…and this is a 
I got a letter from a creationist today, claiming that "Darwinism is falsified," based on an article in Nature. It's kind of amazing; this article was just published today, and the metaphorical digital ink on it is barely metaphorically dry, and creationists are already busily mangling it.
It's a good article describing some recent fossil discoveries, found in a 515 million year old deposit in South Australia. Matthew Cobb has already summarized the paper, so I'll be brief on the details, but it's very cool. What was found was a collection of arthropod eye impressions, probably from cast-off molts. No sign of the bodies of these animals was found, suggesting that perhaps they were not fully sclerotized, or as the authors suggest, that disarticulated eyes were more prone to rapid phosphatization than eyes attached to a decaying body. There is no evidence of biomineralization, so these were animals with a very light armor of chitin alone.
What's wonderful about the eyes is that they are relatively large and contain numerous ommatidia, the individual facets of a compound eye. They have over 3,000 lenses, and there's also evidence of regional specialization in the eye. These were highly visual animals that were capable of forming a good image of the world around them.
Complex arthropod eyes from the Early Cambrian. a-d, Three fossils of compound eyes from a large arthropod from the Emu Bay Shale, South Australia (a-c), shown in similar hypothesized orientation to the compound eye of a living predatory arthropod, the robberfly Laphria rufifemorata (d; anterior view of head). All fossil eyes have large central ommatidial lenses forming a light-sensitive bright zone, b, and a sclerotized pedestal, p. Because the fossil eyes are largely symmetrical about the horizontal axis, it is not possible to determine dorsal and ventral surfaces, and thus whether the eyes are left or right. All fossils are oriented as if they are left eyes (medial is to the left of the figure). In b there is a radial tear (white line) with the top portion of the eye displaced downwards to overlie the main part; extensive wrinkling causes some central lenses (arrow) to be preserved almost perpendicular to the bedding plane.
These eyes are also from the early Cambrian, so they appeared in the early stages of large animal evolution. The closest thing to them in ommatidial number are the sophisticated eyes of many trilobites, but even there, these eyes were early and relatively large.
Complexity of the Early Cambrian Emu Bay Shale eyes compared to eyes in other early Palaeozoic taxa. a, b, Number of ommatidia (a) and lens size (b) plotted against stratigraphic age for Cambro-Ordovician arthropods. The Emu Bay Shale eyes have many more ommatidia and much larger individual ommatidia than eyes in all other Cambrian taxa. Trilobites are plotted according to eye type: schizochroal eyes have relatively few, large lenses and are optically unusual compared to typical compound eyes.
Where in this is the refutation of evolution? I don't know. But I did receive a letter from that Canadian idiot, David Buckna, crowing about it, and linking to his very silly creationist article describing it, in which you'll find the abstract for the paper with curious random spastic boldfacing added which supposedly highlight the parts of the story that contradict evolutionary theory, words like "complexity" and "Cambrian explosion" and "more complex" and "great evolutionary event". It's a bit bizarre and like looking at the obsessive activity of a squirrel gathering nuts.
Here's the creationist summary of the paper, however.
The Cambrian explosion is affirmed; complexity appears suddenly without transitions; Darwinism is falsified; the inference to the best explanation is intelligent design. Let the world know.
Let's deal with each of these claims one by one.
The "Cambrian explosion" is a term coined by scientists to describe the rapid (in geological terms) appearance of large, complex animals with hard skeletons over the course of a few million years roughly half a billion years ago. There is no creationist gotcha in pointing out the existence of this geological period; scientists have written whole books on the subject.
The sudden appearance of complexity is no surprise, either. We know that the fundamental mechanisms of eye function evolved long before the Cambrian, from the molecular evidence; what happened here was not that, poof, eyes instantly evolved, but that the evolution of body armor gradually increased from the pre-Cambrian through the Cambrian, making the organization of eyes visible in the fossil record.
It is also the case that the measure of complexity here is determined by a simple meristic trait, the number of ommatidia. This is not radical. The hard part in the evolution of the compound eye was the development of the signal transduction mechanism, followed by the developmental rules that governed the formation of a regular, repeating structure of the eye. The number of ommatidia is a reflection of the degree of commitment of tissues in the head to eye formation, and is a quantitative difference, not a qualitative one.
And finally, there's nothing in the data from this paper that implies sudden origins; there can't be. If it takes a few hundred thousand years for a complex eye to evolve from a simple light sensing organ, there is no way to determine that one sample of a set of fossils was the product of millions of years of evolution, or one day of magical creation. It's a logical error and a failure of the imagination to assume that these descriptions are of a population that spontaneously emerged nearly-instantaneously.
"Darwinism" is not falsified. Darwin himself explained in great detail how one should not expect fine-grained fossil series, due to the imperfection of the geological record. Creatonists, read chapter 9 of the Origin; here's a brief excerpt.
It should not be forgotten, that at the present day, with perfect specimens for examination, two forms can seldom be connected by intermediate varieties and thus proved to be the same species, until many specimens have been collected from many places; and in the case of fossil species this could rarely be effected by palaeontologists. We shall, perhaps, best perceive the improbability of our being enabled to connect species by numerous, fine, intermediate, fossil links, by asking ourselves whether, for instance, geologists at some future period will be able to prove, that our different breeds of cattle, sheep, horses, and dogs have descended from a single stock or from several aboriginal stocks; or, again, whether certain sea-shells inhabiting the shores of North America, which are ranked by some conchologists as distinct species from their European representatives, and by other conchologists as only varieties, are really varieties or are, as it is called, specifically distinct. This could be effected only by the future geologist discovering in a fossil state numerous intermediate gradations; and such success seems to me improbable in the highest degree.
Finding a fossil eye with numerous ommatidia a hundred million years after molecular biology tells us that eyes evolved does not in any way falsify the idea of a gradual evolution of the eye.
