Re: Question for Serious Sam: How do new species form?

Deep Burke wrote:

Jim Willemin wrote:

Sam:

If evolution is not responsible for the appearance of new species, then how
do new species form? The stratigraphic record everywhere clearly shows a
history of new species appearing, changing, and disappearing for at least
the last half billion years - for example, one never, ever finds trilobite
fossils and whale fossils in the same strata. So how did the new species
form? I'm not talking technical biology here: what does a species
formation event look like? If I made a movie of the appearance of a new
species, what would I see? A puff of smoke, or perhaps a chicken hatches
out of a dinosaur egg, or a hippo gives birth ot a whale? How many
individuals of the new critter would I see? Two? Under normal conditions
that isn't enough to guarantee survival. Does God's hand protect them
from predators, famine and disease until a viable population exists, or
does God create a viable population to begin with?

The point I want to make is that the stratigraphic record shows that the
creation of new species is a common event in the history of life on earth -
it didn't happen all at once, but rather again and again and again. Given
that, and the fact that we don't see new critters appearing in puffs of
smoke or whatever, it seems to me that new forms appearing gradually from
earlier forms, new features appearing as modifications of earlier features,
just makes a lot more sense. Besides, if you can't even tell me what a
species creation event might look like, or how many new critters are
formed, then it seems to me that this 'creation' idea needs a lot more
work.

--

Jim
"Value nothing but truth, compassion, and love"


I'm not Sam, or even a son of Sam, but I'd like to make a few
observations. Your point begins with the assumption of the
stratigraphic record and how "trilobite and whale fossils are never
found together". Have you considered your assumptions in the
stratigraphic layering? Dates are determined by the fossils found
http://geologyonline.museum.state.il.us/tools/lessons/12.3/lesson.html
... and the age of the fossils are assumed based on the principle of
uniformitarianism, which is a debatable principle in regards to the
worldwide geologic column.

You are confused. Fossils are used to correlate rocks, not to date them.
That is, index fossils can tell you whether a rock is Silurian or
Devonian, but not how old the Silurian and Devonian are. For that, you
need a radiometric date. And the only uniformitarian assumption
necessary is that the rate of decay is constant. If it weren't, we'd
have bigger problems than deciding the ages of rocks.

You should ask why the modern landscape shows major erosion and major
geological non-conformities, but such features are a relative rarity in
the strata in which fossils are found.

Beg pardon? That made no sense. First, the modern landscape can't show a
non-conformity, because non-conformities are a feature of the contact
between two geological strata. As such they can be known only from those
strata. Second, both erosional features and various types of
non-conformities are pretty common in the stratigraphic record. (I think
you probably meant "unconformity" anyway.)

You should acknowledge that
uniformitarianism is your presupposition in the interpretation of the
geologic column. Consider the Grand Canyon, where you can easily view a
section through the Paleozoic portion of the geological column. You can
easily see the various layers lie like vast flat sheets one on top of
each other, and each flat layer covers thousands of square kilometers.
If these layers represent such long periods in the earth's history,
then one would expect to find evidence in the form of river channels,
valleys, and erosional features between them, but these are lacking.

I don't know where you get your information, but it's wrong. There are
plenty of erosional features. Not all that many river channels, though,
because the great bulk of the Grand Canyon sediments are marine.

In the Grand Canyon series, standard geology accepts that the missing
rocks of the Ordovician and Silurian layers were removed from the
record by erosion. The Ordovician layer that was supposedly eroded away
represents some 100 million years. Actually, based on normal erosion
rates, the continents should have eroded down to sea level 300 or so
times over in the amount of time they've supposedly been around.

So the guy who criticizes uniformitarian assumptions now assumes that
the rate of erosion is constant? The parts of continents that stick up
(mountains) erode at a high rate. The parts that don't stick up erode at
a low rate. The parts that stick up do so because they're being
uplifted. The parts that are accumulating sediments do so because
they're being, uh, downlifted. None of this is constant.

Also, the fact that "index" fossils are found in vast numbers in
general is a problem for me. Why would there be millions of trilobite
fossils, but no fossils of creatures that you can say "common
anscestor" or "common descendant" with any accuracy?

Because there is no way to determine that any fossil is an ancestor.
There are, however, plenty of fossils that can't be ruled out as the
ancestors of living species. Trilobites happen to be extint, but there
are plenty of other arthropod groups for which we have fossils that
aren't extinct.

You can't even say
that the fossil evidence runs from simple to complex,

Which is good, because that would be a silly thing to say. There is no
general trend in evolution.

as even
trilobites were very complex creatures and even had unique compound
eyes. According to evolution, they "appeared" suddenly (along with
pretty much every major order of creatures) during the Cambrian
"explosion" and stuck around for 300 million years....then went extinct
(supposedly 5 times they went extinct).

This is very confused. Trilobites appeared in the Cambrian explosion.
They're generally considered a class, not an order. They evolved quite a
bit during their time on earth. And there are interesting potential
precursors, like Naraoia. "Pretty much every major order of creatures"
is nonsensical. If you mean orders in the Linnean sense, these have
appeared at all sorts of times throughout history from the Late
Precambrian through the Cenozoic. If you meant phyla instead, the
majority have no fossil records. What you can say is that most of the
marine invertebrate phyla with mineralized skeletons appeared for the
first time in the fossil record somewhere during the early Cambrian, a
length of about 30 million years.

Trilobites experienced several waves of extinction, but never became
extinct until the last one. Silly thing to say.

So, could it be possible that the geologic column that you assume has
items sorted by age, is actually sorted in a different order? Sediment
can be deposited quickly, be eroded quickly, and be moved quickly.
Perhaps there is yet more to discover on that end.

Sure, but not the way you think. The geologic column is indeed sorted by
age, as radiometric dating proves, if we needed more confirmation than
was already provided by Steno's laws.

I'll ask this question, though... IF a whale fossil was found near a
trilobite, would that falsify common descent? I'd wager that
evolutionists would merely say "Wow! Whales are older than we first
thought" or "Wow! Trilobites didn't go extinct when we first thought!".
Much like thier reaction to coelocanths being hauled up in Indian
fishing boats.

Depends on what strata the fossils were found in. A Devonian whale is
just not credible. But an Eocene trilobite is just barely credible. A
Devonian whale wouldn't falsify evolution for me, exactly. It would more
likely induce despair about the ability of science to tell us anything
about the world.

In answer to your question, however, I think there is no way to know
how a creation event would "look", or if it occurred, or the time
frame, or the extent. Just like there is no way to know how an
abiogenesis event would look according to evolutionary theory when life
sprang from non-life.

He wasn't asking about abiogenesis, but on the origin of new species. Focus.

I guess the movie made there would have to be in time-lapse photography
and we'd see the "puffs of smoke" of evolutionary creation.

That wasn't answering the question. That was avoiding the question.

.

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