How Crazy does Evolution Seem?

[Purple Knight]

This is not a question of whether or not evolution is crazy, but how crazy it seems at first glance.

That is, when we discard our experiences and look at claims as if through new eyes, what do we find when we look at evolution? I Believe we can find a great deal of common ground with this question, because when I discard my experience as an animal breeder, when I discard my knowledge, and what I've been taught, I might look at evolution with the same skepticism as someone who has either never been taught anything about it, or someone who has been taught to distrust it.

Personally my mind goes to the keratinised spines on the tongues of cats. Yes, cats have fingernails growing out of their tongues! Gross, right? Well, these particular fingernails have evolved into perfect little brushes for the animal's fur. But I think of that first animal with a horrid growth of keratin on its poor tongue. The poor thing didn't die immediately, and this fits perfectly with what I said about two steps back paying for one forward. This detrimental mutation didn't hurt the animal enough for the hapless thing to die of it, but surely it caused some suffering. And persevering thing that he was, he reproduced despite his disability (probably in a time of plenty that allowed that). But did he have the growths anywhere else? It isn't beyond reason to think of them protruding from the corners of his eyes or caking up more and more on the palms of his hands. Perhaps he had them where his eyelashes were, and it hurt him to even blink. As disturbing as my mental picture is of this scenario, this sad creature isn't even as bad off as this boar, whose tusks grew up and curled until they punctured his brain.





This is a perfect example of a detrimental trait being preserved because it doesn't hurt the animal enough to kill it before it mates. So we don't have to jump right from benefit to benefit. The road to a new beneficial trait might be long, going backwards most of the way, and filled with a lot of stabbed brains and eyelids.

Walking backwards most of the time, uphill both ways, and across caltrops almost the entire trip?

I have to admit, thinking about walking along such a path sounds like, at very least, a very depressing way to get from A to B. I would hope there would be a better way.

[Sherlock Holmes]

Good Lord, you refer to "These small shelly animals were millimeters in size" as being an ancestor of something as big as a pigeon? To show that these were ancestors is a serious challenge.

Well, you're not aware of something else...

Coeloscleritophora†
The worldwide presence of small, hollow, calcareous sclerites in numerous Precambrian and Cambrian sediments (collectively referred to as “small shellies”) was an enigmatic component of molluscan evolutionary studies. However, in the early 1990s, an articulated fossil was found in the lower Cambrian of Greenland that was covered with small shellies. It was immediately apparent that what had been thought to be the remains of individual organisms were actually parts of a single larger animal (Figure 2). Recent work in the Cambrian of Europe, Asia, and Australia has greatly expanded our knowledge of Coeloscleritophora, and although their relationship to the Mollusca remains uncertain, they likely share a common ancestry with the molluscs as well as with annelids and brachiopods.



Much, much bigger than a few millimeters. Turns out, many of the shells were plates on much larger animals. A sort of transition between animals with no exoskeletons at all, and the fully-covered or nearly fully-covered Cambrian animals.

Or the fossilized remains of a vegetable/cactus:

I have a lot of cactus growing on my property here in Arizona, let me tell ya, those spines can be pretty tough, Occam's razor anyone?

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to The Barbarian in post #884]

Well, I'm a biologist, familiar with the evidence, and a Christian myself. So I suppose that would account for it.

Well, this is interesting.

Well, then how do you believe. How do you believe that God created the universe in which we inhabit?

[Jose Fly]

Thanks. That's one of the kindest things anyone has said to me.

I'm surprised to hear that. Whenever I pop into a forum and see Barbarian is there, my first reaction is "Cool, he's got things covered". As Ren said to Stimpy....You're one of the good ones man.

[Jose Fly]

See above. Your unwillingness to investigate just got you again.

FYI, he just as much admitted that he's trolling us.

viewtopic.php?p=1069101#p1069101

I asked you if Biblical Archaeology Review is a religious or scientific journal Jose, a completely relevant question, you very obviously did not want to answer and invoked what you call "Poe's Law" as a "justification" for refusing to answer.

