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The roots of the Cambrian explosion

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Peter Nyikos

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Feb 13, 2015, 3:30:56 PM2/13/15
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When I speak of the "roots" of the Cambrian explosion, I mean
the times when metazoans began to diversify into the ca. 23 phyla that
were present at the end of the Lower Cambrian.

I say "times" because the beginnings had several phases, especially
the phases where bilaterians (all animals except sponges, cnidarans,
and ctenophores) split off from the others, where protostomes and
deuterostomes parted company, and when the protostomes split off
into two big branches. Morphologists and molecularists disagree
on which phyla go into which branch, although the molecularist
division is definitely more popular.

A different kind of division will concern me here: the disparity
between the fossil evidence and the estimates using "molecular
clocks". The latter are very different from the molecular methods used
for the phylogenetic divisions I talk about above, and "molecular
clocks" are still at an early stage of development.

The disparity is stark: Erwin and Peterson recently put the
protostome-deuterostome split at ca. 670 million years ago (mya)
while the earliest bilaterian fossils of any sort are widely
believed to date back to only 110 years later -- 560mya.

Moreover, the ONLY known Pre-Cambrian genus most specialists
strongly believe to be bilaterian is *Kimberella*, whose
relatively abundant fossils appear at two places very far
apart: the Ediacara Hills and the White Sea area. They are
far apart now, and they were about as far apart back then,
even though the placement and identity of the continents
was radically different.

Why just ONE genus for 15-20 million years before the next
generally acknowledged bilaterian genus? [I'll have more
to say about *Kimberella* in my next post.]

And why do we have NO bilaterian fossils at all in those
preceding 110 million years?

We now have abundant fossils of other kinds from several
locations between 570 and 550 mya: the Avalon Peninsula,
especially Mistaken Point; Doushantuo; the Ediacara Hills;
the White Sea; and Charnwood Forest.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina
http://www.math.sc.edu/~nyikos/

John Harshman

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Feb 13, 2015, 3:55:56 PM2/13/15
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Well, for one thing, there are various other candidates but they don't
display any clear diagnostic characters. This could be because the
organisms didn't have those characters or it could be that the state of
preservation just isn't good enough to discern them.

> And why do we have NO bilaterian fossils at all in those
> preceding 110 million years?

It's possible there's a taphonomic explanation, and the right conditions
for preservation just weren't there. It's possible that bilaterian
diversity was very low for quite some time after the various splits you
mention. It's possible that bilaterians were for some time restricted in
geographic location and/or habitat. And it's possible that the molecular
date is too high.

If forced to guess, I would guess some combination of all these, but
weighted toward the last one.

Do you have an additional hypothesis?

Peter Nyikos

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Feb 13, 2015, 6:20:56 PM2/13/15
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On Friday, February 13, 2015 at 3:55:56 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
> On 2/13/15, 12:30 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:

> > A different kind of division will concern me here: the disparity
> > between the fossil evidence and the estimates using "molecular
> > clocks". The latter are very different from the molecular methods used
> > for the phylogenetic divisions I talk about above, and "molecular
> > clocks" are still at an early stage of development.
> >
> > The disparity is stark: Erwin and Peterson recently put the
> > protostome-deuterostome split at ca. 670 million years ago (mya)
> > while the earliest bilaterian fossils of any sort are widely
> > believed to date back to only 110 years later -- 560mya.
> >
> > Moreover, the ONLY known Pre-Cambrian genus most specialists
> > strongly believe to be bilaterian is *Kimberella*, whose
> > relatively abundant fossils appear at two places very far
> > apart: the Ediacara Hills and the White Sea area. They are
> > far apart now, and they were about as far apart back then,
> > even though the placement and identity of the continents
> > was radically different.

See the following map for 550mya, with Ediacara Hills near the very
top and the White Sea region near the bottom:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pannotia#mediaviewer/File:Positions_of_ancient_continents,_550_million_years_ago.jpg


> > Why just ONE genus for 15-20 million years before the next
> > generally acknowledged bilaterian genus? [I'll have more
> > to say about *Kimberella* in my next post.]
>
> Well, for one thing, there are various other candidates but they don't
> display any clear diagnostic characters.

The ones I've seen mentioned (Wikipedia, IIRC, but I don't know
which entry) are Spriggina and Parvacorina. But the former seems
to have "glide symmetry" as in many Vendobiotans, and the latter
has so few details that it might even be an impression of something
like the holdfast of the Vendobiotan Charnodiscus. Contrast the
detail of Parvacorina with that of Tribrachidium in the following
set of pictures:

http://www.abc.net.au/science/photos/2014/10/22/4109389.htm?xml=4109389.mediarss.xml#bigpicturepos

Note also the way the segments of Spriggina are staggered on
the left and right sides, especially near the tail, unlike in
true bilateral symmentry.

Did you have any other candidates in mind?

> This could be because the
> organisms didn't have those characters or it could be that the state of
> preservation just isn't good enough to discern them.
>
> > And why do we have NO bilaterian fossils at all in those
> > preceding 110 million years?
>
> It's possible there's a taphonomic explanation, and the right conditions
> for preservation just weren't there.

All kinds of things are *possible.* What's plausible in the teeth of the
numerous other fossils in the sites I name below?

> It's possible that bilaterian
> diversity was very low for quite some time after the various splits you
> mention.

It didn't have to be high for there to be even one genus besides
*Kimberella* and one, period, before 560mya.

> It's possible that bilaterians were for some time restricted in
> geographic location and/or habitat. And it's possible that the molecular
> date is too high.
>
> If forced to guess, I would guess some combination of all these, but
> weighted toward the last one.
>
> Do you have an additional hypothesis?

Mine is that Kimberella is, at best, a stem bilaterian and is therefore
useless for locating the roots of the main part of the Cambrian
explosion. The three non-bilaterian phyla are strictly a sideshow.

I know the majority opinion at the present time is that
Kimberella is a mollusk [also spelled "mollusc"] but that
seems to be a bone of contention among the Russians, who have
some of the best specimens from the White Sea area. Take these
excerpts from the Wikipedia entry:

"Notably, the scratch marks indicate that the 'teeth' were dragged towards
the organism, not pushed away as in molluscs, and that the maximum impact
on the sediment was when the mouthpart was furthest from the organism.[15]
The direction of grazing is also backwards, as opposed to forwards as in molluscs.[15]
Furthermore, the constant width of grooves implies stereoglossy
- a trait that is very derived in molluscs.[16]"

[15] Ivantsov, A. Y. (2013). "Trace fossils of precambrian metazoans
"Vendobionta" and "Mollusks". Stratigraphy and Geological
Correlation 21 (3): 252-264. doi:10.1134/S0869593813030039.
[16] Smith, M. R. (2012). "Mouthparts of the Burgess Shale fossils
Odontogriphus and Wiwaxia: Implications for the ancestral molluscan radula".
Proceedings of the Royal Society B 279 (1745): 4287-4295.
doi:10.1098/rspb.2012.1577. PMC 3441091


> > We now have abundant fossils of other kinds from several
> > locations between 570 and 550 mya: the Avalon Peninsula,
> > especially Mistaken Point; Doushantuo; the Ediacara Hills;
> > the White Sea; and Charnwood Forest.

And the Doushantuo fossils go back even further.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina
nyikos @ math.sc.edu

Peter Nyikos

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Feb 13, 2015, 6:50:55 PM2/13/15
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On Friday, February 13, 2015 at 6:20:56 PM UTC-5, Peter Nyikos wrote:

> The ones I've seen mentioned (Wikipedia, IIRC, but I don't know
> which entry) are Spriggina and Parvacorina. But the former seems
> to have "glide symmetry" as in many Vendobiotans, and the latter
> has so few details that it might even be an impression of something
> like the holdfast of the Vendobiotan Charnodiscus.

Careless repeated typo: that should be Vendobiontan[s].

Peter Nyikos

John Harshman

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Feb 13, 2015, 7:05:56 PM2/13/15
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Actually, the usual spelling is "vendobiont", no capital, no "an".

John Harshman

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Feb 13, 2015, 7:05:56 PM2/13/15
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Spelling flame: That's Parva*n*corina.

> Note also the way the segments of Spriggina are staggered on
> the left and right sides, especially near the tail, unlike in
> true bilateral symmentry.

That's the glide symmetry of which you speak. But it's been claimed that
that might have been a preservational artifact.

> Did you have any other candidates in mind?

Others mentioned are Dickinsonia, Tribrachidium, and Arkarua.

>> This could be because the
>> organisms didn't have those characters or it could be that the state of
>> preservation just isn't good enough to discern them.
>>
>>> And why do we have NO bilaterian fossils at all in those
>>> preceding 110 million years?
>>
>> It's possible there's a taphonomic explanation, and the right conditions
>> for preservation just weren't there.
>
> All kinds of things are *possible.* What's plausible in the teeth of the
> numerous other fossils in the sites I name below?

We've discussed this before. Different conditions will preferentially
preserve different sorts of things. We can't be sure that isn't relevant.

>> It's possible that bilaterian
>> diversity was very low for quite some time after the various splits you
>> mention.
>
> It didn't have to be high for there to be even one genus besides
> *Kimberella* and one, period, before 560mya.

You're assuming here that diversity is irrelevant to the probability of
sampling, which I think unlikely. Not all species are preserved. The
more species, the greater chance that one of them will be preserved.

>> It's possible that bilaterians were for some time restricted in
>> geographic location and/or habitat. And it's possible that the molecular
>> date is too high.
>>
>> If forced to guess, I would guess some combination of all these, but
>> weighted toward the last one.
>>
>> Do you have an additional hypothesis?
>
> Mine is that Kimberella is, at best, a stem bilaterian and is therefore
> useless for locating the roots of the main part of the Cambrian
> explosion. The three non-bilaterian phyla are strictly a sideshow.

Doesn't its possession of a radula make this idea unlikely? Ah, I see
below that you suspect that Kimberella's radula may not be homologous to
a mollusk radula.

But that isn't an explanation. It is, if anything, an increase in the
discrepancy. I was asking for a hypothesis that answers your own question.

> I know the majority opinion at the present time is that
> Kimberella is a mollusk [also spelled "mollusc"] but that
> seems to be a bone of contention among the Russians, who have
> some of the best specimens from the White Sea area. Take these
> excerpts from the Wikipedia entry:
>
> "Notably, the scratch marks indicate that the 'teeth' were dragged towards
> the organism, not pushed away as in molluscs, and that the maximum impact
> on the sediment was when the mouthpart was furthest from the organism.[15]
> The direction of grazing is also backwards, as opposed to forwards as in molluscs.[15]
> Furthermore, the constant width of grooves implies stereoglossy
> - a trait that is very derived in molluscs.[16]"
>
> [15] Ivantsov, A. Y. (2013). "Trace fossils of precambrian metazoans
> "Vendobionta" and "Mollusks". Stratigraphy and Geological
> Correlation 21 (3): 252-264. doi:10.1134/S0869593813030039.
> [16] Smith, M. R. (2012). "Mouthparts of the Burgess Shale fossils
> Odontogriphus and Wiwaxia: Implications for the ancestral molluscan radula".
> Proceedings of the Royal Society B 279 (1745): 4287-4295.
> doi:10.1098/rspb.2012.1577. PMC 3441091

Interesting. I hadn't seen that.

>>> We now have abundant fossils of other kinds from several
>>> locations between 570 and 550 mya: the Avalon Peninsula,
>>> especially Mistaken Point; Doushantuo; the Ediacara Hills;
>>> the White Sea; and Charnwood Forest.
>
> And the Doushantuo fossils go back even further.

Indeed they do. What is the import of that?

Peter Nyikos

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Feb 16, 2015, 11:35:48 AM2/16/15
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I like the hypothesis that Dickinsonia is related to the Erniettomorphs,
which in turn are hypothesised to be vendobionts related to
Rangeomorphs:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erniettomorph

Does anyone take the hypothesis that Dickinsonia displayed
true segmentation, or that it was an annelid, seriously these days?

Tribrachidium? can you think of a single bilaterian displaying
threefold symmetry? I can't.

Now, Arkarua has pentagonal symmetry, which led some to claim
that it is an echinoderm, but those five "arms" were depressions
rather than raised, as in edrioasteroids. Also, it was tiny--
no more than one centimeter in diameter.

If a layman unacquainted with the following animals were to be
shown not-too-detailed pictures of a boll weevil with its
wings shut, a long-nosed echidna with its mouth shut,
and kiwi with its beak shut, he might think the only major
difference between them was the number of legs.

And if he knew of the early history of specimens of
Birds of Paradise brought to Europe, he might even wonder
whether some amputations had taken place.


> >> This could be because the
> >> organisms didn't have those characters or it could be that the state of
> >> preservation just isn't good enough to discern them.
> >>
> >>> And why do we have NO bilaterian fossils at all in those
> >>> preceding 110 million years?
> >>
> >> It's possible there's a taphonomic explanation, and the right conditions
> >> for preservation just weren't there.
> >
> > All kinds of things are *possible.* What's plausible in the teeth of the
> > numerous other fossils in the sites I name below?
>
> We've discussed this before.

IIRC your only substantive contributions to that discussion were that the
sandstone/quartzite of the Ediacara Hills was too coarse-grained to
preserve minute detail; and that the book on the Cambrian explosion
by Ervin and Valentine was essentially useless to account for the
differences in preservation, if any. They don't even mention Mistaken
Point, do they?

> Different conditions will preferentially
> preserve different sorts of things. We can't be sure that isn't relevant.

Generalities like this are of no real help. The former t.o. regular
PZ Myers did find something helpful in the literature about the
gray facies of Doushantuo. He reported in "Pharyngula" that someone
had done experiments on sea urchin embryos suggesting that the
minerals in the gray facies might have preserved embryos, but little
else; the embryos had a protective membrane which was shed in the
more mature specimens.

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/04/03/taphonomy-of-fossilized-embryo/

However, Meyer speaks in _Darwin's Doubt_ only about sponge embryos
and goes into detail about how the Chinese researchers were able
to identify them as such. So it isn't clear how definitive this
experiment was.

Besides, the argument only applies to the gray facies. The black
facies have quite a variety of fossils intact. And there are
a number of other places still to be accounted for:

<snip of things to be dealt with in separate reply>

> >>> We now have abundant fossils of other kinds from several
> >>> locations between 570 and 550 mya: the Avalon Peninsula,
> >>> especially Mistaken Point; Doushantuo; the Ediacara Hills;
> >>> the White Sea; and Charnwood Forest.

You can add Namibia and Oman to the list of places where fossils of
bilateria other than Kimberella might be found, but have not:

http://www.fossilmuseum.net/Fossil_Sites/namagroup.htm

> > And the Doushantuo fossils go back even further.
>
> Indeed they do. What is the import of that?

Obviously, more time for a variety of organisms to be fossilized.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos/
nyikos @ math.sc.edu

John Harshman

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Feb 16, 2015, 11:50:47 AM2/16/15
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The main point is that these fossils are poorly enough preserved that
it's hard to tell what they are. I don't propose that any of them is
bilaterian.
The sponge interpretation has been challenged quite a bit, if I recall.
At any rate, the point is that conditions may preferentially preserve
some taxa or life stages, and that the absence of other taxa or life
stages in the record may not correspond to their absence in the biota.

> Besides, the argument only applies to the gray facies. The black
> facies have quite a variety of fossils intact. And there are
> a number of other places still to be accounted for:

The black facies have different fossils than the gray ones. Which makes
my point for me.

A colon implies that something will come after it. Are you talking about
Namibia and Oman?

> <snip of things to be dealt with in separate reply>
>
>>>>> We now have abundant fossils of other kinds from several
>>>>> locations between 570 and 550 mya: the Avalon Peninsula,
>>>>> especially Mistaken Point; Doushantuo; the Ediacara Hills;
>>>>> the White Sea; and Charnwood Forest.
>
> You can add Namibia and Oman to the list of places where fossils of
> bilateria other than Kimberella might be found, but have not:
>
> http://www.fossilmuseum.net/Fossil_Sites/namagroup.htm

Why would you say they might be found? Your link mentions only
Namacalathus and Cloudina, both mineralized skeletons.

>>> And the Doushantuo fossils go back even further.
>>
>> Indeed they do. What is the import of that?
>
> Obviously, more time for a variety of organisms to be fossilized.

What conclusions are you drawing here?

John Harshman

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Feb 16, 2015, 12:15:47 PM2/16/15
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On 2/16/15, 8:31 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:

> IIRC your only substantive contributions to that discussion were that the
> sandstone/quartzite of the Ediacara Hills was too coarse-grained to
> preserve minute detail; and that the book on the Cambrian explosion
> by Ervin and Valentine was essentially useless to account for the
> differences in preservation, if any. They don't even mention Mistaken
> Point, do they?

Forgot to answer this. First, it's Erwin. Second, yes they do, but not
in as much detail as you would like. If you ever actually look at the
book (and why haven't you?), don't just look up "Mistaken Point".
Sometimes they talk about "Newfoundland" and "Avalon" instead. And it's
all folded into discussion of the Ediacaran fauna. You might like to
look on page 126, which is specifically about preservation. Mostly, you
might like to actually look at the book rather than relying on me as
your conduit.

I ask again, why would anyone interested in the Cambrian explosion fail
to make any use of the most comprehensive single source?

Peter Nyikos

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Feb 16, 2015, 12:40:47 PM2/16/15
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On Friday, February 13, 2015 at 7:05:56 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
> On 2/13/15, 3:19 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > On Friday, February 13, 2015 at 3:55:56 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:

Picking up on material deleted in my earlier reply:

> >> It's possible that bilaterian
> >> diversity was very low for quite some time after the various splits you
> >> mention.
> >
> > It didn't have to be high for there to be even one genus besides
> > *Kimberella* and one, period, before 560mya.
>
> You're assuming here that diversity is irrelevant to the probability of
> sampling,

Au contraire. Read what I wrote again.

> which I think unlikely. Not all species are preserved. The
> more species, the greater chance that one of them will be preserved.

Belaboring the obvious like this is not productive. Let's get down
to brass tacks. If *Kimberella* is a mollusc -- and that's a BIG "If"
despite the conventional wisdom thatit is one --
and we go along with the conventional wisdom that molecular
classification trumps morphological ...

...then we would expect there to be, at very least, the
following types of bilaterians sharing the environment
with Kimberella:

1. a deuterostome
2. something in the total group of chaetognaths
3. an ecdysozoan
4-(?). non-mollusk[s] in the lophotrochozoan clade

As to that (?): looking at the phylogenetic tree in Wikipedia,
I'd expect at least five different lophotrochozoans sharing the
waters with *Kimberella* if it were a mollusc:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lophotrochozoa

It can get even worse if you combine this tree with those of extinct
fossil clades. Look at the top right and bottom left trees in:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debate_about_Cambrian_lophotrochozoans

Interestingly enough, none of the trees suggests that Kimberella
was a mollusc, nor even the sister taxon of Mollusca. But they
all endorse its lophotrochozoan status, for reasons unknown to me.
All but the first [which doesn't mention it] and the last put
it in the stem group of molluscs.

In response to a natural question: I lack detailed information
on the various trees formed if one goes with morphological
classifications, which put the big split in Protostomata
between eucoelomates and pseudocoelomates.

> >> It's possible that bilaterians were for some time restricted in
> >> geographic location and/or habitat. And it's possible that the molecular
> >> date is too high.
> >>
> >> If forced to guess, I would guess some combination of all these, but
> >> weighted toward the last one.
> >>
> >> Do you have an additional hypothesis?
> >
> > Mine is that Kimberella is, at best, a stem bilaterian and is therefore
> > useless for locating the roots of the main part of the Cambrian
> > explosion. The three non-bilaterian phyla are strictly a sideshow.
>
> Doesn't its possession of a radula make this idea unlikely? Ah, I see
> below that you suspect that Kimberella's radula may not be homologous to
> a mollusk radula.

Indeed, and that's significant, see below.

> But that isn't an explanation. It is, if anything, an increase in the
> discrepancy. I was asking for a hypothesis that answers your own question.

I thought you were asking me to give a hypothesis in addition to the
ones you gave. Mine is that the fossil evidence is to be preferred.
The 670mya figure given in the paper below is just a median, the
error bars are huge, and the dates are too far in the past to give
much credence to molecular clocks.

Erwin, D. H., Laflamme, M., Tweedt, S. M., Sperling, E. A., Pisani, D.
and Peterson, K. J. 2011. The Cambrian conundrum: early divergence
and later ecological success in the early history of animals.
Science, 334, 1091-1097.


> > I know the majority opinion at the present time is that
> > Kimberella is a mollusk [also spelled "mollusc"] but that
> > seems to be a bone of contention among the Russians, who have
> > some of the best specimens from the White Sea area. Take these
> > excerpts from the Wikipedia entry:
> >
> > "Notably, the scratch marks indicate that the 'teeth' were dragged towards
> > the organism, not pushed away as in molluscs, and that the maximum impact
> > on the sediment was when the mouthpart was furthest from the organism.[15]
> > The direction of grazing is also backwards, as opposed to forwards as in molluscs.[15]
> > Furthermore, the constant width of grooves implies stereoglossy
> > - a trait that is very derived in molluscs.[16]"
> >
> > [15] Ivantsov, A. Y. (2013). "Trace fossils of precambrian metazoans
> > "Vendobionta" and "Mollusks". Stratigraphy and Geological
> > Correlation 21 (3): 252-264. doi:10.1134/S0869593813030039.
> > [16] Smith, M. R. (2012). "Mouthparts of the Burgess Shale fossils
> > Odontogriphus and Wiwaxia: Implications for the ancestral molluscan radula".
> > Proceedings of the Royal Society B 279 (1745): 4287-4295.
> > doi:10.1098/rspb.2012.1577. PMC 3441091
>
> Interesting. I hadn't seen that.

Has there been any direct evidence that Kimberella had a mouth? If not,
then the scratch marks on the microbial mats might have a fascinating
explanation.

About a decade ago I read a book on the Ediacaran biota, in which
the author advanced the hypothesis that the vendobionts got their
nutrition in symbiosis with bacteria, the way some animals at
deep sea vents do today. Perhaps Kimberella scratched up bacteria
from the mats to improve the number and variety of its symbiotic bacteria,
giving them ready access to all parts of its body surface.

The resulting advantage over other vendobionts might account for
Kimberella's success and worldwide (apparently) distribution.

I can't remember the title of the book, but it had a chapter
titled "The Garden of Ediacara." [That was an allusion to the Garden
of Eden, where all creatures were supposed to have lived in harmony.]

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Department of Math. -- standard disclaimer --
U. of South Carolina at Columbia
http://www.math.sc.edu/~nyikos/

erik simpson

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Feb 16, 2015, 12:45:47 PM2/16/15
to
Peter, if I may make a suggestion: your style of presentation makes it seem
that you're leading up to some large statement or conclusion by leaving a
trail of hints (such as the embarrassing lack of bilaterian fossils). But the
grand statement never arrives. I'm sure you're not about to conclude that there
was some creation event that simultaneously gave rise to a couple dozen phyla
about 542+ Mya, but it occasionally sounds like that's where you're headed.

What information DO you take away from the absence of recognizable
representatives of modern phyla in the ediacaran?

John Harshman

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Feb 16, 2015, 1:15:47 PM2/16/15
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On 2/16/15, 9:39 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Friday, February 13, 2015 at 7:05:56 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
>> On 2/13/15, 3:19 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>> On Friday, February 13, 2015 at 3:55:56 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
>
> Picking up on material deleted in my earlier reply:
>
>>>> It's possible that bilaterian
>>>> diversity was very low for quite some time after the various splits you
>>>> mention.
>>>
>>> It didn't have to be high for there to be even one genus besides
>>> *Kimberella* and one, period, before 560mya.
>>
>> You're assuming here that diversity is irrelevant to the probability of
>> sampling,
>
> Au contraire. Read what I wrote again.

Communication would be better served by you explaining yourself rather
than expecting me to have a revelation. Can we agree that the higher the
diversity, the greater the chance of at least one species being sampled,
and that the converse is also true? Now you're implicitly claiming that
the probability of sampling at least one species is high even if
diversity is low. What's your basis for that?

>> which I think unlikely. Not all species are preserved. The
>> more species, the greater chance that one of them will be preserved.
>
> Belaboring the obvious like this is not productive. Let's get down
> to brass tacks. If *Kimberella* is a mollusc -- and that's a BIG "If"
> despite the conventional wisdom thatit is one --
> and we go along with the conventional wisdom that molecular
> classification trumps morphological ...

I realize that you have to use some kind of tree to assemble your
hypothesis below. But I don't see why you even have to mention "the
conventional wisdom".

> ...then we would expect there to be, at very least, the
> following types of bilaterians sharing the environment
> with Kimberella:
>
> 1. a deuterostome
> 2. something in the total group of chaetognaths
> 3. an ecdysozoan
> 4-(?). non-mollusk[s] in the lophotrochozoan clade

Careful. We would not expect a deuterostome, necessarily, but something
at least in the deuterostome stem group. At any rate, that's only 3 to 7
species, worldwide.

> As to that (?): looking at the phylogenetic tree in Wikipedia,
> I'd expect at least five different lophotrochozoans sharing the
> waters with *Kimberella* if it were a mollusc:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lophotrochozoa

You assume that the geographic distributions would be shared too. I will
agree that there should be a few other lophotrochozoan taxa in the world
if Kimberella is a mollusk.

> It can get even worse if you combine this tree with those of extinct
> fossil clades. Look at the top right and bottom left trees in:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debate_about_Cambrian_lophotrochozoans
>
> Interestingly enough, none of the trees suggests that Kimberella
> was a mollusc, nor even the sister taxon of Mollusca. But they
> all endorse its lophotrochozoan status, for reasons unknown to me.
> All but the first [which doesn't mention it] and the last put
> it in the stem group of molluscs.
>
> In response to a natural question: I lack detailed information
> on the various trees formed if one goes with morphological
> classifications, which put the big split in Protostomata
> between eucoelomates and pseudocoelomates.

OK.

>>>> It's possible that bilaterians were for some time restricted in
>>>> geographic location and/or habitat. And it's possible that the molecular
>>>> date is too high.
>>>>
>>>> If forced to guess, I would guess some combination of all these, but
>>>> weighted toward the last one.
>>>>
>>>> Do you have an additional hypothesis?
>>>
>>> Mine is that Kimberella is, at best, a stem bilaterian and is therefore
>>> useless for locating the roots of the main part of the Cambrian
>>> explosion. The three non-bilaterian phyla are strictly a sideshow.
>>
>> Doesn't its possession of a radula make this idea unlikely? Ah, I see
>> below that you suspect that Kimberella's radula may not be homologous to
>> a mollusk radula.
>
> Indeed, and that's significant, see below.
>
>> But that isn't an explanation. It is, if anything, an increase in the
>> discrepancy. I was asking for a hypothesis that answers your own question.
>
> I thought you were asking me to give a hypothesis in addition to the
> ones you gave.

Yes, that too.

> Mine is that the fossil evidence is to be preferred.
> The 670mya figure given in the paper below is just a median, the
> error bars are huge, and the dates are too far in the past to give
> much credence to molecular clocks.
>
> Erwin, D. H., Laflamme, M., Tweedt, S. M., Sperling, E. A., Pisani, D.
> and Peterson, K. J. 2011. The Cambrian conundrum: early divergence
> and later ecological success in the early history of animals.
> Science, 334, 1091-1097.

I agree that the dating may be in error. But you should also be prepared
to accept that there are such things as ghost lineages.

>>> I know the majority opinion at the present time is that
>>> Kimberella is a mollusk [also spelled "mollusc"] but that
>>> seems to be a bone of contention among the Russians, who have
>>> some of the best specimens from the White Sea area. Take these
>>> excerpts from the Wikipedia entry:
>>>
>>> "Notably, the scratch marks indicate that the 'teeth' were dragged towards
>>> the organism, not pushed away as in molluscs, and that the maximum impact
>>> on the sediment was when the mouthpart was furthest from the organism.[15]
>>> The direction of grazing is also backwards, as opposed to forwards as in molluscs.[15]
>>> Furthermore, the constant width of grooves implies stereoglossy
>>> - a trait that is very derived in molluscs.[16]"
>>>
>>> [15] Ivantsov, A. Y. (2013). "Trace fossils of precambrian metazoans
>>> "Vendobionta" and "Mollusks". Stratigraphy and Geological
>>> Correlation 21 (3): 252-264. doi:10.1134/S0869593813030039.
>>> [16] Smith, M. R. (2012). "Mouthparts of the Burgess Shale fossils
>>> Odontogriphus and Wiwaxia: Implications for the ancestral molluscan radula".
>>> Proceedings of the Royal Society B 279 (1745): 4287-4295.
>>> doi:10.1098/rspb.2012.1577. PMC 3441091
>>
>> Interesting. I hadn't seen that.
>
> Has there been any direct evidence that Kimberella had a mouth? If not,
> then the scratch marks on the microbial mats might have a fascinating
> explanation.

I believe there is a ventral feature interpreted as a mouth, yes.

> About a decade ago I read a book on the Ediacaran biota, in which
> the author advanced the hypothesis that the vendobionts got their
> nutrition in symbiosis with bacteria, the way some animals at
> deep sea vents do today. Perhaps Kimberella scratched up bacteria
> from the mats to improve the number and variety of its symbiotic bacteria,
> giving them ready access to all parts of its body surface.

I will refrain from comment on this interesting hypothesis.

> The resulting advantage over other vendobionts might account for
> Kimberella's success and worldwide (apparently) distribution.
>
> I can't remember the title of the book, but it had a chapter
> titled "The Garden of Ediacara." [That was an allusion to the Garden
> of Eden, where all creatures were supposed to have lived in harmony.]

You may be thinking of McMenamin's book of that title.

Peter Nyikos

unread,
Feb 16, 2015, 2:50:48 PM2/16/15
to
<snip for focus>

> > > > Did you have any other candidates in mind?
> > >
> > > Others mentioned are Dickinsonia, Tribrachidium, and Arkarua.
> >
> > I like the hypothesis that Dickinsonia is related to the Erniettomorphs,
> > which in turn are hypothesised to be vendobionts related to
> > Rangeomorphs:
> >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erniettomorph
> >
> > Does anyone take the hypothesis that Dickinsonia displayed
> > true segmentation, or that it was an annelid, seriously these days?
> >
> > Tribrachidium? can you think of a single bilaterian displaying
> > threefold symmetry? I can't.
> >
> > Now, Arkarua has pentagonal symmetry, which led some to claim
> > that it is an echinoderm, but those five "arms" were depressions
> > rather than raised, as in edrioasteroids. Also, it was tiny--
> > no more than one centimeter in diameter.

