New Oxygen research; abundance and Cambrian (Introduction)

by dhw, Tuesday, May 07, 2019, 09:37 (2027 days ago) @ David Turell

QUOTES with David’s bolds: "The study, published today in Nature Geoscience by scientists from the UK, China and Russia, gives strong support to the theory that oxygen content in the atmosphere was a major controlling factor in animal evolution.

"The study is the first to show that during the Cambrian explosion there was significant correlation between surges in oxygen levels and bursts in animal evolution and biodiversity, as well as extinction events during periods of low oxygen."

"… we can clearly see that evolutionary radiations follow a pattern of 'boom and bust' in tandem with the oxygen levels".

"'This strongly suggests oxygen played a vital role in the emergence of early animal life."
Study co-author Professor Graham Shields from UCL Earth Sciences, said: "This is the first study to show clearly that our earliest animal ancestors experienced a series of evolutionary radiations and bottlenecks caused by extreme changes in atmospheric oxygen levels.

"….giving us new insight into how oxygen shaped the life we have on the planet today."[/b]

DAVID: The oxygen levels were very important factors in allowing the diversification of new forms, but there is an underlying evolutionary driving mechanism which is the real cause of the new animals. Note my bolds about oxygen which tends to blur this point. The final bold above makes the point of how sloppy the authors have been in describing the role of oxygen. Oxygen allows the newly designed form to appear, but does not initiate anything. Again, a Darwinism slant in the reporting.

Of course there is an underlying mechanism, but that does not contradict the author’s emphasis on the importance of the environment. You could not have a clearer example of the way in which many of us believe evolution works: as the environment changes, organisms may need to change their structures in order to survive (= adaptation), or they may exploit the new conditions to invent new structures (innovation). According to your theory, your God must have preprogrammed or dabbled the increase in oxygen, and provided the first living cells with a programme for every single undabbled innovation made possible by it. My theistic proposal is that he provided the first living cells with an autonomous intelligence enabling some (but not all) their descendants to cope with or exploit the new conditions. Neither proposal is contradicted by the article itself, with the possible exception of the word "caused" in the last quote. Perhaps "triggered" would be better, unless you wish to tell us that your God preprogrammed/dabbled the new species BEFORE the increase in oxygen - as you think he turned whale legs into flippers BEFORE pre-whales entered the water.