Luskin's Hopeless Monster

Posted 27 June 2013 by Nick Matzke

I'm checking in from the airport on the way back from Evolution 2013. For me, highlights of the meeting included presenting my BioGeoBEARS R package and some Ph.D. results at the Ernst Mayr Symposium, hearing about all the cool things going at NIMBioS, anticipating and thus having a seat in the room while observing the Felsenstein Effect, and meeting Jerry Coyne in person for the first time, and having a friendly conversation rather than an argument. (What will our respective readers think of us? We have reputations to uphold!) Part of the reason for harmony was that Jerry recently blogged such nice things about my review of the half-baked ID book Darwin's Doubt: The Explosive Origin of Animal Life and the Case for Intelligent Design. Other folks, however, have not been so positive. Rather than actually defending Meyer's book from my quite specific criticisms, the Discovery Institute's Casey Luskin is now pretty much claiming -- and the various ID fans out there are blindly, uncritically repeating -- that I haven't read the book, that I wrote most of my review before the book came out, and that I made up quotes of Meyer. Well, here's the reality. I did not have an advance copy or pre-write a review or anything. I got the book around lunchtime last Tuesday when it came out. I read it during lunch, then again for snippets of the afternoon (we computational biologists often have bits of downtime while we wait for programs to run), and then most of the rest of it that night and the next morning. The book was not impressive, and I resolved to not bother with a review, and to work on stuff I should be doing. However, when I got into work on Wednesday, I started seeing the fawning, so-innocent-of-the-problems-and-the-science-it-was-almost-cute positive reviews of the book coming out from ID creationists, and I realized that the best way to stop getting distracted would be to bang out a review. I spent most of Wednesday on it and put the review up that night. I felt quite guilty, really, putting even that much time into it, considering everything else I should be doing, but like I said, it was much easier to focus afterwards. For people who find this all surprising, what can I say? You must be slow readers. More seriously, folks, it's not like this is my first rodeo. It might help to remember that I spent 3 years at NCSE researching the ID movement and basically crawling inside their heads, and then 6 years in graduate school studying, and TAing, and publishing phylogenetics. Unlike most scientists, I am deeply familiar with the ID arguments, their weird vague question-begging definitions of crucial terms and premises in their argument ("information", "fundamentally new" whatevers, etc.), and so I don't have to spend a lot of time mentally unravelling the multiple levels of confusion and misunderstanding and wishful thinking that are going on whenever Meyer rehashes some oft-used, previously refuted ID talking point. I can focus on what little is new and unique to the book in question -- in the case of Meyer's book, this is basically the stuff about the Cambrian and phylogenetics. (Plus I've been keeping up on the Cambrian literature for years -- e.g. my "Down with Phyla!" posts are crucial reading if you did not understand what I was talking about in the Meyer review. Heck, I personally know Charles Marshall of Marshall (2006) and Jim Valentine of Valentine (2004) and Erwin and Valentine (2013) -- they are professors in my department! -- and I read all of these references when they came out. For what it's worth, I should say briefly that Erwin and Valentine (2013), while a capable review of the topic of the Cambrian Explosion, has some significant weaknesses in the realm of phylogenetics and taxonomy. The authors work hard to include up-to-date phylogenetic thinking and terminology, and do quite well compared to their previous works, but the book nevertheless still carries a lot of stage #2, Linnaean, ranked-taxonomy thinking within it. This makes sense considering that Valentine was trained in the 1960s and Erwin, I believe, in the 1980s, and that both are in invertebrate paleontology, which for various reasons has hung on to ranks-based analysis longer than most other subfields. However, it causes various internal contradictions in their work. But I digress.) As for the claim of fake quotes, in all cases, Luskin is just sloppily misreading. It is quite clear from context when I am actually quoting Meyer, and when I am using scare quotes to highlight a term or concept that I think is problematic and/or mistaken, or using a paraphrase marked with quotes (or sometimes dashes, although-this-gets-unwieldy-quite-quickly) to efficiently summarize a difficult-to-describe position. There are a lot of weird and obscure positions in play at the intersection of the Cambrian, systematics, and ID creationism, so sometimes this is necessary, at least when, as now, I don't have time to spend paragraphs explaining all the basics from scratch. Other stuff In addition to trying to discredit my review through well-poisoning based on information-free speculation about my reading and writing practices, Luskin tries a few substantive arguments. These don't go well, and just further demonstrate just how throughly Luskin and Meyer are misunderstanding the basic terminology and concepts and evidence necessary to even have a meaningful discussion of the Cambrian. (I say Luskin and Meyer, since Luskin says he was Meyer's research assistant on the book.) To wit:

Matzke does attempt to address the first problem posed by the Cambrian explosion. He does so by claiming that methods of phylogenetic reconstruction can establish the existence of Precambrian ancestral and intermediate forms -- an unfolding of animal complexity that the fossil record does not document.

Well, no. I claimed that phylogenetic methods can establish, and have established, the existence of Cambrian intermediate forms, which are collateral ancestors of various prominent living phyla. The case is clearest with the most common and most-fossilized Cambrian phylum, the arthropods, but there is a fair bit of similar evidence for other major phyla. (Some phyla, primarily soft-bodied worms, have few fossils anyway, and there of course intermediate fossils are scare, although even if we had them they would be difficult-to-identify worms.) All of the leading authorities (Valentine, Erwin, Conway Morris, Briggs, Budd, etc.) would agree with me. More precisely, I agree with them, and they have all said in print what I just said. Furthermore, they would all agree that this is extremely important evidence for understanding the origin of "phyla", evidence which cannot be ignored. But Meyer/Luskin ignore it, instead occupying themselves with hunting around in the Precambrian. Similarly, Valentine, Erwin, Conway Morris, Briggs, Budd, etc., would all agree that it is utterly impossible to have a sensible discussion of the Cambrian Explosion while ignoring the 30-million year sequence of surface-crawling worms, then burrowing worms, then armored worms, then small shellies, THEN identifiable relatives of phyla, most of which are (not coincidentally) stem groups rather than members of the crown phyla, and which have characters suites transitional between the major crown phyla. These are fatal, catastrophic omissions Meyer's book, which is allegedly supposed to be a serious commentary on the Cambrian Explosion. The only way forward for the IDists is to forthrightly admit the error to the books' readership. From there, they could perhaps try to maintain their argument by arguing that the 30-million-year worms-shellies-stem-groups sequence is irrelevant, and that the stem group fossils with transitional morphologies are irrelevant or have been misinterpreted by the experts or something. But they haven't got a chance in heck of convincing anyone serious as long as they pretend to their readers that these data don't exist. Luskin also says:

Though he accuses Meyer of being ignorant of these phylogenetic methods and studies, he seems unaware that Meyer explains and critiques attempts to reconstruct phylogenetic trees based upon the comparisons of anatomical and genetic characters in his fifth and sixth chapters.

Now who's not reading? I explicitly devoted a section of my review to Meyer's discussion of phylogenetic conflict, and made a list of points that any professional, serious discussion of phylogenetic conflict would have to address, which Meyer did not address. (Luskin later contradicts himself and refers to my critique of Meyer's claims about phylogenetic conflict, but he mostly just asserts Meyer's book is correct. I suspect Luskin did a lot of the quote-mining for the phylogenetic conflict section. Earth to Luskin: do some statistics to back up your assertions, or you and Meyer aren't worth listening to on the topic of phylogenetic conflict.) Things get worse with Luskin's discussion of "phylum" lobopods and Anomalocaris as an "arthropod".

In the first quote, from page 53, we see that Meyer called Anomalocaris "either arthropods or creatures closely related to them," showing his awareness that there is ambiguity and debate over whether Anomalocaris belongs directly within arthropods, or was a close relative. Matzke never quotes Meyer's statement on this point, which is consistent both with what Matzke says about anomalocaridids, and with the relevant scientific literature. Instead, Matzke seems unfamiliar with what Meyer actually wrote. In the second quote, from page 60, Meyer suggests that Anomalocaris may in fact be an arthropod. Would it be a "basic error" to make that claim? Not at all, because many leading authorities on the Cambrian explosion have suggested precisely the same thing --that Anomalocaris is an arthropod.

This just further demonstrates the epic-level misunderstandings that Luskin and Meyer have when it comes to phylogenetics, systematics, and the Cambrian. You cannot even discuss this question without specifying what various authorities mean by "arthropod", which Meyer never does. The most common meaning of "arthropod" today is "crown group arthropod". This is what is used by e.g. Erwin and Valentine 2013, as well as all the other authorities I cited. On this definition, Anomalocaris is clearly outside of arthropods. Now, some scientists, usually those slightly less hip with phylogenetic systematics, use the term "arthropod" to refer to anything in the crown or on the arthropod stem. On this definition, Anomalocaris is an "arthropod", but all of these people would also agree that Anomalocaris is not in the arthropod crown group. This is the crucial point -- you cannot just say "Anomalocaris is an arthropod", flat-out, without specifying what you mean by "arthropod" and what the authorities you are citing mean. It's clear enough to experts, usually, what various scientists at various times mean (for example, I know Thomas Cavalier-Smith is an old-school evolutionary systematist, but Luskin, who cites him, doesn't), but in any book for a general audience, this must be specified. Erwin & Valentine do it capably, what the heck is Meyer & Luskin's problem? We can see Luskin's misunderstanding further when he quotes Paterson et al. (2011):

These fossils also provide compelling evidence for the arthropod affinities of anomalocaridids, [and] push the origin of compound eyes deeper down the arthropod stem lineage.

"Arthropod affinities" and "arthropod stem lineage" do not mean "Anomalocaris=arthropod" -- they mean Anomalocaris is on the arthropod stem! Which is a common finding, well-understood to everyone in the field. Luskin comments further:

The paper firmly places anomalocaridids as stem-group arthropods, very close to the crown-group arthropods, and has some weighty co-authors, including John R. Paterson of the University of New England in Australia, Diego C. García-Bellido of the Instituto de Geociencias in Spain, Michael S. Y. Lee of South Australian Museum and the University of Adelaide, Glenn A. Brock of Macquarie University, James B. Jago of the University of South Australia, and Gregory D. Edgecombe of the Natural History Museum in London. In covering this paper, Discover Magazine stated: "Paterson also argues that the eyes confirm that Anomalocaris was an early arthropod, for this is the only group with compound eyes."

Another way to say "The paper firmly places anomalocaridids as stem-group arthropods" is to say "The paper firmly places anomalocaridids outside of crown-group arthropods, i.e. outside of what most people, and all general readers, are thinking of when you say 'arthropod'." What this paper actually does, phylogenetically, is provide some characters (compound eyes) that strengthen the evidence for Anomalocaris being on the arthropod stem, rather than the onychophoran stem, or on the onychophoran-arthropod LCA stem, both of which are somewhat possible placements. The reporter misinterprets this as the simple statement "Anomalocaris was an early arthropod", which is exactly the mistaken statement that Meyer makes and which Luskin did not correct as "research assistant".

Likewise Benjamin Waggoner (then of UC Berkeley, now at the University of Central Arkansas) writes in the journal Systematic Biology that "the anomalocarids and their relatives (Anomalopoda) fall out very close to the base of the traditional Arthropoda and should be included within it." A 2006 paper in the journal Acta Palaeontologica Polonica likewise refers to the "anomalocaridid arthropods." The leading authorities Charles R. Marshall and James W. Valentine note in a 2010 article in the journal Evolution, titled "The importance of preadapted genomes in the origin of the animal bodyplans and the Cambrian explosion," that "Anomalocaris most likely lies in the diagnosable stem group of the Euarthropoda (but in the crown group of Panarthropoda)."

Waggoner also says in his paper that Anomalocaris falls outside of "Euarthropoda", which is another term for crown-group arthropods defined by living taxa. For reasons that are unclear to me, Waggoner defines a larger "Arthropoda" that is supposed to be a crown group, but which is defined to include extinct forms outside of the clade of the living taxa. This is not the usual definition of "crown", because crowns are supposed to be at the top of the tree, i.e. the present. Waggoner seems to be trying to say Anomalocarids go back to the Ediacaran, and thereby say the arthropods go back to the Ediacaran, and thereby connect the origin of arthropods to Spriggina and other Ediacaran forms. As far as I know none of these suggestions are widely accepted. Regarding the Marshall and Valentine quote, again, "stem group of the Euarthropoda", means outside of the crown group, i.e. outside what most people think of when you say "arthropod". "[I]n the crown group of Panarthropoda", however, provides no support at all for calling Anomalocaris an arthropod, because Panarthropoda is the crown clade made up of three phyla, namely arthropods plus tardigrades plus onychophorans! The point of all of this is that you can't just say "arthropod" when discussing Anomalocaris. You have to specify crown or stem, or some similar qualification, unless it is already clear within the discussion which you mean (which is the case in some expert discussions, but certainly not in the case of Meyer and his readers). All of the experts Luskin cites know Anomalocaris's probable stem-group status, and they usually specify this qualification in some fashion. The only one that doesn't is the Discover reporter, which just confirms my point -- it's an amateur mistake, unfit for a serious discussion of the Cambrian. (An aside: read the next sentence of Marshall & Valentine 2009:

For example, Anomalocaris most likely lies in the diagnosable stem group of the Euarthropoda (but in the crown group of Panarthropoda). In fact, it appears that most fossil taxa in the Cambrian belong to diagnosable stem groups. (bold added)

Why in the world should it be that the animal fossils observed in the Cambrian -- the ones furthest back in time -- also just happen to tend to be cladistically basal on the cladograms? Evolutionists know why -- but ID/creationists don't even know about this evidence, or at least don't dare tell their innocent readership about it.) Luskin digs deeper:

Meyer doesn't try to enter into the debate over whether Anomalocaris is a "stem group" or "crown group" arthropod, or a member of euarthropoda, or panarthropoda.

Oh god. These are not all either-or questions. "[E]uarthropoda" EQUALS "crown group" arthropod", and "[E]uarthropoda"/"crown group" arthropod" AND "stem group" arthropods are ALL within panarthropoda. Anomalocaris is a member of panarthropoda no matter how you slice it, and there isn't actually a "debate" slicing it anyway, since I think there is no analysis that places Anomalocaris clearly within euarthropoda (/crown-group arthropoda as defined by living taxa). And, anyway, again, one cannot even enter a serious discussion of the origin of Cambrian taxa without having some statement about what taxonomy and relationships are being proposed as the basis for discussion. Pretending to punt on this (actually, Luskin and Meyer think that basically everything is specially created, as far as I can tell) just further discredits the idea that Meyer is engaging in serious scientific scholarship.

Since Meyer states that anomalocaridids are "either arthropods or creatures closely related to them,"

This statement is word salad, because Luskin has been arguing that saying "Anomalocaris is an arthropod" is correct because authorities say it's on the arthropod stem. On Luskin's current definition of what Meyer meant by "arthropod", Luskin is therefore saying "anomalocaridids are either closely related to arthropods or closely related to arthropods."

But, of course Matzke doesn't accuse Nature, Budd, Jensen, or the authors of any of these other papers of committing a "basic error" for calling Anomalocaris an "arthropod."

That's because they don't. They usually say "stem arthropod." Which is correct. About Lobopodia Luskin writes,

And what about Matzke's other accusation of an alleged error -- his claim that Lobopodia isn't a phylum? [italics original]

Um, phylum names don't get italicized. Only genus/species names. And, anyway, I didn't claim that Lobopodia isn't a phylum -- I don't know what the formal, objective definition of a "phylum" is, and neither does anyone else, including those who still rely on the concept; the term only has meaning as a matter of convenience and convention. What I claimed was that you can't write a responsible book about the origin of bodyplans/phyla without mentioning that lobopods, whether a phylum or not, are a paraphyletic grade containing taxa intermediate between, and ancestral to, crown arthropods, crown onychophorans, and crown tardigrades. Here is what I said:

A related problem is Meyer's treatment (mostly non-treatment) of "Lobopodia", which he treats as a distinct phylum and includes in his phylum count. Meyer never spends a word on an actual critical discussion of what "Lobopodia" is supposed to mean - the term appears in a few picture captions, in the titles of some of his references, and in a quote of Simon Conway Morris. Whatever the method of naming the various scientists who use the term "Lobopodia" - Linnaean ranks, rank-free, etc. - as far as I know every authority would agree that lobopods are a paraphyletic grab-bag on the stems of the crown-group phyla Arthropoda and Onychophora (and perhaps also on the stem below their common ancestor). In other words, the arthropod and velvet-worm phyla evolved from lobopods, and lobopods contain a whole series of transitional forms showing the basics of how this happened! How anyone could write a book on the origin of Cambrian animals, without mentioning Cambrian Explosion 101 findings like this, is mystifying.

