[BroJoeK]

Post #459 cont. 3
Kalamata: "The fossil record provides evidence for both special creation and at least one global flood, Joey."

Only in the eyes of phony-baloney theologians pretending at science.
What real science sees is any number of local & regional floods, plus occasional epeiric seas, i.e., over central North America.
Science also notices evidence of four ancient global ice ages, sometimes called "snowball earth" beginning around 775 mya and ending just before the Cambrian Explosion around 550 mya.

Kalamata: "The highly sorted geological strata, along with unbroken folding in the mountainous regions, are ample evidence for a single global flood.
Those evidences only scratch the surface."

All a complete fantasy untouched by any real science.
Your claims are clear and convincing evidence that some people are willing, even eager, to lie their heads off in the name of phony-baloney theology.

Kalamata: "No, Joey.
Disparity refers to body plans.
Diversity refers to variations within basic body plans.
Darwin predicted boat loads of diversity before new body plans evolved.
The opposite occurred."

No, if the word "disparity" has any real meaning, it refers to phyla while "diversity" to all taxonomic categories below phyla.
Of about 36 living phyla, 10 are first found in the Cambrian Explosion, 8 others are found before or after and 18 have never been found -- see my post #529.

So clearly the Cambrian Explosion is important in life's evolution, but it was neither the beginning nor the end of those events.
Here is a study which disputes your basic assumptions, Danny boy:

"We attempt to quantify animal “bodyplans” and their variation within Metazoa.
Our results challenge the view that maximum variation was achieved early in animal evolutionary history by nonuniformitarian mechanisms.
Rather, they are compatible with the view that the capacity for fundamental innovation is not limited to the early evolutionary history of clades.
We perform quantitative tests of the principal hypotheses of the molecular mechanisms underpinning the establishment of animal bodyplans and corroborate the hypothesis that animal evolution has been permitted or driven by gene regulatory evolution."

There are a good many "money quotes" in that 2018 study and they all boil down to this: "Disparity before diversity ain't necessarily so."

Kalamata: "Are you talking to yourself?"

That's Denier Rule #11, pretend ignorance.

Kalamata: "Gould explained it in my earlier quotes in #310 and #355.
You can also find it earlier in this post.
But just in case you read right past it, here it is again:

quoting Gould 1989: "In a geological moment near the beginning of the Cambrian, nearly all modern phyla made their first appearance, along with an even greater array of anatomical experiments that did not survive very long thereafter.
The 500 million subsequent years have produced no new phyla, only twists and turns upon established designs."
[Stephen Jay Gould, "Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History." W. W. Norton & Company, 1989, p.64]

Kalamata: "Gould plainly states that no new phyla have been produced (e.g., evolved) since the Cambrian."

And so yet again we see Kalamata's "appeal to authority" when the authority's words can be twisted to agree with Kalamata.
But in no other sense does Kalamata accept the authority of Gould's scientific outlook regarding, for examples, Old Earth and evolution.

It happens that in this particular case, in 1989 Gould was simply wrong and not all living phyla first developed in the Cambrian Explosion circa 541 mya.
Fossils of ten out of 36 living phyla are first found in the Cambrian, but that does not "prove" they first developed then.
Fossils of the other 26 phyla are either never found or found in times other than Cambrian Explosion.

Further, more recent studies suggest that all that alleged Cambrian "disparity" was not quite as disparate as originally claimed.

Kalamata: "I must admit, your silly rules allow you a clever way to shut down debate, or avoid it.
But avoiding debate only adds to the size of your label which reads, "You are an embarrassingly incompetent Darwinian apologist.""

First of all, what you call "debate" in many cases is nothing more than Kalamata's name-calling.
When your "arguments" amount to nothing more than denier tactics, my goal here is to shut those down and respond only to more serious debate.

Second, I've long noted that no self-respecting scientist would mud-wrestle with propaganda-liars like yourself, Kalamata, and that's why such work falls to fools like me (see i.e., 1 Corinthians 4:10, 2 Corinthians 12:11).

Kalamata: "Disparity is simply a modern term for [significant] difference.
Darwin's tree of life denoted increasing diversity, followed by increasing disparity:"

No, liar, Darwin said nothing about alleged "disparity" versus "diversity".
You have simply constructed a strawman fantasy to beat up on.

Kalamata: "What should we be looking for in that paper by Briggs & Fortney, Joey?"

First, notice the date of this article is 2016, compared to your quotes from circa 1994.
These 2016 words, for starters:

"Since 1989 cladistic analyses have accommodated most of the problematic Cambrian taxa as stem groups of living taxa.
Morphological disparity has been shown to be similar in Cambrian times as now.
Konservat-Lagerstätten other than the Burgess Shale have yielded important new discoveries, particularly of arthropods and chordates, which have extended the range of recognized major clades still further back in time. "

So the whole "disparity" versus "diversity" meme is just more nonsense.

