NEWSFLASH: Schools In Georgia (US) Are Allowed To Teach About Creation

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Originally posted by Ahmad:

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So irreducible complexity in living organisms cannot be understood? Is that a primitive view, as you state it? I rather doubt. The very phrase [b][i]Irreducible Complexity[/b][/i] explains its meaning, i.e, something that CANNOT be further simplified. For more info, read Michael Behe's book, "Darwin's black box".

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Irreducible complexity has NEVER been demonstrated in the genome. Never, not once, not even Behe showed it. You seem to be talking as if IC is a fact, it isn't.

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Recent discovery??? Sorry, but you just blew your credibility off the board. Besides, evolution easily accomodates this 'explosion' that was really not an explosion. You are way behind the curve on this one. .........

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Since I did not blow my credibility off the board, your accusation is moot. Getting back to the subject, Darwin himself admitted that his theory CANNOT explain cambrian explosion (Origin of Species — 2nd ed. Chapter IX). And this, indeed, is an explosion in the sense that it was an abrupt appearance of most of the complex invertebrates present in the fossil record.

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Well if Darwin knew of the Cambrian explosion, it wasn't a recent discovery then, was it? The Cambrian explosion is almost as old as fossils. The Cambrian explosion poses a "problem", in that the "whole organism" paleontological evidence shows a rapid burst of change. The timescale still numbers in the several millions of years, however. There are numerous evidences of metazoans in the pre-cambrian, burrows & other trace fossils for example. Plus molecular evidence places the explosion before the Cambrian too. The real time taken to go from worm to trilobite is unknown.Mark------------------
Occam's razor is not for shaving with.

Edge,

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Now, if all of the invertebrates in the fossil record appeared in the Cambrian, where are the pelecypods? The starfish? Nautiloids? It seems there are a few missing. Why is that?

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Not to mention the Bryozoans. An entire phyla bowled up at five past Ordovician. You can imagine their embarrassment, God throws a 6 day party & they turn up 50 million years late!Mark------------------
Occam's razor is not for shaving with.

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Originally posted by Ahmad:

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IC is evident in organisms. And it has been shown in the genome. It has been show that whenever hsp70(protein) was present in a genome, hsp40 and grpE were also found if enough sequencing was done; conversely, genome sequencing has demonstrated that if the hsp70 gene is absent, hsp40 and grpE are also absent. Now that shows that the presence of hsp70 is irreducibly complex. The bacterial flagellum (as a good example in Behe's book) is an example of IC.

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None of the above have been DEMONSTRATED to be IC. Can you provide ANY scientific literature that concludes ANY genetic structure or sequence is IC? Do you know why?You can believe in IC all you like, but without the ability to test the hypothesis it is merely wishful thinking. How can you have evidence for an untestable hypothesis? Answer; You can't, it's circular. Therefore IC isn't evident AT ALL.

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So an explosion of complex living organism like the trilobites justify the evolutionary theory of slow gradual change of living organism?? Mind the phrase used in geological literature, "Cambrian EXPLOSION" not "gradual evolution by natural selection or random mutation" as coined by Darwin. .

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Fine, you tell ME how long the Cambrian explosion took. I think you'll finfd it's a tad longer than you think.

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These complex invertebrates emerged suddenly and completely without having any link or any transitional form between them and the unicellular organisms, which were the only life forms on earth prior to them.

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Incorrect. http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/postmonth/oct96.html

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E == early, M == middle, L == late

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Silurian
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L. Ord. (Vertebrates, Fish)
M. Ord. (different trilobites)
E. Ordovician (different trilobites)
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L.Camb. (different trilobites)
(euconodonts (chordates))

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M.Camb. (different trilobites)
(non-"sea urchin" echinoderms)
(plenty of other invertebrates)
(halkierids, soft-bodied "transitional" chordates)

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E.Camb (first trilobites)
(small shellies, including
armoured bits of lobopods)
(trace fossils)

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Upper [b][i]pre-cambrian[/b][/i] (BEFORE THE CAMBRIAN EXPLOSION!!!)

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"worms", probable "flatworms", cnidarians
(i.e. jellyfish relatives), "segmented
worms", possible ancient deuterostomes
of the Ediacara fauna.

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(transitional fossils?)

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a few small "blobby" multicellular
remains (e.g., see Hofmann, 1985)
hard to tell if animal or plant
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more single and multicellular "algae"
and bacteria in mid Precambrian
sediments, including stromatolites
more metamorphic and igneous rocks
eventually unfossiliferous

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[quote]So now, are you going to toss Gould's alternative theory of punctuated equilibria or just admit that this explosion, which occured 500 milliion years ago poses a great dilemma for they theory of evolution? [/B][/QUOTE]No one is saying that evolution never proceeded at a rattling good pace. Just that an "explosion" is seen by many creationists to be instantaneous, when in fact, many millions of years elapse, & that's before you factor in the Precambrian faunas.On a related note, how do you rationalise the Cambrian explosion with your version of special creation, given metazoans exist before the "explosion"?Finally;

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What are the alternative theories for this abrupt appreance??

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If a new extant species is discovered tomorrow, did it appear abruptly?Mark------------------
Occam's razor is not for shaving with.[This message has been edited by mark24, 11-09-2002][This message has been edited by mark24, 11-09-2002][This message has been edited by mark24, 11-09-2002]

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I doubt that. When Dawkins himself admits that the organism in the Cambrian era were "just planted there without any evolutionary history", ...

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Ahmad,& the next line reads "Needless to say, this appearance of sudden planting has delighted creationists." So, Dawkins clearly ISN'T saying that they WERE planted there, just that they appear to be, & this paragraph has to be taken in a wider context, also.This sort of misquote/misrepresentation is salt & pepper to the main creationist organisations.

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I repeat: abrupt appearance of complex living organisms ALL AT ONCE.

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You would be wrong, not all complex living organisms appeared ALL AT ONCE. There is evidence abungo of complex living organisms appearing in the Precambrian, such as cnidarians, & after the Cambrian, namely the bryozoans (Ordovician), & this is just the metazoans.Of course, your statement is patently incorrect if taken literally since the dinosaurs don't turn up until the Triassic, & humans until very recently, for example, but I'll assume you mean "higher taxa" when you say "complex living organisms".What are the implications for your paradigm when all higher taxa (phyla) DON'T appear all at once? If you are going to use the appearances of major taxa in the Cambrian in support of your argument, it seems reasonable that you should accept appearances of major taxa outside of the Cambrian, non?In fact, there are no out of order fossils at all, & there is a progressive increase in complexity during the Precambrian; prokaryotes, eukaryotes, & multicellular organisms. Of the multicellular organisms, major bodyplans appear before, during, & after the Cambrian explosion. How so?Please respond to message 45.Thanks,Mark------------------
Occam's razor is not for shaving with.[This message has been edited by mark24, 11-11-2002]

Ahmad,

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Mark:
None of the above have been DEMONSTRATED to be IC. Can you provide ANY scientific literature that concludes ANY genetic structure or sequence is IC? Do you know why?

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Ahmad:
Your approach to respond to my argument is quite sarcastic. I provided scientific about how the presense of hsp70 in the genome is irreducibly complex. For scientific literature go here >> http://www.arn.org/docs/behe/mb_mg1darwinianpathways.htm

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Where was the sarcasm?I have read the actual paper (http://nsmserver2.fullerton.edu/...reation/web/Thornhill.pdf), & find no support for IC structures as defined by creationists. That is, a structure such that at least one of its components is essential, with its loss rendering the whole structure absolutely nonfunctional. Meaning that the structure had to have been designed, & could not have evolved (or some such).Thornhill & Ussery take care to define IC as:

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The quality of a structure such that at least one of its components is essential, with its loss rendering the whole structure absolutely nonfunctional.
functional structures.

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Your cite agrees with me that T&U’s definition of IC differs from Behes.I have no problem with your cites definition, except that IC cannot arise by evolutionary mechanisms. Perhaps I should have more accurately stated the question as;Can you provide any scientific literature that concludes that no IC structure can have evolved? The ORIGINAL SOURCE for your cite explicitly provides a general mechanism in order to explain the above IC using their definition, & certainly doesn’t conclude the opposite.

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Mark:
You can believe in IC all you like, but without the ability to test the hypothesis it is merely wishful thinking.

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Ahmad:
Once again, sarcasm. Why don't you respond to my arguments with empirical evidence instead of sheer sarcams which does no benefit to our dialog whatsoever.

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Once again, where was the sarcasm?

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IC is not a hypothesis, it is evident. I gave you the examples.

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IC (as creationists define it) most definitely ISN’T evident. If it were, you would be able to produce a paper that concludes that an IC structure couldn’t evolve. Let us not get hung on definitions, unless I explicitly state otherwise, I will be using the creationist meaning of IC, that is, that an IC system cannot have evolved. This contention has NEVER been demonstrated, it is therefore NOT evident.

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Mark:
Fine, you tell ME how long the Cambrian explosion took. I think you'll finfd it's a tad longer than you think.

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Hmmm....... 53 million years?

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My point precisely, hardly an explosion. Not all the organisms appear at the base of the explosion, do they?

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Mark:
Incorrect. http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/postmonth/oct96.html

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Talk origins is behind date. Fossils recently found challenge the rapid animal evolution in the cambrian period as talk origins claims >> http://news.nationalgeographic.com/...7/0719_crustacean.html
In short, they are wrong

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Ahmad, do you read your own cites?You claim to have refuted my argument that the Cambrian explosion was an event taking millions of years? Your cite agrees with me.

