>Three questions/comments for you, Art.
>
>First, please explain what you mean by "doesn't know the fossil record".
>As far as I can tell Scott Gilbert understands the fossil record just fine.
I doubt that. He is a molecular biologist.
>The following article in this issue of Developmental Biology, while not by
>Gilbert, addresses many of the same questions in light of the fossil
>evidence "Developmental Evolution of Metazoan Bodyplans: The Fossil
>Evidence" by James Valentine, Douglas Erwin and David Jablonski.
The evidence is pretty simple. The metazoan as it first appeared
(Trilobite) was fully functional, containing all of the systems for
development present in modern metazoans. The question is pretty simple too.
Where did they come from? Until that question is answered, everything else
is "just stamp collecting."
>Second, do your comments about origin of mechanisms mean that you are
>willing to accept the evolutionary explanation beyond that point? So what
>if we don't have an explanation for the origin of metazoan complexity (to
>be honest, I think that we do have one in rudimentary form--endosymbiosis,
>gene duplications followed by mutations that produce novel interactions
>which produce new functions that can be be selected for--this is the lesson
>we should take from the modular protein story).
I just want to see some evidence for your assertion, that's all. You are of
course free to speculate all day long about what you think might have
happened. Give me a shred of evidence from the fossil record that it did
happen.
But most of the issues
>addressed in Gilbert's paper addresses the diversification of metazoan
>bodyplans and their phylogeny AFTER the origin of the earliest metazoan
>organism. If I grant you a special creationist origin of eukaryotic and
>metazoan complexity, will you accept evolutionary theory beyond that point?
As I apparently failed to make clear, there is no reason beyond the origin
of the systems to think they represent anything different than we would
expect from a competent intelligent Creator with a plan in mind. I will
share a quote I have previously posted that you my have missed:
"If the kinds of animals and plants were not related by evolutionary
descent, their characteristics would be present in a confused, random
pattern, and no such hierarchy of forms could be established" (Vilee et al.
"Biology" Scientific American).
I leave it to you to analyze the logic of those conclusions, but the logic
is all too common among evolutionists. It goes "If things are other than
the way they are, that is evidence for a creator". That is just plain
ignorance, unblessed.
>A long time ago, I asked this group, when it was composed of different
>people, at what point common ancestry (evolutionary) arguments broke down.
>For example, are all the species of beetles descended from a common
>ancestor? How about all insects? How about all arthropods? ... Where do
>you draw the line and on what basis do you draw the line?
Since my meager training in systematics is limited to plants, I will respond
from that perspective, as my opinion. In the angiosperms, the family unit
appears to fix the limits of variation. I am not going to pass my opinion
off as more than that.
>
>Third, it seems that for some people biology is the only science where
>similar structure, function, mechanism is a sign of an ad hoc common design
>special creationist explanation exclusive of some other more unified
>explanation. As I've said before, if it weren't for a Biblical
>interpretation that demands special creation, the more unified explanation
>embodied in evolutionary ideas would be readily accepted. Many of us hear
>it shouting at us based on the evidence--of course, we don't share the
>Biblical interpretation that demands special creation.
You are speaking as one who is within the evolutionary paradigm. I should
scarcely expect you to feel otherwise. Of course you feel you are there
because of the compelling evidence. Fine. I feel the same about creation.
Art
http://chadwicka.swac.edu