Friend

I've heard some people I know talk about the Cambrian Explosion and how it "discredits" the Theory of Evolution. What exactly is the Cambrian Explosion and why would they say it discredits the Theory of Evolution?

hezekiah jones

I'm not trying to be a smartass, but, why don't you ask them?

MOJO-JOJO

It discredits the theory of Evolution only if you interpret it through a "christian worldview".

Here's a clue, the "explosion" lasted a wee bit longer than 7 days.

Recently I came across some good data related to this. When I find it I'll post it here for you. Promise me you'll read it, otay??

~~Bu'wheet

Amen-Moses

Using standard cretinism logical thought processes (how many oxymorons did I get in there?) it probably goes something like:

"Cambrian explosion, well that's gotta be like a bomb innit",

"Yeah and if you got a bomb then it must have a fuse .."

"Yeah and sombody to light the fuse right?"

Amen-Moses

MOJO-JOJO

Okay Friend, here's a start. I just went to Google and typed "Cambrian Explosion". This first link gives you a little background into the "explosion" of animal kingdom development and evolution that occurred over 40 million years (earth years, not god years);

<a href="http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/vendian/vendian.html" target="_blank">Cambrian Era</a>

Just begin reading through this and examining all the links. Also get ahold of Gould's "Wonderful Life - The Burgess Shale".....absolutely fascinating.

You should also be able to find some good stuff at Talkorigins.com

[ February 14, 2002: Message edited by: MOJO-JOJO ]</p>

Heath Anderson

Gould's "Dinosaur in a haystack" also has a couple of really good essays on the cambrian explosion.

Nickolaus

The only standard cretin piece of logic is

A discredits bible --&gt; not A

The rest is negotiable.

RufusAtticus

I just went to a talk on the Cambrian Explosion. The CE is an event (small section) in the fossil record where the majority or animal body plans first show up. There appears to have been a rapid (relatively speaking) radiation of morphology. In the talk that I went to, the speaker (Blair Hedges of PSU) indicated that increaced oxygen levels probably produced the evolutionary even. Increaced 02 levels due to photosynthesis, allowed animals to get larger, which had consequences with respect to evolutionary arms-races (predator/prey). This is also connected to the evolution of hardness (shells, "teeth"), which would increace the probability of fossilization. It's not at all a thorn in evolution's side, despite what bullshitting creationists would have people beleive.

-RvFvS

tronvillain

RufusAtticus:
Of course, that doesn't mean that the various "body plans" couldn't have existed prior to the Cambrian Explosion.

Seth K

Yes, there are some scientists who think the Cambrian Explosion was an explosion of hard, shelly parts that preserve much better that soft parts. According to this hypothesis, it was precipitated by rising levels of carbonates in the oceans, which provided ready material as armor plating for defence. This caused an evolutionary arms-race with shells and exo-skeletons arising independently in several lineages.