Sorry, but the Cambrian Explosion is a disaster for the evolutionary theory soft tissues or not. Secular estimates for the time window for this event are between 5 and 50 million years! Let's choose the bigger number to give NeoDarwinism every advantage. Stop and think about what this says: 1. In 50 million years, 70+ new animal came into existence! 2. That is over 1 major animal phyla per million years! 3. One animal phyla would take thousands and thousands of perfectly sequenced mutations that would have to spread to the larger population all within one million years?? 4. Keep in mind this is not 70 species coming into existence- this is 70 phyla springing into existence! Now somebody stop and explain to me why I'm supposed to believe this happened by random processes. You don't have to be an Einstein to figure that the odds of this occurring are astronomically low. Something incredible happened on planet earth in its formative years.
Shoe: >If you're not going to be a theist, then at least >tell me you're a deist, pantheist or believer in >panspermia so I can respect your position! Here, I'll tell you my position so you can respect it (or not) -- though it won't fit into any of your boxes. I don't know what to believe, but I damn sure know what NOT to believe -- that's my position. JB
>Knowing what not to believe is a belief system. And a damn good one I might add. Have I ever claimed to be without belief system? JB
Still no takers? Evolution is not all around us. Actually we all have the same evidence. It's all a matter of how we interpret it. The fact that no one can prove evolution, yet so many believe in it, at least proves they're capable of "faith".
Okay, maybe I was a little strong. But, at least for me, I could believe in flat earth before I could believe in the origin of life by natural random processes. As I've stated before, the backdrop of all of this is a firestorm on the earth as well. This time period for the earth is nothing but a nighmare for the garden variety atheist: Fully formed cells show up in the fossil record as far back as 3.5 billion years, and limestone, formed from the remains of organisms dates back 3.8 billion years. This is also verified by the C/C ratio found in certain ancient sediments. These 300 million years were a period of intense bombardment from asteroids, comets and meteors. Astronomers estimate that there must have been AT LEAST 30 life exterminating impacts during this time period. We are talking 200-300 mile chunks of rock that would boil off oceans and leave debris clouds where all photosynthesis would stop. And in case anyone is doubting me, here is a secular link that verifies a variety of the things that I've talked about including this period of intense bombardment (as well as abundant early water, the lunar event, timing of early life, etc.): http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/planetearth/early_earth_010110.html
And practically speaking what do all these life exterminating events mean for the origin of life research? They have to explain how DNA, RNA and a fully formed cell could develop in less than 10 million years! That's right - secular sources (including Sagan from what I've heard) have said that life had to form in 10 million years. Stop and think about the Human Genome Project and the computing that it took just to map the human genome! (Yes, I realize that the first cell would not have to have as complex a genome.) Now imagine throwing in cytoplasm, mitochondria, ribsomes, cellular membranes, etc. I'm supposed to believe that happened by chance in 10 million years????
>If it works for you, why condemn other belief >systems that work for others? You won't find me condemning any belief system that leaves others alone. I find it easy to condemn a belief system that supports action (sometimes lethal) against others in the name of that system. JB PS. As much as I love this direction ART, it's off topic and I know for a fact that several participants wish this thread to stick to the scientific side. PM me if you wish to continue.
Fine but then believe in something that's scientifically tenable. At least look into pantheism or deism or panspermia. But please don't tell me that materialism makes sense when it comes to explaining the origin of life on our fair planet. I haven't even brought up the whole oxidation/reduction issue. I found out some more details on the whole oxidation/reduction problem as well. In 1996 almost of all the top Origin of Life researchers assembled at a conference. Several researchers presented the fact that oxidation ruled back to at least 4.1 billion years in the earth's history. Some undoubtedly materialist scholars begged, "Can you give us just 2% oxygen?" The researchers said, "We cannot give you .002%!" This was another death blow to Origin of Life research. In a oxidizing environment, amino acid production goes not 100's or 1000's of times more slowly, but millions of times more slowly! Let's put it another way: the early earth was a Hell Hole for amino acid production.