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Now, two well-preserved fossils half a millimeter (one-fiftieth of an inch) long of crustaceansancient relatives to crabs, shrimp, and lobstersfound in 511 million-year-old limestone deposits in Shropshire, England, lend credence to the theory that a long evolutionary fuse preceded the Cambrian explosion.

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Mark:
No one is saying that evolution never proceeded at a rattling good pace. Just that an "explosion" is seen by many creationists to be instantaneous, when in fact, many millions of years elapse, & that's before you factor in the Precambrian faunas.

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Ahmad:
Once again, your argument is dated.

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Nope, see above, noting lend credence to the theory that a long evolutionary fuse preceded the Cambrian explosion.Furthermore, it is not dated, since it has long been known that highly derived trilobites appear at the earliest strata of the CE. And, as I have noted, & you have failed to respond, metazoans pre-date the explosion by a considerable period.

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Mark: On a related note, how do you rationalise the Cambrian explosion with your version of special creation, given metazoans exist before the "explosion"?

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Ahmad:
existed before? The very first appearance of metazoans took place during the Camnrian era.

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Wrong.The ediacarans are multicellular animals that lived in the upper proterozoic. True, there is debate as to whether they are metazoans or parazoans, but the fact remains that multicellular animals existed in the Precambrian.Shelly fossils, true metazoans, commonly called the Tommotian fauna existed in the Precambrian 570 mya, pre-dating the Cambrian by 30 million years. Also cnidarians are true metazoans & have representatives in the Precambrian.http://www.uwsp.edu/...hefferan/Geol106/CLASS5/TOMMOTIAN.htm

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Tommotion Fauna existed at the base of the Cambrian and were marked by small shelly fossils, on the order of millimeters in scale. This fauna, which existed 570-560 Ma were fundamentally important in that they represented metazoans containing the first known hard parts and were the predecessors to the phyla of the Cambrian Explosion.

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A Vendian Scene (Ediacara & cnidarians, themselves a metazoan phyla), yesterday. What does this remind you of? A trilobite? Would you be surprised to learn that this fossil predates the Cambrian by 20 million years plus?Spriggina"Spriggina was described as an annelid (segmented worm), but it now appears to be related to the arthropods, although Spriggina had no hard parts, and it is unclear exactly what kind of appendages it had. Compare it to our pictures of trilobites and see what you think!"It is important to note that the Cambrian onset was 543 mya, & was recently placed at this juncture to mark the onset of the Cambrian explosion. Anything before 543 mya was before the Cambrian explosion.

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Mark:If a new extant species is discovered tomorrow, did it appear abruptly?

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Ahmad: That would depend once we investigate the origin of the species

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You miss the point. You are insisting on appearances of fossils as being abrupt/instant in the fossil record, so following the same logic, a new discovery of a species must mean the same thing, right? The organism was created on the day of its discovery, what else could explain the fact that it has never been seen before?Mark------------------
Occam's razor is not for shaving with.

Ahmed,

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IC is evident.

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No, it isn't. IC (that cannot evolve) is a hypothesis, & an as yet untested one. For the record, I have no problem with IC as defined as "the quality of a structure such that at least one of its components is essential, with its loss rendering the whole structure absolutely nonfunctional". What I do have a problem with is your claim that this is EVIDENTLY UNEVOLVABLE. You simply don't know.By stating IC is evident you are making a circular argument. That is to say, the conclusion is the same as the premise.Let me put it another way. You believe there are IC systems that cannot evolve, right? This is your hypothesis, not your evidence. In order to test the hypothesis you are claiming that IC is evident. How? NO ONE HAS EVER DEMONSTRATED THE NON-EVOLVABILITY OF IC, so how can it possibly be evident? Therefore, in order to support/test your hypothesis, you need to show that it is IMPOSSIBLE for such a thing to occur. Can you? This is the only way we are going to get a deductive, objective answer.So far all you have done is cite an article that uses a paper that ACTUALLY proposes a mechanism for IC systems to evolve. This supports my contention, not yours. In science, a hypothesis is NOT self evident, it is circular, & a logical fallacy.

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It is observable. It has been found in ATP synthase molecule, the hsp70 genome, cilia, bacterial flagellum etc. Regarding your last statement, there is no proof for any evolutionary pathway for blood clotting, is there?

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It is YOU who are contending that these systems are unevolvable, not me. The burden of evidence is on you to support the unevolvable IC hypothesis, not me. Another logical fallacy; shifting the burden of proof.Actually, Doolittle provided a plausible scenario for the evolution of the clotting cascade, but I'm buggered if I can find it at the moment. Anyone?In summary;If you are going to make the non-evolvability of IC scientific, then you need a testable, falsifiable hypothesis. You need to present evidence that supports that hypothesis (& not just systems that fall apart if one aspect is removed, but the non-evolvable part).Non-evolvability of IC systems is not self evident.Mark------------------
Occam's razor is not for shaving with.

PE, All,Thank you for the Doolittle cites.SPUUUUURS ARE ON THEIR WAY TO WEMBLEY !(well y'know what I mean, PE ) THE BOYS ARE GONNA DOO IT AGAIN..........After that Chas n Dave rendition, I feel the need for some molluscs soaked in vinegar.Curiously, Joz, who is now an intermittent poster here (unfortunately), was a Spurs boy too. There clearly is a statistics defying link between Tottenham Hotspur & intelligence (he says, crossing his fingers). I invite you to visit Highbury on a saturday afternoon to see the control sample .Mark------------------
Occam's razor is not for shaving with.[This message has been edited by mark24, 11-11-2002]

Ahmad,Regarding IC

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It has been shown again and again, how certain systems are irredubily complex. You can start by reading Behe's book.

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As I have explained, I am not arguing that systems don’t exist where the removal of one component renders the system useless. They do. What I [I][b]AM[/I][/b] arguing that there is no scientific support (scientific papers published in peer reviewed journals) that supports the contention that these systems couldn’t evolve. IDists have to provide POSITIVE (that means claims that such & such couldn’t have happened are NOT acceptable) evidence that IC cannot evolve.A scientists opinion alone counts for nought in science.IC (creationist definition) is not science, & has NEVER had POSITIVE evidence presented in its support.

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Exactly. I don't know if you have read the article also by Thornhill, R.H., Ussery, D.W. 2000. "A classification of possible routes of Darwinian evolution." J. Theor. Bio. 203: 111-116.

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That was the article I meant. It provides no evidence of creationist IC. They define IC differently to Behe, & as such you shouldn’t get excited when you read the IC in this paper. In fact, they provide plausible mechanisms for the evolution of IC systems, so it seems an odd choice of literature with which to support your position.

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How can an IC structure evolve, in the first place? According to Behe's definition, it is impossible.

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No, it isn’t. Read your own cite. Thornhill, R.H., Ussery, D.W. 2000. "A classification of possible routes of Darwinian evolution." J. Theor. Bio. 203: 111-116.

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SO the key point here is: "ALL COMPONENTS OF THE SYSTEM HAS TO BE PRESENT".

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No, they don’t. Read your own cite.

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http://www.arn.org/behe/mb_ic.htm << Read some examples of IC and then you'll know how it is evideny.

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I don’t appear to be making myself clear. Your hypothesis suggests that IC systems (as Ussery & Thornhill define it) cannot evolve. Where is the evidence that this is so? Not in the website above, that’s for sure. A hypothesis cannot be self evident, as I have explained previously. If you have no independent positive evidence that this is so, then it is simply a baseless assertion.The question remains; can you provide a peer reviewed paper published in a scientific journal that concludes that IC systems could not evolve? You are claiming it is impossible, please back up your claim.Regarding the Cambrian explosionLet me make my case quite clear (again). I in no way am denying that the CE involved relatively rapid evolution. I AM contesting your assertions that:1/ All metazoans appeared at the same time. They didn’t. Metazoans pre-existed the CE potentially by up to 500 MILLION YEARS (certainly 250 mya). Trace fossils go back almost twice as far as the CE.Evolution: Change: Deep Time

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Mark quotes:
900 mya: Soft-bodied animals
The oldest fossil evidence of multicellular animals, or metazoans, are burrows that suggest smooth, wormlike creatures live 900 mya or more. Found in rocks in China, Canada, India, and elsewhere, the imprints of these soft-bodied creatures reveal little else besides their basic shapes.

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Body fossils pre-exist the CE by tens of millions of years. The phyla Bryazoa post-dates Cambrian. This is just the metazoa. Plants are even more strung out than the animal phyla.2/ The implicit notion that all animal complexity appeared literally overnight. Metazoans by definition are complex animals with specialised tissues & organs. As I have explained, they pre-date the Cambrian by a significant margin. Furthermore, patterns of diversity can be seen to evolve within the Cambrian.Palaeontologists agree that the Cambrian explosion is not simply an artifact of preservation, & that remarkable diversification did take place, in a relatively short period of time. However, lagerstatten containing Cambrian fossils in good states of preservation are extremely rare. This is a FACT. Worse, we know there are metazoans in the Precambrian & the body fossil situation is even more dire. The result? Huge chunks of evolution that are simply missed, giving the appearance of abrupt appearance of organisms. Much like finding new species today. According to creationists, evenly applying their own rationale to "abrupt" appearances in the fossil record, these new living species must have been created yesterday. Why else would they not have been discovered sooner?

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Mark:
Ahmad, do you read your own cites?

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You claim to have refuted my argument that the Cambrian explosion was an event taking millions of years? Your cite agrees with me.

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Ahmed:
Obviosuly, thats an pro-evolutionist site. I thought you were on the support of the rapid evolution theory. My mistake.