<snip for focus>

> > > >>> And why do we have NO bilaterian fossils at all in those
> > > >>> preceding 110 million years?

<snip for focus>
<snip for focus>

> Peter, if I may make a suggestion: your style of presentation makes it seem
> that you're leading up to some large statement or conclusion by leaving a
> trail of hints (such as the embarrassing lack of bilaterian fossils).

That's an "artifact" of the nature of this newsgroup. In a straight
science group one might naturally infer that I am merely giving
various riddles in science that cry out for explanation. And they
would be right.

Nice to have you on board, by the way, Erik. I enjoyed the exchange we
had in s.b.p. two weeks ago about some trivia related to Kimberella.
If this thread gets boring I might recall it, to add a little color.

>But the grand statement never arrives.

It more or less did arrive in the post I did after the one
to which you are replying. I favor the fossil evidence over
the molecular clock estimates, and the fossil evidence suggests that the
bilaterian diversification began only after 565 mya and perhaps
only after the beginning of the Cambrian period, ca. 542 mya.

> I'm sure you're not about to conclude that there
> was some creation event that simultaneously
> gave rise to a couple dozen phyla
> about 542+ Mya,

Perish the thought. Even starting in the Cambrian, there was still
some 20 million years for the diversification to lead to all those
phyla that we see in the Chengjiang deposits -- which, by the way,
include a number of extinct phyla.

How many of the extinct Cambrian clades deserve phylum status is a good
question, with the late Stephen Jay Gould among the "splitters"
and lots of others among the "lumpers."

I wanted to first get the really big unknowns out of the way before
getting down to the details of what went on in the very early
Cambrian, but this seems as good a time as any to get started.

Big issue: how many lines leading to Chengjiang bilateria were there
in the first 10 my of the Cambrian? How many in the second 10my?

Specific question: how many different phyla within the crown group
Bilateria have had representatives identified among the "small shellies"
of the early Cambrian?


> but it occasionally sounds like that's where you're headed.
>
> What information DO you take away from the absence of recognizable
> representatives of modern phyla in the ediacaran?

Don't forget the sponges. Their fossils go a good way back. But
leaving them and cnidarans and ctenophores aside...

My inclination right now is to hypothesize the
protostome-deuterostome split right around the beginning of
the Cambrian, with Kimberella a stem bilaterian (although I
still entertain thoughts of it being a vendobiont). And that
would mark the lowest root of the Cambrian explosion.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina
people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
nyikos @math.sc.edu

Peter Nyikos

unread,
Feb 16, 2015, 3:30:48 PM2/16/15
to
On Monday, February 16, 2015 at 11:50:47 AM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
> On 2/16/15, 8:31 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > On Friday, February 13, 2015 at 7:05:56 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
> >> On 2/13/15, 3:19 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >>> On Friday, February 13, 2015 at 3:55:56 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
> >>>> On 2/13/15, 12:30 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:

Looks like we don't have any serious issues about what is
and what is not a bilaterian, leaving only Kimberella as
a very strong candidate for known Precambrian fossil bilaterian.

Now for a much bigger gap than ca. 560 -ca. 542:
FWIW. Your contribution to this taphonomy issue remains stalled at where
it was back in December.

> A colon implies that something will come after it. Are you talking about
> Namibia and Oman?

Not just them, but also the places that I mentioned before:

> >>>>> We now have abundant fossils of other kinds from several
> >>>>> locations between 570 and 550 mya: the Avalon Peninsula,
> >>>>> especially Mistaken Point; Doushantuo; the Ediacara Hills;
> >>>>> the White Sea; and Charnwood Forest.
> >
> > You can add Namibia and Oman to the list of places where fossils of
> > bilateria other than Kimberella might be found, but have not:
> >
> > http://www.fossilmuseum.net/Fossil_Sites/namagroup.htm
>
> Why would you say they might be found? Your link mentions only
> Namacalathus and Cloudina, both mineralized skeletons.

Why no recognizably bilaterian skeletons? And these two taxa also
undermine the conventional wisdom ("consensus" is what Christine Janis
would call it) that the "small shellies" of the Cambrian could not
have been found as fossils from earlier times because the means for
formation of calcareous shells was not present.

Yet, these two taxa are described as having "calcified skeletal
formation" in the above webpage, while the Wikipedia entry for
Cloudina speaks of "calcareous cones".

According to the "skepticblog" version of Prothero's "review" of
_Darwin's Doubt_, Cloudina goes back to ca. 560 mya.

Which takes us back to that 560-542 mya gap.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Department of Math. -- standard disclaimer --
Univ. of South Carolina at Columbia
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos/

Inyo

unread,
Feb 16, 2015, 3:35:46 PM2/16/15
to
On 2/16/2015 9:42 AM, erik simpson wrote:

> Peter, if I may make a suggestion: your style of presentation makes it seem
> that you're leading up to some large statement or conclusion by leaving a
> trail of hints (such as the embarrassing lack of bilaterian fossils). But the
> grand statement never arrives. I'm sure you're not about to conclude that there
> was some creation event that simultaneously gave rise to a couple dozen phyla
> about 542+ Mya, but it occasionally sounds like that's where you're headed.

> What information DO you take away from the absence of recognizable
> representatives of modern phyla in the ediacaran?

What's fascinating, and instructive, is that even where there certainly,
most expectedly, ought to exist examples of definitive multitudinous
"Cambrian Explosion"-type phyla appearing simultaneously in the
Ediacaran, by virtue of exceptionally favorable depositional
circumstances preserved in the geologic record--for example, within the
White Mountains, California, incomparable late Neoproterozoic-early
Cambrian succession (where, by the way, the oldest non-cloning organism
on earth--the bristlecone pine--survives atop soils eroded from the late
Neoproterozoic Reed Dolomite), which locality contains hundreds of feet
of miraculously unaltered carbonate strata interbedded with less
preservation-favorable siliceous, detrital quartzites and shales in
varying degrees of metamorophism that date from the Ediacaran time
period, abundant Ediacaran-age calcium carbonate and magnesium carbonate
strata so wholly amenable to excellent preservations that such
primordial geologic material should have entombed pertinent
paleontologic specimens referable to the known sudden-appearance phyla
described from the classical "Cambrian Explosion," had such advanced,
numerous "Cambrian Explosion"-phyla critters been there to begin
with--only a rare, problematical, possible shell-bearing specimen in the
upper Reed Dolomite (approximately 560-548 million years old), various
curious ichnofossils from the overlying late Neoproterozoic section of
the Deep Spring Formation, not identified as representing "Cambrian
Explosion" phyla, and localized stromatolitic developments throughout
the stratigraphic section constitute the recognizable organic preservations.

http://inyo.coffeecup.com/site/latham/latham.html#links
Links to all of my paleontology-related paged available on the Net.

John Harshman

unread,
Feb 16, 2015, 4:30:46 PM2/16/15
to
On 2/16/15, 12:27 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Monday, February 16, 2015 at 11:50:47 AM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
>> On 2/16/15, 8:31 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>> On Friday, February 13, 2015 at 7:05:56 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
>>>> On 2/13/15, 3:19 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>>>> On Friday, February 13, 2015 at 3:55:56 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
>>>>>> On 2/13/15, 12:30 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>
> Looks like we don't have any serious issues about what is
> and what is not a bilaterian, leaving only Kimberella as
> a very strong candidate for known Precambrian fossil bilaterian.
>
> Now for a much bigger gap than ca. 560 -ca. 542:

It would really help if you would state your agenda explicitly. You
clearly have one. What is it?
What, if anything, is your contribution?

>> A colon implies that something will come after it. Are you talking about
>> Namibia and Oman?
>
> Not just them, but also the places that I mentioned before:
>
>>>>>>> We now have abundant fossils of other kinds from several
>>>>>>> locations between 570 and 550 mya: the Avalon Peninsula,
>>>>>>> especially Mistaken Point; Doushantuo; the Ediacara Hills;
>>>>>>> the White Sea; and Charnwood Forest.
>>>
>>> You can add Namibia and Oman to the list of places where fossils of
>>> bilateria other than Kimberella might be found, but have not:
>>>
>>> http://www.fossilmuseum.net/Fossil_Sites/namagroup.htm
>>
>> Why would you say they might be found? Your link mentions only
>> Namacalathus and Cloudina, both mineralized skeletons.
>
> Why no recognizably bilaterian skeletons? And these two taxa also
> undermine the conventional wisdom ("consensus" is what Christine Janis
> would call it) that the "small shellies" of the Cambrian could not
> have been found as fossils from earlier times because the means for
> formation of calcareous shells was not present.

Most bilaterians are soft-bodied. Very few have skeletons, and the
acquisition of skeletons would have happened in various groups long
after the groups existed. These fossils are very little older than the
Cambrian and have very thin-walled shells. That seems like a fine
intermediate between poor formation conditions and good ones to me.

> Yet, these two taxa are described as having "calcified skeletal
> formation" in the above webpage, while the Wikipedia entry for
> Cloudina speaks of "calcareous cones".

Yes indeed.

> According to the "skepticblog" version of Prothero's "review" of
> _Darwin's Doubt_, Cloudina goes back to ca. 560 mya.

> Which takes us back to that 560-542 mya gap.

So why would you suppose that bilaterians would be the first taxa to get
skeletons, or at least would get them at the same kind as Cloudina, or
that absence of skeletons indicates absence of bilaterians?

Erwin & Valentine don't agree with Prothero's dating of Cloudina. I
don't immediately find a date for that fossil, but they date the entire
Namib fauna at between 550 and 540ma.

You really should get that book. Have I mentioned that before?

Peter Nyikos

unread,
Feb 16, 2015, 5:50:46 PM2/16/15
to
On Monday, February 16, 2015 at 4:30:46 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
> On 2/16/15, 12:27 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > On Monday, February 16, 2015 at 11:50:47 AM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
> >> On 2/16/15, 8:31 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >>> On Friday, February 13, 2015 at 7:05:56 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
> >>>> On 2/13/15, 3:19 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >>>>> On Friday, February 13, 2015 at 3:55:56 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
> >>>>>> On 2/13/15, 12:30 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >
> > Looks like we don't have any serious issues about what is
> > and what is not a bilaterian, leaving only Kimberella as
> > a very strong candidate for known Precambrian fossil bilaterian.
> >
> > Now for a much bigger gap than ca. 560 -ca. 542:
>
> It would really help if you would state your agenda explicitly. You
> clearly have one. What is it?

Read my reply to Erik's post here today, and if you are still keen on
looking for some hidden agenda, this thread may not be of further
interest to you.
Keyword: Pharyngula. When will you make a similar contribution? It doesn't
have to be as original as Inyo's, you know.

> >> A colon implies that something will come after it. Are you talking about
> >> Namibia and Oman?
> >
> > Not just them, but also the places that I mentioned before:
> >
> >>>>>>> We now have abundant fossils of other kinds from several
> >>>>>>> locations between 570 and 550 mya: the Avalon Peninsula,
> >>>>>>> especially Mistaken Point; Doushantuo; the Ediacara Hills;
> >>>>>>> the White Sea; and Charnwood Forest.
> >>>
> >>> You can add Namibia and Oman to the list of places where fossils of
> >>> bilateria other than Kimberella might be found, but have not:
> >>>
> >>> http://www.fossilmuseum.net/Fossil_Sites/namagroup.htm
> >>
> >> Why would you say they might be found? Your link mentions only
> >> Namacalathus and Cloudina, both mineralized skeletons.
> >
> > Why no recognizably bilaterian skeletons? And these two taxa also
> > undermine the conventional wisdom ("consensus" is what Christine Janis
> > would call it) that the "small shellies" of the Cambrian could not
> > have been found as fossils from earlier times because the means for
> > formation of calcareous shells was not present.
>
> Most bilaterians are soft-bodied. Very few have skeletons, and the
> acquisition of skeletons would have happened in various groups long
> after the groups existed. These fossils are very little older than the
> Cambrian and have very thin-walled shells.

I wouldn't call 15-20 my "very little older". Look at where our
ancestors were that long ago. By the way, I see the following
in the Wiki entry for Cloudina:

`Cloudina occurred in calcium carbonate rich areas of stromatolite reefs.
It is found in association with Namacalathus, which like Cloudina was
"weakly skeletal" and solitary, and Namapoikia, which was "robustly
skeletal" and formed sheets on open surfaces.[18]'

Note that "robustly skeletal". Namapoikia doesn't hold out
much promise of being a bilaterian either.

> That seems like a fine
> intermediate between poor formation conditions and good ones to me.

Your point?

> > Yet, these two taxa are described as having "calcified skeletal
> > formation" in the above webpage, while the Wikipedia entry for
> > Cloudina speaks of "calcareous cones".
>
> Yes indeed.
>
> > According to the "skepticblog" version of Prothero's "review" of
> > _Darwin's Doubt_, Cloudina goes back to ca. 560 mya.
>
> > Which takes us back to that 560-542 mya gap.
>
> So why would you suppose that bilaterians would be the first taxa to get
> skeletons, or at least would get them at the same kind as Cloudina, or
> that absence of skeletons indicates absence of bilaterians?

Why would I do something I don't? Beats me. :-)

> Erwin & Valentine don't agree with Prothero's dating of Cloudina. I
> don't immediately find a date for that fossil, but they date the entire
> Namib fauna at between 550 and 540ma.

So what? Look at what follows in that Wiki entry right after
what I quoted above:

First found in the Nama Group in Namibia,[1] Cloudina has also
been reported in Oman,[8] China's Dengying Formation,[8][11]
Canada,[19] Uruguay,[20][21] Argentina,[22] Antarctica,[23] Brazil,[24]
Nevada,[25] central Spain, northwest Mexico and California,[3] in west
and south Siberia. The Cloudina fossils found in association with late
Precambrian-Early Cambrian anabaritids SSF and tubular agglutinated
skeletal fossils Platysolenites and Spirosolenites in Siberia.[26][27]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloudinid

Are you sure none of these sites go back as far as 560mya?

> You really should get that book. Have I mentioned that before?

I keep planning to get that book by interlibrary loan, but
unexpected obligations keep intruding. Do you really want
to hear a litany of the ones that have intruded in the last
two months alone?

Why, I even postponed the end of my posting break from
talk.origins over two weeks beyond what I originally envisioned.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina
people.math.sc.edu/nyikos/

erik simpson

unread,
Feb 16, 2015, 6:45:46 PM2/16/15
to
Indeed. Like you, I have marveled over the tantalizing organisms (like
Wyattia) present in the Reed Dolomite, and the quite good sized (~1 cm in
diameter) horizontal burrow traces in the Deep Springs formation. There
were obviously macroscopic worm-like critters at work, but what were they?
Are you aware, by the way, that the Deep Springs mudstones are usually VERY
iron-rich? They're very strong attracted to magnets.

Ray Martinez

unread,
Feb 16, 2015, 7:10:46 PM2/16/15
to
There are no roots to the Cambrian Explosion. The concept of "explosion" should not exist in nature if evolution is true.

Ray

John Harshman

unread,
Feb 16, 2015, 8:15:46 PM2/16/15
to
On 2/16/15, 2:46 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Monday, February 16, 2015 at 4:30:46 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
>> On 2/16/15, 12:27 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>> On Monday, February 16, 2015 at 11:50:47 AM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
>>>> On 2/16/15, 8:31 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>>>> On Friday, February 13, 2015 at 7:05:56 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
>>>>>> On 2/13/15, 3:19 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>>>>>> On Friday, February 13, 2015 at 3:55:56 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
>>>>>>>> On 2/13/15, 12:30 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>>
>>> Looks like we don't have any serious issues about what is
>>> and what is not a bilaterian, leaving only Kimberella as
>>> a very strong candidate for known Precambrian fossil bilaterian.
>>>
>>> Now for a much bigger gap than ca. 560 -ca. 542:
>>
>> It would really help if you would state your agenda explicitly. You
>> clearly have one. What is it?
>
> Read my reply to Erik's post here today, and if you are still keen on
> looking for some hidden agenda, this thread may not be of further
> interest to you.

Wouldn't have been just as easy for you, and much easier for me, simply
to restate your agenda here?
I believe I've cited a paper or three the last time we did this.

>>>> A colon implies that something will come after it. Are you talking about
>>>> Namibia and Oman?
>>>
>>> Not just them, but also the places that I mentioned before:
>>>
>>>>>>>>> We now have abundant fossils of other kinds from several
>>>>>>>>> locations between 570 and 550 mya: the Avalon Peninsula,
>>>>>>>>> especially Mistaken Point; Doushantuo; the Ediacara Hills;
>>>>>>>>> the White Sea; and Charnwood Forest.
>>>>>
>>>>> You can add Namibia and Oman to the list of places where fossils of
>>>>> bilateria other than Kimberella might be found, but have not:
>>>>>
>>>>> http://www.fossilmuseum.net/Fossil_Sites/namagroup.htm
>>>>
>>>> Why would you say they might be found? Your link mentions only
>>>> Namacalathus and Cloudina, both mineralized skeletons.
>>>
>>> Why no recognizably bilaterian skeletons? And these two taxa also
>>> undermine the conventional wisdom ("consensus" is what Christine Janis
>>> would call it) that the "small shellies" of the Cambrian could not
>>> have been found as fossils from earlier times because the means for
>>> formation of calcareous shells was not present.
>>
>> Most bilaterians are soft-bodied. Very few have skeletons, and the
>> acquisition of skeletons would have happened in various groups long
>> after the groups existed. These fossils are very little older than the
>> Cambrian and have very thin-walled shells.
>
> I wouldn't call 15-20 my "very little older". Look at where our
> ancestors were that long ago. By the way, I see the following
> in the Wiki entry for Cloudina:

Would you call 8-0 very little older? That's the date given by Erwin &
Valentine. And of course our ancestors 15-20 million years ago were, in
the grand scheme of things, almost identical to what we and our close
relatives are now.

> `Cloudina occurred in calcium carbonate rich areas of stromatolite reefs.
> It is found in association with Namacalathus, which like Cloudina was
> "weakly skeletal" and solitary, and Namapoikia, which was "robustly
> skeletal" and formed sheets on open surfaces.[18]'
>
> Note that "robustly skeletal". Namapoikia doesn't hold out
> much promise of being a bilaterian either.

Namapoikia is probably a tabulate coral, possibly the first cnidarian to
develop a skeleton.

>> That seems like a fine
>> intermediate between poor formation conditions and good ones to me.
>
> Your point?

My point is that unless Christine was proposing a sudden revolution, an
8 or so million year buildup seems consistent with her ideas.

>>> Yet, these two taxa are described as having "calcified skeletal
>>> formation" in the above webpage, while the Wikipedia entry for
>>> Cloudina speaks of "calcareous cones".
>>
>> Yes indeed.
>>
>>> According to the "skepticblog" version of Prothero's "review" of
>>> _Darwin's Doubt_, Cloudina goes back to ca. 560 mya.
>>
>>> Which takes us back to that 560-542 mya gap.
>>
>> So why would you suppose that bilaterians would be the first taxa to get
>> skeletons, or at least would get them at the same kind as Cloudina, or
>> that absence of skeletons indicates absence of bilaterians?
>
> Why would I do something I don't? Beats me. :-)

If you weren't using absence of skeletons to stand in for absence of
bilaterians, then I have no idea what you were trying to say above. What
were you trying to say above?

>> Erwin & Valentine don't agree with Prothero's dating of Cloudina. I
>> don't immediately find a date for that fossil, but they date the entire
>> Namib fauna at between 550 and 540ma.
>
> So what? Look at what follows in that Wiki entry right after
> what I quoted above:
>
> First found in the Nama Group in Namibia,[1] Cloudina has also
> been reported in Oman,[8] China's Dengying Formation,[8][11]
> Canada,[19] Uruguay,[20][21] Argentina,[22] Antarctica,[23] Brazil,[24]
> Nevada,[25] central Spain, northwest Mexico and California,[3] in west
> and south Siberia. The Cloudina fossils found in association with late
> Precambrian-Early Cambrian anabaritids SSF and tubular agglutinated
> skeletal fossils Platysolenites and Spirosolenites in Siberia.[26][27]"

I don't know the ages of any of those. Do you?

> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloudinid
>
> Are you sure none of these sites go back as far as 560mya?

I am not. What do you know?

>> You really should get that book. Have I mentioned that before?
>
> I keep planning to get that book by interlibrary loan, but
> unexpected obligations keep intruding. Do you really want
> to hear a litany of the ones that have intruded in the last
> two months alone?

No. Why don't you just buy one? Prices on Amazon are as low as $32, with
a digital version for only $10.

> Why, I even postponed the end of my posting break from
> talk.origins over two weeks beyond what I originally envisioned.

Thanks.

RSNorman

unread,
Feb 16, 2015, 8:40:46 PM2/16/15
to
Any exponential growth continued for a period will look like an
"explosion". There are ample places where evolution could produce
exponential growth.

The might also want to look up "adaptive radiation".

Peter Nyikos

unread,
Feb 17, 2015, 7:45:46 AM2/17/15
to
Thank you for joining us here, Inyo. I've long appreciated your
contributions to sci.bio.paleontology and if it were not for the
hard times on which that newsgroup fell in 2001-2010, and the harder
times on which it has fallen since the advent of Thrinaxodon, I'd be
doing this thread there.

I didn't want to break up your lovely(*) sentence, but I have
a few comments and questions and suggestions about various parts of it:

> White Mountains, California, incomparable late Neoproterozoic-early
> Cambrian succession

It would be great if you could squeeze out some time to write about
this in your webpage, with a few links, adding to it from
time to time. What you write here about it is a great appetite-whetter.

> http://inyo.coffeecup.com/site/latham/latham.html#links
> Links to all of my paleontology-related paged available on the Net.

Information about the Neo-Proterozoic layers would be most welcome,
for instance, more about the ichnofossils from that time:

>only a rare, problematical, possible shell-bearing specimen in the
> upper Reed Dolomite (approximately 560-548 million years old), various
> curious ichnofossils from the overlying late Neoproterozoic section of
> the Deep Spring Formation,

Overlying = younger in this case? Is that specimen in the Upper Reed Dolomite
Wyattia, as Erik suggests? Is it still classed as a Cloudinid? He talks about
"other tantalizing organisms". I'd appreciate it if either you or him
(preferably both, since I don't expect the two lists to coincide) could
list some of them. And could you go into detail about those ichnofossils?

(*) Some people are irritated by long sentences, but not I, as long
as they are as well organized as yours. By the way, Victor Hugo
wrote a much longer sentence in _Les Miserables_, so you are in some
very good company.

Peter Nyikos
nyikos @math.sc.edu
www.math.sc.edu/~nyikos/


Peter Nyikos

unread,
Feb 17, 2015, 2:15:44 PM2/17/15
to
Seems to me that you could still speak of "explosions" when God created
radical designs in short order like in the Cambrian explosion, while
there were long stretches when God left some of the designing to
timid angels, like in the horse sequence.

Then again, you might be in full agreement with the anti-creationists
who say that 5 million years is plenty of time to go from a primitive
metazoan to 20 different phyla with some of those phyla (arthropoda,
especially) having members as intricately advanced as any in those
phyla today. Nothing special about God taking that much time to do it,
wouldn't you say?

[Many anti-creationists try to avoid that number, opting for 130 million
or 80 million or 40 million or 20 million,[I opt for the last myself] but
if forced to declare themselves about that 5 million figure, they'll say
what I said above.]

Peter Nyikos

John Harshman

unread,
Feb 17, 2015, 2:25:44 PM2/17/15
to
Now I'm curious. Let's suppose we establish that going from the
ur-metazoan to all the modern phyla took only 5 million years. What
conclusion would you draw from that?

Peter Nyikos

unread,
Feb 17, 2015, 3:00:44 PM2/17/15
to
On Tuesday, February 17, 2015 at 2:25:44 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
> On 2/17/15, 11:10 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:

To Ray Martinez, I wrote:

> > Seems to me that you could still speak of "explosions" when God created
> > radical designs in short order like in the Cambrian explosion, while
> > there were long stretches when God left some of the designing to
> > timid angels, like in the horse sequence.
> >
> > Then again, you might be in full agreement with the anti-creationists
> > who say that 5 million years is plenty of time to go from a primitive
> > metazoan to 20 different phyla with some of those phyla (arthropoda,
> > especially) having members as intricately advanced as any in those
> > phyla today. Nothing special about God taking that much time to do it,
> > wouldn't you say?
> >
> > [Many anti-creationists try to avoid that number, opting for 130 million
> > or 80 million or 40 million or 20 million,[I opt for the last myself] but
> > if forced to declare themselves about that 5 million figure, they'll say
> > what I said above.]
>
> Now I'm curious. Let's suppose we establish that going from the
> ur-metazoan to all the modern phyla took only 5 million years. What
> conclusion would you draw from that?

That we are VASTLY further along in our knowledge than when this
thread began.

But at the rate you are contributing on this thread to this knowledge,
it may take 5 million years just to get to that point. :-)

Maybe if you got your "agenda" bee out of your bonnet, you might
see your way towards contributing more meaty science.

Peter Nyikos

Peter Nyikos

unread,
Feb 17, 2015, 3:35:43 PM2/17/15
to
On Monday, February 16, 2015 at 8:15:46 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
> On 2/16/15, 2:46 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > On Monday, February 16, 2015 at 4:30:46 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
> >> On 2/16/15, 12:27 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >>> On Monday, February 16, 2015 at 11:50:47 AM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
> >>>> On 2/16/15, 8:31 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >>>>> On Friday, February 13, 2015 at 7:05:56 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
> >>>>>> On 2/13/15, 3:19 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >>>>>>> On Friday, February 13, 2015 at 3:55:56 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
> >>>>>>>> On 2/13/15, 12:30 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Looks like we don't have any serious issues about what is
> >>> and what is not a bilaterian, leaving only Kimberella as
> >>> a very strong candidate for known Precambrian fossil bilaterian.
> >>>
> >>> Now for a much bigger gap than ca. 560 -ca. 542:
> >>
> >> It would really help if you would state your agenda explicitly. You
> >> clearly have one. What is it?
> >
> > Read my reply to Erik's post here today, and if you are still keen on
> > looking for some hidden agenda, this thread may not be of further
> > interest to you.
>
> Wouldn't have been just as easy for you, and much easier for me, simply
> to restate your agenda here?

Absolutely not. My "agenda," as you insist on calling it, is laid out
in detail in that longish reply to Erik, and it would be very difficult
to paraphrase it in a way that makes it any clearer than it is there.

And why is it that you confined yourself on this thread to MY replies to
YOU until I replied to that intellectual flyweight, Martinez? and have
never replied to anyone else here? Do you have that little regard for
people like Erik and Inyo?

Perhaps now that RSNorman has joined us, you may start diversifying? That
would be nice.

<big snip>

> > I wouldn't call 15-20 my "very little older". Look at where our
> > ancestors were that long ago. By the way, I see the following
> > in the Wiki entry for Cloudina:
>
> Would you call 8-0 very little older? That's the date given by Erwin &
> Valentine. And of course our ancestors 15-20 million years ago were, in
> the grand scheme of things, almost identical to what we and our close
> relatives are now.

Well, then, take a look at the Paleocene "explosion", with numerous orders
springing up in 15-20 million years. Make that 5-10 million if that _Science_
article we discussed in 2013 (or was it 2012?) was correct about the LCA
of crown group Placentalia going back only to a bit after the K-T boundary.


> > `Cloudina occurred in calcium carbonate rich areas of stromatolite reefs.
> > It is found in association with Namacalathus, which like Cloudina was
> > "weakly skeletal" and solitary, and Namapoikia, which was "robustly
> > skeletal" and formed sheets on open surfaces.[18]'
> >
> > Note that "robustly skeletal". Namapoikia doesn't hold out
> > much promise of being a bilaterian either.
>
> Namapoikia is probably a tabulate coral, possibly the first cnidarian to
> develop a skeleton.

Which just goes to show that the raw material for robust shells was
there already back then.

> >> That seems like a fine
> >> intermediate between poor formation conditions and good ones to me.

...except that it wasn't intermediate, it was "transitional" in the
same sense that the platypus is "transitional" between Sauropsids
and placentals.

> > Your point?
>
> My point is that unless Christine was proposing a sudden revolution, an
> 8 or so million year buildup seems consistent with her ideas.

What "buildup"? Where are the small shellies of that time that were
ancestral to bilateria? Did it take bilaterians 8 million additional years
to develop the trick of making shells?

> >>> Yet, these two taxa are described as having "calcified skeletal
> >>> formation" in the above webpage, while the Wikipedia entry for
> >>> Cloudina speaks of "calcareous cones".
> >>
> >> Yes indeed.
> >>
> >>> According to the "skepticblog" version of Prothero's "review" of
> >>> _Darwin's Doubt_, Cloudina goes back to ca. 560 mya.
> >>
> >>> Which takes us back to that 560-542 mya gap.
> >>
> >> So why would you suppose that bilaterians would be the first taxa to get
> >> skeletons, or at least would get them at the same kind as Cloudina, or
> >> that absence of skeletons indicates absence of bilaterians?
> >
> > Why would I do something I don't? Beats me. :-)
>
> If you weren't using absence of skeletons to stand in for absence of
> bilaterians, then I have no idea what you were trying to say above. What
> were you trying to say above?

Simply that there is a big puzzle here for paleontologists
and geologists to resolve one way or the other, one worthy of
concerted research.

If you had read my reply to Erik, you could have surmised that.

> >> Erwin & Valentine don't agree with Prothero's dating of Cloudina. I
> >> don't immediately find a date for that fossil, but they date the entire
> >> Namib fauna at between 550 and 540ma.
> >
> > So what? Look at what follows in that Wiki entry right after
> > what I quoted above:
> >
> > First found in the Nama Group in Namibia,[1] Cloudina has also
> > been reported in Oman,[8] China's Dengying Formation,[8][11]
> > Canada,[19] Uruguay,[20][21] Argentina,[22] Antarctica,[23] Brazil,[24]
> > Nevada,[25] central Spain, northwest Mexico and California,[3] in west
> > and south Siberia. The Cloudina fossils found in association with late
> > Precambrian-Early Cambrian anabaritids SSF and tubular agglutinated
> > skeletal fossils Platysolenites and Spirosolenites in Siberia.[26][27]"
>
> I don't know the ages of any of those. Do you?

