Cambrian Explosion Crisis Worsens

If evolutionary ancestors of complex animals had existed,
they would have been preserved. They weren’t there.

 

 

In 2009, Illustra Media released its documentary film, Darwin’s Dilemma. Ten years ago, intelligent design spokesman Dr Stephen Meyer wrote about it in his New York Times bestseller, Darwin’s Doubt (2013). Two years after that, the Discovery Institute answered objections to Meyer’s view in a follow-up book, Debating Darwin’s Doubt (2015).

What was this doubt and dilemma? The Cambrian Explosion.

Darwin wrote in The Origin of Species,

[W]hy we do not find rich fossiliferous deposits belonging to these assumed earliest periods before the Cambrian system, I can give no satisfactory answer. The case at present must remain inexplicable; and may be truly urged as a valid argument against the views here entertained.

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! It’s like magic:

We know that the Precambrian did have life. However, the Cambrian explosion was a staggering, unparalleled period of evolution — a pace Darwin’s theory of evolution does not explain well on its own. 

Geologists have helped fill in this gap, providing evidence that large tectonic shifts turned an oxygen-limited world into an incubator of life. Released from the constraints of oxygen limitation, life diversified quickly. New genes would be subject to Darwin’s natural selection, either becoming more prevalent or fading out of existence.

The New “Study”

Some evolutionists had postulated that conditions were not right for fossilization of the animal ancestors. They were soft-bodied, and left no trace. For support, they say that “molecular clock” dating methods push the evolution of animals some two hundred million years earlier than the Cambrian explosion, so they must have been there. That claim fails on two counts: (1) Molecular clock dating is based on evolutionary assumptions of how fast genomes change, so it is circular reasoning. (2) Paleontologists have identified delicate sponge embryos and well-preserved soft-bodied Ediacaran creatures in the Precambrian, proving that conditions were adequate for preserving ancestral forms, had they existed. The books and video addressed that claim.

Now, a comprehensive look at taphonomic (fossil-creating) conditions in Precambrian strata puts the squeeze on these excuses even more.

New study sheds light on the evolution of animals (Phys.org, 27 June 2023). Propagandists at Oxford have mastered the art of turning one of Darwin’s biggest weaknesses into a strength. The Cambrian Explosion—the sudden appearance of some ~20 animal body plans with complex systems at the base of the Cambrian strata—worried Darwin tremendously. He had no answers, and his disciples have no answers to this day despite 160 years of continuing fossil searches.

In this deepening darkness, behold! Oxford sheds light! They did a new study! Will this be the cure for Darwin’s lifelong stomach aches?

A study led by the University of Oxford has brought us one step closer to solving a mystery that has puzzled naturalists since Charles Darwin: when did animals first appear in the history of Earth? The study, “Fossilization processes and our reading of animal antiquity,” has been published in Trends in Ecology & Evolution.

Behold the art of spin doctoring by these Oxford spinmeisters. The first trick is to put “explosion” in scare quotes to suggest it’s really not that serious. See also how they call evolutionists “naturalists” and “scientists” to suggest that every naturalist and scientist in the world accepts Darwinism. Then they hide the explosive appearance of animals in gentle phrases like appear or occur, and say they evolved. Another trick is to create a crisis: admit a problem, then offer hope of a solution that will “shed light” on evolution.

Animals first occur in the fossil record around 574 million years ago. Their arrival appears as a sudden “explosion” in rocks from the Cambrian period (539 million years ago to 485 million years ago) and seems to counter the typically gradual pace of evolutionary change. Many scientists (including Darwin himself) believe that the first animals actually evolved long before the Cambrian period, but they cannot explain why they are missing from the fossil record.

The press release turns up the heat on the crisis: “But although rocks from the early Neoproterozoic contain fossil microorganisms, such as bacteria and protists, no animal fossils have been found.” What to do? Do a study.

To investigate this, a team of researchers led by Dr. Ross Anderson from the University of Oxford’s Department of Earth Sciences have carried out the most thorough assessment to date of the preservation conditions that would be expected to capture the earliest animal fossils.

Their answer: Precambrian rocks lacked the conditions to capture the evolving ancestors of the animals that were preserved in the Burgess Shale and other Cambrian Explosion exposures. Use an acronym to sound scientific: they didn’t have BST (Burgess-Shale-Type) conditions. Except: (oh no, another crisis): there actually were three Precambrian locations that did have BST conditions, and no animals were found there.

This can only mean one thing: The animals had not evolved yet! They explain in the paper:

Burgess Shale-type conditions are rarely associated with Neoproterozoic fossil biotas, but in the few assemblages with these conditions, dated to 789 million years ago or older, no animals have been identified, suggesting they had not evolved by this time.

The molecular clock estimates that animals began evolving earlier must be wrong, that’s all. If the animals had evolved in the Precambrian, they would have showed up. Keep that funding coming, and more “understanding” will arrive in futureware some day.

The antiquity of animals remains one of the most fundamental yet elusive questions in biology. Although the fossil record and molecular clocks often yield conflicting estimates for the origin of animals, a clearer understanding of fossilisation conditions (see Outstanding questions), particularly of BST preservation, may hold the key to reconciling these disparate data. Integration of soft maximum bounds constrained by taphonomic data into molecular clocks offers the prospect of a more robust chronology for early animal evolution.

And so the lack of evidence actually supports Darwin! Isn’t this great?

Pay attention, peasants! These are scientists. These are naturalists. They do studies. They go out into the field and do the work of science, unlike those rascally creationists who just say “God dunnit.” Now we know that animals evolved, even if they didn’t show up on our schedule in the fossil record! The animals occurred, appeared, and evolved, but we do NOT believe in miracles!