of what life in the early Cambrian may have looked like.
Fake civility. Where is your usual accusation of liar for Jesus? Are you not a goddamn liar for Darwin? You are more transparent than crystal, Throaton. You proudly wear your hypocrisy on your sleeve. You ain't that smart. In fact you are stupid as sh!t. It's embarrassing, even for IDers, that the attackers sent to fight ID are so dense. Is there such a thing as a smart evolutionist? I doubt it. Darwin started a long tradition of cultivating mediocrity and stupidity in science.
What I'd like to know is, how do these animals fit in the ID-Creationism scenario? At least one Creationists has said they're evidence of the original created 'kinds'. Is that true? Then where are the humans, cats, dogs, and the other extant species represented?
What would humans be doing in the Cambrian sea, pray tell? Why do you insist on wrestling with the same stupid chicken sh!t creationist strawman day in and day out. This has been going on for many years. What are you, mentally challenged? Change your freaking tune, moron. This is lame, goddammit.
What about the 2.5 billion years of fossil data (most single-celled animals) that we have from before the Cambrian era?
Come on, jackass. You know there are no transition fossils leading to the Cambrian explosion. Your 2.5 billion years of fossil data is just a deceptive pile of crap. Nothing new here.
It is obvious that most Cambrian body plans are strikingly different designs than the aquatic lifeforms we can observe today. Does this imply that different designers designed life on earth? Absolutely. In fact, this is what the book of Genesis claims. While most Christians, especially Fundies (and bozos like Throaton here), believe that the Bible teaches that only one creator created everything, the book of Genesis insists that many Elohim (plural word meaning masters) worked on creating life on earth. This is evidenced by the many different design styles we see in nature. Heck, Genesis even hints that there was a prior creation that was destroyed.
My question to evolutionists is this:
DeleteWhy are you people so effing stupid?
In the beginning God created...
DeleteMarcus:
DeleteIn the beginning God created...
Not true. It actually says, "In the beginning, the elohim created... Research it. This is the age of the internet. It's not that hard.
@Louis, I find you offensive.
DeleteMarcus:
Delete@Louis, I find you offensive.
I'm sure you do but guess what? I don't care.
You do care enough to insult people. You're not a nice person.
DeleteI am a nice person to nice people. Evolutionists are not very nice. They need to be taught a lesson. And a lesson is coming, a big one. LOL. They won't know where to hide.
DeleteRitchie, evolutionists certainly won't infer design... that's their problem. It is not simply a matter of getting the quality of evidence for design at a particular level. My point is that anything short of the creator being observed creating falls short of evolutionist expectation. You speak with a forked tongue. Your methodology is flawed.
ReplyDelete"Supernatural agents are certainly dismissed a priori."
What is supernatural anyway? It's a muddled term and unacceptable in serious discussion about design. God can't even be properly characterized as supernatural. Supernatural is probably closest to abiogenesis... believing that purely unguided chemicals can spontaneously turn into life. Somehow in eons past all this stuff was able to do what it can't and won't do now... but that's what you call good science.
Evolutionists reject ALL intelligent designers, except humans, by default. You're muddling the discussion with supernatural. Design by anyone except humans is by default out of the question. There is no conceivable biological configuration or discovery that evolutionists could potentially say was not the product of evolution. They have no methodology in place to analyze otherwise.
Whatever = evolution by default.
ID evidence is unacceptable by default.
Tedford the Slow
DeleteEvolutionists reject ALL intelligent designers, except humans, by default.
Tedford, why do you keep repeating this lie?
Science doesn't reject the idea of an external intelligent designer a priori. Science has just seen no positive evidence of one, and lots of positive evidence that one isn't necessary.
If you have such positive evidence for a Designer, you need to either present it to the scientific community or just shut up about it.
Neal,
Delete. God can't even be properly characterized as supernatural.
God is bound by natural laws?
Evolutionists reject ALL intelligent designers, except humans, by default
Any examples of those intelligent designers?
Vel, what is "natural"? Which natural laws?
ReplyDelete--
Examples of designers? God.
Then you say something like, 'let me see him' That proves my point. Unless you can observe a designer create, then this is the only acceptable evidence to even consider as potentially valid. Evolutionists will not consider that inference for design is acceptable under any circumstances. Which is ironic since most of what evolutionists believe about evolution has never been observed!