Kalamata: "In the meantime, Briggs co-authored a book on the Burgess Shale in which he mentioned disparity, but in Darwin's language for his day and age:"

No, not "in the meantime", that was in 1994 -- 25 years ago!
Notice how their tune has changed in 2016.

Kalamata: "I am quoting evolutionary paleontologists, Joey.
Why would they lie?
This is the book I am quoting from:"

You are misusing quotes to make points their authors never intended, or points that have been refuted by more recent research, as in the example above.

Kalamata: "McManamim, an evolutionary paleontologist, is quoting James W. Valentine, another evolutionary paleontologist.
I checked Valentine's paper, and McManamim is quoting him accurately.
This is a link to Valentine's paper:"

None of those authors support your Young Earth anti-evolution theology, and yet you use their words to lie about them.

Kalamata: "You are acting sorta goofy, Joey.
Are you getting enough sleep?"

That's Denier Rule #7.

Kalamata: "Foolish Child."

Kalamata: "Foolish Child."

More of Denier Rule #7.

Kalamata: "Either way, cells are intelligently designed, Joey."

Right, but only one way is a natural-science explanation, the other requires non-scientific supernatural interventions -- a "God of the gaps" theology.

Kalamata: "Quit lying and I will quit calling you a liar."

Says our master liar denier Danny boy.

Kalamata: "No, Joey.
I rely on physical, verifiable evidence; not on dumb luck."

No, Danny boy, you rely 100% on seeing only what you wish to see and ignoring everything else.

Kalamata: "I am a scientist, so I always quote in context."

No, Danny boy, you're not a scientist, you're a lying propagandist who can't pass even the most basic tests of honesty.
You consistently hijack quotes from people who would never support your own Young Earth Creationism in order to suggest they somehow do.
Seriously, what you do here is so despicable I've tried to codify it into standardized "Rules for Deniers", see my post #420.

Kalamata: "You can download (for free) the bulletin containing the full article by Raup, here:"

First, it appears that Raup's article is dated 1979, meaning it's now 40 years old.
Second, Raup confirms that (as of 1979) 250,000 discovered fossil species must represent barely 1% of total species which lived, meaning 99% of transitional forms are still missing.
Third, it's not clear what points Raup is making applicable to this discussion, but...
Fourth, there's no suggestion I could find that Raup was in any way a Young Earth Creationist, meaning your use of his words for your own nefarious purposes is not legitimate.

Kalamata: "Raup was referring to the highly-touted "horse evolution," which had to be abandoned when more information, in the way of fossils, became available."

New data can modify old theories, but horse evolution was never "abandoned".

Kalamata: "He would be utterly dishonest if he said what you have been saying about the fossil record."

I've said nothing that Raup would disagree with today.

Kalamata: "You are abusing Raup's words."

Denier Rule #5.

Kalamata: "That would be true if someone found evidence for common descent."

Here is one summary.

Kalamata: "There are a gazillion trilobite fossils, Joey, but they are still trilobites.
How are whales any different?"

Of the circa 600 living and extinct whale species, many are classified taxonomically in different superfamily, parvorders, infraorders & suborders before reaching the lower levels of family, genus & species.

Kalamata: "That is story-telling, Joey, not scientific evidence."

The scientific evidence is available for anyone who wants to see it.

Kalamata: "Foolish Child."

Kalamata: "Foolish Child."

More of your own slavish obedience to Denier Rule #7.

Kalamata: "When Joey gets caught making stupid statements, he brings out the old rule book to distract you."

Kalamata, you absolutely cannot free yourself from slavish obedience to Denier Rules.
You are so practiced and fluid in them I have to conclude you were a denier long before you became anti-evolutionist.
So tell us where you first learned your denier trade-craft.

Kalamata: "I am certain those reading this thread would be most interested in you exposing any lies I have made.
Please do."

I have and will.

Kalamata: "Evolution is not science, so it cannot be falsified."

Now there's a lie as big as any I can imagine.

Kalamata: "Please point out my lies for all to see, Joey.
Be specific.
Lying Joey!"

Sure, but yet again you have it exactly backwards.
That's because pretty much every word you post is a lie, so my task would be to carefully sort out your occasional screw-ups in posting something truthful.

End of post #459.

[Kalamata]

>>Kalamata: "The fossil record provides evidence for both special creation and at least one global flood, Joey."
>>Joey said: "Only in the eyes of phony-baloney theologians pretending at science. What real science sees is any number of local & regional floods, plus occasional epeiric seas, i.e., over central North America."

