Some more Darwinian shamanism

Stop Me if You've Heard This One Before: Much Ado over "Oldest Human Fossil"

Casey Luskin March 11, 2015 4:43 AM

 

 

 

 

In 2001, the New York Times ran the headline "Fossils May Be Earliest Human Link." In 2009, Discovery Channel announced, "'Ardi,' Oldest Human Ancestor, Unveiled," and Associated Press's story read, "World's oldest humanlinked skeleton found."

Here we go again.

Headlines over the last week have included "'First human' discovered in Ethiopia" (BBC), "Human Origins Just Got a Lot Older" (Slate), and "Jaw Fossil In Ethiopia Likely Oldest Ever Found In Human Line" (NPR), among many others.

As the NPR story suggests, all that paleoanthropologists have found is a couple of bone scraps from a hominid jaw. Next thing you know we're "redrawing" the old "family tree" as National Geographic put it, since these bones are supposed to be the "oldest human fossil found." If reports are correct, these 2.8-million-year-old fossils are the oldest specimens of Homo by about 400,000 years. See here for a photo of the left half of the jaw.

They also found part of the right half of the mandible, which is in even worse condition and is devoid of teeth.

Now I don't necessarily have a particular reason to doubt that these partial jaw scraps came from Homo. But I do know that other paleoanthropologists have warned that teeth and skull scraps (collectively termed craniodental bones) can be highly plastic and make for poor diagnostic features when it comes to hominid classification. As one article stated:

Recent research has cast doubt on the reliability of bones and teeth for reconstructing phylogenetic relationships among higher primate species and genera. ... [R]esearchers have begun to question the reliability of bones and teeth for reconstructing phylogenetic relationships among higher primate species and genera. This skepticism is based partly on the fact that phylogenetic analyses of fossil primates have thus far yielded conflicting and weakly supported hypotheses of relationships, partly on the fact that comparisons between craniodental phylogenies and reliable molecular phylogenies have found that the former disagree with the latter, and partly on the fact that we are developing a better understanding of the processes involved in the generation of osteological and dental similarities and differences among primates. ... [T]ooth morphology is prone to homoplasy and is therefore a poor guide to low-level phylogenetic relationships.
(Sally Gibbs, Mark Collard, and Bernard Wood, "Soft-tissue characters in higher primate phylogenetics," Proceedings of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 97: 11130-11132 (September 26, 2000).)

Another paper similarly reported: "Little confidence can be placed in phylogenies generated solely from higher primate craniodental evidence."

 

Assuming it is Homo, what's driving the hype this story has received is not simply the prospect that it's the "oldest human fossil" but, instead, fantastical suggestions that somehow the specimen represents a transitional form between the australopithecines and later Homo. Yes, that's right, this tiny scrap of jaw is being called a "missing link" -- a Forbes tech writer even ran the headline "Human Missing Link - Fossil Found."

Because this fossil comes from a period of the fossil record when we have very few bones, and because it was found in Ethiopia about ten miles from the site where Lucy (Australopithecus afarensis) was discovered, some are suggesting the jaw shows that early members of Homo that descended directly from Lucy's species. One paleoanthropologist told CNN that these meager jaw scraps represent "an excellent case of a transitional fossil in a critical time period in human evolution."

Again, even though all they found was a tiny scrap of a jaw, here's how BBC News spins it:

The head of the research team told BBC News that the find gives the first insight into "the most important transitions in human evolution".
Prof Brian Villmoare of the University of Nevada in Las Vegas said the discovery makes a clear link between an iconic 3.2 million-year-old hominin (human-like primate) discovered in the same area in 1974, called "Lucy".
Could Lucy's kind -- which belonged to the species Australopithecus afarensis -- have evolved into the very first primitive humans?
"That's what we are arguing," said Prof Villmoare.

National Geographic frames it this way:

The date is tantalizingly close to the last known appearance, around three million years ago, of Australopithecus afarensis, an upright-walking, small-brained species best known from the skeleton called Lucy, believed by many scientists to be the direct ancestor of our genus. The new jaw, known as LD 350-1, was found in January 2013 just a dozen miles from where Lucy was found in 1974.

But once again, bear in mind that all they found was a small scrap of jaw. Paleoanthropologist William Kimbel tries to temper the excitement by reminding us just how little evidence there is to go on:

Fossils attributed to Homo in the period two to three million years ago are exceedingly rare. Bill Kimbel, director of the Institute of Human Origins at Arizona State University, in Tempe, who co-led the analysis of the new specimen, once said that "You could put them all into a small shoe box and still have room for a good pair of shoes."