Given that there is nothing in this story that contradicts the idea of a natural process generating increasing complexity over time, and given that it's an observation that fits perfectly comfortably within the body of evolutionary theory, there is no reason to leap the utterly unfounded conclusion that an invisible spirit zapped these fossils into existence — an invisible spirit for which there is no evidence. Furthermore, what evidence is in this paper directly contradicts Buckna's beliefs: he is a young earth creationist, and this is a paper describing organisms that lived 515 million years ago. If you look at the chart I reproduced above, you might also notice that the pattern of complexity (ommatidial numbers) in trilobites shows a trend of increase over 80 million years.
I shall gladly let the world know that David Buckna is an irrational fool who doesn't know how to read a scientific paper and makes illogical leaps in his arguments.
Lee MSY, Jago JB, García-Bellido DC, Edgecombe GD, Gehling JG Paterson JR (2011) Modern optics in exceptionally preserved eyes of Early Cambrian arthropods from Australia. Nature 474: 631-634.
Life Science
Comments
Posted by: abb3w
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June 30, 2011 11:09 AM
One basic problem is a failure to grasp that a logistic curve's gradual-seeming transition at a fine-toothed timescale becomes a Heaviside step function at a coarse scale. The bigger the advantage, the rarer it may be... but the larger the resulting step and more abrupt-seeming the transition.
Perhaps putting more efforts into stronger math standards might help science standards in the longer haul. (Of course, the opposition to that isn't "teach the controversy" but "that doesn't have a practical use".)
Posted by: legistech
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June 30, 2011 11:17 AM
I find myself continually surprised that creationists somehow believe their position is the default fallback if "Darwinism" is refuted. It's not a result of thinking at all, it's just a reflection of their desire, but still... how can anyone be that dense?
Posted by: raven
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June 30, 2011 11:20 AM
The fact that there is even a Cambrian with fossils falsifies creationism.
These 515 million year old deposits with the eyes are nearly 30,000 times the age of the fundie universe.
Posted by: strange gods before me ॐ homintern radfem
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June 30, 2011 11:20 AM
Oh abb3w, may I put your 14 points of evolution list up on the wiki? This would mean licencing it under the CC-BY-SA.
Posted by: manoutoftime64
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June 30, 2011 11:22 AM
@2 - legistech - Upton Sinclair nailed it, famously:"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."
And if you think your eternal soul depends on it, well ...
Posted by: Alice Bluegown
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June 30, 2011 11:24 AM
What's with all the random boldface? It makes the article look like a particularly stupid old comic book.
Otherwise, isn't this just the old "ZOMG! Eyes disprove Evilution!!!" trope, dressed up for the occasion? You'd think the fact that Darwin already disproved that one over 150 years ago might dissuade them, but noooooo...
Posted by: Amphiox, OM
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June 30, 2011 11:25 AM
Noting that these fossils are still 25 million years older than the earliest Cambrian fossils....
And to go from several hundred ommatidia to several thousand probably only requires the tweaking of the embryological expression of a handful of genes, perhaps even just one.
Posted by: Trilobutt
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June 30, 2011 11:26 AM
One of the stem-group arthropods I analysed for my BSc. also had amazingly complex eyes, and I got the exact same argument from some creationist who came to one of my public talks about it. This was one year ago. It's like creationists share a hive-mind to be able to always come up with the same equally-idiotic arguments.
Posted by: feralboy12, der Ken-Puppe Sie außerhalb in 1983 verlassen
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June 30, 2011 11:26 AM
Once the intellect is turned off, there is no force strong enough to counteract the contraction of the brain into a singularity of stupid, from which no intelligent information can escape. Ideas that cross the event horizon are crushed out of existence.
Posted by: Kurt1
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June 30, 2011 11:29 AM
The last part should have made clear, that this paper does not falsify evolution.
Posted by: isherwood91
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June 30, 2011 11:30 AM
Someone with an account there needs to get a link back to this posted. Pronto.
What utter buffoonery.
Posted by: Predator Handshake
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June 30, 2011 11:35 AM
Alice Bluegown @6:
I deal with it by reading the article in the voice of Christopher Walken and put emphasis on the bolded parts. If you prefer William Shatner, he works too. Whenever I read PZ's emails here with random words in all caps, I like to imagine Sam Kinison yelling them. It helps me get through them.
Posted by: Hemogoblin
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June 30, 2011 11:39 AM
... and reading kookery on the internets will never be the same for me again.Posted by: K-Bob
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June 30, 2011 11:39 AM
Oh my science! I found an article that says black holes emit Hawking Radiation!
But if gravity exists, and black holes have so much of it, how can they 'emit' anything?
The theory of gravity is disproven, and Newtonism is doomed!
(end sarcasm)
Posted by: Audley Z. Darkheart OM, purveyor of candy and lies
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June 30, 2011 11:40 AM
My brainz just clicked.
The "irreducible complexity" argument has baffled me for a long time, but I didn't realize that these bozos thought that their arguments would be validated by the fucking fossil record.
"Look, no eyes, then eyes! Therefore Gawd!"
*head shake*
Posted by: Scorpy1
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June 30, 2011 11:43 AM
I'm not sure if it was there in the first draft, but there's a note at the end addressed to detractors that charges forward with "Where're the transitions?" dumbassery.
These fools really are 1-2 trick geldings, aren't they?
Posted by: AKron
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June 30, 2011 11:44 AM
I don't know if this is off topic, but the Pacific Northwest blog PZ mentioned awhile back has a very interesting article about a new camera that makes use of a micro lens array in front of the photo sensor that enables it to take pictures that can later be manipulated with software in such a way that focus can be made throughout the picture (there's a demo of it in his link). Foreground and background items can be brought in and out of focus because of the extra information stored due to the micro lens array. So even 515 million years ago insects had this capability that we do not? I don't know enough to answer that question.
I Need A New Camera
Posted by: Thorne
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June 30, 2011 11:45 AM
@ #15 - Dr. Audley Z. Darkheart, PhD, MD, Esq (ODS)
Not JUST "Therefore Gawd!" It's "Therefore MY Gawd!"
Posted by: Phil65
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June 30, 2011 11:47 AM
I didn't realize that these bozos thought that their arguments would be validated by the fucking fossil record.