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Well you made the cite!!!Again, I have no problem that rapid evolution occurred. I do have a problem when creationists claim that all phyla appeared in one go in the CE. This is patently false.

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In the site I pointed out,a Crustacean was found in limestone which was dated to be about 511 million years old and the fossil preserves a great deal of detail.

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The Cambrian explosion started around 543 mya, giving 32 my for the crustacea to evolve. If you are going to make the sudden appearance argument, your best bet is to go with trilobites.

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Mark: And, as I have noted, & you have failed to respond, metazoans pre-date the explosion by a considerable period.

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Ahmed:The metazoans first appeared in the Cambrian era. Do you disagree with that? The trilobites, when first appeared, possessed a highly complex vision system, not characteristic of slow gradual evolution as the ToE suggests.

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Ahmed, I made a statement that the metazoans pre-date the Cambrian (with plenty of supporting evidence), you then quote that statement, asking me if I agree with you that metazoans appear in the Cambrian. I appreciate you have taken the time to write this response, but please at least read my words before replying.I DO NOT agree that the first metazoans appeared in the Cambrian, as I have stated, & even a casual read of my last post would indicate. I have provided evidence of body fossils of shelly fauna, possible molluscs, cnidarians, & ediacara, that pre-date the Cambrian by tens of millions of years. Trace fossils (burrows etc) potentially go back as far as a billion years ago, evolutionary worst case; 750 million years. The body fossils are curiously absent, which is one of the reasons the Precambrian is such a mystery. Molecular evidence agrees with the earlier date.That metazoans existed waaaaaaaaaaay before the Cambrian began is not in contention in scientific circles. Creationist organisations don’t report them because they want to make it look like all life appeared in one hit, & that this is somehow in accordance with a one off creation event. So having developed organisms with specialised body tissues pre-dating this event is inconvenient to them. They lie by omission.

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What is interesting to note is that the Tommotian Age, which began about 530 million years ago, is a subdivision of the early Cambrian >> Tommotian Age

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http://www.uwsp.edu/...hefferan/Geol106/CLASS5/TOMMOTIAN.htmIndeed it is. The tommotian fauna, however, existed back as far as 570-560 mya, the Precambrian-Cambrian transition. Tommotian fauna is basically another name for SSF (small shelly fossils), & is often used interchangeably.Palaeos: Page not found

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Mark quotes:
A distinctive assemblage of small shelly fossils, traditionally labelled the Tommotian fauna. appeared at the Precambrian-Cambrian transition; the assemblage is most extravagantly developed in the lowest Cambrian stage of the Siberian Platform, the Tommotian, which gives its name to the fauna.

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More evidence of Tommotian (perhaps it would be better if I called them SSF’s from now on, to avoid confusion).http://www.clas.ufl.edu/...pciesiel/gly3603c/ediacarian.html

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Mark quotes:
PHASE I. THE VENDIAN (EDICARIAN, 575-543 Ma)
[I][b]small shelly fossils present by the end of the Vendian [/I][/b]

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OK? SSF’s present before the Cambrian began. Ergo, SSF’s, ie METAZOANS, pre-date the Cambrian.

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I don't know what your motive is behind pointing out this fossil of spriggina. But the trilobites first dominate in the Cambrian era.

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My motive was to show a trilobite like organism that pre-dated the Cambrian by 20 million years plus.

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But most of the complex invertebrates emereged in .......... ?

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The Cambrian, AFTER the other simpler metazoans appeared, as evolution predicts.

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Is the spriggina classified as an ancestor of the trilobites? No! The only assumption is that "it could be".

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That’s right, it could be! By your own pen, a potential transitional!

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The Fossils previously found in Yunnan province (at sites discovered nearly 100 years ago) and in the Burgess Shale deposits of the Canadian Rockies tell us that all animal phyla (more than 70) ever to exist in Earth’s history appeared at once about 540 million years ago.

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Are you ignoring everything I write? Tell me where the first Bryozoan fossil appears. Where the first cnidarian, the first Ediacaran.

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Some 40 phyla have since disappeared and not a single new one has appeared.

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Yes it HAS!!!!!!!! Where did you get this crap from? The ministry of disinformation? B R Y O Z O A N B R Y O Z O A N B R Y O Z O A N B R Y O Z O A N B R Y O Z O A N B R Y O Z O A N B R Y O Z O A N B R Y O Z O A N B R Y O Z O A N B R Y O Z O A N B R Y O Z O A N B R Y O Z O A N B R Y O Z O A N B R Y O Z O A N B R Y O Z O A N
B R Y O Z O A NOne more time; B R Y O Z O A N. It is a phyla. It exists today.
There are NO Cambrian examples of it. Your cite above is incorrect.Plants; Phylum Anthophyta, Phylum Bryophyta, Phylum Ginkgophyta, Phylum Coniferophyta, I could go on.

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I don't think multicellular organisms existed in the precambrian, as you assume. The wide-spread arrival of multi-cellular animals first took place at the Cambrian era. Here is a site which mentions this fact at the very beginning >> Page not found - Biology Articles, Tutorials & Dictionary Online

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The site says no such thing. It mentions the widespread arrival of multicellular life in the Cambrian, note it doesn't say, "the very first multi-cellular animals appear in the Cambrian". It also thinks arthropods appear in the Ordovician-Permian!Secondly, below you are claiming that ediacarans are "multicellular algae", yet above you claim there are no "multicellular organisms" in the Precambrian. Which is it to be?

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Of course, then it goes on to explain about NS, but that is irrelevant. It attests to the fact I previously claimed. Ediacarans are not animals, in the first place. They are multicellular algae.

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Vendian Animals

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Mark quotes:
What was life like 560 million years ago? The Vendian marks the first appearance of a group of large fossils collectively known as the "Vendian biota" or "Ediacara fauna." The question of what these fossils are is still not settled to everyone's satisfaction; at various times they have been considered algae, lichens, giant protozoans, or even a separate kingdom of life unrelated to anything living today. Some of these fossils are simple blobs that are hard to interpret and could represent almost anything. [i][b]Some are most like cnidarians, worms, or soft-bodied relatives of the arthropods[/i][/b] [Mark24: Spriggina, remember?]. Others are less easy to interpret and may belong to extinct phyla. But besides the fossils of soft bodies, Vendian rocks contain trace fossils, probably made by wormlike animals slithering over mud. The Vendian rocks thus give us, and YOU through our virtual museum, a good look at the first animals to live on Earth.

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Multicellular algae that leaves tracks? I don’t think so. If it wasn’t the Ediacara that left the tracks, what did? Must be another Precambrian metazoan, then?Regardless, the overwhelming consensus is that the Ediacaran organisms are animals. Unless you can point out the flaw with specifics?Evolution: Change: Deep Time

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Mark quotes:
Nearly all scientists today agree that they were soft-bodied marine-dwelling animals. Their discovery confirmed what many scientists had long hypothesized but could not prove: that skeletonized creatures of the Cambrian period, long thought by scientists to be the first multicellular animals, had predecessors.

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Herein lies the basic flaw in the creationist argument regarding the Cambrian explosion.1/ Why are there major multi-cellular taxa that pre-date the Cambrian?2/ Why are there major multi-cellular taxa that post—date the Cambrian?3/ Why do prokaryotes pre-date eukarotes, which in turn pre-date multicellular organisms?4/ Why do metaphyte plant phyla appear so much later than the Cambrian, making even more of a mockery of the "all phyla at once" argument?5/ Given that the premises in 1,2,3, & 4 are true, what is so devastating about the Cambrian explosion to evolution in general, that is explained by creationism?Mark------------------
Occam's razor is not for shaving with.[This message has been edited by mark24, 11-13-2002][This message has been edited by mark24, 11-13-2002][This message has been edited by mark24, 11-14-2002]

Ahmed,Here's some more evidence of Precambrian multicellular life.http://geol.queensu.ca/museum/exhibits/oldanim/oldanim.htmlThe term "multi-celled" when applied to a plant or animal means that the organism is made up of several different cell types. The first multi-celled animals (metazoa) evolved over 600 million years ago. They don't look like animals. Why do scientists think they were?Although faint, the circular impressions are very similar to more obvious animal fossils found in Proterozoic rocks that are slightly younger. This is how they were recognized in the first place. By studying these rocks, scientists can tell that they formed in fairly deep water. The water was probably deeper than the photic zone (the depths to which enough light penetrates that photosynthetic plants can survive). This, and the fact that there is no carbon preserved, implies that the impressions were not made by plants. The simplest metazoans that are living today are sea anemones and other simple cnidaria (corals, jellyfish). These are cup-shaped animals that would form fossils remarkably like the discs and rings that are preserved on these two samples. Although there are still many questions to be answered, most scientists are convinced that in this display you are seeing the oldest fossilized remains of multi-celled animals yet discovered.900 mya WormsSun (1986 & 1994) reported Pararenicola & Ptotoarenicola, elongate, cylindrical, annelated worms 900 my old. Cloud, who dismissed many Precambrian fossils & traces could not do so with these two examples.The Doushanto Formation Fossils (570 mya)http://www-geology.ucdavis.edu/~GEL3/Precambembryos.htmlAll the while, palaeontologists have been able to do nothing but sit on their hands and wonder. The latest fossils will change all that. They all come from the 570-m.y.-old Doushantuo Formation of southern China, and owe their preservation to the special properties of calcium phosphate, which can preserve fossils in extremely fine detail.The animal embryos will attract most attention. They seem to have come straight out of the pictures in a biology textbook, preserved as single fertilized cells, as two-, four- eight-cell and later stages, all preserved uncrushed and in microscopic detail.What would these embryos have become, had they grown up? That is harder to say, and any answer will contain a measure of speculation. But details of the way the cells are arranged resemble similar arrangements in the cells of relatively complex invertebrates such as crustaceans. This suggests that relatively complex animals existed at 570 Ma, which in turn implies that the divergences between the lineages of the major animal groups must have happened much, much earlier.These results confirm the molecular data, inasmuch as the divergences of the major animal lineages happened well before the Cambrian Explosion. But they do more than just confirm, they add flesh to the theory, providing solid evidence to support the claims made by molecular biologists. Greater and more wonderful discoveries will surely follow.Mark------------------
Occam's razor is not for shaving with.

