If it started from a single lifeform and thus we have a common ancestor the number would be small and get larger over time, wouldn't it?
The Cambrian Explosion
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When I've been talking about whether all life appears in the fossil record at the same time or at different times, I'm not actually referring to evolutionary theory when I'm describing those things. I'm referring just to the plain observation of what we see and observe in the fossil record without trying to explain or interpret it. That as we go up through the fossil record different organisms appear in different stratigrahpic horizons (different rock layers) and are confined to different parts of the fossil record and go extinct at different times. The entire science of biostratigraphy is focused on simple cataloging of this. Physically describing and cataloging where one type of organism appears in the fossil record and where it disappears from the fossil record (a lot of paleobiologists today actually try to avoid traditional biostratigraphy like the plague because it's really tedious, hard, boring work to catalogue all this!) (My own thesis research involved the tedious work of cataloging appearances, and disappearances, and changes in trilobites up through the fossil record centimeter by centimeter!). And so the fossil record can be physically divided up into different biozones or biostratigraphic units that are NOT based on theories of evolution, but just simply describe where organisms physically appear and disappear from the fossil record, without trying to explain why they appear or disappear. It's just straightforward observations and cataloging.
So we can think of biostratigraphy as the bare bones (pun intended), raw, observational data that we all have to work with, and that any theory of origins needs to explain.
So that's what I've been referring to all this time. Just those physical observations without trying to explain or interpret them. Sorry if I haven't made that clear.
So when we look at that raw, observational data, we don't see all types of life appearing in the same place (same layer/stratigraphic "horizon") in the fossil record, but see different types of life appear and disappear at different points in the fossil record. And it's not a jumbled mess. Different types of life are confined to discrete sections of the fossil record. And then they will go extinct together and be replaced or succeeded by a new community with other different types of life.
And so however one explains this that is the raw, physical, observational data we see. We don't see all the types of life that have ever existed on Earth appearing together at the same time. Instead, we see different groups of life appearing in the fossil record and then going extinct, and then another different group that appears and then goes extinct, and then another, and another, and another. A pattern of appearances and extinctions of uniquely different types of life at different points of the fossil record.
*So the million dollar question becomes how do we explain this raw, observational data? So any theory of origins whether it's evolution or creation or intelligent design or any other theory has to find a way to account for this pattern of successions of repeated appearances and extinctions of different types of life.
Jan 14, 2023
0
#24
Even so regardless of what 'date' we put on the stratigraphic level, even just that do we see the numbers decreasing as we get deeper/older (if deeper means older), or are these numbers telling us another story? I'm asking not because of I have those numbers at my fingertips, you'd know better than I would. I'm more of a process guy since I deal in code doing specified work all day.
Depends on what one means by "numbers." Not trying to split hairs. The "answer" to the question is actually complicated and difficult to answer. For example, we could answer that question in terms of just counting raw numbers of different organisms, but that still might not tell us anything useful because of the different reproductive times of different organisms. There's what? Something like 7-8 billion or so humans on the planet right now? But we can find that many bacteria on a rock after multiplying over just a few days, so it's not always a useful comparison. So instead of numbers, *biomass* is probably a more meaningful measure. And so yes, in terms of biomass there is a definite increase in biomass over time (up to a point), but it is not a straight exponential curve. There are bursts of biomass increases with appearances of groups, but then biomass takes hits with extinction events.
If you're talking in terms of ancestors-descendants that's still difficult to meaningfully quantify, so it depends on what we mean by "numbers."
I'll make a guess and you can correct me if I'm wrong. But I suspect the point you're trying to get at is something like this that what Darwinism predicts (left) and what the fossil record actually shows (right) are two different things.
*But the truth is the fossil record doesn't look like either one of these pictures.
Jan 14, 2023
0
#26
I'd just stick with some lifeform that shows up the first time, variations on a theme afterward aren't what I think is important in this discussion. How many lifeforms show the first time with eyes, how many with legs, fins, plant life, reptilian, lungs, and so on?
