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Author | Topic: Does Chen's work pose a problem for ToE? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
randman  Suspended Member (Idle past 4930 days) Posts: 6367 Joined: |
My mistake...you are correct...but regardless, we really see the sudden emergence of all major phyla.
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randman  Suspended Member (Idle past 4930 days) Posts: 6367 Joined: |
You are correct. I spoke to hastily concerning the Cambrian era, but you make a comment below that I am not sure is correct.
the fossil record is one of increasing diversity over time Can you substantiate that? For example, the quote I linked to says there has not been any major phyla in over 500 million years.
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randman  Suspended Member (Idle past 4930 days) Posts: 6367 Joined: |
I already admitted to being incorrect to use life forms, dinosaurs and such....been a long day working while posting too.
The issue, as laid out in the OP, is that the Asians feel that there finds indicate that the Cambrian explosion occurred in a 2-3 million year period, and that random mutation and natural selection just cannot account for the data. They say this is being ignored basically because western evos don't want to cede any ground to creationists and IDers. They also believe that soft bodies are well fossilized contrary to what evos claimed before. Can current evolutionary mechanisms explain the Cambrian explosion as a geologically rapid process, 2-3 million years, or not, as the Asian scientists quoted are saying. This message has been edited by randman, 02-24-2006 06:52 PM
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randman  Suspended Member (Idle past 4930 days) Posts: 6367 Joined: |
Then, why did they insist otherwise jar?
Today, paleontologists still lack viable ancestors for the Cambrian's 40 or more animal phyla. Most researchers explain this by assuming that Precambrian animals were simply too small or too soft to leave a fossil record, or that conditions were unfavorable to fossilization. But, for the last three years, Chen's discoveries at Precambrian fossil sites with Taiwanese biologist Chia-Wei Li have magnified this mystery. While sifting through the debris of a phosphate mining site, Chen and Li eventually discovered the earliest clear fossils of multicellular animals. They found sponges and tiny sponge embryos by the thousands - but nothing resembling the fish-like Haikouella or forerunners of other Cambrian creatures, such as trilobites. When word of the discovery got out, Chen and Li suddenly found themselves in the international spotlight. But when the hoopla was over and their discovery established, they wondered what evolutionary problems they had actually solved. In fact, the pair had failed to find any recognizable body plans showing steps along the way toward the complex Cambrian animals, with their legs, antennae, eyes and other features. What they had actually proved was that phosphate is fully capable of preserving whatever animals may have lived there in Precambrian times. Because they found sponges and sponge embryos in abundance, researchers are no longer so confident that Precambrian animals were too soft or too small to be preserved. "I think this is a major mystery in paleontogy," Chen said. "Before the Cambrian, we should see a number of steps - differentiation of cells, differentiation of tissue, of dorsal and ventral, right and left. But we don't have strong evidence for any of these." Taiwanese biologist Li was also direct: "No evolution theory can explain these kinds of phenomena." Basically, they say the typical evo response of a poor fossil record is false, and that "no evolutionary theor can explain the data". Looks fairly simple to me. Evos say the phyla evolved via random mutation and natural selection primarily and so we should see the process well-preserved, but we do not. So evos say that the creatures didn't fossilize because they were soft body creatures. These 2 Asian scientists find thousands of Precambrian soft body creatures, and thus falsify the evo claim of a poor fossil record. Their conclusion is that no evolutionary theory can thus explain the data. Makes sense. It's logical. What do you have to say against it?
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randman  Suspended Member (Idle past 4930 days) Posts: 6367 Joined: |
PaulK, if you read what Chen and his Taiwanese associate have to say, they clearly indicate that the prior evo claims that creatures with soft bodies did not fossilize well is wrong. They showed this with the discovery of thousands of fossils, and yet we still see in the process evidence that they say "no evolutionary theory can explain."
Why do they say this? Because of what the fossil record shows. It just does not show evolution producing the phyla as evos predicted, and the excuse for the failed prediction, fossil rarity, doesn't work in this case. That's why they call it a paleontological mystery.
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randman  Suspended Member (Idle past 4930 days) Posts: 6367 Joined: |
Um the question is why do they say no evolutionary theory can explain the data?
