Sticking a fork in Natural Selection (Introduction)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Wednesday, December 07, 2011, 03:18 (4736 days ago) @ David Turell

The problem here is that whenever you bring this up... please define a sudden jump, and then explain how the "snapshot" observation of the fossil record is false... because to me, Evolution has always been something that could speed up and slow down based on need, so I don't see where the Cambrian Explosion really, fully, argues against the traditional view of evolution.

Gould himself, to paraphrase, noted the jumps as a dark paleontologic secrets. The Cambrian is a huge jump. These animals have organ systems and eyes. Legs, very complete nervous systems. There is nothing before this that comes close. There is no gradual approach to the Cambrian. It comes out of nowhere and everything present now is based on it and on the later plant bloom. It is gradual from then on.

But you still dodge the question. There's plenty of good reasons that we lack transitions from pre-cambrian to cambrian. The snapshot view of the fossil record *underlines* this. What right do we have to expect that the fossil record will conform to our expecations?

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"