>This makes no sense at all. All of the data are derived from the study of
>extant groups. The assumption is made that these groups have not changed
>over the entire span of their history.
No, that is not the assumption. I cite the authors:
"To evaluate and supplement the available data on cell type numbers within
clades, of which Sneaths's has proven to be the most consistent with modern
ultrastructural studies, somatic cell type numbers were tallied from the
literature for those organisms for which reasonably complete histological
descriptions exist." James W. VAlentine, Allen G. Collins, and C. Porter
Meyer, "Morphological Complexity Increase in Metazoans," Paleontology
20(1994):2:131-142, p. 133
There was supplemental data from the fossil record of lagerstatten.
Is this what evolution is about?
>Assuming they are correct in this assumption, the next question is obvious:
>Why have the number of cell types been fixed since early Cambrian in the
>major groups? What is evolution supposed to be doing?
Art, havn't you heard of local mximum in a fitness field? Local minima can
be quite deep allowing a certain form to remain unchanged over long time
periods. Thus a bilaterian can remain basically the same (except for the
details) for a long time. And this is what we see in the lagerstatten.
Once in a while a population breaks out of a local maximum and finds
another local maximum. And those that have moved on to other maximum are
now called by other names. Thus evolution has increased the number of
cellular types by evolving worms into chordates, chordates into fish, fish
into amphibia, amphibia into reptiles and reptiles into mammals and birds.
So, the answer to your question, like Mike's is that evolution has been
busy turning worms into men.
It certainly is not
>expressing itself in the number of cell types of modern groups of
>organisms. This kind of rubbish would never get published if it was not in
>accord with the concensus paradigm.
Why? I thought it was interesting. And are you suggesting that such
observations shouldn't be published or wouldn't be published if the other
paradigm were in control? What about the freedom for research? I have
reviewed papers that I did not agree with yet I recommended that they be
published because they were good papers and good defenses of their postion.
THat is the way it should be.
glenn
Foundation, Fall and Flood
Adam, Apes and Anthropology
http://www.flash.net/~mortongr/dmd.htm
Lots of information on creation/evolution