It is a big deal. Can you elaborate on their fossil findings indicating a well-preserved fossil record? This message has been edited by randman, 02-24-2006 07:46 PM
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randman  Suspended Member (Idle past 4930 days) Posts: 6367 Joined: |
Modulous, except these guys in the OP say the fact we found complex or whatever you want to call them creatures earlier, compresses the time period for them to have evolved even further, and with such an excellent fossil record having been found, the fact we don't see the earlier forms transitioning in this manner that:
no evolutionary theory can explain this Can one of you guys address what Chen and his colleague are saying?
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randman  Suspended Member (Idle past 4930 days) Posts: 6367 Joined: |
That still doesn't explain it, modulous. Maybe you can elaborate. What they say is they were looking for more primitive organisms and instead found more advanced, and finding more advanced earlier, in their view, refutes current evo mechanisms.
So why wouldn't finding even more advanced organisms even earlier just make their point all the more stronger? Also, did you catch they are making the same point I have been making onthe fossil record. They are saying that the current evo claims of fossil rarity are wrong; that the fossil record is a lot more complete and does show soft body creatures than what previous evo models claimed, and armed with such awareness of what the fossil record shows, they made the bold statements they make. Basically, they are saying the fossil record contradicts current evo models, and so "no evolutionary theory can explain this...." Now, I am open to any suggestion that later finds have changed their stance, or should have changed their stance....I just have not seen it yet in what you guys have posted....in fact, it seems pretty clear to me that these guys are evolutionists themselves, and are very open to accepting evolutionist mechanisms if that is reasonable. They have just come to the conclusion that evo mechanisms are not reasonable, at least not the ones put forth so far.
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randman  Suspended Member (Idle past 4930 days) Posts: 6367 Joined: |
At any rate, the Cambrian "explosion" may not have been all that "sudden", and only marks the appearance of hard body parts that fossilize (more) easily compared to the soft-bodied precursors.
Somehow I think the message in the OP and the links are not getting through. 1. Chen's work shows that soft-bodied creatures are extremely well-preserved in the fossil record, thus refuting the common evo explanation you offered.
In fact, the pair had failed to find any recognizable body plans showing steps along the way toward the complex Cambrian animals, with their legs, antennae, eyes and other features. What they had actually proved was that phosphate is fully capable of preserving whatever animals may have lived there in Precambrian times. Because they found sponges and sponge embryos in abundance, researchers are no longer so confident that Precambrian animals were too soft or too small to be preserved. Boston Globe Article 2. Their finding of PreCambrian phyla millions of years earlier than thought is part of their argument to explain why current mechanisms cannot explain the data, not evidence against their hypothesis here as some on this thread have maintained.
Biologist had been expecting to see something that would like a primitive ancestor to the middle Cambrian animal called Pikaia, formerly promoted as the world's earliest chordate. Rather than finding evidence that Pikaia had a less-complex ancestor, Chen instead found a chordate that already displayed many vertebrate characteristics 15 million years earlier.
This led the biologist publishing with Chen to conclude:
Taiwanese biologist Li was also direct: "No evolution theory can explain these kinds of phenomena."
What I would like to see is some evo here take the time to grasp Chen's and his associates' claims, and then offer a rebuttal. To date, it doesn't appear anyone even "gets" what the Asian scientists are saying.
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randman  Suspended Member (Idle past 4930 days) Posts: 6367 Joined: |
Modulous, what you are missing is that they show that soft body creatures fossilized quite well, and the further back they go, instead of finding precursors to the phyla, they find the same stuff. That's why finding phyla from 543 million years ago is a compression of the Cambrian explosion not an extension of it.
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randman  Suspended Member (Idle past 4930 days) Posts: 6367 Joined: |
600 million? That makes it even worse for the evo argument.