You stole my comment. What's striking, as PZ notes, is that they leap on every new discovery within literally minutes. They are following biological science as closely (and in many cases probably more closely) as actual biologists do, eagerly scanning the internet for new fossil discoveries, and whenever they find new support for evolutionary theory, they cry out with joy that evolution has been destroyed.
To call this delusional would be an injustice to delusion.
Posted by: darryl.bishop
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June 30, 2011 11:49 AM
@isherwood91 #11, tried, it has to get mod approval, like that will ever happen.
Posted by: Neil Rickert
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June 30, 2011 11:50 AM
It is really quite simple.1: Evolutionists did not predict this discovery;
2: Therefore, by implication, evolutionists predicted that there would be no such discovery;
3: This discovery falsifies that prediction (of (2).
4: Therefore evolution is falsified.
5: Therefore creationism (or ID, or whatever flavor) is demonstrated.
It is absurd thinking, but it seems to be the way that they think.
Posted by: David Marjanović
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June 30, 2011 11:53 AM
Perhaps. Could you briefly explain what a Heaviside step function is? I have no idea at all whatsoever.
Younger, not older.
Posted by: Antiochus Epiphanes
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June 30, 2011 11:53 AM
From the OP
Sort of. In Darwin's time, discoveries were made that indicated that the earth was orders of magnitude older than previously thought. Darwin naturally used this in making his case for NS. If natural selection is only capable of gently nudging population means (phyletic gradualism), AND one wants to use NS to explain the diversity of life, one must also assume that the earth is very old.
We now know that phyletic gradualism is not a necessary component of evolutionary theory. The Cambrian explosion invalidates the (sort of) Darwinian idea of phyletic gradualism. However, abandoning phyletic gradualism increases the strength of natural selection as an explanation for diversity (rather than refuting it)--this is what the creationists are always confused about.
Posted by: Chris Booth
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June 30, 2011 12:00 PM
PZ, thank you for the chart of the eye complexity. That is so succinct, and so fascinating that it is elating. Wow.
Tip-o'-the-hat, too: A real portmanteau post! You dinged the idjits and provided extraordinarily exciting science...in one post.
feraboy12 @ #9: Neatly said! [/grinning]
Posted by: lessofthedifferent
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June 30, 2011 12:00 PM
Ya ever notice that creationists never try to refute or falsify evolutionary theory, only strange, cartoonish versions of it?
Posted by: Steve LaBonne
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June 30, 2011 12:05 PM
Perhaps it would do so- IF the so-called explosion were anything other than an artifact caused by the superior preservation of hard body parts (in themselves not a particularly impressive "leap" in genetic / developmental terms so their "sudden" appearance won't do the work you want it to).
Posted by: Trilobutt
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June 30, 2011 12:09 PM
Except that most Ediacaran and Cambrian organisms (and gradually less in the Ordovician, Silurian and Devonian) are preserved in Konservat-Lagerstätten, i.e. with soft-part preservation, so it is really an explosion.
Posted by: Sven DiMilo
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June 30, 2011 12:09 PM
Agreed that increasing the number of a repeated part is a very crappy kind of "complexity" in the first place. Humans less complex than Acanthostega! Only have 5 digits! Elephants way more complex than humans! All them nose muscles! Hey, how about those amazingly hypercomplex snakes with hundreds of vertebrae?!)
Also, note that the trend of increase applies to maximum and (therefore) mean ommatidial counts, but there's very little change in the median number over time. 'Less complex' eyes with few ommatidia apparently worked great for some purposes throughout the Ordovician.
I'd also predict some correlation between body size and eye size, in which case ommatidial number ought to be adjusted for body size, reducing (I'd predict) the amount of difference shown for absolute ommatidial count.
But yeah, very cool fossils indeed.
Posted by: dmclarke
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June 30, 2011 12:11 PM
I don't understand why godly evolution deniers are not TERRIFIED of the possibility that their god DID create evolution, and they've spent their entire life calling it a lie. I mean, if I believed in a god and hell, and also I doubted evolution, that would be a huge worry for me...
Posted by: Kristine
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June 30, 2011 12:12 PM
What gets me is that they still have no clue as to how long the Precambrian really is. 4600 million years ago to around 542 million years ago (over 85% of geologic time!) is a pretty long hiatus for any Designer to just lie around, rearranging continents and letting the earth go snowball, without really getting all this vaunted Fine Tuning underway. What was the holdup? Was the Designer on opium all that time?
Posted by: The other Tim
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June 30, 2011 12:13 PM
The author of the article has done a marvelous job if his intent was to make it unreadable. The only way I could read it without ocular discomfort was to copy it, paste it into a word processor, and convert it to a single typeface.
What was the author thinking? Oh, wait--never mind. That was a silly question, wasn't it? The final paragraph (quoted by PZ) says it all.
Posted by: russellseitz
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June 30, 2011 12:13 PM
Get ready for some Precambrian post-productions- the 1st link leads to this shocker
" The film ministry, too, is stronger than ever, in its rebirth as Illustra Media. After Moody Institute of Science folded in 1996, the production crew reorganized first as Discovery Media Productions, issuing a steady stream of dazzling creation films on astronomy, biology, zoology and physiology (a good sampling was combined into the trio The Wonders of God’s Creation); another jewel is the duo Journeys to the Edge of Creation.
Around 2001, the team made friends with the Discovery Institute, and to avoid confusion as an independent company, changed its name to Illustra Media, starting a new line of productions on Intelligent Design. The films Unlocking the Mystery of Life (2002) and The Privileged Planet (2004) were most recently joined by Darwin’s Dilemma (2010), forming a rock-solid trilogy refuting Darwinism and exhibiting the power of intelligent design theory for science. Illustra Media has surpassed the outreach of Dr. Irwin’s early films with state-of-the-art productions of high quality and exciting content. These films have been translated into over 20 languages and are currently having a major impact around the world. Especially exciting are reports from former Soviet bloc countries that large crowds, hungry for meaning after decades of atheist propaganda, are gathering to watch these films and responding in large numbers.
Illustra’s newest documentary called Metamorphosis was just completed in June 2011.
Posted by: Hurin, Nattering Nabob of Negativism.