Ahmed,Regarding IC

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So in other words, you do believe in irreducibly complex systems, but what you argue about is the evidence showing that these systems could not have evolved, if I am not wrong.

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Bang on the nose, my son! When I say IC, I mean a system that the removal of any one part renders the entire system useless. See your own cite for a possible explanation. Thornhill, R.H., Ussery, D.W. 2000. "A classification of possible routes of Darwinian evolution." J. Theor. Bio. 203: 111-116.

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If something is IC, how can it evolve?

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See above.

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Evolution is the evolving of organisms from simple to complex by minor changes over a huge period of time caused by NS and random mutation.

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Plus genetic drift, recombination

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If a system is IC, then the question whether it evolved from a simpler system is moot. Hence then, that system is not IC in the first place!!

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Ahh, this is the real point of contention. An IC system is NOT implicitly created, it CAN potentially evolve. Creationists (even if Behe doesn’t) define IC as the above definition, with cannot possibly have evolved tagged on the end. My definition, & Ussery’s & Thornhill make no such claim. Why? Because no one has positive evidence that IC systems couldn’t evolve.http://nsmserver2.fullerton.edu/...reation/web/Thornhill.pdfRemember, this is your cite, & it provides no less than four possible avenues for IC evolution. Namely:2.1. SERIAL DIRECT DARWINIAN EVOLUTION complex
2.2. PARALLEL DIRECT DARWINIAN EVOLUTION
2.3. ELIMINATION OF FUNCTIONAL REDUNDANCY
2.4. ADOPTION FROM A DIFFERENT FUNCTION

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Perhaps you might like to read a response to that article here >>http://www.arn.org/docs/behe/mb_mg1darwinianpathways.htm

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I read it when you first cited it. They conclude that Behe's definition has made it into the scientific literature in the conclusion. It hasn’t, they even go to the lengths of pointing out how Behes & T&U’s definitions differ. Remarkable. And even if it had, Behes definition doesn’t preclude IC evolution, it’s just that Behe claimed it couldn’t happen. He never provided positive evidence that it couldn’t, however.

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Mark:
The question remains; can you provide a peer reviewed paper published in a scientific journal that concludes that IC systems could not evolve? You are claiming it is impossible, please back up your claim.

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Ahmed: You have the positive claim... that IC systems can evolve. The burden of proof is on you. Thornhill and Ussery's article has already been refuted. Go to the site I gave you. [/quote]T&U’s article has not been refuted with POSITIVE EVIDENCE TO THE CONTRARY. The best that can be said is that is has been replied to. You came here claiming IC couldn’t evolve, not me. The burden of evidence therefore falls squarely upon YOUR shoulders to back up YOUR claim. My position is that IC systems may possibly be able to evolve, I am making no such absolute statements as you are.Regarding the Cambrian explosion

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Agreed. I stand corrected there. But what about the *missing links* of organisms that exploded in the Cambrian era? Is there any evidence to suggest that these organisms were descendants of metazoans in the pre-cambrian era?

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Yes, but most of it molecular. The problem cladistics face is that organisms simpler than sponges & cnidarians possess no real apomorphies, by virtue of being gooey blobs (!!!!), so it becomes difficult to identify (certainly from fossil impressions) features that are common to phyla appearing in the CE. However:http://www.bio.psu.edu/faculty/hedges/124.pdf

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The divergence time for cephalochordates and vertebrates is estimated here as 751 :t 30.9 Mya {million years ago) using nine constant-rate nuclear protein-coding genes. This suggests that free-swimming animals with a notochord, neural tube, and metameric lateral muscles were present about 200 million years before the first fossil evidence of bilaterian animals. By inference, urochordates, hemichordates, and echinoderms diverged even earlier in the Proterozoic.

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Note this suggests a relationship between chordates & echinoderms (there are many others). The problem I want to impress upon you is; how would we recognise an echinoderm/chordate transitional 750 mya? A starfish with a notochord? Early organisms are very amorphous. For example, what would an arthropod that never had an exoskeleton look like? Certainly, there are plenty of candidates, Spriggina for one, the SSF’s are another, but can we reduce the tentativity to an acceptable level?. Or a proto-arthropod that lacked jointed legs AND an exoskeleton? It would be almost impossible to reliably classify such a thing.http://lsweb.la.asu.edu/skumar/pdf/prsl99.pdfThis paper has some good information too. There are plenty of other papers that provide molecular evidence of a deep Precambrian divergence. Alas, as regards the fossil record, there are plenty of candidates for intermediates, but I couldn’t foist them upon you without noting the high tentativity involved.

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Ok, so you admit that:

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1) Metazoans are complex animals

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2)Metazoan fossils pre-date cambrian explosion

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So if metazoans appeared first in the precambrian era and they were highly complex, WHEN DID THEY EVOLVE??

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See above. Best molecular estimate of the earliest multicellular animal? About 1 bn years ago, this is congruent with the trace fossil estimate.

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The Burgess Shale was first found by Charles Walcott in 1909, why was the story, then, not reported to the public until the late 1980's?

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What? Walcott published his findings in the scientific community at the time. Perhaps you are referring to S.J. Goulds book, Wonderful Life, 1989? If you are, you will discover in its pages that Walcott published in his lifetime. You will also find some more evidence of Precambrian cladogenesis.

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The answer would be obvious. What they are seeing are phyla that do not exist nowthat's more than 50 phyla compared to the 38 we have now. (Actually the number 50 was first quoted as over 100 for a while, but then the consensus became 50-plus.) But the point is, they saw something they didn't know what to do with; that's the scientifically honest position they're placed in.

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Ye olde Evilutionist conspiracy. The Cambrian explosion was known in Darwins time, why would more fossils be a bad thing, to be covered up? Methinks you are judging people (erroneously) by your own standards. Walcotts first publication regarding the Burgess shale was in 1912, just 3 years after its discovery: 1912 field work in Alberta and British Columbia published Cambrian Brachiopoda (USGS Monograph 51)Scientists aren’t scared of data. Theologians are.

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Yes thats my best bet... the trilobites which has no known evolutianary origin. However, the evolution of Crustacea is still at question. The Jurassic period crustaceans looked pretty much like they do today. Shrimps and lobsters from the famous Solnhofen limestone are hardly distinguishable from modern forms.

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Er.. the trilobites have evolutionary origins, Spriggina, for one. The best evidence of Precambrian relationships is molecular, not morphological.

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Ok, so whats your point? That trilobites descended from spriggina?

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POSSIBLY!!! As has been noted, there are a lot of soft bodied arthropod-a-like organisms in the Precambrian. Another hypothesis is that arthropods were descended from SSF’s. In fact there is debate as to whether the arthropods are a monophyletic clade or in fact polyphyletic.

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The bryozoans were the ONLY group which were found in the fossil record a little later. However, most people think we just haven't found it yet; that group was most probably also present in the Cambrian explosion.

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I’m glad you discovered this little prediction, which I don’t have a problem with I might add. But here lies the root of your inconsistency. Am I allowed to say that Precambrian transitionals just haven’t been found yet? No? So why are you allowed to say that Bryozoans just haven’t been found in the Cambrian yet? It’s PRECISELY what you’re doing. If Precambrian transitionals don’t exist (well, they do, but the conclusions are more tentative than vertebrate transitionals), then neither do Bryozoans. OK? Can’t have it both ways. So, by your own logic, major metazoan phyla appear in both the Precambrian, & the post-Cambrian.

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What about them? I am referring to animal phylas.

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I know, but what implications does the abrupt appearance of other major taxa of other kingdoms have on your creation myth/hypothesis?

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The first four flaws you point out does not refute the explosion is any way.

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Of course it doesn’t. I’m not refuting the Cambrian explosion. I AM pointing out to you that, if you remove your compartmentalised thinking head for one moment, the earliest fossils are single celled prokaryotes, then single celled eukaryotes, then multicellular organisms of-dubious-metazoa-ness, then true triploblastic metazoans. Furthermore, the phyla of the animal kingdom do not all appear at the same time. The phyla of other kingdoms certainly lack such a correlation with the Cambrian. In fact, & not to trivialise the Cambrian faunal diversity, there is nothing odd about the CE other than said rapid diversity. Other than the rapidity, everything is in it’s proper evolutionary order. What’s the problem? You are criticising the fossil record for its alleged gaps, yet in the case of bryozoans you are appealing for gaps!!!! Ahmed, you can’t have it both ways!Mark------------------
Occam's razor is not for shaving with.

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Imagine a swimming slug with five eyes on the top of its head and a single arm with its jaw on the end - this is the very peculiar creature known as Opabinia. It lived about 550 million years ago and its fossils have been found in western Canada and China.

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550 mya? You provide evidence that destroys your own argument. The CAMBRIAN BEGINS 543 MYA!!!!Mark------------------
Occam's razor is not for shaving with.

Ahmed,Perhaps at this stage it would be pertinent to bring us back to my original contention; that there is no positive evidence of non-evolvability of IC. Do you have any?Your original cite does not provide any positive evidence either way, but does provide a plausible explanation of the evolvability of IC systems.