Real science sees marine (ocean) clams, many in the closed position, buried world-wide in the uppermost sedimentary layers. That puts the big question mark on your arrogant claim.

************

>>Joey said: "Science also notices evidence of four ancient global ice ages, sometimes called "snowball earth" beginning around 775 mya and ending just before the Cambrian Explosion around 550 mya."

There is no scientific evidence whatsoever for multiple ice ages. It is another just-so story.

A good theory is the (only) ice age occurred immediately after the flood. During the flood, and at the end, there were massive geological disturbances (volcanoes, earthquakes, plate collisions, etc.) that heated up the oceans. That resulted in extensive evaporation as the oceans cooled.

************

>>Kalamata: "The highly sorted geological strata, along with unbroken folding in the mountainous regions, are ample evidence for a single global flood. Those evidences only scratch the surface."
>>Joey said: "All a complete fantasy untouched by any real science. Your claims are clear and convincing evidence that some people are willing, even eager, to lie their heads off in the name of phony-baloney theology."

You can always count on the progressive politician Joey to avoid providing any evidence for his wild claims.

************

>>Kalamata: "No, Joey. Disparity refers to basic body plans. Diversity refers to variations within basic body plans. Darwin predicted boat loads of diversity before new body plans evolved. The opposite occurred."
>>Joey said: "No, if the word "disparity" has any real meaning, it refers to phyla while "diversity" to all taxonomic categories below phyla."

Joey is severely scientifically-challenged on this subject, but he seems to sincerely believe he knows more about paleontology that those with graduate degrees who have researched the fossil record their entire careers. Is that condition called delusions of grandeur? I forget.

Let's try a reference that doesn't use the fancy word disparity, and see if Joey can figure out what they are talking about. This paper is by Douglas H. Erwin, James W. Valentine, and J. John Sepkoski Jr.:

"In the earlier case, the radiation produced large numbers of phyla, classes, and orders-morphologically distinct animal clades of the highest ranks-while in the later case it produced much less morphological novelty. Although the per taxon rate of family diversification was considerably higher during the earlier radiation, there are no indications that the evolutionary activity at the family level was driving the origination of higher-level taxa. In fact, there are clues suggesting that just the reverse was true-that most higher taxa were built from the top down rather than bottom up. The fossil record suggests that the major pulse of diversification of phyla occurs before that of classes, classes before that of orders, and orders before that of families. This is not to say that higher taxa originated before species (each phylum, class, or order contained at least one species, genus, family, etc. upon appearance), but the higher taxa do not seem to have diverged through an accumulation of lower taxa. Instead, the lower taxa appear to be exploiting the potentialities of the novel body plans recognized as higher taxa in the relatively empty adaptive space of the Early Cambrian." [Erwin et al, "A Comparative Study Of Diversification Events: The Early Paleozoic Versus The Mesozoic." Evolution, Vol.41, Iss.6; November, 1987, p.1183]

************

>>Joey said: "Of about 36 living phyla, 10 are first found in the Cambrian Explosion, 8 others are found before or after and 18 have never been found -- see my post #529.

Evolutionists are always seeking more disparity in the "younger" layers, but it just isn't there.

Your source, "The Fossil Museum," is not a reliable source, Joey. It is no more reliable that the left-wing rag, Wikipedia. I recommend you cite the experts, if you expect to be taken seriously.

There is some variation among the experts, and some really wild stuff by the dreamers. This quote is from a book by Dr. James Valentine, a highly-respected paleontologist and co-author of the paper quoted above:

"Organisms with the characteristic bodyplans that we identify as living phyla appear abruptly in the fossil record, many within a narrow window of geologic time—perhaps 5 to 10 million years, beginning about 530 Ma (chap.5). Nearly all of these are stem taxa. Some fossils are known that may represent extinct phyla, and these appear chiefly during this same window. It is consistent with the fossil record that all of the characteristic animal bodyplans had evolved by the close of this period, hut none of them can be traced through fossil intermediates to an ancestral group. The organisms belonging to many of the phyla can he further subdivided into distinctive morphological groups that possess characteristic body subplans. In no case is a morphological continuum found across a broad range of bodyplan morphologies, nor do phyla resemble each other more closely during their early fossil histories. It is possible to aggregate the organisms within each phylum into a hierarchy of morphologically based subdivisions. At less inclusive subdivisions—lower taxa—intermediate morphologies are commonly found. The Linnean hierarchy employs the subdivisions as nominal taxa. Phyla are thus taxa representing a high-level sub division or rank within the animal kingdom, and they are conceptually polytheric." [James W. Valentine, "On the Origin of Phyla." University of Chicago Press, 2004, p.37]

This is Dr. Valentine, in person. Listen to at least the 1:41 mark:

On the Origin of Phyla

That is a solid, scientific interpretation of the origin of the phyla, from an evolutionary standpoint.