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June 30, 2011 12:15 PM
ZOMG Cambrian sploded therefor GOD!!11!
Posted by: SteveM
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June 30, 2011 12:21 PM
re 22:
Heaviside was the man wo introduced this function for electronic signal analysis. It is a fucntion that v = 0 for t0, at t=0 the fucntion is poorly (or even un-)defined. The time derivitive is an impulse, conversely the time integral of the impulse is the step function.
Posted by: Hurin, Nattering Nabob of Negativism.
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June 30, 2011 12:22 PM
Audley
I can haz 6000 year old earth and chezusberger from Cambrian splosion!?
Posted by: jpl5007
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June 30, 2011 12:31 PM
Great post prof!
Posted by: Kristine
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June 30, 2011 12:31 PM
I can haz 6000 year old earth and chezusberger from Cambrian splosion!?
Sure, but only, as I noted, if you're willing to wait long after all the evolutionists have had their third beer, and the waitress has announced that it's her break time an hour before closing.
God must have been letting his homework wait until after midnight before the Cambrian quiz.
Posted by: koyote_ken
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June 30, 2011 12:35 PM
To quote the Great American Scientist, Kirk Cameron, "We must SURROUND the intellect.........."
Posted by: SteveM
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June 30, 2011 12:37 PM
re 34:
I see that html has eaten my > symbols. What I was trying to say is that for t < 0, v=0 and for t>0 then v=1.
Posted by: dinogami
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June 30, 2011 12:38 PM
Actually, with gobs of new discoveries over the last couple of decades--Ediacaran-age sponges, the Small Shelly Fauna, etc., and depending in some ways on interpretations of the affinities of various Ediacaran organisms as arthropods, etc.--the Cambrian "Explosion" really encompasses several tens of millions of years. The idea that the Cambrian Explosion spans just a few millions years is a bit out of date. That isn't to say that it no longer exists or that there's no significant evolutionary event(s) around the Precambrian-Phanerozoic boundary--there certainly is a relatively rapid diversification of some taxa just after the beginning of the Cambrian compared to prior to the Cambrian; it simply isn't over just a few million years anymore thanks to decades of continuous research helping fill in our understanding of the fossil record in the late Precambrian through the early Paleozoic!
Posted by: pureone
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June 30, 2011 12:43 PM
No comments at the link/"article"? That's unpossible. Must be removing them as soon as they go up...
Posted by: surgoshan
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June 30, 2011 12:51 PM
Creationist: Lie.
PZ: Actually, no.
Creationist: Same lie.
PZ: No.
Creationist: Same lie.
PZ: No.
Creationist: Same lie.
PZ: Seriously, no.
Creationist: Same lie.
PZ: NO.
Creationist: Same lie.
PZ: Stop it. No. No no no.
Creationist: Same lie.
PZ: Baseball bat.
Posted by: Abdul Alhazred
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June 30, 2011 12:52 PM
I know I know!
If "evolutionists" discover something new, that means they did not "know everything".
Therefore, Jesus. QED
;)
Posted by: Glen Davidson
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June 30, 2011 12:58 PM
Oh please, all eyes are apparently related, and thus would have to have a common ancestor that existed well before the Cambrian "explosion." So why wouldn't complex eyes exist at the start of the Cambrian?
It's just the same old boring "Cambrian explosion =
GodDesigner."The Cambrian was an amazing radiation produced when spiking oxygen levels allowed animals to become dramatically larger and to otherwise evolve to fit niches. Plants were nowhere to be seen, and land animals were absent, or, at best, small and unimpressive.
Eden makes sense as design. Prokaryotes for at least a billion years, then Eukaryotes for another billion or so prior to multicellular animals, then the Ediacaran radiation which largely died out (why, Designer?) and a few other feints, and then finally the Cambrian "explosion" where a huge number of phyla are first visible--a number to become extinct relatively soon (why, Designer?)--is not design, at least none that we know.
It's an interesting (not expected--but could we expect evolution to follow our meager knowledge?) spike within a generally expected evolutionary progression.
Glen Davidson
Posted by: AJ Milne OM
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June 30, 2011 1:04 PM
... it's a lot like meeting an adult who still gets just way too much out of playing 'peek a boo'.
Posted by: Amphiox, OM
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June 30, 2011 1:07 PM
Oops! I meant "after".
Posted by: sinistrum
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June 30, 2011 1:12 PM
I started reading this blog recently, its great!
I work on the field of eye evolution, actually opsin evolution. Eye evolution is always the example of irredusible complexity..., kind of frustrating that people keep miss quoting Darwin, given the amazing advancements in the last decades in this field...
Anyway here is a recent article about the topic, about how eyes could have evolved by natural means, and how we can see that because of this our eyes actually have serious defects, like an inside out retina. Its a piece directed to refute ID and creationism.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=evolution-of-the-eye
Its about the camera eye and not compond eye though.
Posted by: Markita Lynda: Healthcare is a damn right
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June 30, 2011 1:17 PM
PZ, I read recently that the Cambrian explosion took about 40 million – 50 million years, not just a few. It was probably in Tetrapod Zoology or Sean B. Carroll's chapter on Walcott in Remarkable Creatures. The mind grabs a fact, assigns it a reliability factor, and stuffs it into a pigeonhole, usually discarding where it came from.
The whole "Evolution can't explain every damn thing/discovered something new, therefore Gawd!" is called a false dichotomy, the kind of logical fallacy that the Flying Spaghetti Monster alternative alternative theory was invented to address.
Posted by: sabazinus
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June 30, 2011 1:19 PM
It would be interesting to see what these critters looked like. Buckna needs to take a deep breath and calm down. He seems to have exerted himself too much while writing his...uh..article? Rant? It seems like there's some heavy breathing going on in it. Perhaps he's written romance novels in the past.
Posted by: Patricia, OM
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June 30, 2011 1:22 PM
I'd like to see the fundie math on this, starting with the 6000 year old earth.
Crayons up...go!
Posted by: Markita Lynda: Healthcare is a damn right
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June 30, 2011 1:23 PM
SEE Quine (Introspection of a Struggling Mad Scientist) once suggested Cambrian Induration for the development of hard parts that let critters fossilize better.
