And you seem to ignore the fact that life has been on earth for 4+ billion years, mostly in cellular form but that is still living creatures. The most foundational event in biologic history is the formation of the cell–which all of us have by the trillions in our bodies.
Edited to Add. You seem not to realize how long it takes to deposit the sediment seen in some of these Ediacaran sections. the base of the Johnnie section from Nevada is dated at 630 my years ago. the base of the Cambrian is about 545 myr. The Edicaran section has life through out it and it is 3 km thick.
“The Johnnie Formation and associated Ediacaran strata in southwest Laurentia are ~3000 m thick, with a Marinoan cap carbonate sequence at the bottom, and a transition from Ediacaran to Cambrian fauna at the top.” Rebecca Witkosky and Brian P. Wernicke, " Subsidence history of the Ediacaran Johnnie Formation and related strata of southwest Laurentia: Implications for the age and duration of the Shuram isotopic excursion and animal evolution," Geosphere, 14:5, p. 2245,
Discussion regarding dates is more appropriate on my other thread on dates.
God can make anything easily, including the cell. The existence or not of biology before creation week fades into significance in light of God’s plan to make mankind in his image, and sending his Son, Jesus, to reconcile us to Him.
My view of not putting much significance on the timing of microbes may be unique. I do believe they are important because they contributed towards making the planet habitable before the first day, when light was observed on the surface of this dark planet.
I too believe that evolutionary processes do exist. Fossils confirm this. This is no reason to project that process into the past, when the balance of evidence favors a biblical type creation event, due to thousands of species appearing fully formed and yet without fossil precursor.
If any observed process has been neglected, is that small niche populations dominate the environment when conditions are suitable. This process is far more observable (and should be projected into history) than the evidence for any so-called macro evolution.
Wow, you can’t separate dates from your claim that life was created at a particular date of 540 million years ago or so. But I will play your game. The base of the Cambrian represents a date, and if life is there 3 km below that event (regardless of the number you put on the base of the Cambrian) then the Cambrian can’t be the creation of life event–it had to be earlier. And you admit that cells were alive and well on planet earth long before. thus, I think you are just playing a semantic game with words–and it is of no particular value.
Can God do anything he wants? of course. But show me that he did what you say he did.
where in the Bible does it say, “The existence or not of biology before creation week fades into significance in light of God’s plan to make mankind in his image”. I think this is to be found in the book of MindSpawn, but not in the bible
The seemingly rapid appearance of fossils in the “Primordial Strata” was noted by William Buckland in the 1840s,[14] and in his 1859 book On the Origin of Species , Charles Darwin discussed the then inexplicable lack of earlier fossils as one of the main difficulties for his theory of descent with slow modification through natural selection.[15]
I still suspect you failed to read my opening post. The Bible has a unique way of describing life, which is separate to our biological definition. Living creatures were created in the creation story, the Bible describing this in two ways, living creatures having the “breath of life”, and in Leviticus, “the life is in the blood”.
This is completely open to interpretation, these are subjective phrases, to argue over their exact meaning will be inconclusive. Looking at the kind of thinking, breathing, blood filled organisms I think are being referred to, it seems that Genesis 1 is referring to at least marine and terrestrial vertebrates, and terrestrial plants, and possibly many more organisms as well.
I understand that you may read Genesis 1 and think it refers to microbes as well, because these are modern ideas of what constitutes life, but my impression of the “breath of life”, and life being “in the blood” is different. This thread is “playing my game”, discussions according to this admittedly subjective view of Genesis 1. I dont think there’s enough info to conclude that debate more specifically.
Yes I recognize the heart of what you are saying, and the enquiring approach is appreciated compared to the oppositional approach you get when you have a unique view on these websites.
I was just clarifying why I seem to avoid the term YEC, but you are correct in your assessment. Essentially I see evolutionists stretching 7000 years into 600 million years. YECs see evolutionists as stretching 7000 years into 5 billion or more years. I guess that is similar. Your conciliatory tone is great
Earlier, you described trilobites and the transitional species for that group. What would you have said after the discovery of the first trilobite fossil? Would you have said that it was fully formed and had no ancestors? Would you have said that the species appeared suddenly in the fossil record?
Sure thing! Disagreement does not necessitate meanness or give good reason to be snide.
There’s also baggage that comes along with YEC, so I definitely understand wanting to distance yourself from the position.
Out of curiosity–what would convince you that evolutionary processes happened over the course of millions of years? I feel like others are giving you resources to help answer your questions but I wonder why they are not persuasive to you.
I read it and you are not consistent with your own definition. If you define creation as the breath of life, that came in the Devonian when amphibians moved onto land and actually breathed. Maybe you should rethink your timeframe.
I see both those questions as basically the same.
A precursor would be found in an earlier layer, and after careful phenotype analysis it would be clearly classified as the same genus, and possibly even the same species with minor changes.
Due to the sheer number of species found in the Cambrian Explosion, we would expect some transitionary forms. A fossil without precursor would be one which when going back in time there is no further record of any transition. We would expect that lack most of the time, merely due to an expected reduction in the fossil record in history, but to have nothing? That lack favors creation over the theory of evolution.
So how do you determine if these precursors did or did not exist? Also, how did you determine that these ancestral species left a fossil record to begin with?
Transitional forms have been found in Cambrian deposits.
First, it is entirely possible that there are no fossils for some species. Second, you have yet to show that we have found all of the fossil species. So how can you claim that there were no precursors?
My timeframes are so short, those are all practically the same period
All those higher life forms, with plants for food, were created at the same time, even if fossils are discovered in layered environments.
The layering is just a matter of which got fossilized first, and which environments were more widespread. Obviously mammals would not be seen in those early regions of high co2, and high oxygen. These conditions are toxic to mammals, birds,and possibly angiosperms.
Obviously I mean no precursors discovered to date for those species found in the Cambrian Explosion. Sure you could find a sequence, eg trilobites, going back in time. But nearly always the sequence of transitionary fossils stops, before the Ediacaran. Why does it all stop there? It’s too sudden. Theoretically these transitional fossils should be seen in decreasing numbers all the way back to the Luca.
You seem to be jumping to the conclusion that if we haven’t found them as of yet then they didn’t exist. That seems like a rather massive leap in logic.
Soft bodied organisms don’t fossilize well.
Fossil bearing sediments from that time period are rare.
The older the sediments the less chance it has of making it to the present.
Older sediments are harder to get to because they are buried.
Those are 4 reasons off the top of my head.
There are practical reasons why this isn’t the case.
