Re: Early Cambrian explosion

Brian D Harper (bharper@postbox.acs.ohio-state.edu)
Fri, 05 Feb 1999 14:19:15 -0800

At 10:57 AM 2/5/99 -0800, Art wrote:
>At 11:45 AM 2/5/99 -0500, Steve wrote:
>>At 09:16 AM 2/5/99 -0800, Art Chadwick wrote:
>>>
>>>Science is also supposed to look for alternative hypotheses that make
>>>sense. However, many scientists seem unwilling to let go of their
>>>cherished theory for an evolutionary origin for life, in spite of a billion
>>>years of fossil record that says NO. With no evidence from the fossil
>>>record, this assertion should serve as a wake-up call, and maybe it will,
>>>eventually.
>>
>> Let's not be coy Art, the alternative hypothesis you're talking about is
>>a single creation event by God as described in Genesis. I doubt you, or
>anyone
>>else on this list, is entertaining hypotheses other than this (or some
>variation
>>of this).
>
>So why do you not embrace these new data? I was addressing the question to
>people whose beliefs I know, and the question is a good one that deserves
>consideration in the larger forum of the scientific community. The
>rhetoric you introduce is sidestepping the real issue: the data with
>respect to the origin of complex forms. The data are real, pervasive and
>conclusive, with respect to our present level of knowledge. Molecular
>biology confirms that the earliest metazoans were fully as complex as any
>modern forms. Where did the complexity come from? If one turns to the
>fossil record for the answer, the response is a hollow emptiness. No
>amount of sidestepping, rhetoric or shadowboxing is going to change that.
>Given that the issue is well known and there are a number of competent
>teams in the field trying to find data in the Precambrian for complex life
>forms, now pushed a billion years before the first metazoan fossil forms,
>it is time to introduce a positive alternative that makes sense: They were
>created. Not a popular theory to be sure, but to say that it came from
>nothing is tantamount to blind faith, something that nobody on this
>listserve would like to acknowledge as a necessity in science.
>

Hello Art. I have a question for you. Above you state that
"The data are real, pervasive and conclusive ...". Does this
mean that you accept that life is more than one billion years
old?

Brian Harper
Associate Professor
Applied Mechanics
The Ohio State University

"He who establishes his arguments
by noise and command shows that
reason is weak" -- Montaigne