Erwin and Valentine and everyone else discusses this. Why doesn't Meyer? Either he doesn't want readers to know about these transitional fossils, or he doesn't know about them. Either way, it's shockingly bad, and invalidates the book as being a competent piece of scholarship. So, Meyer and Luskin can call lobopods a phylum if they want, but if they do, they have to mention to readers that it is morphologically in-between 3 other phyla (thus all phyla aren't morphologically disconnected, the lobopod phylum contains 3 other phyla which makes you wonder what "phylum" is supposed to mean, etc. But this would have all kinds of subversive implications for their thesis, which I suspect is why they are either conceptually blind to it, or just left it out so as not to concern their innocent, unskeptical readership. Interestingly, though, Luskin's defense of phylum Lobopodia makes things worse for his position anyway. He cites the Supplemental Material of Erwin et al. (2009), which contains a big table of phyla -- the same table appears as a supplement to Erwin and Valentine 2013. Luskin screen captures the table showing the listing of lobopodia as a phylum. But Luskin missed the other mention of lobopods in that table. Together, they are (shorn of formatting, sorry):

unranked stem Cambrian lobopods Luolishania Cam 3 e.g. Chen & Zhou 1997 (132)

Lobopodia Cam 3 class stem Microdictyon Cam 3 Hinz 1987; 15995; Kouchinsky et al. 2011 (8) Hadranax Cam 3 Budd and Peel 1998; 546 gilled lobopods Kerygmachela Cam 3 Budd 1993; 30407

So, which is it? Are lobopods an unranked stem, or a phylum? Or two phyla with the same name? (Plus the three nested inside, I suppose?) I suspect what we are seeing here is the older Linnaean taxonomy (my stage #1-2) and the newer, phylogenetic, rank-free taxonomy (stage #3) crashing into each other in the same data table, with the person compiling the table ("Prepared by Sarah Tweedt", according to p. 343, Erwin & Valentine 2013) either making a mistake, or, more likely, just reflecting the contradictions in scientific literature caused by having phylogenetic and non-phylogenetic taxonomic systems both in play. (This is more evidence for why Erwin & Valentine's continued reliance on Linnaean taxonomy (although they are somewhat apologetic about it in their text) is problematic, by the way.) Finally, Luskin shows a screen capture of a chapter heading from a 2004 book, with chapter 14 entitled "Phylum Lobopodia" (http://www.evolutionnews.org/phylumlobopodia.jpg ) But, right there in the first paragraph, we see yet more evidence why it is so problematic to refer to this "phylum" without mentioning its paraphyly:

The Recent species, members of Onychophora...

In other words, phylum Onychophora nests within phylum Lobopodia. This should not happen, if the phylum rank is supposed to be some indicator of morphological distinctness and bodyplan uniqueness. Random other points Luskin says,

Page 419 of Darwin's Doubt has a very nice discussion of stem groups and crown groups

No it doesn't. First, this is hidden in an endnote, when it has to be front and center in any modern discussion (as it is in e.g. the works by Marshall, Erwin, and Valentine), and, second, Meyer gets the definition of "crown group" wrong, as I pointed out in my original post. Luskin says,

Nonetheless, Matzke makes bizarre charges like this:
I think that if you plunked those fossils down in front of an ID advocate without any prior knowledge except the general notion of taxonomic ranks, the ID advocate would place most of them in a single family of invertebrates, despite the fact that phylogenetic classification puts some of them inside the arthropod phylum and some of them outside of it.

Luskin doesn't say why my charge is bizarre, though. Here's a challenge for Casey: explain why it's bizarre. Please provide definitions of "family" and "phylum" and then explain why those fossils in the figure oh-so-clearly would fit in distinct phyla if someone didn't know their phylogenetic relationships.

But Matzke seems unaware that Meyer has a lengthy 450+ word endnote on page 432 where he not only writes about long branch attractions, but addresses why that idea and many other ad hoc explanations fail to account for conflicts among phylogenetic trees.

No one ever says "long branch attractions" -- is that some sort of new inter-tree romance or something? Anyway, in that endnote, Meyer only briefly discusses (1) horizontal gene transfer, then admitting it's basically irrelevant when it comes to animals; (2) long-branch attraction, but incompetently failing to mention that there are several known solutions to long-branch attraction, such as adding more taxa to make branches shorter, and using more accurate sequence substitution models in likelihood and Bayesian approaches; and (3) incomplete lineage sorting (Meyer, strangely, when listing causes of incongruence, writes this item in the list: "coalescent (e.g. incomplete lineage sorting)". Within the field, scientists only ever write "the coalescent" or "coalescence"; this makes me think Meyer doesn't know what these are.) Meyer lists a few other sources of incongruence, like contamination, but without any discussion at all. Meyer says that these processes are related to convergence, which is false. Luskin claims that these explanations are ad hoc, which is also false. For example, how is contamination related to convergence, or how is it ad hoc? Sometimes the worm you are studying recently ate a worm from another clade, and your DNA sequencer gets a mix of DNA from both. It is easy to see how this could cause phylogenetic conflict -- that is just life, it is regular science. It is perfectly checkable and fixable through methods just as resequencing a number of specimens, and starving the specimens before you sequence them. Similarly, long-branch attraction is not ad hoc, it is a direct mathematical result of using parsimony on branches that are long enough where the parsimony assumption (minimum number of changes) is wrong. The effect can be easily produced with simulation (as shown by one of my advisor's and grand-advisor's more famous papers, actually). Incomplete lineage sorting is also not convergence or ad hoc, it is a direct, unavoidable result of population genetic processes (drift) in the context of short speciation times. All of these processes are well-studied, well-understood, can be tested for, and thus it is just silly to ignorantly claim, without any study or due diligence whatsoever, that these explanations are just made up to cover up phylogenetic conflict. This kind of thinking is no better than 9-11 truther conspiracy thinking, sans knowledge of building engineering and similar necessary background. Alright, my plane has finally arrived. My basic counterarguments against Meyer's book (and, I guess, Luskin's research assistance) are, if anything, strengthened by this analysis of Luskin's rebuttal. In many cases, he still doesn't understand the mistakes he is making. Same rules as the other thread, and don't expect my active participation, I have real science to work on once I'm back in the office.

119 Comments

TomS · 27 June 2013

(actually, Luskin and Meyer think that basically everything is specially created, as far as I can tell)

I'd like to hear comments on this. Is the book really hinting at independent origins of "kinds"? ("Everything", I assume, doesn't mean "every individual", but something like every population, species, or other collective.)

Elizabeth Liddle · 27 June 2013

Thanks, Nick. Answers relayed back to questioners.

Keelyn · 27 June 2013

This should initiate a few more drive-by accusations from some of the IDiots.

Frank J · 27 June 2013

TomS said:
(actually, Luskin and Meyer think that basically everything is specially created, as far as I can tell)
I'd like to hear comments on this. Is the book really hinting at independent origins of "kinds"? ("Everything", I assume, doesn't mean "every individual", but something like every population, species, or other collective.)

I'm preaching to the (unfortunately very small) choir here, but you know the drill. Anytime any career anti-evolution propaganda peddler, or famous follower (e.g. politician), "hints" that some undefined "kinds" might be independently created (or designed), it means one of two things. Either they really believe that nonsense, or they know it's nonsense, but that is overruled by their need to throw a bone to Biblical literalists, and fool some fence-sitters along the way. Unfortunately they fool most critics too, who almost never even mention the possibility of the second case. I look at it this way. If any DI person really thinks that "kinds" were created independently from nonliving matter, they have nothing to lose and everything to gain by directly and publicly challenging the one DI person who has taken a clear, consistent (over ~20 years) position on common descent, Michael Behe. Or at least "expelling" him from the DI. The rest certainly are more politically correct when it comes to common descent (knowing that most people care much more about the "monkey" thing than about mutations, selection and "information"). And Behe himself threw them a bone once years ago, stating that some DI people - unnamed of course - who seem to deny common descent are "more familiar with the relevant science" than he was. Instead of "assuming" what they believe, we need to repeatedly ask them, in no uncertain terms, whether they think the evidence supports individual origin-of-life events - as opposed to in-vivo "saltation," which is equally consistent with their claim of "RM + NS can't do it," and the simpler of the two formal alternatives. We also need to ask for exactly which "kinds", and when those blessed events occurred. For that, the best hints so far are "Cambrian phyla" (bad news for all Biblical literalists) and ~530 MY ago (bad news for YECs and some OECs). Finally, for whichever answer they provide, they need to show us how the evidence supports it independently of their alleged "weaknesses" of "Darwinism." That we don't expect clear answers is all the more reason to ask, repeatedly, so that it finally sinks in to the public the games they play. The alternative is to keep "assume" what they believe, and get the reaction, even from people who have no problem with evolution of "what's the harm, let them believe."

TomS · 27 June 2013

I think that a couple of the brief references made here could use some expanding on - I hope I got these right:

Charles R. Marshall

Explaining the Cambrian "Explosion" of Animals

Annual Reviews of Earth and Planetary Sciences

volume 34 (2006) pages 355-384

doi: 10.1146/annurev.earth.33.031504.103001

James W. Valentine

On the Origin of Phyla

Chicago: U. of Chicago Press, 2004

Douglas H. Erwin and James W. Valentine

The Cambrian Explosion: The Construction of Animal Biodiversity

Greenwood Village, Colorado: Roberts and Company, 2013

John Harshman · 27 June 2013

The most important point here, absent any quibbles about who said exactly what, is that the existence of the various lobopods, all by itself, falsifies Meyer's claim about a "lawn of phyla" by connecting at least three modern phyla with nice intermediates. And neither Meyer nor Luskin has addressed that at all.

diogeneslamp0 · 27 June 2013

John Harshman said: The most important point here, absent any quibbles about who said exactly what, is that the existence of the various lobopods, all by itself, falsifies Meyer's claim about a "lawn of phyla" by connecting at least three modern phyla with nice intermediates. And neither Meyer nor Luskin has addressed that at all.

Exactly. If Meyer can't explain away lobopods, or the basal status (sharing characteristics of more than one phyla) of Wiwaxia or Halkieria, then Meyer's book is just more creationist trash, no better than Ray Comfort. Meyer's plot of the "phylogenetic lawn" is another hoaxed-up diagram. All the creationists have are drawings that represent their imagination, that they try to pass off as data.

diogeneslamp0 · 27 June 2013

Hey, anybody remember how the IDiots Matzke had been proven to be lying at the previous thread?

Beau Stoddard accused: Regardless of his science Casey did expose your dishonesty today Nick [in Casey's rebuttal to Nick's review]. It’s unfortunate you were in such a hurry to trash the book you made embarrassing errors in your review. You should indeed correct these errors. Many of them aren’t scientific, simply misrepresentations or lack of presenting full content.

Hey ho Beau, where'd ya go? At the previous thread we asked you repeatedly to specify what "dishonesty" lawyer Luskin "exposed". We asked again and again: what dishonesty of Nick's, specifically, did Casey expose? Hey, where'd ya go Beau?

Anguspure accused: Its much more simple than that Nick; the truth is that you do not tell the truth.

O RLY? Nick does not tell the truth about... what? His age? Hair color? At the previous thread we asked Anguspure repeatedly to specify what, exactly, Nick had lied about. Hey, Anguspure, where'd ya go? Hello? Where'd all the brave courageous creationists go? Anyone? ...Anyone? Perhaps we're again being visited by Dembski's students who receive class credit from Dembski for slandering scientists on the internet. Why, just the other day Klinghitler wrote a post at ENV called "Fear and Trembling" in which he accused Jerry Coyne of being afraid to debate the IDiots on the internet. You IDiots want a debate? YOU GOT ONE. But WE set the groundrules. Ground rule #1: The debate will be in OUR forum where comments are freely permitted-- not at Klinghitler's comment-free concentration camp called Evolution News and Views.

diogeneslamp0 · 27 June 2013

Luskin sez: waah, you accused Meyer of calling Anamolocaris an "arthropod." Waah, that's not true... I'll cite some experts who all call Anamolocaris a... "stem group arthropod"!!

In debating, that's called a defeater. Luskin debunked Meyer's book for us!

Luskin doesn't know the difference between "arthropod" and "stem group arthropod."

If Luskin were a real estate agent, he wouldn't know the difference between "Beverly Hills" and "Beverly Hills adjacent."

John · 27 June 2013

An excellent summation, Nick, and you did not have to resort to describing the "Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event" - which I have elsewhere - in repudiating Meyer, Luskin and their intellectually-challenged zealous acolytes.

diogeneslamp0 · 27 June 2013

John said: An excellent summation, Nick, and you did not have to resort to describing the "Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event" - which I have elsewhere - in repudiating Meyer, Luskin and their intellectually-challenged zealous acolytes.

John, do you have a not-totally-technical link for the “Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event”, preferably one with a GRAPH representing the increase in disparity or diversity, so we may compare it to Meyer's fake graph?

John · 27 June 2013

diogeneslamp0 said: Hey, anybody remember how the IDiots Matzke had been proven to be lying at the previous thread?
Beau Stoddard accused: Regardless of his science Casey did expose your dishonesty today Nick [in Casey's rebuttal to Nick's review]. It’s unfortunate you were in such a hurry to trash the book you made embarrassing errors in your review. You should indeed correct these errors. Many of them aren’t scientific, simply misrepresentations or lack of presenting full content.
Hey ho Beau, where'd ya go? At the previous thread we asked you repeatedly to specify what "dishonesty" lawyer Luskin "exposed". We asked again and again: what dishonesty of Nick's, specifically, did Casey expose? Hey, where'd ya go Beau?
Anguspure accused: Its much more simple than that Nick; the truth is that you do not tell the truth.
O RLY? Nick does not tell the truth about... what? His age? Hair color? At the previous thread we asked Anguspure repeatedly to specify what, exactly, Nick had lied about. Hey, Anguspure, where'd ya go? Hello? Where'd all the brave courageous creationists go? Anyone? ...Anyone? Perhaps we're again being visited by Dembski's students who receive class credit from Dembski for slandering scientists on the internet. Why, just the other day Klinghitler wrote a post at ENV called "Fear and Trembling" in which he accused Jerry Coyne of being afraid to debate the IDiots on the internet. You IDiots want a debate? YOU GOT ONE. But WE set the groundrules. Ground rule #1: The debate will be in OUR forum where comments are freely permitted-- not at Klinghitler's comment-free concentration camp called Evolution News and Views.

I am in full agreement with your observations, Diogenes. I am sure those who aren't IDiot lurkers are in agreement too.

John · 27 June 2013

diogeneslamp0 said:
John said: An excellent summation, Nick, and you did not have to resort to describing the "Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event" - which I have elsewhere - in repudiating Meyer, Luskin and their intellectually-challenged zealous acolytes.
John, do you have a not-totally-technical link for the “Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event”, preferably one with a GRAPH representing the increase in disparity or diversity, so we may compare it to Meyer's fake graph?

No, I don't but if you dig up Jack Sepkoski's "evolutionary faunas" paper - in which he recognized three great marine evolutionary faunas - and he was using higher taxonomic level data (families and maybe orders) - when it was published in Paleobiology back in 1980, you'll se a very pronounced "hump" for the "Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event" that shows it is substantially larger than the "Cambrian Explosion" that Meyer, Luskin et al. have been whining and moaning about. Not only Nick has pointed out how "slow" the "Cambrian Explosion" was, but, several years ago, Donald Prothero in his book "Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters" suggested that we think of the "Cambrian Explosion" as the "Cambrian Slow-Fuse" since the diversification occupied an interval of time nearly 60 million years old, so it wasn't as "rapid and instantaneous" as Meyer, Luskin et al. have insisted.

Starbuck · 27 June 2013

Homoplasy at the DNA level is widespread, and can make it difficult to separate closely spaced branches of evolutionary trees. However, this challenge can be circumvented by using rare genomic changes as characters (insertions, deletions at specific positions) that are very, very unlikely to happen independently in different lineages.

don.albertson · 27 June 2013

I am inexplicably delighted to see someone use the term question-begging in it's original sense. I feared I was the only one who remembered the difference between raising a question and begging a question.

Doc Bill · 27 June 2013

Pelosi commenting on Meyer's book:

"Who cares?"

eric · 27 June 2013

John Harshman said: The most important point here, absent any quibbles about who said exactly what, is that the existence of the various lobopods, all by itself, falsifies Meyer's claim about a "lawn of phyla" by connecting at least three modern phyla with nice intermediates. And neither Meyer nor Luskin has addressed that at all.

This would be my only negative criticism to Nick's second post: focusing on the minituae may be exactly what Casey wants to do. "I didn't say well, I said good!" can be a rhetorical strategy to distract from the overall failure of an argument. Spending time showing that they actually did say 'well' just plays into the distraction.

Starbuck · 27 June 2013

eric said:
John Harshman said: The most important point here, absent any quibbles about who said exactly what, is that the existence of the various lobopods, all by itself, falsifies Meyer's claim about a "lawn of phyla" by connecting at least three modern phyla with nice intermediates. And neither Meyer nor Luskin has addressed that at all.
This would be my only negative criticism to Nick's second post: focusing on the minituae may be exactly what Casey wants to do. "I didn't say well, I said good!" can be a rhetorical strategy to distract from the overall failure of an argument. Spending time showing that they actually did say 'well' just plays into the distraction.

It's still kinda funny that Luskin makes mistakes like this:

Meyer doesn’t try to enter into the debate over whether Anomalocaris is a “stem group” or “crown group” arthropod, or a member of euarthropoda, or panarthropoda.

Mike Elzinga · 27 June 2013

Here is what Nick just told us.

It might help to remember that I spent 3 years at NCSE researching the ID movement and basically crawling inside their heads, and then 6 years in graduate school studying, and TAing, and publishing phylogenetics. Unlike most scientists, I am deeply familiar with the ID arguments, their weird vague question-begging definitions of crucial terms and premises in their argument (“information”, “fundamentally new” whatevers, etc.), and so I don’t have to spend a lot of time mentally unravelling the multiple levels of confusion and misunderstanding and wishful thinking that are going on whenever Meyer rehashes some oft-used, previously refuted ID talking point. I can focus on what little is new and unique to the book in question – in the case of Meyer’s book, this is basically the stuff about the Cambrian and phylogenetics.

