Defusing Cambrian Explosion Excuses, Part 1

As discussed previously, the Cambrian Explosion is classified by secular scientists as happening over 10-25 million Darwin years. Animals with very different body plans are found, but there is no evidence of precursors. This has been a problem all the way back to Darwin, and evolutionists have been attempting to solve it ever since.

There has been a great deal of recent news and noise by secularists presenting rescuing devices only to have them wither in the cold light of reason. Yes, some evolutionists want to cut through fake science. We have five articles, three today and two tomorrow, to consider.

Diorama of the Burgess Shale Biota, Flickr / James St. John (CC BY 2.0)

Creationists know that the Cambrian Explosion is best explained by the Genesis Flood, but secularists reject that out of hand. Gotta have that naturalistic philosophy intact, you betcha! So we watch as evolutionists work on plans and others shoot them down.

One was a speculation that the sudden increase in diversity was related to more oxygen in the atmosphere. Ancient rock samples revealed that this was the opposite of the truth (using their paradigm, of course). Textbooks need to be rewritten. Again. Another rescue was to play fast and loose with the duration of the Cambrian Explosion, and the whole explosion worked faster than they previously thought. Mayhaps those critters in the Edicaran were needed transitional forms. The second rescuing device seems more ad hoc than anything else.

Swordfighting is easier when your opponent stabs himself. Gunfights are easier when your opponent shoots himself in the foot – figuratively speaking, of course: we are not advocating violence. Some heated debates among gentlemen about the Cambrian Explosion, though, have crossed figurative swords ever since Darwin. Now, pro-evolution scientists have cut off two major rescue devices for saving Darwinism from the evidence of the fossil record, which is a bit like watching them commit self-inflicted wounds.

To read the rest of our first installment, see "Evolutionists Exacerbate the Cambrian Explosion." Be sure to come back for the second part!

Although there are gaps in the fossil record and the Cambrian was a special area of concern, Darwin and his disciples continued to believe in evolution despite lack of evidence, and in hopes that what was needed would be found. Sounds like a crackpot religion, not empirical science.

One group arrogantly claimed that scientists had solved the problem. (Naturally, true believers took them at their word. In fact, animals evolved quickly. Could it be magic? Well, the magic of circular reasoning, sure. But the group's claims did not do well when fossil-forming conditions were examined. What to do? A new study! Secularists love getting and spending tax grotzits on Darwin's dream. Also, there was the requisite incomplete science: Precambrian rocks lacked certain conditions, except for those other areas that had no animals. They evolved, but nobody found them. Off they went to burn incense and light prayer candles to Darwin.

Darwin hoped that additional fossil discoveries would fill in the gaps. They have not. We have millions of fossils now and the explosion remains, even for those who accept the consensus Darwinian timeline of millions of years (which Biblical creationists reject). Evolutionists have had more than a decade to answer it since Illustra’s film and Meyer’s book challenged Darwinism and made the case for intelligent design.

Last year, Big Think made the audacious claim that Darwin’s dilemma has been solved by “scientists across a range of disciplines” (6 April 2022). Careful reading, though, shows no such solution. Under the bluffing assertion that “There is no question that Darwin was right about evolution and natural selection,” the article gives its solution: animals evolved, and with help from geology, they evolved faster than Darwin could have imagined!

This can be read in its entirety at "Cambrian Explosion Crisis Worsens." Remember to come back for our final part for today!

Sea squirts, Flickr / Bernard DuPont (CC BY-SA 2.0)

If someone demands your chordate, give him your tunica as well.

Chordates are thought to have advanced body plans and are assumed to be the ancestors of organisms with backbones. That's us, too. A tunicate is considered a chordate, and one of these, a sea squirt, is making things worse for Darwin. It is dated smack in the middle of the Cambrian Explosion, and it is a living fossil: Indistinguishable from those living today. Where's the evolution, old son?

A second fossil chordate has been found estimated to be 500 million Darwin years old, adding to one even earlier. The new fossil known as a tunicate is exquisitely well preserved, even with soft tissue impressions. It looks just like modern ones alive today! This implies that any evolutionary ancestors it might have had were far earlier, close to the main pulse of the Cambrian explosion. These discoveries are squeezing Darwin from both ends, putting more bang on the main pulse of the explosion thought to be around 540 to 530 million years ago, possibly half that. In that geological blink of an eye, some 18 unique phyla—animal body plans—appeared without ancestors in the Precambrian fossil record.

You can read it all at "Early Chordate Squeezes Darwin." Aaaaand we're done — until the conclusion.