Forums → WEPR → Evolutionism or creationism

Ever heard of the Cambrian Explosion? It's when many new species popped up from nowhere, in a very short time. I'm not really against evolution, but this could be when God started creating many new species of animals and plants, etc.

Some say that if we keep looking, we'll find fossils linking the cambrian species to a previous era, but we still haven't. They defend this by saying, that the species that link them were too small/soft, but scientists in China found the perfect conditions for these fossils, but there were no fossils to be found. I would give a link, but this information came from a video in my biology class. :/

I belive in Evolution

Ever heard of the Cambrian Explosion? It's when many new species popped up from nowhere, in a very short time. I'm not really against evolution, but this could be when God started creating many new species of animals and plants, etc.

Ever heard of the Cambrian Explosion? It's when many new species popped up from nowhere, in a very short time. I'm not really against evolution, but this could be when God started creating many new species of animals and plants, etc.

But isn't evolution supposed to happen painstakingly slow? Like it takes hundreds of thousands of years for even one new species to be created. How can just one period be faster all of a sudden, then slow down again? Also, very few, if any, transitional fossils have been found for Cambrian species, making it seem as if this huge variety of species came from nowhere. Transitional fossils is some of the best proof for evolution, if you take those out, it becomes much less believable. :/

But isn't evolution supposed to happen painstakingly slow? Like it takes hundreds of thousands of years for even one new species to be created. How can just one period be faster all of a sudden, then slow down again? Also, very few, if any, transitional fossils have been found for Cambrian species, making it seem as if this huge variety of species came from nowhere. Transitional fossils is some of the best proof for evolution, if you take those out, it becomes much less believable. :/

If you read my replay in the let's talk about heaven thread I mention we have found that new genetic traits can emerge much quicker then originally thought. For instance those lizards I mentioned only took 36 years to evolve the new traits for eating plants.

I know you tried to say Nylonase was just using existing genes to allow it to eat nylon. I would find this rather strange if that was the case. But either way it only took it 40 years to develop the trait into something functional.

You argument on the little to no transitional fossils. We have single celled organism we can track showing evidence of evolution, this small gap your harping on, then evidence in the fossil record that evolution is taking place.

Why is it just because there is a missing gap you feel the need to insert God when we can look before and after that gap and find evidence for evolution taking place?

As I said fossils are a very tricky thing to get to form. So finding what we have found is amazing.

What were these genetic traits? Unless they are major traits that completely change the entire species, I think that would be more of an example of micro-evolution, which happens MUCH faster than macro-evolution.

It will obviously be easier for single celled organisms to evolve new traits/adapt, as they only have to deal with one cell. Multicelled organisms take much longer, as they usually can't reproduce as fast and have many more cells to deal with. The Cambrian Era species are multicellular, and there is a huge variety, so it is not adaptation, therefore, it means that during the Cambrian Era, there was either an enzyme in the air that sped up evolution, all these new organisms randomly appeared, or something created them.

2) We have no other evidence/fossils to show that these Cambrian species evolved at all, so something must have made them be.

You'd be surprised how quickly a species can become something completely different. As a species evolves and they gain or lose body parts, they keep the genes, called controller genes, that give them these body parts or traits - the genes are just turned off. These genes can be turned off or on as needed from generation to generation. Microevolution is just the process at which macroevolution happens.

Or maybe we just haven't found the fossils yet? The fossil record isn't complete yet, so no need to jump to conclusions like that.

I haven't found all my marbles yet, so a giant marble-eating dragon named Reginald must've crushed and eaten them.

if you ask me, neither.

Erp, about the controller genes, they won't be exactly the same, just similar. And when they're turned off an d on, it's usually a genetic deformity and not an evolutionary thing. Whoops, lol.

But still, species can be significantly mutated by their old controller genes rather quickly. Such changed animals don't usually survive for long, ex. a chicken genetically edited to have teeth probably won't live in enough to develop teeth, only to start doing so.

Yeah, most mutations are harmful for organisms. Take fruit flies. Sometimes their genes are mutated and gain an extra set of wings. This basically makes it hard for the too fly, and the other fruit flies refuse to mate with it. Obviously not a good mutation that would get kept by natural selection. Mutations have a very low chance of actually being beneficial. :/

What were these genetic traits? Unless they are major traits that completely change the entire species, I think that would be more of an example of micro-evolution, which happens MUCH faster than macro-evolution.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Nylonase was using existing traits. Genes hold so many traits, that it's very plausible. The trait could've been recessive, so via natural selection all the other bacteria die and only the nylon eating bacteria are left to reproduce.

It will obviously be easier for single celled organisms to evolve new traits/adapt, as they only have to deal with one cell. Multicelled organisms take much longer, as they usually can't reproduce as fast and have many more cells to deal with. The Cambrian Era species are multicellular, and there is a huge variety, so it is not adaptation, therefore, it means that during the Cambrian Era, there was either an enzyme in the air that sped up evolution, all these new organisms randomly appeared, or something created them.

1) Refer to my above sentences.
2) We have no other evidence/fossils to show that these Cambrian species evolved at all, so something must have made them be.

Yes, but microevolution still isn't macroevolution, and micro does happen much quicker, and it's usually not as radical as macro. Example, reptiles gaining feathers and wings (macro) or the finches in the Galapagos changing beak size (micro).

In the video, Icons of Evolution (the same video where I got the info on Cambrian Explosion and stuff), they addressed the lack of the fossils. The scientists found perfect conditions for fossils to be preserved, and it was relatively close geologically speaking (only one or two eras away). They didn't find any transitional fossils there. So we'll either be looking for a very, very, very long time until we find these fossils, or there aren't any.

The finches on Galapagos being dozens of different species each with different beak sizes is macroevolution.

The very easily- and quickly-observed variance in beak size from one generation to another in each species because of change in rain totals (effects amount of different sizes of seeds) is microevolution.

Micro or macro is a matter of scale -- how many individuals are changed, usually defined by whether it causes a long-term change in the gene population.

A drastic change in the environment such as an increase in oxygen and having a number of new ecological niches to fill can result in such rapid changes. So some life could have gone through a significant evolutionary step (for example before the Cambrian explosion we see the development of trploblasty instead of just diploblasty in germ layers during development.) influenced by this changing environment resulting in it etching out a new ecological niche for itself. This caused an even further push for changes to occur in other life.