Preserved for 520 million years?!?

[Jorge]

Are you one of those ignorant nutcases that claims evolution violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics? Don't you think physicists would have realized that?

As I've told you before, you hang around so many witless, bird-brain Evos that you are under the impression that everyone is the same.

No, I am not one of those "ignorant nutcases".

While my (PhD) degree is worthless, and I regard it as such, my dissertation is not worthless. It was on MEMS (Mass-Energy Management Systems) which are based on certain implications of the 2LoT.

Bluntly, one of the facts that I've confirmed throughout the decades is that most Evos are "ignorant nutcases" when it comes to Evolution in light of the 2LoT. Specifically, you will hear many of them saying that, "The Earth is an open system and so Evolution is definitely possible ... blah, blah, blah". The late Ernst Mayr, PhD, Evolutionist Extraordinaire, on page 8 of his book What Evolution IS parrots that stupidity as if he were a high-school freshman.

So if you want to talk about "ignorant nutcases", you need to take a hard look at your own group.

Jorge

[HMS_Beagle]

While my (PhD) degree is worthless, and I regard it as such, my dissertation is not worthless. It was on MEMS (Mass-Energy Management Systems) which are based on certain implications of the 2LoT.

I'm sure your "dissertation" is worth something. It can always be used for kindling or TP in an emergency.

Bluntly, one of the facts that I've confirmed throughout the decades is that most Evos are "ignorant nutcases" when it comes to Evolution in light of the 2LoT. Specifically, you will hear many of them saying that, "The Earth is an open system and so Evolution is definitely possible ... blah, blah, blah". The late Ernst Mayr, PhD, Evolutionist Extraordinaire, on page 8 of his book What Evolution IS parrots that stupidity as if he were a high-school freshman.

So if you want to talk about "ignorant nutcases", you need to take a hard look at your own group.

Go ahead . Make your case that the 2LoT makes evolution impossible. I could use a few more belly laughs.

[Jorge]

I'm sure your "dissertation" is worth something. It can always be used for kindling or TP in an emergency.

Go ahead. Make your case that the 2LoT makes evolution impossible. I could use a few more belly laughs.

You DO know that smoking that stuff will land you in prison, right?
Oh ... wait ... that's only when you get caught. My bad!

Carry on, Beagle Boy ... puff away!

Jorge

[HMS_Beagle]

You DO know that smoking that stuff will land you in prison, right?
Oh ... wait ... that's only when you get caught. My bad!

Carry on, Beagle Boy ... puff away!

Once again we see the Jorge Shuffle - can't back up the claims his big mouth made so he acts the fools as a distraction.

[Mikeenders]

Actually there are numerous things that could falsify evolution. Probably the most famous example is attributed to J.B.S. Haldane which is finding the remains of a rabbit embedded in Precambrian rocks. Finding a fish with feathers would also do it.

Pure silliness. You are like a factory for trite sayings. Theres no way a rabbit in the Cambrian would falsify evolution. A) it would never be identified as a rabbit but some other rabbit like creature B) The strata would never be identified as Cambrian. Fish with feathers is just stupid and in fact would be used as a proof of evolution since the argument would be made that no intelligent designer would give fish feathers

Talk Origins has a long list on their website.

Lordy Lordy an alleged Christian quoting talkorigins as an authority source. sipping deep on the kool aid as you claim YECs do

The fact is that to date nothing has come along which has falsified evolution despite a century and a half of many people working frantically to do so. This is powerful testimony to just how strong evolutionary theory is.

This is powerful testimony to your deluded mind. What would have falsified evolution if it were falsifiable would have been finding similar systems across multiple species not closely related. We found that long ago so the Darwinists just made up 'convergent evolution" to make that go away. Shucks we are even finding molecular convergence where we find near matches in actual dna sequences and thats being incorporated after the fact into the thesis. Meanwhile HGT has already falsified the underlying thesis that genes are by necessity inherited from a common ancestor and epigenetics is already showing that differences in at least some fossils we have are not different species.