Well since this OP is about Meyer's claims about the Cambrian "explosion" let's start there. In fact the diagram above (which I'll repost below) is the type of diagram Meyer and other IDers/YECs will use (and have been using the same basic diagram since the 1980s), along with the claim that what the fossil record "really" looks like is on the right with the oft repeated claim that virtually all major animal groups (aka "phyla") "abruptly" appear during the Cambrian "explosion" with no "intermediates" or "transitional forms" as if they were "suddenly created" (*which oddly contradicts YEC beliefs that this was the result of Noah's Flood, not creation). Elsewhere in his book Meyer criticizes cladogram "trees" and points out the arbitrariness of animal "phyla" which are arbitrary name categories invented by humans (*without seeing how that undermines his claim of "abrupt" appearance of animal "phyla"! More about this below)
Well, as I said the fossil record doesn't look like either of these diagrams, nor do scientists use flawed evolutionary "tree" diagrams like the picture on the left (That’s so 19th century to early 20th century). That's not how modern systematics is done today. So ID/YEC diagrams like this are contrasting *misrepresentations* of evolutionary relationships (left) with misleading *misrepresentations* of what the fossil record supposedly "looks" like (but doesn't) based on arbitrary, human categories of outdated taxonomy from Linnaean classification from the late 1700s!
(1) First, Meyer and ID/YECs can make these claims only by omitting tons of data. This claim of "abrupt" appearance of all the major animal phyla makes it sound like fully formed animals (metazoa) just suddenly appear in the fossil record with nothing before it. This is false on both accounts: animals don't suddenly appear in the Cambrian, and there is an extensive animal (metazoan) fossil record below/before the Cambrian in the Precambrian.
(2) Nor do all animal "phyla" abruptly appear in the Cambrian. For example, fossil sponge embryos (Phylum Porifera--marine sponges) have been discovered far below the Precambrian-Cambrian boundary (~540 my) dated >600 my; more than 50 my before the Cambrian.
(3) But more importantly, Meyer is correct about animal "phyla" being an arbitrary name category invented by humans. And an outdated one at that. In other words, yes, Meyer is correct that most animal "phyla" "abruptly" appear in the Cambrian, but all that means is that if you group organisms into arbitrary categories then those arbitrary human categories are first represented in the Cambrian; which tells you nothing about reality and what is really going on.
(4) Modern systematics has moved away from the old Linnaean classification systems of phylum, class, order, etc. The names are still used because of how the process of cataloging organisms has developed over time since the 1700s, but they are more placeholders used for communication purposes, but that intrinsically have little value today; which is actually good, because now we focus more on the actual, raw data, instead of trying to figure out where to put an organism in our arbitrary categories of classification. And so today, scientists focus less on the names of things and more on the actual physical character traits that those things have, which makes a lot more sense. And when you do that you don't see "abrupt" appearance at all with nothing before it but can trace changes and development in physical character states over time (like the diagram below, for example). Each of the numbers on the left (in BOLD) represents a specific physical character trait, and so scientists today focus on the appearance and development of character traits over time. So when you look at fossils on the basis of raw, observational data of suites of physical character traits (instead of arbitrary name categories) you can track how different physical character traits appear at different times (not "suddenly" at the same time), and how different character traits change and develop over time. This is a more accurate way to do analysis that is an improvement over the old ways, and that actually tells us what's actually happening in the fossil record.
*So in sum: The whole "evolutionary tree" vs. 'sudden' appearance of all major animal groups is a misleading contrast between outdated and erroneous nineteenth century "evolutionary trees" (today, we use cladograms) vs. 'sudden' appearance of arbitrary groupings of animals that don't reflect the reality of character states and character transitions that we actually observe in the fossil record
Jan 17, 2023
0
#28
Off-topic, I don't read YEC so stating what they say means nothing to me.
Jan 17, 2023
0
#29
tbwp10 wrote:
Well since this OP is about Meyer's claims about the Cambrian "explosion" let's start there. In fact the diagram above (which I'll repost below) is the type of diagram Meyer and other IDers/YECs will use (and have been using the same basic diagram since the 1980s), along with the claim that what the fossil record "really" looks like is on the right with the oft repeated claim that virtually all major animal groups (aka "phyla") "abruptly" appear during the Cambrian "explosion" with no "intermediates" or "transitional forms" as if they were "suddenly created" (*which oddly contradicts YEC beliefs that this was the result of Noah's Flood, not creation). Elsewhere in his book Meyer criticizes cladogram "trees" and points out the arbitrariness of animal "phyla" which are arbitrary name categories invented by humans (*without seeing how that undermines his claim of "abrupt" appearance of animal "phyla"! More about this below)
Well, as I said the fossil record doesn't look like either of these diagrams, nor do scientists use flawed evolutionary "tree" diagrams like the picture on the left (That’s so 19th century to early 20th century). That's not how modern systematics is done today. So ID/YEC diagrams like this are contrasting *misrepresentations* of evolutionary relationships (left) with misleading *misrepresentations* of what the fossil record supposedly "looks" like (but doesn't) based on arbitrary, human categories of outdated taxonomy from Linnaean classification from the late 1700s!