No, and since you don't either, that leaves your last comment high
and dry.

> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloudinid
> >
> > Are you sure none of these sites go back as far as 560mya?
>
> I am not. What do you know?

I am as much in the dark as you--and possibly as Erwin and Valentine.

> >> You really should get that book. Have I mentioned that before?
> >
> > I keep planning to get that book by interlibrary loan, but
> > unexpected obligations keep intruding. Do you really want
> > to hear a litany of the ones that have intruded in the last
> > two months alone?
>
> No. Why don't you just buy one? Prices on Amazon are as low as $32, with
> a digital version for only $10.

A paper version is vastly better than a digital, and I'm going on
sabbatical next academic year, full year at half pay, and so
I have to make my dollars count.

Besides, you are the worst salesman I ever ran into. If you can't
do better for the book than you have, why should I bother?

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina
nyikos @ math.sc.edu

RSNorman

unread,
Feb 17, 2015, 4:15:43 PM2/17/15
to
On Tue, 17 Feb 2015 12:32:56 -0800 (PST), Peter Nyikos
<nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote:


>Perhaps now that RSNorman has joined us, you may start diversifying? That
>would be nice.
>
I joined only to respond to Ray's inane notion that "explosion" is
not compatible with evolution.

I have no particular interest in closely studying the known (and
unknown) fossils of Vendian-Ediacaran times. What I have seen is that
there are some known, there are more that are still puzzling, and
there is an enormous area of unknown. That is the way of science so I
have no particular surprise or concern about just how vast our
ignorance or why it should be so. What I do know is that not long ago
(in the reckoning of this aged person) there was nothing whatsoever
known about that period and now there is something. Apparently you
thnk there somehow should be far more. Then just wait and there will
be.



John Harshman

unread,
Feb 17, 2015, 6:25:43 PM2/17/15
to
Maybe if you actually answered questions this thread would be going a
bit better.

John Harshman

unread,
Feb 17, 2015, 6:40:44 PM2/17/15
to
On 2/17/15, 12:32 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Monday, February 16, 2015 at 8:15:46 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
>> On 2/16/15, 2:46 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:

>>> I wouldn't call 15-20 my "very little older". Look at where our
>>> ancestors were that long ago. By the way, I see the following
>>> in the Wiki entry for Cloudina:
>>
>> Would you call 8-0 very little older? That's the date given by Erwin &
>> Valentine. And of course our ancestors 15-20 million years ago were, in
>> the grand scheme of things, almost identical to what we and our close
>> relatives are now.
>
> Well, then, take a look at the Paleocene "explosion", with numerous orders
> springing up in 15-20 million years. Make that 5-10 million if that _Science_
> article we discussed in 2013 (or was it 2012?) was correct about the LCA
> of crown group Placentalia going back only to a bit after the K-T boundary.

Sure. Why are we taking a look at that? We are agreed that a fair amount
can happen in 15-20 million years.

>>> `Cloudina occurred in calcium carbonate rich areas of stromatolite reefs.
>>> It is found in association with Namacalathus, which like Cloudina was
>>> "weakly skeletal" and solitary, and Namapoikia, which was "robustly
>>> skeletal" and formed sheets on open surfaces.[18]'
>>>
>>> Note that "robustly skeletal". Namapoikia doesn't hold out
>>> much promise of being a bilaterian either.
>>
>> Namapoikia is probably a tabulate coral, possibly the first cnidarian to
>> develop a skeleton.
>
> Which just goes to show that the raw material for robust shells was
> there already back then.

Maybe. Do you know how fast they grew?

>>>> That seems like a fine
>>>> intermediate between poor formation conditions and good ones to me.
>
> ...except that it wasn't intermediate, it was "transitional" in the
> same sense that the platypus is "transitional" between Sauropsids
> and placentals.

No, it's transitional in an entirely different way. I'm talking about a
temporal transition only.

>>> Your point?
>>
>> My point is that unless Christine was proposing a sudden revolution, an
>> 8 or so million year buildup seems consistent with her ideas.
>
> What "buildup"? Where are the small shellies of that time that were
> ancestral to bilateria? Did it take bilaterians 8 million additional years
> to develop the trick of making shells?

Apparently it did. What alternative are you proposing?

>>>>> Yet, these two taxa are described as having "calcified skeletal
>>>>> formation" in the above webpage, while the Wikipedia entry for
>>>>> Cloudina speaks of "calcareous cones".
>>>>
>>>> Yes indeed.
>>>>
>>>>> According to the "skepticblog" version of Prothero's "review" of
>>>>> _Darwin's Doubt_, Cloudina goes back to ca. 560 mya.
>>>>
>>>>> Which takes us back to that 560-542 mya gap.
>>>>
>>>> So why would you suppose that bilaterians would be the first taxa to get
>>>> skeletons, or at least would get them at the same kind as Cloudina, or
>>>> that absence of skeletons indicates absence of bilaterians?
>>>
>>> Why would I do something I don't? Beats me. :-)
>>
>> If you weren't using absence of skeletons to stand in for absence of
>> bilaterians, then I have no idea what you were trying to say above. What
>> were you trying to say above?
>
> Simply that there is a big puzzle here for paleontologists
> and geologists to resolve one way or the other, one worthy of
> concerted research.

When you say "big puzzle" do you mean that there is now no plausible
explanation or that there is no highly probable explanation? Because
there's certainly a plausible one: bilaterians didn't develop skeletons
until a few million years later. The notion that bilaterians didn't
evolve until just that moment when some of them started making shells,
on the other hand, seems implausible. Do you have a third hypothesis?

> If you had read my reply to Erik, you could have surmised that.
>
>>>> Erwin & Valentine don't agree with Prothero's dating of Cloudina. I
>>>> don't immediately find a date for that fossil, but they date the entire
>>>> Namib fauna at between 550 and 540ma.
>>>
>>> So what? Look at what follows in that Wiki entry right after
>>> what I quoted above:
>>>
>>> First found in the Nama Group in Namibia,[1] Cloudina has also
>>> been reported in Oman,[8] China's Dengying Formation,[8][11]
>>> Canada,[19] Uruguay,[20][21] Argentina,[22] Antarctica,[23] Brazil,[24]
>>> Nevada,[25] central Spain, northwest Mexico and California,[3] in west
>>> and south Siberia. The Cloudina fossils found in association with late
>>> Precambrian-Early Cambrian anabaritids SSF and tubular agglutinated
>>> skeletal fossils Platysolenites and Spirosolenites in Siberia.[26][27]"
>>
>> I don't know the ages of any of those. Do you?
>
> No, and since you don't either, that leaves your last comment high
> and dry.

Doesn't it also leave your comment in a similar place?

>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloudinid
>>>
>>> Are you sure none of these sites go back as far as 560mya?
>>
>> I am not. What do you know?
>
> I am as much in the dark as you--and possibly as Erwin and Valentine.

Have you made any attempt to find out?

>>>> You really should get that book. Have I mentioned that before?
>>>
>>> I keep planning to get that book by interlibrary loan, but
>>> unexpected obligations keep intruding. Do you really want
>>> to hear a litany of the ones that have intruded in the last
>>> two months alone?
>>
>> No. Why don't you just buy one? Prices on Amazon are as low as $32, with
>> a digital version for only $10.
>
> A paper version is vastly better than a digital, and I'm going on
> sabbatical next academic year, full year at half pay, and so
> I have to make my dollars count.

$32??

> Besides, you are the worst salesman I ever ran into. If you can't
> do better for the book than you have, why should I bother?

Suit yourself. But your complete lack of curiosity astonishes me. If I
were interested in a subject, I would certainly not ignore the major
recent work by two acknowledged leading experts.

John Harshman

unread,
Feb 17, 2015, 7:05:42 PM2/17/15
to
That's all? Here are some interesting riddles? No connection whatsoever
to ID or Steven Meyer? Cross your heart?

> It more or less did arrive in the post I did after the one
> to which you are replying. I favor the fossil evidence over
> the molecular clock estimates, and the fossil evidence suggests that the
> bilaterian diversification began only after 565 mya and perhaps
> only after the beginning of the Cambrian period, ca. 542 mya.

Define "diversification". What nodes on the tree do you think postdate
565ma? What postdate 542ma?

How does the diversification of tracks and burrows in the latest
Precambrian affect this view?

> Even starting in the Cambrian, there was still
> some 20 million years for the diversification to lead to all those
> phyla that we see in the Chengjiang deposits -- which, by the way,
> include a number of extinct phyla.

Another problem here is that we don't know how long something like the
Chengjiang fauna might have existed prior to the Chengjiang. We can be
pretty sure that no calcified trilobites existed much earlier than that,
and perhaps no armored lobopods. But what about all the soft-bodied
sorts? Barring a lagerstatte with comparable preservation, no way to tell.

> How many of the extinct Cambrian clades deserve phylum status is a good
> question, with the late Stephen Jay Gould among the "splitters"
> and lots of others among the "lumpers."

I think it's a stupid question, as there are no objective criteria for
"phylum". Personal taste is the only criterion. Linnean ranks are all
arbitrary.

> Big issue: how many lines leading to Chengjiang bilateria were there
> in the first 10 my of the Cambrian? How many in the second 10my?

> Specific question: how many different phyla within the crown group
> Bilateria have had representatives identified among the "small shellies"
> of the early Cambrian?

I'm afraid that the small, shelly fauna can't really tell us. I defy
anyone to assign many of them reliably to a phylum. For a lot of these
we can't even be quite sure whether they're shells or sclerites. And
that ignores the near certainty that most phyla had no skeletons or
sclerites.

It's generally supposed that some of them were mollusks and brachiopods.
Clearly some of them were halkieriids, tommotiids, and hyoliths. How
many phyla is that?

>> but it occasionally sounds like that's where you're headed.
>>
>> What information DO you take away from the absence of recognizable
>> representatives of modern phyla in the ediacaran?
>
> Don't forget the sponges.

Which sucked up about 10% of all life.

> My inclination right now is to hypothesize the
> protostome-deuterostome split right around the beginning of
> the Cambrian, with Kimberella a stem bilaterian (although I
> still entertain thoughts of it being a vendobiont). And that
> would mark the lowest root of the Cambrian explosion.

What led you to that hypothesis? Is it consistent with the Late
Precambrian ichnofossils?

Peter Nyikos

unread,
Feb 17, 2015, 9:45:43 PM2/17/15
to
On Tuesday, February 17, 2015 at 7:05:42 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
> On 2/16/15, 11:50 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > On Monday, February 16, 2015 at 12:45:47 PM UTC-5, erik simpson wrote:


> >> Peter, if I may make a suggestion: your style of presentation makes it seem
> >> that you're leading up to some large statement or conclusion by leaving a
> >> trail of hints (such as the embarrassing lack of bilaterian fossils).
> >
> > That's an "artifact" of the nature of this newsgroup. In a straight
> > science group one might naturally infer that I am merely giving
> > various riddles in science that cry out for explanation. And they
> > would be right.
>
> That's all? Here are some interesting riddles? No connection whatsoever
> to ID or Steven Meyer? Cross your heart?

Harshman, let me tell you something that, in hindsight, I see I should
have told you a few days after I returned to this newsgroup. Not because
I think you will fully comprehend--my ways are too alien to your ways.
But because I could have referred back to it from time to time, on
the sporadic occasions during the past 4+ years when something akin
to xenophobia took hold of you. And it evidently has gotten hold of
you on this thread.

The only things I love more than science and mathematics are my
family, and truth, and justice. When I see someone talked about
untruthfully or unjustly, be it Behe or Meyer or Feduccia -- or you or
Christine Janis -- or even Hitler or Stalin -- and everyone seems to
go enthusiastically along with the untruths, repeating them in forum
after forum...

...then I give the corrections priority over whatever disagreements
(and, in the case of Hitler and Stalin, deep contempt) I have with
the target of the injustice.

I've come to be fascinated by the Cambrian explosion as a result
of my quest for justice for Meyer. For a year and a half I've quested,
and in the process I've learned much about the Cambrian explosion
(or, if you prefer, diversification). As the hopelessness
grew of getting people to even listen to how f***ed up Prothero's review
of Meyer is, even so the fascination with all I learned in the process
has grown, and so I am now (temporarily, perhaps) only indulging
my passion for science, or more precisely "natural history" or whatever
the name of that thing is that the dying breed of people called
"naturalists" study.

As I told Inyo, if sci.bio.paleontology hadn't fallen on evil times,
this thread would be taking place there instead of here. As it is, where
else but talk.origins could I find so many people to whom the topic is
of potential interest? Sure, most of them are political animals to
whom the topic is of interest only because it is one where they can
hit creationists where it hurts. But at least they listen, and some
discuss.

You seem to be numbered among these. For instance: on the one hand, you
are very keen on getting me to buy Erwin and Valentine's book; on the other
hand, you were oblivious to another book on the Cambrian explosion:

Cambrian Water World:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0253011825/ref=sib_dp_pt#reader-link

And the contrast is readily explained if the real reason you are
keen on Erwin and Valentine's book is that, all over the blogosphere, it
is touted as the perfect antidote to Meyer's book.

> > It more or less did arrive in the post I did after the one
> > to which you are replying. I favor the fossil evidence over
> > the molecular clock estimates, and the fossil evidence suggests that the
> > bilaterian diversification began only after 565 mya and perhaps
> > only after the beginning of the Cambrian period, ca. 542 mya.
>
> Define "diversification". What nodes on the tree do you think postdate
> 565ma?

All the bilaterian nodes in the crown group Bilateria, is my current
hypothesis.

> What postdate 542ma?

That is something I've broached in my reply to Erik. I see you've
made a response, but I don't have the time tonight to think
carefully about it, so I deleted it below. Tomorrow, I hope to find the
time for dealing with it.

> How does the diversification of tracks and burrows in the latest
> Precambrian affect this view?

I'd need to know more about what made them. When do they commence
in earnest?

This reminds me of something else. It is sometimes hypothesized that t
the "arms race" between animals began with numerous tiny holes being bored
in the shell of Cloudina. But this may be a simplistic holdover from
the view of "nature red in tooth and claw". A possibility that occurred
to me the other day is that these holes might have been made when the
organism itself had left that "chamber" behind, and the creatures -- which
may have been just giant protists, which were plentiful in those days --
were the ancient analogues of hermit crabs, looking just for shelter.

> > Even starting in the Cambrian, there was still
> > some 20 million years for the diversification to lead to all those
> > phyla that we see in the Chengjiang deposits -- which, by the way,
> > include a number of extinct phyla.
>
> Another problem here is that we don't know how long something like the
> Chengjiang fauna might have existed prior to the Chengjiang.

Obviously.


> We can be
> pretty sure that no calcified trilobites existed much earlier than that,
> and perhaps no armored lobopods. But what about all the soft-bodied
> sorts? Barring a lagerstatte with comparable preservation, no way to tell.

Precambrian lagerstatte have been named repeatedly, where soft-bodied
Vendobionts were found in plenitude. "No way to tell" why there were
no bilateria, eh? I've suggested a close microscopic look at all those
microbial mats, yet there is no suggestion that anyone has tried to
do so.

Or maybe the effort has been made, without success -- and who is going
to get a paper published in a leading journal whose main message is
"We tried, and we came up with a blank."?

Remainder deleted, to be replied to later.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos/
nyikos@ math.sc.edu


erik simpson

unread,
Feb 18, 2015, 12:30:43 AM2/18/15
to
Just a couple of points. Late Ediacaran and earliest Cambrian mudstones often
display ichnofossils in the form of horizontal 'squiggles' in the mud. As I
mentioned earlier in this thread, they're locally quite common and abundant,
with dimensions from a couple to millimeters to a centimeter. Based of the
characteristic appearances they've been given different names as though they
represent species. There's no obvious way to tell what sort of organisms made
these tracks, but they were certainly macroscopic, and were quite plausibly
bilaterians. If the nature of the squiggles does correspond to different
species or genera, they exhibit some diversity, if not disparity. No convincing
body fossils have been associated with them.

On the microscopic side, thin sections of stromatolitic structures and algal
mats is standard investigative procedure. I spent some time poring over some
of Stan Awramik's Doushantuo thin sections that contain lots of algae and
bacterial material. Many of the Lagerstatte of the Ediacaran are clearly not
susceptible to this kind of scrutiny due to the grain size of the rocks. It's
not the case that the bilaterians haven't been seen because nobody's looked.

The "Cambrian Water World" I haven't seen. It appears to be aimed at the
general reader (in contrast to E&V), which by no means is a bad thing. Do
you really believe that E&V is simply 'an antidote to Meyers'? I hope not, as
that's a silly idea. There's no indication that the authors have any
familiarity with Meyer's book, and there's no real reason any serious student
of paleontology should have any such familiarity.

John Harshman

unread,
Feb 18, 2015, 9:15:41 AM2/18/15
to
On 2/17/15, 6:41 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Tuesday, February 17, 2015 at 7:05:42 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
>> On 2/16/15, 11:50 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>> On Monday, February 16, 2015 at 12:45:47 PM UTC-5, erik simpson wrote:
>
>
>>>> Peter, if I may make a suggestion: your style of presentation makes it seem
>>>> that you're leading up to some large statement or conclusion by leaving a
>>>> trail of hints (such as the embarrassing lack of bilaterian fossils).
>>>
>>> That's an "artifact" of the nature of this newsgroup. In a straight
>>> science group one might naturally infer that I am merely giving
>>> various riddles in science that cry out for explanation. And they
>>> would be right.
>>
>> That's all? Here are some interesting riddles? No connection whatsoever
>> to ID or Steven Meyer? Cross your heart?

Hope you don't mind if I snip your self-serving rant.

> You seem to be numbered among these. For instance: on the one hand, you
> are very keen on getting me to buy Erwin and Valentine's book; on the other
> hand, you were oblivious to another book on the Cambrian explosion:
>
> Cambrian Water World:
> http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0253011825/ref=sib_dp_pt#reader-link
>
> And the contrast is readily explained if the real reason you are
> keen on Erwin and Valentine's book is that, all over the blogosphere, it
> is touted as the perfect antidote to Meyer's book.

There you go again, making up weird, paranoid explanations. I know
nothing about that book, but based on chapter titles it seems to be
intended for general audiences. I wouldn't expect it to have the detail
that Erwin & Valentine has. I see no reason why a rational person would
have mentioned it at all.

>>> It more or less did arrive in the post I did after the one
>>> to which you are replying. I favor the fossil evidence over
>>> the molecular clock estimates, and the fossil evidence suggests that the
>>> bilaterian diversification began only after 565 mya and perhaps
>>> only after the beginning of the Cambrian period, ca. 542 mya.
>>
>> Define "diversification". What nodes on the tree do you think postdate
>> 565ma?
>
> All the bilaterian nodes in the crown group Bilateria, is my current
> hypothesis.
>
>> What postdate 542ma?
>
> That is something I've broached in my reply to Erik. I see you've
> made a response, but I don't have the time tonight to think
> carefully about it, so I deleted it below. Tomorrow, I hope to find the
> time for dealing with it.
>
>> How does the diversification of tracks and burrows in the latest
>> Precambrian affect this view?
>
> I'd need to know more about what made them. When do they commence
> in earnest?

This is the sort of thing you ought to know about before you start
forming your hypotheses. You really ought to get into the literature.
They start late in the Vendian and gradually increase in diversity and
complexity (and depth) into the Early Cambrian. Here is one review:

http://icb.oxfordjournals.org/content/43/1/219.full

And a bit from the abstract: "Possibly the earliest trace fossils are
short unbranched forms, probably younger than about 560 Ma. Typical
Neoproterozoic trace fossils are unbranched and essentially horizontal
forms found associated with diverse assemblages of Ediacaran organisms.
In sections younger than about 550 Ma a modest increase in trace fossil
diversity occurs, including the appearance of rare three-dimensional
burrow systems (treptichnids), and traces with a three-lobed lower
surfaces."

> This reminds me of something else. It is sometimes hypothesized that t
> the "arms race" between animals began with numerous tiny holes being bored
> in the shell of Cloudina. But this may be a simplistic holdover from
> the view of "nature red in tooth and claw". A possibility that occurred
> to me the other day is that these holes might have been made when the
> organism itself had left that "chamber" behind, and the creatures -- which
> may have been just giant protists, which were plentiful in those days --
> were the ancient analogues of hermit crabs, looking just for shelter.

Fascinating. When presenting one hypothesis, you feel a need to
attribute alternative hypotheses to faulty motivations. There is
considerable controversy about whether those holes do or do not indicate
predation, but so far in the literature nobody to my knowledge has tried
to attribute the predation hypothesis to delusion on the part of its
proponents.

>>> Even starting in the Cambrian, there was still
>>> some 20 million years for the diversification to lead to all those
>>> phyla that we see in the Chengjiang deposits -- which, by the way,
>>> include a number of extinct phyla.
>>
>> Another problem here is that we don't know how long something like the
>> Chengjiang fauna might have existed prior to the Chengjiang.
>
> Obviously.

Hard to tell what's obvious to you, so I thought I'd mention it.

>> We can be
>> pretty sure that no calcified trilobites existed much earlier than that,
>> and perhaps no armored lobopods. But what about all the soft-bodied
>> sorts? Barring a lagerstatte with comparable preservation, no way to tell.
>
> Precambrian lagerstatte have been named repeatedly, where soft-bodied
> Vendobionts were found in plenitude. "No way to tell" why there were
> no bilateria, eh? I've suggested a close microscopic look at all those
> microbial mats, yet there is no suggestion that anyone has tried to
> do so.

Those aren't comparable preservation. Look. We know that halkieriids,
for example, existed near the start of the Cambrian, because their
isolated sclerites turn up in the small, shelly fauna. Yet we find no
body fossils until the Chengjiang. If they hadn't been sclerotized, we
would not have known they existed in the Tommotian.

> Or maybe the effort has been made, without success -- and who is going
> to get a paper published in a leading journal whose main message is
> "We tried, and we came up with a blank."?

There certainly are a lot of papers on the microfossils found in
microbial mats of various ages.

Peter Nyikos

unread,
Feb 18, 2015, 3:25:40 PM2/18/15
to
On Tuesday, February 17, 2015 at 7:05:42 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
> On 2/16/15, 11:50 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:

Having spent time on other threads, including one where it is alleged
that you are trying to show that the Army is NOT a nested hierarchy,
I have only a little time left to spare for posting today. So I
will only talk here about the following snippet today.

> > How many of the extinct Cambrian clades deserve phylum status is a good
> > question, with the late Stephen Jay Gould among the "splitters"
> > and lots of others among the "lumpers."
>
> I think it's a stupid question, as there are no objective criteria for
> "phylum". Personal taste is the only criterion. Linnean ranks are all
> arbitrary.

Until something better comes along, the Linnean ranks continue to be
our best, though admittedly very imperfect, way of gauging disparity
[not to be confused with diversity = number of species]. It is
well-nigh hopeless to quantify disparity, but anyone who makes
a thorough study of zoology can see the rationale of, say,
putting brachiopods into a different phylum than bivalves.

If I were shown a brachiopod half shell and a scallop half shell,
I may mistake one for the other, but when I see the other half
shell of the same specimen, the fact that one is NOT the mirror
image of the other in the brachiopod already gives away which
is which. And that is just an indicator of deep differences
between the brachiopod and the bivalve, in internal symmetry and also
in many other things. Anyone being served a brachiopod on
a half shell in a restaurant, when one ordered scallops
on the half shell, would summarily conclude that a practical
joke is being played.

Now, I happen to trust the intuition of the best of the old Linneans
as to what differences are major and what are minor, although
there is always room for disagreement. And I submit that
anyone who says what you are saying does not really understand
the ways of such naturalists as Alfred P. Romer.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina
Ph.D. Carnegie-Mellon University, 1971

John Harshman

unread,
Feb 18, 2015, 4:00:39 PM2/18/15
to
On 2/18/15, 12:22 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Tuesday, February 17, 2015 at 7:05:42 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
>> On 2/16/15, 11:50 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>
> Having spent time on other threads, including one where it is alleged
> that you are trying to show that the Army is NOT a nested hierarchy,
> I have only a little time left to spare for posting today. So I
> will only talk here about the following snippet today.

Well, I suppose you know what's important to you and how to budget your
time.

>>> How many of the extinct Cambrian clades deserve phylum status is a good
>>> question, with the late Stephen Jay Gould among the "splitters"
>>> and lots of others among the "lumpers."
>>
>> I think it's a stupid question, as there are no objective criteria for
>> "phylum". Personal taste is the only criterion. Linnean ranks are all
>> arbitrary.
>
> Until something better comes along, the Linnean ranks continue to be
> our best, though admittedly very imperfect, way of gauging disparity
> [not to be confused with diversity = number of species]. It is
> well-nigh hopeless to quantify disparity, but anyone who makes
> a thorough study of zoology can see the rationale of, say,
> putting brachiopods into a different phylum than bivalves.

Are you contending that I have not made a thorough study of zoology? The
rationale is tradition and historical inability to infer deep phylogeny.
That is, the typical phylum is one branch of an extensive polytomy that
formerly existed around the base of Bilateria. The ranks we assign to
Mollusca and Brachiopoda are arbitrary. Why isn't Pelecypoda a phylum?
Why aren't articulate brachiopods a separate phylum from inarticulate
brachiopods?

Anyway, the point is that since phyla are arbitrary, trying to count
phyla is not a good indicator of whatever you're trying to indicate.

> If I were shown a brachiopod half shell and a scallop half shell,
> I may mistake one for the other, but when I see the other half
> shell of the same specimen, the fact that one is NOT the mirror
> image of the other in the brachiopod already gives away which
> is which. And that is just an indicator of deep differences
> between the brachiopod and the bivalve, in internal symmetry and also
> in many other things. Anyone being served a brachiopod on
> a half shell in a restaurant, when one ordered scallops
> on the half shell, would summarily conclude that a practical
> joke is being played.

You could of course perform the same exercise with a bivalve and a
snail, rostroconch, nautilus, or any other presumed class of mollusk. So
what's the difference?

> Now, I happen to trust the intuition of the best of the old Linneans
> as to what differences are major and what are minor, although
> there is always room for disagreement. And I submit that
> anyone who says what you are saying does not really understand
> the ways of such naturalists as Alfred P. Romer.

Submit all you like. I prefer not to trust intuition. But OK. If you
understand those ways you should be prepared to explain them. Go ahead.

And getting back to the Cambrian, are halkieriids a phylum? Are
protoconodonts? Are lobopods?

Walter Bushell

unread,
Feb 19, 2015, 8:00:38 AM2/19/15
to
In article <8PadncUqV8QzYXnJ...@giganews.com>,
John Harshman <jhar...@pacbell.net> wrote:

> Why aren't articulate brachiopods a separate phylum from inarticulate
> brachiopods?

I didn't know brachiopods could speak.

--
Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greed. Me.

Walter Bushell

unread,
Feb 19, 2015, 8:00:38 AM2/19/15
to
In article <ab934165-1222-4a1c...@googlegroups.com>,
Peter Nyikos <nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote:

> Or maybe the effort has been made, without success -- and who is going
> to get a paper published in a leading journal whose main message is
> "We tried, and we came up with a blank."?

Big problem. Failure to publish "negative" results or even failure to
duplicate can cause havoc. For example, they just found different
results in rats or mice when the experimenter was male or female,
and blaming that on hormones. In medicine the problems can be much
worst.

Bob Casanova

unread,
Feb 19, 2015, 12:50:37 PM2/19/15
to
On Thu, 19 Feb 2015 07:59:52 -0500, the following appeared
in talk.origins, posted by Walter Bushell <pr...@panix.com>:

>In article <8PadncUqV8QzYXnJ...@giganews.com>,
> John Harshman <jhar...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>
>> Why aren't articulate brachiopods a separate phylum from inarticulate
>> brachiopods?

>I didn't know brachiopods could speak.

No one knows for certain (they might be under a vow of
silence), but I'm pretty sure most of these...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Articulated_vehicle

....can at least yell. In a manner of speaking...
--

Bob C.

"The most exciting phrase to hear in science,
the one that heralds new discoveries, is not
'Eureka!' but 'That's funny...'"

- Isaac Asimov

Peter Nyikos

unread,
Feb 19, 2015, 7:05:36 PM2/19/15
to
On Wednesday, February 18, 2015 at 12:30:43 AM UTC-5, erik simpson wrote:
> On Tuesday, February 17, 2015 at 6:45:43 PM UTC-8, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > On Tuesday, February 17, 2015 at 7:05:42 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
> > > On 2/16/15, 11:50 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > > On Monday, February 16, 2015 at 12:45:47 PM UTC-5, erik simpson wrote:
> >
> >
> > > >> Peter, if I may make a suggestion: your style of presentation makes it seem
> > > >> that you're leading up to some large statement or conclusion by leaving a
> > > >> trail of hints (such as the embarrassing lack of bilaterian fossils).
> > > >
> > > > That's an "artifact" of the nature of this newsgroup. In a straight
> > > > science group one might naturally infer that I am merely giving
> > > > various riddles in science that cry out for explanation. And they
> > > > would be right.

<snip loaded questions by Harshman, and most of my response>


> > I am now (temporarily, perhaps) only indulging
> > my passion for science, or more precisely "natural history" or
> > whatever the name of that thing is that the dying breed
> > of people called "naturalists" study.
> >
> > As I told Inyo, if sci.bio.paleontology hadn't fallen on evil times,
> > this thread would be taking place there instead of here. As it is, where
> > else but talk.origins could I find so many people to whom the topic is
> > of potential interest? Sure, most of them are political animals to
> > whom the topic is of interest only because it is one where they can
> > hit creationists where it hurts. But at least they listen, and some
> > discuss.

<snip for focus>

> > > How does the diversification of tracks and burrows in the latest
> > > Precambrian affect this view?
> >
> > I'd need to know more about what made them. When do they commence
> > in earnest?

