Tag: fossil record explosions

creatures of the Cambrian period, underwater scene with Anomalocaris, Opabinia, Hallucigenia, Pirania and Dinomischus (3d science illustration)

^{Type
post

Author
Casey Luskin

Date
July 10, 2023

Tagged
Avalon explosion, bounded adaptation, Cambrian Explosion, Darwinian Evolution, Darwinism, Design, design inference, engineering, engineering principles, Evolution, fossil, fossil data, fossil discontinuities, fossil evidence, Fossil Record, fossil record explosions, Fossils, gradual evolution, gradualism, Intelligent Design, Natural Selection, Punctuated Equilibrium}

Why Intelligent Design Best Explains the Fossil Record Data

_{Casey Luskin

July 10, 2023

Uncategorized}

The fossil record reveals sudden explosions of new life forms followed by long periods of stasis. Is this evidence to be expected from a gradual Darwinian model? On this episode of ID The Future, host Eric Anderson talks with Casey Luskin on location at this year’s Conference on Engineering and Living Systems (CELS). Luskin discusses three different models of the fossil record - the gradual descent model, the punctuated equilibrium model, and the explosion model. He explains why gradual Darwinian models are built on a lack of data and cannot adequately explain the patterns revealed in the record. He also shows that the sudden appearance of complex organisms and long periods of non-change are exactly what we would expect to find from a design perspective. "These organisms...are designed to change within limits," says Luskin, "and that's why we see stasis." Indeed, the fossil record is consistent with the engineering-based theory of bounded adaptation, the idea that organisms are deeply designed, purposeful, and capable of adapting within their operating parameters. It's an intriguing new way to look at the history of life on earth. Says Luskin, "The only way you're going to be able to generate all the information needed to yield an organism that's alive and functional all at once is through an intelligent cause." Don't miss this intriguing conversation! Casey Luskin holds a PhD in Geology from the University of Johannesburg, where he specialized in paleomagnetism and the early plate tectonic history of South Africa. He serves as Associate Director of Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture. Want to dive deeper into the fascinating explosions of plant and animal life in the geologic record? Luskin recommends reading a chapter by Stephen C. Meyer and Gunter Bechly (Chapter 10) on the topic, in Theistic Evolution: A Scientific, Philosophical, and Theological Critique. Available here: https://www.discovery.org/b/theistic-evolution/ Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Günter Bechly

Date
March 2, 2022

Tagged
abrupt appearance, archeopteryx, artifact hypothesis, Cambrian Explosion, Carboniferous, Casey Luskin, Climbing Mount Improbable, Darwinian gradualism, Darwinism, Evolution, evolutionary discontinuities, evolutionary gradualism, flying insects, fossil forgeries, Fossil Record, fossil record explosions, Fossils, Günter Bechly, human evolution, Neo-Darwinism, origin of flowering plants, paleontology, Piltdown man, Precambrian, Richard Dawkins, sudden appearance, The Comprehensive Guide to Science and Faith, Theory of Evolution, transitional forms, transitional fossils}

Debunked Transitional Fossils Just the Tip of the Iceberg

_{Günter Bechly

March 2, 2022

Uncategorized}

On today’s ID the Future Casey Luskin hosts distinguished German paleontologist Günter Bechly to discuss Bechly’s essay in the recent Harvest House anthology, The Comprehensive Guide to Science and Faith: Exploring the Ultimate Questions About Life and the Cosmos. Darwinian evolution predicts a gradually branching tree of living forms, with one form shading into another over long periods of evolution, with each transitional step almost too modest to notice. Does the fossil record suggest such a pattern? Quite the opposite, Bechly says. Instead the pattern of the fossil record is consistently one of sudden appearance, and evolutionists have yet to successfully construct a single robustly populated series of gradually transitioning fossils that move chronologically from one form to a distinctly different morphology. Darwinism would lead us to expect such transitional sequences all over the fossil record, and yet evolutionists, searching assiduously for more than 160 years, have yet to construct a single one of these. Bechly debunks the hype around some fossil sequences, such as that said to have been assembled from ape-like to human. He explains the difference between “transitional forms” as paleontologists generally use the term and the meaning of the term for evolutionists attempting to defend modern Darwinism. And he and Luskin also discuss fossil forgeries, how to tell real from fake fossils, and four explosions of morphological novelty in the history of life.