Re: Article: Why Do We Invoke Darwin?


"William Morse" <wdmorse@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:dg2b83$e1g$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> "Robert Karl Stonjek" <rstonjek@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
> news:dfrcf6$12gd$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:
>
>> Why Do We Invoke Darwin?
>> Evolutionary theory contributes little to experimental biology
>> By Philip S. Skell
>>
>> Darwin's theory of evolution offers a sweeping explanation of the
>> history of life, from the earliest microscopic organisms billions of
>> years ago to all the plants and animals around us today. Much of the
>> evidence that might have established the theory on an unshakable
>> empirical foundation, however, remains lost in the distant past. For
>> instance, Darwin hoped we would discover transitional precursors to
>> the animal forms that appear abruptly in the Cambrian strata. Since
>> then we have found many ancient fossils - even exquisitely preserved
>> soft-bodied creatures - but none are credible ancestors to the
>> Cambrian animals.
>
> This statement is simply and clearly false. I can elaborate if anyone
> wants me to.
>
> Bill Morse

I know that intuition can be wrong. I know that what we want to believe can
be wrong. But my gut leans heavily in the direction of intuiting, and
wanting to believe, many flora and fauna merely were tiny before the
Cambrian and -- rather than coming into being during the Cambrian -- merely
grew larger. My intuition tells me the only reason hard evidence has been
hard to come by is because soft tissue fossils were preserved only in rare
edicarian strata, and because researchers did not have the current
technology that allows slicings to be made of those samples that are thin
enough to be looked through under a microscope.

For such a slicing to reveal a recognized bilaterian, it has to be one out
of thousands which fortunately divides such a tiny bilaterian laterally.
The cost in both financing and labor to get a handful of good samples is
prohibitive.

Let this grossly amateurish, abrasive, verbose, cognoscenti-bating
unintelligent one make a prediction:

Within a few years there will be a number of documented examples of
pre-Cambrian bilaterians very similar to, if not identical to, species
which, up until recently, have _seemed_ to have come out of virtually
nowhere during the Cambrian -- samples from 100,000 years before the
Cambrian.

If I am wrong, I am wrong and will gladly accept evidence to the contrary.

But, in the meantime, I would appreciate whatever 'elaboration' you have to
share that might support this
gut conviction.

If I had the opportunity, and my expenses would be covered, I would donate
time to assisting with ediacara sample gathering and slicing work. Given
some samples and the technology to slice them could be set up at a
university in the locality where I live, I would DONATE time to the grunt
work and would not
be biased, but would like to see it proved or disproved. This is because I
love science AND because I get sick to death of hearing people SPECULATE,
when they should be getting the flipping JOB done in gathering and
processing the EVIDENCE !

I think science moves ahead when at least a handful of people get out and do
something empirical, rather than just sit around and jack their jaws and
opinionize on their word processors.

g








.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Whats the Problem?
    ... I still haven't seen a good reason. ... People in Biblical times supposedly saw God. ... The evidence says the opposite. ... that evolutionary theory is incompatible with Big Bang theory. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: If ID were true, what would that tell us about the designers motives?
    ... lines of separate evidence corroborating one another"). ... the Cambrian explosion. ... Just because Wells claims that all multicellular phyla poofed into ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: bats flew before echolocation
    ... as a biological event (the evolution of numerous fairly large-bodied ... Cambrian) and the "Cambrian explosion" as a paleontological phenomenon ... Actually, Ray, it's contradictions with the evidence is what shows the ... back the overflowing waters of the Nile caused by the Flood. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: "Human" defined by Junk (non-Coding) DNA
    ... it would be expected to preserve functional sequences. ... do when deciding to accept evolutionary theory? ... and real evidence is what I will accept. ... association between function and conservation, ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Cambrian explosion bit of an embarassment
    ... is documented by a rather remarkable collection of fossil evidence. ... The Burgess Shales simply show the cambrian forms with all the listed ... I meant to say "mushrooms or plants", ... might not even be animals. ...
    (talk.origins)