[Mikeenders]

But, see, for Evolutionism NOTHING is impossible. If something is found that is "impossible" then something will be magically conjured out of thin air. As long as Evolutionism is preserved, that is all that matters. One of my favorite examples of this for decades has been Punctuated Equilibrium. WOW - talk about a major-league con job!!!

Well I think you have to be fair here. We have to at least admit this isn't soft tissue like say we have found with dinosaurs. SO I think you need to concede that . On the other hand trying to brush it off as not unusual and trying to compare it with other fossils like rogue is doing is not an extremely honest position either. Here again we do have something that was considered improbable being proposed as probable only after the fact. We are not talking about bones we are talking about brain tissue. Nevertheless since we can't equate this to say the dinosaur soft tissue situation I don't find it as compelling as you do. At least not now.

More interesting to me though is the reaction of the evo heads in this thread. Its kind of like "Jorge obviously this isn't soft tissue" but their position previously has been - soft tissue can last s long as whatever we say it can last". So whats the cut off? why 520 million years and not 300 million years or 100 million years? They've pretty much argued in the past that any age is fine and dandy.When we do dredge up 300 million year old soft tissue what will be the claim then?

and now the claim is its rare so that explains it only in unusual circumstances .....what happens if we find it isn't? We all know....the story and explanation will just change.

[oxmixmudd]

Well I think you have to be fair here. We have to at least admit this isn't soft tissue like say we have found with dinosaurs. SO I think you need to concede that . On the other hand trying to brush it off as not unusual and trying to compare it with other fossils like rogue is doing is not an extremely honest position either. Here again we do have something that was considered improbable being proposed as probable only after the fact. We are not talking about bones we are talking about brain tissue. Nevertheless since we can't equate this to say the dinosaur soft tissue situation I don't find it as compelling as you do. At least not now.

More interesting to me though is the reaction of the evo heads in this thread. Its kind of like "Jorge obviously this isn't soft tissue" but their position previously has been - soft tissue can last s long as whatever we say it can last". So whats the cut off? why 520 million years and not 300 million years or 100 million years? They've pretty much argued in the past that any age is fine and dandy.When we do dredge up 300 million year old soft tissue what will be the claim then?

and now the claim is its rare so that explains it only in unusual circumstances .....what happens if we find it isn't? We all know....the story and explanation will just change.

Ask yourself the question:

"What is it that causes soft tissue to decay?"

Then ask the question:

"How long can soft tissue last if the reasons listed above are removed or halted?"

Then ask the question:

"What would be required to halt or remove the causes of soft tissue decay?"

The 'presumption' soft tissue could not last more that X years has to do with ideas about what would be required to remove or halt the causes of decay. Generally it had been assumed the causes of decay could not be eliminated sufficiently in a natural environment to allow for extended survival. What the new discoveries have done is challenge THOSE assumptions. Not some intrinsic physical limit on the lifetime of the molecules themselves.

Similarly, the same sort of thing applies to the reasons it was thought brain tissue could not survive long enough to be fossilized. Likewise, discovering fossilized brain tissue challenges those previous conclusions and drives research which causes mechanisms to be discovered that actually can allow for brain tissue to be fossilized.


The fact you and Jorge will not accept that fact and understand why it changes things and why it has nothing to do with philosophical bias but is just the natural progression of science in the area of study is evidence of your own biases and limited objectivity. It is not evidence of something 'unfair' or 'unscientific' taking place.

But you can't admit that is true. Otherwise your entire position is threatened. That is your bias. And Jorge's.

The real travesty here is something that does happen a lot in science. The pride of the scientists in their own intelligence precipitates assumptions they can't see as having any real possibility of being false. So they are proclaimed as truth. So - nobody looked in dinosaur fossils for preserved soft tissue. And people thought brain tissue could not be fossilized. And it takes the discovery of contrary evidence to challenge those assumptions.

