I picked this up from another list (I didn't write it) But I thought it was
so good I should post it here for everyone's amusement.
Susan
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>Well, all extant phyla can be traced to that
>explosion. And remain in stasis for 500 million
>years.
False. Most phyla were already in place at the time,
with all of the plant phyla (divisions for you
purists) occurring later. Even if I give you the
benefit of the doubt and assume you meant all animal
phyla appeared in the cambrian explosion (which is
what you probably meant), you are still wrong because
several animal phyla precede the explosion by millions
of years. Even worse, some didn't show up until much
latter. I'm not aware of a single tongue worm fossil,
but since they only live in the nasal tracts of
terrestrial vertebrates, I find it hard to believe
they were created in the Cambrian only to hang around
for nearly 200 million years doing nothing until
terrestrial vertebrates evolved.
Of course, your definition of "kind" has the same
flaws as most of the other creationist attempts,
namely that "phylum" isn't any better defined than
"kind". Different scientists divide species up into
different Phyla, clearly indicating that there is no
set of well defined absolute lineages as IDers and
creationists want us to believe.
But if we take the commonly accepted phyla as
absolute, what does that leave you with?
Well, one creative event about 3.5 billion years ago.
We don't know how many other creative events there
were between 3.5 and 2 billion years ago, but there
were several. It took your designers 500 million
years to get cyanobacteria from the basic bacterial
design. It took another 600 billion years to get
archaebacteria (who aren't suspected of preceding
eubacteria like they used to be). Then your creators,
um, designers, don't actually do anything until about
2 billion years ago when they decide that eukaryotes
would be cool. A nice bunch of creation events follow
(I don't have data for all of them. They then do
nothing for over a billion years and then decide on a
lark to make a few worms (including phylum annelida),
sponges (animals which appear to us poor evolutionists
to be evolved from protists in a different kingdom,
much less phyla!), and those weird Ediacaran stuff.
Bored with that, 540 million years ago, they scrap the
Ediacaran stuff, keep the worms and sponges, and make
a bunch of new animals with hard parts. They then
decide that animals aren't worth worrying about and
concentrate on making new phyla of plants for the next
few million years until the present, stopping off here
and there to make a parasite phylum or two when the
animals get unruly.
Frankly, I don't see this as making much sense. Now,
I admit that this is argument from personal
incredulity, but it also seems a gross violation of
common sense. What are these designers doing? Why?
Have they run out of imagination for animals or have
parasites been a fad for 800 million years? Why is it
that all the groups that first appear look so much
like groups that existed previously? Coincidence?
Are your designers just adding IC systems to designs
that just happened to evolve naturally?
----------
The most important human endeavor is the striving for morality in our
actions. Our inner balance and even our very existence depend on it. Only
morality in our actions can give beauty and dignity to life.
--Albert Einstein
http://www.telepath.com/susanb/
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