Nick will be happy to know that we old geezers can recognize knowledge and competence when we see it. I never doubted Nick. This really makes me feel good. It is nice to see a competent younger generation coming along that will keep fighting for sanity in our science education programs. If there are any lurkers from the younger generation of scientists watching this, please follow Nick’s example. Thanks Nick!

John · 27 June 2013

Mike Elzinga said: Here is what Nick just told us.
It might help to remember that I spent 3 years at NCSE researching the ID movement and basically crawling inside their heads, and then 6 years in graduate school studying, and TAing, and publishing phylogenetics. Unlike most scientists, I am deeply familiar with the ID arguments, their weird vague question-begging definitions of crucial terms and premises in their argument (“information”, “fundamentally new” whatevers, etc.), and so I don’t have to spend a lot of time mentally unravelling the multiple levels of confusion and misunderstanding and wishful thinking that are going on whenever Meyer rehashes some oft-used, previously refuted ID talking point. I can focus on what little is new and unique to the book in question – in the case of Meyer’s book, this is basically the stuff about the Cambrian and phylogenetics.
Nick will be happy to know that we old geezers can recognize knowledge and competence when we see it. I never doubted Nick. This really makes me feel good. It is nice to see a competent younger generation coming along that will keep fighting for sanity in our science education programs. If there are any lurkers from the younger generation of scientists watching this, please follow Nick’s example. Thanks Nick!

I strongly echo your sentiment, Mike!

Rolf · 27 June 2013

I can only watch the debate and am doing my best to read all that's being said; except I don't see no reason to buy the book. But I am impressed by the formidable job Nick is doing, down to producing
7 pages
3386 words
17966 characters
50 paragraphs
260 lines
(w/o quotes),
including links,
during an airport interlude.

I read the stuff, but am no better than Luskin wrt "whether Anomalocaris is a “stem group” or “crown group” arthropod, or a member of euarthropoda, or panarthropoda."

But I believe I might learn if I needed to.

Paul Burnett · 27 June 2013

Nick wrote:

...Luskin says he was Meyer’s research assistant on the book.

Meyer says so, too, in the Acknowledgements: "Casey Luskin, Discovery research coordinator, has repeatedly gone above and beyond the call of duty in his commitment to, and skillful work on, this book."

Frank J · 27 June 2013

then Meyer’s book is just more creationist trash, no better than Ray Comfort.
— diogeneslamp0

Probably far worse, if I understand correctly that Comfort more clearly states his position on which "kinds" arose independently, and does not try to fool such a big "tent" of an audience.

diogeneslamp0 · 27 June 2013

Rolf said: I can only watch the debate and am doing my best to read all that's being said; except I don't see no reason to buy the book. But I am impressed by the formidable job Nick is doing, down to producing 7 pages 3386 words 17966 characters 50 paragraphs 260 lines (w/o quotes), including links, during an airport interlude. I read the stuff, but am no better than Luskin wrt "whether Anomalocaris is a “stem group” or “crown group” arthropod, or a member of euarthropoda, or panarthropoda." But I believe I might learn if I needed to.

Yeah, but you're a normal person who's not going to pretend to vast knowledge he doesn't have. The creationists assert they're smarter than the world's scientists and pretend to have encyclopedic knowledge of paleontology, information theory, etc. And they never admit they're wrong.

diogeneslamp0 · 27 June 2013

As for Meyer's fake graph of Cambrian phyla appearing all at once, it's apparently copied, with no significant changes, from something he wrote in 2001 with Young Earther Paul Nelson and Chinese IDer Paul Chien. The 2001 version is reproduced at Darwinism Refuted.

The Cambrian Age is a geological period estimated to have lasted some 65 million years, approximately between 570 to 505 million years ago. But the period of the abrupt appearance of major animal groups fit in an even shorter phase of the Cambrian, often referred to as the "Cambrian explosion." Stephen C. Meyer, P. A. Nelson, and Paul Chien, in a 2001 article based on a detailed literature survey, dated 2001, note that the "Cambrian explosion occurred within an exceedingly narrow window of geologic time, lasting no more than 5 million years."56 Before then, there is no trace in the fossil record of anything apart from single-celled creatures and a few very primitive multicellular ones. All animal phyla emerged completely formed and all at once, in the very short period of time represented by the Cambrian explosion. (Five million years is a very short time in geological terms!) The fossils found in Cambrian rocks belong to very different creatures, such as snails, trilobites, sponges, jellyfish, starfish, shellfish, etc. Most of the creatures in this layer have complex systems and advanced structures, such as eyes, gills, and circulatory systems, exactly the same as those in modern specimens... As Phillip Johnson has revealed, far from its being the case that phyla came about by stages, in reality they all came into being at once... As we can see, in the Precambrian Age there were three different phyla consisting of single-cell creatures. But in the Cambrian Age, some 60 to 100 different animal phyla emerged all of a sudden. ...One of the creatures which suddenly emerged in the Cambrian Age was Hallucigenia, seen at top left. And as with many other Cambrian fossils, like the one at the right it has spines or a hard shell to protect it from attack by enemies. The question that evolutionists cannot answer is, "How could they have come by such an effective defense system at a time when there were no predators around?" The lack of predators at the time makes it impossible to explain the matter in terms of natural selection. [Darwinism Refuted.]

The boldface above is bullshit. No predators in the Cambrian! Idiots. Cambrian explosion full of fully formed starfish and snails! The X axis of Meyer's graph is shown as "morphological distance." All the vertical lines are straight up, meaning no morphological changes nor increase in disparity in ~525 million years. Hoax. No change in the vertical line for arthropods when insects or arachnids appear. No change in the vertical line for vertebrates when jawed fishes, tetrapods, dinosaurs, ichthyosaurs, pterosaurs, birds, mammals, giraffes, bats, whales etc. appear. Scientific fraud.

Karen S. · 27 June 2013

So YEC Paul Nelson helped write a book that even he doesn't believe? Such integrity!

Doc Bill · 27 June 2013

Nelson once explained his position on the age of the Cambrian Explosion by saying that he didn't have to "believe" Nietzsche's philosophical points to debate the merits of them pro or con. Nelson looks upon science as "debate points" that one can argue pro or con without any "belief" or acceptance one way of the other.

But, like Lenny's pizza boy, Nelson doesn't care what anyone thinks about him because he's not responsible for anything or accountable to anyone. Again, regarding anything Nelson might have to say on any subject, Pelosi says it best: "Who cares?"

Tenncrain · 27 June 2013

Karen S. said: So YEC Paul Nelson helped write a book that even he doesn't believe? Such integrity!

That's the "Big Tent" for ya!

John Harshman · 27 June 2013

Let's just explore a few of the things wrong with that.

The Cambrian Age is a geological period estimated to have lasted some 65 million years, approximately between 570 to 505 million years ago.

Even this little detail is wrong; it should be 542 to 488. They clearly are using sources that were out of date even in 2001.

But the period of the abrupt appearance of major animal groups fit in an even shorter phase of the Cambrian, often referred to as the “Cambrian explosion.” Stephen C. Meyer, P. A. Nelson, and Paul Chien, in a 2001 article based on a detailed literature survey, dated 2001, note that the “Cambrian explosion occurred within an exceedingly narrow window of geologic time, lasting no more than 5 million years.”56

This may be true, depending on what you mean by the explosion. We might suppose it to begin with the base of the Atdabanian with the first appearance of trilobites and end with the Chengjiang fauna, at which point many of the major groups are present. Since the Chengjiang closely resembles the Middle Cambrian Burgess, we may suppose the explosion to at least have tapered off by then. One problem is that the base of the Atdabanian isn't well dated. But it's certainly reasonable to suppose that the period in question isn't much more than 5 million years.

Before then, there is no trace in the fossil record of anything apart from single-celled creatures and a few very primitive multicellular ones. All animal phyla emerged completely formed and all at once, in the very short period of time represented by the Cambrian explosion. (Five million years is a very short time in geological terms!)

But here the errors are major and come in profusion. There is considerable trace of multicellular animals before the Atdabanian. Even if we dismiss the Ediacaran fauna -- and it's not clear whether it contains any primitive bilaterians -- there is the gradual increase in variety and complexity of trace fossils through the Late Vendian and Early Cambrian and the somewhat later -- but still pre-Atdabanian -- diversification of the small shelly fauna. And of course all animal phyla didn't emerge in the explosion, so far as we can tell from the fossil record; fully half the animal phyla have no fossil record to speak of, and we know that bryozoans only came along in the Ordovician. As for "fully formed", that's one of the main subjects of Nick's review. Stem groups, anyone? And hey, what about plants? The major plant groups trickle in from the Silurian to the Cretaceous.

The fossils found in Cambrian rocks belong to very different creatures, such as snails, trilobites, sponges, jellyfish, starfish, shellfish, etc. Most of the creatures in this layer have complex systems and advanced structures, such as eyes, gills, and circulatory systems, exactly the same as those in modern specimens…

Snails and shellfish both? Interesting. Cnidarians ("jellyfish" in their terminology) are known from the Ediacaran, as are sponge spicules. The earliest asteroids ("starfish") are Ordovician. Certainly the animals of the Cambrian explosion are exactly like modern specimens if you make your criteria vague enough, as in "some have eyes, some have gills, and some have circulatory systems". But is that at all meaningful?

As Phillip Johnson has revealed, far from its being the case that phyla came about by stages, in reality they all came into being at once…

How did Philip Johnson reveal this? Was it in a set of golden tablets? In fact we know that the earliest known fossils unambiguously belonging to perhaps 15 of the modern phyla, or their stem groups, are known from the Atdabanian. We know that many soft-bodied phyla are missing. Were they perhaps created later, assuming we take the record literally? Or should we admit that there may be taphonomic artifacts, i.e. an incomplete record? In either case, the claim of "sudden appearance all at once" becomes untenable.

As we can see, in the Precambrian Age there were three different phyla consisting of single-cell creatures. But in the Cambrian Age, some 60 to 100 different animal phyla emerged all of a sudden.

What are these three single-celled phyla? I can't figure it; I either count way too many or not enough. And what about the multicellular Ediacarans? Nor can I figure out what the 60 to 100 animal phyla emerging all of a sudden might be. I count 35 or so phyla, only around half of which are known from any time in the Cambrian.

…One of the creatures which suddenly emerged in the Cambrian Age was Hallucigenia, seen at top left. And as with many other Cambrian fossils, like the one at the right it has spines or a hard shell to protect it from attack by enemies. The question that evolutionists cannot answer is, “How could they have come by such an effective defense system at a time when there were no predators around?” The lack of predators at the time makes it impossible to explain the matter in terms of natural selection.

And yet I bet they also talk about Anomalocaris; go figure. Well, at least they apparently have managed (unlike, apparently, Meyer) to put Hallucigenia right side up. [Darwinism Refuted.] Truly astonishing.

John · 27 June 2013

John Harshman said: Let's just explore a few of the things wrong with that.
The Cambrian Age is a geological period estimated to have lasted some 65 million years, approximately between 570 to 505 million years ago.
Even this little detail is wrong; it should be 542 to 488. They clearly are using sources that were out of date even in 2001.
But the period of the abrupt appearance of major animal groups fit in an even shorter phase of the Cambrian, often referred to as the “Cambrian explosion.” Stephen C. Meyer, P. A. Nelson, and Paul Chien, in a 2001 article based on a detailed literature survey, dated 2001, note that the “Cambrian explosion occurred within an exceedingly narrow window of geologic time, lasting no more than 5 million years.”56
This may be true, depending on what you mean by the explosion. We might suppose it to begin with the base of the Atdabanian with the first appearance of trilobites and end with the Chengjiang fauna, at which point many of the major groups are present. Since the Chengjiang closely resembles the Middle Cambrian Burgess, we may suppose the explosion to at least have tapered off by then. One problem is that the base of the Atdabanian isn't well dated. But it's certainly reasonable to suppose that the period in question isn't much more than 5 million years.
Before then, there is no trace in the fossil record of anything apart from single-celled creatures and a few very primitive multicellular ones. All animal phyla emerged completely formed and all at once, in the very short period of time represented by the Cambrian explosion. (Five million years is a very short time in geological terms!)
But here the errors are major and come in profusion. There is considerable trace of multicellular animals before the Atdabanian. Even if we dismiss the Ediacaran fauna -- and it's not clear whether it contains any primitive bilaterians -- there is the gradual increase in variety and complexity of trace fossils through the Late Vendian and Early Cambrian and the somewhat later -- but still pre-Atdabanian -- diversification of the small shelly fauna. And of course all animal phyla didn't emerge in the explosion, so far as we can tell from the fossil record; fully half the animal phyla have no fossil record to speak of, and we know that bryozoans only came along in the Ordovician. As for "fully formed", that's one of the main subjects of Nick's review. Stem groups, anyone? And hey, what about plants? The major plant groups trickle in from the Silurian to the Cretaceous.
The fossils found in Cambrian rocks belong to very different creatures, such as snails, trilobites, sponges, jellyfish, starfish, shellfish, etc. Most of the creatures in this layer have complex systems and advanced structures, such as eyes, gills, and circulatory systems, exactly the same as those in modern specimens…
Snails and shellfish both? Interesting. Cnidarians ("jellyfish" in their terminology) are known from the Ediacaran, as are sponge spicules. The earliest asteroids ("starfish") are Ordovician. Certainly the animals of the Cambrian explosion are exactly like modern specimens if you make your criteria vague enough, as in "some have eyes, some have gills, and some have circulatory systems". But is that at all meaningful?
As Phillip Johnson has revealed, far from its being the case that phyla came about by stages, in reality they all came into being at once…
How did Philip Johnson reveal this? Was it in a set of golden tablets? In fact we know that the earliest known fossils unambiguously belonging to perhaps 15 of the modern phyla, or their stem groups, are known from the Atdabanian. We know that many soft-bodied phyla are missing. Were they perhaps created later, assuming we take the record literally? Or should we admit that there may be taphonomic artifacts, i.e. an incomplete record? In either case, the claim of "sudden appearance all at once" becomes untenable.
As we can see, in the Precambrian Age there were three different phyla consisting of single-cell creatures. But in the Cambrian Age, some 60 to 100 different animal phyla emerged all of a sudden.
What are these three single-celled phyla? I can't figure it; I either count way too many or not enough. And what about the multicellular Ediacarans? Nor can I figure out what the 60 to 100 animal phyla emerging all of a sudden might be. I count 35 or so phyla, only around half of which are known from any time in the Cambrian.
…One of the creatures which suddenly emerged in the Cambrian Age was Hallucigenia, seen at top left. And as with many other Cambrian fossils, like the one at the right it has spines or a hard shell to protect it from attack by enemies. The question that evolutionists cannot answer is, “How could they have come by such an effective defense system at a time when there were no predators around?” The lack of predators at the time makes it impossible to explain the matter in terms of natural selection.
And yet I bet they also talk about Anomalocaris; go figure. Well, at least they apparently have managed (unlike, apparently, Meyer) to put Hallucigenia right side up. [Darwinism Refuted.] Truly astonishing.

Indeed, it's truly astonishing BS from Meyer. Moreover there is no mention of the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event which had substantially higher taxonomic diversification rates than during the "Cambrian Explosion".

John Harshman · 27 June 2013

John said: Indeed, it's truly astonishing BS from Meyer. Moreover there is no mention of the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event which had substantially higher taxonomic diversification rates than during the "Cambrian Explosion".

I suspect their reply, if they could manage one, would be that they were talking about the origins of phyla, not lower-level groups. The diversification rates you're talking about are the origins of families. (Set aside for now the arbitrary nature of taxonomic ranks.) There's only one phylum that originated in the Ordovician. Of course it's never been clear what they're talking about. Is the Cambrian explosion the only time Jesus intervened in the history of life, or have there been many? Just what sort of intervention was it: poofing of new species, poofing of mutations to existing ones, or something else? Were there any such events in the Ordovician? No way to know until they actually present some kind of hypothesis.

John Harshman · 27 June 2013

I should have mentioned that the Ordovician asteroids are stem-asteroids. The crown group doesn't appear until the Jurassic. Call it 350 million years after the claim above, i.e. an error of about 3/5 the length of the Phanerozoic.That Casey Luskin can research up a storm, all right.

joaozinho666 · 27 June 2013

In the other thread, John wrote:
"We need to point out to IDiots and their enablers that the “intellectual rigor” of their claims that ID is scientific is as rigorous as saying that there is indeed ample proof for the existence of Klingons, Harry Potter, etc. and that using their logic, that there is indeed more proof for them than there is for ID."

You're still missing the point. Anything we point out to IDiots should be aimed at the masses. That will entail a lot more repetition than we're comfortable with.

Also, using the term "proof" is not only incorrect, but tactically idiotic, because science doesn't deal in proof. You're undoing basic science education.

Starbuck · 27 June 2013

“How could they have come by such an effective defense system at a time when there were no predators around?”

Aren't the first highly-mobile predators with eyes, trilobites, which appeared just prior to the Cambrian explosion.

Frank J · 27 June 2013

Karen S. said: So YEC Paul Nelson helped write a book that even he doesn't believe? Such integrity!