You COULD perhaps use this as an example of the kind of assumptions that cause you to be wary of science. But instead you try to decry the actual progress and debunking of those assumptions, which just makes you both out to be biased and in many ways just plain stupid in how you approach this issue and science in general.

Jim

[sylas]

Those interested in this story (no matter what your perspective) may benefit from looking at the original papers.

1. Xiaoya Ma et al. Complex brain and optic lobes in an early Cambrian arthropod, Nature 490, 11 Oct 2012, pp 258-261, doi (paywalled)
2. Xiaoya Ma et al. Preservational Pathways of Corresponding Brains of a Cambrian Euarthropod, Current Biology Vol 25, Iss 22, pp 2969–2975, 16 Nov 2015 (2015) doi (open access)

Here is a picture of one of the fossils in question:
FossilFuxianhuiaCambrianBrainFossil.jpg
I've modified this image by adding a 1 cm scale bar in blue (based on an image of the same fossil in Nature); this image here is from an article at phys.org: Complex brains evolved much earlier than previously thought, 520-million-year-old fossilized arthropod confirms (10 Oct 2012). Original image caption reads:

This picture shows a nearly intact fossil of Fuxianhuia protensa. The inset shows the fossilized brain in the head of another specimen. The brain structures are visible as dark outlines. Credit: Specimen photo: Xiaoya Ma; inset: Nicholas Strausfeld

The article at phys.org is well worth a read as a easier introduction to the original Nature paper.

See also another commentary from phys.org on publication of the second paper in Current Biology: 520-million-year-old arthropod brains turn paleontology on its head (9 Nov 2015). Here's an image from that second page, this time showing great magnification of the fossilized brain tissue.
2-ancientbrain.jpg
Original caption:

A: Under a light microscope, the above fossil shows traces of preserved neural tissues in black. B: An elemental scan of this fossil uncovered that carbon (in pink) and iron (in green) do not overlap in the preserved neural tissue. Credit: Strausfeld et al. and Current Biology

Cheers -- sylas

[Jorge]

Well I think you have to be fair here. We have to at least admit this isn't soft tissue like say we have found with dinosaurs. SO I think you need to concede that .

I always "concede" the truth. Try getting the same from these jokers.

On the other hand trying to brush it off as not unusual and trying to compare it with other fossils like rogue is doing is not an extremely honest position either. Here again we do have something that was considered improbable being proposed as probable only after the fact. We are not talking about bones we are talking about brain tissue. Nevertheless since we can't equate this to say the dinosaur soft tissue situation I don't find it as compelling as you do. At least not now.

It is the convergence - the total sum - of evidences that is compelling, not any single item.

More interesting to me though is the reaction of the evo heads in this thread. Its kind of like "Jorge obviously this isn't soft tissue" but their position previously has been - soft tissue can last s long as whatever we say it can last". So whats the cut off? why 520 million years and not 300 million years or 100 million years? They've pretty much argued in the past that any age is fine and dandy.When we do dredge up 300 million year old soft tissue what will be the claim then?

THAT was and is my point. Many blue moons will pass before these clowns will concede any point. The reason for this is obvious: they MUST preserve their religious beliefs AT ALL COST ("religious" because they sure as hell aren't scientific). Or to put it another way, "they cannot allow the Divine Foot in the door". They know that, which is why they exhibit religious fanaticism. That is the one truth that they will NEVER confess to - even if you pull out their fingernails with rusty pliers.

EDITED TO ADD: Your ending question (above) reminded me of a part of their tactics. They have a sort of 'blank check' that they get to fill in with erasable ink in order to fit the facts. And when the facts change they simply erase and insert whatever new number they need. Now, they will argue that "science operates this way - always changing with discoveries". Yes and no. There is an HONEST way of doing this and then there's a DISHONEST way. Many people (besides myself) have noticed that Fanatical Evolutionists don't hesitate to practice the latter - Evolutionism MUST be preserved at all costs. Punctuated Equilibrium is one of my favorite examples of what I've just been talking about here.

and now the claim is its rare so that explains it only in unusual circumstances .....what happens if we find it isn't? We all know....the story and explanation will just change.

