Through the looking glass?

The Strange Mental World of Darwinian Fundamentalists

Stephen H. Webb April 5, 2014 6:53 AM

 

 

 

As I mentioned earlier, I participated in good faith in an open forum blog discussion at the National Center for Science Education site, hoping to deepen my understanding about something, even if it was only the thoughts of my critics or the limits of my own understanding. Surely, I thought, if I explain my position and analyze my opponents' comments, I will at least see some progress toward mutual agreement. I might have to change my mind about a few things, and we might find out that we are using different terms or trying to answer different questions. But surely we will shed some light on something.

Boy, was I wrong. The only thing I deepened was my despair that Darwinian fundamentalists will ever give up their mission to deride their critics at all costs. I do not think the people I was arguing with are evil or dumb. They are no doubt hard-working, highly ethical professionals, smart and well educated. So why could they respond to hardly any of my challenges or analyze any of my claims?

[The only conclusion I could come to was that they think, on this particular issue, I am so crazy that they must try to save me from some cult rather than take anything I say seriously. That is the only explanation that makes sense of why they ignored what I said, kept changing the topic when I pinned them down, refused to answer any of my challenges, and felt free to turn my words around to suit their interests.]*

They were acting like therapists who were professionally forbidden from taking me seriously. When the patient says he thinks he is Julius Caesar, the therapist talks about the weather. When I say that you have to understand mental causation in order to understand God's action in the world, the response I get is, "What would it look like if we could see it?" This bit of naïve empiricism came from a scientist who knows quite well that we cannot see all the things we believe in.

Or there was this exchange with James McGrath, a professor of New Testament at Butler University. Me: "Biologists are among the worst in academia in appealing to credentialism to shut down criticism." McGrath:

I find it hard to believe that Steve Webb, himself an educator, is claiming that someone who has never pursued high level academic study in a field and never engaged in the kind of research that academics are required to pursue will nonetheless be as well poised to comment on a matter as those who have undertaken and continue to engage in such study.

Well, yes James, you should find it hard to believe, because I never said anything close to the view that you attribute to me.

Or take this exchange with Professor McGrath, prompted by my use of the term "Darwinism" to refer to evolutionary theory in general. McGrath:

Whenever someone talks about "Darwinism" I always have to wonder whether they are kidding. If you aren't going to interact with the current state of biology then what is the point of the exercise? If biologists are not dealing with the evidence in 19th-century terms, of what value are criticisms of the state of our knowledge a century and a half ago?

Me: "You know that when I say Darwinism I mean the current state of his theory." McGrath: "I find 'Darwinism' to rarely be used anywhere except among critics who are not themselves working within the relevant fields or well acquainted with them." Me:

I just Googled it, and the first three entries use it to refer to the contemporary theory of evolution, and talk about it in terms of its origin in Darwin and its later developments. Those cites are: Wikipedia, Merriam-Webster Dictionary, and Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. So I don't know why you are nitpicking about this except to exhaust me and distract us from substantial issues.

McGrath: "Ah, well, reference to Wikipedia settles the matter. I apologize."

But here is the oddest exchange of all. Glenn Branch, the deputy director of the NCSE, raised the objection that advocates of intelligent design are being dishonest when they say that ID theory makes no judgments about who the intelligent designer is. Everyone knows, he says, that ID is talking about God. I reply that the point is empirical evidence can point to a causal agent that just might be God, but it does not tell us anything specific about the nature of that agent. Logic, metaphysics, revelation, scripture, and other sources have to kick in to answer such a question.

Me: "It is perfectly logical to argue that evidence points to a kind of cause without being able to specify all the features of that cause." Branch:

It's a trivial consequence of the underdetermination of theory by data that a theory won't specify all of the features of a theoretical entity, so that's hardly the accusation against "intelligent design." Rather, the accusation is that its reluctance to pronounce on the identity and nature of the designer is essentially unargued, ad hoc, and impossible to explain except in the context of the strategic goals of its proponents.

So Branch agrees that evidence can point to a cause without specifying all of the features of that cause. Yet he continues to insist that ID is being dishonest in not "pronouncing on the identity" of its intelligent cause. Hmm.

Me:

I'm glad we agree that identifying all the features of a theoretical entity, or really of any causal agent, is not necessary for identifying the causal efficacy of that entity. Now you have to help me out Glenn, because I truly don't understand your second sentence. ID folks all the time talk about the restrictions they operate under in positing an intelligent designer. That is, they are very open and honest about what science can and cannot say about the intelligent designer. So how do you come up with that last sentence?

I'm still waiting for an answer -- a real answer, this time.


* "The only conclusion I could come to was that they think, on this particular issue, I am so crazy that they must try to save me from some cult rather than take anything I say seriously. That is the only explanation that makes sense of why they ignored what I said, kept changing the topic when I pinned them down, refused to answer any of my challenges, and felt free to turn my words around to suit their interests." I feel your pain.
 
 

Why frankenstein can't help darwnists.

BIO-Complexity Paper: Why Chaitin's Mathematical "Proof" of Darwinian Evolution Fails

Casey Luskin April 7, 2014 5:08 AM

 

 

 

A new peer-reviewed paper in BIO-Complexity, "Active Information in Metabiology," reports on the further investigations of the Evolutionary Informatics Lab into the ability of unguided evolutionary mechanisms to produce new information. This time, authors Winston Ewert, William Dembski, and Robert Marks show that the budding field of metabiology only produces creative outputs through active information -- i.e., informational inputs donated by an intelligent source -- and does not truly demonstrate that unguided processes can produce new information.