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No one has positive empirical evidence that IC systems could have evolved. Note Behe's argument:
"To feel the full force of the conclusion that a system is irreducibly complex and therefore has no functional precursors, we need to distinguish between a physical precursor and a conceptual precursor. . . . Darwinian evolution requires physical precursors."

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Again, Behe provides no POSITIVE evidence for IC (T&U’s def), that is falsifiable, that is. You are making the assertion that IC is un-evolvable. You seem to require empirical evidence of everything else, so I’m going top ask you to meet your own standards.

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Can you give me an HTML version of that paper? I don't have Acrobat reader. I would appreciate that.

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Hopefully you should have received some links from me by now that will allow you to read the full article.

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The results of molecular comparisons do not work in favor of the theory of evolution at all. There are huge molecular differences between creatures that appear to be very similar and related. For instance, the structure of Cytochrome-C, one of the proteins vital to respiration, is incredibly different in living beings of the same class. According to research carried out on this matter, the difference between two different reptile species is greater than the difference between a bird and a fish or a fish and a mammal.

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You are joking, right?Give examples where chromosome c amino acid sequence are incredibly different in living beings of the same class, & that is the rule, not the exception, relative to other classes.This will be fun!Again you are misled. Phylogenetic analyses relies upon the principles that; 1/ mutations are heritable, & 2/ those inherited SNPs (for want of a better descriptor) can determine the nature of the relationships. Of course, it’s not always that simple. For example, trying to determine relatively recent phylogenies from extremely slowly evolving molecules, like the histones will result in a paucity of informative data, since most sequences will differ little. Similarly, a rapidly evolving molecule will be equally useless for determining the relationships of phyla, because those sequences may have been overwritten many times in at least the last half a billion years.Regardless, there is excellent congruence between morphological phylogenies & molecular ones. How the DEVIL did that happen, you ask? Cytochrome c, as you correctly observe, is vital in Krebs cycle, it has no morphological function, however. So why does it, & other molecular data support the same phylogenies? The odds against just two 10 taxa phylogenies being fully congruent is 1,190,250,000,000,000 : 1. Even having them 50% congruent is 289,000,000,000,000 : 1! Why are the phylogenies not 100% congruent at all times? Because point mutations occur randomly, & it is entirely possible that two distantly related molecules can become similar enough for a phylogenetic program to place a bird in the reptile clade, for example. But, this should be, & IS observed as the exception, not the rule. See my challenge higher up the post, if you think I’m wrong.You could of course be bemoaning the accuracy of the molecular clock placing the divergences at circa 1 bn years ago-ish. Actually, I think the criticisms levelled at the molecular clock are valid, but doesn’t necessarily mean it can’t be used as a tool for measuring a rough timing.

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Mark:
See above. Best molecular estimate of the earliest multicellular animal? About 1 bn years ago, this is congruent with the trace fossil estimate.

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Ahmad:
Then why are trace fossils (fossil tracks, trails, and burrows) so rare before the base of the Cambrian, if these animals existed for that 1 billion years?

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Surely, the salient question should be; why are they there at all?

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One of the earliest metazoans in the Cambrian era, the trilobites are an enigma of complexity. How can evolution explain its sudden origin? If trilobites descended from spriggina, then are there any transitional links between them??

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We call this the Gish number. If (Gish) wants to see a transitional between A & E, he expects to see ONE transitional, C. Of course, he now wants to see transitionals B & D!. No matter how many you show Gish, he needs to see more. Beyond that, this is pretty much the only valid question creationists bring regarding the Cambrian explosion, see below.

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Actually, Walcotts work was first published and made know to the general audience by Whittington in Rediscription of Marrella splendens, from the Burgess Shale in 1971

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He published in 1912, you have the cite. Ignoring & simply reasserting yourself without refutation won’t help you’re argument. This is only the earliest I could find. Even if you're right, so what? The Cambrian explosion has been known of since before Walcott was born, hardly an evilutionist conspriracy!

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There is no know, valid ancestor of the trilobites. Only assumptions. Recent scientific findings even diminish the intermediate form hypothesis. An article published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2000 reports that DNA analyses have displaced taxa that used to be considered "intermediate forms" in the past:
"DNA sequence analysis dictates new interpretation of phylogenic trees. Taxa that were once thought to represent successive grades of complexity at the base of the metazoan tree are being displaced to much higher positions inside the tree. This leaves no evolutionary ''intermediates'' and forces us to rethink the genesis of bilaterian complexity"
Link: Just a moment...

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How does this refute evolution? It is essentially a question, not a conclusion.

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POSSIBLY!!! As has been noted, there are a lot of soft bodied arthropod-a-like organisms in the Precambrian. Another hypothesis is that arthropods were descended from SSF’s. In fact there is debate as to whether the arthropods are a monophyletic clade or in fact polyphyletic.

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Presence of "arthropod-a-like" organisms does not mean arthropods descended from organisms in the precambrian. Thats sheer observation not backed up by empirical evidence.

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Ah, yes, sheer observation. How is this NOT empirical? I think you will find that the OBSERVATION of "arthropod-a-like" observations makes the said observations EMPIRICAL, by definition. The CONCLUSION is tentative, I agree, & I am not convinced myself that Spriggina actually IS an arthropod/trilobite ancestor. But the observation that Spriggina is "arthropod-a-like" is an empirical observation.Spriggina is a candidate for a trilobite ancestor. You maintain there are NO candidates. You are wrong. You tell me what a trilobite transitional SHOULD look like.

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It has been established that major metazoan phyla has appeared abruptly in the Cambrian era. Regarding logic, lets just wait and see who prediction comes true. I apologize for the inconsistency. I try to remain consistent but sometimes get carried away. Once again, my apologies.

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No, no, no, no, NO! The fossil evidence shows an abrupt appearance, but no palaeontologist or evolutionary biologist thinks that the phyla actually appeared abruptly. The molecular evidence suggests otherwise. You can only make the claim that major metazoan phyla has appeared abruptly in the Cambrian era IF you ignore non-fossil evidence. It most certainly HASN’T been established that this is true. But so what if it is? This is a watered down statement when compared to ALL metazoan phyla appeared in the Cambrian, without exception. How would this refute evolution even if it were true, which it demonstrably isn’t?I have asked this several times now; what implication does the appearance of major classifications of organisms at different times have on your belief system? You have used the fossil record to support your claim that ALL metazoans appear at the same time (& you admit this is an incorrect assumption), so it stands to reason that you use the same evidence to support your own hypothesis. Can you make the same observations fit your belief system?
What prediction are you making, what prediction am I making?

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Mark:
I know, but what implications does the abrupt appearance of other major taxa of other kingdoms have on your creation myth/hypothesis?

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Oh you mean the Plant Kingdom? I am quite weak in botany . I do know about the Carboniferous age (360-286 my) which has many fossils dating to it. There is no difference between species of plants from this period and plants living today.

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Au contraire! If you went to a garden centre, where would you get a seed fern? They have been extinct since the Jurassic! The problem creationists exhibit is they think animal life = all life. Therefore the abrupt appearance of animal phyla = the abrupt appearance of all life. Not so. As I have explained, prokaryotes precede eukaryotes, which in turn precedes multicellular life. All of this occurred BEFORE the Cambrian explosion. Most animal phyla appear in a short time, but demonstrably not all; certainly not other Kingdoms phyla, orders, & classes.

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The diversity suddenly revealed in the fossil record put evolutionists into another difficulty. Because, all of a sudden, species of plants emerged, all of which possessed perfect systems. This is also something like the Cambrian explosion ... except that evolutionists call it the "Evolutionary Explosion."

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Again, au contraire, ever heard of the progymnosperms, of which the seed ferns are members? Just like animals, plants have intermediates too.

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Mark:
Of course it doesn’t. I’m not refuting the Cambrian explosion. I AM pointing out to you that, if you remove your compartmentalised thinking head for one moment, the earliest fossils are single celled prokaryotes, then single celled eukaryotes, then multicellular organisms of-dubious-metazoa-ness, then true triploblastic metazoans.

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Ahmad:
So? Whats "compartmentalised" about that? Did I deny it? No! Did they evolve? No! Were they created? Yes!!

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In my discussions with you I have been careful not to make any unbacked assertions. Care to support the quote above with anything more than faith alone? That is, positive, testable, falsifiable evidence?

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All phyla of animal kingdom appearing "at once" refers to an extremely narrow window of geologic time (~5-10 million years) according to Richard Kerr.

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As you have learned, Richard Kerr is wrong, Bryozoans were late in turning up for Gods creationfest, to the tune of 50 million years. Why would Dick make such an error of omission, do you think? Also, the earliest unargued multicellular animal body fossils date fom 900 million years ago (to my knowledge)(see a previous post), giving a 450 million year window of opportunity for the earliest metazoans taxa to the last phyla to appear.

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The problem, you ask? Correct me if I am wrong but the most widely accepted idea among naturalistic biologists has been that chordates arose from echinoderms (sea stars, sand dollars, sea cucumbers, sea urchins, etc.) and that chordates in turn gave rise to vertebrates. Echinoderms are also believed to have spawned hemichordates as an evolutionary side branch. Remember the Dipleuruloid theory you have been reiterating?

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This scenario predicts that echinoderms, hemichordates, chordates, and vertebrates will appear sequentially in the fossil recordand that the sequence will cover a long time span, given the extensive anatomical and physiological differences among these phyla. Naturalism or Evolution would not anticipate hemichordates, chordates, or vertebrates appearing together in the early Cambrian fauna. But in recent years, researchers have found hemichordates and chordates together in the Cambrian event!! These discoveries, in and of themselves, create an insurmountable problem for the naturalistic model of evolution.