I reacted to that as being evidence that you had no counter argument and that I found that amusing.

You then reacted and described what I did as "trolling"; it seems that whenever you are out argued you lash out and accuse your opponent of wrongdoing, not very scientific I have to say.

Dude, when presented with the "about" statement from a religious journal that said their mission is to support the Genesis creation account and you said there was no religion in that, that was so over the top ridiculous, I invoked Poe's Law. Poe's Law is that creationists are so absurd and ridiculous that it's impossible to tell the difference between a genuine creationist and a troll posing as one and deliberately saying stupid things.

Your response to that was "Ha ha ha !! gotcha!"

That's an admission that you're either trolling or you realize that your arguments are so ridiculous as to be indistinguishable from a troll's. Either option warrants not wasting time with you.

[Sherlock Holmes]

See above. Your unwillingness to investigate just got you again.

FYI, he just as much admitted that he's trolling us.

viewtopic.php?p=1069101#p1069101

I asked you if Biblical Archaeology Review is a religious or scientific journal Jose, a completely relevant question, you very obviously did not want to answer and invoked what you call "Poe's Law" as a "justification" for refusing to answer.

I reacted to that as being evidence that you had no counter argument and that I found that amusing.

You then reacted and described what I did as "trolling"; it seems that whenever you are out argued you lash out and accuse your opponent of wrongdoing, not very scientific I have to say.

Dude, when presented with the "about" statement from a religious journal that said their mission is to support the Genesis creation account and you said there was no religion in that, that was so over the top ridiculous, I invoked Poe's Law.

Yes I gathered that, so that's why I asked about Biblical Archaeology Review to ascertain if - in your opinion - that is a religious journal, what exactly are your personal criteria for describing a journal as "religious"? because without any criteria you'll continue to conflate religion and science.

[Jose Fly]

See above. Your unwillingness to investigate just got you again.

FYI, he just as much admitted that he's trolling us.

viewtopic.php?p=1069101#p1069101

I asked you if Biblical Archaeology Review is a religious or scientific journal Jose, a completely relevant question, you very obviously did not want to answer and invoked what you call "Poe's Law" as a "justification" for refusing to answer.

I reacted to that as being evidence that you had no counter argument and that I found that amusing.

You then reacted and described what I did as "trolling"; it seems that whenever you are out argued you lash out and accuse your opponent of wrongdoing, not very scientific I have to say.

Dude, when presented with the "about" statement from a religious journal that said their mission is to support the Genesis creation account and you said there was no religion in that, that was so over the top ridiculous, I invoked Poe's Law.

Yes I gathered that, so that's why I asked about Biblical Archaeology Review to ascertain if - in your opinion - that is a religious journal, what exactly are your personal criteria for describing a journal as "religious"? because without any criteria you'll continue to conflate religion and science.

You're missing the point. You as much admitted that you're either a troll or are indistinguishable from one. I've no interest in discussing anything with such a person.

[Sherlock Holmes]

See above. Your unwillingness to investigate just got you again.

FYI, he just as much admitted that he's trolling us.

viewtopic.php?p=1069101#p1069101

I asked you if Biblical Archaeology Review is a religious or scientific journal Jose, a completely relevant question, you very obviously did not want to answer and invoked what you call "Poe's Law" as a "justification" for refusing to answer.

I reacted to that as being evidence that you had no counter argument and that I found that amusing.

You then reacted and described what I did as "trolling"; it seems that whenever you are out argued you lash out and accuse your opponent of wrongdoing, not very scientific I have to say.

Dude, when presented with the "about" statement from a religious journal that said their mission is to support the Genesis creation account and you said there was no religion in that, that was so over the top ridiculous, I invoked Poe's Law.

Yes I gathered that, so that's why I asked about Biblical Archaeology Review to ascertain if - in your opinion - that is a religious journal, what exactly are your personal criteria for describing a journal as "religious"? because without any criteria you'll continue to conflate religion and science.