<snip for focus>

> > > We can be
> > > pretty sure that no calcified trilobites existed much earlier than that,
> > > and perhaps no armored lobopods. But what about all the soft-bodied
> > > sorts? Barring a lagerstatte with comparable preservation, no way to tell.
> >
> > Precambrian lagerstatte have been named repeatedly, where soft-bodied
> > Vendobionts were found in plenitude. "No way to tell" why there were
> > no bilateria, eh? I've suggested a close microscopic look at all those
> > microbial mats, yet there is no suggestion that anyone has tried to
> > do so.
> >
> > Or maybe the effort has been made, without success -- and who is going
> > to get a paper published in a leading journal whose main message is
> > "We tried, and we came up with a blank."?

> Just a couple of points. Late Ediacaran and earliest Cambrian
> mudstones often display ichnofossils in the form of horizontal
> 'squiggles' in the mud. As I mentioned earlier in this thread,
> they're locally quite common and abundant, with dimensions from
> a couple to millimeters to a centimeter.

Width, I presume? The Wiki entry on ichnofossils gives no clue,
but it does mention vertical ichnofossils:

"Skolithos, which may be 30 cm (12") in length
and between 2 to 4 cm (0.8 to 1.6") in diameter."

Then it makes it sound like they commenced in the Cambrian,
but earlier it [probably a different contributor] had said the
following...

"The producers of burrows Skolithos declinatus from
the Vendian (Ediacaran) beds in Russia with date
555.3 million years ago"

...right after giving the following reference for
Skolithos during the Ediacaran period:

M. A. Fedonkin (1985). "Paleoichnology of Vendian Metazoa".
In Sokolov, B. S. and Iwanowski, A. B., eds., "Vendian System:
Historical-Geological and Paleontological Foundation, Vol. 1:
Paleontology". Moscow: Nauka, pp. 112-116. (in Russian)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trace_fossil#cite_note-Fedonkin_1985-14

> Based of the
> characteristic appearances they've been given different names
> as though they represent species.

Like "Skolithos".

> There's no obvious way to tell what sort of organisms made
> these tracks, but they were certainly macroscopic, and were quite
> plausibly bilaterians. If the nature of the squiggles does
> correspond to different species or genera, they exhibit some
> diversity, if not disparity. No convincing body fossils have
> been associated with them.

Thank you for all this information. Are there any Cambrian
"small shellies" associated with either such putative burrows
or horizontal ichnofossils?

> On the microscopic side, thin sections of stromatolitic structures
> and algal mats is standard investigative procedure. I spent some
> time poring over some of Stan Awramik's Doushantuo thin sections
> that contain lots of algae and bacterial material. Many of the
> Lagerstatte of the Ediacaran are clearly not susceptible to this
> kind of scrutiny due to the grain size of the rocks. It's
> not the case that the bilaterians haven't been seen because
> nobody's looked.

I suspected that, and what I was referring to with "no suggestion
that anyone has tried that" was discussion late last year on
other threads.

> The "Cambrian Water World" I haven't seen. It appears to be aimed at the
> general reader (in contrast to E&V), which by no means is a bad thing. >Do you really believe that E&V is simply 'an antidote to Meyers'?

Of course not! But its "antidote" aspect seems to be the main
reason it is of such great interest in the blogosphere.

> There's no indication that the authors have any
> familiarity with Meyer's book,

Yes, and that's probably why Prothero was able to elicit a laugh
from them with a distorted question about something Meyer's book
(allegedly) attributes to their book.

> and there's no real reason any serious student
> of paleontology should have any such familiarity.

Unless they frequent sites like Panda's Thumb or the many
"reviews" of Meyer's book on Amazon.com.

erik simpson

unread,
Feb 19, 2015, 7:50:39 PM2/19/15
to
I was talking about horizontal traces, not Skolithos. And no, small shellies
show up in different contexts.

Why any serious student of paleontology would waste any time reading reviews
of Meyer's book also escapes me.

Peter Nyikos

unread,
Feb 20, 2015, 1:00:35 PM2/20/15
to
On Thursday, February 19, 2015 at 7:50:39 PM UTC-5, erik simpson wrote:
> On Thursday, February 19, 2015 at 4:05:36 PM UTC-8, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > On Wednesday, February 18, 2015 at 12:30:43 AM UTC-5, erik simpson wrote:
> > > On Tuesday, February 17, 2015 at 6:45:43 PM UTC-8, Peter Nyikos wrote:

> > > > As I told Inyo, if sci.bio.paleontology hadn't fallen on evil times,
> > > > this thread would be taking place there instead of here. As it is, where
> > > > else but talk.origins could I find so many people to whom the topic is
> > > > of potential interest? Sure, most of them are political animals to
> > > > whom the topic is of interest only because it is one where they can
> > > > hit creationists where it hurts. But at least they listen, and some
> > > > discuss.
> >
> > <snip for focus>
> >
> > > > > How does the diversification of tracks and burrows in the latest
> > > > > Precambrian affect this view?
> > > >
> > > > I'd need to know more about what made them. When do they commence
> > > > in earnest?

<snip for focus>

> > <snip for focus>

> > > Just a couple of points. Late Ediacaran and earliest Cambrian
> > > mudstones often display ichnofossils in the form of horizontal
> > > 'squiggles' in the mud. As I mentioned earlier in this thread,
> > > they're locally quite common and abundant, with dimensions from
> > > a couple to millimeters to a centimeter.
> >
> > Width, I presume?

Was I right about that, Erik?
> I was talking about horizontal traces, not Skolithos. And no, small shellies
> show up in different contexts.

Thank you for that information too. Have you read the following article
by Seilacher, Grazhdankin, and Legouta?

"Ediacaran biota: The dawn of animal life in the shadow of giant protists"
Paleontological Research vol 7 no 1 (2003) pp. 43-54.

They have some pretty radical ideas, but I'm more curious at the
moment about what they have to say about undisputed xenophyophores,
a group of marine rhizopondan protists. On page 49 there is a
photo (Figure 9) of what would appear to be a meandering horizontal trail
across a biomat. But the caption speaks of "Where the chamber bottoms
are incompletely agglutinated or broken away, the remnants of the
walls resemble meandering trails." Do you have any idea how many
varieties of such ichnofossils there are?

> Why any serious student of paleontology would waste any time reading reviews
> of Meyer's book also escapes me.

Tell that to Christine Janis, a professional paleontologist who
spends countless hours as an apologist for Prothero and his "review"
on Amazon.com. Janis at first was reasonably decent towards me,
but as time (somewhat over a year) went by and her cronies continued
their relentless, copious defamation campaign against me, she started
hinting, sometimes very strongly hinting, that I am a creationist.
Her "evidence" was essentially nonexistent.

That was the situation when Prof. Janis posted a link to talk.origins,
beginning a thread here where people with long standing grudges
against me enthusiastically claimed that my "rudeness" [which was
far less damaging to Christine than the smear of "creationist"
is to me] was simply beyond the pale. So far I have been very
lenient with her on that thread, but that only seems to have
clouded the real issues between us.

Peter Nyikos

erik simpson

unread,
Feb 20, 2015, 1:25:34 PM2/20/15
to
You're right that when I said the trails are 2mm-1cm I was referring to their
widths.

Dolf Seilacher has contributed lots of insightful (some have suggested fanciful)
interpretations. One of these is the interpretation of many vendobionts as
giant protists. Hard to test, and not generally accepted, although the
affinities of many of those organisms remains unresolved. It can't
be argued with certainty that the late Ediacaran - early Cambrian ichnofossils
were made by bilaterians, but it can be argued with certainty that balaterians
existed at that time.

Dr. Janis must have her reasons for spending time on book reviews. That I can't
think of what they may be is neither here not there. Your strident defense of
Meyer's rubbish and refusal to consider genuine scholarship might suggest some
sympathy for creationist views. You insist that's not your position, but your
position is another of my zones of ignorance. I doubt your 'rudeness' has
caused any damage to her professional reputation, just as I doubt any
accusations of creationism has damaged yours.

Peter Nyikos

unread,
Feb 20, 2015, 3:05:37 PM2/20/15
to
<snip for focus>

> > > > > There's no obvious way to tell what sort of organisms made
> > > > > these tracks, but they were certainly macroscopic, and were quite
> > > > > plausibly bilaterians. If the nature of the squiggles does
> > > > > correspond to different species or genera, they exhibit some
> > > > > diversity, if not disparity. No convincing body fossils have
> > > > > been associated with them.
> > > >
> > > > Thank you for all this information. Are there any Cambrian
> > > > "small shellies" associated with either such putative burrows
> > > > or horizontal ichnofossils?
> > > >
> > > > > On the microscopic side, thin sections of stromatolitic structures
> > > > > and algal mats is standard investigative procedure. I spent some
> > > > > time poring over some of Stan Awramik's Doushantuo thin sections
> > > > > that contain lots of algae and bacterial material. Many of the
> > > > > Lagerstatte of the Ediacaran are clearly not susceptible to this
> > > > > kind of scrutiny due to the grain size of the rocks. It's
> > > > > not the case that the bilaterians haven't been seen because
> > > > > nobody's looked.

<snip>

> > > I was talking about horizontal traces, not Skolithos. And no, small shellies
> > > show up in different contexts.
> >
> > Thank you for that information too. Have you read the following article
> > by Seilacher, Grazhdankin, and Legouta?
> >
> > "Ediacaran biota: The dawn of animal life in the shadow of giant protists"
> > Paleontological Research vol 7 no 1 (2003) pp. 43-54.
> >
> > They have some pretty radical ideas, but I'm more curious at the
> > moment about what they have to say about undisputed xenophyophores,
> > a group of marine rhizopondan protists. On page 49 there is a
> > photo (Figure 9) of what would appear to be a meandering horizontal trail
> > across a biomat. But the caption speaks of "Where the chamber bottoms
> > are incompletely agglutinated or broken away, the remnants of the
> > walls resemble meandering trails." Do you have any idea how many
> > varieties of such ichnofossils there are?

Well, do you? It's quite OK to answer "no"-- I can't expect you
to be an expert on everything.

<snip for focus>

> You're right that when I said the trails are 2mm-1cm I was referring to their
> widths.

Thanks. That xenophytophore in Fig. 9 is about 3mm wide, but
what superficially looks like a trail is several centimeters
long, and the photo may not be showing the whole thing.

> Dolf Seilacher has contributed lots of insightful (some have suggested fanciful)
> interpretations. One of these is the interpretation of many vendobionts as
> giant protists.

What about the suggestion that *Cloudina* is a (not terribly giant)
protist? Is that not generally accepted?

> Hard to test, and not generally accepted, although the
> affinities of many of those organisms remains unresolved. It can't
> be argued with certainty that the late Ediacaran - early Cambrian ichnofossils
> were made by bilaterians, but it can be argued with certainty that balaterians
> existed at that time.
>

I don't seriously doubt that last point, inasmuch as cnidarans had already
split off from them, and I doubt that ctenophores and bilaterians form
a clade. There is even fairly strong molecular evidence that it is
cnidarans and bilaterians form a clade with ctenophores as the
sister group.

Moreover, IMO the surprising thing is not that we have no ctenophore
fossils (yet) from the precambrian; the surprising thing is that we have
such exquisitely preserved fossil ctenophores in Chengjiang. The
exquisite color plates which show a fine specimen (and fine specimens
of many other Cambrian biota) together with the purely factual
paleontological information elsewhere in _Darwin's Doubt_ made
it worth the bargain-basement price for which I got it, IMO.

> Dr. Janis must have her reasons for spending time on book reviews.

She makes no secret of the fact that she is upset over how few
of her colleagues are not similarly crusading against creationists.
That is her main aim in spending thousands of hours in the
various comments sections of Amazon.com. She only very sparingly
and reluctantly discusses paleontology the way we have; most
of her crusading is pure polemic. IMO she grossly
overestimates the damage caused by books like _Darwin's Doubt_.

> Your strident defense of Meyer's rubbish

Nonexistent. My defense is confined to the correction of distorted
and downright false claims made about Meyer and his writings.

> and refusal to consider genuine scholarship

No such refusal exists, even if you consider undocumented
claims by Harshman to be "genuine scholarship". I consider
them, but suspend judgment about them until real evidence is given--
or independently found by me.

>might suggest some sympathy for creationist views.

You are confusing "creationist views" with "creationists".
I cannot help feeling some sympathy for people, regardless
of who they are, whose views are so massively distorted,
with some distortions going viral over the whole blogosphere.

> You insist that's not your position, but your
> position is another of my zones of ignorance. I doubt your 'rudeness' has
> caused any damage to her professional reputation, just as I doubt any
> accusations of creationism has damaged yours.

I believe you are right about that, inasmuch as those review comment
sections in Amazon.com, running now to something like 7000 posts,
are seen by so few people -- usually not more than 20, with fewer than
10 participants on any given day.

Peter Nyikos
nyi...@math.sc.edu

erik simpson

unread,
Feb 20, 2015, 6:05:33 PM2/20/15
to
The 'genuine scholarship' I mentioned referred to the well-known 'Book You
Will Go To Any Length Not To Read'. Trust me (or not), there's lots in it
you'd find interesting.

Sneaky O. Possum

unread,
Feb 22, 2015, 11:55:28 AM2/22/15
to
erik simpson <eastsi...@gmail.com> wrote in
news:2528eb40-c2fe-4b96...@googlegroups.com:

> On Friday, February 20, 2015 at 10:00:35 AM UTC-8, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>> On Thursday, February 19, 2015 at 7:50:39 PM UTC-5, erik simpson
>> wrote:
[snip]
>> > Why any serious student of paleontology would waste any time
>> > reading reviews of Meyer's book also escapes me.
>>
>> Tell that to Christine Janis, a professional paleontologist who
>> spends countless hours as an apologist for Prothero and his "review"
>> on Amazon.com. Janis at first was reasonably decent towards me,
>> but as time (somewhat over a year) went by and her cronies continued
>> their relentless, copious defamation campaign against me, she started
>> hinting, sometimes very strongly hinting, that I am a creationist.
>> Her "evidence" was essentially nonexistent.
>>
>> That was the situation when Prof. Janis posted a link to
>> talk.origins, beginning a thread here where people with long standing
>> grudges against me enthusiastically claimed that my "rudeness" [which
>> was far less damaging to Christine than the smear of "creationist"
>> is to me] was simply beyond the pale. So far I have been very
>> lenient with her on that thread, but that only seems to have
>> clouded the real issues between us.

[snip]

> Dr. Janis must have her reasons for spending time on book reviews.
> That I can't think of what they may be is neither here not there.
> Your strident defense of Meyer's rubbish and refusal to consider
> genuine scholarship might suggest some sympathy for creationist views.
> You insist that's not your position, but your position is another of
> my zones of ignorance. I doubt your 'rudeness' has caused any damage
> to her professional reputation, just as I doubt any accusations of
> creationism has damaged yours.

Like most of what the Fruit Bat writes, his claims about Janis are a
concontion in which a soupçon of fact (Janis is indeed a professional
paleontologist) is concealed within several liters of fiction.

The claim that Janis is 'an apologist for Prothero' is Fruity's
projection of his own role as apologist for Meyer. The thread began with
creationists of various stripes making bogus claims about problems with
Prothero's review and evolutionary biology in general: when Professor
Janis and other pro-evolutionary biology posters showed up, they
proceeded to mop up the floor with the creationists, who (being
creationists) refused to admit defeat and kept staggering back into the
ring for another round.

Despite Fruity's claim that Professor Janis spends 'countless hours'
posting to the thread, her contributions are overshadowed by his own:
there are presently well over 6,300 posts to the thread, and Fruity is,
by my calculations, responsible for at least 14.6% of them. Moreover,
many of Professor Janis's posts are only one or two lines long. She
expressed surprise at Fruity's claim that he didn't have time to post to
the thread while classes were in session: unlike Fruity, she clearly
regarded posting comments as an enjoyable diversion, something to spend
a few minutes on during a break from daily labor.

I suspect that Fruity's real problem with Professor Janis is the fact
that she's both knowledgeable and perceptive. She provided a clear
argument for calling him a creationist, viz.: 'No, Peter, I think
that you're a creationist because you appear to believe in special
creation of certain things, and take all scientific arguments about
these issues as being "dodging the question" because the answer doesn't
involve "intelligence": examples, the GRNs of the Cambrian fauna and the
notochord of vertebrates.' The 'essentially nonexistent' evidence was
Fruity's own posts.

Even worse, Professor Janis displays a healthy degree of self-awareness.
Fruity's degree of self-awareness may be judged from such comments as
the following, from last August:

'But I'm not one for holding grudges.'
--
S.O.P.

Peter Nyikos

unread,
Feb 23, 2015, 9:35:25 AM2/23/15
to
Like he has been doing lately against me, with a recent exception
where we discuss the worth of a universe without anything in it
being aware of that universe's existence...

...SOP is trolling.


> The claim that Janis is 'an apologist for Prothero' is Fruity's
> projection of his own role as apologist for Meyer.

Heavy trolling by SOP here. Janis has consistently repeated the same
lies about Prothero despite numerous refutations by me, being spoiled rotten
by the groupies who consistently vote my refutations out of plain sight.

Janis has sanctimoniously claimed in talk.origins that she doesn't
encourage groupie voting. Probably true, but ONLY because she doesn't
need to do it. For one thing, she has people like "Puck Mendelssohn"
and David A. Rintoul [a Holocene ornithologist like Harshman] to
summon groupies from elsewhere if there is a need for them.

As for "projection," nobody here has addressed what I wrote
in reply to Erik's baseless allegation:

"Your strident defense of Meyer's rubbish"

To which my reply was:

"Nonexistent. My defense is confined to the correction of distorted
and downright false claims made about Meyer and his writings."

SOP, of course, didn't even have the chutzpah to reply directly
to that post. Erik's post, to which I was replying, provided a
much more convenient starting point for him.

By the way, a sizable number of downright false claims were made by
Prothero in his "review", the subject of the blog of which SOP
writes below.

>The thread began with
> creationists of various stripes making bogus claims about problems with
> Prothero's review and evolutionary biology in general: when Professor
> Janis and other pro-evolutionary biology posters showed up, they
> proceeded to mop up the floor with the creationists,

...long before I came on the scene. By the time I arrived, the
creationists were pretty much gone. This was about the 600th post
or so. The thread is now up to about ten times that many posts.

> who (being
> creationists) refused to admit defeat and kept staggering back into the
> ring for another round.
>
> Despite Fruity's claim that Professor Janis spends 'countless hours'
> posting to the thread,

...and other threads.

> her contributions are overshadowed by his own:
> there are presently well over 6,300 posts to the thread, and Fruity is,
> by my calculations, responsible for at least 14.6% of them.

Not surprising when there are really only six consistent regulars
on that thread since about the 700th post: Janis, "Puck", Rintoul,
Joker-like clown William Farrell, Ray Togtman, and myself.

Ray is the counterpart of Glenn in that blog, but he lacks Glenn's
aggressiveness. The groupies are more prone to leaving his posts
in than mine, even though -- I should say especially though --
a lot of them are flaky or tongue in cheek. [At least, he
claims they are after he is nailed on their content.]

> Moreover,
> many of Professor Janis's posts are only one or two lines long.

She is often busy on other blogs at the same time, but she
never misses a beat on the 6360+ post blog. Her main role
is to express solidarity with the dedicated perpetrators of
injustice whom I've named up there. Quite a few times I've
seen her reply to a long polemical (and often fallacious) post by
"Puck" with the opening words, "Eloquent as usual, Puck."

> She
> expressed surprise at Fruity's claim that he didn't have time to post to
> the thread while classes were in session:

That has to do with having to stop for hours to GIVE a class or two, and
I'd like to see SOP come up with even one exception -- or ANY examples
of Janis expressing surprise as advertised.

> unlike Fruity, she clearly
> regarded posting comments as an enjoyable diversion, something to spend
> a few minutes on during a break from daily labor.

Or hours, as happened on more than one occasion; but the main thing
is, Janis has shackled herself to a bunch of dedicated perpetrators
of injustice. Until about post 5000 she and I got along reasonably
well under the circumstances, but then she began to lose all restraint.


>
> I suspect that Fruity's real problem with Professor Janis is the fact
> that she's both knowledgeable and perceptive.

That is what I PRAISED her for back in 1997. That is why I was thrilled
to learn that she was posting regularly to that blog, and thrilled
at the first few exchanges we had. But "hallucigenia",
another dedicated perpetrator of injustice, effectively
put an end to Janis and me exchanging specialized paleontological
lore on that thread.

Details on request. In short, "paranoid" is too kind a word
for what SOP "suspects."

> She provided a clear
> argument for calling him a creationist, viz.: 'No, Peter, I think
> that you're a creationist because you appear to believe in special
> creation of certain things,

An utterly baseless claim, even with the weasel words "you appear
to believe".

> and take all scientific arguments about
> these issues as being "dodging the question" because the answer doesn't
> involve "intelligence": examples, the GRNs of the Cambrian fauna and the
> notochord of vertebrates.'

She deliberately "misunderstood" what I wrote about these things. If
SOP were to repost what I had written, it would become obvious that
"paranoid" is too kind a word for Janis's conclusiong.

>The 'essentially nonexistent' evidence was
> Fruity's own posts.

NONE of which SOP has the chutzpah to cite. It is essentially
nonexistent, and forever will be.

> Even worse, Professor Janis displays a healthy degree of self-awareness.

I see precious little evidence of that, and I'd like to see SOP
provide some.

> Fruity's degree of self-awareness may be judged from such comments as
> the following, from last August:
>
> 'But I'm not one for holding grudges.'

My words were absolutely true, and if SOP continues his virtually non-stop
trolling, and others show signs of taking it seriously,
I will begin a thread or two devoted to setting the record straight.

Peter Nyikos

Peter Nyikos

unread,
Feb 23, 2015, 11:45:25 AM2/23/15
to
I do answer them, at least as consistently as either you or Erik does,
but you just don't like the answers because you cannot let go
of your para-xenophobic suspicions that I am a stealth Meyer
supporter, or worse. You showed no sign of letting go of those
suspicions when I gave a long account that you snipped, so
now I am going to explain myself from a totally different angle.

I've told you for years now that I think the chance of there being
a supernatural creator is low -- less than 1% to put a figure to it.

But I also draw elementary logical ("well, duh") conclusions from that.
One is that the probability of this or that biological feature being
designed by a supernatural designer is also less than 1%, and
often a lot less, as my exchanges with Martinez show.

Political animal that you are, this "well, duh" corollary
probably never occurred to you.

And so, I was relieved when Robison and Miller found a neat way
of accounting for gradual "Darwinian" evolution of long cascades,
as in clotting. The idea of any naturally evolved being in our
universe designing something like that all in one go is
just plain ridiculous.

The bacterial flagellum is another matter, and I've written at
length about it elsewhere in talk.origins. Its design,
if it indeed happened, could have been done by naturally
evolved beings at our level of intelligence, with modest
resources.

Near the other extreme, the idea that a huge research project spanning
untold thousands of years was carried out on earth to engineer what is called
the Cambrian explosion seems too farfetched to consider seriously. I mean,
what could be the point of starting with a primitive bilaterian no
more complicated than an acoelic "flatworm" and engineering the menagerie
of creatures one sees in Chengjiang shales and Burgess shales? Why
stop there and bank on evolution producing tetrapods ca. 200 million
years later?

And so, the alternatives are creationism and unguided evolution over X
million years, and even if X is just 5, I still opt for the latter.

But I am in the same boat as everyone else but the creationists seems to be.
There is no real attempt to show that current evolutionary theory can
account for a 5 million year advance from acoelic flatworm level to
Chengjiang level. To show that would require a vast concerted effort,
and even people as paranoid about the creationists as Prothero,
Janis, Rintoul, "Puck" "hallucigenia,' and Farrell don't even
pretend to make such an effort.

If a concerted effort were successful, I estimate that at
least 90% of the dishonesty and hypocrisy in talk.origins and
various other forums dominated by anti-ID zealots would
disappear on this issue. Because then everyone could safely be as
patient with the "Cambrian explosion creationists" as Dana Tweedy is
with Ray Martinez.

As it is, fanatics like Prothero know they can't make a convincing case
that "looks really good on paper" and so they have to relentlessly
misrepresent what Meyer wrote. And to relentlessly misrepresent
people like me who try to tell the truth about those misrepresentations.
SOP gave a good example of that on this very theead,
to which I replied earlier this morning.

But I expect you to act as though his trolling never existed.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, U. of South Carolina -- standard disclaimer --

John Harshman

unread,
Feb 23, 2015, 12:20:26 PM2/23/15
to
Let's see if I can pick anything at all interesting out of all the
verbiage. Hmmmm...I'm afraid all I can find is this:

> There is no real attempt to show that current evolutionary theory can
> account for a 5 million year advance from acoelic flatworm level to
> Chengjiang level.

Where would you get "5 million" from? Even the problematic fossil record
would seem to preclude anything so short. Kimberella, at least, seems
far past the acoel flatworm stage (if in fact acoel flatworms even have
a primitive morphology), and the gradual increase in diversity of both
the ichnofossils and small shellies through the latest Precambrian,
Cambrian 1, and Cambrian 2 would suggest something more like 20 or 30
million years, at least.

But relevant to your claims, are you aware of this paper?:

Lee, M. S. Y., et al. 2013. Rates of phenotypic and genomic evolution
during the Cambrian explosion. Current Biology 23:1889-1895.

http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822(13)00916-0


erik simpson

unread,
Feb 23, 2015, 12:25:25 PM2/23/15
to
Where in the world does the 5 My come from? Acoels to Chengjiang? Chengjiang
is dated to ~520 Mya, stage 3 of the lower Cambrian. The reason 'There is no
real attempt to show that current evolutionary theory can account for a 5 million year advance from acoelic flatworm level to Chengjiang level' is that
there's no reason to suppose that such an explanation is necessary.

It would really help your arguments (and credibility) if you would let go of
whatever insights you've picked up from Meyer and pay more attention to what
real data we have.

Peter Nyikos

unread,
Feb 23, 2015, 12:55:25 PM2/23/15
to
The fact that you cannot explicitly let go of your para-xenophobia
about me, is uninteresting to you, eh? despite two VERY different attempts
at helping you let go of it, at that? Are you really this incorrigible?

> Hmmmm...I'm afraid all I can find is this:
>
> > There is no real attempt to show that current evolutionary theory can
> > account for a 5 million year advance from acoelic flatworm level to
> > Chengjiang level.
>
> Where would you get "5 million" from?

Meyer's figure for "the main pulse of the Cambrian explosion, Christine
Janis's distortion of it as being the whole duration of the
explosion *sensu* Meyer, and her confident assurances that even
if the Cambrian explosion were as short as "Meyer" claims,
it still would pose no problem for science--evolutionary theory
could easily account for it.

I deal with what is "conventional wisdom" on the blogosphere, because
talk.origins is very much a part of the blogosphere, and is often
derivative of what goes on elsewhere, as in your and Erik's having heard
of Erwin & Valentine's book in many places, but _Cambrian Water World_
only from me.

> Even the problematic fossil record
> would seem to preclude anything so short. Kimberella, at least, seems
> far past the acoel flatworm stage (if in fact acoel flatworms even have
> a primitive morphology),

Yes, but if it is a stem bilaterian, then a relatively un-derived
creature somewhat like an acoel flatworm (I'm NOT saying "one of them,"
only something on the same level of complexity) might have given rise
later to crown group Bilateria.

> and the gradual increase in diversity of both
> the ichnofossils and small shellies through the latest Precambrian,
> Cambrian 1, and Cambrian 2 would suggest something more like 20 or 30
> million years, at least.

Agreed. That's what I opt for, as I said earlier.

> But relevant to your claims, are you aware of this paper?:
>
> Lee, M. S. Y., et al. 2013. Rates of phenotypic and genomic evolution
> during the Cambrian explosion. Current Biology 23:1889-1895.
>
> http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822(13)00916-0

Is this the one which hypothesizes that evolution took place 5 times
as fast back then as it does now?

Peter Nyikos
Professor, U of S Carolina --standard disclaimer --

John Harshman

unread,
Feb 23, 2015, 1:10:25 PM2/23/15
to
I refuse to encourage the self-absorbed crazy.

>> Hmmmm...I'm afraid all I can find is this:
>>
>>> There is no real attempt to show that current evolutionary theory can
>>> account for a 5 million year advance from acoelic flatworm level to
>>> Chengjiang level.
>>
>> Where would you get "5 million" from?
>
> Meyer's figure for "the main pulse of the Cambrian explosion, Christine
> Janis's distortion of it as being the whole duration of the
> explosion *sensu* Meyer, and her confident assurances that even
> if the Cambrian explosion were as short as "Meyer" claims,
> it still would pose no problem for science--evolutionary theory
> could easily account for it.

Ah, so it's continuing some feud nobody here had any part in. Why?

> I deal with what is "conventional wisdom" on the blogosphere, because
> talk.origins is very much a part of the blogosphere, and is often
> derivative of what goes on elsewhere, as in your and Erik's having heard
> of Erwin & Valentine's book in many places, but _Cambrian Water World_
> only from me.

Could it be that Erwin & Valentine is the intensively researched,
comprehensive, standard work on the subject while the other is a popular
account? This consistent disregard for Erwin & Valentine is
unreasonable. Were I given to speculation, I could suppose that your
disdain was due entirely to it's having been brought up in opposition to
Meyer's book.

>> Even the problematic fossil record
>> would seem to preclude anything so short. Kimberella, at least, seems
>> far past the acoel flatworm stage (if in fact acoel flatworms even have
>> a primitive morphology),
>
> Yes, but if it is a stem bilaterian, then a relatively un-derived
> creature somewhat like an acoel flatworm (I'm NOT saying "one of them,"
> only something on the same level of complexity) might have given rise
> later to crown group Bilateria.

I'm not clear on the connection between your if and your then. What does
Kimberella have to do with something rather like an acoel flatworm? What
does an acoel flatworm have to do with the duration of the Cambrian
explosion?

>> and the gradual increase in diversity of both
>> the ichnofossils and small shellies through the latest Precambrian,
>> Cambrian 1, and Cambrian 2 would suggest something more like 20 or 30
>> million years, at least.
>
> Agreed. That's what I opt for, as I said earlier.

So the whole 5 million year thing is irrelevant. You mentioned it only
to attack various people not present. Your motivation for all this is
seeming less and less like scientific curiosity and more and more like a
petty personal dispute. Still, be happy I'm not accusing you of creationism.