************

>>Joey said: "So clearly the Cambrian Explosion is important in life's evolution, but it was neither the beginning nor the end of those events. Here is a study which disputes your basic assumptions, Danny boy: >>Joey quoting Deline et al: "We attempt to quantify animal “bodyplans” and their variation within Metazoa. Our results challenge the view that maximum variation was achieved early in animal evolutionary history by nonuniformitarian mechanisms. Rather, they are compatible with the view that the capacity for fundamental innovation is not limited to the early evolutionary history of clades. We perform quantitative tests of the principal hypotheses of the molecular mechanisms underpinning the establishment of animal bodyplans and corroborate the hypothesis that animal evolution has been permitted or driven by gene regulatory evolution."
>>Joey said: "There are a good many "money quotes" in that 2018 study and they all boil down to this: "Disparity before diversity ain't necessarily so."

Money quotes? I would like to see some of those! LOL! You should have ran away from that paper the instant you realized Neil Shubin was the editor. This paper is just another in a long line Cambrian Explosion rescue devices by the evolution-is-god crowd who have convinced themselves that evolution is true, so there must be evidence somewhere. Previous rescue devices have included the oxygen theory, cancer theory, slime theory, and the tipping-point theory, among others.

The last statement in Joey's quote is telling. There cannot be new body plans without new DNA code (plans) for the design of new proteins! These are quotes by some of the paper's researchers promoting the paper:

"We did this by collecting data on the different genomes, proteins, and regulatory genes, that living animal groups possess. The differences in anatomical designs correlate with regulatory gene sets, but not the type or diversity of proteins. This indicates that that precipitated the evolution of animal biodiversity.'" [Deline et al, "Evolutionary origins of animal biodiversity: promotion of 'Evolution of metazoan morphological disparity'." University of Bristol, Sept 3, 2018]

I would like to see that happen (the highlighted part,) but it is only pseudo-scientific mumbo jumbo. That is contradicted by an earlier study that same year by Paps and Holland:

"Contrary to the prevailing view, this uncovers an unprecedented increase in the extent of genomic novelty during the origin of metazoans, and identifies 25 groups of metazoanspecific genes that are essential across the Animal Kingdom. We argue that internal genomic changes were as important as external factors in the emergence of animals." [Paps & Holland, "Reconstruction of the ancestral metazoan genome reveals an increase in genomic novelty." 2018, p.1]

Paps & Holland didn't rule out a role for the gene regulatory network, but it certainly was not the sole mechanism (if it happened at all):

"We stress the present study focusses on protein-coding genes, and it is possible that the evolution of noncoding genes, regulatory regions, and epigenetic mechanisms also played major roles in this transition" [Ibid. p.6]

However, Eric Davidson, who has spent virtually his entire career on developmental gene regulatory neworks (dGRN's,) wrote:

"There is always an observable consequence if a dGRN subcircuit is interrupted. Since these consequences are always catastrophically bad, flexibility is minimal, and since the subcircuits are all interconnected, the whole network partakes of the quality that there is only one way for things to work. And indeed the embryos of each species develop in only one way." [Eric H. Davidson, "Evolutionary bioscience as regulatory systems biology." Developmental Biology, Vol.357, Iss.1; Sept 1, 2011, p.40]

I would tend to rule out the evolution of the dGRN. Back to the promotion article:

"Animals evolved from unicellular ancestors, diversifying into thirty or forty distinct anatomical designs. When and how these designs emerged has been the focus of debate, both on the speed of evolutionary change, and the mechanisms by which fundamental evolutionary change occurs. Did animal body plans emerge over eons of gradual evolutionary change, as Darwin suggested, or did these designs emerge in an explosive diversification episode during the Cambrian Period, about half a billion years ago?" [Deline et al, "Evolutionary origins of animal biodiversity: promotion of 'Evolution of metazoan morphological disparity'." University of Bristol, Sept 3, 2018]

Okay, tell us how the authors know the "Animals evolved from unicellular ancestors, diversifying into thirty or forty distinct anatomical designs"? There is no evidence of that. The researchers assumed evolution to be true, and used that assumption to infer proof of evolution. That is classical circular reasoning. Next:

"Our results show that fundamental evolutionary change was not limited to an early burst of evolutionary experimentation. Animal designs have continued to evolve to the present day – not gradually as Darwin predicted – but in fits and starts, episodically through their evolutionary history." [Ibid.]

That is what is called a "wild imagination."

"Fits and starts?" I'll have to remember that one. I wonder if that is the same as "punctuated equilibria," or a "hopeful monster"?

