The Watchtower Society's commentary on the book of Habakkuk.

HABAKKUK, BOOK OF;

A book of the Hebrew Scriptures in eighth place among the so-called minor prophets in the Hebrew and Septuagint texts, as well as in common English Bibles. It is in two parts: (1) A dialogue between the writer and Jehovah (chaps 1, 2); (2) a prayer in dirges.—Chap 3.

Writer. The writer is identified in the book itself. The composition of both sections is ascribed to “Habakkuk the prophet.”—1:1; 3:1; see HABAKKUK.

Canonicity. The canonicity of the book of Habakkuk is confirmed by ancient catalogs of the Hebrew Scriptures. While they do not mention it by name, the book evidently was embraced by their references to the ‘twelve Minor Prophets,’ for otherwise the number 12 would be incomplete. The book’s canonicity is unquestionably supported by quotations from it in the Christian Greek Scriptures. Though not referring to Habakkuk by name, Paul quoted Habakkuk 1:5 (LXX) while speaking to faithless Jews. (Ac 13:40, 41) He quoted from Habakkuk 2:4 (“But as for the righteous one, by his faithfulness he will keep living”) when encouraging Christians to display faith.—Ro 1:16, 17; Ga 3:11; Heb 10:38, 39.

Among the Dead Sea Scrolls is a manuscript of Habakkuk (chaps 1, 2) in a pre-Masoretic Hebrew text with an accompanying commentary. It is noteworthy that in the text Jehovah’s name is written in ancient Hebrew characters, whereas in the commentary the divine name is avoided, and instead, the Hebrew word ʼEl (meaning “God”) is used.

Scholars believe that this scroll was written toward the end of the first century B.C.E. This makes it the oldest extant Hebrew manuscript of the book of Habakkuk. At Habakkuk 1:6 this manuscript reads “Chaldeans,” thus confirming the correctness of the Masoretic text in showing that the Chaldeans (Babylonians) were the ones Jehovah would raise up as his agency.

Date and Setting. The statement “Jehovah is in his holy temple” (Hab 2:20) and the note that follows Habakkuk 3:19 (“To the director on my stringed instruments”) indicate that Habakkuk prophesied before the temple built by Solomon in Jerusalem was destroyed in 607 B.C.E. Also, Jehovah’s declaration “I am raising up the Chaldeans” (1:6) and the prophecy’s general tenor show that the Chaldeans, or Babylonians, had not yet desolated Jerusalem. But Habakkuk 1:17 may suggest that they had already begun to overthrow some nations. During the reign of Judah’s good king Josiah (659-629 B.C.E.), the Chaldeans and Medes took Nineveh (in 632 B.C.E.), and Babylon was then on its way toward becoming a world power.—Na 3:7.

There are some who hold, in agreement with rabbinic tradition, that Habakkuk prophesied earlier, during the reign of King Manasseh of Judah. They believe that he was one of the prophets mentioned or alluded to at 2 Kings 21:10 and 2 Chronicles 33:10. They hold that the Babylonians were not yet a menace, which fact made Habakkuk’s prophecy more unbelievable to the Judeans.—See Hab 1:5, 6.

On the other hand, in the early part of Jehoiakim’s reign, Judah was within the Egyptian sphere of influence (2Ki 23:34, 35), and this could also be a time when God’s raising up of the Chaldeans to punish the wayward inhabitants of Judah would be to them ‘an activity they would not believe, though it was related.’ (Hab 1:5, 6) Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar defeated Pharaoh Necho at Carchemish in 625 B.C.E., in the fourth year of King Jehoiakim’s reign. (Jer 46:2) So, Habakkuk may have prophesied and recorded the prophecy before that event, possibly completing the writing thereof about 628 B.C.E. in Judah. The use of the future tense regarding the Chaldean threat evidently indicates a date earlier than Jehoiakim’s vassalship to Babylon (620-618 B.C.E.).—2Ki 24:1.

Style. The style of writing is both forceful and moving. Vivid illustrations and comparisons are employed. (Hab 1:8, 11, 14, 15; 2:5, 11, 14, 16, 17; 3:6, 8-11) Commenting on Habakkuk’s style, S. R. Driver said: “The literary power of Habakkuk is considerable. Though his book is a brief one, it is full of force; his descriptions are graphic and powerful; thought and expression are alike poetic.” Such qualities are, of course, primarily due to divine inspiration.

