First, I have updated my page on foraminifera and the flood, hopefully
making the argument much tighter. It can be found at
http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/micro.htm. I will make a couple of
other changes in the next few days but they will be minor.
Secondly, I wanted to respond to something written in the latest PSCF. I had
criticized Ray Bohlin for stating that all phyla appeared in the Cambrian.
He wrote:
"Also Morton says there are at least thirteen phyla that make their
appearance after the cAmbrian. While Morton does not list them in the
review, he does in his article (PSCF 53 no.1 [March 2001]:44)., Morton knows
these are nearly all plant phyla because I corrected him on this too. Some
are not even phyla, but sub-phyla and classes. " Ray Bohlin, PSCF
53[2001]2:138
One does not have to list everything in an article, if they did, the article
would contain too much trivia. Anyway, to answer the last sentence first,
I would caution Ray that sub-phyla and classes are in part due to the
taxonomist. Other taxonomists place the ones I listed in phyla. Flip a
coin.
That being said, my main point is the chart
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/phyla/metazoafr.html
These are all phyla according to some taxonomists. AND THEY ARE ALL ANIMAL
PHYLA. The first red-herring to be corrected is the false idea that
virtually all phyla appear in the Cambrian. This simply isn't true. When
one analyses the first appearance data of that chart, they find the
following:
Period # animal phyla which appear in period
Recent 13
Eocene 2
Jurassic 1
Carboniferous 3
Ordovician 1
Cambrian 12
Vendian 1
If one considers the Vendian/Cambrian animals as constituting the Cambrian
Explosion, then we have 13 phyla appearing in the Cambrian Explosion and 20
AFTER the Cambrian Explosion. While one can assume that the 13 phyla which
have no fossil record arose in the Cambrian, assumptions are NOT data. The
plain fact is that the Cambrian Explosion doesn't even represent the
majority of the fossils. Will these other fossils be found in the Cambrian?
Maybe. But one can't rationally assume what the future holds in order to
hold to his viewpoint.
And if one adds the plant phyla which appear after the Cambrian (why plant
phyla should be excluded as Ray seems to imply is beyond me. They ARE phyla
after all) one gets the following chart.
Period # total phyla which appear in period
Recent 13
Eocene 2
Cretaceous 2
Jurassic 1
Triassic 3
Carboniferous 5
Devonian 4
Silurian 1
Ordovician 1
Cambrian 12
Vendian 1
This yields Cambrian Explosion 13, Post-Cambrian 32! Sounds like a
football score! And given that 13 phyla first appear within the past 10,000
years (having no fossil record) one could,if one wanted claim that we are in
another explosion. I wouldn't make that claim but it would fit within the
data. To claim that all or even the majority of animal phyla appear in the
Cambrian is demonstrably FALSE yet the claim is blindly made being repeated
endlessly by apologist to apologist with no one even questioning the
validity of the statement.
Given the data above, why do apologists still treat the Cambrian as an
explosion? In general it is my belief that apologists have not really
studied the Precambrian in any detail or have merely re-stated what others
have erroneously written. Data has changed over the past 50 years but what
anti-evolutionists say hasn't. Lazarus J. Salop (1983, p. v) wrote:
“Progress in Precambrian geology has been exceptionally great, indeed, quite
striking for geologists of the older generation; only some 30-40 years ago
the Precambrian appeared as an uncertain and even mystic prelude to geologic
evolution. Even the very name-Precambrian-means some indivisible unit in the
early history of the Earth, the beginning of which is poorly known.”
By Monday I will have amended my Cambrian evolution page to reflect this new
data. it is at http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/cambevol.htm
It is very sad when Christian apologists fail to get their data correct but
it seems to be a rampant disease.
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