I figured you would want me to elaborate so I have done so, but I do not expect a full responce from you, however much I would like one.
The standard evolutionary story describes an earth bombarded by meteorites from its origin 4.5 billion years ago until almost 3.8 billion years ago. Within only 100 million years the first life evolved following the cessation of this celestial onslaught. This, in and of itself, is a huge evolutionary hurdle without explanation.
So, if science does not have an explanation for the origin of life and explanation for evolution is invalid? Nonsence.
For the next 3 billion years, little else but single- celled life forms ruled the planet. Then suddenly, in the Cambrian geological period, the earth is populated with a huge diversity of complex multicellular life forms. This has always looked suspiciously like some form of creation event, and paleontologists frequently seemed rather embarrassed by the reality of the Cambrian Explosion.
This information is incorrect, what of the other times mass speciation occurred? There were many periods where there was even greater diversity and complexity in a short period of time. Were they creation events too?
Even a smaller timeframe...
Yet, here is the real puzzle of the Cambrian Explosion for the theory of evolution. All the known phyla, except one, along with the oddities with which I began this discussion, first appear in the Cambrian period.
Not true, just at the time of the Burgess Shale discovery, these were the earliest known examples of many animal phyla. Now this information is out of date, you can appreciate that I would think.
There are no ancestors. There are no intermediates. Fossil experts used to think that the Cambrian lasted 75 million years. But even that seemed to be a pretty short time for all this evolutionary change. Eventually the Cambrian was shortened to only 30 million years. And if that wasn't bad enough, the time frame of the real work of bringing all these different creatures into existence was limited to the first five to ten million years of the Cambrian.
Again based on out of date fossil evidence.
This is extraordinarily fast! Harvard's Stephen Jay Gould says, "Fast is now a lot faster than we thought, and that is extraordinarily interesting." What an understatement! "Extraordinarily impossible" might be a better phrase!
How does he determine the impossibility of the event? You must answer this question above all else.
In the Time magazine article (p. 70), paleontologist Samuel Bowring says, "We now know how fast fast is. And what I like to ask my biologist friends is, How fast can evolution get before you start feeling uncomfortable?"
It's not about feeling uncomfortable the evidence is there it is up to scientists to continue to make more discoveries so that we can continue to hone the theory of how it came to place.
OH and here's the pain...and there are fish!-
There are no fish, where?
This necessity of gradualism explains the difficulty evolutionists have concerning the Cambrian explosion or Evolution's Big Bang, as Time magazine called it.
Well yes at the time this discovery took place there was inconsistencies with then current theory. So the theory had to be reworked. And it will be reworked again as more evidence comes in. This is how science works.
How could animals as diverse as arthropods, molluscs, jellyfish, and even primitive vertebrates all appear within a time span of only 5-10 million years with no ancestors and no intermediates?
They didn't
Evolution just doesn't work this way.
It does now.
Fossil experts and biologists are only beginning to wrestle with this thorny dilemma. Some think that genes which control the process of development from a fertilized egg to an adult, the so- called Hox genes, may have reached a critical mass which led to an explosion of complexity. Some of the simplest multi-celled organisms like the jellyfish only have three Hox genes, while insects have eight, and some not-quite-vertebrates have ten. Critical mass may be a real phenomena in physics, but biological processes rarely if ever work that way.
On who's authority? If we have children in a classroom all of a sudden given crayons there will be an explosion of expressions. But by adult hood there will be accepted ways of using this tool. Even crayon use evolves throughout our lives within society.
Besides, that doesn't solve the important riddle of where the first Hox gene came from in the first place. Genetic information does not just spontaneously arise from random DNA sequences.
This is not in the domain of evolution per say, although it is related and has been incorporated tentatively.
Before addressing this question, let's review our discussion thus far. Evolution's Big Bang, the Cambrian explosion of life that supposedly occurred over 500 million years ago, continues to puzzle evolutionists.
So does possible human involvement in the rise in average global temperature, but no-one denies global warming, only what the possible causes are.
Recent discoveries have narrowed the time frame from over 70 million years to less than 10 million years. This has only complicated their dilemma because so many different creatures appear in the Cambrian with no ancestors or intermediates.
This is out of date, but in any case lack of data does not make for evidence.
The major evolutionary innovations represented in the Cambrian would ordinarily require at least tens of millions of years to accomplish. Some might even suggest over 100 million years would be required. The differences between the creatures that suddenly appear in the Cambrian are enormous. In fact these differences are so large many of these animals are one of a kind. Nothing like them existed before and nothing like them has ever appeared again.
Again these are statements made with nothing to back them up. Many of them subjective.
In fact, a question that is just as perplexing as how this explosion of diversity could occur so fast, is why hasn't such drastic change ever happened in the 500 million years since? The same basic body plans that arose in the Cambrian remain surprisingly constant ever since. Apparently, the most significant biological changes in the history of the earth occurred in less than ten million years, and for 500 million years afterward, this level of change never happened again. Why not? This may seem like a simple question, but it is far more complicated than it appears.
Its very simple these forms although intact to today have changed greatly and have helped to shape an environment where predation and organic interaction is no longer pristine and new. If one were to introduce these earlier forms of multicellular experimentation into todays ecosystem, they would simply perish. Once an order is in place there is no room for new insertions. This has been shown in simulations and can be seen in everyday life.
It is not length of life, but depth of life. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