Did you notice they threw Charlie Darwin under the bus?

This is the link:

The promotional interview

It gets better. This is from the actual research paper:

"The 'clumpiness' of morphospace occupation by living clades is a consequence of the extinction of phylogenetic intermediates, indicating that the original distribution of morphologies was more homogeneous" [Deline et al, "Evolution of metazoan morphological disparity." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2018, p.8109]

So, if there were intermediates (a big 'IF',) they are extinct. I guess that means, if you are an evolutionist. it is okay to imagine their existence. More:

"Coding these fossil taxa was potentially problematic in that most of the characters (54.1%) are not preserved, and therefore unknown." [Ibid. p.8910]

So what do you do when so much of the data is missing? You make it up!

"An alternative approach to including fossil species exploits their known phylogenetic position among living and fossil relatives to infer character states that are lost during fossilization. There are obviously assumptions inherent in inferring missing data, including missing secondary reversals in soft tissues, the potential of differential evolutionary rates between preservable and nonpreservable characters, or limiting the coded fossil autapomorphies to preservable characteristics." [Ibid.]

No kidding! But, no matter how much imaginary data is inserted to get the desired results, you can always make it appear legit with the proper closing statement, provided it is at least as mystifying as the paper itself:

"Our results also suggest that debate on whether early animal evolution has been underpinned by uniformitarian or nonuniformitarian processes has been misplaced. Animal evolutionary history does not appear to have been characterized by a uniform rate and scale of change but rather by a high frequency of small changes and low frequency of changes of large magnitude within the context of intrinsic genetic and developmental variation and extrinsic environmental change. Such patterns are readily open to modeling in the same manner as nucleotide and amino acid substitution frequencies. Future research in this direction will inform understanding of the nature of phenotypic evolution, its relation to molecular evolution, underpinning the development of phylogenetic methods. However, it will also provide for a more precise characterization of the tempo of metazoan diversification and the processes that underpinned the establishment of animal bodyplans." [Ibid. p.8917]

Does not appear? To whom? LOL!

Thanks, but no thanks, Joey. I will stick with Professor Valentine's empirically-derived interpretations. He may be an evolutionist, but he doesn't let his imagination run wild.

************

>>Kalamata: "Are you talking to yourself?"
>>Joey said: "That's Denier Rule #11, pretend ignorance."

Silly Child.

************

>>Kalamata: "Gould explained it in my earlier quotes in #310 and #355. You can also find it earlier in this post. But just in case you read right past it, here it is again: >>Kalamata quoting Gould 1989: "In a geological moment near the beginning of the Cambrian, nearly all modern phyla made their first appearance, along with an even greater array of anatomical experiments that did not survive very long thereafter. The 500 million subsequent years have produced no new phyla, only twists and turns upon established designs." [Stephen Jay Gould, "Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History." W. W. Norton & Company, 1989, p.64] >>Kalamata: "Gould plainly states that no new phyla have been produced (e.g., evolved) since the Cambrian."
>>Joey said: "And so yet again we see Kalamata's "appeal to authority" when the authority's words can be twisted to agree with Kalamata. But in no other sense does Kalamata accept the authority of Gould's scientific outlook regarding, for examples, Old Earth and evolution."

I believe you misunderstand the use of the phrase "appeal to authority," Joey. The late Havard Professor Stephen Jay Gould's work is an authority on paleontology. So is James Valentine's life-long work which confirms this area of Gould's observations, some of which is mentioned earlier in this post.

The logical fallacy of "appeals to authority" would be like, "the consensus of scientists say," which is frequently used to prop up the pseudosciences of climate-change and evolutionism; or appealing to an ignorant judge who tells us what science is and is not.

************

>>Joey said: "It happens that in this particular case, in 1989 Gould was simply wrong and not all living phyla first developed in the Cambrian Explosion circa 541 mya.

James Valentine in 2004, and again in 2014, confirmed Gould's observations. Plus, there are many researchers out there trying to prove their observations wrong with one wild scheme after another, the latest of which you referenced previously in this post. If it was so cut and dried, there would be nothing left to prove.

************

>>Joey said: "Fossils of ten out of 36 living phyla are first found in the Cambrian, but that does not "prove" they first developed then. Fossils of the other 26 phyla are either never found or found in times other than Cambrian Explosion."