What is "metabiology"? According to the paper, it's "a fascinating intellectual romp in the surreal world of the mathematics of algorithmic information theory" where "halting oracles hunt for busy beaver numbers and busy beaver numbers unearth Chaitin's number, knowledge of which in turn allows resolution of numerous unsolved mathematical problems, many of whose solutions would earn large cash bounties." That description may not help most of us very much. The field of "metabiology" was developed by the Argentine-American computer scientist and mathematician Gregory Chaitin. In his 2013 book Proving Darwin: Making Biology Mathematical, Chaitin describes metabiology as an "answer" to David Berlinski's "stinging critique of Darwinism" in The Devil's Delusion. "Metabiology" is Chaitin's attempt to use mathematics and (hypothetical) computer simulations to formally prove that Darwinian theory can create new information. It relies on an inherently gene-centered view of evolution, where a simulated "genetic code" (i.e., a computer program) can be "mutated," and when the program "halts" or stops running, it outputs a number that correlates with the program's "fitness." If the number goes up as the evolutionary simulation proceeds, Chaitin thinks he's shown Darwinian processes can increase fitness over time.

There are many reasons why Chaitin's model does not accurately reflect how Darwinian evolution works, if it does work, in the real world of biology (some of which are summarized nicely over at Theory, Evolution, and Games Group). Not the least of such problems is the fact that the simulation basically grants itself infinite probabilistic resources (actually, computing resources, but that's analogous to probabilistic resources in biology).

As Ewert, Dembski, and Marks explain:

Because metabiology programs have unbounded length and can run for an unbounded amount of time, the unboundedness essentially undermines the creativity required to solve the large-number problem. With unbounded resources and unbounded time, one can do most anything.

In the real world, probabilistic resources are limited. Time is finite, and populations have finite sizes, and this imposes limits on what traits can evolve especially (as Stephen Meyer shows in Darwin's Doubt) when traits require multiple mutations before providing some advantage. Metabiology uses a population of one single "digital organism," which then "evolves" over time, but it grants itself essentially infinite computing resources to do this. With such a generous endowment, sure, anything can eventually evolve. But we don't live in an unlimited world, which is precisely why Darwinian evolution faces major theoretical problems. They thus write:

Although elegant in conception, metabiology departs from reality because it pays no attention to resource limitations. Metabiology's math obscures the huge amounts of time required for the evolutionary process. The programs can run for any arbitrarily large number of steps. Additionally, programs can be of any length with no penalty imposed for longer programs.

Ewert, Dembski, and Marks explain that Chaitin's program uses a halting oracle as a source of "active information." A halting oracle is a hypothetical meta-program that can tell you if a given program will ever stop running. As they explain, such an oracle could be useful in disproving certain mathematical conjectures, such as Goldbach's conjecture, "which hypothesizes that all even numbers greater than two can be written as the sum of two primes." They discuss how a halting oracle could determine if the conjecture was false:

Suppose a program X can be written to test each even number sequentially to see if it were the sum of two primes. If a counterexample is found, the program stops and declares "I have a counterexample!" Otherwise, the next even number is tested. If Goldbach's conjecture is true, the program will run forever.

If a halting oracle existed, we could feed it X. If the halting oracle says "this program halts," Goldbach's conjecture is disproved. A counterexample exists. If the halting oracle says, "This program never halts," then Goldbach's conjecture is proven! There exists no counterexample.

The difficulty for Chaitin is he admits that for metabiology, "[The halting oracle] is where all the creativity is really coming from in our program," but also admits that such an oracle is "mathematical fantasy." Ewert, Dembski, and Marks thus aptly observe, "A computer tool proven not to exist is admittedly at the outset an obvious major strike against a theory purporting to demonstrate reality."

Now at this point, one might reasonably ask, "If a halting oracle is a hypothetical fantasy, how can Chaitin claim to use one in metabiology?" The answer is that Chaitin isn't actually creating a computer program. He's seeking a mathematical proof of the Darwinian model, where he's allowed to indulge thought experiments that invoke hypothetical entities. All he needs to be able to do is to prove what might happen if he theoretically had a halting oracle. But it doesn't help that one could never exist.

That problem aside, they explain that the "halting oracle" used by Chaitin's program has three different options of how to find a search target: "

• Exhaustive Search (poor)
• Random Evolution (good)
• Intelligent Design (better)

Metabiology uses "random evolution" but not in a manner that is biologically realistic. The program is capable of systematically simulating all possible programs, which in effect allows it to totally rewrite itself instantly -- something that simply doesn't happen in biology -- and thereby grants unrealistic access to the equivalent of unlimited resources in an organism's developmental process. This unrealistically guarantees the program could never get stuck on a local fitness peak because it can keep trying out entirely new "genetic codes" indefinitely until a better one is found.

Which, again, is nothing like how the real world of biology, where an organism is forced to rely on the genome it receives, which at best will have just a few small mutational differences from its parents. Darwinian evolution in real biology requires a grueling ascent of mount improbable, but Chaitin's program can fly wherever it wants at any time. To put it another way, metabiology cheats by giving a digital organism unrealistic access to any program at any time which will lead to a higher fitness state. As Ewert, Dembski, and Marks explain:

As any computer programmer will tell you, landscapes of computer program fitness are the opposite of smooth. We would therefore not expect Darwinian evolution to fare well. Chaitin notes this when he writes [3], "The fitness landscape has to be very special for Darwinian evolution to work."

The environment for evolution to occur, therefore, has to be carefully designed. Indeed, in the paradigm of conservation of information, smooth landscapes can be source of significant active information [14]. Metabiology's construction of smooth landscapes is accomplished by running all viable programs, a computationally expensive approach that is only possible because there are no resource limitations.

Chaitin also presents a different model that uses what he calls "intelligent design" to find a search target. This obviously doesn't help show what unguided evolutionary processes can accomplish. The author of the blog "Theory, Evolution and Games Group" critiques Chaitin's model, writing that metabiology uses "a teleological model -- a biologist's nightmare." Ewert, Dembski, and Marks explain:

Like AVIDA and ev, metabiology makes use of external information sources to assist in the search. Like the simple Hamming oracle, the halting oracle can be mined for information with various degrees of sophistication. Evolution thus requires external sources of knowledge to work. The degree to which this knowledge is used can be assessed using the idea of active information.

