Fossil find confirms Kauffman and Progogine self organization.

[Christopher]

Fossil find confirms Kauffman and Progogine self organization.

 

 

I believe I have discovered a self organizing principle in the form of a fossil artifact. After I had extrapolated the dynamic occurring in and around this unique artifact, I then found this represented a missing piece of information needed to explain the sudden appearance of complex morphology during the Cambrian explosion.

This artifact was showing a process that seemed to act as a “tie switch” for the sum total of living elements and dynamics of the environment.

This electrical engineering term “tie switch” was the only word at had at time.

This type science was fairly new to me, and at the time had no language to describe it, although This connector of things seemed strangely familiar and somehow fit as part of nature.

As my research progressed I found that this was something that was indeed predicted by many scientist. One being Stuart Kauffmans Auto catalytic sets , The origin Ilva Prigogine

Auto-poesies and dissipative structures.

Along with Rene Thom’s Catastrophe theory just to name a few, and I also found the proper name for this dynamic as an “ attractor ” This not only tied these soon to be great scientist work together but enabled me to see further into these self-organizing principles than the present text was offering.

 

 

 

I believe my work on these two models, one dealing with the initial self-organization principles of the “ Vesica Attractor ” and then the subsequent evolutionary model of “Archetypal Descent,” has the potential to tie together many separate models and concepts into a functional cohesive whole.

 

After all, this is precisely the function of this type of information.

 

Christopher

------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

------------------------------- http://home.earthlink.net/~maxmcdowell/jap94web.html[/url]

 

A stream

 

"Imagine a mountain stream. It is a dynamic system because it only exists while energy flows through it, in this case the water’s kinetic energy. Sometimes the stream forms a whirlpool and sometimes it takes the serpentine form (the latter is seen most clearly in an aerial photograph of a river delta). Each of these forms represents a pre-existing mathematical principle or possibility, characteristic of rivers and streams everywhere. A whirlpool is not caused by the bed of the stream because it may also form in the ocean or in the atmosphere. Even the stars of a galaxy sometimes form a whirlpool (Hildebrandt & Tromba 1996, pp. 12-13, 246). A stream organizes itself but the ways it can do so are constrained: only certain pre-determined forms are possible.

The whirlpool is robust or homoeostatic. It is called a stable attractor (Kauffman 1995, p. 187) because it is a stable form into which a dynamic system is attracted. Imagine a whirlpool around the drain in your tub. Interrupt the whirlpool by putting your hand in it and the water continues to drain, but not as a whirlpool. Remove your hand and the whirlpool reforms. Besides the whirlpool and the serpentine form, there are many other forms that a stream could assume but most of them are unstable. Whatever form the stream is placed into, it slides spontaneously into one of its few stable attractors and remains there."

Maxson J. McDowell

quote

 

http://focus.hms.harvard.edu/2005/Apr8_2005/complexity.shtml

 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

April 8 2005

 

Precursor Cells Follow Different Paths to Same

Cell Fate

 

 

Complex Behavior

"With so many genes turning on and off inside the developing cell, the potential for instability is great. In the 1960s, the theoretical biologist Stuart Kaufmann proposed that if a cell were to hit upon an arrangement in which every element affected what the others were doing, much in the manner of a feedback system, that cell would better resist perturbation. In fact, evolution appears to have selected for just such a system—genes and proteins often inhibit or activate one another. The collective behavior of this network creates a system that is so stable and self-correcting that it exerts an almost gravitational pull—the developing cell is compelled toward its fate, for instance, to become a liver cell. Kaufmann called these stable networks “attractors,” a term he borrowed from physics. But evidence for the existence of attractors was lacking .

 

In one respect, it is easy to see why. In Kaufmann’s view, a cell hits upon a stable genetic configuration and develops into a particular cell type. But demonstrating that the entire network functions as an attractor, pulling the cell down a particular developmental path, is problematic. One could argue, as molecular biologists have, that the network is simply the consequence of individual signaling pathways instructing the cell to develop in a particular direction. There is another approach. According to Kaufmann, attractors are very robust—they cast a wide net. Two developing cells might initially exhibit wildly differing constellations of gene activity and yet they could eventually be caught up by the same stable configuration, or attractor, and become the same kind of cell. That is what Huang and his colleagues have shown."

 

 

“Our view is that a cell’s differentiation state is there as a pre-existing program, an attractor, and all you need is to tip over into it,” said Sui Huang. “You do not need very specific instructional inputs.” —Misia Landau

quote

-----------------------------------------------------------------

 

Quote;

SYSTEMS THEORY:

 

Systems theory or systems science argues that however complex or diverse the world that we experience, we will always find different types of organization in it, and such organization can be described by principles which are independent from the specific domain at which we are looking. Hence, if we would uncover those general laws, we would be able to analyze and solve problems in any domain, pertaining to any type of system. (Principia Cybernetica)

--------------------------------------------------

 

Systems science is a way for us to understand life as a system of cooperative networks. This is an extremely important field of study, and is being applied currently to many problems.

 

 

 

 

 

What my discovery shows is how nature forms these cooperative relationships on the cellular level.

 

 

As I was discovering this process, I realized this spontaneous jump to a higher ordered state has been happening though all the stages of order from the big bang on. One system emerging from within another.