That depends on how phyla is defined, Joey. Obviously, those who see the Cambrian Explosion as the threat to evolutionism that it truly is, will tend to downplay it; but not all. The late great Ernst Mayr also agreed there were no new phyla after the Cambrian:

"The diversity of the living world takes many forms. It may express itself purely quantitatively as in the large colonies of ants and termites, or in the number of species in a family, like the weevils among the beetles (and the order of beetles as a whole), and of course in the enormous biomass of prokaryotes. But diversity may also express itself in the degrees of difference, the number of strikingly different types of organisms. And here evolution has produced a real surprise. In the rise of the metazoans (animals), one would expect that soon after their appearance in the fossil record they would consist of a series of rather similar orders that would become increasingly more dissimilar to each other in the course of time. Yet the facts are astonishingly different from this assumption!When the metazoans appeared as fossils about 550 million years ago (admittedly they must have already existed for ca. 200 million years), they included four to seven bizarre body plans that soon became extinct. All the other Cambrian phyla survived, and what is quite unexpected, without a major revolution of the basic body plan. If we look at individual phyla, the same situation is encountered. The living classes of arthropods are already found in the Cambrian with the same body plans. But again there are a handful of strange types of arthropods in the Cambrian that do not exist today. I agree with those who conclude from this evidence that the variety of realized body plans was greater in the Cambrian than it is now. Furthermore, no fundamentally new body plan has originated in the 500 million years since the Cambrian." [Ernst Mayr, "What Evolution Is." Basic Books, 2001, Chap 10, pp.230-31]

Mayr says what the others have said, and are saying, that no "fundamentally new body plan" has showed up since the Cambrian. Roger Lewin said virtually the same thing:

"It is easy to explain why the Cambrian explosion was unprecedented in producing a great array of novel body forms: it was close to the origin of multicellular organisms, and so there could have been little previous opportunity. (The rate at which it happened is, however, impressive.) But why has this burst of evolutionary invention never again been equaled? Why, in subsequent periods of great evolutionary activity when countless species, genera, and families arose, have there been no new animal body plans produced, no new phyla?... there appeared to have been the opportunity in the wake of the Permian extinction to replay quantitatively and qualitatively the events of the Cambrian explosion. But it did not happen. Both bursts of diversification generated about 450 new families, making the two periods quantitatively similar. However, as one goes up the genealogical hierarchy—from orders to classes to phyla—there is a rapidly increasing bias toward origination in the first of the two great diversifications. Clearly, the two periods were distinctly different qualitatively: the first produced many new themes, the second variations upon established themes." [Roger Lewin, "A Lopsided Look at Evolution." Science, Vol.241, Iss.4863; July 15, 1988, p,291, 292]

************

>>Joey said: "Further, more recent studies suggest that all that alleged Cambrian "disparity" was not quite as disparate as originally claimed."

People can say anything, Joey, like Charlie Darwin did; and his rhetoric "sent" generations of minds-full-of-mush on a gigantic wild-goose chase.

************

>>"Kalamata: "I must admit, your silly rules allow you a clever way to shut down debate, or avoid it. But avoiding debate only adds to the size of your label which reads, "You are an embarrassingly incompetent Darwinian apologist."
>>Joey said: First of all, what you call "debate" in many cases is nothing more than Kalamata's name-calling. When your "arguments" amount to nothing more than denier tactics, my goal here is to shut those down and respond only to more serious debate."

Like I said earlier, Joey, I am a counter-puncher. If you don't like being called names, then don't name-call.

************

>>Joey said: "Second, I've long noted that no self-respecting scientist would mud-wrestle with propaganda-liars like yourself, Kalamata, and that's why such work falls to fools like me (see i.e., 1 Corinthians 4:10, 2 Corinthians 12:11)."

You are not a scientist, Joey. How do you know what a self-respecting scientist would do or not do?

I see you named-dropped the Bible, like a good-little progressive politician. Let's look at them:

"We are fools for Christ's sake, but ye are wise in Christ; we are weak, but ye are strong; ye are honourable, but we are despised." -- 1Cor 4:10 KJV

"I am become a fool in glorying; ye have compelled me: for I ought to have been commended of you: for in nothing am I behind the very chiefest apostles, though I be nothing." -- 2Cor 12:11 KJV

No doubt that Bible-believing creationists are despised by the atheist/evolutionist establishment, as Paul was by the establishment of his day, and Galileo in his day. Are you familiar with this verse?

"And if a man also strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned, except he strive lawfully." -- 2Tim 2:5 KJV

************

>>Kalamata: "Disparity is simply a modern term for [significant] difference. Darwin's tree of life denoted increasing diversity, followed by increasing disparity:"
>>Joey said: "No, liar, Darwin said nothing about alleged "disparity" versus "diversity". You have simply constructed a strawman fantasy to beat up on."

I am telling you the truth, Joey. You are simply too ignorant (or too brainwashed) to understand it.

************

>>Kalamata: "What should we be looking for in that paper by Briggs & Fortney, Joey?"
>>Joey said: "First, notice the date of this article is 2016, compared to your quotes from circa 1994."