Correct! And like I said, that was and is and shall remain my main point. They try to make this a "scientific" issue when the facts clearly say that, for them, this is actually a metaphysical/ideological issue. They want to insist that it is "science" because that way they get to stand on the "higher pedestal of scientific authority" (at least in their eyes). But, hey, if it smells, walks, talks, acts and looks like a duck, it almost assuredly IS a duck.

Jorge

[Jorge]

Ask yourself the question:

"What is it that causes soft tissue to decay?"

Then ask the question:

"How long can soft tissue last if the reasons listed above are removed or halted?"

Then ask the question:

"What would be required to halt or remove the causes of soft tissue decay?"

The 'presumption' soft tissue could not last more that X years has to do with ideas about what would be required to remove or halt the causes of decay. Generally it had been assumed the causes of decay could not be eliminated sufficiently in a natural environment to allow for extended survival. What the new discoveries have done is challenge THOSE assumptions. Not some intrinsic physical limit on the lifetime of the molecules themselves.

Similarly, the same sort of thing applies to the reasons it was thought brain tissue could not survive long enough to be fossilized. Likewise, discovering fossilized brain tissue challenges those previous conclusions and drives research which causes mechanisms to be discovered that actually can allow for brain tissue to be fossilized.


The fact you and Jorge will not accept that fact and understand why it changes things and why it has nothing to do with philosophical bias but is just the natural progression of science in the area of study is evidence of your own biases and limited objectivity. It is not evidence of something 'unfair' or 'unscientific' taking place.

But you can't admit that is true. Otherwise your entire position is threatened. That is your bias. And Jorge's.

The real travesty here is something that does happen a lot in science. The pride of the scientists in their own intelligence precipitates assumptions they can't see as having any real possibility of being false. So they are proclaimed as truth. So - nobody looked in dinosaur fossils for preserved soft tissue. And people thought brain tissue could not be fossilized. And it takes the discovery of contrary evidence to challenge those assumptions.

You COULD perhaps use this as an example of the kind of assumptions that cause you to be wary of science. But instead you try to decry the actual progress and debunking of those assumptions, which just makes you both out to be biased and in many ways just plain stupid in how you approach this issue and science in general.

Jim

TRANSLATION: Evolutionism MUST be preserved at all costs - that is our First Holy Commandment (FHC). Thus, anything that is found - ANYTHING - must and shall be interpreted to comply with our FHC. If that doesn't work then we take the next step: we conjure a rescuing hypothesis out of our bottomless hat of magic tricks. There is nothing - NOTHING - that this hat cannot supply ... whatever is needed, we have it. It's like having Santa Claus on call 24/7/365.

To wit: when the hard evidence of fossils showed the complete opposite of what Evolutionism had predicted for over a century -- ABRACADABRA!!! -- out of the magic hat popped out 'Punctuated Equilibrium' and Evolutionism lives on to fight another day.

You can BS youngsters with your pseudo-science blatherings but don't try it on veterans like me.

Jorge

[Mikeenders]

A

The 'presumption' soft tissue could not last more that X years has to do with ideas about what would be required to remove or halt the causes of decay. Generally it had been assumed the causes of decay could not be eliminated sufficiently in a natural environment to allow for extended survival. What the new discoveries have done is challenge THOSE assumptions. Not some intrinsic physical limit on the lifetime of the molecules themselves........The fact you and Jorge will not accept that fact and understand why it changes things and why it has nothing to do with philosophical bias but is just the natural progression of science in the area of study is evidence of your own biases and limited objectivity. It is not evidence of something 'unfair' or 'unscientific' taking place.

But you can't admit that is true. Otherwise your entire position is threatened. That is your bias. And Jorge's.