Incidentally, I look a look at some limestoney blocks on new construction and they were full of little shells but also things that looked like fish vertebrae and ribs. How does one tell the age of these things? How do you tell a fish vertebra from a segment of sea lily?
Posted by: Arv Brollop
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June 30, 2011 1:29 PM
Hey PZ, I'm sure you know what "spasticity" means as well as any other biologist. How about not using it to mean something like "retarded"? Someone admirable like you using "spastic" as an insult gives legitimacy to the fools who taunt my son who has spastic hemiparesis, and assume he is retarded. Perhaps "spastic" is not considered offensive where you live but you have a global audience. Thanks for considering my request.
Posted by: kiki
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June 30, 2011 1:29 PM
Sigh... well, at least it's new material; I think we were all getting tired of the old stuff. Now they've got one more essay to add to the gargantuan body of literature that doesn't really refute evolution but can be quotemined to seem like it does to credulous morons. They must have like six or seven of those by now.
Posted by: sabazinus
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June 30, 2011 1:29 PM
Crayons, Patricia? No no no, much too difficult. They'll stick to fingers and then toes when they run out and any larger numbers will just be skipped for "gawddidit."
Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist
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June 30, 2011 1:33 PM
THIS MILLIONS YEAR OLD FOSSIL PROVES THE WORLD IS ONLY THOUSANDS OF YEARS OLD!
Posted by: Chris Booth
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June 30, 2011 1:36 PM
Actually, this does disprove "Darwinism". All that mucking about in the Cambrian strata to find fossils that those scientists in lab coats did--they released the preCambrian rabbits!
If evolution is true, and there are Cambrian fossils, why are there rabbits in Australia?
Hah!
Posted by: realinterrobang
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June 30, 2011 1:37 PM
I'm seconding Arv @ 52, as the resident out spastic here. Also, as a typeface geek, I'm having a hard time figuring out just exactly how boldface can even be spastic. It's neither particularly tight nor twitchy. "Compulsive" might be a better modifier in context, really.
Posted by: Markita Lynda: Healthcare is a damn right
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June 30, 2011 1:37 PM
Surgoshan:
PZ: Baseball bat.
Creationist: Why are you scientists always so angry? You must hate God!
Posted by: Antiochus Epiphanes
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June 30, 2011 1:38 PM
Seven wrote:
Hadn't really thought about that, but, ummm. yeah. I would even argue that fewer parts often indicates deterministic growth, which is clearly more complex than undeterministic growth (orchid vs. magnolia flowers, for instance).
Posted by: Katherine Lorraine, Chaton de la Mort
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June 30, 2011 1:38 PM
Oh my God! I've been wrong all along. Suddenly it makes sense. Why... the Creation event must have happened because we have a clear fossil record of the evolution of the eye and the fact of the Earth's enormous age is clearly within the lines of Biblical truths!
You atheists merely can't see it! Come let's embrace ignorance together and celebrate the true and living God!
[/end fundie]
Posted by: https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawmVT1LBhwmO9ej9LNg7a5e9d-AVJ8ezfmE
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June 30, 2011 1:39 PM
it is really an explosion
What was it, a 40 million-year long 'explosion'? I love how when you talk to creos they seem to think that "SHAZAM!" suddenly, in 7 days, there were a plethora of new species. When actually it was a span of time vastly longer than we can imagine...
Nobody talks about the 'canine explosion' which has occurred in the last 5-10 thousand years, in which wolves turned fairly slowly to dogs and then - practically overnight - into chihuahuas, great danes, and border collies. SHAZAM!
Posted by: Patricia, OM
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June 30, 2011 1:41 PM
sabazinus - Whut? I missed something?
I thought atheists and scientists were being vilified for not reading advanced sophisticated theology , so doesn't it follow that advanced sophisticated creationist math would be done in crayon?
/fundie logic
Posted by: llewelly
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June 30, 2011 1:43 PM
hm, 3000 ommatidia. Well, many modern insects have about that many, and many spiders, especially the web building kind, have fewer. But to put this in perspective - an icon on Mac OS X desktop is 72x72, or 5184 pixels. So this early Cambrian creature could tell icons apart. Barely. If the icon was positioned so it filled the creature's field of view.
Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist
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June 30, 2011 1:45 PM
@Llewelly
Primitive organisms had to use DOS?
Posted by: Markita Lynda: Healthcare is a damn right
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June 30, 2011 1:46 PM
Always remember that Darwin's own colleagues warned him that insisting that evolution was extremely gradual made the evolutionary theory harder to prove and was not drawn from the evidence. It came from Darwin's own cautious nature and reluctance to upset apple-carts.
Posted by: Amphiox, OM
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June 30, 2011 1:48 PM
In defense of PZ, my impression on reading his use of the term spastic here wasn't one of stupidity per se, but rather a descriptive metaphor of the manner in which the bold font was used - ie, random, twitchy, uncoordinated.
Posted by: sabazinus
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June 30, 2011 1:48 PM
Advanced sophisticated creationist math...uh...I think my brain is leaking out my ears. Be right back.
Posted by: Amphiox, OM
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June 30, 2011 1:51 PM
From the perspective of some hypothetical future paleontologists looking at the fossil record of canines, the word "explosion" might be used. Particularly if said paleontologists did not have access to good records of human domestication attempts.
It would be an artifact of lack of knowledge due to information lost to time that would have otherwise filled in the gaps. Much as it is with the Cambrian biota today.
Posted by: kiki
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June 30, 2011 1:55 PM
As a UK resident and, I'm ashamed to say, part of the generation that gave the word 'spastic' its offensive bona fides in school playgrounds across the nation in the 80s, my eyebrows also raised on seeing the word in PZ's post. I chose to give the most charitable interpretation - that he meant 'spastic' in the most literal sense of 'afflicted by spasms', as if Buckna's clicking finger twitched uncontrollably whenever his cursor hovered over the bolding button - but perhaps it was a poor choice of words.
