Friday, May 27, 2011

The Evolution of Mat-Hugging

Did early multicellular animal life obtain its oxygen from floating microbial mats? Oxygen would have been scarce and this raises questions of how early animal life could have evolved. Evolutionists are now speculating that mats of photosynthetic bacteria might have supplied local high concentrations of oxygen:

Modern atmospheric oxygen levels average around 0.21 atm, but when multicellular life was evolving, levels of around 0.10 atm would have been the norm — too low for most multicellular organisms. "Daily fluctuations in oxygen would have made it very difficult for animals other than simple creatures like sponges to exist," explains Jim Gehling, a palaeontologist at the South Australian Museum in Adelaide.

Gingras and his colleagues propose that the mats had a key role in helping early animals to get the oxygen they needed. "We think that animals used the small but highly oxygenated zones as oases," says Murray.

But even this idea has its challenges. Night time oxygen levels would have been too low and large animals might have had difficulty accessing the oxygen in the narrow mats. Perhaps, Gingras hypothesizes, evolution solved these problems with “mat-hugging behaviours.”

This sort of unfounded speculation is typical in evolutionary theory. It brings a creative, story-telling, element into science, where unlikely scenarios with little empirical support are routinely set forth as though they are genuine scientific explanations.

And, as in this example, these just-so stories often entail substantial serendipity. In this case, the evolution of multicellular animals is made possible by the earlier evolution of particular microbial mats and special mat-hugging behaviors.

Evolution must have first produced the needed lagoons, photosynthetic bacteria, and mat structures to set the stage. Then came multicellularity that just happened to have nearby mats available. Even with all this, however, problems remained. Evolution luckily just happened to produce the much-needed mat-hugging behavior. It was sheer luck (remember, evolution has no brains), but when that behavior happened to arise, it must have been wildly successful.

This, then, is science in the hands of evolutionists—a vehicle for story-telling. Religion drives science, and it matters.

9 comments:

  1. Not sure what your argument here is, if any.

    If a designer created multicellular life at this time, they would still have to exist in in the same low oxygen levels you appealing to.

    Are you suggesting that multicellular life didn't exist at a particular time? If not, please explain to us as to exactly how the designer solved this same "problem" your appealing to.

    Here's a hint. That the designer designed a solution isn't an explanation.

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  2. Scott:

    The Designer designed multicellular life with mat hugging behavior.

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  3. natschuster said...

    Scott:

    The Designer designed multicellular life with mat hugging behavior.


    How do you know that nat? Where you there to see it?

    According to your twisted view, if science doesn't observed something occurring in real time then it never happened. Right?

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  4. Nat,

    Why would the designer pick this particular solution, rather than say, design the environment so it contains more oxygen? Or it could have created multicellular life so it didn't require as much oxygen.

    On the other hand, evolution doesn't have a choice since it lacks "brains" (whatever that means).

    In fact, unless you've willing to limit the designer's abilities, it would seem a near infinite number of solutions could have been selected. Why this particular solution?

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  5. Scott:

    If multiverse is true, then there are other universes where other solutions have been tried.

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  6. Scott

    your second post here...excellent questions.I wonder about them myself.
    I also wonder why are we in these bio-suits?

    Anyway, I hope Cornelius can help here.

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  7. Scott: In fact, unless you've willing to limit the designer's abilities, it would seem a near infinite number of solutions could have been selected. Why this particular solution?

    Nat: If multiverse is true, then there are other universes where other solutions have been tried.

    Which again appears to be a convoluted elaboration of evolutionary theory.

    The multiversse is not "silly" or "unlikely" if used by God to explore his infinite options?

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  8. Eugne,

    That requires the assumption that Cornelius actually wants to help. However, it's far from clear the is the case.

    Wouldn't hold my breath waiting for an explanation.

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  9. Scott:

    Here's a hint. That the Darwinists make up stories of an imaginary solution isn't an explanation.

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