(1) First, Meyer and ID/YECs can make these claims only by omitting tons of data. This claim of "abrupt" appearance of all the major animal phyla makes it sound like fully formed animals (metazoa) just suddenly appear in the fossil record with nothing before it. This is false on both accounts: animals don't suddenly appear in the Cambrian, and there is an extensive animal (metazoan) fossil record below/before the Cambrian in the Precambrian.
(2) Nor do all animal "phyla" abruptly appear in the Cambrian. For example, fossil sponge embryos (Phylum Porifera--marine sponges) have been discovered far below the Precambrian-Cambrian boundary (~540 my) dated >600 my; more than 50 my before the Cambrian.
(3) But more importantly, Meyer is correct about animal "phyla" being an arbitrary name category invented by humans. And an outdated one at that. In other words, yes, Meyer is correct that most animal "phyla" "abruptly" appear in the Cambrian, but all that means is that if you group organisms into arbitrary categories then those arbitrary human categories are first represented in the Cambrian; which tells you nothing about reality and what is really going on.
(4) Modern systematics has moved away from the old Linnaean classification systems of phylum, class, order, etc. The names are still used because of how the process of cataloging organisms has developed over time since the 1700s, but they are more placeholders used for communication purposes, but that intrinsically have little value today; which is actually good, because now we focus more on the actual, raw data, instead of trying to figure out where to put an organism in our arbitrary categories of classification. And so today, scientists focus less on the names of things and more on the actual physical character traits that those things have, which makes a lot more sense. And when you do that you don't see "abrupt" appearance at all with nothing before it but can trace changes and development in physical character states over time (like the diagram below, for example). Each of the numbers on the left (in BOLD) represents a specific physical character trait, and so scientists today focus on the appearance and development of character traits over time. So when you look at fossils on the basis of raw, observational data of suites of physical character traits (instead of arbitrary name categories) you can track how different physical character traits appear at different times (not "suddenly" at the same time), and how different character traits change and develop over time. This is a more accurate way to do analysis that is an improvement over the old ways, and that actually tells us what's actually happening in the fossil record.
*So in sum: The whole "evolutionary tree" vs. 'sudden' appearance of all major animal groups is a misleading contrast between outdated and erroneous nineteenth century "evolutionary trees" (today, we use cladograms) vs. 'sudden' appearance of arbitrary groupings of animals that don't reflect the reality of character states and character transitions that we actually observe in the fossil record
I didn't ask to prove either the sudden appearance of all life at the same time or the tree of life, I asked what do we see and where they show up in what strata. I'm not a fan of our dating methods, true, but all of that aside right or wrong, the placement alone should say something, what is it we do see, not what others say it means.
TruthMuse wrote:
Off-topic, I don't read YEC so stating what they say means nothing to me.
I only bring it up because a lot of ID arguments, including Meyer's here, actually come from YEC arguments
TruthMuse wrote:
tbwp10 wrote:
Well since this OP is about Meyer's claims about the Cambrian "explosion" let's start there. In fact the diagram above (which I'll repost below) is the type of diagram Meyer and other IDers/YECs will use (and have been using the same basic diagram since the 1980s), along with the claim that what the fossil record "really" looks like is on the right with the oft repeated claim that virtually all major animal groups (aka "phyla") "abruptly" appear during the Cambrian "explosion" with no "intermediates" or "transitional forms" as if they were "suddenly created" (*which oddly contradicts YEC beliefs that this was the result of Noah's Flood, not creation). Elsewhere in his book Meyer criticizes cladogram "trees" and points out the arbitrariness of animal "phyla" which are arbitrary name categories invented by humans (*without seeing how that undermines his claim of "abrupt" appearance of animal "phyla"! More about this below)
Well, as I said the fossil record doesn't look like either of these diagrams, nor do scientists use flawed evolutionary "tree" diagrams like the picture on the left (That’s so 19th century to early 20th century). That's not how modern systematics is done today. So ID/YEC diagrams like this are contrasting *misrepresentations* of evolutionary relationships (left) with misleading *misrepresentations* of what the fossil record supposedly "looks" like (but doesn't) based on arbitrary, human categories of outdated taxonomy from Linnaean classification from the late 1700s!
