Cambrian explosion contradicts evolutionary "tree" pattern (Talk.Origins)

Claim CC301:


 * In the Cambrian explosion, all major animal groups appear together in the fossil record fully formed instead of branching from a common ancestor, thus contradicting the evolutionary tree of life.

'''Source:..
 * Wells, Jonathan, 2000. Icons of Evolution: Science or Myth?, Washington DC: Regnery, pp. 40-45

CreationWiki Response:


 * 1) All the major animal groups to which Wells is referring are at the phyla level.
 * 2) As worded by Talk.Origins, this claim is wrong.  No place does Wells claim that all animal phyla first appear in the Cambrian explosion.  He fully recognizes that a few appear before and a few after but most are first found in the Cambrian explosion, with no hint of a branching affect.

Talk.Origins hast turned this claim into a Straw Man. No place does Wells claim that animal groups appear together in the fossil record. Not only does he recognize that some animal phyla appear below and above Cambrian rock, he also never claimed that they appear together, so Talk.Origins is not arguing against anything Wells actually said.


 * 1) Talk.Origins' reference to many millions of years assumes the accuracy of uniformitarian dating methods.  This shows how incapable they are of breaking from their evolutionary mindset to discuss these topics even remotely objectively.  A more objective way of stating it would be to say that these animal phyla appear over several layers of rock.
 * 2) The fact that the fossils found in Cambrian rock differ from living animals of the same phyla only shows the living forms were not buried in Cambrian rock; the reason is just theory.
 * 3) Once again Talk.Origins is missing the real point, which is that there is no fossil evidence connecting multicellular life with single-celled life, nor is there any fossil evidence showing the development of animal phyla.


 * 1) This just an excuse, trying to explain away why evolution theory does not fit reality.  It does not change the fact that there is no fossil evidences connecting multicellular life with single-celled life, nor is there any fossil evidence showing the development of animal phyla.
 * 2) There are plenty of examples of soft parts being fossilized, so the excuse of a "lack of readily fossilizable parts" does not explain the total lack of evidence.
 * 3) Even if Precambrian rock were as old as evolutionists claim, there is still a lot of it, such that statistically some of these fossils should have survived.  However, compared to the odds against some of the statistically impossible events needed by evolutionists, having all the rock containing the fossils they need to connect complex multicellular life to single-celled life just happens to have eroded away does not seem so unlikely.

This is not true in any objective sense.
 * As is typical, Talk.Origins is assuming the accuracy of uniformitarian dating methods in saying that "bacteria appear well before multicellular organisms." If the Earth were created just a few thousand years ago then that statement is untrue.  They also assume that the fossil bacteria are as old as the rocks they are found in.  It is well known that bacteria have found their way to every place on Earth that is possible for them to live, including deep rocks.  Bacteria dying in a rock long after it was formed could under the right conditions become fossilized in the that rock, so it is no surprise to find bacteria fossils in rock well below multicellular organisms.  Furthermore, there is still no evidence connecting bacteria to multicellular organisms.
 * None of the fossils that Talk.Origins alleges leads to halkierids and arthropods are Precambrian, so they are being less than truthful. Furthermore, claims that the fossil in question are transitionals leading to halkierids and arthropods is extremely weak.


 * 1) This assumes a common ancestor.
 * 2) Mutation rates are not based on direct measurements but on evolutionary assumptions.  In such a cases it would be quite easy to base the mutation rate on criteria that would produce such a result.  For example, if one bases the mutation rate on two organisms thought to have had their last common ancestor in the Cambrian, organisms with significantly greater differences would be shown to have diverged Precambrian.