If these fossils are indeed from Homo, then that has major implications for evolutionary models that prefer Australopithecus sediba as a transitional form leading to our genus. Au. sediba doesn't appear for another million years after these fossils, meaning that if these jawbones really do belong to Homo, then sediba could not be ancestral to Homo. National Geographic explains:

To the extent that the new jaw underscores an East African origin for the genus Homo, it would seem to confound the argument made by other researchers that the best candidate for our genus's immediate ancestor is a South African australopithecine, Australopithecus sediba.
The authors of the Science paper point out that the only known specimens of A. sediba are almost a million years younger than the new Homo jaw from Ethiopia that they would have had to have given rise to.

But then of course the defenders of Au. Sediba point out that this jaw bone hardly establishes anything:

"The idea that [the new jaw] makes anything else unlikely to be an ancestor is ludicrous," says Grine. "That would pretend that the fossil record is complete. And we know it can't be, since they just discovered something that wasn't there before."

And NPR reports:

Villmoare says he doesn't yet know anything about the creature's brain; there's nothing from the cranium in this find. But he says its jaw and teeth clearly have human traits.

Likewise, Sci-Tech Today reports:

The new paper's analysis is first-rate, but the fossil could reveal only a limited amount of information about the creature, said Eric Delson of Lehman College in New York.
"There's no head, there's no tools, and no limb bones. So we don't know if it was walking any differently from Australopithecus afarensis," which was Lucy's species, he said.

Thus, it's very hard to use this little jaw fragment of poor quality to demonstrate a clear link with just about anything. Amidst the hype, Chris Stringer of the Natural History Museum in London introduce a note of caution, and sanity: "Half a jawbone is not enough to tell just how human it was and does not provide enough evidence to suggest that it was this line that led to us."

 

But that's the point, isn't it? This scrap of bone establishes very little. And so you have defenders of one evolutionary thesis attacking defenders of another evolutionary thesis on the grounds that the fossil record is too poor to derive any conclusions. If that's the case, then how do we know that humans evolved from apelike species (like Lucy's species Australopithecus afarensis) to begin with?

The answer, in case you were wondering, is that we don't. If we had virtually no fossil evidence documenting the evolution of Homo from apelike creatures prior to this find, then arguably after this find, we still have virtually nothing.
 

Malachi 1 ASV

1The burden of the word of Jehovah to Israel by Malachi.

2I have loved you, saith Jehovah. Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us? Was not Esau Jacob's brother, saith Jehovah: yet I loved Jacob; 3but Esau I hated, and made his mountains a desolation, and gave his heritage to the jackals of the wilderness. 4Whereas Edom saith, We are beaten down, but we will return and build the waste places; thus saith Jehovah of hosts, They shall build, but I will throw down; and men shall call them The border of wickedness, and The people against whom Jehovah hath indignation for ever. 5And your eyes shall see, and ye shall say, Jehovah be magnified beyond the border of Israel.

The Polluted Offerings

6A son honoreth his father, and a servant his master: if then I am a father, where is mine honor? and if I am a master, where is my fear? saith Jehovah of hosts unto you, O priests, that despise my name. And ye say, Wherein have we despised thy name? 7Ye offer polluted bread upon mine altar. And ye say, Wherein have we polluted thee? In that ye say, The table of Jehovah is contemptible. 8And when ye offer the blind for sacrifice, it is no evil! and when ye offer the lame and sick, it is no evil! Present it now unto thy governor; will he be pleased with thee? or will he accept thy person? saith Jehovah of hosts. 9And now, I pray you, entreat the favor of God, that he may be gracious unto us: this hath been by your means: will he accept any of your persons? saith Jehovah of hosts. 10Oh that there were one among you that would shut the doors, that ye might not kindle fire on mine altar in vain! I have no pleasure in you, saith Jehovah of hosts, neither will I accept an offering at your hand. 11For from the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same my name'shall be great among the Gentiles; and in every place incense'shall be offered unto my name, and a pure offering: for my name'shall be great among the Gentiles, saith Jehovah of hosts. 12But ye profane it, in that ye say, The table of Jehovah is polluted, and the fruit thereof, even its food, is contemptible. 13Ye say also, Behold, what a weariness is it! and ye have snuffed at it, saith Jehovah of hosts; and ye have brought that which was taken by violence, and the lame, and the sick; thus ye bring the offering: should I accept this at your hand? saith Jehovah. 14But cursed be the deceiver, who hath in his flock a male, and voweth, and sacrificeth unto the Lord a blemished thing; for I am a great King, saith Jehovah of hosts, and my name is terrible among the Gentiles.