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randman  Suspended Member (Idle past 4930 days) Posts: 6367 Joined: |
“The 580-million-year-old phosphorous rock has good potential to preserve animals, if they exist,” Chen reported to the conferees. “I think this is a major mystery in paleontology, because we didn’t find hard evidence to show that this large number of Cambrian phyla was existing earlier. For me, natural selection is not enough to explain the number of evolution novelties.” More recent evidence for a possible bilaterian animal near the Cambrian/Pre-Cambrian boundary doesn’t solve the problem. Li was also direct: “Evolution should be built on gradual change: mutation plus mutation creating the species, and then the genera and then the family”so how can these animals appear suddenly?” Western scientists would have none of it. “It doesn’t matter if you find it or not!” declared German biologist Dieter Walossek, rallying his Western colleagues around him. “It’s there! It’s by law! All of the major taxa should have been there in the Precambrian, whether proved or not!” Valuing theory over data is giving Western science a bad name in the East. During the same week that Westerners read reports in Science and Nature that stressed the Darwinian lessons to be learned from Chen’s discovery of the earliest chordate, the Communist Party’s Guang Ming Daily gave the Chinese people a different story. “Evolution is facing an extremely harsh challenge,” wrote Chinese reporters in an article, “Darwinism ” Science or Religion?” Using adjectives such as “dogmatic” and “authoritative” to describe America’s neo-Darwinism, the paper suggested that the theory had taken a wrong turn somewhere in the West. : “In the beginning, evolution was advanced as a scientific hypothesis; one that should be under serious scrutiny from all angles.” The article concluded that, because of the need to contend with creationists, scientists became hypersensitive to any dissent from their “immature science,” and “evolution eventually changed into a religion.” Today, as a result of Chinese paleontology, biologists must choose between classic Darwinism and “saltation,” the idea of evolution in quick jumps, says biologist Holland. Chinese gossil discoveries have wrought havoc upon his once-tidy tree of life: “You just hardly know what order to put the material in now. I mean, you might as well just present the phyla alphabetically. It’s come to that.” In China, the Cambrian mystery has recently inspired the building of large new government-sponsored research centers devoted to its investigation. At the heart of their research lies a declaration anathema in the West: a proclamation of the mystery of animal origins on Earth. Rather than “survival of the fittest,” Chen believes scientists should focus on why life kept evolving beyond the fittest. Microbacteria are the most successful forms of life, Chen noted, since they make up most of the Earth’s bio-mass and have survived while all other forms have a way of going extinct. Complex life is less capable of making adaptations. If all we have to depend upon is chance and competition, the conventional forces of evolution, Chen said, “then complex, highly evolved life, such as the human, has no reason to appear.” At the conference, Chinese scientists encouraged the investigation of a variety of new hypotheses to explain the Cambrian explosion: hydrothermal eruptions, sudden seafloor changes, even intelligent design. This last was too much for one American paleontologist, who stood up and shouted, “This is not a scientific conference!”
Fred Heeren, Washington Times
I agree upon further reading that finding older bilaterals is helpful to mainstream evolutionist theories here but still hardly definitive. Once again, we reallly should be seeing massive numbers and we don't. We do see however that the claims that tiny, soft-bodied creatures don't fossilize well are wrong. I think from the quotes above it is clear that the Asians are more open-minded and believe that different mechanisms must be invoked, and they are willing to consider ID as well, as a potential scientific possibility.
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randman  Suspended Member (Idle past 4930 days) Posts: 6367 Joined: |
You stated:
and only marks the appearance of hard body parts that fossilize (more) easily compared to the soft-bodied precursors.
I showed where soft-bodied creatures are found in abundance in phosphates. What don't you get about that?
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randman  Suspended Member (Idle past 4930 days) Posts: 6367 Joined: |
But we have found thousands of fossils due to phosphatisation. We should see the precursors well-represented.
But not to belabor the point....for me, the issue that soft-bodied creatures are well-preserved in fossils is major one that I think can be useful on other threads. Arguing numbers that should appear is probably not going to be fruitful here, but it is something to consider with an open mind, and I think the statements of Chen and others indicate more openness to let theory follow the data rather than the other way around.
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randman  Suspended Member (Idle past 4930 days) Posts: 6367 Joined: |
their assessment of western scientists is still very telling when it comes to evolution, imo.....but I am on vacation and will be gone 9 days...will check back then,
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