(1) First, Meyer and ID/YECs can make these claims only by omitting tons of data. This claim of "abrupt" appearance of all the major animal phyla makes it sound like fully formed animals (metazoa) just suddenly appear in the fossil record with nothing before it. This is false on both accounts: animals don't suddenly appear in the Cambrian, and there is an extensive animal (metazoan) fossil record below/before the Cambrian in the Precambrian.
(2) Nor do all animal "phyla" abruptly appear in the Cambrian. For example, fossil sponge embryos (Phylum Porifera--marine sponges) have been discovered far below the Precambrian-Cambrian boundary (~540 my) dated >600 my; more than 50 my before the Cambrian.
(3) But more importantly, Meyer is correct about animal "phyla" being an arbitrary name category invented by humans. And an outdated one at that. In other words, yes, Meyer is correct that most animal "phyla" "abruptly" appear in the Cambrian, but all that means is that if you group organisms into arbitrary categories then those arbitrary human categories are first represented in the Cambrian; which tells you nothing about reality and what is really going on.
(4) Modern systematics has moved away from the old Linnaean classification systems of phylum, class, order, etc. The names are still used because of how the process of cataloging organisms has developed over time since the 1700s, but they are more placeholders used for communication purposes, but that intrinsically have little value today; which is actually good, because now we focus more on the actual, raw data, instead of trying to figure out where to put an organism in our arbitrary categories of classification. And so today, scientists focus less on the names of things and more on the actual physical character traits that those things have, which makes a lot more sense. And when you do that you don't see "abrupt" appearance at all with nothing before it but can trace changes and development in physical character states over time (like the diagram below, for example). Each of the numbers on the left (in BOLD) represents a specific physical character trait, and so scientists today focus on the appearance and development of character traits over time. So when you look at fossils on the basis of raw, observational data of suites of physical character traits (instead of arbitrary name categories) you can track how different physical character traits appear at different times (not "suddenly" at the same time), and how different character traits change and develop over time. This is a more accurate way to do analysis that is an improvement over the old ways, and that actually tells us what's actually happening in the fossil record.
*So in sum: The whole "evolutionary tree" vs. 'sudden' appearance of all major animal groups is a misleading contrast between outdated and erroneous nineteenth century "evolutionary trees" (today, we use cladograms) vs. 'sudden' appearance of arbitrary groupings of animals that don't reflect the reality of character states and character transitions that we actually observe in the fossil record
I didn't ask to prove either the sudden appearance of all life at the same time or the tree of life, I asked what do we see and where they show up in what strata. I'm not a fan of our dating methods, true, but all of that aside right or wrong, the placement alone should say something, what is it we do see, not what others say it means.
First, I thought we were trying to focus on Stephen Meyer
Second, I already gave a good overview of what we see in the fossil record, which I'll repost again below (anything more specific would take a lot of time to work through like what we see show up in the Francian biota, and then the Ediacaran biota, and then below the Precambrian-Cambrian boundary, and then the Cambrian biota and so on. There are volumes on these subjects describing just what we see and that's just a tiny section of the fossil record. It's kind of difficult to summarize, because there's so much data).