No its your bias and more evidence of your total vacant idiocy I have referenced many times before. You are now essentially arguing that you can totally halt decay in a universe where everything over time decays and nothing last forever. As a pretend "Christian" you are even exposing yourself as a believer in eternal matter. organic material decays - get over it. Its nto an assumption. its science. the questions is how long and the answer it last as long as it last isn't how science is done. blather on in you vacant stupidity as if blather is supposed to substitute for science. So far no mechanism has been shown to preserve soft tissue that long. The most that has been proposed so far is that the presence of iron can increase survival of tissue but the magnitude of the increase in preservation does not approach 100 million years. not even close.

the total stupidity and deep intellectual dishonesty of your soul is laid bare by the fact that rather than evangelicals like myself or even YECs being the ones to be surprised and to question the preservation its been the scientific community that has doubted it and been forced to capitulate not because of any new science has been found to explain the long periods but they've capitulated based on dogma that the dates cannot possibly be wrong.

Your track record gets longer on dishonesty (no surprise) in replying to me that way because I do not totally deny the possibility of soft issue over 100 million years old but have called for it to be researched rather than assumed and in this thread only raised the question as to what point do we ever say okay this is unlikely - 100 million years, 200 million years, 300 million years 400 million years.

The answer "Well however long it lasts " is just dogma not science. the only thing that shows no sign of decay in the universe is your lack of character.

[Jorge]

No its your bias and more evidence of your total vacant idiocy I have referenced many times before. You are now essentially arguing that you can totally halt decay in a universe where everything over time decays and nothing last forever. As a pretend "Christian" you are even exposing yourself as a believer in eternal matter. organic material decays - get over it. Its nto an assumption. its science. the questions is how long and the answer it last as long as it last isn't how science is done. blather on in you vacant stupidity as if blather is supposed to substitute for science. So far no mechanism has been shown to preserve soft tissue that long. The most that has been proposed so far is that the presence of iron can increase survival of tissue but the magnitude of the increase in preservation does not approach 100 million years. not even close.

the total stupidity and deep intellectual dishonesty of your soul is laid bare by the fact that rather than evangelicals like myself or even YECs being the ones to be surprised and to question the preservation its been the scientific community that has doubted it and been forced to capitulate not because of any new science has been found to explain the long periods but they've capitulated based on dogma that the dates cannot possibly be wrong.

Your track record gets longer on dishonesty (no surprise) in replying to me that way because I do not totally deny the possibility of soft issue over 100 million years old but have called for it to be researched rather than assumed and in this thread only raised the question as to what point do we ever say okay this is unlikely - 100 million years, 200 million years, 300 million years 400 million years.

The answer "Well however long it lasts " is just dogma not science.

Truth be told, sometimes it does get lonely here. It is refreshing and encouraging to see that I am not the only one observing the things that I do - as your post above plainly illustrates. I've exchanged posts with O-Mudd for many years and what you write has, sadly, been my conclusion also. What baffles me to no end is the blind, rabid denial of what is patently obvious. Truly it is a spiritual matter, not an intellectual one.

In case you missed it, the following (from an earlier post) is where I see it all boils down to:

Evolutionism MUST be preserved at all costs - that is their First Holy Commandment (FHC). And, of course, billions of years is an absolute prerequisite for Evolutionism. Thus, ANYTHING that is found must and shall be interpreted to comply with their FHC.

If that doesn't work then they shift to their next tactic: they extract a rescuing hypothesis out of their bottomless hat of magic tricks. There is nothing - NOTHING!!! - that this hat cannot supply. Whatever is needed, they have it. It's like having Santa Claus on call 24/7/365.

To wit: when the hard evidence of fossils showed the complete opposite of what Evolutionism had predicted for over a century* -- ABRACADABRA!!! -- out of the magic hat popped out 'Punctuated Equilibrium' and Evolutionism lives on to fight another day.