Darwinists are disappointed at our insistence on doing our own thinking.

Politics Professors: How to Reduce Evolution Denial

Jonathan Wells March 9, 2015 4:46 AM | 

Despite several generations of relentless indoctrination, funded by hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars, some high school students -- and even some college graduates -- still doubt evolution.

They don't doubt evolution in the sense of minor changes within existing species. In the 1930s, evolutionary biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky called this "microevolution," and nobody doubts it. But many people doubt what Dobzhansky called "macroevolution" -- the evolution of all living things from common ancestors by unguided processes such as random mutations and survival of the fittest.

The American educational establishment is dominated by people who not only believe in macroevolution but also bemoan the fact that they have failed to instill their belief in all of their students and teachers. From time to time, someone proposes ways to remedy this failure.

The latest proposals come from two professors of political science at Penn State University, Michael Berkman and Eric Plutzer, who want to reduce the persistence of "evolution deniers." Quoted by Science Daily, Berkman said that "evolution is fundamental to biology, but more importantly we think that when you are communicating a skepticism about evolution you're communicating a skepticism about science generally."

Berkman and Plutzer held focus group sessions with 35 teacher trainees from four colleges and concluded that -- instead of avoiding controversy -- teachers should openly discuss the difference between religious faith and the science of evolution. First, however, teacher trainees should become better grounded in the science of evolution by taking more science courses.

Berkman and Plutzer's findings were reported in the March 6 issue of Science. The report was accompanied by a photo of a biology classroom, with the caption "Poorly prepared science teachers often leave U.S. high school students with a shaky grounding in evolution." In the foreground of the photo are several copies of the textbook being used in the classroom: Kenneth R. Miller and Joseph Levine's widely used "elephant cover" book, Biology.

I have a copy of the 2000 "elephant cover" textbook, which features (1) a drawing of the 1953 apparatus used by Stanley Miller and Harold Urey, accompanied by a caption stating that their experiment "first demonstrated how organic matter may have formed in Earth's primitive atmosphere" (p. 344); (2) drawings of vertebrate embryos that look most similar in their early stages, showing that they evolved from common ancestors (p. 283); and (3) photographs of light- and dark-colored peppered moths resting on light- and dark-colored tree trunks, illustrating a story about natural selection in action (p. 297).

But these icons of evolution misrepresent the evidence. Among other things, the "atmosphere" used in the 1953 Miller-Urey experiment was almost certainly unlike that of the early Earth; vertebrate embryos actually look very different from each other in their early stages; and peppered moths rarely rest on tree trunks in the wild. The moth photographs were staged.

The Miller-Levine textbook misrepresented other evidence for evolution, as well. Maybe teachers and students continue to doubt evolution because they know more than Berkman and Plutzer think they do...

The Book of Jude NWT(2013 Edition)

1  Jude, a slave of Jesus Christ, but a brother of James,+ to the called ones+ who are loved by God the Father and preserved for Jesus Christ:+

2  May mercy and peace and love be increased to you.

3  Beloved ones, although I was making every effort to write you about the salvation we hold in common,+ I found it necessary to write you to urge you to put up a hard fight for the faith+ that was once for all time delivered to the holy ones. 4  My reason is that certain men have slipped in among you who were long ago appointed to this judgment by the Scriptures; they are ungodly men who turn the undeserved kindness of our God into an excuse for brazen conduct*+ and who prove false to our only owner* and Lord, Jesus Christ.+

5  Although you are fully aware of all of this, I want to remind you that Jehovah,* having saved a people out of the land of Egypt,+ afterward destroyed those not showing faith.+ 6  And the angels who did not keep their original position but forsook their own proper dwelling place,+ he has reserved with eternal bonds in dense darkness for the judgment of the great day.+ 7  In the same manner, Sod′om and Go·mor′rah and the cities around them also gave themselves over to gross sexual immorality* and pursued unnatural fleshly desires;+ they are placed before us as a warning example by undergoing the judicial punishment of everlasting fire.+

8  Despite this, these men too are indulging in dreams, defiling the flesh, despising authority, and speaking abusively of glorious ones.+ 9  But when Mi′cha·el+ the archangel+ had a difference with the Devil and was disputing about Moses’ body,+ he did not dare to bring a judgment against him in abusive terms,+ but said: “May Jehovah* rebuke you.”+ 10  But these men are speaking abusively about all the things they really do not understand.+ And in all the things that they do understand by instinct like unreasoning animals,+ they go on corrupting themselves.

