New Cambrian Discoveries

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Yep. It would also spur a flurry of research trying to understand how the rabbit managed to evolve in a world without any land plants or any obvious ancestors.

What interests me is that organisms completely new to science are being discovered in these deposits and that even in these early times of complex life there were already complex interconnected ecosystems.

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It seems that there might already be work on some of these issues.

A scientist had a big (1114 pages?) work published, but it seems he died just before.

Is this type of thing going to be seen as "pseudo science"? (The cover seems to have Velikovsky and Darwin pictured side by side)

Here is the blurb.

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The basis of evolutionary change, according to Ginenthal, is master genes that have been conserved from the time of the Cambrian explosion to the present. By following these master genes and using the fossil record as the true evidence of evolution, is it shown why no new phyla have developed since the Cambrian explosion and why the chronology for dating evolution is in serious error. Ginenthal then outlines the evolution of the vertebrates from their earliest appearance to the present via saltations that morph and metamorph new species at the times of Velikovskian global cataclysms. Throughout the book, Ginenthal elucidates how the master genes operate to do this and also presents new evidence connecting this process to physics. Those who read this volume will have an entirely new understanding of evolution and may never think about it in the same way.

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I will surely read this work some time (as the dead author was amazingly good at using primary scientific sources and journals) but does this sound screwed up at first glance?

How screwed up?

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This is a thread in the Links and Information Forum", so not really the place for discussion about what seems to me to be unrelated except for the mention of "Cambrian."

I tend to dismiss books and articles that mention "Velikovskian global cataclysms" since reading some of Velikovsky's books back in maybe the '70s. I suspect it will indeed be seen as pseudo science. That's how I see it anyway.

If you want to discuss this I suggest you propose a new topic.

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It is very much on topic, if you focus on the comments about a (possible archaeological scenario) "rabbit"-like creature (perhaps a remnant from some isolated island that existed only for a few million years) in the Cambrian (and with the need for a modified theory of evolution to explain it).

The possibility of non-DNA genetic "information" being present, but not apparant (according to current understanding of genetics), could explain how the "Rolly Polly" crustacean has some sort of genetic expression that makes it nearly identical to a few millipedes (including the rolling ball feature).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodlouse

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pill_millipede

Consider is the recapitulational stages of embryology and then the issue of metamorphosis.

But, first Velikovsky:

The "Velikovsky" part seems to be only loosely related.

(All Velikovsky proposed, as far as I have read, is that "Numerous catastrophes or bursts of effective radiation must have taken place in the geo-logical past in order to change so radically the living forms on earth" which would be consistent with "The fact that the geological record shows a sudden emergence of many new forms at the beginning of each geological age" and would solve the problem that comes from "The fact that in many cases the intermediary links between present-day species are missing, as well as those between various species of the geological record, a vexing problem")

Velikovsky simply suggested rapid mutational change in the DNA.

End Velikovsky.

The theory of Ginenthal goes beyond the standard issue of mutations as they WERE (and perhaps are) commonly understood.

Ginenthal seems to be saying that there was alot of non-DNA type of genetic material that ALREADY had lots of "information".

Back to embryology.

Françoise Jacob and Jacques Monad found "control genes" to be an important issue to understand when they worked on bacteria.

They were quoted:

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A Feeling for the Organism (10th Anniversary Edition) The Life and Work of Barbara McClintock
Evelyn Fox Keller

p. 176

The fundamental problem with chemical physiology and embryology to understand why tissue cells do not all express, all the time, the potentialities inherent in their genome… The discovery of regulator and operator genes and the repressive regulation of the activity of structural genes reveals that the genome contains not only a series of blueprints, but a coordinated program of protein synthesis and the means of controlling its execution.

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Consider the Nobel laureate, Barbara McClintock.