Neal ,
DeleteVel, what is "natural"? Which natural laws
Really Neal? "Nature, in the broadest sense, is equivalent to the natural world, physical world, or material world. "Nature" refers to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. It ranges in scale from the subatomic to the cosmic."
Standard theology is God is an unchanging being,creator and sustainer of the universe, therefore outside of the material universe. Timeless and immaterial, do you believe otherwise?
Neal,
DeleteExamples of designers? God.
Then you say something like, 'let me see him' That proves my point.
Nope, I might say ,exactly what did He design,when did He design it, and how do you know? The same as I would ask about any claim of knowledge. All things by the way that you demand the ToE provide.
Unless you can observe a designer create, then this is the only acceptable evidence to even consider as potentially valid.
Again that is basically what you are asking of the ToE. "Show me a new species. "
Personally there are levels of evidence, seeing someone actually doing it is the most convincing, but I didn't see my truck being built but am very convinced it was designed
Evolutionists will not consider that inference for design is acceptable under any circumstances.
Not with the present evidence that an intelligent designer is the cause for some undetermined something, lacking any mechanisms to implement the undetermined something.
Which is ironic since most of what evolutionists believe about evolution has never been observed!
You know what is even more ironic? Evolution has been observed more than your designer,more than the mechanism that your designer used. After all even you believe in microevolution, a micro Designer has never been observed either.
Neal Tedford
ReplyDeleteExamples of designers? God.
Of course it couldn't be Odin or Vishnu or Quetzalcoatl or any of the other thousands of human created Gods. It was Tedford's personal Christian God!
The scientific evidence for this? Well, his Bible tells him so!
ALL SCIENCE SO FAR! from the ID-Creationist crowd.
Thorton,
DeleteMay I dare point you to a few facts. Of course to do so is foolishness.
However, "science" has proposed one big bang. If so, then there are two simple possibilities:
- No first cause -- an interesting possibility,
- One first cause (possibly a group working in concert.)
"Science" holds to the view of one universal common ancestor. If so, then there are two simple possibilities:
- No first cause -- an interesting possibility,
- One first cause (possibly a group working in concert.)
The possibilities, therefore, are a single first cause agent, or first cause without an agent. A single cause of first life, whether that cause be intelligent or chance.
So, all polytheistic possibilities have been eliminated without reference to anything beyond current scientific understanding.
Hmmm.
bFast
DeleteSo, all polytheistic possibilities have been eliminated without reference to anything beyond current scientific understanding.
How is that suppose to eliminate all those other Gods and show Tedford's personal Christian God was the cause?
Evolutionists have their own theology that excludes all else. Evolutionists will not accept an unknown designer. They speak with a forked tongue again when they attempt to belittle a particular faith. It's all rhetoric. By default, evolutionists will accept NO designer (Christian or otherwise) unless perhaps, they see the designer designing. Design inference is not accepted. They demand to see the designer and will acknowledge nothing less.
ReplyDeleteThe quality of the design inference does not even rise as a serious consideration. It's empty rhetoric on their side. Design inference is not accepted under any condition. This is why evolutionists always fall back to saying, 'show us your creator'.
Something to consider. If God created the universe, He possesses a different nature (not supernatural) than our time-space universe elements. By default then, he would be invisible to us unless He made an exception to his fundamental nature. Ironically, evolutionists speculate about multiverses they can not see or detect, but not being able to see God is a show stopper for them. Millions of people have related a tangible personal experience with God. Some evolutionists may dismiss this as delusional, but they have not disproven it. They live in a world where ToE is in sad shape, but their worldview only allows them to double down on it because design inference is not allowed. The contradicting data is like the hot coffee in the morning, but they refuse to drink.
Tedford the Slow
DeleteThe quality of the design inference does not even rise as a serious consideration. It's empty rhetoric on their side. Design inference is not accepted under any condition.
Tedford, is it asking too much of you to present science's actual position without lying?
A design inference would certainly be accepted providing there is sufficient positive evidence for it. To date all you IDiots have offered is the subjective "this is too complex to have evolved so it must be designed!". Your personal incredulity isn't objective scientific evidence.
This is why evolutionists always fall back to saying, 'show us your creator'.
Another lie. Showing the Creator would be positive evidence but so would showing evidence for the mechanisms used, and the timeline, and the source of raw materials. You clowns don't have anything to offer in the way of positive evidence.
Neal Tedford said:
Delete"Millions of people have related a tangible personal experience with God. Some evolutionists may dismiss this as delusional, but they have not disproven it."