>> But relevant to your claims, are you aware of this paper?:
>>
>> Lee, M. S. Y., et al. 2013. Rates of phenotypic and genomic evolution
>> during the Cambrian explosion. Current Biology 23:1889-1895.
>>
>> http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822(13)00916-0
>
> Is this the one which hypothesizes that evolution took place 5 times
> as fast back then as it does now?

A poor summary, but I do believe you're thinking of the right paper.
Have you read it?

Peter Nyikos

unread,
Feb 23, 2015, 3:15:26 PM2/23/15
to
On Wednesday, February 18, 2015 at 9:15:41 AM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
> On 2/17/15, 6:41 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > On Tuesday, February 17, 2015 at 7:05:42 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
> >> On 2/16/15, 11:50 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >>> On Monday, February 16, 2015 at 12:45:47 PM UTC-5, erik simpson wrote:
> >
> >
> >>>> Peter, if I may make a suggestion: your style of presentation makes it seem
> >>>> that you're leading up to some large statement or conclusion by leaving a
> >>>> trail of hints (such as the embarrassing lack of bilaterian fossils).
> >>>
> >>> That's an "artifact" of the nature of this newsgroup. In a straight
> >>> science group one might naturally infer that I am merely giving
> >>> various riddles in science that cry out for explanation. And they
> >>> would be right.
> >>
> >> That's all? Here are some interesting riddles? No connection whatsoever
> >> to ID or Steven Meyer? Cross your heart?
>
> Hope you don't mind if I snip your self-serving rant.

The only "self-serving" thing about it is that I was hoping you would
see that the answers to your four para-xenophobic questions are,
respectively:

Yes, yes, ABSOLUTELY NOT, and "Stop being so flippantly
juvenile."

And since you snipped what you self-servingly call a "rant", and never hinted
at comprehending any of this, I concluded that you are still as stubbornly
suspicious as your four questions indicated.

Then, this morning, I posted something nobody could mistake for being any
more "self-serving" than getting the real answers to your
four questions to sink in, and you went completely bananas.

> > You seem to be numbered among these. For instance: on the one hand, you
> > are very keen on getting me to buy Erwin and Valentine's book; on the other
> > hand, you were oblivious to another book on the Cambrian explosion:
> >
> > Cambrian Water World:
> > http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0253011825/ref=sib_dp_pt#reader-link
> >
> > And the contrast is readily explained if the real reason you are
> > keen on Erwin and Valentine's book is that, all over the blogosphere, it
> > is touted as the perfect antidote to Meyer's book.
>
> There you go again, making up weird, paranoid explanations.

It's been established that you have a private, highly nonstandard meaning
of the word "paranoid," and this looks like a great illustration of that.

Let's see you try to explain just why what I wrote is supposed
to be "paranoid" in the usual sense of the word.

I doubt that you could be even 1% as successful at justifying
that word as I could be at justifying "para-xenophobic" for your
four questions.

> I know
> nothing about that book, but based on chapter titles it seems to be
> intended for general audiences. I wouldn't expect it to have the detail
> that Erwin & Valentine has. I see no reason why a rational person would
> have mentioned it at all.

By "detail" you obviously mean "sophisticated scientific detail".
But why would a ornithologist of the Holocene like you be interested in
E&V's book any more than in the other? You aren't even interested in
Feduccia's _Riddle of the Feathered Dragons_ enough to read it, are you?
From advance publicity in the blogosphere about Erwin & Valentine's
book, I would guess that it is roughly on the same level of sophistication
as Feduccia's book.


> >>> It more or less did arrive in the post I did after the one
> >>> to which you are replying. I favor the fossil evidence over
> >>> the molecular clock estimates, and the fossil evidence suggests that the
> >>> bilaterian diversification began only after 565 mya and perhaps
> >>> only after the beginning of the Cambrian period, ca. 542 mya.
> >>
> >> Define "diversification". What nodes on the tree do you think postdate
> >> 565ma?
> >
> > All the bilaterian nodes in the crown group Bilateria, is my current
> > hypothesis.
> >
> >> What postdate 542ma?
> >
> > That is something I've broached in my reply to Erik. I see you've
> > made a response, but I don't have the time tonight to think
> > carefully about it, so I deleted it below. Tomorrow, I hope to find the
> > time for dealing with it.
> >
> >> How does the diversification of tracks and burrows in the latest
> >> Precambrian affect this view?
> >
> > I'd need to know more about what made them. When do they commence
> > in earnest?
>
> This is the sort of thing you ought to know about before you start
> forming your hypotheses.

I couldn't find any helpful dates in the obvious places. Nor in that
article by Scheilacher et. al. that I told Erik about, the one
comparing tracks and burrows to something that looks superficially
like one but is not.

>You really ought to get into the literature.
> They start late in the Vendian and gradually increase in diversity and
> complexity (and depth) into the Early Cambrian. Here is one review:
>
> http://icb.oxfordjournals.org/content/43/1/219.full

Thanks, that looks like a paper with some real answers to
the natural questions one might ask in follow-up to the one I asked.

> > This reminds me of something else. It is sometimes hypothesized that t
> > the "arms race" between animals began with numerous tiny holes being bored
> > in the shell of Cloudina. But this may be a simplistic holdover from
> > the view of "nature red in tooth and claw". A possibility that occurred
> > to me the other day is that these holes might have been made when the
> > organism itself had left that "chamber" behind, and the creatures -- which
> > may have been just giant protists, which were plentiful in those days --
> > were the ancient analogues of hermit crabs, looking just for shelter.
>
> Fascinating. When presenting one hypothesis, you feel a need to
> attribute alternative hypotheses to faulty motivations.

This "felt need" is all in your mind. When I say "holdover" it
has to do with a lack of inspiration about alternatives. What with
the Wikipedia entry on *Cloudina* being worded the way it is,
it seems that my alternative explanation never occurred to
anyone in a peer-reviewed paper. Look at the following excerpt,
which takes a predatory explanation for granted:

"some Cloudina specimens from China bear the marks of
multiple attacks, which suggests they survived at least
a few of them. The holes made by predators..."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloudinid

]I read it quite a few times myself before the alternative description
occurred to me.

> There is
> considerable controversy about whether those holes do or do not indicate
> predation, but so far in the literature nobody to my knowledge has tried
> to attribute the predation hypothesis to delusion on the part of its
> proponents.

This "delusion" rant says a great deal more about you than it does
about me. If you weren't so para-xenophobic, you would see that you
are going way beyond what I wrote.

Erik and Vince Maycock don't seem to care what triggers statements
I make in criticism of you, like the ones in this post. They act as
though you were as patient with me as Dana Tweedy is with Ray Martinez,
when nothing could be further from the truth.

Peter Nyikos

John Harshman

unread,
Feb 23, 2015, 3:35:24 PM2/23/15
to
On 2/23/15, 12:14 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Wednesday, February 18, 2015 at 9:15:41 AM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
>> On 2/17/15, 6:41 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>> On Tuesday, February 17, 2015 at 7:05:42 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
>>>> On 2/16/15, 11:50 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>>>> On Monday, February 16, 2015 at 12:45:47 PM UTC-5, erik simpson wrote:

> And since you snipped what you self-servingly call a "rant", and never hinted
> at comprehending any of this, I concluded that you are still as stubbornly
> suspicious as your four questions indicated.

Sadly, yes. I think the only thing you can do here is try not to give me
any further reason to retain that impression. And yet you keep on doing
it, as in your expressed reasons for that "5 million year" time-frame
you have introduced.

> Then, this morning, I posted something nobody could mistake for being any
> more "self-serving" than getting the real answers to your
> four questions to sink in, and you went completely bananas.

What? I don't even like bananas.

>>> You seem to be numbered among these. For instance: on the one hand, you
>>> are very keen on getting me to buy Erwin and Valentine's book; on the other
>>> hand, you were oblivious to another book on the Cambrian explosion:
>>>
>>> Cambrian Water World:
>>> http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0253011825/ref=sib_dp_pt#reader-link
>>>
>>> And the contrast is readily explained if the real reason you are
>>> keen on Erwin and Valentine's book is that, all over the blogosphere, it
>>> is touted as the perfect antidote to Meyer's book.
>>
>> There you go again, making up weird, paranoid explanations.
>
> It's been established that you have a private, highly nonstandard meaning
> of the word "paranoid," and this looks like a great illustration of that.

Perhaps it's a stretch, but I apply it to your imputation of nefarious,
hidden motives.

>> I know
>> nothing about that book, but based on chapter titles it seems to be
>> intended for general audiences. I wouldn't expect it to have the detail
>> that Erwin & Valentine has. I see no reason why a rational person would
>> have mentioned it at all.
>
> By "detail" you obviously mean "sophisticated scientific detail".
> But why would a ornithologist of the Holocene like you be interested in
> E&V's book any more than in the other? You aren't even interested in
> Feduccia's _Riddle of the Feathered Dragons_ enough to read it, are you?
> From advance publicity in the blogosphere about Erwin & Valentine's
> book, I would guess that it is roughly on the same level of sophistication
> as Feduccia's book.

Actually, I've read Feduccia's book. And no, your guess is wrong. How
can you pretend to any scientific interest in the Cambrian explosion?

>>>>> It more or less did arrive in the post I did after the one
>>>>> to which you are replying. I favor the fossil evidence over
>>>>> the molecular clock estimates, and the fossil evidence suggests that the
>>>>> bilaterian diversification began only after 565 mya and perhaps
>>>>> only after the beginning of the Cambrian period, ca. 542 mya.
>>>>
>>>> Define "diversification". What nodes on the tree do you think postdate
>>>> 565ma?
>>>
>>> All the bilaterian nodes in the crown group Bilateria, is my current
>>> hypothesis.
>>>
>>>> What postdate 542ma?
>>>
>>> That is something I've broached in my reply to Erik. I see you've
>>> made a response, but I don't have the time tonight to think
>>> carefully about it, so I deleted it below. Tomorrow, I hope to find the
>>> time for dealing with it.
>>>
>>>> How does the diversification of tracks and burrows in the latest
>>>> Precambrian affect this view?
>>>
>>> I'd need to know more about what made them. When do they commence
>>> in earnest?
>>
>> This is the sort of thing you ought to know about before you start
>> forming your hypotheses.
>
> I couldn't find any helpful dates in the obvious places. Nor in that
> article by Scheilacher et. al. that I told Erik about, the one
> comparing tracks and burrows to something that looks superficially
> like one but is not.

I don't know what the obvious places are for you. But Erwin & Valentine
would be helpful.

>> You really ought to get into the literature.
>> They start late in the Vendian and gradually increase in diversity and
>> complexity (and depth) into the Early Cambrian. Here is one review:
>>
>> http://icb.oxfordjournals.org/content/43/1/219.full
>
> Thanks, that looks like a paper with some real answers to
> the natural questions one might ask in follow-up to the one I asked.

I found it in less than a minute on Google. Not an obvious place?

>>> This reminds me of something else. It is sometimes hypothesized that t
>>> the "arms race" between animals began with numerous tiny holes being bored
>>> in the shell of Cloudina. But this may be a simplistic holdover from
>>> the view of "nature red in tooth and claw". A possibility that occurred
>>> to me the other day is that these holes might have been made when the
>>> organism itself had left that "chamber" behind, and the creatures -- which
>>> may have been just giant protists, which were plentiful in those days --
>>> were the ancient analogues of hermit crabs, looking just for shelter.
>>
>> Fascinating. When presenting one hypothesis, you feel a need to
>> attribute alternative hypotheses to faulty motivations.
>
> This "felt need" is all in your mind. When I say "holdover" it
> has to do with a lack of inspiration about alternatives. What with
> the Wikipedia entry on *Cloudina* being worded the way it is,
> it seems that my alternative explanation never occurred to
> anyone in a peer-reviewed paper. Look at the following excerpt,
> which takes a predatory explanation for granted:
>
> "some Cloudina specimens from China bear the marks of
> multiple attacks, which suggests they survived at least
> a few of them. The holes made by predators..."
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloudinid
>
> ]I read it quite a few times myself before the alternative description
> occurred to me.

Why would an open tube require the boring of an escape hole?

>> There is
>> considerable controversy about whether those holes do or do not indicate
>> predation, but so far in the literature nobody to my knowledge has tried
>> to attribute the predation hypothesis to delusion on the part of its
>> proponents.
>
> This "delusion" rant says a great deal more about you than it does
> about me. If you weren't so para-xenophobic, you would see that you
> are going way beyond what I wrote.
>
> Erik and Vince Maycock don't seem to care what triggers statements
> I make in criticism of you, like the ones in this post. They act as
> though you were as patient with me as Dana Tweedy is with Ray Martinez,
> when nothing could be further from the truth.

Yes, Erik and Vince are bad, bad people. You should thrash them soundly.
(Verbally, I mean.) That will teach them.

erik simpson

unread,
Feb 23, 2015, 3:45:25 PM2/23/15
to
On Monday, February 23, 2015 at 12:35:24 PM UTC-8, John Harshman wrote:
> On 2/23/15, 12:14 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:

> <snip for sake of snipping>
> > Erik and Vince Maycock don't seem to care what triggers statements
> > I make in criticism of you, like the ones in this post. They act as
> > though you were as patient with me as Dana Tweedy is with Ray Martinez,
> > when nothing could be further from the truth.
>
> Yes, Erik and Vince are bad, bad people. You should thrash them soundly.
> (Verbally, I mean.) That will teach them.

Ooh! Ooh! I love a sound thrashing! What should I wear?

Peter Nyikos

unread,
Feb 23, 2015, 6:55:24 PM2/23/15
to
It's very orthodox, except for minor details having no connection
whatever with ID or creationism or Meyer. Just speculation about
such biological details as the interpretation of holes in Cloudina shells.

> > > I doubt your 'rudeness' has
> > > caused any damage to her professional reputation, just as I doubt any
> > > accusations of creationism has damaged yours.

On the other hand her accusations of creationism have done irreparable
damage to my effectiveness on that blog, given the way the lovers of
censorship sink my words out of sight. All it takes is about five
No votes, or 8 if there is a Yes vote, or 12 if there are two Yes
votes, etc. "Puck" and Rintoul can summon many more groupies than that
if necessary, and Rintoul has even bragged about having summoned enough
for 20 No votes in short order on one occasion.

>
> The 'genuine scholarship' I mentioned referred to the well-known 'Book You
> Will Go To Any Length Not To Read'. Trust me (or not), there's lots in it
> you'd find interesting.

What you said earlier is true only if one interprets "consider"
to mean "failure to get on interlibrary loan, on HARSHMAN'S timetable."

I've had one unexpected obligation after another since
December, at the end of which I had hoped to get two
weeks in which I could read that book intensively before
having to send it back, but now it appears that mid-March is
the earliest I can realistically shoot for.
By "intensively" I mean "more than one hour a day, on average."
Does either you or Harshman have a full time job, like I do?
Does either you or Harshman have two, and often three,
daughters living in the same house with you and your spouses?

Does either you or Harsman have at least half a dozen people at a
time in talk.origins making wild accusations directed at them
(like the three of yours to which I replied above), and the
torrent S.O.P. subjected me to on this thread?

And all that is WITHOUT getting into all the unexpected obligations
that I have yet to describe.

"Don't judge a man until you've walked a mile in his moccasins."
--old (allegedly) Native American saying

Peter Nyikos

erik simpson

unread,
Feb 23, 2015, 8:50:23 PM2/23/15
to
Nobody's forcing you to do anything. If you consider your abrasive, insulting
style, you have no reasonable expectation of sympathy for your pleas that you
don't have time to learn a little bit more about the subjects of which you
have such strong opinions.

Sneaky O. Possum

unread,
Feb 23, 2015, 11:50:23 PM2/23/15
to
An Inexplicably Sapient Fruit Bat <nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote in
news:b8717eae-2167-4f9a...@googlegroups.com:
[snip]
> I deal with what is "conventional wisdom" on the blogosphere, because
> talk.origins is very much a part of the blogosphere, and is often
> derivative of what goes on elsewhere, as in your and Erik's having
> heard of Erwin & Valentine's book in many places, but _Cambrian Water
> World_ only from me.

Why does that surprise you? There's no such book. Now, if you were
talking about John Foster's book 'Cambrian Ocean World', that would be
different.

'This volume, aimed at the general reader, presents life and times of
the amazing animals that inhabited Earth more than 500 million years
ago. The Cambrian Period was a critical time in Earth’s history. During
this immense span of time nearly every modern group of animals appeared.
Although life had been around for more than 2 million millennia,
Cambrian rocks preserve the record of the first appearance of complex
animals with eyes, protective skeletons, antennae, and complex
ecologies. Grazing, predation, and multi-tiered ecosystems with animals
living in, on, or above the sea floor became common. The cascade of
interaction led to an ever-increasing diversification of animal body
types. By the end of the period, the ancestors of sponges, corals,
jellyfish, worms, mollusks, brachiopods, arthropods, echinoderms, and
vertebrates were all in place. The evidence of this Cambrian
"explosion" is preserved in rocks all over the world, including North
America, where the seemingly strange animals of the period are preserved
in exquisite detail in deposits such as the Burgess Shale in British
Columbia...'

http://www.iupress.indiana.edu/product_info.php?products_id=807139

Can't imagine why the USENET 'blogosphere' (snerk!) hasn't been all over
that one.
--
S.O.P.

Peter Nyikos

unread,
Feb 24, 2015, 2:25:21 PM2/24/15
to
On Monday, February 23, 2015 at 1:10:25 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
> On 2/23/15, 9:54 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > On Monday, February 23, 2015 at 12:20:26 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
> >> On 2/23/15, 8:41 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >>> On Tuesday, February 17, 2015 at 6:25:43 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
> >>>> On 2/17/15, 11:58 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >>>>> On Tuesday, February 17, 2015 at 2:25:44 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:

> >>>>>> Now I'm curious. Let's suppose we establish that going from the
> >>>>>> ur-metazoan to all the modern phyla took only 5 million years. What
> >>>>>> conclusion would you draw from that?
> >>>>>
> >>>>> That we are VASTLY further along in our knowledge than when this
> >>>>> thread began.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> But at the rate you are contributing on this thread to this knowledge,
> >>>>> it may take 5 million years just to get to that point. :-)
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Maybe if you got your "agenda" bee out of your bonnet, you might
> >>>>> see your way towards contributing more meaty science.
> >>>>
> >>>> Maybe if you actually answered questions this thread would be going a
> >>>> bit better.

Unmarked snip by Harshman noted.

> >> Let's see if I can pick anything at all interesting out of all the
> >> verbiage.
> >
> > The fact that you cannot explicitly let go of your para-xenophobia
> > about me, is uninteresting to you, eh? despite two VERY different attempts
> > at helping you let go of it, at that? Are you really this incorrigible?

<snip aggressive flamebait by Harshman>

<snip superficially non-aggressive flamebait by Harshman>

[I wonder whether either Harshman or Simpson knows the enormous difference
between flamebait and flaming.]

> >>> There is no real attempt to show that current evolutionary theory can
> >>> account for a 5 million year advance from acoelic flatworm level to
> >>> Chengjiang level.
> >>
> >> Where would you get "5 million" from?

You don't think modern evolutionary theory could not account for
such a big jump, do you?

> > Meyer's figure for "the main pulse of the Cambrian explosion, Christine
> > Janis's distortion of it as being the whole duration of the
> > explosion *sensu* Meyer, and her confident assurances that even
> > if the Cambrian explosion were as short as "Meyer" claims,
> > it still would pose no problem for science--evolutionary theory
> > could easily account for it.

<snip flamebait by Harshman>


> > I deal with what is "conventional wisdom" on the blogosphere, because
> > talk.origins is very much a part of the blogosphere, and is often
> > derivative of what goes on elsewhere, as in your and Erik's having heard
> > of Erwin & Valentine's book in many places, but _Cambrian Water World_
> > only from me.
>
> Could it be that Erwin & Valentine is the intensively researched,
> comprehensive, standard work on the subject while the other is a popular
> account?

I doubt it, given the uses to which the blogosphere has put it, as opposed
to specialists to whose research it could contribute [not
to be confused with non-specialists such as you, Janis, and Prothero].

Why would you think otherwise?

<snip flamebait by Harshman>

> >> Even the problematic fossil record
> >> would seem to preclude anything so short. Kimberella, at least, seems
> >> far past the acoel flatworm stage (if in fact acoel flatworms even have
> >> a primitive morphology),
> >
> > Yes, but if it is a stem bilaterian, then a relatively un-derived
> > creature somewhat like an acoel flatworm (I'm NOT saying "one of them,"
> > only something on the same level of complexity) might have given rise
> > later to crown group Bilateria.
>
> I'm not clear on the connection between your if and your then. What does
> Kimberella have to do with something rather like an acoel flatworm?

Descended from such a primitive animal, obviously.

Its little-modified ancestor could have eventually branched
out in other directions.

> What
> does an acoel flatworm have to do with the duration of the Cambrian
> explosion?

Answered earlier: `(I'm NOT saying "one of them,"
only something on the same level of complexity).'

> >> and the gradual increase in diversity of both
> >> the ichnofossils and small shellies through the latest Precambrian,
> >> Cambrian 1, and Cambrian 2 would suggest something more like 20 or 30
> >> million years, at least.
> >
> > Agreed. That's what I opt for, as I said earlier.

<snip torrent of flamebait by Harshman>

> >> But relevant to your claims, are you aware of this paper?:
> >>
> >> Lee, M. S. Y., et al. 2013. Rates of phenotypic and genomic evolution
> >> during the Cambrian explosion. Current Biology 23:1889-1895.
> >>
> >> http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822(13)00916-0
> >
> > Is this the one which hypothesizes that evolution took place 5 times
> > as fast back then as it does now?
>
> A poor summary, but I do believe you're thinking of the right paper.
> Have you read it?

No, but the abstract does not encourage me to read it. It looks
like another study in diversity rather than disparity, inasmuch
as it confines itself to arthropods. Am I correct?

For sure, it doesn't address such enormous differences as
those dividing brachiopods from arthropods, or even from bivalves.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Math. -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina

John Harshman

unread,
Feb 24, 2015, 2:45:22 PM2/24/15
to
On 2/24/15, 11:20 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Monday, February 23, 2015 at 1:10:25 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
>> On 2/23/15, 9:54 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>> On Monday, February 23, 2015 at 12:20:26 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
>>>> On 2/23/15, 8:41 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>>>> On Tuesday, February 17, 2015 at 6:25:43 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
>>>>>> On 2/17/15, 11:58 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>>>>>> On Tuesday, February 17, 2015 at 2:25:44 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
>
>>>>>>>> Now I'm curious. Let's suppose we establish that going from the
>>>>>>>> ur-metazoan to all the modern phyla took only 5 million years. What
>>>>>>>> conclusion would you draw from that?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> That we are VASTLY further along in our knowledge than when this
>>>>>>> thread began.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> But at the rate you are contributing on this thread to this knowledge,
>>>>>>> it may take 5 million years just to get to that point. :-)
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Maybe if you got your "agenda" bee out of your bonnet, you might
>>>>>>> see your way towards contributing more meaty science.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Maybe if you actually answered questions this thread would be going a
>>>>>> bit better.
>
> Unmarked snip by Harshman noted.

Would you like me to mark every snip? If so, I'd be glad to do it.

[Here: I just snipped some crap]

>>>>> There is no real attempt to show that current evolutionary theory can
>>>>> account for a 5 million year advance from acoelic flatworm level to
>>>>> Chengjiang level.
>>>>
>>>> Where would you get "5 million" from?
>
> You don't think modern evolutionary theory could not account for
> such a big jump, do you?

I don't know. But how is that relevant to my question?

[Hey, I deleted more crap here]

[And more crap here]

>>>> Even the problematic fossil record
>>>> would seem to preclude anything so short. Kimberella, at least, seems
>>>> far past the acoel flatworm stage (if in fact acoel flatworms even have
>>>> a primitive morphology),
>>>
>>> Yes, but if it is a stem bilaterian, then a relatively un-derived
>>> creature somewhat like an acoel flatworm (I'm NOT saying "one of them,"
>>> only something on the same level of complexity) might have given rise
>>> later to crown group Bilateria.
>>
>> I'm not clear on the connection between your if and your then. What does
>> Kimberella have to do with something rather like an acoel flatworm?
>
> Descended from such a primitive animal, obviously.

> Its little-modified ancestor could have eventually branched
> out in other directions.

It could indeed, but how does this do anything to help you with the
subject at hand if we have no fossils of such things? Kimberella is what
you have to work with, not any hypothetical ancestors or cousins.

>> What
>> does an acoel flatworm have to do with the duration of the Cambrian
>> explosion?
>
> Answered earlier: `(I'm NOT saying "one of them,"
> only something on the same level of complexity).'

OK, I'll modify: what does something on the same level of complexity
have to do with the duration of the Cambrian explosion, given that
there's no evidence on this hypothetical thingy, most particularly on
its age?

>>>> and the gradual increase in diversity of both
>>>> the ichnofossils and small shellies through the latest Precambrian,
>>>> Cambrian 1, and Cambrian 2 would suggest something more like 20 or 30
>>>> million years, at least.
>>>
>>> Agreed. That's what I opt for, as I said earlier.
>
> <snip torrent of flamebait by Harshman>

OK, now here I'll just have to put it back in. Apparently "flamebait"
refers to anything you don't want to talk about.

So the whole 5 million year thing is irrelevant. Why did you bring it
up, then?

>>>> But relevant to your claims, are you aware of this paper?:
>>>>
>>>> Lee, M. S. Y., et al. 2013. Rates of phenotypic and genomic evolution
>>>> during the Cambrian explosion. Current Biology 23:1889-1895.
>>>>
>>>> http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822(13)00916-0
>>>
>>> Is this the one which hypothesizes that evolution took place 5 times
>>> as fast back then as it does now?
>>
>> A poor summary, but I do believe you're thinking of the right paper.
>> Have you read it?
>
> No, but the abstract does not encourage me to read it. It looks
> like another study in diversity rather than disparity, inasmuch
> as it confines itself to arthropods. Am I correct?

You are correct about some things, incorrect about others. It does
confine itself to arthropods. But why would that imply that it's about
diversity rather than disparity? Is there no disparity within
arthropods. And you sure are quick to decide that you don't want to read
stuff.

This paper used arthropods precisely because they have a comparatively
good record, lots of quantifiable disparity, and lots of identifiable
homologies to make that disparity quantifiable. Why would that be
irrelevant?

> For sure, it doesn't address such enormous differences as
> those dividing brachiopods from arthropods, or even from bivalves.

True, it doesn't. Why should that be a requirement for a relevant paper?

So you won't read Erwin & Valentine, you won't read Lee et al. What will
you read?

Peter Nyikos

unread,
Feb 24, 2015, 4:05:21 PM2/24/15
to
On Monday, February 23, 2015 at 11:50:23 PM UTC-5, Sneaky O. Possum wrote:
> An Inexplicably Sapient Fruit Bat <nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote in
> news:b8717eae-2167-4f9a...@googlegroups.com:
> [snip]
> > I deal with what is "conventional wisdom" on the blogosphere, because
> > talk.origins is very much a part of the blogosphere, and is often
> > derivative of what goes on elsewhere, as in your and Erik's having
> > heard of Erwin & Valentine's book in many places, but _Cambrian Water
> > World_ only from me.

Thanks for the correction to _Cambrian Ocean World_, S.O.P. I was
relying on my memory. I still haven't memorized the title of the E&V
book, by the way. We mathematicians generally go by authors rather
than titles. For instance, if you were to mention _Lectures on
Set Theoretic Topology_ to typical set theoretic topologists,
you might get a blank stare, but if you call it "Mary Ellen's
lecture notes booklet" their faces will almost surely light up.

"Mary Ellen," as almost every set theoretic topologist knows,
refers to the late (and much missed) Mary Ellen Rudin by default.

By the way, I had to look at the booklet to make sure the
title said "Lectures on..." rather than "Lectures in...".

> 'This volume, aimed at the general reader, presents life and times of
> the amazing animals that inhabited Earth more than 500 million years
> ago. The Cambrian Period was a critical time in Earth's history. During
> this immense span of time nearly every modern group of animals appeared.
> Although life had been around for more than 2 million millennia,
> Cambrian rocks preserve the record of the first appearance of complex
> animals with eyes, protective skeletons, antennae, and complex
> ecologies. Grazing, predation, and multi-tiered ecosystems with animals
> living in, on, or above the sea floor became common. The cascade of
> interaction led to an ever-increasing diversification of animal body
> types. By the end of the period, the ancestors of sponges, corals,
> jellyfish, worms, mollusks, brachiopods, arthropods, echinoderms, and
> vertebrates were all in place. The evidence of this Cambrian
> "explosion" is preserved in rocks all over the world, including North
> America, where the seemingly strange animals of the period are preserved
> in exquisite detail in deposits such as the Burgess Shale in British
> Columbia...'
>
> http://www.iupress.indiana.edu/product_info.php?products_id=807139
>
> Can't imagine why the USENET 'blogosphere' (snerk!) hasn't been all over
> that one.

Nice sarcasm. I'm sure Harshman can fill you in on the answer. Maybe
he can even explain why the WHOLE anti-ID blogosphere has been
all over E&V's book, but not this other book on the Cambrian.

In fact, he just might DO it for you. He won't for me-- he snipped
the following, and pronounced it "crap" even though it included
some things he wrote.

First there was my comment above which led off this post.

Then there came Harshman's response to that, and my response,
all snipped by Harshman:

_________________________________begin excerpt_________________

> Could it be that Erwin & Valentine is the intensively researched,
> comprehensive, standard work on the subject while the other is a popular
> account?

I doubt it, given the uses to which the blogosphere has put it, as opposed
to specialists to whose research it could contribute [not
to be confused with non-specialists such as you, Janis, and Prothero].

Why would you think otherwise?
___________________________end of excerpt_________________

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina
Specialty: set-theoretic topology

Sneaky O. Possum

unread,
Feb 24, 2015, 4:50:22 PM2/24/15
to
An Inexplicably Sapient Fruit Bat <nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote in
news:56b79ffc-afd8-46f4...@googlegroups.com:

> On Monday, February 23, 2015 at 11:50:23 PM UTC-5, Sneaky O. Possum
> wrote:
>> An Inexplicably Sapient Fruit Bat <nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote in
>> news:b8717eae-2167-4f9a...@googlegroups.com:
>> [snip]
>> > I deal with what is "conventional wisdom" on the blogosphere,
>> > because talk.origins is very much a part of the blogosphere, and is
>> > often derivative of what goes on elsewhere, as in your and Erik's
>> > having heard of Erwin & Valentine's book in many places, but
>> > _Cambrian Water World_ only from me.
>
> Thanks for the correction to _Cambrian Ocean World_, S.O.P. I was
> relying on my memory. I still haven't memorized the title of the E&V
> book, by the way.

