Could you explain why this is an answer?

Paul Giem: I missed the part where you commented on whether and why tracks seem to precede the relevant animal fossils.

Because a given fossil is almost certainly not the first or the last of a lineage. It’s a single data-point.

If you had said that there are many more tracks than fossils, and therefore the track distribution would be expected to be outside, and therefore earlier than, the fossil distribution, I might wonder about the premise, but at least understand the argument.

Reading your answer,

Paul Giem: Have you also given up on gradualism

Perhaps you mean phyletic gradualism. Evolution doesn’t happen at a constant rate.

It looks like you are proposing the Hopeful Monster theory, at least as far as the fossil record is concerned. Suddenly, or perhaps within a few thousand years, an alga became a trilobite. Is that the explanation of the Cambrian explosion?

When, in answer to my comment,

You seem to miss one implication, which is that one cannot use falsification, or rather the lack thereof, to rule out ID as a scientific theory.

you reply,

Unfortunately, the term “Intelligent Design” is subject to equivocation. It’s more precise to deal with specific claims.

you sidestep the issue rather than meet the thrust of the comment head on. It’s a good debating tactic, but in this case it is not helpful in finding the truth. If falsification is not a defining characteristic of science, than its absence cannot be used to declare a theory, or even a collection of theories, unscientific. That means that specifically it is not legitimate to use it to rule out ID as non-scientific. ID may be non-scientific, but the criterion fails.

Aspects of the Theory of Evolution has been falsified many times; consequently, the current Theory of Evolution is not the same as Darwin’s Theory of Evolution.

Is there any particular reason why we should trust the current version to be more successful than the past ones?

If a Precambrian rabbit were demonstrated (rather than merely asserted), it would precede any plausible evolutionary ancestor. Time-traveling Leporidae?

Did you read the discussion at the link I provided? Perhaps you can reply to Cambrian plants (scan down to “In the mid- 1940s”), specifically oaks, and Precambrian angiosperm pollen (see R. M. Stainforth, “Occurrence of Pollen and Spores in the Roraima Formation of Venezuela and British Guiana,” Nature, Vol. 210, No. 5033 (April 16, 1966), pp. 292–294.). I would be interested in your answer.

I suspect that you and I are closer together than it might appear on the nature of scientific theories. It appears that you just are not used to the terminology of Lakatos, where “scientific research program” is used for a core theory which is not directly testable, with surrounding theories and heuristics, with the surrounding theories being testable. The core theory gains or loses credibility based on the ability or lack thereof of the surrounding theories to predict novel facts, and their ability to avoid apparent falsification. Does that seem heretical to you?

Unfortunately, the term “Intelligent Design” is subject to equivocation.

The word “evolution” is always equivocated:

Equivocation and Evolution

and

Equivocation and Evolution cont

http://biologos.org/blog/footprints-in-the-sand/

Of course it’s a fulfilled prediction. The scientists didn’t just stumble on the fossil in their backyard. They made a prediction from the Theory of Evolution, then tested it by mounting a complex expedition over several years to the Canadian Arctic.

The prediction seems to be falsified by the new find.

Ya see Shubin et al. were looking for a trasitional and found one AFTER the transition was already esyablished.

In order for theior’s to be a good prediction they needed to find the transitional BEFORE tetrapods made it to land.

How would rabbits in the Cambrian falsify the theory of evolution?

Yes, because it would precede any plausible ancestor.

You don’t know that.

For all you know there are plausible ancestors that just haven’t been found.

Also you don’t ewven know what a plausible ancestor is because you don’t know what makes a rabbit a rabbit.

The current Theory of Evolution would be inadequate to explain such a find.

I could think of several things that could explain it away and I am sure evos could think of more.

I’ll get back to you later. I ran out of time, but am pleased by the tone of your response.

There is a common confusion between the Cambrian and the Cambrian Explosion. This confusion is fostered by sites PBS site cited by Nakashima. If it can be maintained that the Cambrian explosion happened over a long time, it will not appear to be so difficult to explain it as being consistent with Darwinian evolution.

The problem, to state it succinctly, is that there are very few, and so far restricted kinds (phyla) of organisms before the Cambrian, whereas not just at the end of the Cambrian, but at the earlier strata, for example the Chengjiang in China, nearly all the modern phyla are present, and often extinct phyla as well. That time frame thus is not between the late Precambrian and the late Cambrian, but between the late Precambrian and the early Cambrian. Thus 40 to 45 million years is a gross overestimate for the time during which the changes happened. Estimates of 1-10 million years are more appropriate.