I did notice something a little odd when checking the online Oxford Dictionary for the exact definition of the word, however: the number 2 noun meaning, 'an incompetent or uncoordinated person', is listed as 'informal, offensive', but the number 1 noun meaning, 'a person with cerebral palsy', had no such labels. There was a bit of text explaining that the word 'is likely to cause offence' if used for the latter purpose, but I think some updating is needed there - who the fuck in the year 2011 would use that word to refer to a person with cerebral palsy?
Posted by: Trilobutt
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June 30, 2011 1:57 PM
Googlemess @61,
I prefer the term "radiation" myself, but everyone likes saying explosion so I just go with the flow. The point is that it was a very sudden chain of events - consider that eukaryotes had been around for 2+ billion years before with nothing macroscopic happening. The radiation lasted a relatively long time, 20 - 50 million years, depending on if you count the Ediacarans along.
The reason why the explosion moniker is popular (though we never use it at work), even though slightly fallacious, is that unlike the canine radiation, here we have the radiation of entire phyla and the very rapid evolution and canalisation of different developmental programs, all driven by the sudden appearance of modern ecological interactions, which were in turn driven by the "body plan" changes. There was huge explosion in morphospace, to put it in abstract terms, and it took place relatively quickly, as one would expect from any radiation. But the fact that this led to the establishment of the "phyla" (these being man-made categories) is why the Cambrian's been dubbed an explosion and not just a mere radiation. It's when animals as we know them were born, and it happened quite suddenly/quickly in the grand scheme of things. (If I'm allowed some shameless self-promotion, I go into this issue in the middle segments of this introductory post).
Posted by: Amphiox, OM
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June 30, 2011 2:04 PM
If I recall, in one of Richard Dawkins' books, the various theories concerning the Cambrian Explosion could be classified as follows:
1. Long-fuse (or no explosion) - the Cambrian fauna arose from ancestors evolving gradually over hundreds of millions of years, and the apparent explosion is entirely an artifact of preservation in the fossil record. The molecular clock data seems to support this, in that the various animal lineages diverged hundreds of millions years before the Cambrian. However, molecular clock estimates have to be calibrated against the fossil record, and there is some doubt as to how accurate the calibration is that far back in time.
2. Medium-fuse - the Cambrian fauna evolved over several tens of millions of years, in a relatively standard adaptive radiation, not dissimilar to other episodes seen in the fossil record at other times. This is best supported by the Late Ediacaran to mid Cambrian fossil record, where you see a gradual increase in diversity and complexity of fossils, and then you have the mid and late Cambrian fossil sites with their unique preservation of soft tissues, that first made the "explosion" famous.
3. Short-fuse - the Cambrian fauna evolved quickly over several millions of years, constituting an adaptive radiation that was comparatively quick (but not unreasonably so) even when compared to other examples of adaptive radiations, triggered by some unique confluence of built up evolutionary potential and environmental opportunity (ie increasing oxygen levels, evolutionary invention of mineralized body parts, evolutionary invention of eyes, etc). I think the increasing weight of evidence from Ediacaran and early Cambrian fossils is putting this idea out of favor.
4. Overnight explosion - which Dawkins helpfully labeled as bonkers.
Posted by: Chris Booth
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June 30, 2011 2:04 PM
Wow. Buckna is a fatuous liar and/or a dolt who needs remedial grammar-school-level reading comprehension.
His boldface frenzy is mildly amusing: he's got his own flavor of quote-mining--cut and paste the entire text, and then boldface out of context.
The key here is reading comprehension. His conclusions are an Orwellian absurdity. Surely even a large number of the IDiots would want to distance themselves from this flagrant dishonesty....
Posted by: kiki
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June 30, 2011 2:16 PM
Surely even a large number of the IDiots would want to distance themselves from this flagrant dishonesty....
Entire ID community, in Bugs Bunny voice: 'Nyaaah... he don't know us very well, do he?'
Posted by: Joe Bloe
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June 30, 2011 2:18 PM
#11
Someone with an account there needs to get a link back to this posted. Pronto.
I just joined up and left a link - it is awaiting approval of a moderator. [I wonder if it will be published?]
Posted by: Chris Booth
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June 30, 2011 2:25 PM
kiki @ #73: Touche'.
Posted by: evogene
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June 30, 2011 2:27 PM
Here is a video about this fossil:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQE3x8zp3jc&feature=youtu.be
I have to say that the resolution of the picture it could see is very good given that it is a precambrian animal!
Posted by: kantalope
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June 30, 2011 2:33 PM
I can't believe there are no comments about the Tuzoia from the Matthew Cobb linked article. The eyes might be from a clam with eyes! A CLAM WITH EYES!
And really people, that 6000 years was just an estimate. The earth could be 10,000 yo. Those eyes were probably ripped off of those clams in the flood see. And then Noah let the dinosaurs off the ark. And then like, Noah was eating those clams with eyes and dinosaurs and trilobites and then micro evolution happened and kangaroos hitched a ride on the huge flotsam rafts left over after the flood and then Darwin was deceived by the Devil and then he recanted on his deathbed and then now. Easy.
Posted by: Randomfactor
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June 30, 2011 2:39 PM
Quick, PZ, hide this post! Don't you know you're supposed to be part of a worldwide sekrit conspiracy which hides everything that proves Darwin didn't know about fossils discovered after his death? Or something?
Posted by: Patricia, OM
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June 30, 2011 2:40 PM
No, no, no.
CLAMS GOT FEETS!
Posted by: Ring Tailed Lemurian
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June 30, 2011 2:41 PM
Very surprised, and disappointed, that ~
a) PZ used the word 'spastic' in that context,
b) it took over 50 comments for someone to mention it.
Posted by: Sven DiMilo
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June 30, 2011 2:44 PM
nah. bivalve crustacean =/= bivalve mollusk
Posted by: Dude... Real Men Watch Ponies!
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June 30, 2011 2:45 PM
@Audley
#15
I like Lewis Black's response betters.
"Whenever someone says they believe the earth was created in 7 days, I grab a fossil and say, "Fossil." And if they keep talking, I throw it just over their heads."