They conclude: "In order for evolution to occur in these models, external knowledge must be imposed on the process to guide it. Metabiology thus appears to be another example where its designer makes an evolutionary model work. ... Consistent with the laws of conservation of information, natural selection can only work using the guidance of active information, which can be provided only by a designer." Properly understood, in other words, these programs demonstrate that evolution requires intelligent design.

On atheism and its scientific pretensions.

To doubt or not to doubt?

How "Sudden" Was the Cambrian Explosion? Nick Matzke Misreads Stephen Meyer and the Paleontological Literature; New Yorker Recycles Misrepresentation

Casey Luskin July 16, 2013 11:14 AM

 

 

On June 19, the day after Darwin's Doubt was first available for purchase, Nick Matzke published a 9400-word "review" of the book in which it appears that he tried to anticipate many of Stephen Meyer's arguments. Unfortunately, he often either guessed wrong as to what Meyer would say or -- assuming he actually read the book as he claims -- misread many of Meyer's specific claims. As I showed in a previous response to Matzke, Matzke repeatedly misquoted Meyer, at one point claiming he referred to the Cambrian explosion as "instantaneous," when Meyer nowhere makes that claim. Indeed, Matzke faulted Meyer for not recognizing that the Cambrian explosion "was not really 'instantaneous' nor particularly 'sudden.'" Oddly, he also criticized Meyer for not recognizing that the Cambrian explosion "took at least 30 million years" -- despite expert opinion showing it was far shorter.

Since Matzke published his review, The New Yorker reviewed Meyer's book. Gareth Cook, the science writer who wrote the piece, relied heavily on Matzke's critical evaluation, even though Matzke is a graduate student and not an established Cambrian expert. Cook uncritically recycled Matzke's claim that the Cambrian explosion took "many tens of millions of years," even saying that the main problem with Darwin's Doubt is that Meyer failed to recognize this alleged fact.

So, was Matzke right about the length of the Cambrian explosion? In fact, Matzke's preemptive -- or hastily written -- review not only misrepresented Meyer's view, it also misrepresented the length and character of the Cambrian explosion as numerous authoritative peer-reviewed scientific sources on the subject clearly show.

Before going on, let's briefly look first at what Meyer actually says. First, Meyer does not equate the Cambrian explosion with the entire radiation -- as most Cambrian experts also do not. By "radiation" here I mean the period of time in which all the new phyla, classes, orders that first arose during the Cambrian apparently did so. Instead, he equates the Cambrian explosion with the most explosive period of the Cambrian radiation (as most Cambrian experts do) in which the vast majority of the higher taxa arose. He asserts specifically that the re-dating of critical Cambrian strata in 1993 established that the strata documenting the first appearance of the majority of the Cambrian phyla and classes took place within a 10 million year period -- a period Meyer does equate with "the explosion of novel Cambrian animal forms." (pp. 71-72) As he describes it, "these studies [i.e., radiometric analyses of zircon crystals in Siberian rocks] also suggested that the explosion of novel Cambrian animal forms" took about 10 million years. (p. 71)

In affirming this, however, Meyer offers a nice discussion of how different scientists may judge the duration of the Cambrian explosion differently, depending upon how they choose to define it and how many separate events they decide to include. (See pp. 71-73.) Thus, Meyer notes that if paleontologists decide to include as part of the Cambrian explosion (a) the origin of the Ediacaran organisms in the late Precambrian, and (b) the small shelly fossils at the base of the Cambrian and (c) the main pulse of morphological innovation in the early Cambrian, and (d) subsequent diversification events right up until the end of the Cambrian period, they might claim that the Cambrian explosion lasted nearly 80 million years, as, for example, geologist Donald Prothero does (a point Meyer also notes in his book). Nick Matzke appears to include in the Cambrian explosion everything from the appearance of the small shelly fossils at the base of the Cambrian (541 million years ago) to the main pulse of morphological innovation (530-520 million years ago) to events in the late Cambrian (about 512-505 million years ago).

In any case, Meyer recognizes the conventional and somewhat subjective nature of attempts to define and delimit "the Cambrian explosion." He nevertheless accepts a 10-million-year duration of the explosion itself, in keeping with the common judgment of numerous Cambrian experts about the length of time in which the vast majority of new phyla and classes arose -- as I will document below. Yet, to circumvent issues of semantics and subjective definitions, Meyer focused his analysis on the problem of the origin of novel animal form, and, thus, the main or most explosive pulse of such "morphological innovation." This makes sense because the problem that Meyer ultimately addresses, and the problem that evolutionary biology must address, is that of building novel animal forms or body plans in the first place. Can the neo-Darwinian mechanism generate the amount of novel form and information that arises in the Cambrian period in the time allowed by the fossil record? By focusing his analysis on the main period of morphological innovation, Meyer defines clearly the most salient challenge posed to the adequacy of neo-Darwinian (and other evolutionary) mechanisms.