The book of Habakkuk emphasizes Jehovah’s supremacy over all nations (Hab 2:20; 3:6, 12), highlighting his universal sovereignty. It also places emphasis on the fact that the righteous live by faith. (2:4) It engenders reliance upon Jehovah, showing that he does not die (1:12), that he justly threshes the nations, and that he goes forth for the salvation of his people. (3:12, 13) For those exulting in him, Jehovah is shown to be the God of salvation and the Source of vital energy.—3:18, 19.

[Box on page 1013]

HIGHLIGHTS OF HABAKKUK

An answer to the question, Will God execute the wicked?

Written evidently about 628 B.C.E., when the Chaldeans were rising in prominence but before Jehoiakim became their vassal

Habakkuk cries out for help, asks how long God will allow the wicked to continue (1:1–2:1)

When Jehovah answers that He will raise up the Chaldeans as His instrument for punishment, Habakkuk cannot understand how the Holy One could countenance such a treacherous agent, one who makes a god of his war machine, whose dragnet gathers up men like fish, and who mercilessly kills peoples

The prophet waits for Jehovah’s answer, recognizing that he is in line for reproof

Jehovah replies that he has an appointed time, pronounces woe upon the Chaldean agency (2:2-20)

Jehovah gives the assurance that even though there might seem to be delay, the prophetic vision is “for the appointed time, and it keeps panting on to the end,” eagerly moving toward its fulfillment

Pronouncements of woe indicate that the Chaldean instrumentality would not remain unpunished for plundering other nations, cutting off many peoples, building cities by bloodshed, making others drink the cup of shameful defeat, and engaging in idolatry

The prophet appeals for Jehovah to act and yet to show mercy during the coming day of distress (3:1-19)

Recalling past manifestations of Jehovah’s power, the prophet is seized with fear and trembling, but he is determined to wait quietly for the day of distress, exulting in the God of his salvation


Even if the very means for supporting life were to fail, Habakkuk determines to rejoice in Jehovah as the God of salvation, the One who strengthens him

Darwinists brainstorm yet another just so story.

How to Build Life in a Pre-Darwinian World:
By: Emily Singer


How did life’s myriad parts come together? At a minimum, the first life forms on Earth needed a way to store information and replicate. Only then could they make copies of themselves and spread across the world.One of the most influential hypotheses states that it all began with RNA, a molecule that can both record genetic blueprints and trigger chemical reactions. The “RNA world” hypothesis comes in many forms, but the most traditional holds that life started with the formation of an RNA molecule capable of replicating itself. Its descendants evolved the ability to perform an array of tasks, such as making new compounds and storing energy. In time, complex life followed.

However, scientists have found it surprisingly challenging to create self-replicating RNA in the lab. Researchers have had some success, but the candidate molecules they have manufactured to date can only replicate certain sequences or a certain length of RNA. Moreover, these RNA molecules are themselves quite complicated, raising the question of how they might have formed through chance chemical means.

Nick Hud, a chemist at the Georgia Institute of Technology, and his collaborators are looking beyond biology to the role of chemistry in the development of life. Perhaps before biology arose, there was a preliminary stage of proto-life, in which chemical processes alone created a smorgasbord of RNAs or RNA-like molecules. “I think there were a lot of steps before you get to a self-replicating self-sustaining system,” Hud said.

In this scenario, a variety of RNA-like molecules could form spontaneously, helping the chemical pool to simultaneously invent many of the parts needed for life to emerge. Proto-life forms experimented with primitive molecular machinery, sharing their parts. The entire system worked like a giant community swap meet. Only once this system was established could a self-replicating RNA emerge.At the heart of Hud’s proposal is a chemical means for generating a rich diversity of proto-life. Computer simulations show that certain chemical conditions can produce a varied collection of RNA-like molecules. And the team is currently testing the idea with real molecules in the lab; they hope to publish the results soon.

Hud’s group is leading the way for a number of researchers who are challenging the traditional RNA-world hypothesis and its reliance on biological rather than chemical evolution. In the traditional model, new molecular machinery was created using biological catalysts, known as enzymes, as is the case in modern cells. In Hud’s proto-life stage, myriad RNA or RNA-like molecules could form and change through purely chemical means. “Chemical evolution could have helped life get started without enzymes,” Hud said.