Evelyn Fox Keller, in A Feeling for the Organism (10th Anniversary Edition), The Life and Work of Barbara McClintock (NY 1983), said that McClintock was responsible for "turning biology into a bona fide field of science —a science like physics"

On page 177, Keller wrote:

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When Barbara McClintock saw Monad’s and Jacobs first paper in Comptes Rendu, she was overjoyed. Here was an elegant analysis of a bacterial system that she herself worked out for maize. Common input was the identification of two [sets of] controlling elements: one adjacent to the other independently situated and through its effect on the first controlling elements, exerting indirect control on the gene. The fact that the controlling elements in her own system were transposable [movable] may have been essential to their initial discovery, but it was not essential to the operation of such a control system. Indeed, in one class of gene loci under control of McClintock’s… System, both the element analogous to what Monad and Jacob called the "operator" gene and the [McClintock] system itself [did not move but] remained fixed—just as the bacterial system.

"The similarities between [control genes in] her own work and the work of Monad and Jacob were so striking that the latter seemed to provide just the kind of independent confirmation needed to the resistance she had thus far encountered [to the concept of control genes for rapid saltational evolution]…

Promptly, she sent off a paper to American Naturalist entitled "Some Parallels Between Gene Control Systems in Maize and in Bacteria," in which after outlining the basic features of [her]… system, she concluded:

"It is expected that such a basic mechanism of control of gene action will be operative in all organisms. In higher organisms, lack of means of identifying the components of a control system of this type may be responsible for delay in recognition of their general prevalence, even though there is much genetic and cytological evidence to indicate that [genetic] control systems to exist. It is anticipated, however, that control systems exhibiting more complex levels of integration will be found in the higher organisms."

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The Tangled Field: Barbara McClintock’s Search for the Pattern of Genetic Control 
Nathaniel C. Comfort
(Cambridge, MA 2001)

p.221

In 1971, McClintock asked an audience at Cold Spring Harbor "If all organisms have the same basic parts and can produce basic tools, why do we have so many different organisms?" Her answer was that different organisms simply express different patterns. In an interview with Will Provine and Paul Sisco in 1980, she explained, "Years ago, I began to realize that any genome can make any other, practically." The genome she imagined was a set of interchangeable parts like an erector set, by using different combinations of genes in different arrangements, one can build almost any organism from a single set. These potentials reflected the "extraordinary integration of the genome." All organisms, she said, had an "overall pattern that’s built into the genome somewhere, so that it builds itself." Pattern is built into the genome, "If [the] pattern shifts the organism changes."

....

p.122

Asked in 1980 whether her races-of-maize shed light on evolution, McClintock replied, "Yes. Macroevolution undoubtedly." Since at least 1951, she had agreed with Goldschmidt’s thinking that chromosomes, rather than genes, with a proper unit of heredity… She concluded, "The main changes in evolution are regulatory. They have to be…"

At the level of genome, she reasoned speciation could be structurally related to metamorphosis . If so, then, in theory, all organisms could be derived from a single set of genes.

p.224

[McClintock said:]

"I believe there is little reason to question the presence of innate systems that are able to restructure the genome. It is now necessary to learn of these systems and determine why many of them are quiescent and remains so over very long periods of time only to be triggered into action by forms of stress."

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p.224

These ideas of restructuring and reorganizing the genome brought her to the final question of her career, concerning the seats of the control. What "told" the controlling elements when the where [ and how] to act? What guided genome restructuring and reorganization?… It was on this subject, the source of control that McClintock sounds most mystical. The organism themed to have knowledge of every cell, where it belongs [and acts] in the system [of an organism].

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Comfort, p. 152, says McClintock is "said to have told friends not to dismiss Velikovsky so quickly that there might be a grain of truth in his work".

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Evolution and the Problem of Natural Evil 
Michael Anthony Cory,
(Landham, MD/Oxford, UK 2000)

p. 18

In the 1930s, the concept demonstrated that stress can induce transposons [jumping genes] activity within the genome… But if stress can induce transposon activity, and if transposon activity can reorganize the entire genome, then it follows that stress can reorganize genomic reorganization. Going one step further, if genomic reorganization can result in the spontaneous production of new characters and new species, then it follows that external stress must also be potentially capable of inducing major changes in the evolutionary descent of organisms… On this view, the genome is so ingenious and versatile, that it can respond to stress by involving itself into a plethora of new forms and structures…

In other words, the genome seems to possess within itself [the ability] to produce many of the relevant variations in any given species, long before any significant environmental contact has been made [that induces stress]. Such as a prori adaptive capacity, only seems to make sense if it were programmed into the genome from the very start of the evolutionary process.