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Most recently, however, paleontologists have discovered craniate chordates (animals with a stiff rod-like structure along their back and a hardened or mineralized brain case) and vertebrates in early Cambrian layers. I would say this poses a lot of problems and raises arguments that questions the credibility of evolution in the light of modern scientific data.

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What of the above refute evolution? Nothing. You rely on negative evidence & incredulity. As with IC, you have presented nothing but this is missing type arguments, rather than positive, falsifiable evidence to support your argument. As I am growing tired of saying, everything is in its predicted place. The mystery of the Cambrian explosion is how did so many bodyplans appear in such a short space of time, nothing more.Finally, a comment on "transitional" fossils in the Precambrian. What would a soft bodied protoarthropod with no jointed legs look like? What would a chordate transitional look like before it got a notochord? What would an echinoderm/chordate ancestor look like? You see the problem, it's all very easy to say no transitionals exist, but how can we positively identify something as a transitional that is essentially a blob? It would be nice to be able to do so, & would certainly lend support to the argument, but isn't necessary. As explained previously, candidates for some of those transitionals exist.Creationist assertions shown to be in error:1/ All animal phyla appeared at the same time.2/ No animal phyla appeared after the Cambrian explosion.3/ No animal phyla appeared before the Cambrian explosion.4/ There are no possible intermediate fossils of metazoans in the Precambrian.Remaining problems:1/ Why did so many body plans of metazoan fossils appear at roughly the same time?2/ Why is there such a paucity of fossil multicellular life in the Precambrian?Do you agree? If so, we can move on.Mark------------------
Occam's razor is not for shaving with.

Ahmad,Apologies for the length of this post, it turned into a bit of a monster.

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Mark:
Perhaps at this stage it would be pertinent to bring us back to my original contention; that there is no positive evidence of non-evolvability of IC. Do you have any?

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Ahmad:
I think I have reiterated the impossibility of IC systems evolving many times. I will try to clarify once more. If a system is IC, it CANNOT EVOLVE.

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Charles Colson: "The Darwinian theory states that all living structures evolve in small, gradual steps from simpler structures - feathers from scales, wings from forelegs, blossoms from leaves and so on. But anything that is irreducibly complex cannot evolve in gradual steps, and thus is very existence refutes the Darwinian theory.

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Ahmad, this is an argument from definition. No one has shown that IC systems cannot evolve. You have been asked multiple times to produce positive evidence of IC non-evolvability (as creationists define it), & have repeatedly failed to produce any. IC is simply a system that fails if you remove one part. The clotting cascades HAVE been shown to have a plausible evolutionary pathway. If you remove a single molecule from the cascade, clotting will not occur, it is IC. So why can a plausible pathway be presented? Such a thing is impossible according to you.IC is NOT unevolvable by definition, as you seem to think.
You are making the claim of impossibility. Back it up with positive evidence. [quote][b]
There is empirical evidence. And this empirical evidence is evident. [/quote][/b]Like what? Does it POSITIVELY show that IC couldn’t have of evolved? I guess not. [/quote][/b]IC as defined by Behe, poses a system to be functionally indivisible such that even the removal of one of the components will render the entire system useless. Now you explain me, How can such functionally indivisible irreducibly complex systems like the cilia, and other examples I gace above, can evolve?? [/quote][/b]Nope. YOU provide positive evidence that they CAN’T. It is your claim, not mine.This has gone on long enough. Provide POSITIVE, testable, falsifiable evidence that IC cannot evolve, or I’m claiming victory. It’s not unreasonable, since my only point is that you have none of the above.

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Mark:
Give examples where chromosome c amino acid sequence are incredibly different in living beings of the same class, & that is the rule, not the exception, relative to other classes.

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Ahmad:
Who mentioned anything about "chromosome c"? I was talking about Cytochrome - C and their difference in lving beings of the same class.

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Oop, my boob, I meant cytochrome c.

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Are you denying that? This Cytochrome - C shows the turtle is more closely related to the birds that to its fellow reptile, the snake. Furthermore, the chicken is grouped with the penguin rather than the duck, and man and ape separate from the main mammalian branch before the supposedly less advanced marsupial mammal, the kangaroo (Note: they are the same class - Mammalia)[Ayala, F., "The Mechanisms of Evolution." Scientific American, V. 239, No. 3,1978, p. 56.]

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Yes I do deny that turtle cytochrome c is more closely related to birds than reptiles. The sequence may be more SIMILAR, however.You didn’t answer the question. I maintain that the similarities of cytochrome c are MORE similar within classes than of sequences outside it, & that is the rule, not the exception. I explained both the how & why of the exceptions, & I asked you to give examples where cytochrome c (you knew very well what I was talking about) amino acid sequence are incredibly different in living beings of the same class, & that is the rule, not the exception, relative to other classes. You haven’t done this. I ask you to accept what I say, or provide an example that contradicts me. Now, it was a rhetorical question, where you were supposed to see the obvious error in your argument; that you are claiming exceptions are the rule. Since I cannot prove a negative, the only way to demonstrate my argument to be incorrect is to provide an example of what I assert doesn’t exist, does. I now have to ask you to either:1/ Provide a class in which over 50% of the organisms contained therein have cytochrome c amino acid sequences that are more similar to organisms in other classes than organisms of the same class. Or;2/ Accept that the premise that cytochrome c similarities do not closely correlate to class, is wrong.

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Mark:
Again you are misled. Phylogenetic analyses relies upon the principles that; 1/ mutations are heritable,

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Ahmad:
Mutations are hereditary only if they take place at the reproductive cells of an organism. A random change that occurs in a casual cell or organ of the body cannot be transferred to the next generation.

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Yup, it’s implicit.

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Regarding Phylogeny, Carl Woese, reputed biologist from the University of Illinois, has this to say:

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"No consistent organismal phylogeny has emerged from the many individual protein phylogenies so far produced. Phylogenetic incongruities can be seen everywhere in the universal tree, from its root to the major branchings within and among the various (groups) to the makeup of the primary groupings themselves." (Carl Woese, "The Universel Ancestor", Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, 95, (1998) p. 6854.)

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Either, this is a misquote, or just plain wrong.If, by no consistent organismal phylogeny, Woese means no 100% congruent phylogenies, he’d be right. If he meant that there was no consensus using molecular data, then he would be demonstrably wrong.See below.

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Mark:
Regardless, there is excellent congruence between morphological phylogenies & molecular ones. How the DEVIL did that happen, you ask? Cytochrome c, as you correctly observe, is vital in Krebs cycle, it has no morphological function, however. So why does it, & other molecular data support the same phylogenies? The odds against just two 10 taxa phylogenies being fully congruent is 1,190,250,000,000,000 : 1. Even having them 50% congruent is 289,000,000,000,000 : 1! Why are the phylogenies not 100% congruent at all times? Because point mutations occur randomly, & it is entirely possible that two distantly related molecules can become similar enough for a phylogenetic program to place a bird in the reptile clade, for example. But, this should be, & IS observed as the exception, not the rule. See my challenge higher up the post, if you think I’m wrong.

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Ahmed:
So who has observed the popping out of a bird from a reptile egg?? I certinaly haven't.

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Non sequitur. This has nothing to do with the points raised.

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Ahmed:
If point mutations are to be hereditary, they need to take place at reproductive cells of organism, as I said before. Otherwise, they will not be expressed in the phenotype of offsprings.

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Actually, the genotypes. A mutation may be expressed in the phenotype. You seem to think you have stumbled on to something by pointing out that somatic mutations aren’t inherited. Of course they’re not!! Only mutations that end up in the gametes can affect evolution. No one is saying anything to the contrary. Phylogenetic analyses can only work with these mutations, what's the problem?

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What are the odds of this kind of "point" and "beneficial" mutations to occur in an organism?? I would say huge. And the odds of this to happen multiple times to create an entirely different species among all is extremely huge. Say 10^100000000000000000..... and can extend up trillions depending on the number of species.

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Seriously flawed logic, Ahmad.Hypothetical argument; you have a computer that randomly picks a 20 figure number. If the computer picks another 20 figure number, what are the odds that;1/ It will pick a 20 figure number? (Answer- Evens 1:1)2/ It will pick the SAME 20 figure number? (Answer- 99,999,999,999,999,999,999:1)See the difference?It’s the same thing with organisms. You may not end up with the SAME organism if you rerun evolution, but you WOULD end up with AN organism. The chance ofd getting the same genome would be astronomically against.Perhaps a better example would be; what are the chances of your parents getting an EXACT copy of Ahmad with their next child? Almost zero. But they GOT YOU, didn’t they? They WILL get a child, but the chances of getting EXACTLY the same as the last one is so small as to not even consider. So, statistically speaking, by your logic, you can’t exist, because the odds of having everything exactly the way you are is astronomically against!These odds you present are a strawman.

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Furthermore, I don't think the congruence in morphological and molecular phylogenies are "excellent" as you describe it.

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If odds of trillions to one plus are considered poor, then you have a point.

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Ahmed:
I would like to hear some examples from you regarding the "excellence" you attribute to the congruence of morhological and molecular phylogenies.