It is fascinating to read the Wikipedia article on the Cambrian explosion. Obviously, they also have an interest in minimizing the problem. However they still allow that

The Cambrian explosion has generated extensive scientific debate. The seemingly rapid appearance of fossils in the “Primordial Strata” was noted as early as the mid 19th century,[6] and Charles Darwin saw it as one of the main objections that could be made against his theory of evolution by natural selection.[7]

The next paragraph is just choice:

The long-running puzzlement about the appearance of the Cambrian fauna, seemingly abruptly and from nowhere, centers on three key points: whether there really was a mass diversification of complex organisms over a relatively short period of time during the early Cambrian; what might have caused such rapid change; and what it would imply about the origin and evolution of animals. Interpretation is difficult due to a limited supply of evidence, based mainly on an incomplete fossil record and chemical signatures left in Cambrian rocks.

Note the desperate attempts to avoid the implications of the problem. The first attempt is to challenge the data, or to deny that the fossil data reflect the biological reality. The difficulty with this approach can be appreciated by noting that some estimates put the divergence of protostomes and deuterostomes at some 896 million years ago, which means that for some 350 million years we have evolution without any known fossil evidence. That makes even 40 million years look like a very short time.

The next attempt is to ask “what might have caused such rapid change”. Well, of course, designers could have but Wikipedia isn’t going there . Maybe if there is no (unguided) mechanism, the problem will just go away.

The final attempt is to obfuscate the problem. “Interpretation is difficult due to a limited supply of evidence, based mainly on an incomplete fossil record and chemical signatures left in Cambrian rocks.” No it’s not. Interpretation is difficult due precisely to the excellent preservation of the fossil record in the Cambrian If one wishes to argue the incompleteness of the fossil record, one has to make that case for the Precambrian record. This statement makes me wonder what Kool-aid the Wikipedia authors have been drinking.

The lack of logic is again evident in the following quote:

While differing significantly in details, both Whittington and Gould proposed that all modern animal phyla had appeared rather suddenly. This view was influenced by the theory of punctuated equilibrium, which Eldredge and Gould developed in the early 1970s and which views evolution as long intervals of near-stasis “punctuated” by short periods of rapid change.[15]

Note the lack of support for the idea that Whittington actually subscribed to punctuated equilibrium. But more importantly, note the suggestion that the theory of puunctuated equilibrium influenced the empiric observation that the fossil record indicates the rapid development of phyla. In reality, of course, it was precisely the reverse. Eldredge and Gould developed their theory to account for the data of the fossil record. They had started out as more or less orthodox Darwinists. It was the fossil data, their area of expertise, that convinced them otherwise.

More of this minimization of the problem continues:

A phylum is not a fundamental division of nature, such as the difference between electrons and protons. It is simply a very high-level grouping in a classification system created to describe all currently living organisms.

Simply? This kind of argument cannot conceal the fact that if we take the fossil record at face value, it indicates that fundamentally differently types of organisms suddenly appeared in the fossil record. As Dawkins (TBW) put it, “It is as though they were just planted there, without any evolutionary history.” (Read the whole quote; it is fascinating.)

Please respond in a normally threaded message. It makes following a conversation easier. Previous administrations here at UD have disavowed editing other people’s comments except to ban them.

As well known as the term “Cambrian Explsion” is, I don’t know of a hard and fast definition of it. Here is one from PBS educational material:

Then, between about 570 and 530 million years ago, another burst of diversification occurred, with the eventual appearance of the lineages of almost all animals living today. This stunning and unique evolutionary flowering is termed the “Cambrian explosion,” taking the name of the geological age in whose early part it occurred. But it was not as rapid as an explosion: the changes seems to have happened in a range of about 30 million years, and some stages took 5 to 10 million years.

I grant you that there are sources that agree with you, such as this paleobiology website:

The theory of the Cambrian Explosion holds that, beginning some 545 million years ago, an explosion of diversity led to the appearance over a relatively short period of 5 million to 10 million years of a huge number of complex, multi-celled organisms.

I agree that we can have differing opinions, but not differing facts. Here, however, we are not dealing with facts, merely popular terms.

In any case, I am heartened that we agree on some of the most basic aspects of the discussion – the reality of deep time, the reliability of dating methods and the geologic column, the ability to understand trace fossils and other fossil remains, and the testimony of all of these to a series of life forms that were related to each other (common descent).

Just as a pendant to the frequent complaints about evolutionary theory not being static. Meaning continued research and updating of a theory doesn’t equate to doubts about, falsification or rejection of the basic fact, be it gravity – or evolution.