11  Too bad for them, for they have followed the path of Cain+and have rushed into the erroneous course of Ba′laam+ for reward, and they have perished in the rebellious talk+ of Kor′ah!+ 12  These are the rocks hidden below water at your love feasts+ while they feast with you, shepherds who feed themselves without fear;+ waterless clouds carried here and there by the wind;+ fruitless trees in late autumn, having died twice* and having been uprooted; 13  wild waves of the sea that cast up the foam of their own shame;+ stars with no set course, for which the blackest darkness stands reserved forever.+

14  Yes, the seventh one in line from Adam, E′noch,+ also prophesied about them when he said: “Look! Jehovah* came with his holy myriads*+ 15  to execute judgment against all,+ and to convict all the ungodly concerning all their ungodly deeds that they did in an ungodly way, and concerning all the shocking things that ungodly sinners spoke against him.”+

16  These men are murmurers,+ complainers about their lot in life, following their own desires,+ and their mouths make grandiose boasts, while they are flattering others* for their own benefit.+

17  As for you, beloved ones, call to mind the sayings that have been previously spoken* by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ,18  how they used to say to you: “In the last time there will be ridiculers, following their own desires for ungodly things.”+19  These are the ones who cause divisions,+ animalistic men,*not having spirituality.* 20  But you, beloved ones, build yourselves up on your most holy faith, and pray with holy spirit,+21  in order to keep yourselves in God’s love,+ while you await the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ with everlasting life in view.+22  Also, continue showing mercy+ to some who have doubts;+23  save them+ by snatching them out of the fire. But continue showing mercy to others, doing so with fear, while you hate even the garment that has been stained by the flesh.+

24  Now to the one who is able to guard you from stumbling and to make you stand unblemished+ in the sight of his glory* with great joy, 25  to the only God our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, might, and authority for all past eternity and now and into all eternity. Amen.

A formula one racer without a steering wheel.

How to Solve the Cambrian Explosion: Turn Up the Evolutionary Speed Dial

Evolution News & Views September 20, 2013 5:05 AM

 Among the scientific papers out there that try to refute Stephen Meyer without naming him, here's one that makes it all so simple: evolution just ran faster in the Cambrian, that's all.

It's amazing how the news media flocked to a new paper in Current Biology by Lee, Soubrier and Edgecombe, "Rates of Phenotypic and Genomic Evolution during the Cambrian Explosion." It's as if they were breathing a collective sigh of relief: now we don't have to deal with Meyer's new book Darwin's Doubt; why? Because the doubt has been replaced with certainty. The paper announces confidently, "The Cambrian explosion (evolution's "big bang") is compatible with Darwinian evolution." (Emphasis added.)

In a nutshell, the paper asserts that evolution ran 4 to 5.5 times faster during the Cambrian than its usual slow-and-gradual speed. To come up with that measure, Lee and Soubrier from Australia and Edgecombe from London's Natural History Museum compared 395 phenotypic characters and 62 genes from living arthropods, "the most diverse phylum in the Cambrian and today." Since evolution ran faster, all the "major phenotypic innovations" were able to "suddenly appear" in a shorter time interval. (They assume that whatever sped up evolution for arthropods also accelerated the other phyla that "appeared" in a geological instant: "This study concerns arthropods, but the results are likely applicable to most of life.")

Like magic, the problem is solved. "The findings, published online today in the journal Current Biology, resolve 'Darwin's dilemma': the sudden appearance of a plethora of modern animal groups in the fossil record during the early Cambrian period," a press release from the University of Adelaide announced proudly, their Associate Professor Michael Lee standing in the limelight. The Cambrian explosion was nothing more than standard evolution running in time-lapse.

A look into the paper reveals damaging admissions, glaring omissions, and lapses in logic. Let's look at these in turn.

Damaging Admissions

The authors admit that the Cambrian explosion was sudden. They know it gave Charles Darwin grave doubts: "Darwin famously considered that the sudden appearance of complex morphologies in the lower Cambrian was at odds with normal evolutionary processes." They also know that subsequent studies concluded the same thing:

Many subsequent workers have reasonably contended that this pulse of diverse fossils is not explicable without either positing a lengthy cryptic Precambrian prelude or invoking "unknown evolutionary mechanisms." Similarly, initial molecular analyses concluded that the extensive molecular divergences between arthropods, echinoderms, and chordates could not be fully reconciled with the abrupt Cambrian fossil record, assuming even the fastest modern rates of molecular evolution.