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http://mbe.library.arizona.edu/data/1985/0205/6temp.pdf"The Phylogeny of the Hominoid Primates: A Statistical
Analysis of the DNA-DNA Hybridization Data"http://reviews.bmn.com/medline/search/record?uid=MDLN.872..."A molecular phylogeny of the hominoid primates as indicated by two-dimensional protein electrophoresis."Page Not Found | University of Chicago"Molecular Evolution of Cytochrome c Oxidase Subunit IV: Evidence for
Positive Selection in Simian Primates"http://mbe.library.arizona.edu/data/1988/0506/2haya.pdf"Molecular Phylogeny and Evolution of Primate
Mitochondrial DNA"The phylogenies contained in the above for cytochrome c (complete sequence), cytochrome c (non-coding intron), mtDNA, fibroblast polypeptides, & 2 from DNA hybridisation show an extremely high congruence.The organisms common to all phylogenies were humans, chimps, gorilla, orangutan, gibbon, & representatives of the cercopithecids (macaques , OWM etc). In all but one case, they showed the same order of divergence & phylogeny (in one the human & gorilla divergences were transposed).That’s six, six organism phylogenies that are congruent in all but one divergence. For a six sequence tree there are 945 possible trees, for a 5 sequence tree, 105 (to account for the one incongruence). So, (945^5) * 105 = 79,131,307,483,265,625 : 1 of the phylogenies being as congruent as they are by chance. 79 THOUSAND TRILLION to one !!!!! I would call this an excellent congruence, wouldn’t you?

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Mark:
Surely, the salient question should be; why are they there at all?

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Ahmad:
Thats not an answer. There should be fossils.. in fact many fossils that surpass the cambrian era, if indeed myriad of mutli-cellular organisms existed pre-cambrian. I am not denying they didn't exist at that time, but what proof is there that complex multi-cellular invertebrates (and chordates as recently doscovered)in the cambrian could have descended or evolved from organisms at the pre-cambrian??

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And if you check my last post, you will see that I list the paucity of Precambrian fossils as one of the problems. I want us to reach agreement on other issues before we ponder on what we agree.BUT, the point surely was; THERE ARE FOSSILS THERE!!!

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Ahmad:
The cambrian explosion has been known even before walcott was born, and I agree with that. Regarding that, I am not saying otherwise. My argument is based on the late (not less than 70 years) publication og the Burghess Shale fauna. Walcott did notpublish anything in 1912. In fact, from 1910 to 1917, he was working on the quarry of Burghess shale.

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I’m dumbfounded that I can cite a publication you say doesn’t exist, & you STILL claim it doesn’t exist. Are you wearing sunglasses?http://www.si.edu/archives/archives/findingaids/faru7004.htmDespite his many administrative responsibilities as Secretary, Walcott was able to find time to continue his research and collecting of fossils from the Cambrian and Ordovician periods, with primary focus on the Canadian Rockies. In 1909 he located Cambrian fossils near Burgess Pass above Field, British Columbia. The following season he discovered the Burgess shale fauna, which proved to be his greatest paleontological discovery. Most of this research was published in various volumes of the Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections from 1908-1931His one major publication during this period was Cambrian Brachiopoda, published in 1912.. Walcott continued to return to the Canadian Rockies for most seasons through 1925, when he made his last field expedition. As one of the foremost scientific figures in Washington, Walcott helped to establish several organizations with international reknown and restructure existing national organizations. In 1902, Walcott, along with several other prominent individuals, met with Andrew Carnegie to establish the Carnegie Institution of Washington as a center for advanced research and training in the sciences. Walcott served the Institution in several administrative capacities. He was also instrumental in convincing Carnegie that the Institution should have laboratories built for scientists rather than use his gift solely for research grants.The major publication was 1912 field work in Alberta and British Columbia published Cambrian Brachiopoda (USGS Monograph 51). Unless you know of other Cambrian lagerstatten that Walcott kept hidden up his sleeve in British Colombia, your claim is falsified.

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Ahmad:
Oh its a conclusion alright. If you read the article, you would find evolutionist writers note that some taxa which were considered "intermediate" between groups such as sponges, cnidarians and ctenophores can no longer be considered as such because of new genetic findings, and that they have "lost hope" of constructing such evolutionary family trees

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Er, you don’t accept molecular data, do you? Typical creationist double standards. Accept ANY evidence that supports your position, & reject the same when it doesn’t. You cant have it both ways, mate.Nor do they say they have lost hope of constructing family trees. You’re as guilty of misquotes as the rest of the creationists. Shame on you! What they DO say is; A corollary is that we have a major gap in the stem leading to the Urbilataria. We have lost the hope, so common in older evolutionary reasoning, of reconstructing the morphology of the "coelomate ancestor" through a scenario involving successive grades of increasing complexity based on the anatomy of extant "primitive" lineages"There was NOTHING that refuted evolution in the paragraphs in question, or the article in question, why did you think there was? What was in question was the actual nature of relationships of the major metazoan phyla. In fact, you’ve rather shot yourself in the foot with this; If you study the new molecular data that you apparently accept, there are fewer potential transitionals to find! Meaning, another reason that there is a paucity of transitionals is because there are fewer than expected!In truth, the transitional taxa exist, the team themselves don’t deny it, yet they limit their conclusions to the resolution of the data set. That is to say, the data doesn’t show a clear enough definition to reliably determine branching order, so they don’t pretend to show one that cannot be reliably inferred with this rRNA phylogeny.Just a moment...

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The Lack of Resolution Within each of the Two Great Protostome Clades.
An observation repeatedly made when using rRNA data is of the extreme difficulty in resolving the branching order of phyla within the lophotrochozoans and the ecdysozoans. This is so much the case that even groups that are strongly believed to be monophyletic on the basis of morphological data, such as molluscs, emerge as polyphyletic in these trees (33). We have argued elsewhere that, within both branches, the phyla have emerged in a relatively rapid historical succession, thus leading to a case in which rRNA reaches its limits of resolution (34).

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We would like to stress that, if this view is correct, it leads to a profound reappraisal of the Cambrian explosion: Instead of corresponding to the rapid diversification of all of the bilaterian phyla, the explosion would have occurred simultaneously in three already well separated and poorly diversified lineages (the lophotrochozoan stem line, the ecdysozoan one, and the deuterostome one), implying that such an explosion would have been caused not by a single "internal" genetic innovation but, more likely, by an "external" (i.e., ecological) set of events.

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And;

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Metazoan phylogenies. (A) The traditional phylogeny based on morphology and embryology, adapted from Hyman (11). (B) The new molecule-based phylogeny. A conservative approach was taken in B: i.e., some datasets provide resolution within some of the unresolved multifurcations displayed, but we have limited the extent of resolution displayed to that solidly provided by rRNA only.

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Ahmad:
The new molecular based phylogeny has several important implications. Foremost among them is the disappearance of "intermediate" taxa between sponges, cnidarians, ctenophores, and the last common ancestor of bilaterians or "Urbilateria."...A corollary is that we have a major gap in the stem leading to the Urbilataria. We have lost the hope, so common in older evolutionary reasoning, of reconstructing the morphology of the "coelomate ancestor" through a scenario involving successive grades of increasing complexity based on the anatomy of extant "primitive" lineages"

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So? Why then do they go on to propose other methods of getting to the Urbilitaria? What’s your point? Read what they are saying in context.

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Indeed, the demise of the gradist interpretation of early bilaterian evolution does not mean, of course, that the last common ancestor has not itself been the result of a progressive construction, possibly through an extended period. It means that we do not have extant representatives of these stages.

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Secondly, no one is saying that chordates evolved from an echinoderm, but that they evolved from a common ancestor. Both trees support this contention.

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Ahmad:
Where is the "empirical evidence"?? How could the exoskeleton of the arthropods (trilobites) evolve from the annelids (spriggina)??

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See your own cite for evidence that such evolution happened. I don’t pretend to know how it happened, but that doesn’t invalidate the evidence that points to it having happened.

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Ahmad:
If there indeed is a trilobite transitional, the organism should have a half exoskeleton and half-endoskeleton, half-jointed appendages, a body cavity with half-haemocoel etc. Everything should be hlaf-way since it's a transitional organism. At least, thats how I look at it.

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It’s a common misconception that something must be halfway for it to be a transitional. Does Archaeopteryx have half a wing?

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Furthermore, trilobites are more complex than spriggina. If natural selection and point mutations (taking in consideration the odds of it producing a benefician change as I outlined above) caused the spriggina to evolve in to a trilobite, then you have to base the reason (apart from empirical evidence) as to why did this occur? Mutations, on the majority, are harmful as it deranges the nucleotide sequence; so the majority if mutations occuring may even devolve the spriggina to relatively simpler organism. Are there any transitional fossils for that? Why only evolution has to occur, and not devolution since the possibility of the latter is more than the former?

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Good grief! What are you talking about? How can you possibly criticise evolution with such a poor understanding of it?Firstly, the evidence suggests that the majority of mutations are neutral, a significant minority are harmful, & a small minority beneficial. Harmful mutations are removed from the genome (of the population) by natural selection, the frequency of beneficial mutations is increased by the same process. Hence multiple good adaptive mutations accumulate, resulting in a gradual change over time.There is absolutely nothing that says complexity cannot be lost by an evolutionary process. This isn’t devolution however, it is still evolution. Why? Because it is an adaptive change.

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Ahmad:
Firstly, the "at once" appearance of living organisms refers to an extremely narrow geological time (~5-10 million mya) when all the animals phylas, except bryozoans, made their appearance.

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This is becoming tedious. There is strong evidence of major phyla appearing in the Precambrian. I’ve been here before, if you’re not going to read what I write, I see no reason in repeating myself.

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Now this does refute evolution.. which states that given NS and random mutations occuring over a long period of time, the organism gradually evolves from simple to complex.