I am not sure that Nelson "is" a YEC (whatever that means). And that is not a compliment. Nelson's words may be more YEC-friendly than that of most IDers, but someone other than me speculated years ago that he might actually be an Omphalos creationist. Nelson was on the thread at the time and I asked him point blank. He evaded my question, and answered others a bit later on the same thread, making unlikely that he did not see my question. All he needed to do was say yes or no, and if no, state unequivocally that, unlike most DI folk, he truly thinks that evidence independent of the Bible or the alleged "weaknesses" of "Darwinism" indeed converges on an age of earth under ~10K years. So I think it's fair to suspect that he might be faking it - and more of it than most IDers - for "the cause."

John Harshman · 27 June 2013

Starbuck said:
“How could they have come by such an effective defense system at a time when there were no predators around?”
Aren't the first highly-mobile predators with eyes, trilobites, which appeared just prior to the Cambrian explosion.

Not clear. First, the appearance of trilobites is traditionally considered to be the start of the Cambrian explosion. Second, the earliest well-sampled soft-bodied fauna of the explosion, the Chengjiang, has lots of predators with eyes, and there's no compelling reason to believe that trilobites came earlier than any of those taxa; they're just easier to find because of their hard parts.

Doc Bill · 27 June 2013

Frank J said:
Karen S. said: So YEC Paul Nelson helped write a book that even he doesn't believe? Such integrity!
I am not sure that Nelson "is" a YEC (whatever that means). And that is not a compliment. Nelson's words may be more YEC-friendly than that of most IDers, but someone other than me speculated years ago that he might actually be an Omphalos creationist. Nelson was on the thread at the time and I asked him point blank. He evaded my question, and answered others a bit later on the same thread, making unlikely that he did not see my question. All he needed to do was say yes or no, and if no, state unequivocally that, unlike most DI folk, he truly thinks that evidence independent of the Bible or the alleged "weaknesses" of "Darwinism" indeed converges on an age of earth under ~10K years. So I think it's fair to suspect that he might be faking it - and more of it than most IDers - for "the cause."

Oh, no, Paul Nelson is a committed (as in insane asylum) Young Earth Biblical Literal Creationist. He is total Noah's Flood, 6-day creation bat shit crazy YEC. There's no question about that. Nelson has said that many, many, many times. Where he tries to appear "rational" and I use the term loosely is discussing his beliefs as debating talking points. Is he really a YEC? I think so. Is he an intellectually dishonest hack of the Disco Tute variety? Definitely? Does anybody really care what he thinks about anything? No. Nelson is famous for pulling the old "dog ate my homework" during a radio interview some years ago when he claimed he had a list of 5-7 things that would "convince" him that evolution was true, but he left his list in his hotel room and really couldn't remember exactly what they all were. Seriously. He did that. Incredible? Not so much. McLatchie did the same thing to PZ by claiming he had "evidence" but he left it in his car. Do creationists go to school to learn these tactics?

ksplawn · 27 June 2013

John Harshman said:
As Phillip Johnson has revealed, far from its being the case that phyla came about by stages, in reality they all came into being at once…
How did Philip Johnson reveal this? Was it in a set of golden tablets?

Probably by putting the fossil record on trial.

John · 27 June 2013

John Harshman said:
John said: Indeed, it's truly astonishing BS from Meyer. Moreover there is no mention of the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event which had substantially higher taxonomic diversification rates than during the "Cambrian Explosion".
I suspect their reply, if they could manage one, would be that they were talking about the origins of phyla, not lower-level groups. The diversification rates you're talking about are the origins of families. (Set aside for now the arbitrary nature of taxonomic ranks.) There's only one phylum that originated in the Ordovician. Of course it's never been clear what they're talking about. Is the Cambrian explosion the only time Jesus intervened in the history of life, or have there been many? Just what sort of intervention was it: poofing of new species, poofing of mutations to existing ones, or something else? Were there any such events in the Ordovician? No way to know until they actually present some kind of hypothesis.

I think Michael Foote and others studying the GOBE ("Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event") are using an updated version of the Sepkoski database that covers genera. While I agree with much of your comments here, John, to Meyer and Luskin et al.'s way of thinking, we're referring to "rapid appearance" of new taxa. Based on that criterion alone, the GOBE is more important than the "Cambrian Explosion".

John · 27 June 2013

Doc Bill said:
Frank J said:
Karen S. said: So YEC Paul Nelson helped write a book that even he doesn't believe? Such integrity!
I am not sure that Nelson "is" a YEC (whatever that means). And that is not a compliment. Nelson's words may be more YEC-friendly than that of most IDers, but someone other than me speculated years ago that he might actually be an Omphalos creationist. Nelson was on the thread at the time and I asked him point blank. He evaded my question, and answered others a bit later on the same thread, making unlikely that he did not see my question. All he needed to do was say yes or no, and if no, state unequivocally that, unlike most DI folk, he truly thinks that evidence independent of the Bible or the alleged "weaknesses" of "Darwinism" indeed converges on an age of earth under ~10K years. So I think it's fair to suspect that he might be faking it - and more of it than most IDers - for "the cause."
Oh, no, Paul Nelson is a committed (as in insane asylum) Young Earth Biblical Literal Creationist. He is total Noah's Flood, 6-day creation bat shit crazy YEC. There's no question about that. Nelson has said that many, many, many times. Where he tries to appear "rational" and I use the term loosely is discussing his beliefs as debating talking points. Is he really a YEC? I think so. Is he an intellectually dishonest hack of the Disco Tute variety? Definitely? Does anybody really care what he thinks about anything? No. Nelson is famous for pulling the old "dog ate my homework" during a radio interview some years ago when he claimed he had a list of 5-7 things that would "convince" him that evolution was true, but he left his list in his hotel room and really couldn't remember exactly what they all were. Seriously. He did that. Incredible? Not so much. McLatchie did the same thing to PZ by claiming he had "evidence" but he left it in his car. Do creationists go to school to learn these tactics?

Believe it or not, I have had some remarkably cogent e-mail exchanges with Paul Nelson. But these have been about music, not science. I do know that he misses Leigh Van Valen, whom he regarded as a friend and mentor when he was doing graduate work in evolutionary biology at the University of Chicago. (I'm not sure what Van Valen thought of Nelson after he revealed his "true colors", but I would guess that Van Valen wasn't pleased.)

Robert Byers · 27 June 2013

On both the evolutionists and ID sides the great flaw is drawing ANY conclusions about biological change or descent from fossils.
No descent or process is being shown or can be criticized for not showing it BASED on mere biological data points of stuff on a rock.
Without the geological assumptions here there is no case for biological insights.
If the geology was false so would be the biology conclusions.
Therefore all this is unrelated to biological scientific investigation.
Its all guessing about connections not demonstrated by evidence.
A great diverse area with creatures was simply instantly covered by sediment and turned to stone and everything everywhere else.
No explosions except the dynamite digging out the biology .

John Harshman · 27 June 2013

John said: I do know that he misses Leigh Van Valen, whom he regarded as a friend and mentor when he was doing graduate work in evolutionary biology at the University of Chicago. (I'm not sure what Van Valen thought of Nelson after he revealed his "true colors", but I would guess that Van Valen wasn't pleased.)

What? I have sincere doubts that Paul Nelson was ever doing graduate work in evolutionary biology at the University of Chicago. Philosophy of science, possibly? If so, whole different program.

...we’re referring to “rapid appearance” of new taxa.

This all depends on what sort of taxa you're talking about. Sepkoski's genus-level database is even farther from what the DI folks are talking about than the family-level database.

apokryltaros · 27 June 2013

Moron For Jesus babbled: On both the evolutionists and ID sides the great flaw is drawing ANY conclusions about biological change or descent from fossils. No descent or process is being shown or can be criticized for not showing it BASED on mere biological data points of stuff on a rock. Without the geological assumptions here there is no case for biological insights. If the geology was false so would be the biology conclusions. Therefore all this is unrelated to biological scientific investigation. Its all guessing about connections not demonstrated by evidence. A great diverse area with creatures was simply instantly covered by sediment and turned to stone and everything everywhere else. No explosions except the dynamite digging out the biology .

And yet, Evolutionary Biology presents explanations, Intelligent Design presents nothing but flimflam, and you are a babbling moron who literally knows nothing about what he's prattling on about.

k.e.. · 28 June 2013

So what's Meyer's point here?

Are monkeys in or out? (...ok...or apes)

If his argument is the FSM deliberately wiped the slate clean of transitional fossils to prove that he could invent and breath life into a few random creatures on the fly then are not monkeys (or apes) descended from worms (with legs and a lust for football)?

What about Adam?

Was there more than one creation event or more (heaven forbid) than one creator? What chapter of Genesis would that be in?

If there is no argument about the origin of mammils, (Middle Aged Men In Lycra...you know those fiendish bicycle riders that try to run you down on the way to work) what is he trying to prove?

That Satan was whispering in Eve's ear on that fateful sunny Sunday morning in the GoE around 4k5 years ago? No?
That Satan sprinkled transitional fossils all over the shop to try to prove HE (..no no not Satan himself ... HE as in the Grand Old Duke hisself) doesn't exist?

Seems like a circular argument .....oh wait IT IS.

Meyer ought to take a rest before writing more pulp fiction maybe write a thriller and get Casey to play the femme fatal, I'll bet she would look great in size 45 9" manolo blahnik clogs and a sequined frock.

Rolf · 28 June 2013

Yeah, but you’re a normal person who’s not going to pretend to vast knowledge he doesn’t have. The creationists assert they’re smarter than the world’s scientists and pretend to have encyclopedic knowledge of paleontology, information theory, etc. And they never admit they’re wrong.

My curiosity about the world awoke very early in life and it's goal was to learn as much as possible without any bias; I wasn't born with one. I can't speak for science but I believe the majority of scientists share the same respect for facts. Science is not about defending an eternal truth but to follow the road wherever it leads. Creationism is burdened with a pronounced goal, most apparent is the need to assert the absolute authority of a literal interpretation of the Bible. Not to forget the pecuniary aspects.

Frank J · 28 June 2013

Oh, no, Paul Nelson is a committed (as in insane asylum) Young Earth Biblical Literal Creationist. He is total Noah’s Flood, 6-day creation bat shit crazy YEC. There’s no question about that. Nelson has said that many, many, many times.
— Doc Bill

And you take his word on that without question? Then why not take his word on everything else he says?

Frank J · 28 June 2013

Are monkeys in or out? (…ok…or apes)
— k.e..

The official DI position is "Don't ask, don't tell."

TomS · 28 June 2013

John Harshman said: Of course it's never been clear what they're talking about. Is the Cambrian explosion the only time Jesus intervened in the history of life, or have there been many? Just what sort of intervention was it: poofing of new species, poofing of mutations to existing ones, or something else? Were there any such events in the Ordovician? No way to know until they actually present some kind of hypothesis.

Are we supposed to get the message that some intelligent designer(s) showed some special care about some kinds of animals in the distant past, long before the dinosaurs? A care of a sort which has not been seen in the last hundreds of millions of years? And even though that care was so great, it did not extend to keeping alive those objects of care for very long (except maybe the trilobites)? And we are supposed to feel better that there were such designers, rather than having to admit the reality of common descent with modification?

SLC · 28 June 2013

Of course, the IDiots ignore the Ordovician Event. They always ignore evidence that they can't twist into supporting their preconceived ideas. Either that or they just lie.

John said:
John Harshman said: Let's just explore a few of the things wrong with that.
The Cambrian Age is a geological period estimated to have lasted some 65 million years, approximately between 570 to 505 million years ago.
Even this little detail is wrong; it should be 542 to 488. They clearly are using sources that were out of date even in 2001.
But the period of the abrupt appearance of major animal groups fit in an even shorter phase of the Cambrian, often referred to as the “Cambrian explosion.” Stephen C. Meyer, P. A. Nelson, and Paul Chien, in a 2001 article based on a detailed literature survey, dated 2001, note that the “Cambrian explosion occurred within an exceedingly narrow window of geologic time, lasting no more than 5 million years.”56
This may be true, depending on what you mean by the explosion. We might suppose it to begin with the base of the Atdabanian with the first appearance of trilobites and end with the Chengjiang fauna, at which point many of the major groups are present. Since the Chengjiang closely resembles the Middle Cambrian Burgess, we may suppose the explosion to at least have tapered off by then. One problem is that the base of the Atdabanian isn't well dated. But it's certainly reasonable to suppose that the period in question isn't much more than 5 million years.
Before then, there is no trace in the fossil record of anything apart from single-celled creatures and a few very primitive multicellular ones. All animal phyla emerged completely formed and all at once, in the very short period of time represented by the Cambrian explosion. (Five million years is a very short time in geological terms!)
But here the errors are major and come in profusion. There is considerable trace of multicellular animals before the Atdabanian. Even if we dismiss the Ediacaran fauna -- and it's not clear whether it contains any primitive bilaterians -- there is the gradual increase in variety and complexity of trace fossils through the Late Vendian and Early Cambrian and the somewhat later -- but still pre-Atdabanian -- diversification of the small shelly fauna. And of course all animal phyla didn't emerge in the explosion, so far as we can tell from the fossil record; fully half the animal phyla have no fossil record to speak of, and we know that bryozoans only came along in the Ordovician. As for "fully formed", that's one of the main subjects of Nick's review. Stem groups, anyone? And hey, what about plants? The major plant groups trickle in from the Silurian to the Cretaceous.
The fossils found in Cambrian rocks belong to very different creatures, such as snails, trilobites, sponges, jellyfish, starfish, shellfish, etc. Most of the creatures in this layer have complex systems and advanced structures, such as eyes, gills, and circulatory systems, exactly the same as those in modern specimens…
Snails and shellfish both? Interesting. Cnidarians ("jellyfish" in their terminology) are known from the Ediacaran, as are sponge spicules. The earliest asteroids ("starfish") are Ordovician. Certainly the animals of the Cambrian explosion are exactly like modern specimens if you make your criteria vague enough, as in "some have eyes, some have gills, and some have circulatory systems". But is that at all meaningful?
As Phillip Johnson has revealed, far from its being the case that phyla came about by stages, in reality they all came into being at once…
How did Philip Johnson reveal this? Was it in a set of golden tablets? In fact we know that the earliest known fossils unambiguously belonging to perhaps 15 of the modern phyla, or their stem groups, are known from the Atdabanian. We know that many soft-bodied phyla are missing. Were they perhaps created later, assuming we take the record literally? Or should we admit that there may be taphonomic artifacts, i.e. an incomplete record? In either case, the claim of "sudden appearance all at once" becomes untenable.
As we can see, in the Precambrian Age there were three different phyla consisting of single-cell creatures. But in the Cambrian Age, some 60 to 100 different animal phyla emerged all of a sudden.
What are these three single-celled phyla? I can't figure it; I either count way too many or not enough. And what about the multicellular Ediacarans? Nor can I figure out what the 60 to 100 animal phyla emerging all of a sudden might be. I count 35 or so phyla, only around half of which are known from any time in the Cambrian.
…One of the creatures which suddenly emerged in the Cambrian Age was Hallucigenia, seen at top left. And as with many other Cambrian fossils, like the one at the right it has spines or a hard shell to protect it from attack by enemies. The question that evolutionists cannot answer is, “How could they have come by such an effective defense system at a time when there were no predators around?” The lack of predators at the time makes it impossible to explain the matter in terms of natural selection.
And yet I bet they also talk about Anomalocaris; go figure. Well, at least they apparently have managed (unlike, apparently, Meyer) to put Hallucigenia right side up. [Darwinism Refuted.] Truly astonishing.
Indeed, it's truly astonishing BS from Meyer. Moreover there is no mention of the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event which had substantially higher taxonomic diversification rates than during the "Cambrian Explosion".

k.e.. · 28 June 2013

Meyer should have put in cartoons of Jesus cowboying a trilobite. Play to the crowd, works at most Agricultural shows. At least then he couldn't be accused of being being boring.

Frank J said:
Are monkeys in or out? (…ok…or apes)
— k.e..
The official DI position is "Don't ask, don't tell."

Oh.... so he's appealing to the LGBT lobby? Well what can I say other than 'not that there's anything wrong with that'. Must be a BIG TENT thing ...or maybe big top. Meyer should have put in cartoons of Jesus cowboying a trilobite. Play to the crowd, works at most Agricultural shows. Roll up roll up, que the clowns. At least then he couldn't be accused of being being boring.

Dave Wisker · 28 June 2013

Good Lord, Nick. This one left a serious mark. Nice work.

Doc Bill · 28 June 2013

Frank J said:
Oh, no, Paul Nelson is a committed (as in insane asylum) Young Earth Biblical Literal Creationist. He is total Noah’s Flood, 6-day creation bat shit crazy YEC. There’s no question about that. Nelson has said that many, many, many times.
— Doc Bill
And you take his word on that without question? Then why not take his word on everything else he says?

Well, you got me there! Is it possible to be totally a-positional such that you could assume any belief, any position, any argument at any time? "Would you like a cup of tea?" "Yes, no, maybe, possibly. I did have a cup once, knew a man who drank tea, what do you mean by the word 'like'? Do I resemble a cup of tea, perhaps, I resemble that remark, last week but I left my cup of tea in my hotel room."

John · 28 June 2013

joaozinho666 said: In the other thread, John wrote: "We need to point out to IDiots and their enablers that the “intellectual rigor” of their claims that ID is scientific is as rigorous as saying that there is indeed ample proof for the existence of Klingons, Harry Potter, etc. and that using their logic, that there is indeed more proof for them than there is for ID." You're still missing the point. Anything we point out to IDiots should be aimed at the masses. That will entail a lot more repetition than we're comfortable with. Also, using the term "proof" is not only incorrect, but tactically idiotic, because science doesn't deal in proof. You're undoing basic science education.