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New Scientist (October 13, 1983)
"How Restless DNA was Tamed"
Jeremy Cherfas and Steve Connor
p.78

Today, students of biochemistry take for granted the existence of different types of genes—those that produce proteins and others that regulate the production of proteins. But in the 1940s when Barbara McClintock presented evidence suggesting the evidence of controlling elements in addition to structural genes… she was ignored and even ridiculed.

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While she was mapping the first controlling element, McClintock made the discovery that is now recognized by the Nobel Committee. She found that the controlling element shifted from one generation to the next. And, when it moved, it brought a different structural gene under its control…

This concept of gene regulation was entirely new to geneticists, and at the time she presented it, she was virtually ignored. John Finchman, Professor of Genetics at the University of Edinburgh, says there were two reasons for the muted response. She went against the accepted doctrine of the time (that chromosomes [over time were largely] stable) and presented the complicated evidence too rapidly for her peers to absorb.[33]

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One has to wonder if there is some sort of genetic expression and control that isn't understood, and which could mask lots of potential morphological and anatomical changes (possibly happening in a single generation), which were already , in some way, present in the genetic code. Françoise Jacob and Jacques Monad said the "fundamental problem with chemical physiology and embryology to understand why tissue cells do not all express, all the time, the potentialities inherent in their genome". Embryology shows the greatly different morphological expressions present in the entire genetic load.

Could a rabbit like creature have once lived on an isolated island in the Cambrian times?

With hair?

(It , of course, would not be a mammal.)

Genetic quiescence means what?

McClintock said:

"I believe there is little reason to question the presence of innate systems that are able to restructure the genome. It is now necessary to learn of these systems and determine why many of them are quiescent and remains so over very long periods of time only to be triggered into action by forms of stress."

"Quiescent" features?

Explain what that means.

Edited by LamarkNewAge, : No reason given.

Edited by LamarkNewAge, : No reason given.

You can keep on making jokes, but the biggest joke is the assumption, by posters in this thread, that there is some large Cambrian land-strata field that has been looked at and dug excavated.

Most (almost all) of the land has been crushed by plate techtonics. Even the bulk of the Cambrian ocean strata has been crushed and lost.

I made a minor post (without much commentary to clarify) about Cambrian genetic controls possibly allowing for the creation of a morphological rabbit-like creature possible.

You then complained that it was off topic.

(Posters here were saying that land "plants" of any sort weren't present ANYWHERE, and other arguments that can only be described as an "argument from absence of evidence")

Don't make fun of creationists when they ask about missing links, if the Cambrian situation is going to be treated, by posters here, like everything has been found that ever existed. It isn't even close to true.

My "main beef(s)" will narrow this discussion (which you said you didn't want to have anyway).

Tanypteryx said:

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Well, I think a larger and mistaken assumption is you assuming that we are assuming that. We are well aware that exposed strata deposited in many periods is rare.

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I said there were no land plants, and I based that on fossil evidence of the emergence of vascular plants at the beginning of the Silurian Period.

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I was talking about cambrian land-strata, and emphasis on the LAND part.

google search:

cambriaN land-strata

brings up some hits.

here is just one

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Cambrian Period - Cambrian rocks | Britannica.com
https://www.britannica.com/...Cambrian-Period/Cambrian-rocks
Few Cambrian rocks from land environments have been documented, and most of .... precision to correlate uppermost Precambrian and basal Cambrian strata.