Hud and his collaborators have taken this idea one step further, suggesting that the ribosome, the only piece of biological machinery that is found in all living things today, emerged through chemistry alone. That’s an unconventional thought to many in the field, who think that the ribosome was born of biology.

If Hud’s team can create proto-life forms under conditions that might have existed on the early Earth, it would suggest that chemical evolution may have played a much more significant role in the origins of life than scientists expected. “Maybe there was some simpler form of evolution that preceded Darwinian evolution,” said Niles Lehman, a biochemist at Portland State University in Oregon.

The Pre-Darwinian World

When most people think about evolution, they think about Darwinian evolution, in which organisms compete with one another for limited resources and pass on genetic information to their offspring. Each generation undergoes genetic tweaks, and the most successful progeny survive to pass along their own genes. That mode of evolution dominates life today.

Carl Woese, a renowned biologist who gave us the modern tree of life, believed that the Darwinian era was preceded by an early phase of life governed by very different evolutionary forces. Woese thought it would have been nearly impossible for an individual cell to spontaneously come up with everything it needed for life. So he envisioned a rich diversity of molecules engaged in a communal existence. Rather than competing with each other, primitive cells shared the molecular innovations they invented. Together, the pre-Darwinian pool created the components needed for complex life, priming the early Earth for the emergence of the magnificent menagerie we see today.

Hud’s model takes Woese’s pre-Darwinian vision even further back in time, providing a chemical means for producing the molecular diversity that primitive cells needed. One proto-life form might have developed a way to make the building blocks it needed to make more of itself, while another might have found a way to harvest energy. The model differs from the traditional RNA-world hypothesis in its reliance on chemical rather than biological evolution.

According to RNA world, the first RNA molecules replicated themselves using a built-in enzyme called a ribozyme that was made of RNA. In Hud’s proto-life world, that task is accomplished through purely chemical means. The story begins with a chemical soup of RNA-like molecules. Most of these would have been short, as short strands are more likely to form spontaneously, but a few longer, more complex molecules might have come together as well. Hud’s model describes how the longer molecules might have replicated without the aid of an enzyme.In Hud’s vision of a prebiotic world, the primordial RNA soup underwent regular cycles of heating and cooling in a thick, viscous solution. Heat separated the bound pairs of RNA, and the viscous solution kept the separated molecules apart for a while. In the interim, small segments of RNA, just a few letters in length, stuck to each long strand. The small segments eventually got sewn together, forming a new strand of RNA that matched the original long strand. The cycle then began again.

Over time, a pool of varied RNA-like molecules would have accumulated, some of them capable of simple functions, such as metabolism. And just like that, purely chemical reactions would have produced the molecular diversity needed to create Woese’s pre-Darwinian cornucopia of proto-life.

Hud’s team has been able to carry out the first stages of the replication process in the laboratory, although they can’t yet glue together the short segments without resorting to biological tools. If they can get over that hurdle, they’ll have created a versatile way of replicating any RNA that pops up.

Yet some scientists are skeptical that chemically mediated replication could work well enough to produce the pre-Darwinian world Hud describes. “I don’t know whether I believe it,” said Paul Higgs, a biophysicist at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, who studies the origins of life. “It would have to be sufficiently accurate and rapid to pass on the sequence” — that is, it would need to produce new RNAs more quickly than they broke down and with enough fidelity to create near copies of the template molecule.Chemical change on its own wouldn’t have been enough to trigger the emergence of life. The pool of proto-life would also have needed some kind of selection to make sure that useful molecules succeeded and multiplied. In their model, Hud’s team proposes that very simple proto-enzymes might have spread if they did something helpful for their maker and the larger community. For example, an RNA molecule that made more of its own building blocks would benefit itself and its neighbors by providing additional raw materials for replication. In computer simulations that Hud’s team performed, this type of molecule did indeed take root. “If a sequence comes along that does something useful, it can then be enriched in the pool,” Hud said.

Ribosomal Roots

One possible glimpse of the pre-Darwinian world can be seen in the ribosome, an ancient piece of molecular machinery that lies at the heart of our genetic code. It is an enzyme that translates RNA, which encodes genetic information, into proteins, which carry out the many chemical reactions in our cells.

The core of the ribosome is made of RNA. This feature makes the ribosome unique — the vast majority of enzymes in our cells are made from proteins. Both the ribosomal core and the genetic code are shared among all living things, suggesting that they were present very early in the evolution of life, perhaps before it crossed the Darwinian threshold.