They also know that critics of Darwinism are waving these facts in their faces: "These legitimate reservations have predictably been exploited by opponents of evolution."

Another fact they acknowledge is the lack of evidence for a long Precambian "fuse" leading up to the explosion. Their own work, in fact, supports the "emerging consensus" that any Precambian lead-up to the explosion had to be short, not only because there's no fossil record of it, but also because it doesn't solve the problem that animals "acquired many novelties simultaneously across the early Cambrian." The Ediacaran fossils, therefore, do not help.

Consequently, they agree that the time of rapid innovation was brief, fitting within 40 million years (Meyer provides evidence it was as short as 5 million years, 1/10 of 1% of Earth's history, p. 72). Although they assume the generous evolutionary estimate of 40 million years, they recognize the period of rapid arthropod divergence is compressible to less than 10 million years in the Lower Cambrian.

They also admit that this period was unique: "evolution during the Cambrian explosion was unusual (compared to the subsequent Phanerozoic) in that fast rates were present across many lineages."

Glaring Omissions

The paper assumes that speeding up natural selection solves all the problems and brings the Cambrian diversification safely back into Darwin's fold. What they fail to acknowledge is that each phylum appears abruptly in the fossil record, with no transitional forms. The first trilobite is all trilobite. The first Anomalocaris is all Anomalocaris. The Cambrian explosion is not just a matter of brevity of time. It's a gap between microbes (or bland multicellular colonies, if one considers the Ediacaran animals) and fully integrated body plans with jointed legs, complex eyes, guts, brains, nervous systems, and a whole new ecology.

Speeding up the evolutionary clock, therefore, doesn't solve the real problem Meyer emphasized in his book: where did the information come from to build all these new body plans? If you doubled or tripled the time interval, it wouldn't change that issue. The absence of transitions and the sudden appearance of complex tissues, organs, and systems cry out for explanation, however one might quibble about the duration of the explosion.

At one point, after declaring that evolution ran 4 to 5.5 times faster than normal, the authors claim that their conclusions are robust, even when compressing the explosion to the briefest interval:

Surprisingly, these fast early rates do not change substantially even if the radiation of arthropods is compressed entirely into the Cambrian (∼542 mega-annum [Ma]) or telescoped into the Cryogenian (∼650 Ma). The fastest inferred rates are still consistent with evolution by natural selection and with data from living organisms, potentially resolving "Darwin's dilemma."

That assertion, however, relies on transitional forms that are not found in the fossil record. They need transitions to show that natural selection, even if running at high speed, built these animals piecemeal by selecting small variations. Even Lee and team would never assert that a microbe divided and a trilobite hatched out.

Let's take them up on compressed rates and see what it means. Suppose you are on MythBusters testing a new model of explosions. A mythmaker alleges that explosions are really slow and gradual, and occur by natural processes of sunlight hitting soil, instead of by someone assembling a bomb. The equipment measures the duration of an explosion at 20 milliseconds. Suppose that the mythmaker then claims that it was really 10 seconds, if you consider the lead-up and the aftermath. Then he boasts that he can even compress that interval by half to 5 seconds, and his natural model of the explosion still holds. Would the MythBusters accept that story? No; they would laugh the guy off the set. The essence of the explosion was its suddenness. It wouldn't matter if you "telescoped" or "compressed" the time around the explosion; the explosion itself was abrupt. In the same way, when you find a whole trilobite in a layer of rock with no precursors, that's the issue! Quibbling about how many million years passed before and after it "suddenly appeared" adds nothing to our understanding.

Lapses in Logic

Lee and team play with the "speed dials" of natural selection, assuming that evolution can run up to 5.5 times faster than normal and still fit within a Darwinian paradigm. They've already abandoned the "slow Precambian fuse" explanation, so the only other option is "unknown evolutionary mechanisms" that some have suggested. By asserting that ordinary evolutionary mechanisms, running faster, are sufficient, they feel they have solved "Darwin's dilemma" and answered the "opponents of evolution" who "predictably exploit" the "legitimate reservations" that the Cambrian explosion presents.