No, I am not missing the point. You are reading it wrongly. By saying that there is more evidence (which is what I meant when I said "proof") for the existence of Klingons, Harry Potter, Fillory, Middle Earth, etc. based on the logic that IDiots like Meyer and Luskin use, would be "aimed at the masses". In plain English, to indicate to them that what Meyer and Luskin et al. are advocating differs little from fantasy and science fiction, and, moreover, that as such, ID is vastly inferior to anything conjured by the likes of J. R. R. Tolkien, Gene Roddenberry, J. L. Rowling, Lev Grossman, etc.

John · 28 June 2013

John Harshman said:
John said: I do know that he misses Leigh Van Valen, whom he regarded as a friend and mentor when he was doing graduate work in evolutionary biology at the University of Chicago. (I'm not sure what Van Valen thought of Nelson after he revealed his "true colors", but I would guess that Van Valen wasn't pleased.)
What? I have sincere doubts that Paul Nelson was ever doing graduate work in evolutionary biology at the University of Chicago. Philosophy of science, possibly? If so, whole different program.
...we’re referring to “rapid appearance” of new taxa.
This all depends on what sort of taxa you're talking about. Sepkoski's genus-level database is even farther from what the DI folks are talking about than the family-level database.

I doubted that myself too John, but Nelson told me that Van Valen was either his dissertation advisor or had some other role on the dissertation committee. As for the DI, they're clueless with regards to the original Sepkoski database and what Michael Foote and others have done to extend it to the genera level.

John · 28 June 2013

Typo, I meant J. K. Rowling (see below)......

John said:
joaozinho666 said: In the other thread, John wrote: "We need to point out to IDiots and their enablers that the “intellectual rigor” of their claims that ID is scientific is as rigorous as saying that there is indeed ample proof for the existence of Klingons, Harry Potter, etc. and that using their logic, that there is indeed more proof for them than there is for ID." You're still missing the point. Anything we point out to IDiots should be aimed at the masses. That will entail a lot more repetition than we're comfortable with. Also, using the term "proof" is not only incorrect, but tactically idiotic, because science doesn't deal in proof. You're undoing basic science education.
No, I am not missing the point. You are reading it wrongly. By saying that there is more evidence (which is what I meant when I said "proof") for the existence of Klingons, Harry Potter, Fillory, Middle Earth, etc. based on the logic that IDiots like Meyer and Luskin use, would be "aimed at the masses". In plain English, to indicate to them that what Meyer and Luskin et al. are advocating differs little from fantasy and science fiction, and, moreover, that as such, ID is vastly inferior to anything conjured by the likes of J. R. R. Tolkien, Gene Roddenberry, J. L. Rowling, Lev Grossman, etc.

W. H. Heydt · 28 June 2013

Robert Byers said: Its all guessing about connections not demonstrated by evidence.

There's an old joke that a "theory" is a "guess with a college education." If you had one, you might get the humor in that.

John Harshman · 28 June 2013

John said: I doubted that [the claim that Paul Nelson was doing graduate work in evolutionary biology at University of Chicago] myself too John, but Nelson told me that Van Valen was either his dissertation advisor or had some other role on the dissertation committee.

That much is credible. But Nelson was in the philosophy department and his degree is in philosophy. Van Valen could easily have been on his committee, but could not have been his advisor. I'd be willing to bet that his advisor was Bill Wimsatt.

As for the DI, they're clueless with regards to the original Sepkoski database and what Michael Foote and others have done to extend it to the genera level.

Actually, Sepkoski completed most of that database before he died. But either version is irrelevant to the point the DI people are trying to make. (To the extent that they do have a decipherable point.) Don't you see that?

John · 28 June 2013

John Harshman said:
John said: I doubted that [the claim that Paul Nelson was doing graduate work in evolutionary biology at University of Chicago] myself too John, but Nelson told me that Van Valen was either his dissertation advisor or had some other role on the dissertation committee.
That much is credible. But Nelson was in the philosophy department and his degree is in philosophy. Van Valen could easily have been on his committee, but could not have been his advisor. I'd be willing to bet that his advisor was Bill Wimsatt.
As for the DI, they're clueless with regards to the original Sepkoski database and what Michael Foote and others have done to extend it to the genera level.
Actually, Sepkoski completed most of that database before he died. But either version is irrelevant to the point the DI people are trying to make. (To the extent that they do have a decipherable point.) Don't you see that?

Do they have a decipherable point? I think not, and I know you and I would be in full agreement with regards to that. My point in bringing up the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event (GOBE) is merely to underscore what Nick Matzke - and earlier, Donald Prothero, among others - have pointed out with regards to the relatively slow diversification rate during the "Cambrian Explosion" in comparison with the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event and other substantial taxonomic diversification events. For Meyer and Luskin and their ilk to contend that the "Cambrian Explosion" can be explained only via the "lens" of Intelligent Design, then surely their Intelligent Designer must have had his hands full when executing the GOBE.

diogeneslamp0 · 28 June 2013

John Harshman said: I should have mentioned that the Ordovician asteroids are stem-asteroids. The crown group doesn't appear until the Jurassic. Call it 350 million years after the claim above, i.e. an error of about 3/5 the length of the Phanerozoic.That Casey Luskin can research up a storm, all right.

John H. and some others have commented on a comment I wrote about Darwinism Refuted, which contains outright bullshit about the Cambrian (no predators!) and which cites and paraphrases a 2001 document written by Stephen Meyer, YEC Paul Nelson, and Chinese IDer Paul Chien. I cannot vouch for the accuracy of Darwinism Refuted's paraphrase of Meyer, Nelson et al's document. If their paraphrase is inaccurate, then the fault is theirs and not necessarily Meyer's. On the other hand, they copy MEYER FAKE PLOT, 2001 version, showing NO increase in morphological distance since the early Cambrian. If Nick's posting on Meyer's book is accurate-- Nick previously showed us a picture of Meyer 2013's fake Cambrian plot-- then in 12 years, Meyer has not updated his fake plot. It was scientific fraud 12 years ago, it's still scientific fraud. We should take that plot apart. We should focus on the FAKE CAMBRIAN PLOT.

diogeneslamp0 · 28 June 2013

Doc Bill said:
Frank J said: I am not sure that Nelson "is" a YEC (whatever that means). And that is not a compliment. Nelson's words may be more YEC-friendly than that of most IDers, but someone other than me speculated years ago that he might actually be an Omphalos creationist. Nelson was on the thread at the time and I asked him point blank. He evaded my question, and answered others a bit later on the same thread, making unlikely that he did not see my question.
Oh, no, Paul Nelson is a committed (as in insane asylum) Young Earth Biblical Literal Creationist. He is total Noah's Flood, 6-day creation bat shit crazy YEC. There's no question about that. Nelson has said that many, many, many times.

Nelson has said so. This came up during the Dover Trial when Barbara Forrest cited Nelson's document "Life in the Big Tent" which describes ID as a subset of creationism. He calls himself "traditional creationist" and he defines that as Young Earth.

Paul Nelson wrote, 2002: Until recently, the majority of active dissenters from neo-Darwinian naturalistic evolution could be classified as young-earth, or what I call traditional creationists. Their dissent could be dismissed as motivated by Biblical literalism, not scientific evidence. While this criticism of traditional creationist is unfair to the actual content of their views, many prominent creationists are outstanding scientists. The absence of a wider community of dissent from Darwinism hindered the growth of scientific alternatives to the naturalistic theory. Such a wider community now exists in the intelligent design, ID, movement. Within the past decade, the ID community has matured around the insights of UC Berkeley Professor Phillip Johnson whose central insight is that science must be free to seek the truth, wherever it lies. The possibility of design, therefore, cannot be excluded from science. ...Under the canopy of design as an empirical possibility, however, any number of particular theories may also be possible, including traditional creationism, progressive, or old-earth creationism, and theistic evolution. Both scientific and scriptural evidence will have to decide the competition between these theories. The big tent of ID provides a setting in which that struggle after truth can occur and from which the secular culture may be influenced... ...The growth of a broader debate about evolution and creation can actually be seen as a boon for those struggling to discern the proper relationship between science and faith, how to understand the Book of Genesis, and how to defend the Christian world view in a hostile secular culture. Life in the big tent of the intelligent design community certainly requires a period of acclamation, but Christians, in particular traditional creationists, should welcome their new ID surroundings... ...The year 1997 marks a noteworthy turning point in the American debate over the science and philosophy of origins. In that year, a long cultural battle that had begun more than a quarter century earlier with Henry Morris and John Whitcomb's classic, The Genesis Flood, in 1961 appeared to many onlookers to have come decisively to an end when the Edwards v. Aguillard decision of the U.S. Supreme Court declared creation-science to be a religious belief... In 1982, Federal Judge William Overton declared the Arkansas balanced treatment law unconstitutional in McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education, but it was the 1997 Supreme Court opinion, Edwards v. Aguillard, that seemed to shut the door permanently on creationism... The creationists in Louisiana never had a chance. Because of the way science was defined in the debate, the very possibility of evidence against Darwinian evolution had been excluded at the outset. Reading the amicus briefs in Edwards v. Aguillard, such as that filed by the National Academy of Science, the most prestigious group of scientists in the nation, Johnson discovered that what had been presented on the ground rules -- as the ground rules of science had tilted the playing field irrevocably in favor of Darwinian evolution. In Darwin on Trial, the influential book that drew out of his 1987 insights, Johnson wrote, “The academy does define science in such a way that advocates of supernatural creation may neither argue for their own position nor dispute the claims of the scientific establishment”... Johnson rejected the philosophical dichotomizing... In June 1993, Johnson invited several of the mostly younger members of that community to a conference at the California beach town of Pajaro Dunes. Present were scientists and philosophers who themselves would later become well-known such as biochemist Michael Behe, author of Darwin's Black Box, 1996, mathematician and philosopher, William Dembski, author of The Design Inference, 1998, and Intelligent Design, 1999, and developmental biologist, Jonathan Wells, author of Icons of Evolution, 2000. Of the 14 participants at the Pajaro Dunes conference, only three, microbiologist Siegfried Scherer of the Technical University of Munich, paleontologist [YEC] Kurt Wise of Brian College, and me, that would be Paul Nelson, could be seen as traditional creationists... Johnson saw that allowing for the possibility of design as special divine action, for instance, God creating human beings directly, meant that one must also allow for other possibilities, such as God electing, if he so chose, to use an evolutionary process that wasn't self-designed. “I believe”, Johnson wrote, “that a God exists who could create out of nothing if he wanted to do so. But he might have chosen to work through a natural evolutionary process instead.” God could have created everything in six 24-hour days or not. The fundamental point is to allow for the possibility of design. The scientific narrative of design, when God acted, and how, might capture any number of competing theories... ["Life in the Big Tent: Traditional Creationism and the Intelligent Design Community", Paul Nelson, published in 2002 in the Christian Research Journal]

I inserted the [YEC] above, and the boldface; otherwise it's Nelson in his own words. He says he's YEC.

Wesley R. Elsberry · 28 June 2013

Frank J said:
Oh, no, Paul Nelson is a committed (as in insane asylum) Young Earth Biblical Literal Creationist. He is total Noah’s Flood, 6-day creation bat shit crazy YEC. There’s no question about that. Nelson has said that many, many, many times.
— Doc Bill
And you take his word on that without question? Then why not take his word on everything else he says?

One need not take Nelson's word on, say, the state of the fossil record because there is evidence beyond Nelson's testimony that can be considered. For Nelson's personal beliefs, one has only Nelson's testimony and actions to go on. I was there in 2002 when Massimo Pigliucci insisted that Paul Nelson explicitly state to the audience at the Fourth World Skeptics conference what age he thought the earth was, and Paul reaffirmed his young-earth stance. I've had extended conversations with Paul as well, and I've experienced nothing in those that would lead me to think Paul is insincere when saying he holds young-earth views. If you want to believe that Paul is not a YEC, that's certainly an opinion one can hold. I just haven't seen any argument yet that would cause me to change my opinion that Paul is a YEC. Which reminds me... Omphalos creationists are a proper subset of YEC creationists. If you believe Nelson is an Omphalos creationist, you've conceded the point.

Eddie Janssen · 28 June 2013

Starbuck said:
“How could they have come by such an effective defense system at a time when there were no predators around?”
Aren't the first highly-mobile predators with eyes, trilobites, which appeared just prior to the Cambrian explosion.

According to figure 6.6 on page 155 of Erwin and Valentine the Cambrian Explosion took place between 535MA and 505MA. (On page 5 they write that the 10 million years between 530MA and 520MA is the highlight of the Cambrium Explosion). According to that same figure, the oldest trilobite appeared in the fossil record around 520MA.

Karen S. · 28 June 2013

I was there in 2002 when Massimo Pigliucci insisted that Paul Nelson explicitly state to the audience at the Fourth World Skeptics conference what age he thought the earth was, and Paul reaffirmed his young-earth stance. I’ve had extended conversations with Paul as well, and I’ve experienced nothing in those that would lead me to think Paul is insincere when saying he holds young-earth views.

Oh, I really like Massimo Pigliucci! I'm a believer and he is not, but who cares? I read his book "Nonsense on Stilts" and I like his blog Rationally Speaking. I love his comments about the ID movement.

John Harshman · 28 June 2013

John said: Do they have a decipherable point? I think not, and I know you and I would be in full agreement with regards to that. My point in bringing up the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event (GOBE) is merely to underscore what Nick Matzke - and earlier, Donald Prothero, among others - have pointed out with regards to the relatively slow diversification rate during the "Cambrian Explosion" in comparison with the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event and other substantial taxonomic diversification events. For Meyer and Luskin and their ilk to contend that the "Cambrian Explosion" can be explained only via the "lens" of Intelligent Design, then surely their Intelligent Designer must have had his hands full when executing the GOBE.

They don't have a point, but I think your point is mistaken too. You are confusing disparity with diversity. Sepkoski's databases were explicitly intended to be proxies for counts of species, i.e. measures of diversity. Meyer et al. are talking about disparity (whether they know it or not; hard to tell). These are two quite different quantities, and one says little or nothing about the other.

John Harshman · 28 June 2013

Eddie Janssen said: According to figure 6.6 on page 155 of Erwin and Valentine the Cambrian Explosion took place between 535MA and 505MA. (On page 5 they write that the 10 million years between 530MA and 520MA is the highlight of the Cambrium Explosion).

How do the arrive at those figures? Particularly, what event at 535ma marks the beginning? I can't think of one myself. Some critical level of diversity in the small-shelly fauna?

Frank J · 28 June 2013

Omphalos creationists are a proper subset of YEC creationists.
— Wesley Elsberry

I'm not even convinced that he's an Omphalos creationist, let alone the "kind" of YEC who insists that the evidence independently confirms a young earth. DI people make so much stuff up, it's impossible to tell what they're actually honest about. That he admits what he did only tells me that he thinks that sells better to the public. We know what they promote, and can only speculate on what they personally believe.

Doc Bill · 28 June 2013

If you've never seen the interview between Richard Dawkins and Wendy Wright then you must do yourself a service and look it up. Dawkins is talking to the most vacuous person you could imagine. She's just looking at Dawkins and smiling this Stepford Wife smile and just blowing him off totally. Ha, ha, ha, she lilts. Nelson, to me, is the same. He just sits there with an idiotic smile totally oblivious to what your are saying. All he hears is "blah blah blah Ginger blah blah." Argument, reason, evidence and science are only words to these people.

Nelson said it best when he stated that nothing mattered. It was only words.

https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawnCAfmJD1Tz4JVyiJbuMC8oXlBp1X9yBr8 · 28 June 2013

diogeneslamp0 said:
John said: An excellent summation, Nick, and you did not have to resort to describing the "Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event" - which I have elsewhere - in repudiating Meyer, Luskin and their intellectually-challenged zealous acolytes.
John, do you have a not-totally-technical link for the “Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event”, preferably one with a GRAPH representing the increase in disparity or diversity, so we may compare it to Meyer's fake graph?

Try here: www.ediacaran.blogspot.com.au/2010/05/cambrian-critters-in-ordovician-2.html Chris Nedin

Robert Byers · 29 June 2013

W. H. Heydt said:
Robert Byers said: Its all guessing about connections not demonstrated by evidence.
There's an old joke that a "theory" is a "guess with a college education." If you had one, you might get the humor in that.

Its a good joke because it makes a good point that people would agree with to some extent. Its a scepticism that many 'theories" don't have have credible evidence behind them to justify being true theories. A scientific theory raises the bar or standard in investigation and evidence before conclusions can be demanded to be well supported. I do see evolution fails this. I see it especially fails as a biological scientific theory because its great claims to evidence, like the fossil subject of the thread here, are noy based on pure biological investigation. They are only conclusions based on USING biological data points(fossils etc) for drawing the conclusions of descent and process. Without the geology being true the biology conclusions not only wouldn't be true but would be useless. They say nothing about the conclusions drawn from them. Its ALL geological assumptions doing the work. There is no biology research behinf evolutionary biology in main points. I ask HOW is fossils related to biological conclusions of descent and process?? Its been a strange lingering logical flaw in the subject as I see it.

