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.

[The Barbarian]

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

Pretty much identifies a troll. But he's a useful troll. Think of all the important aspects of evolution that were presented here, in response to his denials. From ancient times, such dialogues have illuminated scientific principles. Simplicio is as important as Sagredo.

[Sherlock Holmes]

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!").

You clearly did not understand what that means then. It means "This is funny, you imply you have criteria for designating a publication as "religious" yet when I ask you tell me if some other specific publication is religious, all of a sudden you have no criteria and avoid answering my question!".

That is "gotcha" is akin to checkmate in Chess, you have no moves left, but so be it, as you requested, I too will ignore any further posts from you.

[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?

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.

I think what we really need to see is a list of real fossils - ideally pictures - that demonstrate a credible continuity between Tommotians and say Trilobites, if you have such a list let us all see it and if you have a list of pictures even better.

You are the one who introduced Coeloscleritophora and as I said it doesn't seem to fit between these two kinds of organisms, so less of the endless speculative talk and lets see some credible visual evidence?

What do you believe lies between these:



and these:



Is this an unreasonable question?

[Sherlock Holmes]

Let's pause for a moment to remind ourselves too of the scale of the problem here:

The abrupt first appearance of a multitude of animal fossils in early Cambrian rocks (Terreneuvian to Series 2; ca. 541–509 Ma) epitomizes one of the most significant evolutionary events in Earth’s history (1). This sudden burst of diversity and abundance across most eumetazoan (especially bilaterian) phyla over a relatively short geologic time span, and lack of obvious Precambrian precursors, poses a conundrum when attempting to reconcile the fossil record with the true tempo of early animal evolution.

The ongoing absence of credible ancestral fossils together with no reasonable explanation for that absence has led to the view that the rate of evolution was much more rapid than previously assumed, what a great way to "explain" the Cambrian explosion, see above how it presents a problem to "reconcile" the fossil record with the expected rate of change. No mention of the common defense "but conditions for fossilization were likely no good at the time" or "yes but the precursors likely had soft bodies and won't have been fossilized" and other glib "explanations".

Fast evolutionary rates [/b]during the early Cambrian have been used to explain the rapid emergence of animals, providing support for a more literal reading of the fossil record. Evidence consistent with the radiation of animals within a short time period (∼20 Ma) includes radiometric ages that have refined the Cambrian timescale (e.g., ref. 6), as well as elevated rates of phenotypic and genomic evolution (7, 8). Rapid morphological and molecular evolution during the earliest Cambrian almost certainly underpinned the pronounced pulses of origination and diversification throughout the Terreneuvian (3, 9, 10). However, the question remains as to when evolutionary rates slowed to Phanerozoic norms, thus marking the end of the Cambrian explosion.

Basically we can't find evidence because it all happened too fast to leave much evidence (the argument ultimate being we don't actually need evidence to believe Trilobites evolved).

Trilobite Evolution.

[Jose Fly]

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

Pretty much identifies a troll. But he's a useful troll. Think of all the important aspects of evolution that were presented here, in response to his denials. From ancient times, such dialogues have illuminated scientific principles. Simplicio is as important as Sagredo.

Very true and good point.

[The Barbarian]

Let's pause for a moment to remind ourselves too of the scale of the problem here:

The large number of transitional forms you've seen here between the Ediacaran and the Cambrian points out the fallacy of creationism. If creationism were true in any respect, we wouldn't see those. Would you like me to show you some of them, again?

The ongoing presence of credible ancestral fossils together with genetic, embyrological and biochemical data has shown the primary cause of the "explosion" to have been the evolution of full-body exoskeletons from partially-covered ancestors in the Ediacaran. Should I show you that, again?

[Sherlock Holmes]

Let's pause for a moment to remind ourselves too of the scale of the problem here:

The large number of transitional forms you've seen here between the Ediacaran and the Cambrian points out the fallacy of creationism. If creationism were true in any respect, we wouldn't see those. Would you like me to show you some of them, again?

How many is this "large number"? yes, I'd like to see the images listed vertically showing a credible development of a Cambrian animal from the Tommotians that you talked about.

The ongoing presence of credible ancestral fossils together with genetic, embyrological and biochemical data has shown the primary cause of the "explosion" to have been the evolution of full-body exoskeletons from partially-covered ancestors in the Ediacaran. Should I show you that, again?

What genetic information do you have from the Cambrian?

[otseng]

Pretty much identifies a troll. But he's a useful troll. Think of all the important aspects of evolution that were presented here, in response to his denials. From ancient times, such dialogues have illuminated scientific principles. Simplicio is as important as Sagredo.

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[The Barbarian]

I think what we really need to see is a list of real fossils - ideally pictures - that demonstrate a credible continuity between Tommotians and say Trilobites, if you have such a list let us all see it and if you have a list of pictures even better.

You are the one who introduced Coeloscleritophora and as I said it doesn't seem to fit between these two kinds of organisms,

As you learned, they have characteristics ancestral to both mollusks and arthropods. Again, what creationists say cannot exist.

What do you believe lies between these:

You mean these Ediacaran organisms...


and these:



to these?



Look pretty much transitional, don't they? Since you've pretty much gone with the creationist idea that "looks like" is the same thing as ancestral, you've got a problem explaining these rather similar organisms, and the evolutionary trend they show.

Is this an unreasonable question?

Trilobites and their allied groups are rather extensive and complex. Not nearly as simple as you seem to think. Learn more about it here:
http://www.trilobites.info/triloclass.htm

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to The Barbarian in post #886]

Oh! Good ole Schleiermacher and his higher criticism we can thank for the swiftness that evolution and deep time infiltrated the church, but there was still textualist. You seem to be saying that textualism was dead. Textualism was not dead because it reasserted itself in the fundamentalist movement of the early 1900th century. In fact, 20th-century theology was basically a rejection of higher criticism and liberal theology. That is why there was a movement back to 6-day creation.

If you are a Christian then how much of a higher critic are you. Do you believe that Jesus rose from the dead? Because I contend that a person cannot be a Chrisitan and not believe that Jesus rose from the dead.