So what? Evolutionary scientists perform research and write papers almost continually, if they want to keep their funding. That doesn't mean their work is reliable or pertinent.

************

>>Joey said: "These 2016 words, for starters: "Since 1989 cladistic analyses have accommodated most of the problematic Cambrian taxa as stem groups of living taxa. Morphological disparity has been shown to be similar in Cambrian times as now. Konservat-Lagerstätten other than the Burgess Shale have yielded important new discoveries, particularly of arthropods and chordates, which have extended the range of recognized major clades still further back in time."
>>Joey said: "So the whole "disparity" versus "diversity" meme is just more nonsense.

What? LOL! You have no idea what you quoted, or why. That paper is from 2005; it was published on-line in 2016. You appear to wildly throwing stuff at the wall and hoping something sticks. This is also from that paper:

"Budd and Jensen (2000) reduced the significance of the Cambrian ''explosion'' not by making more time available for evolution in the Precambrian (the cryptic fossil record implied by some molecular clock estimates), nor by diminishing the amount of evolution required (by quantifying and comparing morphological separation among sample taxa), but by arguing that much of the morphological evolution required to give rise to the modern phyla actually took place later than is normally acknowledged, during the Phanerozoic. On the other hand, the more new Cambrian arthropods that are discovered, the more (morphologic) evolution seems to have happened already by the early Cambrian." [Briggs & Fortey, "Wonderful Strife: systematics, stem groups, and the phylogenetic signal of the Cambrian radiation." Paleobiology, Vol.31, Iss.2, 2005, p.100]

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>>Kalamata: "In the meantime, Briggs co-authored a book on the Burgess Shale in which he mentioned disparity, but in Darwin's language for his day and age:"
>>Joey said: "No, not "in the meantime", that was in 1994 -- 25 years ago! Notice how their tune has changed in 2016."

No, his tune didn't change, Joey; he simply worded it differently. And, again, that paper you are touting as a 2016 publication, was actually published in 2005.

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>>Kalamata: "I am quoting evolutionary paleontologists, Joey. Why would they lie? This is the book I am quoting from:"
>>Joey said: "You are misusing quotes to make points their authors never intended, or points that have been refuted by more recent research, as in the example above."

I don't do that, Joey. I always quote in context. The fact that your buds at Wikipedia and Talkorigins misuse quotes, doesn't mean everyone does.

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>>Kalamata: "McManamim, an evolutionary paleontologist, is quoting James W. Valentine, another evolutionary paleontologist. I checked Valentine's paper, and McManamim is quoting him accurately. This is a link to Valentine's paper:"
>>Joey said: "None of those authors support your Young Earth anti-evolution theology, and yet you use their words to lie about them."

Of course they don't support my understanding! They are evolutionists! But the fact remains that they are mystified about why the Cambrian data doesn't support their evolutionary worldview.

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>>Kalamata: "You are acting sorta goofy, Joey. Are you getting enough sleep?"
>>Joey said: "That's Denier Rule #7.

Foolish Child.

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>>Kalamata: "Either way, cells are intelligently designed, Joey."
>>Joey said: "Right, but only one way is a natural-science explanation, the other requires non-scientific supernatural interventions -- a "God of the gaps" theology."

Scientists follow the data wherever it leads, Joey. Ideologues force the data to "fit" their worldview; and if they cannot, they discard it.

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>>Kalamata: "Quit lying and I will quit calling you a liar."
>>Joey said: "Says our master liar denier Danny boy.

Deceitful Child.

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>>Kalamata: "No, Joey. I rely on physical, verifiable evidence; not on dumb luck."
>>Joey said: "No, Danny boy, you rely 100% on seeing only what you wish to see and ignoring everything else."

That is what evolutionists do, Joey. They only want to see methodological naturalism, and nothing else, even it it means ignoring the obvious, and accepting the absurd:

"Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door." [Lewontin, Richard C., "Billions and Billions of Demons: Review of Sagan's 'The Demon Haunted World'." New York Review of Books, 1997]

As you can see, it is not about science, but ideology, and that is ideology at its "finest" on display.

His statement would have been more accurate if he had substituted "methodological naturalism" for "science."

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>>Kalamata: "I am a scientist, so I always quote in context."
>>Joey said: "No, Danny boy, you're not a scientist, you're a lying propagandist who can't pass even the most basic tests of honesty. You consistently hijack quotes from people who would never support your own Young Earth Creationism in order to suggest they somehow do. Seriously, what you do here is so despicable I've tried to codify it into standardized "Rules for Deniers", see my post #420."