To establish the length of the most explosive period of innovation within the Cambrian explosion itself, Meyer cites the work of MIT geochronologist Samuel Bowring and his colleagues as well the work of another group led by Smithsonian paleontologist Douglas Erwin. The Bowring-led study showed that (in their words) "the main period of exponential diversification" within the Cambrian lasted "only 5-6 million years" (emphasis added). Meyer explains:

An analysis by MIT geochronologist Samuel Bowring has shown that the main pulse of Cambrian morphological innovation occurred in a sedimentary sequence spanning no more than 6 million years. Yet during this time representatives of at least sixteen completely novel phyla and about thirty classes first appeared in the rock record. In a more recent paper using a slightly different dating scheme, Douglas Erwin and colleagues similarly show that thirteen new phyla appear in a roughly 6-million-year window. (p. 73)

To see why Meyer made these claims, take a look first at the following figure that Bowring and his colleagues included in their definitive 1993 article, published in the journal Science. They use radiometric methods to date the different stages of the Cambrian period, including the crucial Tommotian and Atdabanian stages in which the greatest number of new animal phyla and classes arise. Note that the so-called Manykaian stage of the Cambrian period lasts about 10-14 million years. Note also that the main pulse of morphological innovation didn't begin during this stage but rather during the Tommotian and Atdabanian -- a period that they describe as taking between "5 to 10 million years," and in a more detailed passage as taking about 5-6 million years.

From Samuel A. Bowring, John P. Grotzinger, Clark E. Isachsen, Andrew H. Knoll, Shane M. Pelechaty, Peter Kolosov, "Calibrating Rates of Early Cambrian Evolution," Science, Vol. 261 (September 3, 1993): 1293-1298. Reprinted with permission from AAAS.

In the figure above, the Tommotian and Atdabanian stages of the Cambrian period together span only about 5 million years, starting at about 530 and ending about 525 million years ago. Bowring's figure also depicts the total number of classes and orders present at any given time during the Cambrian period. The biggest increases in morphological innovation occur during the Tommotian and Atdabanian stages. Indeed, during this period the number of known orders nearly quadruples. Moreover, Bowring and his colleagues also make clear that this period corresponds to the main pulse of Cambrian morphological innovation as measured by the number of new phyla and classes that first appear. They note that, while a few groups of animals do arise in the earliest Manykaian stage of the Cambrian, the most rapid period of "exponential increase of diversification," corresponding to the Tommotian and Atdabanian stages, "lasted only 5 to 6 m.y." They explain:

[T]he initial (Manykaian) interval of slow diversification followed the ediacaran faunal epoch by no more than 20 million years (m.y.) and lasted approximately 14 m.y. In contrast, if we accept the age of 525 Ma for the Atdabanian-Botomian boundary, then the Tommotian-Atdabanian period of exponential increase of diversification lasted only 5 to 6 m.y. In any event it is unlikely to have exceeded 10 m.y. Numbers of phyla, classes, orders, families, and genera all reached or approached their Cambrian peaks during the short Tommotian-Atdabanian interval. For phyla and classes, most of the diversity known for the Phanerozoic [the eon of time since the Cambrian] as a whole differentiated by the end of the Atdabanian. (emphasis added)

Meyer also cites a 2011 paper in Chapter 3 (page 73) by Douglas Erwin and several colleagues. Although Erwin et al. use slightly different starting and ending dates and different names for the stages of the Cambrian period, they too estimate that that the most explosion stage took about 5-6 million years. Indeed, the supplemental documentation to their article shows 13 or 14 new phyla arising during "Stage 3" of the Cambrian period, a stage that corresponds to a narrow 5-6 million year window (see figure 3 in their article), just as Meyer wrote in Darwin's Doubt.

Erwin and his colleagues note that "most paleontologists favor a near literal reading of the fossil record, supporting a rapid (~25-million-year) evolutionary divergence of most animal clades near the base of the Cambrian" -- a duration a bit shorter than but close to the "at least 30 million years" given by Matzke. But here the authors are talking about not only the most explosive stage (Stage 3) or stages (Stages 2 and 3) of the Cambrian, but also Stage 1, which they and most experts usually exclude from "the Cambrian explosion."

Indeed, Erwin, writing more recently with James Valentine in their new book The Cambrian Explosion, dates the Cambrian explosion to "a geologically brief interval between about 530 to 520 Ma" (emphasis added):

[A] great variety and abundance of animal fossils appear in deposits dating from a geologically brief interval between about 530 to 520 Ma, early in the Cambrian period. During this time, nearly all the major living animal groups (phyla) that have skeletons first appeared as fossils (at least one appeared earlier). Surprisingly, a number of those localities have yielded fossils that preserve details of complex organs at the tissue level, such as eyes, guts, and appendages. In addition, several groups that were entirely soft-bodied and thus could be preserved only under unusual circumstances also first appear in those faunas. Because many of those fossils represent complex groups such as vertebrates (the subgroup of the phylum Chordata to which humans belong) and arthropods, it seems likely that all or nearly all the major phylum-level groups of living animals, including many small soft-bodied groups that we do not actually find as fossils, had appeared by the end of the early Cambrian. This geologically abrupt and spectacular record of early animal life is called the Cambrian explosion. (The Cambrian Explosion, p. 5, emphases added)

Like many Cambrian experts, Erwin and Valentine focus their analysis on that part of the Cambrian radiation in which the greatest amount of morphological innovation arises -- and define "the Cambrian explosion" accordingly. They believe that nearly the full breadth of Cambrian diversity arose in less than ten million years, writing: "the basic structure of Phanerozoic ecosystems had been achieved within at most 10 million years after the onset of bilaterian diversification." (The Cambrian Explosion, p. 226, emphasis added) Moreover, many other Cambrian experts focus on precisely this period of the origin of maximum morphological novelty in their discussion (and definition) of the Cambrian explosion. They define the Cambrian explosion as an event that encompassed about (or even less than) 10 million years just as Meyer does, not one that took "at least 30 million years" as Matzke claimed. For example:

• Prominent paleontologist Robert Carroll stated in Trends in Ecology and Evolution that the Cambrian explosion took less than ten million years:
  
  

  "The most conspicuous event in metazoan evolution was the dramatic origin of major new structures and body plans documented by the Cambrian explosion. Until 530 million years ago, multicellular animals consisted primarily of simple, soft-bodied forms, most of which have been identified from the fossil record as cnidarians and sponges. Then, within less then 10 million years, almost all of the advanced phyla appeared, including echinoderms, chordates, annelids, brachiopods, molluscs and a host of arthropods. The extreme speed of anatomical change and adaptive radiation during this brief time period requires explanations that go beyond those proposed for the evolution of species within the modern biota." (Robert L. Carroll, "Towards a new evolutionary synthesis," Trends in Ecology and Evolution, Vol. 15: 27-32 (January, 2000), emphasis added.)