Related Articles:

Chemists Seek Possible Precursor to RNA
Scientists have discovered building blocks similar to those in modern RNA that can effortlessly assemble when mixed in water and heated.

New Twist Found in the Story of Life’s Start
All life on Earth is made of molecules that twist in the same direction. New research reveals that this may not always have been so.

How Structure Arose in the Primordial Soup
Life’s first epoch saw incredible advances — cells, metabolism and DNA, to name a few. Researchers are resurrecting ancient proteins to illuminate the biological dark ages.

Hud and his collaborator Loren Williams, also at Georgia Tech, point to the ribosome as support for their chemically dominated world. In a paper published last year, they made the controversial proposal that the core of the ribosome was created via chemical evolution. They also suggested that it arose before the first self-replicating RNA molecule. Perhaps the ribosomal core was a successful experiment in chemical evolution, they said. And after it took root in the pre-Darwinian soup, it crossed the Darwinian threshold and became an essential part of all life.

Their argument centers on the relative simplicity of the ribosomal core, more formally known as the peptidyl transferase center (PTC). The PTC’s job is to bring together amino acids, the building blocks of proteins. Unlike traditional enzymes, which speed up chemical reactions by using “fancy chemical tricks,” as Lehman put it, it works almost like a dehydrator. It coaxes two amino acids to bond simply by removing a molecule of water. “It’s kind of a poor way to drive a reaction,” Lehman said. “Protein enzymes typically rely on more powerful chemical strategies.”

Lehman notes that simplicity likely preceded power in the earliest stages of life. “When thinking about the origins of life, you have to think about simple chemistry first; any process with simple chemistry is probably going to be ancient,” he said. “I think that’s more powerful evidence than the fact that it’s [shared] among all life.”

Despite the powerful evidence, it’s still hard to imagine how the ribosomal core could have been created by chemical evolution. An enzyme that makes more of itself — like the replicator RNA of the RNA-world hypothesis — automatically creates a feedback loop, continually boosting its own production. By contrast, the ribosomal core doesn’t produce more ribosomal cores. It produces random chains of amino acids. It’s unclear how this process would encourage the production of more ribosomes. “Why would making random peptides make that thing better?” Higgs said.

Hud and his collaborators propose that RNA and proteins evolved in tandem, and those that figured out how to work together survived best. This idea lacks the simplicity of the RNA world, which posits a single molecule capable of both encoding information and catalyzing chemical reactions. But Hud suggests that facility might trump elegance in the emergence of life. “I think there’s been an overemphasis on what we call simplicity, that one polymer is simpler than two,” he said. “Maybe it’s easier to get certain reactions going if two polymers work together. Maybe it’s simpler for polymers to work together from the start.”

This article was reprinted on TheAtlantic.com.

The crisis continues. II

Conversations with Dr. Denton: The Hierarchy of Nature
David Klinghoffer February 24, 2016 4:13 AM 

Tardigrades vs. Darwin.

That's a Tough Tardigrade
David Klinghoffer February 24, 2016 3:23 AM

Last month, Evolution News explained the problem of accounting in evolutionary term for the superpowers of tardigrades, or "water bears." These incredibly tough little creatures, just a millimeter long, are capable of surviving under the most trying circumstances on Earth -- and off Earth, in outer space, that is to say in a vacuum. Yet they originated in the Cambrian explosion, just like that, presumably ready for action.The Abstract in the journal Cryobiology reporting this achievement elaborates:

Long-term survival has been one of the most studied of the extraordinary physiological characteristics of cryptobiosis in micrometazoans such as nematodes, tardigrades and rotifers. In the available studies of long-term survival of micrometazoans, instances of survival have been the primary observation, and recovery conditions of animals or subsequent reproduction are generally not reported. We therefore documented recovery conditions and reproduction immediately following revival of tardigrades retrieved from a frozen moss sample collected in Antarctica in 1983 and stored at −20 °C for 30.5 years. We recorded recovery of two individuals and development of a separate egg of the Antarctic tardigrade, Acutuncus antarcticus, providing the longest records of survival for tardigrades as animals or eggs. One of the two resuscitated individuals and the hatchling successfully reproduced repeatedly after their recovery from long-term cryptobiosis. This considerable extension of the known length of long-term survival of tardigrades recorded in our study is interpreted as being associated with the minimum oxidative damage likely to have resulted from storage under stable frozen conditions. The long recovery times of the revived tardigrades observed is suggestive of the requirement for repair of damage accrued over 30 years of cryptobiosis. Further more detailed studies will improve understanding of mechanisms and conditions underlying the long-term survival of cryptobiotic organisms.