They're answering the wrong question. It's not a question of slow evolution vs. fast evolution. It's not a question of evolution by unknown mechanisms vs. known mechanisms. Evolution itself is the issue! The Cambrian explosion poses the question of Darwinian evolution vs. intelligent design, because the sudden appearance of some two dozen distinct body plans without precursors challenges any naturalistic explanation, no matter how fast it runs.

In essence, Lee and team are simply saying, "They evolved because they evolved faster." That's not the challenge the fossil record poses. It's a circular answer that assumes evolution to argue for evolution. Here's another example: "Clades characterized by major phenotypic innovations often exhibit higher rates of evolution initially...."

Meyer's books pose fundamental challenges to evolution and other naturalistic explanations, not just "exploiting" the "legitimate reservations" about the rate of evolution but about evolution itself as a scientific explanation. He's not just poking holes in evolutionary theory. He's making a positive case for design: whenever you find information-rich systems with integrated parts contributing to function, whether it be a computer or a trilobite, we know from our uniform experience that intelligence played a role in its origin. They need to stop attacking straw men and face these issues.

Lee and team also commit a common evolutionary fallacy we might call the "opportunity knocks" theory of evolution. They assume that natural selection, filled with creative power and desire to invent endless forms most beautiful, will rush to fill new environmental opportunities. Here's how they dress this idea up in jargon: they speak of "ecological opportunism coupled with a more complex fitness landscape, which might have unleashed latent evolutionary capabilities" -- a complicated way of saying, "vacant space brings entrepreneurs." While that may work in economics with intelligent human beings, microbes are under no obligation to become trilobites, just because of "ecological opportunism." This talk of "latent evolutionary capabilities" personifies the simple organisms before the Cambrian explosion, making them out to be contestants in an invention challenge, chomping at the bit to innovate.

Media Hype

Of the papers we've examined that try to answer the Cambrian explosion, this one be Lee et al. must surely rank as one of the silliest. They dodge the important issues. They argue in a circle, using evolutionary assumptions to defend evolution. They employ ad hoc reasoning to avoid falsification of evolutionary theory. They fight straw men. Despite the jargon, their conclusions are vapid, evasive, and illogical.

Yet the hype-to-data ratio has been off the charts: the media trumpeted this as the answer to all the critics, the scientific "findings" to finally rescue Darwin from his dilemma. At Live Science, in an article echoed around the Internet, Tia Ghose wrote, "Lightning-Fast Evolution Clocked During Cambrian Explosion" as if Lee was holding a stopwatch.

A crustacean with 3,000 lenses in its eyes, 6-foot-long shrimplike creatures and organisms that looked like tulips emerged hastily (from an evolutionary perspective) on the scene some 520 million to 540 million years ago. And now scientists have figured out just how quickly evolution was occurring during evolution's "big bang."

Acknowledging that the Cambrian explosion saw the "sudden emergence" of "most of the planet's modern animal groups," including creatures with eyes, antennae, biting jaws, jointed legs and much more, Ghose triumphantly announced that Lee and his colleagues have stood up to those pesky creationists:

Researchers have long debated exactly how animals could have evolved so quickly during the period. Creationists have even used the Cambrian explosion to raise doubts about the theory of evolution, suggesting some divine hand must have played a role....

Why are we not surprised at that red herring?

The team found that the emergence of many sea creatures during the Cambrian explosion could be explained by an accelerated -- but not unrealistic -- evolution by way of natural selection, or the process in which organisms change over time due to changes in heritable physical or behavioral traits.

Giving lead author Michael Lee the pulpit for the benediction, her article ends,

"In this study we've estimated that rates of both morphological and genetic evolution during the Cambrian explosion were five times faster than today -- quite rapid, but perfectly consistent with Darwin's theory of evolution," Lee said.

At least Science Magazine offers a hint of caution in its otherwise gushing praise:

"It's an excellent first step," says Douglas Erwin, a paleontologist at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., but the exact rates of evolution in the study might not be reliable. He points out that while the study uses fossil data to determine when a given arthropod branch emerged, it doesn't include the known characteristics of these extinct ancestors in its comparisons of physical traits, which involve only living creatures.

Some of the assumptions the authors make in estimating these emergence dates are also problematic, says Philip Donoghue, a paleobiologist at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom.

That coverage led to a lot of lively comments from readers, many mocking intelligent design with the usual ad hominems and conflation with creationism, plus some well-meaning but misguided responses misrepresenting ID. Won't one of these people just get a copy of Darwin's Doubt and read it?

On the bright side, the lack of substantive responses to the arguments of Meyer and others provides tacit admission that the case for intelligent design remains robust.