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As for my LAND plant beef, there are molecular level studies avaliable in the literature.

see http://www.pnas.org/content/115/10/E2274

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The timescale of early land plant evolution
Jennifer L. Morris, Mark N. Puttick, James W. Clark, Dianne Edwards, Paul Kenrick, Silvia Pressel, Charles H. Wellman, Ziheng Yang, Harald Schneider, and Philip C. J. Donoghue
PNAS March 6, 2018 115 (10) E2274-E2283; published ahead of print February 20, 2018 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1719588115
Edited by Peter R. Crane, Oak Spring Garden Foundation, Upperville, VA, and approved January 17, 2018 (received for review November 10, 2017)

Significance
Establishing the timescale of early land plant evolution is essential to testing hypotheses on the coevolution of land plants and Earth’s System. Here, we establish a timescale for early land plant evolution that integrates over competing hypotheses on bryophyte−tracheophyte relationships. We estimate land plants to have emerged in a middle Cambrian–Early Ordovocian interval, and vascular plants to have emerged in the Late Ordovician−Silurian. This timescale implies an early establishment of terrestrial ecosystems by land plants that is in close accord with recent estimates for the origin of terrestrial animal lineages. Biogeochemical models that are constrained by the fossil record of early land plants, or attempt to explain their impact, must consider a much earlier, middle Cambrian–Early Ordovician, origin.

Abstract
Establishing the timescale of early land plant evolution is essential for testing hypotheses on the coevolution of land plants and Earth’s System. The sparseness of early land plant megafossils and stratigraphic controls on their distribution make the fossil record an unreliable guide, leaving only the molecular clock. However, the application of molecular clock methodology is challenged by the current impasse in attempts to resolve the evolutionary relationships among the living bryophytes and tracheophytes. Here, we establish a timescale for early land plant evolution that integrates over topological uncertainty by exploring the impact of competing hypotheses on bryophyte−tracheophyte relationships, among other variables, on divergence time estimation. We codify 37 fossil calibrations for Viridiplantae following best practice. We apply these calibrations in a Bayesian relaxed molecular clock analysis of a phylogenomic dataset encompassing the diversity of Embryophyta and their relatives within Viridiplantae. Topology and dataset sizes have little impact on age estimates, with greater differences among alternative clock models and calibration strategies. For all analyses, a Cambrian origin of Embryophyta is recovered with highest probability. The estimated ages for crown tracheophytes range from Late Ordovician to late Silurian. This timescale implies an early establishment of terrestrial ecosystems by land plants that is in close accord with recent estimates for the origin of terrestrial animal lineages. Biogeochemical models that are constrained by the fossil record of early land plants, or attempt to explain their impact, must consider the implications of a much earlier, middle Cambrian–Early Ordovician, origin.

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Much later in article

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Dating Strategies.
Across all alternative dating strategies, the age estimate for crown Embryophyta ranges from 583.1 Ma to 470.0 Ma (Fig. 5 and Table 4), which is larger than the range across the different topologies (515.2 Ma to 473.5 Ma). The greatest variance is seen when the embryophyte constraint is removed, resulting in older age estimates in the hornworts–sister topology, with an age distribution that stretches into the Proterozoic (to the middle Ediacaran), compared with the bulk of the distributions that fall within the Cambrian for all other age estimates (Fig. 5).

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Here is wikipedia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embryophyte

I reject the idea that earlier periods lacked many of the things the incomplete fossil record might presently indicate.

There could have been lots of evolutionary dead-end LAND islands in Cambrian times.

And intelligent life, as well as plants themselves, could have colonized the islands.

There could have been some interesting islands (of life) before extinctions.

Land plants did exist at this time, it seems.

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Land plants arose earlier than thought—and may have had a bigger impact on the evolution of animals
By Elizabeth PennisiFeb. 19, 2018 , 9:35 AM

We have land plants to thank for the oxygen we breathe. And now we have a better idea of when they took to land in the first place. While the oldest known fossils of land plants are 420 million years old, researchers have now determined that pond scum first made landfall almost 100 million years earlier.

https://www.sciencemag.org/...igger-impact-evolution-animals

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Origins of land plants pushed back in time
By Helen Briggs
BBC News
20 February 2018

Land plants evolved from "pond scum" about 500 million years ago, according to new research.

These early moss-like plants greened the continents, creating habitats for land animals.

The study, based on analysing the genes of living plants, overturns theories based purely on fossil plant evidence.