It never occurred to me that anyone would *need* to memorize it.

[snip]

>> 'This volume, aimed at the general reader, presents life and times of
>> the amazing animals that inhabited Earth more than 500 million years
>> ago. The Cambrian Period was a critical time in Earth's history.
>> During this immense span of time nearly every modern group of animals
>> appeared. Although life had been around for more than 2 million
>> millennia, Cambrian rocks preserve the record of the first appearance
>> of complex animals with eyes, protective skeletons, antennae, and
>> complex ecologies. Grazing, predation, and multi-tiered ecosystems
>> with animals living in, on, or above the sea floor became common. The
>> cascade of interaction led to an ever-increasing diversification of
>> animal body types. By the end of the period, the ancestors of
>> sponges, corals, jellyfish, worms, mollusks, brachiopods, arthropods,
>> echinoderms, and vertebrates were all in place. The evidence of this
>> Cambrian "explosion" is preserved in rocks all over the world,
>> including North America, where the seemingly strange animals of the
>> period are preserved in exquisite detail in deposits such as the
>> Burgess Shale in British Columbia...'
>>
>> http://www.iupress.indiana.edu/product_info.php?products_id=807139
>>
>> Can't imagine why the USENET 'blogosphere' (snerk!) hasn't been all
>> over that one.
>
> Nice sarcasm. I'm sure Harshman can fill you in on the answer.

Harshman? That dude can't understand a word I say.

> Maybe he can even explain why the WHOLE anti-ID blogosphere has been
> all over E&V's book, but not this other book on the Cambrian.

USENET is not part of any 'blogosphere'. Neither are the comment threads
on user reviews at Amazon's website.

Granted, there are a fair number of people opposed to 'Intelligent
Design' on both talk.origins and the comment thread on Prothero's review,
but that probably has something to do with the fact that 'Intelligent
Design' is a load of shit. I realize that bodes ill for your wistful
conviction that ID is the key to validating your space-sperm fantasies,
but sometimes the truth hurts.

> In fact, he just might DO it for you.

No, he definitely doesn't do it for me.

> He won't for me-- he snipped the following, and pronounced it "crap"
> even though it included some things he wrote.
>
> First there was my comment above which led off this post.
>
> Then there came Harshman's response to that, and my response,
> all snipped by Harshman:
>
> _________________________________begin excerpt_________________
>
>> Could it be that Erwin & Valentine is the intensively researched,
>> comprehensive, standard work on the subject while the other is a
>> popular account?
>
> I doubt it, given the uses to which the blogosphere has put it, as
> opposed to specialists to whose research it could contribute [not
> to be confused with non-specialists such as you, Janis, and Prothero].
>
> Why would you think otherwise?
> ___________________________end of excerpt_________________

Is it your contention that Harshman, Janis, and Prothero et al. are
incapable of putting an intensively researched, comprehensive, standard
work on the subject to uses of which you disapprove?
--
S.O.P.

erik simpson

unread,
Feb 24, 2015, 5:00:21 PM2/24/15
to
I take exception to your repeated assertion that I must have encountered
Erwin & Valentine's book 'on the blogsphere'. (Is this an example of
flamebait?) I heard of in from a review in Science, and ordered it immediately.

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/340/6137/1170.full

On the other hand, I probably wouldn't have heard of Meyer's book at all if
you hadn't been boosting it here.

John Harshman

unread,
Feb 24, 2015, 7:55:21 PM2/24/15
to
On 2/24/15, 1:00 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
[snip some boring bits]

> I'm sure Harshman can fill you in on the answer. Maybe
> he can even explain why the WHOLE anti-ID blogosphere has been
> all over E&V's book, but not this other book on the Cambrian.

Christ on a bloody crutch. I'd say that's probably because E&V is the
standard technical treatise on the subject rather than a popular
account. Pretty sure I've said that before. This is also, I suspect, why
"the blogosphere" hasn't been citing either Wonderful Life or Conway
Morris' book, whose title momentarily escapes me.

[snip repost of crap]

John Harshman

unread,
Feb 24, 2015, 7:55:21 PM2/24/15
to
This bears reinforcing. I heard of Erwin & Valentine when the publisher
sent me an announcement. I heard of Meyer's book, somewhat later I
think, when Nick Matzke started making fun of it.

Peter Nyikos

unread,
Feb 25, 2015, 12:20:19 PM2/25/15
to
On Tuesday, February 24, 2015 at 4:50:22 PM UTC-5, Sneaky O. Possum wrote:
> An Inexplicably Sapient Fruit Bat <nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote in
> news:56b79ffc-afd8-46f4...@googlegroups.com:

By the way, Sneaky, your use of "Sapient Fruit Bat" is serendipitious
in a way, because it ties into something you and I and deadrat
have been discussing and debating. Have you ever heard of Nagel's
essay, "What Is It Like to Be a Bat"? It's a classic in the
philosophy of mind, anthologized in the book, _The Mind's I_.

The book is a checkered anthology on the concept of mind, edited,
with lots of commentary, by Dennett and Hofstadter.
These two turkeys completely misunderstood the essence of Nagel's essay,
but you can at least read the essay itself and learn a lot from it.

>
> > On Monday, February 23, 2015 at 11:50:23 PM UTC-5, Sneaky O. Possum
> > wrote:
> >> An Inexplicably Sapient Fruit Bat <nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote in
> >> news:b8717eae-2167-4f9a...@googlegroups.com:
> >> [snip]
> >> > I deal with what is "conventional wisdom" on the blogosphere,
> >> > because talk.origins is very much a part of the blogosphere, and is
> >> > often derivative of what goes on elsewhere, as in your and Erik's
> >> > having heard of Erwin & Valentine's book in many places, but
> >> > _Cambrian Water World_ only from me.
> >
> > Thanks for the correction to _Cambrian Ocean World_, S.O.P. I was
> > relying on my memory. I still haven't memorized the title of the E&V
> > book, by the way.
<snip for focus>

> >> http://www.iupress.indiana.edu/product_info.php?products_id=807139
> >>
> >> Can't imagine why the USENET 'blogosphere' (snerk!) hasn't been all
> >> over that one.
> >
> > Nice sarcasm. I'm sure Harshman can fill you in on the answer.
>
> Harshman? That dude can't understand a word I say.

So it seems you were *deliberately* trolling when you seemed to be
licking Harshman's boots back in November. Last night, I reposted where
I had caught you doing that. See that other thread for the repost.

> > Maybe he can even explain why the WHOLE anti-ID blogosphere has been
> > all over E&V's book, but not this other book on the Cambrian.
>
> USENET is not part of any 'blogosphere'. Neither are the comment threads
> on user reviews at Amazon's website.

<sigh>
Some idiot decided that a very special kind of forum would
actually, formally, be called an internet "forum", and ever since
I learned this, I've had to use contortions not to be misunderstood,
because I can't think of a suitable replacement for the word "forum"
in the English language.

<double sigh>
Now it seems I may have to indulge in similar contortions
to express "the totality of all internet forums in the everyday sense
of the word `forum' " instead of the convenient "blogosphere".

The only other thing that comes to mind is "the information highway"
but that's way TOO broad.

> Granted, there are a fair number of people opposed to 'Intelligent
> Design' on both talk.origins and the comment thread on Prothero's review,
> but that probably has something to do with the fact that 'Intelligent
> Design' is a load of shit.

Then they should expose that shit for what it IS, and not fling
their shit on top of it while ignoring huge arguments that do NOT
look like shit, like large tracts of Meyer's book before he
gets into his airy-fairy Dembski-ite ID "theory."

THIS is what I've been trying to get across with my comments about
how ca. 95% of all the dishonesty and hypocrisy on the part
of the anti-ID zealots all over what I called "the blogosphere"
could perhaps be eliminated.

And that is to show that the explosion could easily have
happened without intelligent intervention in the amount
of time Meyer allots for it.

Thinking in "worst case scenario" mode, I talked about going from
a very primitive (no more complicated than an acoelic flatworm)
to the grand Chengjiang menagerie of bilaterian phyla in 5
million years. Harshman and Simpson nitipicked that one to death
while completely missing the main point I was trying to make.

They were ignoring the realities of "the blogosphere" and thinking
only about what would be needed if the creationists only dug
their heels in about a 25 to 30 million year period.

Taking care of that would still be a gigantic step forward and I think
it would eliminate about 75-80 percent of all the dishonesty
and hypocrisy that I see almost every day from the anti-ID zealots, especially
here and on Amazon.com. For then, all except the most fanatical hotheads
could be as patient with REAL Meyer supporters as Dana Tweedy
is with Ray Martinez.

[Unfortunately, the fanatical hotheads have come out in droves, attracted
(like flies attracted to rotten meat) to rotten stuff like Prothero's
"review" and the slowly rotting but usually still bearable "meat" due
to the likes of John Harshman. Hence my conservative 75-80% figure.]

> I realize that bodes ill for your wistful
> conviction that ID is the key to validating your space-sperm fantasies,

Even ignoring the unsupportable "fantasies," I have to say
you've got the relation between ID and directed panspermia
exactly backwards.

> but sometimes the truth hurts.

I do hope the REAL truth won't hurt you so much that you will
bury your head in the sand about it.

> > In fact, he just might DO it for you.
>
> No, he definitely doesn't do it for me.

Perhaps he realizes that you were not really licking his boots
on that November occasion, but only using him as a tool for getting at me.
Whatever.


> > He won't for me-- he snipped the following, and pronounced it "crap"
> > even though it included some things he wrote.
> >
> > First there was my comment above which led off this post.
> >
> > Then there came Harshman's response to that, and my response,
> > all snipped by Harshman:
> >
> > _________________________________begin excerpt_________________
> >
> >> Could it be that Erwin & Valentine is the intensively researched,
> >> comprehensive, standard work on the subject while the other is a
> >> popular account?
> >
> > I doubt it, given the uses to which the blogosphere has put it, as
> > opposed to specialists to whose research it could contribute [not
> > to be confused with non-specialists such as you, Janis, and Prothero].
> >
> > Why would you think otherwise?
> > ___________________________end of excerpt_________________
>
> Is it your contention that Harshman, Janis, and Prothero et al. are
> incapable of putting an intensively researched, comprehensive, standard
> work on the subject to uses of which you disapprove?

Your question seems to be laboring under at least one huge misconception.
Please spell out what the "uses" are to which you are referring.

Peter Nyikos

Sneaky O. Possum

unread,
Feb 25, 2015, 3:15:20 PM2/25/15
to
An Inexplicably Sapient Fruit Bat <nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote in
news:cfb7610e-9883-479d...@googlegroups.com:

> On Tuesday, February 24, 2015 at 4:50:22 PM UTC-5, Sneaky O. Possum
> wrote:
>> An Inexplicably Sapient Fruit Bat <nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote in
>> news:56b79ffc-afd8-46f4...@googlegroups.com:
>
> By the way, Sneaky, your use of "Sapient Fruit Bat" is serendipitious
> in a way, because it ties into something you and I and deadrat
> have been discussing and debating. Have you ever heard of Nagel's
> essay, "What Is It Like to Be a Bat"?

I have, yes.

> It's a classic in the philosophy of mind, anthologized in the book,
> _The Mind's I_.
>
> The book is a checkered anthology on the concept of mind, edited,
> with lots of commentary, by Dennett and Hofstadter.
> These two turkeys completely misunderstood the essence of Nagel's
> essay, but you can at least read the essay itself and learn a lot from
> it.

That reminds me. Have you read Erwin and Valentine yet?

[snip]
>> >> Can't imagine why the USENET 'blogosphere' (snerk!) hasn't been
>> >> all over that one.
>> >
>> > Nice sarcasm. I'm sure Harshman can fill you in on the answer.
>>
>> Harshman? That dude can't understand a word I say.
>
> So it seems you were *deliberately* trolling when you seemed to be
> licking Harshman's boots back in November.

I was neither trolling nor 'licking Harshman's boots,' you big silly.

> Last night, I reposted where I had caught you doing that.

You may have imagined that you 'caught' someone doing something, but
there is no independently verifiable evidence to support that hypothesis.

> See that other thread for the repost.

I saw it, thanks. We do love your reposts, Fruity.

>> > Maybe he can even explain why the WHOLE anti-ID blogosphere has
>> > been all over E&V's book, but not this other book on the Cambrian.
>>
>> USENET is not part of any 'blogosphere'. Neither are the comment
>> threads on user reviews at Amazon's website.
>
> <sigh>
> Some idiot decided that a very special kind of forum would
> actually, formally, be called an internet "forum", and ever since
> I learned this, I've had to use contortions not to be misunderstood,
> because I can't think of a suitable replacement for the word "forum"
> in the English language.

Talk.origins is a newsgroup, not a forum. If anyone ever actually claimed
it should formally be known as a 'forum', no one heeded him.

> <double sigh>
> Now it seems I may have to indulge in similar contortions
> to express "the totality of all internet forums in the everyday sense
> of the word `forum' " instead of the convenient "blogosphere".

Do you even know what a blog *is*?

> The only other thing that comes to mind is "the information highway"
> but that's way TOO broad.

Of course, there's no need for a collective term in the present case,
unless one wants to paranoiacally imagine that the people who ridicule
'Intelligent Design' here at talk.origins are engaged in some sort of
conspiracy with the people who ridicule it in the comment threads on
Amazon's website.

>> Granted, there are a fair number of people opposed to 'Intelligent
>> Design' on both talk.origins and the comment thread on Prothero's
>> review, but that probably has something to do with the fact that
>> 'Intelligent Design' is a load of shit.
>
> Then they should expose that shit for what it IS, and not fling
> their shit on top of it while ignoring huge arguments that do NOT
> look like shit, like large tracts of Meyer's book before he
> gets into his airy-fairy Dembski-ite ID "theory."

I've seen no evidence that anyone is ignoring any 'huge arguments' of a
non-shitty nature, though I'm sure it looks different from your
perspective.

> THIS is what I've been trying to get across with my comments about
> how ca. 95% of all the dishonesty and hypocrisy on the part
> of the anti-ID zealots all over what I called "the blogosphere"
> could perhaps be eliminated.

Terms like 'anti-ID zealots' aren't going to convince anyone who doesn't
already agree with you, i.e., you.

> And that is to show that the explosion could easily have
> happened without intelligent intervention in the amount
> of time Meyer allots for it.

I'd have to read Meyer before I could have an informed opinion about
that. Maybe I will someday. That reminds me: have you read Erwin and
Valentine yet?

> Thinking in "worst case scenario" mode, I talked about going from
> a very primitive (no more complicated than an acoelic flatworm)
> to the grand Chengjiang menagerie of bilaterian phyla in 5
> million years. Harshman and Simpson nitipicked that one to death
> while completely missing the main point I was trying to make.

Harshman sometimes seems unusually obtuse, but you have a very annoying
tendency to hint around possible meanings without committing yourself to
a point. On the other hand, Harshy evidently thinks I do that, too. Maybe
he's gone all PoultRon on us and thinks you and I are the same person.

> They were ignoring the realities of "the blogosphere" and thinking
> only about what would be needed if the creationists only dug
> their heels in about a 25 to 30 million year period.

I don't know what you mean by that.

[snip]

>> I realize that bodes ill for your wistful conviction that ID is the
>> key to validating your space-sperm fantasies,
>
> Even ignoring the unsupportable "fantasies," I have to say
> you've got the relation between ID and directed panspermia
> exactly backwards.

My apologies. Henceforth I shall refer to your wistful conviction that
your space-sperm fantasies are the key to validating 'Intelligent
Design'.

>> but sometimes the truth hurts.
>
> I do hope the REAL truth won't hurt you so much that you will
> bury your head in the sand about it.

You have no need to worry about that.

>> > In fact, he just might DO it for you.
>>
>> No, he definitely doesn't do it for me.
>
> Perhaps he realizes that you were not really licking his boots
> on that November occasion, but only using him as a tool for getting at
> me. Whatever.

Oh, Fruity. What a strange world you live in, where people use other
people as tools for getting at you. As though that were necessary!

>> > He won't for me-- he snipped the following, and pronounced it
>> > "crap" even though it included some things he wrote.
>> >
>> > First there was my comment above which led off this post.
>> >
>> > Then there came Harshman's response to that, and my response,
>> > all snipped by Harshman:
>> >
>> > _________________________________begin excerpt_________________
>> >
>> >> Could it be that Erwin & Valentine is the intensively researched,
>> >> comprehensive, standard work on the subject while the other is a
>> >> popular account?
>> >
>> > I doubt it, given the uses to which the blogosphere has put it, as
>> > opposed to specialists to whose research it could contribute [not
>> > to be confused with non-specialists such as you, Janis, and
>> > Prothero].
>> >
>> > Why would you think otherwise?
>> > ___________________________end of excerpt_________________
>>
>> Is it your contention that Harshman, Janis, and Prothero et al. are
>> incapable of putting an intensively researched, comprehensive,
>> standard work on the subject to uses of which you disapprove?
>
> Your question seems to be laboring under at least one huge
> misconception. Please spell out what the "uses" are to which you are
> referring.

How could I do that? I was referring to the uses that you mentioned in
the sentence beginning 'I doubt it, given the uses to which the
blogosphere has put it'. The only one who knows what you meant by that is
you.

If I erred in detecting a note of disapproval in the phrasing 'I doubt
it, given the uses to which the blogosphere has put it', then please
accept my apologies.

Mind you, I fail to see why your inability to remember what 'uses' you
were talking about is relevant, since the book exists independently of
*any* use it might be put to. If it is the intensively researched,
comprehensive, standard work on the subject of the diversification of
lifeforms in the Cambrian, that can't change because someone you dislike
uses it to criticize 'Intelligent Design', any more than it could if they
used it as a doorstop or hit you on the head with it.

Hey, I know! You should read it and base your conclusions about it on its
actual content.
--
S.O.P.

Peter Nyikos

unread,
Feb 25, 2015, 4:15:19 PM2/25/15
to
On Tuesday, February 24, 2015 at 2:45:22 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
> On 2/24/15, 11:20 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > On Monday, February 23, 2015 at 1:10:25 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
> >> On 2/23/15, 9:54 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >>> On Monday, February 23, 2015 at 12:20:26 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
> >>>> On 2/23/15, 8:41 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >>>>> On Tuesday, February 17, 2015 at 6:25:43 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
> >>>>>> On 2/17/15, 11:58 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:

> >>>>>>> Maybe if you got your "agenda" bee out of your bonnet, you might
> >>>>>>> see your way towards contributing more meaty science.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Maybe if you actually answered questions this thread would be going a
> >>>>>> bit better.
> >
> > Unmarked snip by Harshman noted.
>
> Would you like me to mark every snip?

No. But I think that readers deserve to know that you do
make unmarked snips from time to time.

<snip flamebait by Harshman>

> >>>>> There is no real attempt to show that current evolutionary theory can
> >>>>> account for a 5 million year advance from acoelic flatworm level to
> >>>>> Chengjiang level.
> >>>>
> >>>> Where would you get "5 million" from?
> >
> > You don't think modern evolutionary theory could not account for
> > such a big jump, do you?
>
> I don't know.

It's not a question of what you know, but what you think. In
my experience, almost every anti-ID zealot takes, as an article of
faith, "OF COURSE it could account for it."

By the way, you've shown yourself to be an anti-ID zealot, but
you don't (yet) meet my standards for being considered an
anti-ID fanatic. [fanatic implies zealot, but not the reverse]

> But how is that relevant to my question?

See my reply to S.O.P. this morning for the explanation.

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/talk.origins/FRanjOUAwXA/2lkkecp4528J

There's lots more in there that I'd like you to see.

Would you prefer that I repost, in direct reply to you,
huge chunks of every post on the same thread that I want you to see,
instead of just giving you the url and a short answer?

<snip two more bits of flamebait by Harshman>

> >>>> Even the problematic fossil record
> >>>> would seem to preclude anything so short. Kimberella, at least, seems
> >>>> far past the acoel flatworm stage (if in fact acoel flatworms even have
> >>>> a primitive morphology),
> >>>
> >>> Yes, but if it is a stem bilaterian, then a relatively un-derived
> >>> creature somewhat like an acoel flatworm (I'm NOT saying "one of them,"
> >>> only something on the same level of complexity) might have given rise
> >>> later to crown group Bilateria.
> >>
> >> I'm not clear on the connection between your if and your then. What does
> >> Kimberella have to do with something rather like an acoel flatworm?
> >
> > Descended from such a primitive animal, obviously.
>
> > Its little-modified ancestor could have eventually branched
> > out in other directions.
>
> It could indeed, but how does this do anything to help you with the
> subject at hand if we have no fossils of such things?

It points to a possibility that could bear investigation, at least
to the point of determining whether Kimberella is really at least
a stem mollusc. If it is only a stem bilaterian, the following
is of no use to us:

> Kimberella is what
> you have to work with, not any hypothetical ancestors or cousins.

And we could always be on a sharp lookout for such things.

> >> What
> >> does an acoel flatworm have to do with the duration of the Cambrian
> >> explosion?
> >
> > Answered earlier: `(I'm NOT saying "one of them,"
> > only something on the same level of complexity).'
>
> OK, I'll modify: what does something on the same level of complexity
> have to do with the duration of the Cambrian explosion, given that
> there's no evidence on this hypothetical thingy, most particularly on
> its age?

You are too hung up on what we know, rather than what is true.
RNorman made a very wise statement about our lack of current
knowledge about what is true, but I want to probe the limits of
our knowledge and pinpoint which discoveries might bear
the most fruit.

> >>>> and the gradual increase in diversity of both
> >>>> the ichnofossils and small shellies through the latest Precambrian,
> >>>> Cambrian 1, and Cambrian 2 would suggest something more like 20 or 30
> >>>> million years, at least.
> >>>
> >>> Agreed. That's what I opt for, as I said earlier.
> >
> > <snip torrent of flamebait by Harshman>
>
> OK, now here I'll just have to put it back in.

You only put the least aggressive part back in. What you left out
might be considered flaming by some, but not by Erik, and probably not
by S.O.P.or Norman.

According to The Erik Simpson Dictionary, John Harshman is forever
innocent of flaming BY DEFINITION. :-)

> Apparently "flamebait"
> refers to anything you don't want to talk about.

Flamebait by Harshman noted.

> So the whole 5 million year thing is irrelevant.

False.

> Why did you bring it up, then?

See what I wrote to S.O.P. this morning, and get back to me if
you aren't clear on some detail or another. If that happens,
it would be enormously helpful if you were to reply directly
to that post of mine and pinpoint exactly what part is unclear to you.

> >>>> But relevant to your claims, are you aware of this paper?:
> >>>>
> >>>> Lee, M. S. Y., et al. 2013. Rates of phenotypic and genomic evolution
> >>>> during the Cambrian explosion. Current Biology 23:1889-1895.
> >>>>
> >>>> http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822(13)00916-0
> >>>
> >>> Is this the one which hypothesizes that evolution took place 5 times
> >>> as fast back then as it does now?
> >>
> >> A poor summary, but I do believe you're thinking of the right paper.
> >> Have you read it?
> >
> > No, but the abstract does not encourage me to read it. It looks
> > like another study in diversity rather than disparity, inasmuch
> > as it confines itself to arthropods. Am I correct?
>
> You are correct about some things, incorrect about others. It does
> confine itself to arthropods. But why would that imply that it's about
> diversity rather than disparity?

There is a precedent: an order (family?) of trilobites touted by
Prothero as evidence that the Cambrian explosion is nothing out
of the ordinary. Pure diversity, minimal *existing* disparity,
no discussion of disparity whatsoever.

And it is an apologist for Prothero's review who recommended
Lee et. al. to me -- yourself.

> Is there no disparity within arthropods.

Of course there is, but you let out not a peep about what
the article does about it until I goaded you into it.
See below.

> And you sure are quick to decide that you don't want to read
> stuff.

Flamebait by Harshman noted.

> This paper used arthropods precisely because they have a comparatively
> good record, lots of quantifiable disparity, and lots of identifiable
> homologies to make that disparity quantifiable. Why would that be
> irrelevant?

If you had told me all this in the first place, I would have given
at least a lingering look at the article a high priority. Which I am
doing now. Expect preliminary comments no later than some time tomorrow.

> > For sure, it doesn't address such enormous differences as
> > those dividing brachiopods from arthropods, or even from bivalves.
>
> True, it doesn't. Why should that be a requirement for a relevant paper?

We only get a dent in the Cambrian explosion. We can't assume the huge
changes in body plans making for ca.20 phyla were progressing at the same
rate.

And we are still in the dark about why such huge changes stopped taking
place. Except for the slow advance of the internal skeletons of
vertebrates, I can think of no really major changes within phyla
after the Lower Cambrian. Can you?

> So you won't read Erwin & Valentine, you won't read Lee et al. What will
> you read?

Three pieces of flamebait in the same sentence. Is this a harbinger
of a permanent fixture of your behavior?

Peter Nyikos
Professor, University of South Carolina -- standard disclaimer --
Dept. of Maths.

erik simpson

unread,
Feb 25, 2015, 4:35:19 PM2/25/15
to
On Wednesday, February 25, 2015 at 1:15:19 PM UTC-8, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> <...>
> (to John Harshman)
>
> You are too hung up on what we know, rather than what is true.
>
I think I've finally figured out where you're coming from, and why I have such
difficulty following your hints/arguments/complaints.

John Harshman

unread,
Feb 25, 2015, 5:05:18 PM2/25/15
to
Stop hinting. Do you think that Peter thinks he has a source for what is
true, independent of what we know?

John Harshman

unread,
Feb 25, 2015, 5:05:18 PM2/25/15
to
On 2/25/15, 1:14 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Tuesday, February 24, 2015 at 2:45:22 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
>> On 2/24/15, 11:20 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>> On Monday, February 23, 2015 at 1:10:25 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
>>>> On 2/23/15, 9:54 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>>>> On Monday, February 23, 2015 at 12:20:26 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
>>>>>> On 2/23/15, 8:41 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>>>>>> On Tuesday, February 17, 2015 at 6:25:43 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
>>>>>>>> On 2/17/15, 11:58 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>
>>>>>>>>> Maybe if you got your "agenda" bee out of your bonnet, you might
>>>>>>>>> see your way towards contributing more meaty science.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Maybe if you actually answered questions this thread would be going a
>>>>>>>> bit better.
>>>
>>> Unmarked snip by Harshman noted.
>>
>> Would you like me to mark every snip?
>
> No. But I think that readers deserve to know that you do
> make unmarked snips from time to time.

Why, unless they cause some kind of problem?

> <snip flamebait by Harshman>

The word "flamebait" seems to be a label you attach to anything you
don't want to talk about.

In this case that was "If so, I'd be glad to do it", which hardly seems
objectionable in any way, and "[Here: I just snipped some crap]", which
seems like something you could easily have ignored.

>>>>>>> There is no real attempt to show that current evolutionary theory can
>>>>>>> account for a 5 million year advance from acoelic flatworm level to
>>>>>>> Chengjiang level.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Where would you get "5 million" from?
>>>
>>> You don't think modern evolutionary theory could not account for
>>> such a big jump, do you?
>>
>> I don't know.
>
> It's not a question of what you know, but what you think. In
> my experience, almost every anti-ID zealot takes, as an article of
> faith, "OF COURSE it could account for it."

What I think is "I don't know".

> By the way, you've shown yourself to be an anti-ID zealot, but
> you don't (yet) meet my standards for being considered an
> anti-ID fanatic. [fanatic implies zealot, but not the reverse]

You probably can't imagine (because you are really bad at getting into
other people's heads) how little regard I have for your labels. It would
be good if you would just stop making silly pronouncements like that.

>> But how is that relevant to my question?
>
> See my reply to S.O.P. this morning for the explanation.
>
> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/talk.origins/FRanjOUAwXA/2lkkecp4528J
>
> There's lots more in there that I'd like you to see.

If you want me to see things, why not just reply to me rather than to
somebody else?

> Would you prefer that I repost, in direct reply to you,
> huge chunks of every post on the same thread that I want you to see,
> instead of just giving you the url and a short answer?

Yes. I see you have slanted your statement so as to get me to reject
that suggestion. I doubt "huge" will often be necessary. But for one
thing, I hate going to Google Groups.

However, having looked at your reply, I would appreciate it if you
didn't post any of that to me. I see nothing I would care to read or
respond to. I would prefer if you actually talked about the supposed
subject of this thread.

>>>>>> Even the problematic fossil record
>>>>>> would seem to preclude anything so short. Kimberella, at least, seems
>>>>>> far past the acoel flatworm stage (if in fact acoel flatworms even have
>>>>>> a primitive morphology),
>>>>>
>>>>> Yes, but if it is a stem bilaterian, then a relatively un-derived
>>>>> creature somewhat like an acoel flatworm (I'm NOT saying "one of them,"
>>>>> only something on the same level of complexity) might have given rise
>>>>> later to crown group Bilateria.
>>>>
>>>> I'm not clear on the connection between your if and your then. What does
>>>> Kimberella have to do with something rather like an acoel flatworm?
>>>
>>> Descended from such a primitive animal, obviously.
>>
>>> Its little-modified ancestor could have eventually branched
>>> out in other directions.
>>
>> It could indeed, but how does this do anything to help you with the
>> subject at hand if we have no fossils of such things?
>
> It points to a possibility that could bear investigation, at least
> to the point of determining whether Kimberella is really at least
> a stem mollusc. If it is only a stem bilaterian, the following
> is of no use to us:

Sorry, what possibility could bear investigation? How would it help us
determine what Kimberella is?

>> Kimberella is what
>> you have to work with, not any hypothetical ancestors or cousins.
>
> And we could always be on a sharp lookout for such things.

You contend that we are not already on such a lookout, even without your
advice?