I don't hijack their quotes, Joey. That is a strawman that evolutionism apologists use when they are cornered by facts they cannot weasel out of. As any normal person can see, all I have been doing is demonstrating the contradictions between theory and the data as discovered in research by evolutionary scientists. They are the ones publishing the contradictions. I am merely quoting them. Perhaps you should ask the thugs at the NCSE to clamp down on those 'heretics." LOL!

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>>Kalamata: "You can download (for free) the bulletin containing the full article by Raup, here:"
>>Joey said: "First, it appears that Raup's article is dated 1979, meaning it's now 40 years old."

So what? I am in my 70's, and I am still kicking. :)

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>>Joey said: "Second, Raup confirms that (as of 1979) 250,000 discovered fossil species must represent barely 1% of total species which lived, meaning 99% of transitional forms are still missing."

Species, when used in that context, is not the same as transitional forms, Joey. Besides, there is a growing trend in papers that implies the fossil record is complete.

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>>Joey said: "Third, it's not clear what points Raup is making applicable to this discussion, but..."

I thought he expressed himself very well. He simply said that a previously claimed transitional line (horse evolution) had been discarded. The only two remaining, human and whale evolution, are hanging on by imaginary threads (e.g., there is no empirical evidence.)

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>>Joey said: "Fourth, there's no suggestion I could find that Raup was in any way a Young Earth Creationist, meaning your use of his words for your own nefarious purposes is not legitimate."

No, Raup is an evolutionist. I typically quote evolutionists. Occasionally I quote ID'ers. I rarely quote creationists. But, no matter who I quote I expect you to whine about it because I am attacking your religion.

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>>Kalamata: "Raup was referring to the highly-touted "horse evolution," which had to be abandoned when more information, in the way of fossils, became available."
>>Joey said: "New data can modify old theories, but horse evolution was never "abandoned".

There are always die-hards, especially among the Far Left. Look at how long it took for the evolutionism community to drop Haeckel's "embryos": over a century after being exposed as frauds. Even now there are a few hard-core ideologues (mostly Leftists) who defend them.

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>>Kalamata: "He would be utterly dishonest if he said what you have been saying about the fossil record."
>>Joey said: "I've said nothing that Raup would disagree with today.

There is some truth in that. He would probably dismiss you as a raging blowhard.

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>>Kalamata: "You are abusing Raup's words."
>>Joey said: "Denier Rule #5."

Silly Child.

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>>Kalamata: "That would be true if someone found evidence for common descent."
>>Joey said: "Here is one summary."

There is no evidence for evolution on that left-wing Wikipedia page, Joey. It is comprised of nothing but just-so stories.

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>>Kalamata: "There are a gazillion trilobite fossils, Joey, but they are still trilobites. How are whales any different?"
>>Joey said: "Of the circa 600 living and extinct whale species, many are classified taxonomically in different superfamily, parvorders, infraorders & suborders before reaching the lower levels of family, genus & species."

No matter how mere men classify them, Joey; they are still whales -- another miraculous wonder of God's creation.

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>>Kalamata: "That is story-telling, Joey, not scientific evidence."
>>Joey said: "The scientific evidence is available for anyone who wants to see it."

I want to see it, but there is no evidence to see.

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>>Kalamata: "Foolish Child."
>>Joey said: "More of your own slavish obedience to Denier Rule #7.

Foolish Child.

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>>Kalamata: "When Joey gets caught making stupid statements, he brings out the old rule book to distract you."

No comment?

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>>Kalamata, you absolutely cannot free yourself from slavish obedience to Denier Rules. >>Joey said: "You are so practiced and fluid in them I have to conclude you were a denier long before you became anti-evolutionist. So tell us where you first learned your denier trade-craft."

Those are your rules, Joey, not mine. I did notice they seem to match the rule book of the Climate-Change propagandists. Is that where you got them, from your Leftist buds?

I just read that Twitter is banning any tweet that questions Climate Change. Twitter probably learned that trick from the thugs in the evolutionism establishment, maybe the NCSE.

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>>Kalamata: "I am certain those reading this thread would be most interested in you exposing any lies I have made. Please do."
>>Joey said: "I have and will."

We are still waiting. . .

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>>Kalamata: "Evolution is not science, so it cannot be falsified."
>>Joey said: "Now there's a lie as big as any I can imagine."

No, I told the truth, Joey. Show me the evidence that evolution is possible, and I will admit I am wrong.

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>>Kalamata: "Please point out my lies for all to see, Joey. Be specific. Lying Joey!"
>>Joey said: "Sure, but yet again you have it exactly backwards. That's because pretty much every word you post is a lie, so my task would be to carefully sort out your occasional screw-ups in posting something truthful."

Foolish Child.

Mr. Kalamata