Kosh

Do you think that Hovind will claim this as
support of his theories?

<a href="http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/space/02/27/mars.floods/index.html" target="_blank">http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/space/02/27/mars.floods/index.html</a>

Just a little editorial comment on that whole
issue. I did chance across Hovind (I think it was
him - someone correct me if I'm wrong) narrating
his version of the Flood geology. What I noticed
is that as he tells the story of how this
happens (the crust fracturing, the water geysers,
etc), he's telling it like a story. Ie, there is
no presenting of the geological evidence or how
he got to those conclusions (for obvious reasons)

John Solum

Hi Leftcoast. I've heard the same thing about the Ogalla aquifer.

Coragyps:
Do you know of any reservoirs in quartzite? I still find it fascinating that the deepest reservoirs are in carbonates.


Cracking oil to natural gas at higher pressure and temperature makes sense to me.

You don't have to worry about me trying to drill in the Gulf Coast, no one I know would be able to lend me a floating drill rig.

faded_glory
Specifying that the fluids are mobile on geologic timescales helps a lot, you won't get any argument from me there. I don't know how much fo the deep formation water is primary as opposed to secondary. My knowledge of aquifers is pretty restricted to potable groundwater.

Well, it helps to pass the time, and I actually like talking about this sort of thing.

Bait

Hi John and all,
Just wanted to let you know I am here, but I'm going and doing a little research first, before you guys clobber me too much. I wanted to address one thing (more as a question though)

You said:
I would like to make a few comments:

1) The Cambrian explosions wasn't an instantaneous event, it lasted ~10 million years (If Wells wants to add the Vendian on to that (the last period of the Precambrian, from 650-544 million years ago) that increases it even more.

2) It's correct that mammals, birds, fish, amphibians and reptiles are all chordates, but they don't appear during the Cambrian.

From what I understand of Mr. Wells arguments, he was saying that the Phyla of that (those) groups was REPRESENTED (as in the chordate group), though not all of it's sub classes (such as reptiles). The point (I assumed) being that not everything came from only ONE source, but from each of the general classes (and I may not have said that exactly correctly)...or as Oolon and I were arguing, each of their kind? I do remember Mr. Wells stating that fish WERE present during the Cambrian period though. Also, he is not disputing how long a period the Cambrian was, from what I recalled.

Now, to go do my homework a bit. Keep talking though, sometimes I get a chance to read a bit of it well before I can post.
Bests,
Ron

SomeGirl

i am aware that u know about dr. hovind. but i wasn't sure if u all knew the site.

<a href="http://www.drdino.com" target="_blank">www.drdino.com</a>

that's all

John Solum

I understood Wells' points, but I guess I didn't do a good-enough job of explaining why they're invalid (things that are perfectly clear to me in my head don't always come out that way in print)

The Cambrian explosion marks a time in Earth's history when a large variety of organisms appear in the fossil record in a geologically short period of time around 540 million years ago. Since Wells uses phyla, I'll do the same. Thirteen of 33 phyla (not counting plants) appear in the Cambrian and the Vendian (the period of time immediately preceding the Cambrian).

The duration of the Cambrian explosion was 5-10 million years, it wasn't something that happened in the blink of an eye. The reason that it's referred to as an explosion is that from a geological point of view 5-10 million years is a very short span of time (the earth is ~4.6 billion years old). There are also multicellular fossils, including likely ancestors to the Cambrian fauna, in the Vendian (from 650 to 544 million years ago). So if you include the Vendian fauna with the Cambrian fauna then the duration of the event in which earth's fauna diversified is ~120 million years, which makes the Cambrian explosion (which I guess I should refer to as the Precambrian/Cambrian explosion) a lot less like an explosion (keep in mind that the rates of evolution weren't constant throughout the Vendian, and that the diversification picks up toward the end of the Vendian). Even though this Precambrian/Cambrian explosion lasted ~120 million years, it still marks a significant change in the history of life. Life first appeared ~3.8 billion years ago, and from that time until ~650 million years ago (a duration of 3.15 billion years) the organisms that existed were single-celled. So, over a comparitively short period of time (120 million years is 3.8% of 3.15 billion years) earth's fauna diversifed into a variety of multicellular organisms as well as single-celled organisms.

What I've tried to do so far is to put the Cambrian explosion into the broader context of the history of life. I've tried to show that the Cambrian explosion isn't an event that happened in isolation, or out of the blue, but that it was part of an larger event that had already been occurring for in the neighboorhood of 100 million years.