>>>> What
>>>> does an acoel flatworm have to do with the duration of the Cambrian
>>>> explosion?
>>>
>>> Answered earlier: `(I'm NOT saying "one of them,"
>>> only something on the same level of complexity).'
>>
>> OK, I'll modify: what does something on the same level of complexity
>> have to do with the duration of the Cambrian explosion, given that
>> there's no evidence on this hypothetical thingy, most particularly on
>> its age?
>
> You are too hung up on what we know, rather than what is true.
> RNorman made a very wise statement about our lack of current
> knowledge about what is true, but I want to probe the limits of
> our knowledge and pinpoint which discoveries might bear
> the most fruit.

All we can know about what is true is what we know, and I don't see any
benefit to your current talk about acoel flatworms or something similar.
You could try to explain that benefit if you wanted. And if you want to
bring up a wise statement, tell me what that statement was rather than
just telling me it exists.

When it comes to soft-bodied Cambrian and Precambrian fossils, we don't
have all that much control over what discoveries we make, so imagining
what might bear the most fruit is fruitless.

>>>>>> and the gradual increase in diversity of both
>>>>>> the ichnofossils and small shellies through the latest Precambrian,
>>>>>> Cambrian 1, and Cambrian 2 would suggest something more like 20 or 30
>>>>>> million years, at least.
>>>>>
>>>>> Agreed. That's what I opt for, as I said earlier.
>>>
>>> <snip torrent of flamebait by Harshman>
>>
>> OK, now here I'll just have to put it back in.
>
> You only put the least aggressive part back in.

You're complaining about that?

>> So the whole 5 million year thing is irrelevant.
>
> False.
>
>> Why did you bring it up, then?
>
> See what I wrote to S.O.P. this morning, and get back to me if
> you aren't clear on some detail or another. If that happens,
> it would be enormously helpful if you were to reply directly
> to that post of mine and pinpoint exactly what part is unclear to you.

I can't find anything in that reply but invective about various evil
people and their malicious lies. I bet it would have been easier and
shorter to answer my question directly than what you did above.

>>>>>> But relevant to your claims, are you aware of this paper?:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Lee, M. S. Y., et al. 2013. Rates of phenotypic and genomic evolution
>>>>>> during the Cambrian explosion. Current Biology 23:1889-1895.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822(13)00916-0
>>>>>
>>>>> Is this the one which hypothesizes that evolution took place 5 times
>>>>> as fast back then as it does now?
>>>>
>>>> A poor summary, but I do believe you're thinking of the right paper.
>>>> Have you read it?
>>>
>>> No, but the abstract does not encourage me to read it. It looks
>>> like another study in diversity rather than disparity, inasmuch
>>> as it confines itself to arthropods. Am I correct?
>>
>> You are correct about some things, incorrect about others. It does
>> confine itself to arthropods. But why would that imply that it's about
>> diversity rather than disparity?
>
> There is a precedent: an order (family?) of trilobites touted by
> Prothero as evidence that the Cambrian explosion is nothing out
> of the ordinary. Pure diversity, minimal *existing* disparity,
> no discussion of disparity whatsoever.

Why should what Prothero said be relevant to Lee et al.?

> And it is an apologist for Prothero's review who recommended
> Lee et. al. to me -- yourself.

So, guilt by association? Do you ever stop and reread anything you write?

>> Is there no disparity within arthropods.
>
> Of course there is, but you let out not a peep about what
> the article does about it until I goaded you into it.
> See below.

You know what would help you understand what the article is about?
Reading it.

>> This paper used arthropods precisely because they have a comparatively
>> good record, lots of quantifiable disparity, and lots of identifiable
>> homologies to make that disparity quantifiable. Why would that be
>> irrelevant?
>
> If you had told me all this in the first place, I would have given
> at least a lingering look at the article a high priority. Which I am
> doing now. Expect preliminary comments no later than some time tomorrow.

Why would you imagine I had brought the article up at all unless it
addressed something you were interested in?

>>> For sure, it doesn't address such enormous differences as
>>> those dividing brachiopods from arthropods, or even from bivalves.
>>
>> True, it doesn't. Why should that be a requirement for a relevant paper?
>
> We only get a dent in the Cambrian explosion. We can't assume the huge
> changes in body plans making for ca.20 phyla were progressing at the same
> rate.

We are, however, limited in what we can do. Yes, it would be nice to
consider everything, but it isn't possible either.

> And we are still in the dark about why such huge changes stopped taking
> place. Except for the slow advance of the internal skeletons of
> vertebrates, I can think of no really major changes within phyla
> after the Lower Cambrian. Can you?

"Major" is in the eye of the beholder. I would say that there was
definitely quite a bit of major change within phyla after the Lower
Cambrian. I imagine you would too if you thought about it. Dropping back
to your favored yardstick, how many new classes of animals appeared
after that?

>> So you won't read Erwin & Valentine, you won't read Lee et al. What will
>> you read?
>
> Three pieces of flamebait in the same sentence. Is this a harbinger
> of a permanent fixture of your behavior?

It isn't flamebait. It's flame. I am very frustrated in your attitude
toward actual scientific literature, and I was venting. My disdain for
your behavior may in fact come out from time to time. I'm not especially
proud of that, but I'm not really ashamed of it either.

Let me note that very little of this post had much to do with the
Cambrian explosion. It's my hope that the percentage will increase in
the future.

erik simpson

unread,
Feb 25, 2015, 5:15:18 PM2/25/15
to
That's what he seems to be saying, but I'll bet he'll deny it, if he
acknowledges it at all. Truth (hah!) be told, I'm no more sure of what he
means by the above as I am of anything else he says.

Peter Nyikos

unread,
Feb 25, 2015, 5:15:18 PM2/25/15
to
That sounds ominous. Before someone starts jumping to some really
wild conclusions, let me remind you about the sequel, which
I had in mind and which provides much needed context.

_________________ repost of immediate sequel___________
RNorman made a very wise statement about our lack of current
knowledge about what is true, but I want to probe the limits of
our knowledge and pinpoint which discoveries might bear
the most fruit.
____________________ end of first repost_________________

I trust no one reading this doubts that SOMETHING objective
happened during the Ediacaran and the early Cambrian.
Harshman is too much concerned about what we NOW know about that,
and specifically about questions to which nobody today might
have any good answers. He forgets that a good choice of questions
helps make clear what sorts of gaps in our knowledge it would
be greatly beneficial to eliminate, with a view to an accurate
knowledge of the times of the various divergence points.

As Problems Editor for two decades for _Topology Proceedings_,
I am acutely aware of what sorts of questions are most
important for getting a good picture of a concept. The
same applies, I hope, to at least some of the questions
I am asking here.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, U. of South Carolina
Dept. of Maths. -- standard disclaimer --
nyikos @math.sc.edu

Ernest Major

unread,
Feb 25, 2015, 5:20:18 PM2/25/15
to
The title escaped my recollection as well, but on referring to my
catalog, I presume you mean "The Crucible of Creation", and not one of
his later books.

--
alias Ernest Major

Peter Nyikos

unread,
Feb 25, 2015, 5:25:20 PM2/25/15
to
And so you lied that I won't read two things which I never said
I wouldn't read.

All evidence in this thread indicates that the only thing
that really frustrates you is that I will not confirm
your suspicions that I am a stealth fan of Meyer.

By the way, I've read the first page of Lee et al and it looks
very promising. I just hope the rest lives up to the promise.

And so long until tomorrow. Duty calls.

Peter Nyikos

erik simpson

unread,
Feb 25, 2015, 5:30:18 PM2/25/15
to
Believe it or not, E&V discuss some of the unresolved problems. Reading
research papers is informative of important details of a field, but it's
often hard (particularly for amateurs) to relate these details to the big
picture. Review articles are wonderful. Rarer, and even better, are whole
books relating what's known and what isn't. Even rarer, books written by
researchers themselves. If I knew you would read it, I might have thought
to have the book shipped to you, but there are limits to my generosity, and
you're probably on the other side of the fence.
shipped to you, but I

John Harshman

unread,
Feb 25, 2015, 5:50:18 PM2/25/15
to
On 2/25/15, 2:22 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Wednesday, February 25, 2015 at 5:05:18 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
>> On 2/25/15, 1:14 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>> On Tuesday, February 24, 2015 at 2:45:22 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
>
>>>> So you won't read Erwin & Valentine, you won't read Lee et al. What will
>>>> you read?
>>>
>>> Three pieces of flamebait in the same sentence. Is this a harbinger
>>> of a permanent fixture of your behavior?
>>
>> It isn't flamebait. It's flame. I am very frustrated in your attitude
>> toward actual scientific literature,
>
> And so you lied that I won't read two things which I never said
> I wouldn't read.

You have an odd definition of that word "lie". Allow me to substitute:
"So you are strangely reluctant to read Erwin & Valentine" or "You show
an odd lack of interest in reading Erwin & Valentine", or something like
that, if you prefer.

> All evidence in this thread indicates that the only thing
> that really frustrates you is that I will not confirm
> your suspicions that I am a stealth fan of Meyer.

No, there are many other things that really frustrate me. Anyway, you
don't have to confirm my suspicions explicitly.

> By the way, I've read the first page of Lee et al and it looks
> very promising. I just hope the rest lives up to the promise.

Ha! I bet you hope the rest doesn't live up to the promise.

> And so long until tomorrow. Duty calls.

A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.

John Harshman

unread,
Feb 25, 2015, 5:50:18 PM2/25/15
to
Yep.

John Harshman

unread,
Feb 25, 2015, 6:25:18 PM2/25/15
to
Pending Peter getting a hold of Erwin & Valentine, let me answer a
question he might have had about it. He wants to know about bilaterian
phyla before Cambrian 3. Here are first appearances of taxa that one
might possibly consider phyla given by E&V:

Cambrian 1: chaetognaths (protoconodonts), phoronids, brachiopods,
hyoliths, mollusks, hakieriids, tommotiids, chancelloriids.

Cambrian 2: priapulids, stem arthropods (trace fossils). It has been
alleged elsewhere that there are also armored lobopod fossils in
Cambrian 2, but that isn't clear to me.

Some of these identifications are not completely clear, some are not
clearly bilaterians, and your guess at what ought to be called a phylum
is up to you. (I won't say it's as good as mine, because I regard such
things as arbitrary.) Also, there are other fossils I haven't mentioned
whose identifications are more tentative.

Roger Shrubber

unread,
Feb 25, 2015, 9:45:18 PM2/25/15
to
Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Wednesday, February 25, 2015 at 4:35:19 PM UTC-5, erik simpson wrote:
>> On Wednesday, February 25, 2015 at 1:15:19 PM UTC-8, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>> <...>
>>> (to John Harshman)
>>>
>>> You are too hung up on what we know, rather than what is true.
>>>
>> I think I've finally figured out where you're coming from, and why I have such
>> difficulty following your hints/arguments/complaints.
>
> That sounds ominous. Before someone starts jumping to some really
> wild conclusions, let me remind you about the sequel, which
> I had in mind and which provides much needed context.

I've avoided comment. There is too much that alludes to a
tribunal about who ate the strawberries. But this has gone
beyond theatre of the absurd.

> _________________ repost of immediate sequel___________
> RNorman made a very wise statement about our lack of current
> knowledge about what is true, but I want to probe the limits of
> our knowledge and pinpoint which discoveries might bear
> the most fruit.
> ____________________ end of first repost_________________
>
> I trust no one reading this doubts that SOMETHING objective
> happened during the Ediacaran and the early Cambrian.
> Harshman is too much concerned about what we NOW know about that,
> and specifically about questions to which nobody today might
> have any good answers. He forgets that a good choice of questions
> helps make clear what sorts of gaps in our knowledge it would
> be greatly beneficial to eliminate, with a view to an accurate
> knowledge of the times of the various divergence points.

That's such a pile of bullshit. Really! It is.
Sure, things happened. They happen all the time. Nobody
disagrees. But we don't always have good data that informs
us about what happened, or what of significance happened.
Such is the nature of the world. Our wishes or fancies about
knowledge don't change that.

Accusing John of ignorance about what would be nice to know
is rather bold projection. There exists a significant probability
that John knows what it would be nice to know, but knows that
such things are not currently known, or readily knowable. In
that realm of possibility, he may rightly refrain from asserting
certain claims of knowledge. Why does Peter object to this? Why?

> As Problems Editor for two decades for _Topology Proceedings_,
> I am acutely aware of what sorts of questions are most
> important for getting a good picture of a concept. The
> same applies, I hope, to at least some of the questions
> I am asking here.

How nice for you! But this is irrelevant. There are questions
of significance about the evolution of various creatures that
spawned those creatures that survived the pre and early
Cambrian. The existence of these question is not in dispute.

There is significant dispute about the significance of the
lack of clear answers to these questions.

Does the lack of clear answers suggest that there is a
fundamental problem with the current theory of evolution?
Some people certainly attempt to suggest that this gap
in high quality objective data is a serious problem for
the scientific theory of evolution. They are idiots.

Join their ranks as you see fit. Prevaricate around the
significant issues as it appeals to you. You appear to
have an affinity for such idiots. But that argument remains
vacuous. A lack of proof is not a proof of lack. A mystery
is not a refudiation.

John Harshman

unread,
Feb 25, 2015, 10:50:18 PM2/25/15
to
On 2/25/15, 6:44 PM, Roger Shrubber wrote:
> Peter Nyikos wrote:
>> On Wednesday, February 25, 2015 at 4:35:19 PM UTC-5, erik simpson wrote:
>>> On Wednesday, February 25, 2015 at 1:15:19 PM UTC-8, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>>> <...>
>>>> (to John Harshman)
>>>>
>>>> You are too hung up on what we know, rather than what is true.
>>>>
>>> I think I've finally figured out where you're coming from, and why I
>>> have such
>>> difficulty following your hints/arguments/complaints.
>>
>> That sounds ominous. Before someone starts jumping to some really
>> wild conclusions, let me remind you about the sequel, which
>> I had in mind and which provides much needed context.
>
> I've avoided comment. There is too much that alludes to a
> tribunal about who ate the strawberries. But this has gone
> beyond theatre of the absurd.

Hey, that's one of my favorite metaphors for Peter. He tries to run a
taught ship, but we fight him at every turn.


Peter Nyikos

unread,
Feb 26, 2015, 3:40:16 PM2/26/15
to
On Wednesday, February 25, 2015 at 5:50:18 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
> On 2/25/15, 2:22 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > On Wednesday, February 25, 2015 at 5:05:18 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
> >> On 2/25/15, 1:14 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >>> On Tuesday, February 24, 2015 at 2:45:22 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
> >
> >>>> So you won't read Erwin & Valentine, you won't read Lee et al. What will
> >>>> you read?
> >>>
> >>> Three pieces of flamebait in the same sentence. Is this a harbinger
> >>> of a permanent fixture of your behavior?
> >>
> >> It isn't flamebait. It's flame. I am very frustrated in your attitude
> >> toward actual scientific literature,
> >
> > And so you lied that I won't read two things which I never said
> > I wouldn't read.
>
> You have an odd definition of that word "lie".

It is absolutely standard, and I defy you to try and show otherwise.

> Allow me to substitute:
> "So you are strangely reluctant to read Erwin & Valentine" or "You show
> an odd lack of interest in reading Erwin & Valentine", or something like
> that, if you prefer.

A grotesque distortion, saved only from being a lie by your
ability to deny ever having seen a post I did right on this thread,
earlier this week, about my interlibrary loan delays to Erik Simpson,
and also his reply to that.

Or did you, in fact, see at least one of those posts?

You have a highly suspicious way of "seeing exactly those posts
you want to see". Just this morning, on a thread where I had
mentioned you in two posts without you having participated there,
you zeroed in on my last post (and only my last post) for your first
post on that thread. And amazingly fast after I had done that post.

How did you find out about that post so soon, and how did you
"not see" my earlier posts?

> > All evidence in this thread indicates that the only thing
> > that really frustrates you is that I will not confirm
> > your suspicions that I am a stealth fan of Meyer.
>
> No, there are many other things that really frustrate me.

OK, then, it is the thing that frustrates you many times more
than anything else. About all I can say about the scads of
evidence that you have accumulated for THAT on this thread
is that you haven't gone as far yet as you did in the thread
on what Prum claimed about Feduccia. That was where you kept asking
me questions that presupposed that I endorsed what Prum had
CLAIMED to be Feduccia's position. Without that presupposition,
they were downright surreal.

Your behavior was so egregious that I threatened to boycott your
posts for a month if you didn't stop it, and you went right on in
the same vein, and so I made good on the threat.

Erik Simpson joined you in your destructive game at the end, but I am,
even now, willing to let bygones be bygones with him, if he cleans up
his act after the unsympathetic reply he did to my long explanation
about why the interlibrary loan keeps being delayed.

This is in stunning contrast to your behavior right from the get-go
when I returned in December 2010 after almost a decade of absence from
talk.origins. You are an interesting variation on what they say about the
Bourbons: you forget next to nothing that you can use against people
you've decided to make your adversaries, and learn next to nothing
that is favorable to them.

> Anyway, you don't have to confirm my suspicions explicitly.

Will they be confirmed in your para-xenophobic mind by the
way I "confirmed" your "bet" below?

"Shrubber" and his kind don't care whether the attacks can be
justified or not -- because they can be.

> > By the way, I've read the first page of Lee et al and it looks
> > very promising. I just hope the rest lives up to the promise.
>
> Ha! I bet you hope the rest doesn't live up to the promise.

You said that because you knew that the article makes no mention
of disparity, despite your misleadingly worded assurances
that it had "lots of quantifiable disparity," didn't you?

If not, what other drawbacks of the article did you have in mind,
to make plausible your unjust, baseless "bet" about my hopes?

Can you promise me that a detailed discussion of measures of disparity
can be found in the "Supplemental Experimental Procedures"?
Or any real treatment of disparity at all?

Or will you just make a two-line reply to this post,
like you so often do, deleting (almost?) everything,
with your usual claim that there is nothing in it worth replying to?

The term "The Arrogance of Power" comes to mind when I contemplate
all those earlier instances.

> > And so long until tomorrow. Duty calls.
>
> A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.

And in your case, to cling to your (alleged) suspicions come hell or
high water, eh?

By the way, in anticipation of a knee-jerk *tu quoque* to my
paragraph where I mentioned the Bourbons: you put the things
you remembered from ten or more years earlier to dishonest
uses back then. In contrast, my uses of events of a year or more
earlier are so honest that the only thing self-appointed adversaries
of mine like "Shrubber" can sayabout them is that some (very few,
actually) are from several years earlier, or that it is rude to attack
so many people.

Peter Nyikos

John Harshman

unread,
Feb 26, 2015, 4:20:15 PM2/26/15
to
On 2/26/15, 12:35 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
I'll just delete everything that has nothing to do with the Cambrian
explosion. Hope you don't mind.

> You said that because you knew that the article makes no mention
> of disparity, despite your misleadingly worded assurances
> that it had "lots of quantifiable disparity," didn't you?

No. You are fixated on words. The lengths of branches on evolutionary
trees (especially when the branch lengths are determined by morphology)
are good indices of disparity. Increased rates of evolution are
increased rates of generation of disparity.

> Or will you just make a two-line reply to this post,
> like you so often do, deleting (almost?) everything,
> with your usual claim that there is nothing in it worth replying to?

If you want replies, say something on-topic.



Peter Nyikos

unread,
Feb 26, 2015, 4:25:15 PM2/26/15
to
On Wednesday, February 25, 2015 at 9:45:18 PM UTC-5, Roger Shrubber wrote:
> Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > On Wednesday, February 25, 2015 at 4:35:19 PM UTC-5, erik simpson wrote:
> >> On Wednesday, February 25, 2015 at 1:15:19 PM UTC-8, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >>> <...>
> >>> (to John Harshman)
> >>>
> >>> You are too hung up on what we know, rather than what is true.
> >>>
> >> I think I've finally figured out where you're coming from, and why I have such
> >> difficulty following your hints/arguments/complaints.
> >
> > That sounds ominous. Before someone starts jumping to some really
> > wild conclusions, let me remind you about the sequel, which
> > I had in mind and which provides much needed context.
>
> I've avoided comment.

You've also avoided comment on what I wrote about autocatalytic
factors in the clotting system making possible a "Darwinian"
explanation of it, when you ignorantly claimed that it was
explained by Doolittle in a bunch of passages that didn't
even hint at the concept of "autocatalytic."

You've also avoided comment on the fact that Behe has an analysis
of what Doolittle DID write, including what you talked about
and much, much more, showing its shortcomings.

Your claims about Behe were wild stabs in the dark, weren't they?

> There is too much that alludes to a
> tribunal about who ate the strawberries.

You are deluded, but Harshman, who is equally deluded, enjoyed
your personal attack to the hilt.

I've deleted the rest of your rant, which takes seriously
a possibility that would only be true if Harshman's utterly
baseless (alleged) suspicions about me, alluded to in my
reply about half an hour ago, were true --and they
are utterly false.

You should have hung around that Prum/Feduccia thread a
little longer. You would have loved Harshman's
para-xenophobic tactics that I described in that same reply,
because you are even more para-xenophobic than he is.

Nevertheless, I will reply to the rest of your para-xenophobic
rant in detail, if you wish. Just give the word.

Peter Nyikos

erik simpson

unread,
Feb 26, 2015, 5:25:14 PM2/26/15
to
On Thursday, February 26, 2015 at 1:25:15 PM UTC-8, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Wednesday, February 25, 2015 at 9:45:18 PM UTC-5, Roger Shrubber wrote:
> > Peter Nyikos wrote:

> <...>
> I've deleted the rest of your rant, which takes seriously
> a possibility that would only be true if Harshman's utterly
> baseless (alleged) suspicions about me, alluded to in my
> reply about half an hour ago, were true --and they
> are utterly false.
>
> You should have hung around that Prum/Feduccia thread a
> little longer. You would have loved Harshman's
> para-xenophobic tactics that I described in that same reply,
> because you are even more para-xenophobic than he is.
>
> Nevertheless, I will reply to the rest of your para-xenophobic
> rant in detail, if you wish. Just give the word.
>
OT. I'm intrigued by a term you've obviously become enamored of:
'para-xenophobic'. What does it mean, or better, what do YOU mean by it?
Am I para-xenophobic? If not, why not?

Roger Shrubber

unread,
Feb 26, 2015, 5:25:15 PM2/26/15
to
Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Wednesday, February 25, 2015 at 9:45:18 PM UTC-5, Roger Shrubber wrote:
>> Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>> On Wednesday, February 25, 2015 at 4:35:19 PM UTC-5, erik simpson wrote:
>>>> On Wednesday, February 25, 2015 at 1:15:19 PM UTC-8, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>>>> <...>
>>>>> (to John Harshman)
>>>>>
>>>>> You are too hung up on what we know, rather than what is true.
>>>>>
>>>> I think I've finally figured out where you're coming from, and why I have such
>>>> difficulty following your hints/arguments/complaints.
>>>
>>> That sounds ominous. Before someone starts jumping to some really
>>> wild conclusions, let me remind you about the sequel, which
>>> I had in mind and which provides much needed context.
>>
>> I've avoided comment.
>
> You've also avoided comment on what I wrote about autocatalytic
> factors in the clotting system making possible a "Darwinian"
> explanation of it, when you ignorantly claimed that it was
> explained by Doolittle in a bunch of passages that didn't
> even hint at the concept of "autocatalytic."


But everybody knows that zymogens self-activate. Trypsinogen
is activated by trypsin. Chymotrypsinogen is activated by
chymotrypsin. The same book I referenced has an extensive
discussion of it and the history of serine proteases. It's
general knowledge for anyone who has studied any biochemistry.

And of course nobody is going to use the term "autocatalytic"
to refer to that because that isn't what autocatalytic means.

As for commenting further, it's clear that you have dug your
heels in to defend your lack of understanding. Why fight
against that?

> You've also avoided comment on the fact that Behe has an analysis
> of what Doolittle DID write, including what you talked about
> and much, much more, showing its shortcomings.
>
> Your claims about Behe were wild stabs in the dark, weren't they?

You're delusional. Behe's comments about gene conversion and
exon shuffling were to dismiss them despite the strong evidence
that they were in fact responsible for much of what exists in
the coagulation cascade.

And if you read Behe's testimony at Dover it's clear that he
still doesn't get it. In particular, his comments about gene
duplication and exon shuffling are extremely embarrassing denials.

>> There is too much that alludes to a
>> tribunal about who ate the strawberries.
>
> You are deluded, but Harshman, who is equally deluded, enjoyed
> your personal attack to the hilt.
>
> I've deleted the rest of your rant, which takes seriously
> a possibility that would only be true if Harshman's utterly
> baseless (alleged) suspicions about me, alluded to in my
> reply about half an hour ago, were true --and they
> are utterly false.

You obsess. You invent motives for others and convince
yourself they are true. And these inventions color all
your subsequent interpretations. And then you force odd
interpretations of others that re-inforce your preconceptions.
Things you present as evidence to back your opinions about
other people usually make me think your really far off your nut.
I don't believe most of your assertions about others.
I know your assertions about me are wrong. So you have just
about zero credibility as a judge of other people in my eyes,
or whatever negative credibility is.

*Hemidactylus*

unread,
Feb 27, 2015, 3:05:15 AM2/27/15
to
On 02/26/2015 03:35 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:

[snip]

> Your behavior was so egregious that I threatened to boycott your
> posts for a month if you didn't stop it, and you went right on in
> the same vein, and so I made good on the threat.

I have an idea. Why don't you extend the boycott to a year and expand it
to everyone on the group you despise. We would all benefit. Win/Win.

Peter Nyikos

unread,
Feb 27, 2015, 9:20:14 AM2/27/15
to
On Thursday, February 26, 2015 at 4:20:15 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
> On 2/26/15, 12:35 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:

> I'll just delete everything that has nothing to do with the Cambrian
> explosion. Hope you don't mind.

I do mind, if it means that you are just biding your time, hoping
to catch me saying something you can twist to further "confirm"
your (alleged) suspicions about me.

I'd prefer for your agenda to be visible, at least to the
extent of your gross flamebait:

[restored line:]
> > > Ha! I bet you hope the rest doesn't live up to the promise.

[IMMEDIATE reply to restored line:]
> > You said that because you knew that the article makes no mention
> > of disparity, despite your misleadingly worded assurances
> > that it had "lots of quantifiable disparity," didn't you?

Did your "Ha!..." flamebait anticipate me getting stuck
into the wording of your advertisement?

> No. You are fixated on words.

So you allege, but your "quatification of disparity" below is something
you COULD have mentioned even before you mentioned the article by
Lee et. al., inasmuch as it is far more relevant to the refutation of
creationists than anything I could find in the article.

Do you think it more important to ridicule creationists than to
refute them?

> The lengths of branches on evolutionary
> trees (especially when the branch lengths are determined by morphology)
> are good indices of disparity.

Oh? branch lengths designating what? Numbers of point mutations?
Estimates of numbers of point mutations based on eyeballing of
changes in morphology? Arbitrarily designated "phenotypic characters"
with no quantification of differences between characters?

Do differences whose magnitudes "depend on the eye of the beholder"
*sensu Harshman* suddenly become "objective differences" *sensu
Harshman* when Harshman is challenged?

[For instance, do you consider a change in the character "monotreme
scapula" to "basal placental scapula" to be equivalent to a change in the
character "basal placental scapula" to "human scapula"? And how does
each of these compare to a change from a single-pulleyed astragalus to a
double-pulleyed astragalus?]

Don't expect me to be an expert on everything just because I am
fascinated by so many aspects of science; and, more generally of
what is called "natural history"--I love what is derisively
called "stamp collecting" if it is as intriguing as, e.g., the fact
that Delta Pavonis, over 6 billion years old, actually is
*more* metallic than Epsilon Eridani, ca. 1 billion years old.
[Both of these have been favorite candidates of SETI.]

> Increased rates of evolution are
> increased rates of generation of disparity.

Sez you. Let's see a peer reviewed article that justifies this
blanket statement in detail, with quantifications.

OOps, you deleted an on-topic challenge about "Supplemental
Experimental Procedures" while leaving in an off-topic
comment by me:

> > Or will you just make a two-line reply to this post,
> > like you so often do, deleting (almost?) everything,
> > with your usual claim that there is nothing in it worth replying to?
>
> If you want replies, say something on-topic.

You've been VERY adept at seizing on off-topic comments by
me over the last four-odd years if you think they can be used
to denigrate me. You deleted what you wanted to delete
this time because you knew you couldn't exploit it that way,
didn't you?

[Not to mention such pranks as you seizing on my amplifications of my
earlier comments with the juvenile taunt, "You're talking to yourself
again." I wonder whether such taunts partly account for
your enthusiastic reception of Shrubber's "...strawberries...".]

Peter Nyikos
Professor, U. of South Carolina --standard disclaimer--
www.math.sc.edu/~nyikos/

Peter Nyikos

unread,
Feb 27, 2015, 11:05:03 AM2/27/15
to
Who do you think you are fooling? It would give people like Ron O,
who posts massive libel about me, a field day in poisoning the
newsgroup participants against me.

You have supported Ron O in his campaign, first clandestinely
and then, late last year, openly.

Your clandestine campaign consisted of you telling me, but
NOT Ron O, to please stop the long flamewar that had been
going on between us.

At the time, I had more respect for you than for any other
old-time regular in talk.origins except John Wilkins, and well
above all others including John Harshman, and so I gave you
the benefit of the doubt. I assumed that you were so one-sided
because Ron O might have turned on you like a viper, like
jillery has done with several people on the thread,
"Multiple concurrent nyms", whereas you knew that even
if I resented your one-sidedness, I would be much more
patient with you.

But you gave yourself away last year, and so completely
that I have actually wondered whether you are as mentally
unstable as Thrinaxodon, only expressing it differently.

By the way, jillery's thread is another example of what
might be in store for me if I were to follow your
fox-advice.farmer.henhouse-design suggestion. And next time
it might not be such an unpopular person as jillery doing it, nor
so obviously ridiculous a howler as jillery committed in her OP,
nor would the person stick to his/her guns the way jillery
does if this or that flaw in the OP were pointed out.

Also by the way: you aren't the least bit interested in the
on-topic aspects of this thread, are you?

Peter Nyikos

John Harshman

unread,
Feb 27, 2015, 11:05:03 AM2/27/15
to
On 2/27/15, 6:16 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Thursday, February 26, 2015 at 4:20:15 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
>> On 2/26/15, 12:35 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>
>> I'll just delete everything that has nothing to do with the Cambrian
>> explosion. Hope you don't mind.
>
> I do mind, if it means that you are just biding your time, hoping
> to catch me saying something you can twist to further "confirm"
> your (alleged) suspicions about me.
>
> I'd prefer for your agenda to be visible, at least to the
> extent of your gross flamebait:

Then why do you keep deleting my other "flamebait"?