TomS · 29 June 2013

Doc Bill said: If you've never seen the interview between Richard Dawkins and Wendy Wright then you must do yourself a service and look it up. Dawkins is talking to the most vacuous person you could imagine. She's just looking at Dawkins and smiling this Stepford Wife smile and just blowing him off totally. Ha, ha, ha, she lilts. Nelson, to me, is the same. He just sits there with an idiotic smile totally oblivious to what your are saying. All he hears is "blah blah blah Ginger blah blah." Argument, reason, evidence and science are only words to these people. Nelson said it best when he stated that nothing mattered. It was only words.

I just now took a look at the beginning of the interview. Now, I'm no Richard Dawkins (I'm not a scientist of any kind, and certainly not nearly as clever a speaker or writer), but I would have immediately taken issue with her repeated statements that there was no evidence of evolution between species. I would have, to begin with, pointed out that Answers in Genesis mentions that as one of the arguments that creationists shouldn't use, and that there is a lot of creationist literature about "created kinds" (or "baramins"), which are something vaguely larger than species, maybe as large as a taxonomic family. And then I would have made reference to some of the places online where one can find information about this, such as talkorigins.org and Wikipedia. And I might have even been so nasty as to ask how much effort she had made to look for the evidence.

TomS · 29 June 2013

Oh, and one more thing.

This is not as prominent a thing in what she had to say in what I saw, but I am rather interested in this point, and she did come back to it a couple of times. She spoke of each individual as having worth as being a creature of God. And I would point out that that the origins of the individual is not a question treated by evolutionary biology, but rather by reproductive biology, or perhaps genetics or developmental biology. Does acceptance of a naturalistic account for the origins of the individual take away anything about our individual relationship with a Creator, or the worth of each one of us as an individual? Talking about the origins of a collective (like a species) in the context of values seems to value only collectives, not individuals.

W. H. Heydt · 29 June 2013

Robert Byers said:
W. H. Heydt said:
Robert Byers said: Its all guessing about connections not demonstrated by evidence.
There's an old joke that a "theory" is a "guess with a college education." If you had one, you might get the humor in that.
Its a good joke because it makes a good point that people would agree with to some extent. Its a scepticism that many 'theories" don't have have credible evidence behind them to justify being true theories. A scientific theory raises the bar or standard in investigation and evidence before conclusions can be demanded to be well supported. I do see evolution fails this. I see it especially fails as a biological scientific theory because its great claims to evidence, like the fossil subject of the thread here, are noy based on pure biological investigation. They are only conclusions based on USING biological data points(fossils etc) for drawing the conclusions of descent and process. Without the geology being true the biology conclusions not only wouldn't be true but would be useless. They say nothing about the conclusions drawn from them. Its ALL geological assumptions doing the work. There is no biology research behinf evolutionary biology in main points. I ask HOW is fossils related to biological conclusions of descent and process?? Its been a strange lingering logical flaw in the subject as I see it.

Point. Completely. Missed. Which is what I expected. The point is, Sir, that you lack both knowledge and education to understand the subject matter in question. On top of that you have been MIS-educated to have a lot of false ideas, erroneous understanding, and inability to understand the science involved, the evidence that is available, and ways putting two together. It is your continual willful ignorance and simple pig-headed insistance in repeating the same old errors and falsehoods repeatedly after being shown why those ideas are false that get people annoyed with you. I would suggest that reading some decent books on these subjects (many have been suggested) and actually learning what and why mainstream science says would help, but I fear that you are, at this point, not able to learn and would reject anything that does not conform to your current--unsupported--beliefs.

diogeneslamp0 · 29 June 2013

John Harshman said: In fact we know that the earliest known fossils unambiguously belonging to perhaps 15 of the modern phyla, or their stem groups, are known from the Atdabanian.

Fifteen phyla? Really? Do you have a reference for that? I'd love a reference. Based on my (limited, amateur) knowledge I figured it was like three to maybe seven phyla, with the ambiguity being due to all those trace fossils of worms. For a popular level introduction to the relation between pre-Cambrian and Cambrian fauna, see Keith Miller's article.

John Harshman said: There is considerable trace of multicellular animals before the Atdabanian. Even if we dismiss the Ediacaran fauna -- and it's not clear whether it contains any primitive bilaterians -- there is the gradual increase in variety and complexity of trace fossils through the Late Vendian and Early Cambrian and the somewhat later -- but still pre-Atdabanian -- diversification of the small shelly fauna.

But I'd argue that there's really good evidence of bilaterians in the pre-Cambrian. To start with Kimberella, it's hard to imagine it's not bilaterian. If you were served Kimberella at a sushi bar, you would dunk it in soy sauce and wasabi and swallow it without a thought. Then there's Ausia fenestrata, a chordate sensu lato. I'm willing to admit that Spriggina is not an ancestor of trilobites or arthropods, because of its glide symmetry and its obvious similarity to other rangeomorphs. However, based on the very same logic, one has to admit that Parvancorina looks just like an ancestor of trilobites. See some comparisons of Parvancorina and trilobites here. Parvancorina Minchami has faint lines indicating body segmentation like a trilobite. It looks like the early Cambrian arthropod Primicaris larvaformis from the Chengjiang biota, which likewise resembles a larval form of a Cambrian trilobite. The same logic that excludes Spriggina as an ancestor would have to regard Parvancorina as a real possibility. I'm willing to say that Spriggina isn't a stem arthropod and even say that Arkarua maybe isn't a stem echinoderm. But there are other possible ancestors in the Ediacaran.

And of course all animal phyla didn't emerge in the explosion, so far as we can tell from the fossil record; fully half the animal phyla have no fossil record to speak of, and we know that bryozoans only came along in the Ordovician.

And Platyhelminthes first appear as late as the Eocene!

apokryltaros · 29 June 2013

Moron For Jesus babbled: I ask HOW is fossils related to biological conclusions of descent and process?? Its been a strange lingering logical flaw in the subject as I see it.

And we keep telling you that fossils are "related to biological conclusions of descent and process" (sic) because fossils USED TO BE LIVING ORGANISMS, MANY OF WHICH ARE CLEARLY RELATED TO LIVING ORGANISMS STILL ALIVE TODAY, BUT YOU KEEP IGNORING WHAT WE SAY SO YOU CAN REPEAT YOUR MORONIC TRICK QUESTIONS FOR JESUS AND FLAUNT YOUR DELIBERATE STUPIDITY FOR JESUS Or, are you trying to imply, in your own brain-damaged way, that we are to blame for you constantly deliberately refusing to even acknowledge anything we say in response to your uncontrollable outbursts of Stupidity For Jesus?

diogeneslamp0 · 29 June 2013

Why are my comments being held for approval by the blog owner? Who, being Nick, has said he won't moderate. At the previous Matzke thread, I wrote a 4-page demolistion of Luskin's errors and my comment vanished forever, that thread now closed. In this thread, my comment had two hyperlinks and no curse words, and this (and others by me) just disappear!

I try to talk about the fossil record and my comments disappear, but endless comments insulting Byers and Paul Nelson get through. Could we pleeeez talk about SCIENCE?

If I want to see my technical comments, with facts and citations, get DELETED, I'll go to Uncommon Descent!

apokryltaros · 29 June 2013

W. H. Heydt said: Point. Completely. Missed. Which is what I expected. The point is, Sir, that you lack both knowledge and education to understand the subject matter in question. On top of that you have been MIS-educated to have a lot of false ideas, erroneous understanding, and inability to understand the science involved, the evidence that is available, and ways putting two together. It is your continual willful ignorance and simple pig-headed insistance in repeating the same old errors and falsehoods repeatedly after being shown why those ideas are false that get people annoyed with you.

If Robert Byers, Deliberately Braindead Idiot For Jesus, could wrap his peabrain around this sad fact, he would not be whining about our shabby treatment of him.

I would suggest that reading some decent books on these subjects (many have been suggested) and actually learning what and why mainstream science says would help, but I fear that you are, at this point, not able to learn and would reject anything that does not conform to your current--unsupported--beliefs.

Whenever people say "You can lead an idiot to books, but you can't make him think," they're talking specifically about Byers.

apokryltaros · 29 June 2013

diogeneslamp0 said: Why are my comments being held for approval by the blog owner? Who, being Nick, has said he won't moderate. At the previous Matzke thread, I wrote a 4-page demolistion of Luskin's errors and my comment vanished forever, that thread now closed. In this thread, my comment had two hyperlinks and no curse words, and this (and others by me) just disappear! I try to talk about the fossil record and my comments disappear, but endless comments insulting Byers and Paul Nelson get through. Could we pleeeez talk about SCIENCE? If I want to see my technical comments, with facts and citations, get DELETED, I'll go to Uncommon Descent!

Were there multiple links in your comment? Sometimes a comment with multiple links will get caught in the spam filters on the assumption (whether true or not) that it's spam.

diogeneslamp0 · 29 June 2013

apokryltaros said:
Moron For Jesus babbled: I ask HOW is fossils related to biological conclusions of descent and process?? Its been a strange lingering logical flaw in the subject as I see it.
And we keep telling you that fossils are "related to biological conclusions of descent and process" (sic) because fossils USED TO BE LIVING ORGANISMS, MANY OF WHICH ARE CLEARLY RELATED TO LIVING ORGANISMS STILL ALIVE TODAY, BUT YOU KEEP IGNORING WHAT WE SAY SO YOU CAN REPEAT YOUR MORONIC TRICK QUESTIONS FOR JESUS AND FLAUNT YOUR DELIBERATE STUPIDITY FOR JESUS Or, are you trying to imply, in your own brain-damaged way, that we are to blame for you constantly deliberately refusing to even acknowledge anything we say in response to your uncontrollable outbursts of Stupidity For Jesus?

Apokryltaros, you know a lot about paleontology, right? You and John Harshman and some others. Why are you wasting your talents cooking small fry like Byers, who is not cited as an authority by other creationists? Stephen Meyer has published a book with a fake plot about the Cambrian explosion. Meyer's fake Cambrian explosion plot was reproduced in Nick's first review of Meyer's book. Could you please use your considerable talents demolishing Meyer's fake plot or other fact-claims in his book?

diogeneslamp0 · 29 June 2013

apokryltaros said:
diogeneslamp0 said: Why are my comments being held for approval by the blog owner? Who, being Nick, has said he won't moderate. At the previous Matzke thread, I wrote a 4-page demolistion of Luskin's errors and my comment vanished forever, that thread now closed. In this thread, my comment had two hyperlinks and no curse words, and this (and others by me) just disappear! I try to talk about the fossil record and my comments disappear, but endless comments insulting Byers and Paul Nelson get through. Could we pleeeez talk about SCIENCE? If I want to see my technical comments, with facts and citations, get DELETED, I'll go to Uncommon Descent!
Were there multiple links in your comment? Sometimes a comment with multiple links will get caught in the spam filters on the assumption (whether true or not) that it's spam.

There were two hyperlinks. Is two the limit?

apokryltaros · 29 June 2013

diogeneslamp0 said:
apokryltaros said:
Moron For Jesus babbled: I ask HOW is fossils related to biological conclusions of descent and process?? Its been a strange lingering logical flaw in the subject as I see it.
And we keep telling you that fossils are "related to biological conclusions of descent and process" (sic) because fossils USED TO BE LIVING ORGANISMS, MANY OF WHICH ARE CLEARLY RELATED TO LIVING ORGANISMS STILL ALIVE TODAY, BUT YOU KEEP IGNORING WHAT WE SAY SO YOU CAN REPEAT YOUR MORONIC TRICK QUESTIONS FOR JESUS AND FLAUNT YOUR DELIBERATE STUPIDITY FOR JESUS Or, are you trying to imply, in your own brain-damaged way, that we are to blame for you constantly deliberately refusing to even acknowledge anything we say in response to your uncontrollable outbursts of Stupidity For Jesus?
Apokryltaros, you know a lot about paleontology, right? You and John Harshman and some others. Why are you wasting your talents cooking small fry like Byers, who is not cited as an authority by other creationists? Stephen Meyer has published a book with a fake plot about the Cambrian explosion. Meyer's fake Cambrian explosion plot was reproduced in Nick's first review of Meyer's book. Could you please use your considerable talents demolishing Meyer's fake plot or other fact-claims in his book?

Good point: It would be much better for my blood pressure, at the very least.

apokryltaros · 29 June 2013

diogeneslamp0 said:
apokryltaros said:
diogeneslamp0 said: Why are my comments being held for approval by the blog owner? Who, being Nick, has said he won't moderate. At the previous Matzke thread, I wrote a 4-page demolistion of Luskin's errors and my comment vanished forever, that thread now closed. In this thread, my comment had two hyperlinks and no curse words, and this (and others by me) just disappear! I try to talk about the fossil record and my comments disappear, but endless comments insulting Byers and Paul Nelson get through. Could we pleeeez talk about SCIENCE? If I want to see my technical comments, with facts and citations, get DELETED, I'll go to Uncommon Descent!
Were there multiple links in your comment? Sometimes a comment with multiple links will get caught in the spam filters on the assumption (whether true or not) that it's spam.
There were two hyperlinks. Is two the limit?

From my own experiences, yes, two hyperlinks will trap your comment in moderation indefinitely.

apokryltaros · 29 June 2013

Luskin saidMatzke does attempt to address the first problem posed by the Cambrian explosion. He does so by claiming that methods of phylogenetic reconstruction can establish the existence of Precambrian ancestral and intermediate forms – an unfolding of animal complexity that the fossil record does not document.
Well, no. I claimed that phylogenetic methods can establish, and have established, the existence of Cambrian intermediate forms, which are collateral ancestors of various prominent living phyla. The case is clearest with the most common and most-fossilized Cambrian phylum, the arthropods, but there is a fair bit of similar evidence for other major phyla. (Some phyla, primarily soft-bodied worms, have few fossils anyway, and there of course intermediate fossils are scare, although even if we had them they would be difficult-to-identify worms.) All of the leading authorities (Valentine, Erwin, Conway Morris, Briggs, Budd, etc.) would agree with me. More precisely, I agree with them, and they have all said in print what I just said. Furthermore, they would all agree that this is extremely important evidence for understanding the origin of “phyla”, evidence which cannot be ignored. But Meyer/Luskin ignore it, instead occupying themselves with hunting around in the Precambrian.

It would help Meyer's/Luskin's attempt at (counter)argument if they made an effort, any effort at all, even, to acknowledge Precambrian organisms and the growing body of research concerning them. But, Meyer is using the (repeatedly discredited) Creationist parody that evolutionists think that life literally magically poofed into existence during the Cambrian Explosion. By mentioning/admitting that evolutionists actually have evidence of life existing before the Cambrian Explosion would hamstring his use of the parody.

Similarly, Valentine, Erwin, Conway Morris, Briggs, Budd, etc., would all agree that it is utterly impossible to have a sensible discussion of the Cambrian Explosion while ignoring the 30-million year sequence of surface-crawling worms, then burrowing worms, then armored worms, then small shellies, THEN identifiable relatives of phyla, most of which are (not coincidentally) stem groups rather than members of the crown phyla, and which have characters suites transitional between the major crown phyla. These are fatal, catastrophic omissions Meyer’s book, which is allegedly supposed to be a serious commentary on the Cambrian Explosion.

Meyer's omission of mentioning the stem groups in the Cambrian Explosion is undoubtedly deliberate. Mentioning these stem groups who have features intermediary between the crown groups would be a forced admission that evolutionists are right about even one thing, and that would be anathema to the whole raison d'être of Intelligent Design ("Evolution is wrong and bad forever and ever!"). If Meyer were dare to mention any of the Cambrian stem groups in an honest fashion, he might as well shout to his helmsman, "Fullspeed ahead to that iceberg, straight through the minefield, past the sandbar, and right between Scylla and Charybdis!" Of course, hyperbole aside, while the majority of Intelligent Design's audience are diehard pious idiots, there is a minority of thoughtful, sympathetic fencesitters who are prone to think about stuff. And if Meyer were to admit to the existence of Cambrian stem groups, or otherwise imply that evolutionists do have a point, then he risks contaminating this dangerous minority with inappropriate thoughts, which in turn, might lead to rebellion and loss of viewers/followers/revenue/minions.

The only way forward for the IDists is to forthrightly admit the error to the books’ readership.

There is no such thing as a forthright Intelligent Design proponent: such a fabulous creature is a fantastic chimaera that is even less plausible or earthbound than a flying, radioactive unicorn made out of pink meatballs and a vermicelli mane. The closest one gets to a "forthright IDist" is a stupid IDist prone to Freudian slips (i.e., like with Michael Behe's admission that his and the Discovery Institute's proposed redefinition of "science" would also include astrology) Admitting error is anathema to all science-deniers. They will never admit mistake because they are always right, and their enemies are always in error. The closest a science denier will ever get to admitting they made a mistake is either pretending that they never made a mistake in the first place, or, among the most humblest, admitting that they tried to wrestle with the Devil, and lost solely because the Devil cheated.

From there, they could perhaps try to maintain their argument by arguing that the 30-million-year worms-shellies-stem-groups sequence is irrelevant, and that the stem group fossils with transitional morphologies are irrelevant or have been misinterpreted by the experts or something.

What argument can you make with fossil shells, and carbon echoes of squished worms when you're trained to only repeat elaborations of "Nuh-uh, Evilution!" until your target audience throws money at you for Jesus?

But they haven’t got a chance in heck of convincing anyone serious as long as they pretend to their readers that these data don’t exist.