You're missing the point. You as much admitted that you're either a troll or are indistinguishable from one. I've no interest in discussing anything with such a person.

Please do not accuse me of wrongdoing just because I challenged something you said.

[The Barbarian]

[Replying to The Barbarian in post #884]

Well, I'm a biologist, familiar with the evidence, and a Christian myself. So I suppose that would account for it.

Well, this is interesting.

Well, then how do you believe. How do you believe that God created the universe in which we inhabit?

I'm inclined to see it as St. Augustine did. There was a moment of supernatural creation, in which God said "let there be light", from which the universe then proceeded as He willed to do when He created it. Notice that this is not deism; God remained intimately involved with every particle of the universe, but He used nature to do it.

This is consistent with scripture and with the evidence.

[The Barbarian]

Good Lord, you refer to "These small shelly animals were millimeters in size" as being an ancestor of something as big as a pigeon? To show that these were ancestors is a serious challenge.

Well, you're not aware of something else...

Coeloscleritophora†
The worldwide presence of small, hollow, calcareous sclerites in numerous Precambrian and Cambrian sediments (collectively referred to as “small shellies”) was an enigmatic component of molluscan evolutionary studies. However, in the early 1990s, an articulated fossil was found in the lower Cambrian of Greenland that was covered with small shellies. It was immediately apparent that what had been thought to be the remains of individual organisms were actually parts of a single larger animal (Figure 2). Recent work in the Cambrian of Europe, Asia, and Australia has greatly expanded our knowledge of Coeloscleritophora, and although their relationship to the Mollusca remains uncertain, they likely share a common ancestry with the molluscs as well as with annelids and brachiopods.



Much, much bigger than a few millimeters. Turns out, many of the shells were plates on much larger animals. A sort of transition between animals with no exoskeletons at all, and the fully-covered or nearly fully-covered Cambrian animals.

Or the fossilized remains of a vegetable/cactus:

I have a lot of cactus growing on my property here in Arizona, let me tell ya, those spines can be pretty tough, Occam's razor anyone?

So, you've changed your story yet again. Now they aren't "millimeter sized", but you think they are plants.

You'd have an argument if cacti were animals (traces of cholesterol in Ediacaran fossils show them to be animals) and cactus spines were made of calcium and chitin, and if vascular plants existed at that time, and were deep sea organisms. But of course, none of that is true. These primitive animals have traits transitional to both mollusks and arthropods. As you read in the links. Precisely what you were telling us could not exist.

You've fallen for the creationist notion that "looks like" must mean "related."

Near the end of the Ediacaran, life started to ramp up its pace. In Russia, a slab of microbial mat was found covered in patches, grazed on by a creature capable of movement. The culprit was a disc-shaped animal named Yorgia.

Growing up to 25cm (10in) wide, this creature was no bigger than a dinner plate. It sported rib-like structures that radiated from a central line with a head-like structure at the front. The exact feeding method is yet to be known, but some specimens of Yorgia’s likely relative called Dickinsonia have been found with internal structures that resembled a digestive system.

In the same locality, a different animal was found with evidences of grazing activities. Kimberella resembled a slug and has often been found near marks that resemble the feeding traces of more modern slugs and snails.

Despite its seemingly simple body plan, Kimberella differed enough from the rest of the organisms living alongside it. This indicates that around 555 million years ago, 14 million years before the beginning of the Cambrian, life had started to evolve into various shapes and lifestyles.

https://eartharchives.org/articles/the- ... index.html



This guy, from the late Ediacaran, is mostly soft-bodied, but has a few armored spots. Looks a lot like the early Cambrian Hallucigenia. Again precisely what you claimed could not be.

[Jose Fly]

Please do not accuse me of wrongdoing just because I challenged something you said.

I accused you of wrongdoing because you admitted to it ("Ha ha ha !! gotcha!").