(Repost)
When I've been talking about whether all life appears in the fossil record at the same time or at different times, I'm not actually referring to evolutionary theory when I'm describing those things. I'm referring just to the plain observation of what we see and observe in the fossil record without trying to explain or interpret it. That as we go up through the fossil record different organisms appear in different stratigrahpic horizons (different rock layers) and are confined to different parts of the fossil record and go extinct at different times. The entire science of biostratigraphy is focused on simple cataloging of this. Physically describing and cataloging where one type of organism appears in the fossil record and where it disappears from the fossil record (a lot of paleobiologists today actually try to avoid traditional biostratigraphy like the plague because it's really tedious, hard, boring work to catalogue all this!) (My own thesis research involved the tedious work of cataloging appearances, and disappearances, and changes in trilobites up through the fossil record centimeter by centimeter!). And so the fossil record can be physically divided up into different biozones or biostratigraphic units that are NOT based on theories of evolution, but just simply describe where organisms physically appear and disappear from the fossil record, without trying to explain why they appear or disappear. It's just straightforward observations and cataloging.
So we can think of biostratigraphy as the bare bones (pun intended), raw, observational data that we all have to work with, and that any theory of origins needs to explain.
So that's what I've been referring to all this time. Just those physical observations without trying to explain or interpret them. Sorry if I haven't made that clear.
So when we look at that raw, observational data, we don't see all types of life appearing in the same place (same layer/stratigraphic "horizon") in the fossil record, but see different types of life appear and disappear at different points in the fossil record. And it's not a jumbled mess. Different types of life are confined to discrete sections of the fossil record. And then they will go extinct together and be replaced or succeeded by a new community with other different types of life.
And so however one explains this that is the raw, physical, observational data we see. We don't see all the types of life that have ever existed on Earth appearing together at the same time. Instead, we see different groups of life appearing in the fossil record and then going extinct, and then another different group that appears and then goes extinct, and then another, and another, and another. A pattern of appearances and extinctions of uniquely different types of life at different points of the fossil record.
*So the million dollar question becomes how do we explain this raw, observational data? So any theory of origins whether it's evolution or creation or intelligent design or any other theory has to find a way to account for this pattern of successions of repeated appearances and extinctions of different types of life.
Jan 18, 2023
0
#32
I'm asking for a graph, not an explanation, I don't think I made myself clear, so this is not a slam on you. Number by strata, leaving time out of it.
Same answer. There's too much data to show in one graph. There are volumes and volumes and volumes on all this. It depends on how fine a scale you want to look at things and what specific fossil group you're interested in. For example, here's a biostratigraphic chart for Cambrian trilobites at a SINGLE field site locality (red triangle) in China that shows where each type of trilobite appears and goes extinct (first and last appearance in the fossil record at this specific locality). The number scale on the left is in meters, so it tells you exactly at what level strata you find a given type of trilobite. Now multiply this by thousands and thousands of such charts for different organisms at thousands of different field site localities around the world.
Here's some more examples...
But then you can have more generalized ones...
And you can have ones that estimate population size as you go up the fossil record.
If you're interested in a specific organism, just let me know. If you're interested in the BIG TREND appearances-extinctions of major paleocommunities as we go up through the fossil record, that would be more manageable, if you'd like to walk through that. That would probably be most practical, so that's what I would recommend. Looking at the major paleocommunities as you physically go up through the fossil record.
No, a ton of stuff before the Cambrian like I said
Jan 19, 2023
0
#36
tbwp10 wrote:
No, a ton of stuff before the Cambrian like I said
Sorry, I was looking at it backward my bad, it still is a lot of new life, and by new, these have different shapes, organs, and biological systems?
See post #27. "A lot" is a relative term. In terms of genetic diversity comparatively small changes compared to "simple" one celled pond water "protozoa." See also: https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/another-talk-on-evidence?page=16#comment-74479819
Jan 19, 2023
0
#38
We know all of the issues from none to one, exactly how is it any easier to go from one to two, if hanging in the balance is one wrong turn and it is over with an ever-changing instructional code being modified to take what is, then turn it into something else? Seeing several showing up not only Cambrian but all of them throughout the strata, does this seem, reasonable to you? At each level, if they show new lifeforms coming from the established life from those times, and then suddenly moving from one time to the next, huge numbers of completely different life shows up again and again. That would be a major undertaking to set up the instructional code to program into life for that type of adaptability to be able to undertake that as a goal, from the get-go those instructions would have to be in the first cell wouldn't they, if the evolutionary design was programmed and not haphazardly done through chance and necessity?
There's a difference between accidental "random chance," and biologically controlled "random chance" with natural genetic tinkering in non-essential and non-coding regions of the genome while protecting essential parts of the genome from such tinkering
You mean different life forms showing up at different times?