There are members of the Vendian fauna that appear to be ancestral to members of the Cambrian fauna, but there are also members of the Vendian fauna that appear to be unrelated to anything that's lived since that time. In other words, precursors to the Cambrian fauna appear in the Vendian (along with some odd creatures that became extinct at the end of the Precambrian). The members of the Cambrian fauna don't appear out of the blue without a trace of ancestors.

A few members of the Vendian fauna are shown here:

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


The members of the Cambrian fauna also include several organisms that appear to be transitional between phyla (so phyla can't be immutable 'kinds' of organisms). In other words, the phyla are related. Glenn Morton discusses this further here:

<a href="http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/cambevol.htm" target="_blank">Phylum level evolution</a>

The Cambrian period also marks the time when fossils of animals with hard parts (for example shells) appear in the fossil record. Hard parts are much more readily fossilized than soft parts, and so it is unsurprising that the number of fossils in the fossil record increases dramatically when organisms with hard parts appear. Fossils of soft-bodied organisms are pretty uncommon. Therefore part of the reason for the Cambrian explosion is that the potential for organisms to be fossilized greatly increased at that time.

As I hinted at earlier in this post, there are a lot of groups of animals that appear after the Cambrian, both at the phylum level and at finer taxonomic levels. As I stated before, mammals don't appear until the middle of the Mesozoic, as do birds, amphibians don't appear unitl the Devonian, reptiles don't appear unitl the Carboniferous, and the first fish doesn't appear until the end of the Cambrian (after the Cambrian explosion). One of the points I'm trying to make is that the members of the phyla that appear during the Cambrian are different from their descendants. There has been a lot of evolution within phyla since the Cambrian. I realize that Wells doesn't say this, but if a creationist wants to consider the evolution of birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians and fish from that Cambrian chordate microevolution (or evolution within a kind), or to somehow either claim or imply that such evolution is evidence against macroevolution, then I wonder how that creationist would define macroevolution. I want to close by pointing out that this sort of "top down" evolution (i.e., representatives of higher taxonomic classifications appear before lower classifications) is exactly what the theory of evolution predicts. A phylum appears, and then diversifies into lower taxonomic classifications (such as orders, classes, or families).

John

John Solum

Hi SomeGirl. Welcome to the board, and thanks for the link. Are you a fan of Kent Hovind? Would you like to discuss anything in particular from his site?

ps418

Wells is referring to Haikouella, a 30-40mm long, soft-bodied chordate that Chen et al describe as 'fish-like.' There is a big difference between what Chen et al mean by 'fish-like,' and what the average person thinks of as a 'fish,' which is a jawed, skeletonized vertebrate. You can see some <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v402/n6761/fig_tab/402518a0_F2.html" target="_blank">Haikouellids here.</a>

Haikouella lanceolata.
Jun-Yuan Chen, Di-Ying Huang and Chia-Wei Li, An early Cambrian craniate-like chordate, Nature 402 (1999), 518-522




Figure 1 Anatomical interpretation of Haikouella lanceolata (gen. et sp. nov.) from Haikou, near Kunming. Abbreviations (also used in Figs 2–4): Abv, anterior branchial vessel; An, anus; Ap, anterior projection; At, atrio; Atp, atriopore; Ba, branchial arches; Baf, branchial–arch–filamental; Br, brain; Buc, buccal cavity; Co, copulatory organ; Cp, caudal project; Da, dorsal aorta; Df, dorsal fin; Ds, denticular structure; Eg, endostyle glands; Es, endostyle; Esp, oesophagus; G, gonad; Hd, head; Ht, heart; It, intestine; Lb, lobated structures; Le, lateral eye; Mg, midgut; Mm, myomeres; Mo, mouth opening; Ms, myosepta; Mw, median wall; Nc, neural cord; Nt, notochord; Ph, pharyngeal cavity; T, tenticle-like structure; Va, ventral aorta; Vf, ventral fin.

[ February 27, 2002: Message edited by: ps418 ]</p>

Bait

Hi John (and all),
I read what you and Patrick are saying, so for us dumb farm boys, help me out a bit. Your saying that (in essence) that life then started from single celled organism's, (like penicillium)which kept increasing...splitting off to the various forms of fauna and animals (phyla). Therefore, logically, the higher the advancement the animal or plant, the more chromosomes it should have (since they are the structural carrier of hereditary characteristics)?

Using your example though, even in the Vendian period, there were several different types (kinds) of fossils and fauna...not just one. Nowhere is there fossil evidence that all of the different types of fossils came from only one.