Although I would prefer if he threw it right at their head.
Posted by: Therrin (Ben S)
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June 30, 2011 2:49 PM
#22 David Marjanovic
I think it has something to do with Cats.Posted by: kiki
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June 30, 2011 2:57 PM
Could you briefly explain what a Heaviside step function is? I have no idea at all whatsoever.
Well, Tekken 3 had quite a heavy sidestep function, but the franchise has since evolved to include a reasonably smooth eight-way run.
(Video game joke)
Posted by: Philosoraptor
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June 30, 2011 3:14 PM
That "inference to the best explanation" thing used by philosophers of religion (and creationists) is complete horseshit as well.
It's been used by the likes of W.L. Craig (and, apparently, this guy) to try to logically lead to conclusions that are completely insane.
It uses a word which philosophers tend to hate, namely, "best." What makes something the best explanation? Well, the way these guys destroy the concept is by using the postulated properties of god. A creature who is, by definition, omniscient and omnipotent will, in every case, be the "best" explanation to explain anything.
Heck, even our senses can be fooled (see: anti-introspectionsm and wrongology), so these guys take this idea and just apply it, willy-nilly, to whatever idea they want to be "god" and POOF! Conclusion: God did it. It's the "best" explanation.
*sigh* I really wish these idiots would quit trying to use philosophy and science (just the words, not the actual applications) to bolster their nonsense. Anyone with common sense can see right through that BS.
Interestingly, as a not-scientist, that was the only part I needed to read to know it was complete bullshit.
QED
Posted by: truthspeaker
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June 30, 2011 3:18 PM
Yet another exhibit of the principle that a word that is considered offensive in one dialect of English is not considered offensive in another, because of different meanings and social contexts.
Posted by: truthspeaker
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June 30, 2011 3:27 PM
That's what makes them primitive!
The really primitive ones used CP/M.
Posted by: Chris Booth
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June 30, 2011 3:33 PM
Not only does Buckna NOT boldface this sentence from the article, he does not even quote it (though he does quote from the same paragraph):
Evolution: Prediction ==> validation or falsification; validation.
Validation.
Posted by: fauxrs
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June 30, 2011 3:34 PM
Of course the article proves exactly what the creotard wants it prove because thats how he reads it, no different than the Bible.
Facts, Evidence, or even what the article actually says is irrelevant to them. Only their conclusion is relelvant
Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist
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June 30, 2011 3:34 PM
@Truthspeaker
Headline: Fossilized Dot-matrix Trilobite discovered!
Posted by: pnwscience
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June 30, 2011 3:35 PM
@AKron (#17):
I don't know enough about the compound eye to say for sure what the differences are between it and the camera with the microlens array that preserves the light field information. But for starters, the ommatidia seem to be non-overlapping, with each lens focusing light on one photosensitive element (a radial pattern of visual cells). The resulting image is kind of like a dot matrix.
But the existence of the camera is irrelevant to the evolution of the eye. :-)
Posted by: Billy
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June 30, 2011 4:14 PM
In addition to the fact the creationist claims are a load of bollocks, they can't claim that dating methods are inaccurate and use the published date to back up their nonsense
Posted by: David Marjanović
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June 30, 2011 4:15 PM
Where does the rock come from? What kind of rock is it?
By looking closer. If it has 5 symmetry axes, it's a sea lily stalk segment. If it has joint facets for the other parts of the vertebra and/or ribs, it's a vertebral centrum.
The Oxford English Dictionary is a historical dictionary. It lists the senses of every word in the order in which they are attested in historical documents, regardless of whether they're extinct. Indeed, it's fairly common that the first sense has been completely obsolete for centuries.
Posted by: Ring Tailed Lemurian
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June 30, 2011 4:22 PM
truthspeaker - I didn't know that 'spastic' had no derogative associations in the USA. In the UK it's worse than 'retard', for instance. My mother told me not use it 50 years ago.
You learn something every day.
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM
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June 30, 2011 5:13 PM
Oliver Heaviside* was a polymath genius who influenced much of science and mathematics. As the pfftt of all knowledge says:
The pfftt of all knowledge explains the Heaviside step function thusly:
*No relation to Runcible Spoon.
Posted by: Carlie of the lacy, gently wafting adjectives
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June 30, 2011 5:13 PM
I wouldn't say none. More like none to most people except the ones who actually have conditions causing spasms. Think along the lines of what would have happened to "that's so gay" if there hadn't been a concerted counter campaign against it.
Posted by: bronsk
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June 30, 2011 5:20 PM
Hi there,
I am new to these forums and I live in France. I have to say that I have never heard of this issue (creationists vs darwinists) on this level in France.
I have to ask out of curiosity: How many creationists are there in north america? Is it a minority or more like a 50/50 stuff?
Over here, creationism isn't even taught is catholic schools. I mean, they study the bible and stuff but they don't try to make the kids believe hard in "the creation". I mean, the kids are quick to dismiss that as a fairy tale anyways as soon as they stop believing in Santa. And they teach Darwin in school. All schools.
That said, not being a creationist I might be missing their existence altogether...
Posted by: Rasmus
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June 30, 2011 5:42 PM
Heaviside step function, actual definition:
H(x) = 0, x<1.
H(x) = 0 or 1 or 1/2 depending on who you ask...
H(x) = 1, x>1.
Posted by: David Marjanović
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June 30, 2011 6:04 PM
Thanks for the explanations.
Posted by: Rasmus
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June 30, 2011 6:13 PM
Let's take that again. Don't know where the '1' came from...
H(x) = 0, x<0.
H(x) = 0 or 1 or 1/2 depending on who you ask... (They each kind of make sense in different ways.)
H(x) = 1, x>0.
Posted by: JohnnieCanuck
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June 30, 2011 7:12 PM
Where does that leave those of us who strung together opcodes manually, prior to getting access to assemblers?
Get me my glasses! I think I see kids on my lawn again.
Posted by: cm's changeable moniker
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June 30, 2011 7:37 PM
@bronsk, #97: 40% (or 78%) if you believe the polls:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/145286/Four-Americans-Believe-Strict-Creationism.aspx
h/t Wikipedia for re-finding it for me.