They not only survive but on waking, go about repairing the damage entailed by three decades of such abuse. This confirms what we said earlier:

What researchers should be focusing on is the amazing design of these tiny animals. They have stubby legs with claws. They have a mouth and eyes. They lay eggs. They molt periodically. They have a digestive tract and sexual organs. They have muscles and nerves. That's a lot of specialized tissue to pack into half a millimeter! And to think that these are among the most durable animals on Earth, able to survive in habitats beyond all necessity for a Cambrian marine organism, including outer space -- that should challenge all notions of unguided evolution. Organisms should only adapt to their immediate circumstances, not to distant unknown habitats they might encounter some future day, or never.

Warning: Don't try this trick with food currently stored in your freezer.

Cambrian life continues to redefine the meaning of "primitive"

Cambrian Arthropod Was a Loving Mother
Evolution News & Views December 21, 2015 3:18 AM


An egg clutch has been identified within the carapace of Waptia, an arthropod previously known from the Burgess Shale (Middle Cambrian, dated 508 million years ago). The eggs are highlighted in a photo from the University of Toronto (above), which calls this the "oldest evidence of brood care" in any animal.

Long before kangaroos carried their joeys in their pouches and honey bees nurtured their young in hives, there was the 508-million-year-old Waptia. Little is known about the shrimp-like creature first discovered in the renowned Canadian Burgess Shale fossil deposit a century ago, but recent analysis by scientists from the University of Toronto, Royal Ontario Museum, and Centre national de la recherche scientifique has uncovered eggs with embryos preserved within the body of the animal. It is the oldest example of brood care in the fossil record. [Emphasis added.]

Five examples of the egg clusters were found. The research paper in Current Biology lists the following highlights from this fossil discovery:

Brooded embryos are described in the bivalved arthropod Waptia fieldensis

Waptia from the middle Cambrian Burgess Shale had few but large eggs

A diversity of clutch and egg sizes evolved during the Cambrian explosion

Brooding in primitive arthropods might have required presence of a carapace

The authors explain the significance of the find: "Brood care, including the carrying of eggs or juveniles, is a form of parental care, which, like other parental traits, enhances offspring fitness with variable costs and benefits to the parents." Pointing to another arthropod with smaller eggs from 515 million years ago, they attempt to weave an evolutionary narrative:

The presence of these two different parental strategies suggests a rapid evolution of a variety of modern-type life-history traits, including extended investment in offspring survivorship, soon after the Cambrian emergence of animals. Together with previously described brooded eggs in ostracods from the Upper Ordovician (ca. 450 million years ago), these new findings suggest that the presence of a bivalved carapace played a key role in the early evolution of parental care in arthropods.

The other Cambrian arthropod carried its eggs differently, but no less effectively:

Kunmingella douvillei also presented a different method of carrying its young, as its eggs were found lower on the body and attached to its appendages.

Connecting the dots between small eggs and larger eggs (2mm in Waptia) or where they were carried is the least of the Darwinians' worries. Waptia is a "shrimp-like arthropod" with a lot more body complexity than the ability to lay eggs and hold them under its carapace. It had a nervous system, sensory organs, stalked eyes, antennae, respiration, digestion, and the ability to swim. Nevertheless, the ability to lay eggs and transport them to a protective place constitutes an additional design in this animal, requiring genetics and behavioral preparedness.

It's amusing to see the euphemisms evolutionists use for the Cambrian explosion. The paper spoke of the "Cambrian emergence of animals." The news release calls the Cambrian explosion "a period of rapid evolutionary development when most major animal groups appear in the fossil record." Why call it evolutionary development? If animal groups just "emerged" or "appeared" in the record, that's not evolutionary.