"Land plants emerged on land half a billion years ago, tens of millions of years older than the fossil record alone suggests," said study author, Dr Philip Donoghue of the department of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol.

"This changes perception of the nature of early terrestrial environments, displacing pond scum in favour of a flora that would have tickled your toes - but not reached much higher. "

Early plants would have provided a habitat for fully terrestrial animals, which emerged onto land at much the same time, he said.

This coincides with the time period when life became more diverse and abundant in the seas - an event known as the Cambrian explosion.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-43116836

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The study shows that it is even slightly possible that today's plants have land ancestors that even pre-date the Cambrian.

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The Origin of the Embryophytes and Tracheophytes.
Considering the 95% HPDs of divergence times across all topologies, the origin of crown embryophytes is dated to 515.1 Ma to 470.0 Ma (middle Cambrian–Early Ordovician). However, all of the mean estimated ages are resolved within the Phanerozoic across all alternative topologies and dating strategies, and the majority are dated to around 500 Ma (middle Cambrian Series 2). Only one analysis has a 95% HPD that stretches into the Proterozoic. The full span of age estimates for the crown tracheophyte node is 472.2 Ma to 419.3 Ma (Floian, Early Ordovician to the late Silurian). Only one analysis has a 95% HPD that stretches to the Early Ordovician, with those using a uniform prior resulting in estimated mean ages close to the Ordovician−Silurian boundary (∼444 Ma). The span of the tracheophyte stem lineage ranges across all analyses from 25.1 My to 60.0 My; these intervals are shorter for the paraphyletic topology than the monophyletic bryophytes topology (35.5 My and 51.6 My, respectively) (SI Appendix, Fig. S6).

http://www.pnas.org/content/115/10/E2274

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However, there is not a single genetic analysis that places VASCULAR plants before the time just AFTER the end of the Cambrian, and the analyses seem to put the origin 30 million or so years after the Cambrian ended.

But, again, this only is an analysis of the plants that have living descendants.

There could have been Sea plants that colonized a certain number of Cambrian (or pre Cambrian) islands, and became "land" plants, but became extinct without leaving any descendants that survived in the fossil record.

It seems to be assumed that novel evolution didn't happen twice, but the discovery of lignin in red algae raises questions, and specifically about convergent evolution.

From a journal:

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Until now, such developmentally specialized cell walls have been described only in vascular plants. The finding of secondary walls and lignin in red algae raises many questions about the convergent or deeply conserved evolutionary history of these traits, given that red algae and vascular plants probably diverged more than 1 billion years ago.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19167225

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See endless journal articles when LIGNIN RED ALGAE is put into google.

Such as:

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The 'starch' that stiffens land plants is discovered in seaweed
https://news.stanford.edu/.../january28/cellwall-012809.html
Jan 28, 2009 - "Because red and green algae likely diverged more than a billion years ago, the discovery of lignin in red algae suggests that the basic ...

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The discovery raises questions, and helps show that previous assumptions were wrong.

As for the issue of animals, dont forget that Cambrian LAND-strata is very very rare and precious. It might not be correct to assume that no evolution happened on land in Cambrians times. The is no guarantee that the most "advanced" creatures (all assumed to be watery) survived Cambrian times and left descendants. We should not assume that there were no land animals in the Cambrian times.

The plant assumptions were wrong, right?

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I more narrowly defined what I meant by "land plants" as "vascular plants."
I am not talking about Algae or Bryophytes.

We have found no Cambrian fossils of vascular plants that grew on land.

I will add that I am also unaware of fossil pollen, spores or seeds of vascular land plants found in any Cambrian deposits. These sorts of trace fossils are found in later sediments deposited when vascular plants arose, and pretty much continuously ever since.

We have found no fossils of modern vertebrates or any kind of mammal whatsoever in Cambrian strata (which would have to eat either other animals or vascular plants... and yes I remember that Caribou eat moss).

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You said there were not any kind of Cambrian land plants, in your earlier posts.

I always said that mammals (which clearly evolved in the period roughly 200 million years ago) were not the issue, but "rabbit"-like (non mammal)creatures were (slightly)possible.

