Evolution: mutational clocks don't fit Darwin theory (Evolution)

by David Turell , Wednesday, April 27, 2022, 19:58 (939 days ago) @ David Turell
edited by David Turell, Wednesday, April 27, 2022, 20:09

Gunter Bechly returns:

https://evolutionnews.org/2022/04/species-pairs-a-new-challenge-to-darwinists/

"... the fossil record demonstrates that the history of life was not a series of gradual transformations by an accumulation of small changes over long periods of time. Instead, the fossil record consistently documents a series of saltational transitions with abrupt appearances of new body plans within very short windows of time. This implies a fatal problem for Darwinism called the waiting time problem, because population genetic calculations and simulations show that the windows of time established by the fossil record are orders of magnitude too short to accommodate the required genetic changes for these body plan transformations.

"Some examples of abrupt body plan transitions are the origin of photosynthesis; the origin of eukaryotes; the origin of the Ediacaran biota (Avalon Explosion) and Cambrian animal phyla (Cambrian Explosion) such as the origin of trilobites from worm-like ancestors in less than 13 million years; the origin of efficient eyes in arthropods, cephalopods, and vertebrates; the terrestrialization of plants (embryophytes), arthropods (tracheae), and vertebrates (tetrapod limbs); the origin of wings in insects, pterosaurs, bats, and birds (including the origin of pennaceous feathers from filamentous precursors); the origin of secondarily marine vertebrates such as ichthyosaurs, mosasaurs, manatees, and whales; the origin of echolocation in bats and whales; the origin of complex new reproductive systems (angiosperm flowers, dragonfly secondary copulatory apparatus, holometabolic insect metamorphosis, amniote egg, and eutherian placenta); the origin of distinct new body plans in vertebrates (e.g., snakes, turtles, bats, and whales); and even the origin of our own genus Homo and of a globular braincase correlated with the “Creative Explosion” of symbolic thinking within Homo sapiens.

***

"The fossil record shows that the transition from quadrupedal whale ancestors similar to Raoellidae and Pakicetidae to fully marine pelagicete whales like Basilosauridae happened in just 4.5 million years. This implies that the body plan transition from a pig-like animal to a dolphin-like animal happened within the lifespan of a single species. Of course, this does not exclude the possibility of several successive speciation events within this time period, but it is still a fact that illustrates the biological abruptness of this major anatomical re-engineering.

"Finally, there is also another related problem that has been hitherto largely overlooked: The morphological similarity of modern species pairs, which have diverged in a similar time frame, poses a severe problem. That is because it implies that the macroevolutionary processes that allegedly were at work and common during all periods of Earth history and in all groups of organisms, apparently were totally absent in the origins of all of the millions of living species.

David: after many species comparisons Bechly notes: "Finally, what about great apes and humans. Chimp (Pan paniscus) and gorilla (Gorilla gorilla) diverged according to TimeTree 9.06 million years ago and humans (Homo sapiens) from chimps 6.7 million years, which agrees with the hominin fossil record. There are two possibilities: Either you follow those scientists who consider the biological difference between humans and chimps as marginal. Then this example would just confirm the pattern described above. Or, you consider humans as very different from chimps, based on their different bipedal locomotion and especially their mental capacity and cultural achievements. In the latter case humans would represent the only exception to the pattern that I could find, which would be a remarkable confirmation of Judeo-Christian human exceptionalism." (my bold)

***

"Considering the fact that windows of time of only 5-10 million years account for most of the abrupt appearances of new body plans in the fossil record, the Bayesian likelihood of not finding a single example of similar morphological disparity having originated on a similar time frame among the millions of living species is basically close to zero. I consider this simple argument as a final nail in the coffin of Darwinian unguided evolution.

***

"There is no evolutionary reason why the creative power of this process should have been active over all of Earth history but then ceased to function within the past 10 million years. Intelligent design proponents can easily explain this pattern: there was creative intelligent intervention in the history of life, but this creative activity deliberately ceased with the arrival of humans as the final telos. Any further explanation would have to transgress the methodological limits of the design inference, but Judeo-Christian theists will certainly recognize an eerie correspondence with the Biblical message, which says that God rested from his creative activity after the creation of humans (Genesis 2:2-3)".

Comment: An extremely long article, condensed severely. But it answers dhw worries about the Cambrian gap indicating God can directly create when He wishes. That is exactly what God does, hop, skip, and jump through His form of evolution. Nothing like Darwin. Bechly is a highly trained paleontologist/ geneticist who contrary to the rule accepts God's actions. My views of God simply echo folks like Bechly.