On Thu, 4 Jan 1996 23:15:21 -0500 Glenn wrote:
GM>The Dec. 14 issue of Nature has an article by Peter Funch and R.M.
>Kristensen, "Cycliophora is a new phylum with affinities ot Entoprocta and
>Ectoprocta," p 711-714.
>
>The new phylum is a single species phylum and these critters live a happy
>life on lobster lips. The creature has no fossil record and nothing that has
>its exact body plan on the surface of the earth.
>
>The question I have for anti-evolutionists. When did God create this new
>phylum and how can you prove that it didn't just evolve in the past 200
>years? Can you prove it wasn't created 200 years ago?
If it is indeed a new phylum, the I presume it originated with all the
other phyla, at the Cambrian explosion.
Indeed, Glenn shows that evolution really predicts that new phyla
should originate all the time. Where are they all? Why would just
*one* new phyla originate "200 years ago"?
GM>For the PC's: When did God create this new phylum and how can you
>recognize that God miraculously created it rather than evolving it?
What's so special about this phylum? I do not necessarily maintain
that God "miraculously created" each phylum instantaneously in a "puff
of smoke" (so to speak). It may have been more subtle than that (eg.
the provision of "set-aside cells" - New Scientist, 2 December 1995,
p23).
[...]
GM>Since the Cambrian is the time that all but 2 (used to be one but
now is >two) phyla appear, have we just missed a miracle of God by not
paying close >enough attention to lobster lips?
Firstly, it is not even yet certain that this is a new phyla. Second,
it its not true that there is even one phyla outside the Cambrian
explosion:
"The subsequent main pulse, starting about 530 million years ago,
constitutes the famous Cambrian explosion, during which all but one
modern phylum of animal life made a first appearance in the fossil
record....The Bryozoa, a group of sessile and colonial marine
organisms, do not arise until the beginning of the subsequent,
Ordovician period, but this apparent delay may be an artifact of
failure to discover Cambrian representatives." (Gould S.J., "The
Evolution of Life on the Earth", Scientific American, October 1994,
p67).
GM>The reason I ask these questions is that we must consider what
would the evolution of a new life form be like. How would we
recognize it? It would suddenly be discovered like this thing was
discovered. That is the entire evidence we can have even if we are
on the planet at the time a new life form emerges.
It is more likely we would conclude that it existed before but we
didn't recognise it.
We Christians also have the clear statement in Gn 1:31-2:4 that God
has finished creating life on Earth.
God bless.
Stephen
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