You stated:

"A little on another topic on geology, how long the organisms that existed were single-celled. So, over a comparitively short period of time (120 million years is 3.8% of 3.15 billion years) earth's fauna diversifed into a variety of multicellular organisms as well as single-celled organisms."

So there are two questions at this point: 1. Assuming you are correct that pre-cambrian had single celled organisms, 1. were they all the same in structure (make up...the same type of organism)? and 2. did they come from the same "pool/area/location"? Why is this relevent? Because if they did not come from the same location, and if they were not made up of the same materials (chemicals/chromosomes), then life could not have come from only one source. In order to have only one common ancestor, you have to have that first one, from which all else comes from. It all had to of started in one pool, one location, one microorganism. so where exactly was this pool located, and what exactly was the organism that started it all? Otherwise, the theory fails. Remember, I never said I disagree with natural selection in general...only Darwins interpretation/theory of evolution that says we all have only one ancestor. If we all came from one ancestor, then the chromosomes should reflect that. However, Pencillium has 2 chromosomes, but humans have 46, and ferns 480. Are we evolving into ferns??

Second question:
has it been estimated that the cores of the ice caps, have been around? Were the polar regions always ice? Now I'm on shaky ground here, and I'm really only looking for the evidence to dispute this, but I read that the Ice cores of the polar regions have a maximum of about 14,000 feet of ice. An airplane was excavated (I read) that had been exposed to the climate for 48 years, and it was buried 262 feet in ice (which equals to 5.45 feet per year). The calculations I read about estimates then the ice caps at a little over 2500 years old. Geologically then, is this a true estimate?

Lastly, a kind of continuance of the "thousand year day theme...for kicks and chuckles (gotta get my digs on Kosh while I have the chance).
[code] </pre>[/quote]

Kosh didn’t (doesn’t) believe in my thousand years, etc…theory, but it has some evidence in science as well. If you accept the hypothesis that the universe both has an edge (is finite), therefore also having a center, then you find according to Einsteins theory that clocks tick at a different rate, dependant on your location in the universe. Evidence that the Universe is finite is the fact (generally accepted empirical evidence) that it is expanding, it’s rate science has even been able to calculate to some extent.

According to the Einstein theory, there would be a dilation effect where time would move more rapidly in locations toward the edges of the universe, while almost stopping at the center. So according to mathematics (Physics actually), it is mathematically possible for 1 (24 hour) day to be the same as 1 thousand years, dependant on where you are in the universe at the time that time is being calculated. Logically then, if God is at the center of the universe while he is creating it, only one day would have passed for him, but we on earth (farther out into the universe) would have experienced a thousand years. BTW, this is also evidence that can be used by YEC’s to prove that the earth could have been created in 7 (24 hr.) days.

Oh yea,(fyi) we've now been able to "stop light"...check out
<a href="http://www.nature.com/nsu/020107/020107-2.html" target="_blank">http://www.nature.com/nsu/020107/020107-2.html</a>

References:
Joseph Schwartz, “Einstein for Beginners”. Pantheon Books, p31
Russell Humphreys, “straight and Time”, Master books, 1994

John, Patrick, and Oolon...I'll be back, gotta get back to work right now though. Give ya enough ammo???

Bests,
Ron

[QUOTE]Originally posted by John Solum:
[QB]

I understood Wells' points, but I guess I didn't do a good-enough job of explaining why they're invalid (things that are perfectly clear to me in my head don't always come out that way in print)

Kosh

I'm gonna have to wait to stop laughing (hurts
my throat too much right now) before replying
to this one........

Valentine Pontifex

Sometimes the number of chromosomes goes up and sometimes it goes down. Humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes and yet are descended from creatures with 24 chromosome pairs since two chromosomes merged into one. In the case of the ferns, one rather common form of evolution in plants is polyploidy. That is the entire genome is duplicated. Instead of n chromosomes, there is
2n chromosomes. At first there would two very close to identical copies of everything, but over time they would start to accumulate differences. This has happened in animal evolution as well, but is far more common in plants since plants are a bit more genetically flexible.

Your post also shows a more fundamental misunderstanding of evolution. Why do you think that for any mundane characteristic, that evolution operates only in one direction. That is not how biology works. It is as logical as saying that because you are taller (or shorter) then your father, that your son will be taller (or shorter) than you and that his son.... A species can be larger than or smaller than the species it was descended from. It can be faster or slower, it can more chromosomes or less chromosomes, etc.