> [restored line:]
>>>> Ha! I bet you hope the rest doesn't live up to the promise.
>
> [IMMEDIATE reply to restored line:]
>>> You said that because you knew that the article makes no mention
>>> of disparity, despite your misleadingly worded assurances
>>> that it had "lots of quantifiable disparity," didn't you?
>
> Did your "Ha!..." flamebait anticipate me getting stuck
> into the wording of your advertisement?
>
>> No. You are fixated on words.
>
> So you allege, but your "quatification of disparity" below is something
> you COULD have mentioned even before you mentioned the article by
> Lee et. al., inasmuch as it is far more relevant to the refutation of
> creationists than anything I could find in the article.
>
> Do you think it more important to ridicule creationists than to
> refute them?

I was in fact unaware that we were even talking about creationists. Is
that the intended point of this thread?

>> The lengths of branches on evolutionary
>> trees (especially when the branch lengths are determined by morphology)
>> are good indices of disparity.
>
> Oh? branch lengths designating what? Numbers of point mutations?
> Estimates of numbers of point mutations based on eyeballing of
> changes in morphology? Arbitrarily designated "phenotypic characters"
> with no quantification of differences between characters?

This is the sort of thing you should be able to find in the "methods"
section. Or were those rhetorical questions?

> Do differences whose magnitudes "depend on the eye of the beholder"
> *sensu Harshman* suddenly become "objective differences" *sensu
> Harshman* when Harshman is challenged?

I will agree that no quantification is perfect, but any is better than
none. Taking morphology apart into little pieces seems like a decent
approach to me. You might like to write to the authors and tell them
they're doing it all wrong.

> [For instance, do you consider a change in the character "monotreme
> scapula" to "basal placental scapula" to be equivalent to a change in the
> character "basal placental scapula" to "human scapula"? And how does
> each of these compare to a change from a single-pulleyed astragalus to a
> double-pulleyed astragalus?]

Nobody would code any characters so grossly as that. More likely there
would be half a dozen or so scapular or astragalar characters with
various states.

> Don't expect me to be an expert on everything just because I am
> fascinated by so many aspects of science; and, more generally of
> what is called "natural history"--I love what is derisively
> called "stamp collecting" if it is as intriguing as, e.g., the fact
> that Delta Pavonis, over 6 billion years old, actually is
> *more* metallic than Epsilon Eridani, ca. 1 billion years old.
> [Both of these have been favorite candidates of SETI.]

Believe me in this: I do not expect you to be an expert on everything.

>> Increased rates of evolution are
>> increased rates of generation of disparity.
>
> Sez you. Let's see a peer reviewed article that justifies this
> blanket statement in detail, with quantifications.

I'm surprised you can't see this. Under what model would evolution in
different species not create increasing disparity? Divergence is pretty
much unavoidable.

> OOps, you deleted an on-topic challenge about "Supplemental
> Experimental Procedures" while leaving in an off-topic
> comment by me:

If I deleted something you consider important, put it back in.


Peter Nyikos

unread,
Feb 27, 2015, 12:30:06 PM2/27/15
to
On Thursday, February 26, 2015 at 5:25:15 PM UTC-5, Roger Shrubber wrote:
> Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > On Wednesday, February 25, 2015 at 9:45:18 PM UTC-5, Roger Shrubber wrote:

> >> I've avoided comment.
> >
> > You've also avoided comment on what I wrote about autocatalytic
> > factors in the clotting system making possible a "Darwinian"
> > explanation of it, when you ignorantly claimed that it was
> > explained by Doolittle in a bunch of passages that didn't
> > even hint at the concept of "autocatalytic."

> But everybody knows that zymogens self-activate.

Isn't it a crying shame, then, that Doolittle NOWHERE explained
how that made the lengthening of the clotting cascade easily
obtainable? Then Behe's treatment of clotting would have been
utterly different; as it was, he spent almost two pages closely
paraphrasing a "state of the art" article by Doolittle, then
went on to expose its weaknesses.

And isn't it a crying shame how Doolittle, when he made
his mock-serious snarky comments about how decades of his
life had evidently been wasted, tried to show that the
cascade is NOT irreducibly complex by making a terrible
misreading of a paper on genetically altered mice who had
had various clotting factors removed? He actually
claimed that the mice with two of the factors (one involved
in making clots, the other in breaking them up) knocked out
were "normal for all intents and purposes" when they were
phenotypically indistinguishable from mice with just the
clotting factor knocked out.

Just a few sentences before, he had said how badly
THOSE mice had fared: couldn't form clots, didn't survive
pregnancy,etc. That's all understood in "phenotypically
indistinguishable."

What a waste, when he could have skewered Behe by what doing what
non-specialists in clotting, Kenneth Miller and Keith Robison did.

> Trypsinogen
> is activated by trypsin. Chymotrypsinogen is activated by
> chymotrypsin.

But also, in the "complementary pathway" of the immune system,
Clr is activated by ITSELF, not by its activated modification.
See p. 133 of Behe's book. THAT is the kind of autocatalytic
action that was the key to Robison and Miller's "Eureka!" explanation.

> The same book I referenced has an extensive
> discussion of it and the history of serine proteases.

...but not integrated into a scenario like the one Miller
and Robison came up with. Apparently it never occurred to
Doolittle to do so. He may have been as oblivious to the
explanation when he wrote his "wasted life" sarcasm as
Kekule was to the the ring structure of benzene
before he had his dream of a snake taking its tail into
its mouth, or Archimedes before the water overflowed in his
bathtub.

If you were a leading RESEARCH biochemist, you would have
experienced, such Eureka! moments, so simple in hindsight,
yet so hard to see at first. When I solved a 43-year old
problem in set-theoretic topology, which had become THE
most sought-after problem in all of point set topology,
there were at least half a dozen leading researchers who
could have kicked themselves for not having seen it themselves.

The first one who said that in a letter, Bill Fleissner,
went on to write in his article for _Handbook of Set-Theoretic
Topology_ that the solution I had discovered was "beautifully simple."

[I should add that my solution required the assumption of
a special axiom that was independent of the usual (ZFC)
axioms of set theory, and whose consistency implied that
of "very large cardinals". But Bill Fleissner went on to show
that "very large cardinals" were absolutely necessary, in that
if one assumed another axiom whose NEGATION implied the existence of
only slightly smaller "very large cardinals," one could construct a counterexample. And so the solution stands today, 24 years after
Bill's totally unexpected and very difficult construction.]

> It's general knowledge for anyone who has studied any biochemistry.

Fat lot of good that did for Doolittle. Behe has been reaping
the benefit of Doolittle's blunder ever since. Would you like
to know how?

> And of course nobody is going to use the term "autocatalytic"
> to refer to that because that isn't what autocatalytic means.

And so, it seems that YOU have also missed the essence of
Miller and Robison's solution. [keyword: "ITSELF"]

> As for commenting further, it's clear that you have dug your
> heels in to defend your lack of understanding. Why fight
> against that?

The irony is priceless.

>
> > You've also avoided comment on the fact that Behe has an analysis
> > of what Doolittle DID write, including what you talked about
> > and much, much more, showing its shortcomings.
> >
> > Your claims about Behe were wild stabs in the dark, weren't they?
>
> You're delusional. Behe's comments about gene conversion and
> exon shuffling were to dismiss them despite the strong evidence
> that they were in fact responsible for much of what exists in
> the coagulation cascade.

He did not dismiss THEM, you wild stabber in the dark. He showed
how Doolittle's explanations didn't use them to real effect.

> And if you read Behe's testimony at Dover it's clear that he
> still doesn't get it.

The transcript on that part of his testimony has an enormous flaw in it:
it makes it look like a passage is due to Behe where, in reality,
it is Behe quoting Doolittle, as a kind of coda to his
expose of how badly Doolittle had blundered.

If you read the anti-Behe screed which Doolittle should wish he'd never
written, you can easily correct the transcript.

> In particular, his comments about gene
> duplication and exon shuffling are extremely embarrassing denials.

Prove it.

> >> There is too much that alludes to a
> >> tribunal about who ate the strawberries.
> >
> > You are deluded, but Harshman, who is equally deluded, enjoyed
> > your personal attack to the hilt.
> >
> > I've deleted the rest of your rant, which takes seriously
> > a possibility that would only be true if Harshman's utterly
> > baseless (alleged) suspicions about me, alluded to in my
> > reply about half an hour ago, were true --and they
> > are utterly false.
>
> You obsess. You invent motives for others and convince
> yourself they are true.

I describe Harshman's obsession, not his unknown motives
for it, prevaricator.

<snip additional flaming and flamebait>

Let's see how interested you are in ON-TOPIC discussion.

Do I recall correctly that you said natural selection
has very little to do with evolution, that the main
ingredients are mutation and genetic drift?

If so, how do you account for the finding in Lee et. al.
(which I do NOT dispute) that evolution proceeded
4 to 5.5 times as fast during the Cambrian explosion
than later? mutation? genetic drift? a combination of both?

Also, if so: how do you deal with the conventional wisdom that
an "arms race", which certainly involves natural selection,
largely drove the Cambrian explosion?

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina
Specialty: set-theoretic topology

Roger Shrubber

unread,
Feb 27, 2015, 12:45:03 PM2/27/15
to
Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Friday, February 27, 2015 at 3:05:15 AM UTC-5, *Hemidactylus* wrote:
>> On 02/26/2015 03:35 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>
>> [snip]
>>
>>> Your behavior was so egregious that I threatened to boycott your
>>> posts for a month if you didn't stop it, and you went right on in
>>> the same vein, and so I made good on the threat.
>>
>> I have an idea. Why don't you extend the boycott to a year and expand it
>> to everyone on the group you despise. We would all benefit. Win/Win.
>
> Who do you think you are fooling? It would give people like Ron O,
> who posts massive libel about me, a field day in poisoning the
> newsgroup participants against me.

I assure you, the person that can most effectively poison how people see
them is that person themselves. For example, they can make many of
their posts about themselves, how people have wronged them, repeatedly
repost their prior posts, respond to posts with more comments on their
own prior contributions than anything new, claim that they are a
lone champion of truth and justice fighting a lonely battle against
the malingering masses of evildoers. They can avoid making clear
on-topic points but instead make veiled hints and suggestions about
some knowledge they possess and might reveal. And for added spice they
could play lawyerly games with the prose of others while writing in
quite opaque language themselves, expecting others to understand their
obfuscated message. Talk.origins has taught me that the above behavior
is the most effective way to poison people against an author.


Roger Shrubber

unread,
Feb 27, 2015, 1:45:03 PM2/27/15
to
Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Thursday, February 26, 2015 at 5:25:15 PM UTC-5, Roger Shrubber wrote:
>> Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>> On Wednesday, February 25, 2015 at 9:45:18 PM UTC-5, Roger Shrubber wrote:
>
>>>> I've avoided comment.
>>>
>>> You've also avoided comment on what I wrote about autocatalytic
>>> factors in the clotting system making possible a "Darwinian"
>>> explanation of it, when you ignorantly claimed that it was
>>> explained by Doolittle in a bunch of passages that didn't
>>> even hint at the concept of "autocatalytic."
>
>> But everybody knows that zymogens self-activate.
>
> Isn't it a crying shame, then, that Doolittle NOWHERE explained
> how that made the lengthening of the clotting cascade easily
> obtainable? Then Behe's treatment of clotting would have been
> utterly different; as it was, he spent almost two pages closely
> paraphrasing a "state of the art" article by Doolittle, then
> went on to expose its weaknesses.

And he did a poor job, making it sound more difficult than
it is. But more to the point, the fact that people did not
explain these things to your satisfaction is not a problem
for the state of the art of the science.

It's your problem. It's your very particular problem and
it's a sort of dishonesty that you repeat again and again.
Things are explained but they are not explained in the way
you want them to be explained. They didn't line things up
the way that works best for your current level of understanding.
That's not a fair criticism at any time, and it's especially
unfair for the way a self-educated mathematician reads
explanations outside of his real of expertise. It is of
course confounded further when you rely on accounts like
Behe's that seek to make things sound even more complicated
than they are to one properly educated. That ability to
make things seem complicated is a fascinating skill but
it is the exact opposite of what is typically valued in
an educator.


> And isn't it a crying shame how Doolittle, when he made
> his mock-serious snarky comments about how decades of his
> life had evidently been wasted, tried to show that the
> cascade is NOT irreducibly complex by making a terrible
> misreading of a paper on genetically altered mice who had
> had various clotting factors removed? He actually

You continue to try to stir up a tempest in a teacup
over that point. And you're way off base. He showed that
clotting can work with a deleted part of the cascade.
The fact that the mice were not viable is a red herring.
You will reject that and that shows a foolishness on
your part. The fact that simply deleting one protein
from the cascade still produced clotting shows that the
gross function remains. The fact that in a fine tuned
cascade this was not a appropriate level of clotting
is readily seen as a consequence of many millions of
years of adaptation to the longer form of the cascade.

And that is of course a further obvious point against
Behe's whole screed about IC. Remove a component of a
system as it exists today and show a lack of function.
But this stays nothing about what would have happened
if you removed a component from an ancestral form of
the same complex.

Oh, you and he will faint and complain that evolutionary
biologists should not have faith in such explanations
until they prove it with demonstrations of some regressed
forms that are no longer IC. But why? Because certain
people tenaciously want to believe that evolution requires
help?

> claimed that the mice with two of the factors (one involved
> in making clots, the other in breaking them up) knocked out
> were "normal for all intents and purposes" when they were
> phenotypically indistinguishable from mice with just the
> clotting factor knocked out.
>
> Just a few sentences before, he had said how badly
> THOSE mice had fared: couldn't form clots, didn't survive
> pregnancy,etc. That's all understood in "phenotypically
> indistinguishable."
>
> What a waste, when he could have skewered Behe by what doing what
> non-specialists in clotting, Kenneth Miller and Keith Robison did.

Have you noted that Behe still doesn't admit it?
He still thinks that evolving the clotting cascade is next
to impossible? It displays his true colors.
http://www.trueorigin.org/behe03.asp

>> Trypsinogen
>> is activated by trypsin. Chymotrypsinogen is activated by
>> chymotrypsin.
>
> But also, in the "complementary pathway" of the immune system,
> Clr is activated by ITSELF, not by its activated modification.
> See p. 133 of Behe's book. THAT is the kind of autocatalytic
> action that was the key to Robison and Miller's "Eureka!" explanation.

Just about every serine protease pro-enzyme has the ability to
clear off the protecting prosequence to activate its kin.
Again, common knowledge. And the fact that the coagulation
cascade proteins do so is similarly common knowledge. Doolittle
was even involved in measuring the reaction rates of their
doing so.

Your only objection is that they didn't line the pieces up
in a tutorial manner so that you could understand. But
it was known, and Doolittle knew it as an honest reading
of his account reveals.

>> The same book I referenced has an extensive
>> discussion of it and the history of serine proteases.

> ....but not integrated into a scenario like the one Miller
> and Robison came up with. Apparently it never occurred to
> Doolittle to do so.

I'd say, rather, that it never occurred to him that it would
be necessary to make it that didactic, obvious to the meanest
understanding. Moreover, he was involved in the actual
pathway rather than this hypothetically simple pathway.
And the papers he referenced dealt with the actual pathway
which involved more than simple gene duplication.

Given that we have the actual, data supported pathway,
why would he take the trouble to build up something that
a non-biochemist would understand. Instead, he was doing
actual biochemistry reconstructing the actual history.

> He may have been as oblivious to the
> explanation when he wrote his "wasted life" sarcasm as
> Kekule was to the the ring structure of benzene
> before he had his dream of a snake taking its tail into
> its mouth, or Archimedes before the water overflowed in his
> bathtub.
>
> If you were a leading RESEARCH biochemist, you would have
> experienced, such Eureka! moments, so simple in hindsight,
> yet so hard to see at first. When I solved a 43-year old
> problem in set-theoretic topology, which had become THE
> most sought-after problem in all of point set topology,
> there were at least half a dozen leading researchers who
> could have kicked themselves for not having seen it themselves.

Nice to try to make it about you again, but it isn't.
The hypothetical solution you want him to have painted
for you is less interesting than the real solution that
fits to the real proteins involved in the cascade. And
that is what the real scientists had addressed.


Roger Shrubber

unread,
Feb 27, 2015, 1:55:03 PM2/27/15
to
Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Thursday, February 26, 2015 at 5:25:15 PM UTC-5, Roger Shrubber wrote:
>> Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>> On Wednesday, February 25, 2015 at 9:45:18 PM UTC-5, Roger Shrubber wrote:


>> You're delusional. Behe's comments about gene conversion and
>> exon shuffling were to dismiss them despite the strong evidence
>> that they were in fact responsible for much of what exists in
>> the coagulation cascade.
>
> He did not dismiss THEM, you wild stabber in the dark. He showed
> how Doolittle's explanations didn't use them to real effect.

He tried. He failed.

>> And if you read Behe's testimony at Dover it's clear that he
>> still doesn't get it.
>
> The transcript on that part of his testimony has an enormous flaw in it:
> it makes it look like a passage is due to Behe where, in reality,
> it is Behe quoting Doolittle, as a kind of coda to his
> expose of how badly Doolittle had blundered.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/RationalWiki:Kitzmiller_v._Dover_annotated_transcript/P039

I'll just leave this here. In it, Behe waffles and tries to evade
the way that new information is created by gene duplication and
divergence. He also tries to discount that exon shuffling can
do the same. It's very embarrassing for Behe.
<begin long quote>
Q. I want to bring this discussion somewhat down to the molecular level,
and ask you whether or not new genetic information can be generated by
Darwinian processes. And I want to be more specific and ask whether new
genetic information can be generated by known processes such as gene
duplication and exon shuffling?

A. Well, that's a topic about which you have to be very careful and make
distinctions.

Q. Okay. Let's start with the gene duplication. If you could explain
what that is in the context of generating new genetic information?

A. Well, gene duplication is a process whereby a segment of DNA gets
copied twice or gets duplicated and replicated so that where one gene
was present before, a second copy of the exact same gene is now present
in the genome of an organism. Or sometimes larger segments can be
duplicated, so you can have multiple copies of multiple genes.

Q. Are you saying, duplication, like photocopying, is just making
another copy of the gene that was originally existing?

A. Yeah, that's a good point. It's important to be aware that gene
duplication means that you simply have a copy of the old gene. You have
not done anything new. You've just taken the same gene and copied it
twice. So it would be like, like photocopying a page. And now you have
two pages, but it's just a copy of the first one, it's not something
fundamentally new.

It would be like saying, the example of Pandas here with John loves
Mary. If you walked down the sand another five yards or something, and
you came across another message that says, John loves Mary, well, that's
interesting, but you don't have anything fundamentally new.

Q. Can there be variations though in the duplication of those genes?

A. Well, once a gene has duplicated, then the idea goes that, perhaps
one of those two copies can continue to perform the function that the
single copy gene performed before the duplication, and the other one is
sort of a spare copy.

Now it's available to perhaps undergo mutation, and mutation accumulate
changes, and perhaps Darwinian theory postulates. Perhaps it can go on
to develop brand new properties.

Q. Does this generate new information? And if you use that John loves
Mary example to help explain perhaps?

A. Well, again, you have to be careful. Nobody disputes that random
mutation and natural selection can do some things, can make some small
changes in pre-existing systems. The dispute is over whether that
explains large complex functional systems.

And to leave the world of proteins for a second, to look at John loves
Mary, suppose we're looking at the spare copy, and the first copy was
continuing to fulfill the function of conveying that information. Well,
you know, suppose you changed a letter. Suppose you changed the final n
in the word John to some other, some other letter, like r. That would
not spell a name in the English language.

So that's kind of an analogy to saying that, you might lose the function
of the message in the terms. In the terms of protein, the protein might
no longer be functional. But you might get to closeby. You might get to
closeby messages. For example, if you deleted the r and the y from the
end of Mary, you might get to John loves Ma, or some such thing. But
you're not going to get anything radically different from that.

Q. So you are operating with the copy. The copy is operating with those
same letters, the John loves Mary, or some variation or deletions of
that subset?

A. That's right. A copy is a copy. It's essentially the same thing. And
now the big problem that Darwinian processes face is, now what do you
do? How do you generate a new complex function?

Q. And that's with gene duplication that we just talked about. Could you
explain a little bit about exon shuffling in the context of generating
new complex information?

A. Yes, exon shuffling is a little bit more involved. It turns out that
the gene for a protein can contain regions of DNA that actually code for
regions of a protein interrupted by regions of DNA that don't code for
regions of a protein. And the regions that code for the part of the
protein are called exons.

Now it turns out that, in cellular processes, similar to gene
duplication and other processes, too, one can duplicate separate exons
and sometimes transfer them to different places in the genome and other
such processes. But to make it more understandable, we can go back to
the analogy of John loves Mary.

And in this sense, exon shuffling might be expected to generate
something like, instead of John loves Mary, perhaps Mary loves John, or
John Mary loves, or something like that. But again, it's kind of a
mixture of pre-existing properties, and we're not generatesing something
fundamentally new.

Q. So, for example, you couldn't generate Brad loves Jen from exon
shuffling using your beach example?

A. No, I hope not.
<end long quote>


erik simpson

unread,
Feb 27, 2015, 2:00:03 PM2/27/15
to
In a probably futile attempt to get the discussion refocused on the Cambrian
explosion, I have two references to Vernanimalcula guizhouena that you haven't
mentioned, and ought to tweak your interest.

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/305/5681/218.full
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1525-142X.2012.00562.x/full

The first reference is the original paper announcing the discovery of a
putative bilaterian fossil from the black facies of the Doushantuo (~600 Mya).
The second reference is of the 'merciful death' of Vernanimalcula guizhouena,
and gives many references to other work on the subject of this controverial
beastie. A Google Scholar search for 'bilaterian Doushantuo' produces many
references. In fact, many people have been 'looking hard' for fossils that
might illuminate the 'roots of the Cambrian explosion'.

Roger Shrubber

unread,
Feb 27, 2015, 2:05:04 PM2/27/15
to
Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Thursday, February 26, 2015 at 5:25:15 PM UTC-5, Roger Shrubber wrote:
>> Peter Nyikos wrote:

>>> You've also avoided comment on what I wrote about autocatalytic
>>> factors in the clotting system making possible a "Darwinian"
>>> explanation of it, when you ignorantly claimed that it was
>>> explained by Doolittle in a bunch of passages that didn't
>>> even hint at the concept of "autocatalytic."

>> And of course nobody is going to use the term "autocatalytic"
>> to refer to that because that isn't what autocatalytic means.

> And so, it seems that YOU have also missed the essence of
> Miller and Robison's solution. [keyword: "ITSELF"]

The technical term "autocatalytic" has a meaning in chemistry.
It does not describe how an activated zymogen can the proenzyme
form of other instances of the same zymogen. It might seem
like a reasonable term to use if you had not studied catalysis
and didn't understand what the term is actually applied to.

So I repeat that nobody is going to use the term autocatalytic
to describe what you keep trying to point to. As to my understanding
of the significance of the fact that serine protease zymogens
have near universal activity in cleaving off their own activation
peptides, well yes, I understand that, as should anyone who
ever took a college level biochemistry course at a respectable
instutution.

By the way, I also know that, despite the fact that trypsin
and chymotrypsin have very different enzymatic specificities,
they each cross activate. That is, trypsin can activate
both chymotrypsinogen and trypsinogen. And whether or not
they remember it, most anyone who has had a college biology
could will have been told that at some point, at least that's
how it was many decades ago.

Ernest Major

unread,
Feb 27, 2015, 3:45:02 PM2/27/15
to
Half-way resurrected as a bilaterian if I believe the abstract.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301926811001586

--
alias Ernest Major

Peter Nyikos

unread,
Feb 27, 2015, 4:05:03 PM2/27/15
to
It's my own coinage. It means exactly the same thing "xenophobia" means,
except that xenophobia has generally to do with people who live in
some sort of association with each other, while para-xenophobia
has to do with people who interact in some form of written correspondence,
and who are generally on quite good terms with other like-minded people
with whom they come into contact.

The attitude towards "aliens" is very similar among xenophobes
and para-xenophobes, with appropriate adjustments in the
definition ["mutatis mutandis," as mathematicians often write].
It involves all the negative connotations the word "alien" has,
except for those unique to attached to invaders from outer space
in science fiction.

Whenever I go into a forum (in the broad sense of the word,
not the miserably narrow "official" internet definition) where
most people are anti-ID zealots, or abortion right zealots,
I am treated like an "alien" in that sense of the word
if I linger very long, no matter how careful I am to be civil
to the people involved. It happened also when I returned
to talk.origins after an absence of almost a decade. Immediately
several people who had known me before ((including John Harshman
and "el cid") started taking pot shots at me.

But what is more relevant, several people who had never seen
me before immediately assumed the worst about me and lit
into me, especially Ron O, and, after a short delay, jillery.
Then "el cid" showed his mature side and told these two hotheads
to go slowly, because I am completely different from the people that
they were used to attacking. Ron O then turned on "el cid"
very aggressively, while jillery basically ignored him.

Ron O and jillery, and also all the anti-intelligent design
zealots on two other forums, had precious little to go on except
that they could instinctively see, just from the way I worded things
pertaining to on-topic matters, that

HE IS NOT ONE OF US!

> Am I para-xenophobic? If not, why not?

Well, you do have at least one big strike against you: when I
posted a purely scientific statement from Meyer's book, about
how some biologists thought maybe cephalopods deserved a phylum
of their own because their body plan is so different from
that of other mollusks, you made NO attempt to address the
content of what I'd quoted, but ripped into me as supposedly revealing
my true agenda, which is to be an advocate for Meyer's creationist
attitude.

To help you better understand the "Not one of us" meme,
here is a fascinating essay by Thomas Sowell how the dynamic
of the "Not one of us" meme worked in two well known cases:

1. To the detriment of Whittaker Chambers, contrasted to the perception
of Alger Hiss, among liberals;

2. To the detriment of Sarah Palin among liberals but, far more
intriguingly, among Republican intellectuals.

http://townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/2009/02/25/not_one_of_us

To those two I can add a third, also well known:

3. To the detriment of Pope Francis among Catholic traditionalists.

By the way, does the mere mention of Thomas Sowell bring out
the "Not one of us" meme in you, or did reading the article
bring it out in you at some point?

About those two other forums: a bit has been said about one
of them on this thread, the Amazon.com comments section. If
you are curious to see how the "Not one of us" meme played
out there, start around page 60 in that forum and go for
30-40 pages (ten posts apiece), and even by the 80th page
you should already get an idea how that works.

The other is even more instructive. It is a "neurologica" blog,
dominated by ardent fans of one person, a neuroscientist who runs
the blog. The subject was not evolution except very tangentially,
but fine-tuning of the physical constants of our universe,
taking off from the following essay:

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/12/13/christmas-gift-for-atheists-five-reasons-why-god-exists/?intcmp=trending

I came in on January 7, 2014, and the following takes you to
my first post to the thread:

http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/the-logic-of-god/comment-page-2/#comment-62709

If talk.origins is a microcosm of the politics and polemics
of the big outside world, then this particular thread was
a "nanocosm" of it, as well as a remarkable illustration
of how strong the "Not one of us" meme can be.

Here is a tiny taste of how things had deteriorated in less than
two weeks.

________________________repost_____________________________
In reply to Hoss:
<blockquote>You tend to label scientific hypothesis and theories as atheistic. </blockquote>

No, I tend to label the USE of speculation about the existence of undescribed or grossly under-described physical entities as attempts to create some sort of default assumption of atheism. Here, you conflate this speculation with "scientific hypotheses and theories."

<blockquote>I really don't understand(in the sense that it is completely irrational) your opposition to the scientific inquiry of natural phenomena. </blockquote>

I really don't understand the tendency of people here to attribute things to me that I never even hinted at. You in particular seem to be ignoring the very first sentence in my very first post here, the very one from which you have quoted, where I speak of a "standoff." That is all I have ever argued for here, and you are conflating me with people who have a completely different agenda all through your post.

This will probably be my last post here until Monday. I think we could all benefit from a long weekend in which to get some perspective on what has been said and what has not been said on this hundred-post webpage.

+==============end of repost

I invite you to look closely at how I behaved and how people
reacted to the things I said. Then tell me whether you can still
agree with Roger Shrubber's confident assurance:

"I assure you, the person that can most effectively poison
how people see them is that person themselves."

I submit that, on the contrary, the people who attacked me were
strongly influenced by attacks that were just as off-the-wall
as those of "Hoss", resulting in a powerful positive feedback loop.

Peter Nyikos


jillery

unread,
Feb 27, 2015, 4:50:02 PM2/27/15
to
In fact, you go out of your way to be gratuitously insulting and
obnoxious. It's as if you can't help yourself.


>But what is more relevant, several people who had never seen
>me before immediately assumed the worst about me and lit
>into me, especially Ron O, and, after a short delay, jillery.
>Then "el cid" showed his mature side and told these two hotheads
>to go slowly, because I am completely different from the people that
>they were used to attacking. Ron O then turned on "el cid"
>very aggressively, while jillery basically ignored him.
>
>Ron O and jillery, and also all the anti-intelligent design
>zealots on two other forums, had precious little to go on except
>that they could instinctively see, just from the way I worded things
>pertaining to on-topic matters, that
>
> HE IS NOT ONE OF US!


Sorry to bust your bubble, but your opinions of ID, or directed
panspermia, or even abortion have nothing whatever to do with my
opinion of your posts and your persona. An example of something that
does have something to do with my opinion is what you did just now, to
refer to me when I have nothing at all to do with the topic, and to
negatively characterize me without expressed foundation or
justification.

--
Intelligence is never insulting.

jillery

unread,
Feb 27, 2015, 4:55:02 PM2/27/15
to
So why are you still replying to him? To the best of my knowledge, I
do NOTA, at least not habitually, and yet I remain in your personal
banned list.

erik simpson

unread,
Feb 27, 2015, 5:15:04 PM2/27/15
to
As you say, it's a partial resurrection at best. Personally, I'd like it to
turn out as such, but lots of people with much more familiarity with the rocks
are still very skeptical.

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