An article in the journal Development by Erwin, Valentine and David Jablonski explains that:


"The Cambrian explosion is named for the geologically sudden appearance of numerous metazoan body plans (many of living phyla) between about 530 and 520 million years ago, only 1.7% of the duration of the fossil record of animals." (James W. Valentine, David Jablonski and Douglas H. Erwin, "Fossils, molecules and embryos: new perspectives on the Cambrian explosion," Development, Vol. 126: 851-859 (1999), emphases added.)


Another article in a major evolution journal states that "recent geological investigations suggest that the Cambrian explosion may have occurred within a period of only 5-10 million years." (Michael A. Bell, "Origin of the metazoan phyla: Cambrian explosion or proterozoic slow burn," Trends in Ecology and Evolution, Vol. 12: 1-2 (January 1, 1997), emphasis added.)




A paper in BioEssays states: "Because of the sudden appearance of a near complete diversity of animal body plans in the fossil record around 530- 520 million years ago, this diversification is commonly referred to as the 'Cambrian explosion'." (Tanya Vavouri and Ben Lehner, "Conserved noncoding elements and the evolution of animal body plans," BioEssays, Vol. 31: 727-735 (2009), emphasis added.)




Another paper by the eminent biologist Susumu Ohno states, "this Cambrian explosion, during which nearly all the extant animal phyla have emerged, was of an astonishingly short duration, lasting only 6-10 million years." (Susumu Ohno, "The notion of the Cambrian pananimalia genome," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, Vol. 93: 8475-8478 (August, 1996), emphasis added.)




A paper by Andrew R. Parker of the Department of Zoology at the Natural History Museum in London states: "The Cambrian explosion, or Big Bang in animal evolution, was the most dramatic event in the history of life on Earth. During this blink of an eye in such history, most phyla found today evolved their first hard parts and distinct shapes at the same time. In other words, it is the event where animals suddenly took on very different appearances, in the form they exist today. The event itself, however, occupied only a small part of the Cambrian period, somewhere between 520 and 515 Ma. Prior to this, there were only three animal phyla with the type of external shapes they still possess today. Yet in a geological instant later there were at least several more -- and perhaps most -- of the phyla known today." (Andrew R. Parker, "On the origin of optics," Optics & Laser Technology, Vol. 43: 323-329 (2011), emphasis added.)




Even a 2007 paper in Journal of College Science Teaching, authored by zoologist Thomas Gregg (who criticizes intelligent design in the article) states: "The Cambrian explosion is the appearance of several dozen fossilized species with different body plans over a period of 5-15 million years during the Cambrian period." (Thomas Gregg, "Intelligent Design: Jonathan Wells and the Tree of Life," Journal of College Science Teaching (July/August, 2007), emphasis added.)

In case you didn't notice, none of these authorities are saying the Cambrian explosion "took at least 30 million years."

Matzke does cite one paper when attempting to justify his claim that the Cambrian explosion "took at least 30 million years, and was not really 'instantaneous' nor particularly 'sudden.'" But that source -- a 2005 paper in Paleobiology by Kevin J. Peterson, Mark A. McPeek, and David A. D. Evans -- does not place exact numbers on the timescale of the Cambrian explosion, so it doesn't help Matzke's case much. Indeed, a close analysis of the figure Matzke posts from that paper shows that it too reveals a rapid pulse of diversification in the mid-early Cambrian. Moreover, two of those three authors directly contradicted Matzke's thesis about the length of the Cambrian explosion in a paper in BioEssays, published four years later:

Part of the intrigue with the Cambrian explosion is that numerous animal phyla with very distinct body plans arrive on the scene in a geological blink of the eye, with little or no warning of what is to come in rocks that predate this interval of time. The abruptness of the transition between the "Precambrian" and the Cambrian was apparent right at the outset of our science with the publication of Murchison's The Silurian System, a treatise that paradoxically set forth the research agenda for numerous paleontologists -- in addition to serving as perennial fodder for creationists. The reasoning is simple -- as explained on an intelligent-design t-shirt.

Fact: Forty phyla of complex animals suddenly appear in
the fossil record, no forerunners, no transitional forms
leading to them; "a major mystery," a "challenge." The Theory
of Evolution -- exploded again (idofcourse.com).

Although we would dispute the numbers, and aside from the last line, there is not much here that we would disagree with. Indeed, many of Darwin's contemporaries shared these sentiments, and we assume -- if Victorian fashion dictated -- that they would have worn this same t-shirt with pride.

(Kevin J. Peterson, Michael R. Dietrich and Mark A. McPeek, "MicroRNAs and metazoan macroevolution: insights into canalization, complexity, and the Cambrian explosion," BioEssays, Vol. 31: 736-747 (2009) (emphases added).)

Matzke appears unaware of what the very authorities he cites have said about the length of the Cambria explosion.

Indeed, unquestionably, many senior Cambrian paleontologists and other established Cambrian experts contradict Matzke's claim about the length of the Cambrian explosion. Of course, Matzke is free to define the Cambrian explosion in whatever idiosyncratic way he chooses. However by defining it as a series of separate events in the fossil record spanning "at least 30 million years'" he not only introduces confusion around a term with a relatively stable meaning in paleontology, he diverts attention from the crucial problem of explaining the most explosive appearance of evolutionary and morphological novelty that "the Cambrian explosion" has commonly been used to describe. In any case, Matzke's attack on Meyer on this point is entirely unjustified.