Hence the Discovery Institute avoiding doing any scientific research whatsoever for over two decades in favor of anti-science propaganda and currying favors with sympathetic anti-science politicians.

John · 29 June 2013

John Harshman said:
John said: Do they have a decipherable point? I think not, and I know you and I would be in full agreement with regards to that. My point in bringing up the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event (GOBE) is merely to underscore what Nick Matzke - and earlier, Donald Prothero, among others - have pointed out with regards to the relatively slow diversification rate during the "Cambrian Explosion" in comparison with the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event and other substantial taxonomic diversification events. For Meyer and Luskin and their ilk to contend that the "Cambrian Explosion" can be explained only via the "lens" of Intelligent Design, then surely their Intelligent Designer must have had his hands full when executing the GOBE.
They don't have a point, but I think your point is mistaken too. You are confusing disparity with diversity. Sepkoski's databases were explicitly intended to be proxies for counts of species, i.e. measures of diversity. Meyer et al. are talking about disparity (whether they know it or not; hard to tell). These are two quite different quantities, and one says little or nothing about the other.

I am correct insofar as the public is concerned. If the public saw dramatic increases in taxonomic diversity occurring faster during the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event (GOBE) and compared that with the relatively slow diversification rate during the "Cambrian Explosion", then, I hope, they would understand how much the DI is making a "molehill" out of nothing.

eric · 29 June 2013

Robert Byers said: like the fossil subject of the thread here, are noy [sic] based on pure biological investigation. They are only conclusions based on USING biological data points(fossils etc) for drawing the conclusions of descent and process.

You say that like its a bad thing, but drawing general inferences from limited data is pretty much the whole point and process of science.

I ask HOW is fossils related to biological conclusions of descent and process??

The fossil record shows incremental change over time. That's descent with modification. Mutation + natural selection provides a mechanism for how that descent with modification can occur. Now, if you have an empirically testable alternative mechanism, feel free to go out, test it, and show us the results. Pick up a shovel and go digging for that 50 million year old alien genetics lab. But no scientist is obligated to give even a moment of their time to your idle speculation until after you come up with some empirical evidence that confirms a testable alternative mechanism.

apokryltaros · 29 June 2013

John said:
John Harshman said:
John said: Do they have a decipherable point? I think not, and I know you and I would be in full agreement with regards to that. My point in bringing up the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event (GOBE) is merely to underscore what Nick Matzke - and earlier, Donald Prothero, among others - have pointed out with regards to the relatively slow diversification rate during the "Cambrian Explosion" in comparison with the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event and other substantial taxonomic diversification events. For Meyer and Luskin and their ilk to contend that the "Cambrian Explosion" can be explained only via the "lens" of Intelligent Design, then surely their Intelligent Designer must have had his hands full when executing the GOBE.
They don't have a point, but I think your point is mistaken too. You are confusing disparity with diversity. Sepkoski's databases were explicitly intended to be proxies for counts of species, i.e. measures of diversity. Meyer et al. are talking about disparity (whether they know it or not; hard to tell). These are two quite different quantities, and one says little or nothing about the other.
I am correct insofar as the public is concerned. If the public saw dramatic increases in taxonomic diversity occurring faster during the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event (GOBE) and compared that with the relatively slow diversification rate during the "Cambrian Explosion", then, I hope, they would understand how much the DI is making a "molehill" out of nothing.

The Discovery Institute is, more or less, sticking their fingers into the ears of the public while shrieking singsong "Lalalala, Can't hear you!" and has, tragically, made immense progress with this tactic. It is imperative that the public be informed about the various Early Paleozoic diversification events in easy to digest form, as well as to inform the public about how Intelligent Design ~~Theory~~ is not only not science in any meaningful form, but also anti-science religious propaganda that serves no purpose beyond making people Hate Science For Jesus in order to further Jesusify America.

diogeneslamp0 · 30 June 2013

I was trying to do a comparison between the various fake Cambrian plots, and I was wondering if anyone has access to Fig 3.4 from Jonathan Wells' Icons of Evolution, to compare with the current fake plot from Meyer's Darwin's Doubt.

The fake Cambrian plot from Meyer's current book, which Nick reproduced here, is so wildly inaccurate it looks like scientific fraud.

Nick, are you sure you got that figure right? How did you get it-- scan it from Meyer's book?

(First comment of 4. I'm breaking this into 4 comments because 2 hyperlinks will put my comment into moderation.)

diogeneslamp0 · 30 June 2013

(Second comment of 4)...

Before I pointed out the 2013 fake Cambrian plot is almost identical to Meyer's and Nelson's 2001 fake Cambrian plot, visible here. If Nick's scan is accurate, the Meyer's fake plot has not been updated in 12 years.

diogeneslamp0 · 30 June 2013

(Third comment of 4)...

Casey Luskin in 2003 posted a simplied, dumbed down, but equally fraudulent fake Cambrian phyla plot here. Note how Luskin's is simplified, not updated.

diogeneslamp0 · 30 June 2013

(Fourth comment of 4)...

Casey Luskin in 2003 posted a simplied, dumbed down, but equally fraudulent fake Cambrian phyla plot here. Note how Luskin's is simplified, not updated.

But Jonathan Wells' book Icons of Evolution supposedly also had a wildly inaccurate Cambrian plot, Fig. 3.4, the inaccuracies of which are described at TalkOrigins.

Does anyone have a scan of Fig. 3.4 from Wells, for us to dissect?

Sorry for all the comments, but two hyperlinks in a comment will put me in moderation hell.

diogeneslamp0 · 30 June 2013

On the topic of ignorant creationists who don't understand phylogeny, maybe you might enjoy creationist Brian Thomas of ICR mangling terminology. The topic is Eunotosaurus, identified as a stem turtle in a recent paper. Thomas then goes on to prove he's ignorant of the most basic phylogenetics and cladistics. Here Thomas is helpfully "explaining" to his church audience the meaning of phylogenetic terms, and makes a mash of them.

The study authors [of the Eunotosaurus paper] wrote that it “only differs from undisputed stem turtles…in sharing fewer derived characters with crown turtles.”1 “Stem turtles” denote evolutionary ancestors, “derived characters” describe body features supposedly inherited from those hypothetical stem turtles, and “crown turtles” refer to modern turtles [Brian Thomas at ICR]

Ugh. No, Idiot. Where to begin...?

“derived characters” describe body features supposedly inherited from those hypothetical stem turtles

NO. NO NO NO. That is the OPPOSITE of what "derived" means, moron! You just defined a plesiomorphy, not an apomorphy.

“crown turtles” refer to modern turtles

NO. NO NO NO. Crown turtles includes long-extinct turtles.

“Stem turtles” denote evolutionary ancestors

Not necessarily. Could be your great-aunt rather than your great-grandmother. Continuing with this idiot:

Also, all three quoted phrases are entirely subjective!

How the hell would YOU know? You don't even know the DEFINITIONS of those terms-- how would you know how they're computed?

One researcher could reassign a "stem turtle" to "evolutionary dead end" status, or swap a "derived character" for a "coevolved" character at any time and for any number of reasons.

NO. NO NO NO. As Nick explained, you have to do a phylogenetic analysis and show that the tree is real and not noise. Continuing with this moron:

Indeed, secular scientific literature is filled with just such assertions and counter-assertions.

NO. NO NO NO. "Secular scientific literature" is NOT "filled with just such assertions", because they're not just assertions. They're the output of mathematical analyses. Creationist do assertions. Scientists have statistics.

So if Eunotosaurus was not “a critical transitional form,” then what was it? The study compared a range of fossil turtle anatomy details to provide the answer: “There is strong support for a turtle + Eunotosaurus clade [group].” Is that very different than just saying, “Eunotosaurus was a turtle?”

YES. YES YES YES. It IS very different, Idiot! Because CLADE does not mean GROUP-- another word you can't define! Why did no creationist identify Eunotosaurus as a turtle BEFORE Lyson et al. identified it as a stem turtle by evolutionary methods? If it's consistent with creationism to say that an animal with no plastron and no carapace and comparatively narrow vertebrae is "a turtle", then why didn't a creationist write the paper that evolutionists Lyson et al. wrote? WHY DIDN'T YOU DO THE WORK YOU'RE NOW TRYING TO PUBJACK?

John Harshman · 30 June 2013

Fifteen phyla [in the Atdabanian]? Really? Do you have a reference for that? I’d love a reference. Based on my (limited, amateur) knowledge I figured it was like three to maybe seven phyla, with the ambiguity being due to all those trace fossils of worms.

I didn't make any actual count. But let's see: Arthropoda, Cnidaria, Porifera, Chordata, Annelida, Echinodermata, Onychophora, Priapulida, Mollusca, Brachiopoda, and possibly Nematomorpha, Ctenophora, Phoronida, and Chaetognatha. (Some of those are stem-members only.) Add any extinct lineages you would consider phyla.

But I’d argue that there’s really good evidence of bilaterians in the pre-Cambrian. To start with Kimberella, it’s hard to imagine it’s not bilaterian. If you were served Kimberella at a sushi bar, you would dunk it in soy sauce and wasabi and swallow it without a thought. Then there’s Ausia fenestrata, a chordate sensu lato. I’m willing to admit that Spriggina is not an ancestor of trilobites or arthropods, because of its glide symmetry and its obvious similarity to other rangeomorphs. However, based on the very same logic, one has to admit that Parvancorina looks just like an ancestor of trilobites. See some comparisons of Parvancorina and trilobites here. Parvancorina Minchami has faint lines indicating body segmentation like a trilobite. It looks like the early Cambrian arthropod Primicaris larvaformis from the Chengjiang biota, which likewise resembles a larval form of a Cambrian trilobite. The same logic that excludes Spriggina as an ancestor would have to regard Parvancorina as a real possibility. I’m willing to say that Spriggina isn’t a stem arthropod and even say that Arkarua maybe isn’t a stem echinoderm. But there are other possible ancestors in the Ediacaran.

I don't believe the case is clear on any of these. Preservation just isn't good enough. However, there is good evidence in the form of trace fossils.

John Harshman · 30 June 2013

I am correct insofar as the public is concerned. If the public saw dramatic increases in taxonomic diversity occurring faster during the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event (GOBE) and compared that with the relatively slow diversification rate during the “Cambrian Explosion”, then, I hope, they would understand how much the DI is making a “molehill” out of nothing.

Then neither you nor the public understands the difference between diversity and disparity.

apokryltaros · 30 June 2013

John Harshman said:
Fifteen phyla [in the Atdabanian]? Really? Do you have a reference for that? I’d love a reference. Based on my (limited, amateur) knowledge I figured it was like three to maybe seven phyla, with the ambiguity being due to all those trace fossils of worms.
I didn't make any actual count. But let's see: Arthropoda, Cnidaria, Porifera, Chordata, Annelida, Echinodermata, Onychophora, Priapulida, Mollusca, Brachiopoda, and possibly Nematomorpha, Ctenophora, Phoronida, and Chaetognatha. (Some of those are stem-members only.) Add any extinct lineages you would consider phyla.

The Cambrian Ctenophora are, last I checked, considered stem-members, though, they do bear a resemblance to the Beroids. Stromatoveris is a stalked organism that resembles an Ediacaran rangeomorph, but, is considered, by the presence of cilia, to be closest to the ancestral ctenophore. And yes, stem-group molluscs are very well represented throughout the Early Cambrian.
But I’d argue that there’s really good evidence of bilaterians in the pre-Cambrian. To start with Kimberella, it’s hard to imagine it’s not bilaterian. If you were served Kimberella at a sushi bar, you would dunk it in soy sauce and wasabi and swallow it without a thought. Then there’s Ausia fenestrata, a chordate sensu lato. I’m willing to admit that Spriggina is not an ancestor of trilobites or arthropods, because of its glide symmetry and its obvious similarity to other rangeomorphs. However, based on the very same logic, one has to admit that Parvancorina looks just like an ancestor of trilobites. See some comparisons of Parvancorina and trilobites here. Parvancorina Minchami has faint lines indicating body segmentation like a trilobite. It looks like the early Cambrian arthropod Primicaris larvaformis from the Chengjiang biota, which likewise resembles a larval form of a Cambrian trilobite. The same logic that excludes Spriggina as an ancestor would have to regard Parvancorina as a real possibility. I’m willing to say that Spriggina isn’t a stem arthropod and even say that Arkarua maybe isn’t a stem echinoderm. But there are other possible ancestors in the Ediacaran.
I don't believe the case is clear on any of these. Preservation just isn't good enough. However, there is good evidence in the form of trace fossils.

It's specifically because of newer, better preserved fossils (primarily from the shores of the White Sea) that Spriggina is thought to be more closely related to Ediacarans like Dickinsonia and Yorgia, and is no longer thought to be an arthropod. Kimberella is undoubtedly a stem-mollusc, as it has a mantle, a precursor to a shell, and a radula. Numerous specimens from the White Sea have been fossilized together with feeding traces, showing that, in life, the critter methodically grazed certain portions of the algal/bacterial biofilms, then doublebacked on its own tracks in order to deliberately avoid crawling over already-grazed surfaces. As for Arkarua, the only evidence to suggest that it is an echinoderm is its fivefold symmetry, which gives it a strong, but probably superficial resemblance to the Edrioasteroids (a class of seat cushion-like filterfeeders related to the sea lilies). Otherwise, most experts strongly doubt Arkarua's proposed echinoderm affinities because its fossils lack traces of stereom plates (which are a far more important diagnostic of echinoderm affinity).

John Harshman · 30 June 2013

And yes, stem-group molluscs are very well represented throughout the Early Cambrian.

Well, we aren't talking about the entire Early Cambrian, just the Atdabanian. And those are mostly crown-group mollusks.

apokryltaros · 30 June 2013

John Harshman said: And yes, stem-group molluscs are very well represented throughout the Early Cambrian. Well, we aren't talking about the entire Early Cambrian, just the Atdabanian. And those are mostly crown-group mollusks.

The earliest, for-certain crown-group mollusk from the Early Cambrian would be the ur-bivalve, Pojetaia, of the Tommotian. The status of most of the other early Cambrian mollusks, i.e., the Helcionelloida, is in flux: some people think they're gastropods, other people aren't convinced, and still others think they're precursors to the gastropods. For certain, the first really-for-sure gastropods, like Chippewaella, and Strepsodiscus appear during the Late Cambrian, long after the Cambrian Explosion.

Jim Hofmann · 30 June 2013

maybe of interest:
Novel Scenarios of Early Animal Evolution—Is It Time to Rewrite Textbooks?
http://icb.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2013/06/24/icb.ict008.full

John Harshman · 30 June 2013

apokryltaros said: The earliest, for-certain crown-group mollusk from the Early Cambrian would be the ur-bivalve, Pojetaia, of the Tommotian. The status of most of the other early Cambrian mollusks, i.e., the Helcionelloida, is in flux: some people think they're gastropods, other people aren't convinced, and still others think they're precursors to the gastropods. For certain, the first really-for-sure gastropods, like Chippewaella, and Strepsodiscus appear during the Late Cambrian, long after the Cambrian Explosion.

Stem-gastropods are crown group mollusks. Rostroconchs are probably crown group mollusks. Any fossil descended from the common ancestor of cephalopods, bivalves, gastropods, solenogastres, chitons, monoplacophorans, and the two other classes whose names currently escape me are crown group mollusks.

Bilbo · 30 June 2013

Hi Nick,

If by "9/11 Truther" you mean someone who thinks there should be a new, independent investigation of 9/11, then one can be a competent Truther without sufficient knowledge of engineering. One only needs to know that an incomplete investigation was carried out the first time, such as not replicating the molten yellow metal pouring from the South Tower; not replicating the eutectically melted steel found by FEMA; not testing the dust for explosive residues; not explaining how WTC7 fell a free fall acceleration for almost two and a half seconds; and not releasing the computer data for NIST's computer animation of WTC7's collapse.

John · 30 June 2013

John Harshman said:
I am correct insofar as the public is concerned. If the public saw dramatic increases in taxonomic diversity occurring faster during the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event (GOBE) and compared that with the relatively slow diversification rate during the “Cambrian Explosion”, then, I hope, they would understand how much the DI is making a “molehill” out of nothing.
Then neither you nor the public understands the difference between diversity and disparity.

You got to be kidding me. In lieu of disparity, I would refer to evolution of bauplane; that is evolution of different morphologies. The point the DI is trying to make is that you have an "explosion" in new taxa that occurs during the "Cambrian Explosion"; that point is nonsensical when you compare and contrast what occurred during the "Cambrian Explosion" with the "Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event" (GOBE). The pace of diversification is substantially faster during the GOBE than it is during the "Cambrian Explosion".