Posted by: strange gods before me ॐ homintern radfem
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June 30, 2011 7:58 PM
France:
9% creationist
55% evolutionist
36% undecided
From a 2011 Ipsos/Reuters survey (PDF) which includes data for:
Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Poland, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Turkey and the United States of America.
Posted by: James Smith João Pessoa, Brazil
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June 30, 2011 8:34 PM
Why should we be even a little surprised at this? Creationists know they are liars and they know that rational people are aware of it. That doesn't stop them from telling more lies for the gullible.
When you think about it, that's what religion does, fabricate lies for the gullible.
Posted by: RobertL
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June 30, 2011 10:03 PM
@Alice Bluegown #6:
I only got around to reading On the Origin of Species last year. One of the things that most amazed me was that Darwin had foreseen so many of the "standard" arguments against evolution and dealt with them then and there.
I had always thought that arguments about the complexity of the eye and so on had originated after his book - so he had no chance to rebut them.
I find it annoying that it doesn't matter how many times someone these days smacks these arguments down, they still persist.
I found it gobsmacking that Darwin himself dealt with them, yet they still got brought up as an argument, and they still persist...
Posted by: The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
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June 30, 2011 10:41 PM
@ RobertL:
Another instance of his foresight was that he assumed that variation was totally random, even though he didn't believe that himself, just because it was a worst-case scenario for his theory. People in his day still believed in inheritance of acquired characters, but when that turned out to be baloney, and "orthogenesis" turned out to be baloney—variation was in fact completely random—the Origin was still standing tall. (Like our atheist Holy Book™ should! All Hail our False God™ Charles Darwin!)
Seriously, though—if you encourage anyone else to read the Origin, make sure it's the first edition. In the later editions he wasted so much time dealing with all those lame-ass arguments that it got really infuriating!
Posted by: RobertL
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June 30, 2011 10:54 PM
Good point, Battleaxe.
My Origin* is the newish coffee-table version with a gazillion colour illustrations and extracts from his diaries etc added.
I love all of the extra stuff, but I actually found it a bit distracting. After a while, I ended up ignoring the additional material and just read the text. I then went back and checked out the pictures.
* I also have a pre-loaded version on my Kobo - but I'm not sure what edition it is off the top of my head.
Posted by: Markita Lynda: Healthcare is a damn right
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July 1, 2011 12:20 AM
The second edition is probably the best. It cleared up a few errors but wasn't weighed down by counter-arguments against Special Creation. The sixth is probably the most laden down with those arguments.
There's also a version revised and abridged by Paul Appleman and a book of poems called Darwin's Ark, also by Appleman with cute illustrations by Rudy Pozzatti (pronounce both Z's as in pizza and both T's). Another compact version is Darwin's Ghost edited by Steve Jones to add modern examples of the concepts. And next to it are books by Bergman and Dembski surrounded by glowing reviews. Sigh.
Posted by: No One
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July 1, 2011 12:36 AM
bronsk,
About 40% are strong creationists. Somewhere between 10-20% are atheist or not religious. It depends who conducts the surveys of course. The strong creationists are also politically active, particularly in the south and the midwest.
Posted by: bronsk
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July 1, 2011 3:34 AM
@cm's cloaking manoeuvre: o_O ... This is actually scary.
@strange gods before me: thanks. I guess that explains why we don't hear about them. Not that I'd pay attention though.
Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a/.UOpRbRlh._.aDv1cUcLFDTZoUm1madtLGlkx1Qn#4e76a
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July 1, 2011 4:46 AM
@Patricia, #79:
"But four young Oysters hurried up,
All eager for the treat:
Their coats were brushed, their faces washed,
Their shoes were clean and neat--
And this was odd, because, you know,
They hadn't any feet."
Sorry, couldn't resist.
Back to lurking.
Posted by: a_ray_in_dilbert_space, OM, A little FUCKING ray of sunshine
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July 1, 2011 5:26 AM
The Heaviside step function H(t) (technically, a distribution, I think) is defined as:
H(t)=0, t H(t)=1, t>0
It's derivative is the Dirac delta function--infinite at the origin and zero everywhere else.
Posted by: shonny
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July 1, 2011 7:49 AM
For most of them cretinist critters it's more like there is no intellect to switch off in the first place. Bit like 'all the wiring is there, but with no power connected'.
Posted by: venturefreemcgee
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July 1, 2011 7:49 AM
"A new paper on evolution released yesterday shows that..."
"AHA! See? The new paper completely falsifies evolution!"
"I didn't even get to what the new paper actually said."
"That just proves that you're too locked into your atheist dogma to even understand what the paper really means."
"Actually the paper says..."
"AHA! See? I told you that it proves that evolution is false!"
"Have you even read the paper yet?"
"I don't have to. My pastor told me about it last Sunday and he says that it proves that evolution is false."
"This paper was just released yesterday. How did he read it last Sunday?"
"That's just how powerful God is. Jeez, for a so called scientist you sure are dumb."
"Okay, tell me how this paper falsifies evolution."
"That's easy. Umm...it says that evolution...predicts that what it didn't predict...should have been predicted. And the paper found...something...that wasn't predicted, but was predicted to be predicted. It didn't predict what it predicted it would predict, so when we found something that wasn't predicted, the fact that it was predicted to be predicted but wasn't actually predicted means that evolution is false."
"Wow. I guess there's no arguing against that."
"I WIN!!! Gawd is grate!"
Posted by: David Marjanović
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July 1, 2011 8:29 AM
That's how to do it!
Darwin himself did.
Well... yes.
Besides, most of them are Muslims. This means, for instance, that they don't care about the age of the Earth.
Molly-worthy.
Posted by: Rasmus
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July 1, 2011 8:52 AM
Well, H can be taken to be a distribution (I think it usually is), but there's nothing inherently non-calculus-y about it once you've decided what value to use at x=0.
The derivative of H only makes rigorous sense as a distribution/generalized function.
Posted by: truthspeaker
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July 1, 2011 2:35 PM
More than that, it creates a social environment that encourages gullibility.