I and a bunch of my friends have a tangible, personal relationship with Fifi the pink unicorn god and the FSM. We party together in the night clubs on Venus and Mercury every Friday night, and we also often meet up with Dr. Who for trips through time and space in the Tardis.
Since neither you, nor "evolutionists", nor anyone else can disprove that, it must be true, right?
How do you reconcile belief in a unicorn god with your atheism?
DeleteNeal, you obviously missed the point.
DeleteWhen people first started seeing crop circles, they assumed that they were designed by intelligent agents. They considered the possibility that they were made by extra-terrestrials. Details like who, how, why were unknown. But nobody ever considered the possibility that crop circles weren't designed.
ReplyDeletenatschuster
DeleteWhen people first started seeing crop circles, they assumed that they were designed by intelligent agents. They considered the possibility that they were made by extra-terrestrials. Details like who, how, why were unknown.
So then what happened?
Did people start an immediate investigation into the physical mechanisms by which they were created, and the identity of the agencies likely responsible?
Or did they go "OOOOH, must be an Intelligent Designer! Let's go pass legislation to force schools to let us teach it in science classes!"
But nobody ever considered the possibility that crop circles weren't designed.
Not true at all. Wind vortexes have been known for centuries to be able to create circular patterns of downed crops. It's only when the perps started creating impressions with commonly human used symbols that people became suspicious.
""""Did people start an immediate investigation into the physical mechanisms by which they were created, and the identity of the agencies likely responsible?""""
ReplyDeleteBut the first things they did was to assume that it was designed. So the investigation into mechanisms isn't relevent.
natschuster
DeleteBut the first things they did was to assume that it was designed.
Only when the patterns started appearing with commonly used human symbols.
So the investigation into mechanisms isn't relevent.
Of course it is. The search for mechanisms began immediately. And no one with an IQ over room temperature Celsius ever though they were the work of mysterious space aliens.
And Darwin didn't know anything about the mechanisms behind mutations and such. So does that mean that ToE was invalid?
ReplyDeletenatschuster
DeleteAnd Darwin didn't know anything about the mechanisms behind mutations and such. So does that mean that ToE was invalid?
Darwin did propose a mechanism for evolution - natural selection. He just didn't know what carried forward the heritable traits.
One thing he didn't do is go "Gee, I haven't figured it all out yet so I'll just declare GAWDDIDIT!! and quit here."
Science kept right on investigating as it still does today. Creationists sit on their lazy keisters, stay ignorant, and watch everyone else do the work to understand.
Aren't there religious scientists doing research?
ReplyDeleteAccording to evolutionists and atheists, only they can do science. They own it.
Deletenatschuster
DeleteAren't there religious scientists doing research?
There aren't any who use their religion as an integral part of the actual scientific work, no.
Throaton the jackass:
DeleteThere aren't any who use their religion as an integral part of the actual scientific work, no.
What a lie. At this time, there are teams of people doing research on abiogenesis based on the purely religious belief that life arose from non-life entirely by random chance, A lot of time and money is being spent on trying to detect an intelligent signal from faraway star systems based on the religious belief that, since life can arise from dirt all by itself, then there must be millions upon millions of other bodies out there where life has evolved to the point of creating alien civilizations smart enough to have discovered how to use EM radiation for communication. It would be laughable if it weren't so pathetic. But you know me, I still laugh at morons like you.
Sir Isaac Newton's based his science on the religious belief that the perfect workings of nature are amenable to our understanding because we were created in the image of the Elohim. At the end of his life, after trying in vain to find a cause for inertial motion, Newton (erroneously, in my opinion) ascribed the cause of inertial motion to God's direct and constant intervention.
So yes, people use their religious beliefs to do science all the time. What is infuriating is seeing jackasses (like atheist propagandist and liar Throaton here) hard at work trying to convince the public that atheists and evolutionists are not a bunch of brain-dead religionists. And the assholes are almost succeeding. They have already convinced Western governments that their chicken feather voodoo religion is actually science and should be taught in school as science.
Boy, have they got an unpleasant surprise coming. I'll enjoy watching them squirm with a bag of Cheetos in one hand, a beer in the other and a smirk on my face. LOL.
All that yapping and flapping by ID-Creationisms' best and brightest, yet not one of you clowns even attempted an IDC explanation for the animals depicted in the OP and the fossil record of life for the preceding 2.5 billion years.
ReplyDeleteBig brave IDC scientists you are, ready for IDC to win the day.
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