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If you want to speculate or have a discussion about what sorts of things we might find in the future, based on what we have found so far, start a thread.

Try predicting what sorts of organisms we might find in the next new discovery that is just a bit older than what we have found so far or in strata that is just a bit younger.

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Well, I showed a fossil discovery (in a link), back around January or February, that had a 482 million year old land plant, if I recall correctly. It was only a few million years too young to be Cambrian.

It was slightly before the genetic study was published (which I never posted until now).

Tanypteryx said:

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And when I realized that you were not thinking "vascular plants" when I said "land plants" I tried to clarify what I meant, several times.

Whenever I said anything about land plants in this thread I meant vascular plants and I regret that I was not clearer.

This thread is about new Cambrian fossil beds and new interesting fossils being discovered which I think is really neat.

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There is a larger issue here and it is a very big problem imo.

Take a look at this post (and I will quote the entire thing), and tell me what you think the implication is.

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Actually, in my country we can. No plant or animal fossils have been found in the Vanrhynsdorp Group (Early Cambrian in age) or any other Groups (Klipheuwel, Nama) or Subgroups (Kansa) deposited during the Cambrian in my country. My country missed complex life in the Cambrian!

Edited by Pressie, 12-12-2018 5:49 AM: No reason given.

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(I appreciate the information, though it would be nice if there was a description of the total land area excavated and then the total area potentially dug/hammered into at some point )

South Africa does not the entire world make.

Put ARGENTINA OLDEST LAND PLANTS into google.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/...ants-unearthed-Argentina.html

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Fossils of 'world's oldest plants' are unearthed in Argentina | Daily Mail ...
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/...ants-unearthed-Argentina.html
Oct 13, 2010 - Prior to this discovery, the oldest known plants had been liverwort cryptospores found in Saudi Arabia and the Czech Republic which were thought to date back around 462 million years. Dr Rubenstein said the discovery was totally unexpected.
Oldest land plants? ~ Hudson Valley Geologist
hudsonvalleygeologist.blogspot.com/2010/10/oldest-land-plants.html
Oct 14, 2010 - Early Middle Ordovician evidence for land plants in Argentina (eastern Gondwana). New Phytologist 188: 365-369) recently discovered ...

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This also came in search

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The oldest land plants (1)
steurh.home.xs4all.nl/eng/old1.html
The oldest indications for the existence of real land plants have been found in cores from boreholes in Oman. They contained fours of mutually connected spores ...

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Another search brought this

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LON-CAPA The oldest land plants (1)
https://s10.lite.msu.edu/...line/library/steur/eng/old1.html
The first fossils of real land plants have been found in the Middle Silurian of Ireland. They are about 420 million years old. They consist of small bifurcations ...

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Why do we keep assuming that everything under our nose really is (literally) everything (that is, was, and ever will be)?

I detect a problem here.

Me three!

Here is one of your most recent posts.

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We have found no fossils of modern vertebrates or any kind of mammal whatsoever in Cambrian strata (which would have to eat either other animals or vascular plants... and yes I remember that Caribou eat moss).

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Me three and all of we.

Here is the relevant text from my post 9 (which came after your early "world without any land plants" post, and most certainly before any of your corrections)

I said:

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It is very much on topic, if you focus on the comments about a (possible archaeological scenario) "rabbit"-like creature (perhaps a remnant from some isolated island that existed only for a few million years) in the Cambrian (and with the need for a modified theory of evolution to explain it).

....

Could a rabbit like creature have once lived on an isolated island in the Cambrian times?

With hair?

(It , of course, would not be a mammal.)

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I will give you credit for one thing: you did admit that there are actual mammals that eat some of the modern-day remnants of the oldest land plants.

But I really do wonder how you justify the creationist-style argument of yours that a hypothetical Cambrian animal - as a requirement for survival - MUST HAVE eaten things that a mammal from several hundred million years later would have eaten. The professional creationist sites surely must be considering your job application/resume as we speak (lol).

Try another hypothesis..

Edited by LamarkNewAge, : No reason given.