Was the Cambrian Explosion "Sudden"?
But what about Matzke's claim that Meyer should not have referred to the event as geologically "sudden"? We have already seen that Valentine, Jablonski, and Erwin called the Cambrian explosion "geologically sudden." As it turns out, many other authors in the technical literature have used that exact terminology to describe the Cambrian explosion:

• "Nobody seriously doubts that the sudden appearance in the fossil record of numerous marine animal groups of both familiar and enigmatic type close to the base of the Cambrian reflects one of the important events in the history of the biosphere." (R.A. Fortey, D.E.G. Briggs, M.A. Wills "The Cambrian evolutionary cexplosion': decoupling cladogenesis from morphological disparity," Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, Vol. 57: 13-33 (1996), emphasis added.)


"Beautifully preserved organisms from the Lower Cambrian Maotianshan Shale in central Yunnan, southern China, document the sudden appearance of diverse metazoan body plans at phylum or subphylum levels, which were either short-lived or have continued to the present day." (J.Y. Chen, "The sudden appearance of diverse animal body plans during the Cambrian explosion," International Journal of Developmental Biology, Vol. 53: 733-51 (2009), emphases added.)




"...the sudden expansion in phyla of the Cambrian explosion" (Lynn Helena Caporale, "Putting together the pieces: evolutionary mechanisms at work within genomes," BioEssays, Vol. 31: 700-702 (2009), emphasis added.)




A college-level invertebrate biology textbook states: "Most of the animal phyla that are represented in the fossil record first appear, "fully formed" and identifiable as to their phylum, in the Cambrian .... The fossil record is therefore of no help with respect to understanding the origin and early diversification of the various animal phyla..." (R. S. K. Barnes, P. Calow, P. J. W. Olive, D. W. Golding, and J. I. Spicer, The Invertebrates: A New Synthesis, 3rd ed. (Malden, MA: Blackwell Scientific Publications, 2001), pp. 9-10, emphasis added.)




"...the sudden appearance of a near complete diversity of animal body plans in the fossil record around 530-520 million years ago" (T. Vavouri and B. Lehner, "Conserved noncoding elements and the evolution of animal body plans," BioEssays, Vol. 31: 727-735 (July 31, 2009), emphasis added.)




"...the profound morphological gaps among the major groups, set against the background of sudden appearances in the fossil record of many novel taxa and the absence of easily recognizable transitional forms" (Richard K. Grosberg, "Out on a Limb: Arthropod Origins," Science, Vol. 250: 632-633 (November 2, 1990), emphasis added.)




"Darwin recognized that the sudden appearance of animal fossils in the Cambrian posed a problem for his theory of natural selection. ... Recent geochronological studies have reinforced the impression of a 'big bang of animal evolution' by narrowing the temporal window of apparent divergences to just a few million years." (Gregory A. Wray, Jeffrey S. Levinton, Leo H. Shapiro, "Molecular Evidence for Deep Precambrian Divergences," Science, Vol. 74: 568-573 (October 25, 1996), emphasis added.)




"The apparently sudden origin of animal phyla has contributed to the view that phyla represent a fundamental level of organization." (Lindell Bromham, "What can DNA Tell us About the Cambrian Explosion?," Integrative and Comparative Biology, Vol. 43: 148-156 (2003), emphasis added.)




"The fossil record of metazoa shows a sudden expansion at around 550-530 million years ago." (Science, Vol. 288: 929 (May 12, 2000), emphasis added.)




"This paucity of metazoan fossils in the strata of Earth is broken by the sudden appearance of highly developed metazoan fossils in the Cambrian, a pattern colloquially referred to as the Cambrian evolutionary 'explosion'." (Christopher W. Wheat and Niklas Wahlberg, "Phylogenomic Insights into the Cambrian Explosion, the Colonization of Land and the Evolution of Flight in Arthropoda," Systematic Biology, Vol. 62: 93-109 (2013), emphasis added.)




"[T]he fossil record displays the sudden appearance of intracellular detail and the 32 phyla." (Michael A. Crawford, C. Leigh Broadhurst, Martin Guest, Atulya Nagar, Yiqun Wang, Kebreab Ghebremeskel, Walter F. Schmidt, "A quantumtheory for the irreplaceable role of docosahexaenoic acid in neural cell signalling throughout evolution," Prostaglandins, Leukotrienes and Essential Fatty Acids, Vol. 88: 5-13 (2013), emphasis added.)




"The Cambrian explosion in animal evolution during which all the diverse body plans appear to have emerged almost in a geological instant is a highly publicized enigma." (Eugene V. Koonin, "The Biological Big Bang model for the major transitions in evolution," Biology Direct, Vol. 2: 21 (2007), emphasis added.)




"At the beginning of the Cambrian, however, life took a sudden turn toward the complex. In a few million years -- the equivalent of a geological instant -- an ark's worth of sophisticated body types filled the seas. This biological burst, dubbed the Cambrian explosion, produced the first skeletons and hard shells, antennae and legs, joints and jaws. It set the evolutionary stage for all that followed by giving rise to most of the major phyla known on Earth today. Even our own chordate ancestors got their start during this long-past era." (Richard Monastersky, Science News, Vol. 146 (9) (August 27, 1994), emphases added.)

So, again, Matzke's claims stand at odds with the technical literature in a field he purports to represent. At the very least, Meyer seems fully justified in calling the Cambrian explosion "sudden" because so may other authorities use that same term--authorities I suspect Nick Matzke never told The New Yorker about. It's too bad The New Yorker, once legendary for meticulous fact-checking, didn't dig a little deeper but instead relied on Matzke's claims, which have turned out to be incorrect.