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Incorrect.You mean long periods of time meaning anything over 10 million years, evolution makes no such stipulation. Secondly, there’s those irritating Precambrian animal fossils found in 900 million year old rocks. Thirdly, evolution does not state that an organism HAS to evolve from simple to complex. Fourthly, there's the divergences of the various clades shown by your own molecular data cite, which by definition occur before the cambrian explosion.

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Modern evolutionists propose different hypothesis to explain this like Punctuated Equilibria, plate tectonics etc. But what they can't explain is the wide variety of organisms making their appearance within an extremely short time. Note, these organisms varied from each other distinctly by possessing features complex and has no known evolutionary origin.

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Precambrian origins aside. Provide POSITIVE evidence that this cannot happen. Tell me where evolution contradicts itself with actual measurable specifics. This is YOUR claim, not mine. Back up your own hypothesis, attacking other hypotheses doesn't make your own favoured one any more true without positive, evidence in its support.

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Mark:
I have asked this several times now; what implication does the appearance of major classifications of organisms at different times have on your belief system? You have used the fossil record to support your claim that ALL metazoans appear at the same time (& you admit this is an incorrect assumption), so it stands to reason that you use the same evidence to support your own hypothesis. Can you make the same observations fit your belief system?

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This time please answer the question. I know what a belief system is, & I know what creation science is. In order to answer this question you will have to state how you believe life got here, &, if in more than one event, in what order? Please give as much relevant information as possible.

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Ahmad:
And each of them complies with Creation theory. So what if the seed ferns went extinct? Similar explanations regarding the origin of plants can also be given. Have you heard of the "evolutionary explosion" (as evolutionists call it) that took place some time during the carboniferous period?

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Hey, YOU said there were no plant intermediates, not me.

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And what are the ‘progymnosperms’? Imaginary evolutionary ancestorsthere is no evidence that they ever even existed!

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LOL! Without going into too much detail, a proof that they DO exist should suffice.XReferProgymnospermopsida (progymnosperms)"The ancestors of the gymnosperms, which arose in the Devonian and dwindled to extinction in the latter part of the Carboniferous. They had trunks with wood resembling that of gymnosperms, but their fertile branches or leaves bore sporangia (see Spore), and their foliage was often fern like. Probably seeds evolved in various different progymnosperms. See Archaeopteris."Imaginary-ancestors-no-evidence-they-even-existed, indeed!

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Mark:
As I have explained, prokaryotes precede eukaryotes, which in turn precedes multicellular life. All of this occurred BEFORE the Cambrian explosion.

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Ahmed:
If I am not wrong, is this the endosymbiont theory of Margulis that you are referring to?

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You are wrong. I am talking about basic increases of complexity seen in the Precambrian.

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So far, you haven't shown me any valid intermediate of animals. And what are the ‘progymnosperms’? Imaginary evolutionary ancestorsthere is no evidence that they ever even existed!

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I HAVE shown you valid Precambrian intermediates. You don’t accept them, what can I do? I don’t pretend to show you DEFINATE transitionals, but they are valid!

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Mark:
In my discussions with you I have been careful not to make any unbacked assertions. Care to support the quote above with anything more than faith alone? That is, positive, testable, falsifiable evidence?

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Ahmed:
IC and CE are my bets.

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Like I said, unbacked assertions. There is no POSITIVE, TESTABLE, FALSIFIABLE evidence of creation.

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Ahmed:
I have been delving upon this subject in detail, lately. Bryozoans appeared just after the Cambrian period, in the Ordovician Period (495 mya) that is part of the same Palezoic era that cambrian period is part of too. Hmm.. does that ring a bell?

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Bryozoans don’t appear in the Cambrian, they appear in the Ordovician. Ergo not all Phyla appear in the Cambrian explosion. Simple. Was I not clear on this?

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Mark:
Also, the earliest unargued multicellular animal body fossils date fom 900 million years ago (to my knowledge)(see a previous post), giving a 450 million year window of opportunity for the earliest metazoans taxa to the last phyla to appear.

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Ahmed:
Interesting. Can you back up your claim?

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Yup. Pararenicola, Protoarenicola were found in 900 million year old rocks (for the second time of telling). They have been allied with annelids (themselves Cnidarians) (Sun 1986, Sun 1994, Cloud 1986)

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Mark:
What of the above refute evolution?

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Ahmed:
If all the animal phyla, save the bryozoans, including complex invertebrates as well as vertebrates, hemichordates and chordates all appeared in span of ~5-10 mya, how do you think evolution can explain this?

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Because the ancestors lived deep in the Precambrian, were generally small, soft bodied, & not numerous? What a crazy whacked out explanation that was!

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Ahmed:
A soft bodied protoarthropod with no jointed legs, WILL LOOK LIKE ONE.
It will have no jointed appeandages but will be a cross between its ancestors and its own "future" species.

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Excellent. You agree that Spriggina is a potential intermediate annelid-arthropod, then? By your own definition, you should do.

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Ahmed:
All chordates have notochords. So if there exists a chordate transitional, it should be a cross between its ancestor species and the future specie. For example, if there is a transition between an echinoderm and chordates, the resulting species is bound to have everything in half. It should have half an exoskeleton and half an endoskeleton. Half from each species, especially the characteristic features.

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Incorrect.If an intermediate proto-echinoderm/chordate intermediate fossil is discovered before it got a notochord, it doesn’t invalidate the fossil as a potential intermediate. It doesn't have to have half of everything. Creationist strawman.

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Mark:
Creationist assertions shown to be in error:

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1/ All animal phyla appeared at the same time.

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Ahmad:
With the exception of bryozoans, what are your bets?

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My bet is that the creationists assertion is wrong BECAUSE bryozoans appeared when creationists say they didn’t. Also, see cnidarians, above.

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Mark:
2/ No animal phyla appeared after the Cambrian explosion.

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Ahmad:
What are the animal phylas that appeared first after the cambrian explosion, save the bryozoans?

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None. So what? Bryozoans appear after the Ce. Period. Creationist assertion 2/ blown out of the water.

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Mark:
3/ No animal phyla appeared before the Cambrian explosion.

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Ahmed:
Metazoans and traces of multicellular organisms can be traced before the cambrian era. But what phylas had their go before the cambrian explosion and appeared in a complete state?

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Cnidarians (annelids), see above. The Ediacarans too, if you don’t want them to be ancestors of the Cambrian phyla, you choose.Regardless, even if the metazoans in the Precambrian didn’t belong to an extant phyla, they’d belong to an as yet un-named one by definition, unless you know of any metazoans that DON’T belong to a phylum? I know you don’t WANT them to exist, but they do. Creationist assertion 3/ blown out of the water.

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Mark:
4/ There are no possible intermediate fossils of metazoans in the Precambrian.

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Ahmed:
No intermediate fossils of any species during any era has been shown yet.

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Except Spriggina, of course, see above, Also:Present in dinosaurs, but not in birds; pubic peduncle, long bony tail, & abdominal ribs. Present in birds but not dinosaurs; pygostyle, a bony sternum, a furcula,, a hypotarsus, & feathers. What do you think Archeopteryx possessed? Yup, all of them. By your own definition, a transitional.I stand by the seven points I made, & when we can agree on them, we can move forward. You didn’t provide a single refutation of the points, so I’ll state them again:Creationist assertions shown to be in error:

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1/ All animal phyla appeared at the same time.

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2/ No animal phyla appeared after the Cambrian explosion.

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3/ No animal phyla appeared before the Cambrian explosion.

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4/ There are no possible intermediate fossils of metazoans in the Precambrian.

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Remaining problems:

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1/ Why did so many body plans of metazoan fossils appear at roughly the same time?

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2/ Why is there such a paucity of fossil multicellular life in the Precambrian?

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Do you agree? If so, we can move on. Mark------------------
Occam's razor is not for shaving with.[This message has been edited by mark24, 11-19-2002][This message has been edited by mark24, 11-19-2002][This message has been edited by mark24, 11-19-2002]

Ahmad,You respond to Schraf;

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Huh? So you're telling me (correct me if I am wrong) that a change from one species to another does not require a great advantageous change in the genetic information?

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Correct, there need not be anything advantageous (or disadvantageous, for that matter) about speciation. All speciation requires (under the biological species concept) is genetic isolation between two populations. There is absolutely no stipulation that the mutations involved cannot be neutral.For example, the sperm in population A may change to such a point that they are no longer compatible with population B's eggs. Genetic exchange is now impossible between the two populations, they have passed a point of no return, they are separate species. Note the changes in population A's sperm are neutral with respect to it's own population.This is known as gametic incompatibility.Mark------------------
Occam's razor is not for shaving with.[This message has been edited by mark24, 11-20-2002]

All, (& Ahmad, if you’re still here),In summary, I think Ahmads arguments are flawed thusly:Irreducible Complexity:Ahmad seems to think IC is by definition un-evolvable. It isn’t. IC is a system that fails to function when a single component is removed. Given that Doolittle HAS provided a plausible evolutionary pathway to the so-called IC blood clotting cascade, it is incumbent on Ahmad to provide positive evidence for his claim rather than just reasserting it.Cambrian Explosion:It is creationists, & Ahmads contention (when he arrived at EvC, at least) that ALL animal phyla appeared during the Cambrian explosion, if you have followed this thread, you will know this is false. There are phyla appearing before & after the explosion. The remaining problems IMHO as far as creationism is concerned, is that there is a relative paucity of fossils in the Precambrian, & that there is a rapid period of diversification of, & dare I say, increase in abundance, of life (if the fossil record is to be believed). The question is; are these problems fatal to the ToE? The answer is clearly no. Neither of these two factors contradict evolution.Mark.------------------
Occam's razor is not for shaving with.[This message has been edited by mark24, 11-21-2002]