<<If we were to find the entire panoply of modern animals, fossilized in
Cambrian rocks, it would clearly rule out evolution since nothing would
have changed and no evolution would have occurred. So, evolution is clearly
falsifiable. The problem is we don't find modern animals in the 500 myr
old Cambrian rocks. In fact the earliest fossil example of a living animal
is only 5-10 million years old. There are two of them from Upper Miocene
rocks.>>
Glenn,
You apparently equate evolution with _change_. If so that's the end of any
critical discussion of evolution.
Generally speaking, science does not consider a puzzle or problem solved until
a _mechanism_ is identified that accounts for the phenomenon, in this case
biological change over geologic time. How does evolution bring about change?
All evolutionary mechanisms eventually come down to natural selection, or some
minor variation of it. How does NS bring about all the changes from the
Cambrian explosion to the present time? I'm particularly interested in how NS
accounts for the problem of origins. How does NS account for the origin of
major innovations, such as phyletic body plans and major morphological
novelties, and the origin of the process of transition, e.g., from aquatic to
terrestrial forms and from terrestrial to aquatic forms? Why did these new
forms ever get started? How about the origin of life itself? I don't expect
you to answer these questions. They illustrate problems that are still on
evolution's "to-do" list, IMHO, if evolution is to be considered a reasonably
complete and valid theory.
Best regards,
Bob