John · 30 June 2013

apokryltaros said:
John said:
John Harshman said:
John said: Do they have a decipherable point? I think not, and I know you and I would be in full agreement with regards to that. My point in bringing up the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event (GOBE) is merely to underscore what Nick Matzke - and earlier, Donald Prothero, among others - have pointed out with regards to the relatively slow diversification rate during the "Cambrian Explosion" in comparison with the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event and other substantial taxonomic diversification events. For Meyer and Luskin and their ilk to contend that the "Cambrian Explosion" can be explained only via the "lens" of Intelligent Design, then surely their Intelligent Designer must have had his hands full when executing the GOBE.
They don't have a point, but I think your point is mistaken too. You are confusing disparity with diversity. Sepkoski's databases were explicitly intended to be proxies for counts of species, i.e. measures of diversity. Meyer et al. are talking about disparity (whether they know it or not; hard to tell). These are two quite different quantities, and one says little or nothing about the other.
I am correct insofar as the public is concerned. If the public saw dramatic increases in taxonomic diversity occurring faster during the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event (GOBE) and compared that with the relatively slow diversification rate during the "Cambrian Explosion", then, I hope, they would understand how much the DI is making a "molehill" out of nothing.
The Discovery Institute is, more or less, sticking their fingers into the ears of the public while shrieking singsong "Lalalala, Can't hear you!" and has, tragically, made immense progress with this tactic. It is imperative that the public be informed about the various Early Paleozoic diversification events in easy to digest form, as well as to inform the public about how Intelligent Design ~~Theory~~ is not only not science in any meaningful form, but also anti-science religious propaganda that serves no purpose beyond making people Hate Science For Jesus in order to further Jesusify America.

I agree with you wholeheartedly here. If John Harshman wants to play semantic games - and I do not disagree with him that there is a difference between looking at taxonomic diversity vs. disparity (evolution of new body plans, or bauplane) - that would confuse the general public, then our cause isn't served, when we are trying to indicate to them that the "Cambrian Explosion" wasn't as dramatic an "explosion" as the DI contends.

Robert Byers · 30 June 2013

W. H. Heydt said:
Robert Byers said:
W. H. Heydt said:
Robert Byers said: Its all guessing about connections not demonstrated by evidence.
There's an old joke that a "theory" is a "guess with a college education." If you had one, you might get the humor in that.
Its a good joke because it makes a good point that people would agree with to some extent. Its a scepticism that many 'theories" don't have have credible evidence behind them to justify being true theories. A scientific theory raises the bar or standard in investigation and evidence before conclusions can be demanded to be well supported. I do see evolution fails this. I see it especially fails as a biological scientific theory because its great claims to evidence, like the fossil subject of the thread here, are noy based on pure biological investigation. They are only conclusions based on USING biological data points(fossils etc) for drawing the conclusions of descent and process. Without the geology being true the biology conclusions not only wouldn't be true but would be useless. They say nothing about the conclusions drawn from them. Its ALL geological assumptions doing the work. There is no biology research behinf evolutionary biology in main points. I ask HOW is fossils related to biological conclusions of descent and process?? Its been a strange lingering logical flaw in the subject as I see it.
Point. Completely. Missed. Which is what I expected. The point is, Sir, that you lack both knowledge and education to understand the subject matter in question. On top of that you have been MIS-educated to have a lot of false ideas, erroneous understanding, and inability to understand the science involved, the evidence that is available, and ways putting two together. It is your continual willful ignorance and simple pig-headed insistance in repeating the same old errors and falsehoods repeatedly after being shown why those ideas are false that get people annoyed with you. I would suggest that reading some decent books on these subjects (many have been suggested) and actually learning what and why mainstream science says would help, but I fear that you are, at this point, not able to learn and would reject anything that does not conform to your current--unsupported--beliefs.

I understand my subjects. Yet this is not about subjects but about methodology in what I said. I am confident I make a good case here. Case in point is the thread. Conclusions about biological descent and so process are defended against criticisms of the this descent and process with EVERYBODY not actually doing any biological scientific investigation in regards to these sequences of fossils. Rather they draw biological conclusions from observations of biological data points (fossils) that eNTIRELY only work if thev geological assumptions are accurate. without the geology the biology not only does not work but is impossible to draw these conclusions. Therefore no biology is actually being done. Just drawing lines between dots. draw but don't persuade oneself one is doing biological research and backing up a biological theory or even hypothesis. Where is biological investigation being done with slabs of rock imprinted with creatures in a moment of time.??

Robert Byers · 1 July 2013

eric said:
Robert Byers said: like the fossil subject of the thread here, are noy [sic] based on pure biological investigation. They are only conclusions based on USING biological data points(fossils etc) for drawing the conclusions of descent and process.
You say that like its a bad thing, but drawing general inferences from limited data is pretty much the whole point and process of science.
I ask HOW is fossils related to biological conclusions of descent and process??
The fossil record shows incremental change over time. That's descent with modification. Mutation + natural selection provides a mechanism for how that descent with modification can occur. Now, if you have an empirically testable alternative mechanism, feel free to go out, test it, and show us the results. Pick up a shovel and go digging for that 50 million year old alien genetics lab. But no scientist is obligated to give even a moment of their time to your idle speculation until after you come up with some empirical evidence that confirms a testable alternative mechanism.

Thats my point. The fossil record does not show biological evidence for descent through time. Instead this descent "myth" is concluded by arranging and connecting fossils in sequences in sediment based on geological claims of segregated depositions covering long periods of time. They are not biologically discovering descent. They are instead connecting biological data points (fossils) with no relevance to biological evidence except gelogy sequence and morphological differences. Of coarse the lack of morphological morphing in the fossil record called for a desperate reinterpretation called punctuated equilibrium. Another line of reasoning unrelated to biological scientific investigation.

lkeithlu · 1 July 2013

Well, it's clear that Mr. Byers has no understanding of geology either.

Keelyn · 1 July 2013

Robert Byers said:
W. H. Heydt said:
Robert Byers said:
W. H. Heydt said:
Robert Byers said: Its all guessing about connections not demonstrated by evidence.
There's an old joke that a "theory" is a "guess with a college education." If you had one, you might get the humor in that.
Its a good joke because it makes a good point that people would agree with to some extent. Its a scepticism that many 'theories" don't have have credible evidence behind them to justify being true theories. A scientific theory raises the bar or standard in investigation and evidence before conclusions can be demanded to be well supported. I do see evolution fails this. I see it especially fails as a biological scientific theory because its great claims to evidence, like the fossil subject of the thread here, are noy based on pure biological investigation. They are only conclusions based on USING biological data points(fossils etc) for drawing the conclusions of descent and process. Without the geology being true the biology conclusions not only wouldn't be true but would be useless. They say nothing about the conclusions drawn from them. Its ALL geological assumptions doing the work. There is no biology research behinf evolutionary biology in main points. I ask HOW is fossils related to biological conclusions of descent and process?? Its been a strange lingering logical flaw in the subject as I see it.
Point. Completely. Missed. Which is what I expected. The point is, Sir, that you lack both knowledge and education to understand the subject matter in question. On top of that you have been MIS-educated to have a lot of false ideas, erroneous understanding, and inability to understand the science involved, the evidence that is available, and ways putting two together. It is your continual willful ignorance and simple pig-headed insistance in repeating the same old errors and falsehoods repeatedly after being shown why those ideas are false that get people annoyed with you. I would suggest that reading some decent books on these subjects (many have been suggested) and actually learning what and why mainstream science says would help, but I fear that you are, at this point, not able to learn and would reject anything that does not conform to your current--unsupported--beliefs.
I understand my subjects. Yet this is not about subjects but about methodology in what I said. I am confident I make a good case here.

LOL!!!! A good case for what?? Your insanity!?!

John Harshman · 1 July 2013

John said: You got to be kidding me. In lieu of disparity, I would refer to evolution of bauplane; that is evolution of different morphologies. The point the DI is trying to make is that you have an "explosion" in new taxa that occurs during the "Cambrian Explosion"; that point is nonsensical when you compare and contrast what occurred during the "Cambrian Explosion" with the "Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event" (GOBE). The pace of diversification is substantially faster during the GOBE than it is during the "Cambrian Explosion".

I'm not kidding you. In your post just above, you slide back and forth between diversity and disparity without seeming to notice that there's a difference. The DI is talking about the origin of phyla, proxy for disparity; the Ordovician event is talking about the origins of families and genera, proxy for species counts, i.e. diversity. These are not the same thing, and one is irrelevant to the other. The "pace of diversification", i.e. speciation rate, is not relevant to the Cambrian explosion.

ogremk5 · 1 July 2013

http://www.ideacenter.org/contentmgr/showdetails.php/id/1232

I happened across this 2004 blog post by Luskin and the figures look remarkably similar.

apokryltaros · 1 July 2013

ogremk5 said: http://www.ideacenter.org/contentmgr/showdetails.php/id/1232 I happened across this 2004 blog post by Luskin and the figures look remarkably similar.

Not surprising at all, considering Luskin's job is to verbally defecate on scientific breakthroughs and progress, and not/never adapt to/understand/communicate them.

diogeneslamp0 · 1 July 2013

ogremk5 said: http://www.ideacenter.org/contentmgr/showdetails.php/id/1232 I happened across this 2004 blog post by Luskin and the figures look remarkably similar.

Thanks. Luskin's 2004 fake plot is identical to his 2003 fake plot. However, his 2004 fake plot is cited to a source, unlike his 2003 version, which has no citation! He cites the source of his data as, of all people: Niles Eldredge, The Monkey Business: A Scientist Looks at Creationism, pg. 65-66, (1982). Luskin's 2003 version has no citation for its plot and makes no mention of Eldredge anywhere. Does anybody have Eldredge's Monkey Business? Does it really have such a plot on p. 65-66? If Eldredge does have such a plot, then we can't blame Luskin, we must blame Eldredge (although we can blame Luskin for using 22-year-old data in 2004, and Meyer for copying it in 2013. But if Eldredge's Monkey Business does not have such a plot, then Luskin is guilty of scientific fraud for making up fake data or citing a source that has no such data.

diogeneslamp0 · 1 July 2013

Get a gander at the logical incoherence of this bit of Luskin:

Luskin wrote: Meyer doesn’t try to enter into the debate over whether Anomalocaris is a “stem group” or “crown group” arthropod, or a member of euarthropoda, or panarthropoda.

So if Stephen Meyer has no idea what "arthropod" means, how can he and Luskin assert that there are no fossils ancestral to arthropods? Which is the claim endlessly repeated at ENV and Uncommon Descent. Both Luskin and Meyer stated explicitly that there are NO ancestral forms to any phyla including arthropods, but they don't know or won't say what arthropods look like, so they have no idea, no hypothesis, what an ancestor to arthropods must look like. It's the old creationist gambit: "I don't know what 'intermediate fossil' means and I can't define it and I don't know what an 'intermediate fossil' would look like, but I do know that every fossil ever discovered does not look like the thing I can't define whose appearance I don't know and can't imagine." Compare this to Jonathan Wells denying transitional fossils, when he was asked directly "how intermediate fossils are to be identified in the fossil record":

Jonathan Wells wrote: I'm not sure I can adequately specify "how intermediate fossils are to be identified in the fossil record,"

OK, fuck off then. You can't define what they should look like, so don't write anything on the topic beyond "I dunno". Oh wait, creationist Wells has to keep talking:

I'm not sure I can adequately specify "how intermediate fossils are to be identified in the fossil record," though Archaeopteryx would be a very poor candidate in any case,

Oh, Jesus. Here we go again. You don't know what it is but you know Archaeopteryx and everything else is not the thing you can't define. Proceed...

since it lacks both the anatomical features and the stratigraphic (i.e. chronological) position to satisfy even those people who are determined to find intermediates between reptiles and birds. [James Downard vs. Jonathan Wells]

Oh. So you don't know what "transitional fossil" means or how it's defined, but you know Archaeopteryx and everthing else isn't it.

gnome de net · 1 July 2013

More help with diversity vs. disparity, please.

My interpretation of http://www.indiana.edu/%7Eg404/Lectures/Lecture%2019%20-%20Diversity%20and%20Disparity.pdf is that diversity refers to differences between species or lineages, while disparity refers to differences of morphology (i.e. structure).

Is this correct?

John Harshman · 1 July 2013

Diversity is just another word for the number of species. Disparity is a word for morphological (or other) variety. It's often measured by some index of hypervolume filled in some kind of morphospace. Birds are more diverse than mammals but have less disparity.

Simon Gunkel · 3 July 2013

Well, disparity is better defined as the mean distance in the morphospace. This means that hypervolume filled divided by the number of species is a measure of disparity - the raw hypervolume is only a decent proxxy if diversity doesn´t change significantly.

Ciampaglio, C. N., Kemp, M., and McShea, D. W., 2001, Detecting changes in morphospace occupation patterns in the fossil record: characterization and analysis of measures of disparity.: Paleobiology 27:4, 695-715.

is probably the paper to go to for this.

John Harshman · 3 July 2013

There are various proposed measures of disparity. It seems an odd measure, though, if an increase in diversity automatically results in a decrease in disparity. I think volume encompassed (rather than filled) is a better measure of what we're trying to get at.

Simon Gunkel · 3 July 2013

I like the normalization, mainly because a constant disparity becomes a decent null model in this case. An increase in diversity only leads to a decrease in disparity if the hypervolume doesn´t grow.

John Harshman · 3 July 2013

That doesn't sound like normalization to me. According to the measure you stated (average distance), an increase in diversity with constant hypervolume results in a decrease in disparity.

John Harshman · 3 July 2013

That doesn't sound like normalization to me. According to the measure you stated (average distance), an increase in diversity with constant hypervolume results in a decrease in disparity.

Simon Gunkel · 4 July 2013

Indeed. Basically what disparity using the pairwise distance metric measures is how densely the hypervolume is filled. Dividing the hypervolume by standing diversity gives you the mean volume a species has to itself. In both cases you are looking at the question: If I picked two species from the biota with uniform probability, how much will they differ morphologically.

John Harshman · 4 July 2013

And that's a question worthy of an answer. But I wouldn't call it disparity.

diogeneslamp0 · 31 July 2013

diogeneslamp0 said: Luskin's 2004 fake plot is identical to his 2003 fake plot. However, his 2004 fake plot is cited to a source, unlike his 2003 version, which has no citation! He cites the source of his data as, of all people: Niles Eldredge, The Monkey Business: A Scientist Looks at Creationism, pg. 65-66, (1982). Luskin's 2003 version has no citation for its plot and makes no mention of Eldredge anywhere. Does anybody have Eldredge's Monkey Business? Does it really have such a plot on p. 65-66?

For the record, I just bought a copy of Eldredge's Monkey Business off the internet, because it was not at any library within hundreds of miles of my home. Examining pages 65-66, I find that of course there is no plot, no table, not data, nothing there on which Luskin might have based his fake "Cambrian phyla" plot of 2004, so it's scientific fraud on Luskin's part. For future references, here's the only relevant passage from the Eldredge book. In other places, Casey Luskin has cited the sentence "In fact, the higher up the Linnaean hierarchy you look, the fewer transitional forms there seem to be", so Luskin probably based his fraudulent plot on that sentence. But the very next sentence after that describes living onychophorans [Peripatus] as transitions between annelids and arthropods, so if Casey's plot of the appearance of phyla were really based on Eldredge p.65-66 as he cited, his plot ought to have show the phyla of annelids and arthropods as branching off from onychophorans. It ought to branch, but instead it's just a pitchfork of vertical lines.

Niles Edlredge wrote: The Synthesis and the Fossil Record Darwin and his evolution-minded successors in the paleontological ranks preferred to explain these gaps away: they blamed the incompleteness of the fossil record of the events of earth history. According to this explanation, the lack of abundant (creationists say "any") examples of smoothly gradational change between ancestors and descendents in the fossil record merely bears witness to the gaps in the quality of the rock record. Not entirely so, said [George Gaylord] Simpson, to his everlasting credit. Simpson thought the fossil record had a great deal to say about how evolution occurred-- its pace and style, its "tempo and mode."... And since gaps there certainly are, they must at least in part be a product of the evolutionary process if they were not merely the artifacts of a poor geologic record. It is the gaps in the fossil record which, perhaps more than any other facet of the natural world, are dearly beloved by creationists. As we shall see when we take up the creationist position, there are all sorts of gaps; absence of gradationally intermediate "transitional" forms between species, but also between larger groups--between, say, families of carnivores, or the orders of mammals. In fact, the higher up the Linnaean hierarchy you look, the fewer transitional forms there seem to be. For example, Peripatus, a lobe-legged, wormlike creature [an Onychophoran/velvet worm] that haunts rotting logs in the Southern Hemisphere, appears intermediate in many respects between two of the major phyla on earth today-- the segmented worms [annelids] and the arthropods. But few other phyla have such intermediates with other phyla, and when we scan the fossil record for them we find some, but little, help. Extinction has surely weeded out many of the intermediate species, but on the other hand, the fossil record is not exactly teeming with their remains. [George Gaylord] Simpson knew this, but preferred a view of evolution consistent with the emerging principles of genetic change [neo-Darwinian synthesis] over the alternative proposed by German paleontologist Otto Schindewolf. Schindewolf interpreted the gaps in the fossil record as evidence of the sudden appearance of new groups of animals and plants. Not a creationist, Schindewolf believed all forms of life to be interrelated, but felt that the fossil record implied a saltational mode-- literally, sudden jumps from one basic type (called a Bauplan, or fundamental architectural design-- conceptually if tangentially related to creationists' "basic kinds"). Simpson and his peers scoffed at such an idea, and rightly so, as there was little evidence emerging from genetics laboratories at how such sudden leaps could occur... Schindewolf's views were at odds with nearly all that was known of genetics in the 1930s. His saltational explanation of the gaps was impressive-- but wrong, as far as Simpson was concerned. Simpson thought that most of the fossil record supported Darwin's view. There was plenty of evidence, he felt, to show that ninety percent of evolution consisted of the gradual transition from one species to the next through time. [Niles Edlredge, Monkey Business, p. 65-66]