There is a concluding irony in all this. As Meyer shows in Chapter 10 and Chapter 12 of Darwin's Doubt, the extreme rarity of genes and proteins in sequence space means that even thirty million years is not nearly enough time to give the neo-Darwinian mechanism a realistic opportunity to generate a new gene or protein -- let alone a new form of animal life. Further, as he shows in Chapter 12, the calculated waiting times using the standard principles of population genetics for the occurrence of just a few (three or more) coordinated mutations vastly exceed 30 million years. In his review, Matzke summarily dismissed these arguments, neither engaging nor rebutting them, as other articles here at ENV have shown, and will do so in more detail.

Paul's epistle to the Phillipians NWT(2013 Edition)

1 Paul and Timothy, slaves of Christ Jesus, to all the holy ones in union with Christ Jesus who are in Phi·lip′pi,+ along with overseers and ministerial servants:+

2 May you have undeserved kindness and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

3 I thank my God always when I remember you 4 in every supplication of mine for all of you. I offer each supplication with joy,+ 5 because of the contribution you have made to* the good news from the first day until this moment. 6 For I am confident of this very thing, that the one who started a good work in you will bring it to completion+ until the day of Christ Jesus.+ 7 It is only right for me to think this regarding all of you, since I have you in my heart, you who are sharers with me in the undeserved kindness both in my prison bonds+ and in the defending and legally establishing of the good news.+

8 For God is my witness of how I am longing for all of you with such tender affection as Christ Jesus has. 9 And this is what I continue praying, that your love may abound still more and more+ with accurate knowledge+ and full discernment;+ 10 that you may make sure of the more important things,+ so that you may be flawless and not stumbling others+ up to the day of Christ; 11 and that you may be filled with righteous fruit, which is through Jesus Christ,+ to God’s glory and praise.

12 Now I want you to know, brothers, that my situation has actually turned out for the advancement of the good news, 13 so that my prison bonds+ for the sake of Christ have become public knowledge+ among all the Prae·to′ri·an Guard and all the rest. 14 Now most of the brothers in the Lord have gained confidence because of my prison bonds, and they are showing all the more courage to speak the word of God fearlessly.

15 True, some are preaching the Christ out of envy and rivalry, but others out of goodwill. 16 The latter are proclaiming the Christ out of love, for they know that I have been appointed to defend the good news;+ 17 but the former do it out of contentiousness, not with a pure motive, for they are intending to create trouble for me in my prison bonds. 18 With what result? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is being proclaimed, and I rejoice over this. In fact, I will also keep on rejoicing, 19 for I know that this will result in my salvation through your supplication+ and with the support of the spirit of Jesus Christ.+ 20 This is in harmony with my eager expectation and hope that I will not be ashamed in any respect, but that with all freeness of speech Christ will now, as always before, be magnified by means of my body, whether through life or through death.+

21 For in my case, to live is Christ+ and to die is gain.+ 22 Now if I am to live on in the flesh, this is a fruitage of my work; yet what I would choose, I do not make known. 23 I am torn between these two things, for I do desire the releasing and the being with Christ,+ which is, to be sure, far better.+ 24 However, it is more necessary for me to remain in the flesh for your sakes. 25 So, being confident of this, I know I will remain and continue with all of you for your advancement and your joy in the faith, 26 so that your exultation may overflow in Christ Jesus because of me when I am again present with you.

27 Only behave* in a manner worthy of the good news about the Christ,+ so that whether I come and see you or I am absent, I may hear about you and learn that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one soul,*+ striving side by side for the faith of the good news, 28 and in no way being frightened by your opponents. This very thing is a proof of destruction+ for them, but of salvation for you;+ and this is from God. 29 For you have been given the privilege in behalf of Christ, not only to put your faith in him but also to suffer in his behalf.+ 30 For you are facing the same struggle that you saw me face,+ which you now hear that I am still facing.

 

2 If, then, there is any encouragement in Christ, if any consolation of love, if any spiritual fellowship,* if any tender affection and compassion, 2 make my joy full by being of the same mind and having the same love, being completely united,* having the one thought in mind.+ 3 Do nothing out of contentiousness+ or out of egotism,+ but with humility* consider others superior to you,+ 4 as you look out not only for your own interests,+ but also for the interests of others.+

5 Keep this mental attitude in you that was also in Christ Jesus,+ 6 who, although he was existing in God’s form,+ gave no consideration to a seizure, namely, that he should be equal to God.+ 7 No, but he emptied himself and took a slave’s form+ and became human.*+ 8 More than that, when he came as a man,* he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death,+ yes, death on a torture stake.*+ 9 For this very reason, God exalted him to a superior position+ and kindly gave him the name that is above every other name,+ 10 so that in the name of Jesus every knee should bend—of those in heaven and those on earth and those under the ground+— 11 and every tongue should openly acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord+ to the glory of God the Father.

12 Consequently, my beloved ones, just as you have always obeyed, not only during my presence but now much more readily during my absence, keep working out your own salvation with fear and trembling. 13 For God is the one who for the sake of his good pleasure energizes you, giving you both the desire and the power to act. 14 Keep doing all things free from murmuring+ and arguments,+ 15 so that you may come to be blameless and innocent, children of God+ without a blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation,+ among whom you are shining as illuminators in the world,+ 16 keeping a tight grip on the word of life.+ Then I may have reason for rejoicing in Christ’s day, knowing that I did not run in vain or work hard in vain. 17 However, even if I am being poured out like a drink offering+ on the sacrifice+ and the holy service* to which your faith has led you, I am glad and I rejoice with all of you. 18 In the same way, you also should be glad and rejoice with me.