Graham Budd's New "Savannah" Hypothesis

Meanwhile, Graham Budd is back. We saw him in October admitting that the trace fossils at the base of the Cambrian are "bilaterian in origin," not precursors to bilaterians. That notion was strengthened by the news that the "small shelly fossils" may include sclerites from complex animals known as kinorhynchs (see our report). That's not helpful to Darwinians. Now, accompanied by Sören Jensen, Budd has a new idea to run up the flagpole. In Biological Reviews, he presents "The origin of the animals and a 'Savannah' hypothesis for early bilaterian evolution." The news from the University of Uppsala sets the stage:

The fossil record of animals starts for sure by about 540 million years ago, but their origins before this point have remained obscure. Darwin himself worried about this problem at length in the "Origin of species". But after Darwin was writing, a famous group of fossils were discovered called the Ediacaran biota, named after a remote mine in South Australia where many were found. They are now known to be widespread around the globe from the interval of time just before the animal fossil record starts.

But what are these peculiar organisms? Their very strange morphology has made relating them to modern organisms very difficult, and they have been suggested to be related to anything from plants, fungi and lichens through to recognisable animals such as worms and arthropods.

So what is Budd and Jensen's "savannah" hypothesis? The term is drawn from an evolutionary notion that humans evolved when forests were replaced by grasslands, isolating the forest "hotspots" with distances between them. The change in environment forced our tree-climbing ancestors to come down to the ground so they could travel between the forests, learning to walk upright and forage in the open as they did. A similar situation occurred when the Ediacarans came along, they suggest; scattered nutrient hotspots constituted a "savannah" that created new opportunities for the evolution of motile animals:

In their new 'savannah' hypothesis, they propose that concentration of nutrients both above and below the sediment-water interface were enhanced around the stationary Ediacarans, and the creation of these resource "hot spots" created a very diverse environment, ideal for both diversification and for investment of energy into movement. Rather than the Ediacarans and later animals being direct competitors then, the Ediacarans themselves created a permissive environment that was ideal for higher animals to evolve in. This idea fits well into a modern view of evolution, called "ecosytem engineering" whereby key species (such as beavers) influence the environment in order to create new evolutionary and diversity opportunities for other species. Perhaps then, the Ediacaran taxa weren't impediments but the drivers of the evolution that was eventually to lead to all the rich animal diversity we see today.

Call it the "Come and Get It" theory of the Cambrian explosion. The Ediacarans set the table, put the nutritious food on it, and called out, "Come forth, Animalia!" It's honestly hard not to describe it any other way. The Ediacarans gave their permission? They created opportunities? They became "drivers of the evolution" of animals? The main paper merely states the same ideas with the addition of jargon: "The Ediacaran biota thus played an enabling role in bilaterian evolution similar to that proposed for the Savannah environment for human evolution and bipedality."

It shouldn't be necessary to belabor the point. This hypothesis fails to address the main problem that Stephen Meyer emphasized in Darwin's Doubt: What was the source of the information required to build new complex body plans and integrated organ systems at multiple hierarchical levels? Won't someone please address that question?

Oxygen Again

Let's try two more recent papers. Another paper in Nature Communications looks to oxygen as the cause of animal evolution:

Neoproterozoic (1,000-542 Myr ago) Earth experienced profound environmental change, including 'snowball' glaciations, oxygenation and the appearance of animals....Overall, increased ocean oxidation and atmospheric O2 extended over at least 100 million years, setting the stage for early animal evolution.

The news release from the Birkbeck University of London repeats this theme, implying that oxygen gives permission for animals to evolve: "It took 100 million years for oxygen levels in the oceans and atmosphere to increase to the level that allowed the explosion of animal life on Earth...."

We've already dealt with the just-add-oxygen theory (here and here).

Molecular Clock Again

Last, a dispatch in Current Biology comments on the Yang paper about the molecular clock (see our response here). That paper cast doubt on the precision of molecular clock measurements; here, Pisani and Liu agree:

This imprecision of the molecular clock deep in the history of life is frustrating. While the clock provided hope that divergence times for lineages could be dated in the absence of fossil information, it is now clear that the only way to increase its precision is to improve our knowledge of the fossil record itself, via the discovery of new fossils, resolving the affinities of existing ones, and accurately dating fossil occurrences. With genomic data now available our focus should return to palaeontology, and particularly to the investigation of the early and middle Neoproterozoic. It is evident that in isolation, neither fossils nor molecular data can derive the precise and accurate timescale of life so essential to our efforts to robustly test proposed correlations between the history of life and that of planet Earth.

Obviously this is not helpful to Darwinians either, so it's not surprising that they, too, ignore the information problem.