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]

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?

In short, No. The question was to show images credibly connecting Tommotia with Trilobites, you proposed Tommotia as being the possible origin of hard shelly body parts, remember? in this post.

As for spriggina that is already bilateral with hard body parts and segmentation and strangely never found in strata where we find Cambrian fossils like Trilobites and seem to only have ever been found in Australia.

Your images above could all possibly just be variants of some kind, like hawks, parrots and pigeons are all birds.

[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?

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?

We can look at the DNA of existing members of each phylum to see what relationships are. DNA phylogenies give something like this:


Which is consistent with the transitional forms in the fossil record.

[Sherlock Holmes]

Deleted duplicate post.

[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?

We can look at the DNA of existing members of each phylum to see what relationships are. DNA phylogenies give something like this:


Which is consistent with the transitional forms in the fossil record.

I see, so we have no actual genetic material from the Cambrian at all.

Genetic similarities are not evidence of common ancestry either, they are consistent with common ancestry if we assume evolution occurs but can't serve as evidence for evolution when evolution is predicated upon it. I've seen people make this logical error before, its understandable too because the incessant "evolution is a fact" has been drummed into all of since we were knee high to a grasshopper.

IF evolution is true THEN we expect genetic similarities in organism in related branches therefore IF we see genetic similarities in pairs of organisms THEN they can conclude they are indeed related - illogical.

[The Barbarian]

In short, No. The question was to show images credibly connecting Tommotia with Trilobites, you proposed Tommotia as being the possible origin of hard shelly body parts, remember? in this post.

No, you were imagining that the small shelly fauna parts were individual organisms. As you now realize they aren't. They are just parts of larger organisms. But as you now realize the body plan of trilobites existed before the Cambrian. See above.

As for spriggina that is already bilateral

Yeah, arthropods evolved from bilateral organisms. Did you forget what I showed you?

with hard body parts

What makes you think Spriggina had hard body parts?

and segmentation and strangely never found in strata where we find Cambrian fossils like Trilobites

In fact, trilobitomorph arthropods like parvancorina exist on both sides of the Ediacaran/Cambrian.

and seem to only have ever been found in Australia.

And again, you've misled yourself with assumptions...

The rapid increase in abundance, size, complexity and diversity of life forms during this time shows that the earth underwent a period of major evolutionary change. Around 30 other Ediacara localities are now known globally including sites in Namibia, Russia, Newfoundland, Canada, UK and Siberia. Some of the greatest examples of this ancient biodiversity are found in Australia and Russia.

https://www.awe.gov.au/parks-heritage/h ... l/ediacara

Your images above could all possibly just be variants of some kind, like hawks, parrots and pigeons are all birds.

That's what evolution does. They are all trilobitomorphs. Some are just later and more evolved, with hard body parts, extensive tagmosis, etc. The later ones are true trilobites.

[The Barbarian]

What genetic information do you have from the Cambrian?

We can look at the DNA of existing members of each phylum to see what relationships are. DNA phylogenies give something like this:


Which is consistent with the transitional forms in the fossil record.

I see, so we have no actual genetic material from the Cambrian at all.

Thought you realized that. All we can do is look at the descendants of those phyla and see what their genetics will tell us. As you see, genetics confirms what the fossil record says.

Genetic similarities are not evidence of common ancestry either,

We can test that with organisms of known descent. Turns out, they are evidence of common descent.

they are consistent with common ancestry if we assume evolution occurs

You don't need that assumption. It works for organisms of the same species, too. Jerry Springer, and all that, for example.

If merely confirms evidence from other independent sources.

[Sherlock Holmes]

What genetic information do you have from the Cambrian?

We can look at the DNA of existing members of each phylum to see what relationships are. DNA phylogenies give something like this:


Which is consistent with the transitional forms in the fossil record.

I see, so we have no actual genetic material from the Cambrian at all.

Thought you realized that. All we can do is look at the descendants of those phyla and see what their genetics will tell us. As you see, genetics confirms what the fossil record says.

Genetic similarities are not evidence of common ancestry either,

We can test that with organisms of known descent. Turns out, they are evidence of common descent.

How can you prove, that because true common descent leads to some common genes then any common genes are definitely due to common descent?

You can only do that if you can prove there is absolutely no other way for organisms to have common genes except for common descent but you cannot prove that.

Logic is my profession.

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to The Barbarian in post #928]

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.

So are you saying that God could have created the universe in six days and He just chose to use deep time instead?

So again, it seems that you are a subscriber to higher criticism then.

[The Barbarian]

What genetic information do you have from the Cambrian?

We can look at the DNA of existing members of each phylum to see what relationships are. DNA phylogenies give something like this:


Which is consistent with the transitional forms in the fossil record.

I see, so we have no actual genetic material from the Cambrian at all.

Thought you realized that. All we can do is look at the descendants of those phyla and see what their genetics will tell us. As you see, genetics confirms what the fossil record says.

Genetic similarities are not evidence of common ancestry either,

We can test that with organisms of known descent. Turns out, they are evidence of common descent.

How can you prove, that because true common descent leads to some common genes then any common genes are definitely due to common descent?

Because, in cases where we can actually check, there has never been a case of a DNA phylogeny not being due to common descent. It's kinda like asking how I can prove that if I let go of a ball, it will fall to the ground. It just always does.

You can only do that if you can prove there is absolutely no other way for organisms to have common genes except for common descent but you cannot prove that.

You can't prove that all the oxygen molecules won't diffuse to the other side of the room and suffocate you. Just in case you were wondering, it's never going to happen, although it's not impossible.

Logic is my profession.

Pity they never taught you about induction. And yes, there are inductive proofs.

[The Barbarian]

[Replying to The Barbarian in post #928]

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.

So are you saying that God could have created the universe in six days and He just chose to use deep time instead?

So the evidence indicates. God being truth, I don't buy the story that it's faked.

So again, it seems that you are a subscriber to higher criticism then.

St. Augustine never heard of "higher criticism." He merely noted that where scripture was not clearly supporting any particular thing, we should be very careful not to add our own ideas to it, and we should be willing to revise our ideas if new information became available. You're probably thinking of what is now called "textual criticism." You see it in creationist organizations like "Answers in Genesis" for example when they point out that the development of new species from older species is not anywhere denied in Scripture.