*[I'm referring to Evolutionism's century-plus old prediction of "slow, gradual change with gazillions of transitional fossils waiting to be found". When they could no longer hide the evidence (oops, the fossils showed the exact opposite) then magic took over: "Oh, it isn't "slow and gradual, it occurs by long periods of stasis punctuated by very rapid evolutionary 'jumps'".

Tell me, how does one falsify a theory that can concoct WHATEVER hypothesis is needed to force-fit ANY observations? It's like having a giant sledge hammer that will force a peg of ANY shape into the round hole. I have never once (in 35-plus years) received an honest, rational answer to that question. Yet they won't concede that point - not ever. That, to me, is the epitome of intellectual dishonesty.]

Jorge

[Mikeenders]

Punctuated Equilibrium is one of my favorite examples of what I've just been talking about here.

Though that was interesting in that it shows the pliability of the claim - evolution is explained by very long periods of time except when it takes short periods of time - you should look to a new favorite - Horizontal gene transfer - its unquestionable, its now proving to be pervasive and much more common than expected by the evo heads and its strikes ate the very core of evolutionary assumptions - that similarities are based on inheritance. We now know for a fact that an organism can get genetic material from another species where there is no ancestral relationship as the means. The evo heads don't know what to do with it. The first claims was that it was rare but now that that is not holding up they are rushing and back pedalling to find ways to incorporate it into their religion even though its a completely different mechanism than ToE's inheritance or genetic mutation "common ancestry". In short we now KNOW that features and feature sets can be constructed into a species from other unrelated species by borrowing that "programming" from a species with the "features". Its in much the same way a designer might borrow parts from one of his earlier creations if he was making several species rather than one at a time individually (which is not in Genesis btw).

[Jorge]

Though that was interesting in that it shows the pliability of the claim - evolution is explained by very long periods of time except when it takes short periods of time - you should look to a new favorite - Horizontal gene transfer - its unquestionable, its now proving to be pervasive and much more common than expected by the evo heads and its strikes ate the very core of evolutionary assumptions - that similarities are based on inheritance. We now know for a fact that an organism can get genetic material from another species where there is no ancestral relationship as the means. The evo heads don't know what to do with it. The first claims was that it was rare but now that that is not holding up they are rushing and back pedalling to find ways to incorporate it into their religion even though its a completely different mechanism than ToE's inheritance or genetic mutation "common ancestry". In short we now KNOW that features and feature sets can be constructed into a species from other unrelated species by borrowing that "programming" from a species with the "features". Its in much the same way a designer might borrow parts from one of his earlier creations if he was making several species rather than one at a time individually (which is not in Genesis btw).

Yup - another instance of their 'Magical Hat' providing endless "solutions" to anything
that challenges / threatens the Sacred Cow of Evolutionism.

Thus I restate the crux of my case:

How does one falsify a theory that can concoct WHATEVER hypothesis is needed to force-fit ANY observation into compliance? It's like having a giant sledge hammer that will pound a peg of any shape into the round hole. I have never once (in 35-plus years) received an honest, rational answer to that question. Have you?

Yet they won't concede that point - not ever. That, to me, is the epitome of intellectual dishonesty. It also demonstrates the utter bankruptcy of Evolutionism. Yet, to many, Evolution is "rock solid". Pure lunacy!!!

Jorge

[HMS_Beagle]

How does one falsify a theory that can concoct WHATEVER hypothesis is needed to force-fit ANY observation into compliance? It's like having a giant sledge hammer that will pound a peg of any shape into the round hole. I have never once (in 35-plus years) received an honest, rational answer to that question. Have you?

Poor ignorant Clucky. There are lots of things that had they been found would have falsified ToE. Finding the fossil phylogenetic tree and the genetic one are vastly discordant would do it. Discovering vastly different and incompatible forms of DNA in "kinds" which really do form a barrier to speciation between "kinds" would do it. Finding populations of six limbed mammals (i.e horses with wings) would do it. Discovering populations of chimera animals like mermaids would do it.

Clucky is just too dumb to realize that not falsfied doesn't mean not falsifiable.