Re: Stereotypes and reputations

Hi Glenn, I am very aware of your excellent work on the evolution of
phyla. I have often quoted it. It was Hunter who made the statement.

Glenn Morton wrote:

>
>
> */Cornelius Hunter <ghunter2099@sbcglobal.net>/* wrote to Pim:
> >The fossil data from the Cambrian Explosion shows a morphological
> explosion. You may
> >appeal to what we may find out someday. That is not falsifiable. But
> the data that we
> >have in hand right now indicates a morphological explosion which is
> not consistent with
> >evolution. Nor is it consistent with common descent unless your
> version of common
> >descent involves pulling rabbits out of hats. A friend of mine took a
> university biology
> >course. After the "evidences for evolution" lectures he spoke with
> the professor, asking
> >about all the weaknesses. The professor responded that the evidence
> would be clarified
> >in the future.
>
> Well, Pim, the fact is that the Cambrian DOESNT show that
> morphological explosion. If you had been paying the slightest bit of
> attention to precambrian paleonotology, like reading about the
> discoveries of the 1990s, you would know that paleontology was slowly
> pushing the morphological forms back into the late Precambrian. The
> existence of Kimberella, a bilaterian reminiscent of a mollusk, shows
> that the bilateran morphology existed at least 10-15 million years
> BEFORE the Cambrian. And recently bilateran morphology has been
> extended into the past to 580-600 million years by the discovery of a
> bilateran named Venanimalcula from the DouShanTou formation of
> southern China. That same formation has yielded embryos of bilaterans
> a few years ago. So, the cambrian explosion is a whole lot less
> explosive than you ID folks claim. Try reading the book by the
> Christian, Simon Conway-Morris, Crucible of Creation. I would also
> refer you to my web page http://home.entouch.net/dmd/cambevol.htm
> where I discuss the cambrian explosion and show how un-explosive it
> is. I also show that the largest number of phyla appear in the Recent
> period, not in the Cambrian. HEre is the data
>
>
> Period # total phyla which appear in period
> Recent 13
> Eocene 2
> Cretaceous 2
> Jurassic 1
> Triassic 3
> Carboniferous 5
> Devonian 4
> Silurian 1
> Ordovician 1
> Cambrian 9
> Vendian 4
>
> To me you wrote:
>
>
>
Received on Sun Jul 31 23:43:54 2005