Re: When peer review is really peer pressure

From: Cliff Lundberg (cliff@cab.com)
Date: Thu Apr 20 2000 - 13:28:46 EDT

  • Next message: Cliff Lundberg: "Re: When peer review is really peer pressure"

    Huxter4441@aol.com wrote:

    >Silly me - I was thinking of the pre-Cambrian period. Still, even if the
    >'most explosive' period was only 500,000 years, that is a long time. Not
    >long enough to 'satisfy' you, I see...

    Right. Given the slow pace of subsequent evolution, I conclude that
    some qualitatively different evolutionary mechanisms must have been
    involved in the CE.

    >But the major point is that whether the organisms at this new level
    > of complexity appeared over 40 years or 40 million, there is no evidence
    > explaining their evolution; when they are observed, they are fully formed.
    >
    >***** Must have been Intelligent Intervention, clearly.

    That is one possible deduction. I prefer macroevolutionary mechanisms.
    Certainly gradualism can't explain the CE, because it wasn't gradual.

    > These animals all share the same basic plumbing, wiring, and segmented
    > skeletal structure; this is what appeared suddenly, this is what is not
    > explained.
    >
    >***** I'm curious about this plumbing, wiring, and skeletal structure. I
    >didn't know that there were digestive and neural structures that had been
    >fossilized, and I was unaware of the existence of skeletons so long ago
    >(unless you mean exoskeletons?). Maybe you can tell me more about it?

    The earliest known vertebrates are fishes with skeletons as complex
    or more complex than those of modern fishes. I've read that these show
    evidence of all the basic brain structures of modern vertebrates. Some
    claim they had electric organs as well. I don't recall reading anything
    about digestive organs, but I have to presume they had a metabolizing
    alimentary canal of some sort. Sorry guys, but the CE is a real challenge
    to conventional Darwinism.

    Of course, you can pick out some worm and call it a protovertebrate,
    but in so doing you're only going by a general model of increasing
    complexity; there's no other 'evidence' for this purported transformation.

    --Cliff Lundberg  ~  San Francisco  ~  cliff@cab.com



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