19 Now I am hoping in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy+ to you shortly, so that I may be encouraged when I receive news about you. 20 For I have no one else of a disposition like his who will genuinely care for your concerns. 21 For all the others are seeking their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ. 22 But you know the proof he gave of himself, that like a child+ with a father he slaved with me to advance the good news. 23 Therefore, he is the one I am hoping to send just as soon as I see how things turn out for me. 24 Indeed, I am confident in the Lord that I myself will also come soon.+

25 But for now I consider it necessary to send to you E·paph·ro·di′tus, my brother and fellow worker and fellow soldier, and your envoy and personal servant for my need,+ 26 since he is longing to see all of you and is depressed because you heard he had fallen sick. 27 Indeed, he did fall sick nearly to the point of death; but God had mercy on him, in fact, not only on him but also on me, so that I should not have one grief after another. 28 Therefore, I am sending him with the greatest urgency, so that when you see him you may again rejoice and I may also be less anxious. 29 So give him the customary welcome in the Lord with all joy, and keep holding men of that sort dear,+ 30 because he nearly died on account of the work of Christ,* risking his life* in order to make up for your not being here to render personal service to me.+

 

3 Finally, my brothers, continue rejoicing in the Lord.+ It is not troublesome for me to write the same things to you, and it is for your safety.

2 Look out for the dogs; look out for those who cause injury; look out for those who mutilate the flesh.+ 3 For we are those with the real circumcision,+ we who are rendering sacred service by God’s spirit and boasting in Christ Jesus+ and who do not base our confidence in the flesh, 4 though I, if anyone, do have grounds for confidence in the flesh.

If any other man thinks he has grounds for confidence in the flesh, I have more: 5 circumcised the eighth day,+ of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born from Hebrews;+ regarding law, a Pharisee;+ 6 regarding zeal, persecuting the congregation;+ regarding righteousness based on law, one who proved himself blameless. 7 Yet, the things that were gains to me, I have considered loss* on account of the Christ.+ 8 What is more, I do indeed also consider all things to be loss on account of the excelling value of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have taken the loss of all things and I consider them as a lot of refuse,* that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in union with him, not because of my own righteousness from following the Law, but because of the righteousness that is through faith+ in Christ,+ the righteousness from God based on faith.+ 10 My aim is to know him and the power of his resurrection+ and to share in his sufferings,+ submitting myself to a death like his,+ 11 to see if at all possible I may attain to the earlier resurrection from the dead.+

12 Not that I have already received it or am already made perfect, but I am pressing on+ to see if I may also lay hold on that for which Christ Jesus selected me.*+ 13 Brothers, I do not yet consider myself as having taken hold of it; but one thing is certain: Forgetting the things behind+ and stretching forward to the things ahead,+ 14 I am pressing on toward the goal for the prize+ of the upward call+ of God by means of Christ Jesus. 15 Therefore, let those of us who are mature+ be of this mental attitude, and if you are mentally inclined otherwise in any respect, God will reveal the above attitude to you. 16 At any rate, to the extent we have made progress, let us go on walking orderly in this same course.

17 Unitedly become imitators of me,+ brothers, and keep your eye on those who are walking in a way that is in harmony with the example we set for you. 18 For there are many—I used to mention them often but now I mention them also with weeping—who are walking as enemies of the torture stake* of the Christ. 19 Their end is destruction, and their god is their belly, and their glory is really their shame, and they have their minds on earthly things.+ 20 But our citizenship+ exists in the heavens,+ and we are eagerly waiting for a savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ,+ 21 who will transform our humble body to be like* his glorious body+ by his great power that enables him to subject all things to himself.+

 

 

4 Consequently, my brothers whom I love and long for, my joy and crown,+ stand firm+ in this way in the Lord, my beloved ones.

2 I urge Eu·o′di·a and I urge Syn′ty·che to be of the same mind in the Lord.+ 3 Yes, I request you also, as a true fellow worker,* to keep assisting these women who have striven* side by side with me for the good news, along with Clement as well as the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life.+

4 Always rejoice in the Lord. Again I will say, Rejoice!+ 5 Let your reasonableness+ become known to all men. The Lord is near. 6 Do not be anxious over anything,+ but in everything by prayer and supplication along with thanksgiving, let your petitions be made known to God;+ 7 and the peace+ of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts+ and your mental powers* by means of Christ Jesus.

8 Finally, brothers, whatever things are true, whatever things are of serious concern, whatever things are righteous, whatever things are chaste,* whatever things are lovable, whatever things are well-spoken-of, whatever things are virtuous, and whatever things are praiseworthy, continue considering* these things.+ 9 The things that you learned as well as accepted and heard and saw in connection with me, practice these,+ and the God of peace will be with you.

10 I rejoice greatly in the Lord that now at last you have renewed your concern for me.+ Though you were concerned about me, you lacked opportunity to show it. 11 Not that I am saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be self-sufficient* regardless of my circumstances.+ 12 I know how to be low on provisions+ and how to have an abundance. In everything and in all circumstances I have learned the secret of both how to be full and how to hunger, both how to have an abundance and how to do without. 13 For all things I have the strength through the one who gives me power.+

14 Nevertheless, you did well to share with me in my tribulation. 15 In fact, you Phi·lip′pi·ans also know that after you first learned the good news, when I departed from Mac·e·do′ni·a, not a congregation shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving, except you alone;+ 16 for while I was in Thes·sa·lo·ni′ca, you sent something to me for my need not just once but twice. 17 Not that I am looking for a gift, but I want the fruitage that brings more credit to your account. 18 However, I have everything I need and even more. I am fully supplied, now that I have received from E·paph·ro·di′tus+ what you sent, a sweet fragrance,+ an acceptable sacrifice, well-pleasing to God. 19 In turn my God will fully supply all your need+ according to his riches in glory by means of Christ Jesus. 20 Now to our God and Father be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

21 Give my greetings to every holy one in union with Christ Jesus. The brothers who are with me send you their greetings. 22 All the holy ones, but especially those of the household of Caesar,+ send you their greetings.

23 The undeserved kindness of the Lord Jesus Christ be with the spirit you show.