Denyse O'Leary repeats a common criticism of evolution over on Post-Darwinist [Response to student: Darwinian evolution not random?/ ID is God of the Gaps?].On the face of it, Darwinian evolution is highly improbable or impossible on mathematical grounds. I mean that the history of complex life on earth (600 mya?) does not likely give us the resources we need for the random mutations. Once the Big Bang theory made it possible to establish an age for the universe (approx 13 bya) and the Earth (approx 4 bya), Darwinism was certain to come under attack.600 million years is more than enough time for complex single-celled organisms to evolve mechanisms of associating to form complex multicellular organisms. This probability argument is just fancy hand-waving designed to impress the uninformed. (The fact that it's also made by the uninformed is ironic, but not surprising.)
But the real hypocrisy of the intelligent design creationist (IDC) community is in not coming up with a better explanation. Here's your big chance, Denyse. Why not give us a thumbnail sketch of how intelligent design creationism explains the fossil record of animals over the past 600 million years? While you're at it, you might throw in a brief description of how IDC accounts for the genetic data. You know, the genetic data that shows a perfectly reasonable rate of random mutations?None of the IDiots have ever done this. They rant and rave about how improbable evolution is but they never give us an alternative that explains the facts. Why is that?
I'll make it real easy for you, Denyse. You don't have to explain everything. I'll be quite satisfied if the intelligent design creationists can give me their version of shark evolution. You can start with the separation of bony fish from cartilagenous fish about 450 million years ago. How did God do this? Why did He do it?
You can explain the appearance of Orthacanthus about 250 million years ago and why they look so similar to the species that lived a few million years earlier. Then you can tell us why God waited until 155 million years ago before creating the lamnoids that gave rise to modern looking sharks like the big white shark. Along the way, we eagerly await your explanation for why so many of those species are no longer with us. Did God get angry with them or does he just discard them as useless junk whenever He gets around to updating the latest model?
Here's a cladogram to help you out. When can we expect a response?
The Cambrian Explosion has often amused me from an ID point of view, for two reasons:
ReplyDelete1) It lasted a long time. A hell of a long time. So, one day God is sitting around and decides to create Hallucigenia. Phew, that was tiring thinks God, I need a break. In fact, I'm so tired, that I think I'll wait a few million years. Hooray, I'm recovered now, I think I'll poof Amiskwia into existence.
Of course, no doubt IDists will say this s a strawman. Personally, in the absence of them saying exactly what God was doing at this time, what he was creating and the mehanisms in question, I think it is pretty reasonable.
2) A lot of IDists (e.g. Paul Nelson) are young earth creationists. To them, the Cambrian Explosion is a hydrological phenomena, related to a catastrophic global flood. It has nothing to do with the development of life's diversity (irrespective of whether or not evolution is true).
This leads them to trumpeting the Meyer paper as an example of how a design inference is made, despite the fact that this design inference is being made on a hydraulic feature. Even more weirdly, Paul Nelson has come up with this ontogenetic depth thingy, which he applies to the Cambrian Explosion.
lol. between you and some scienceblogs, poor idiots can't get a break these days.
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