Christopher

--------------------------------------------------

 

This is a quote from Catastrophe Theory,

 

Semantic Models

In section 13.8 of Structural Stability and Morphogenesis, René Thom proposes the following definitions and their implications.

Every object, or physical form, can be represented as an attractor of a dynamical system on a space of internal variables.

Such an object is stable, and so can be recognized, only when the corresponding attractor is structurally stable.

All creation or destruction of forms, or morphogenesis, can be described by the disappearance of the attractors representing the initial forms, and their replacement (by capture) by the attractors representing the final forms. This process, called catastrophe, can be described on a space of external variables.

Every structurally stable morphological process is described by a structurally stable catastrophe, or a system of structurally stable catastrophes, on the space of external variables.

Every natural process decomposes into structurally stable islands, the chreods. The set of chreods and the multidimensional syntax controlling their positions constitute the semantic model.

 

When the chreod is considered as a word of this multidimensional language, the meaning (signification) of this word is precisely that of the global topology of the associated attractor (or attractors) and of the catastrophes that it (or they) undergo. In particular, the signification of a given attractor is defined by the geometry of its domain of existence on the space of external variables and the topology of the regulation catastrophes bounding that domain.

One result of this is that the signification of a form (chreod) manifests itself only by the catastrophes that create or destroy it. This gives the axiom dear to the formal linguists: that the meaning of a word is nothing more than the use of the word; this is also the axiom of the "bootstrap" physicists, according to whom a particle is completely defined by the set of interactions in which it participates.” quote

--------------------------------------------------

 

Simply put, he is stating that nature creates these points of order [chreods] in the same fundamental way we create langage to compress information at large!

It such a ubiquitous process we use in language, math and communication technology we forget nature invented this process first by creating cells .

 

I see this process as a collapse of information into a point, as the system at large reaches a threshold of complexity.

This point is then kept stable by its surrounding parent matrix.

 

 

Once these systems become self-replicating as in biological systems it can continue drawing additional information from these outer matrices.

This is the purpose of why living systems behave in this way. This instability enables the system to collect information in mathematical process {Algorithmic iteration} therefore the system builds more and more internal complexity , patterned after its surrounding matrices, or Environment.

 

Christopher

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.thymos.com/tat/emergenc.html

[Tormod]

Can you please clean up your post - this appears to be cut-and-pasted from somewhere else an I am not sure what are your actual statements and what are quotes from others.

[damocles]

?

 

First of all, what is the fossil? Is what is referred latent cellular characteristics left over from the original biological cellular formation and organizational principles *** 3 billion years BCE? Or did I misunderstand this completely?

 

Second of all, could you please explain(simplify for a schmuck[me]) the connectivity of what I read as a confused presentation of chaos theory applied to biological stochasticism at the cellular level?

[Christopher]

The first 90% of the history of life on earth is written by single celled organisms, suddenly 530 million years ago multi-celled life appeared.

 

What I am stating is that complex life forms emerged though an attractor, a dynamical mathematical process that bonded these cells into complex animals.

 

This process can now be described though past theoretical models dealing with chaos theory and further understood as an actual mechanism.

 

The reason this is important is because attractors and self-organizational models based on chaos have up until now been only metaphysical.

This fossil represents a mechanistic model of a process in mid-construction, and moreover expands our understanding beyond the current text on attractors and chaos.

 

In other words it shows the “nuts and bolts” of the process.

And has enabled me to produce new metaphysical models that are filling in the gaps in neo-Darwinian models. { Archetypal Descent }

 

http://www.iscid.org/boards/ubb-get_topic-f-26-t-000007.html

 

---------------------------------------

--------------------------------------

[pgrmdave]

Christopher, what of the first post is actually your words? It seems like you posted something extremely similar here and here. If you could, please go through and surround the parts of the post which are not your own words with [*quote] and [*/quote] tags (without the stars).

[Christopher]

These fratually embedded systems forge new systems internally by compressing information in a certain way.

 

This way is what can be observed in this artifact. At the time I was unaware of any need for additional theories concerning evolution. I had a good grasp of the Darwinian models and saw it as a cohesive whole.

This fossil changed all that, now I see that nature builds complexity over time in one layer and then collapses these systems at large into a point. These points representing a fractal of the larger one it is embedded in.

 

 

This "vesica attractor" shows that biological systems arose in the same fundamental way as the elemental and cosmological phases prior to the emergence of life.

 

This has been theorized in attractor models, and is currently being applied to the interacting genetic components in biological systems, reflecting changes in morphology over time, and has been theorized that these components could have been originally unified in a self-organizing process, but………. this is the first time an actual physical artifact represents how these process originated.

 

In other words, this could represent a Rosetta stone of life.

 

 

This structure starts out simply enough as a mass of oolite spheres bound by cyanobacterial filaments and eukaryote cells, into a torus or bagel shaped mass.

 

This mass is rolled together by wave dynamics and comes to rest.

 

 

Now here is were it gets complicated, especially if your not familiar with chaos. The following is how this chaotic mass creates a higher ordered state. remember the spheres dissipate during this process leaving behind a geometrically connected structure of cells.

 

 

This can simply be understood as a process in which nature compresses information at large into a point.

 

Molecular and morphological mechanisms achieve a sudden self ordering in this dissipative structure, wherein environmental information is suddenly bound to a hierarchal internal system. From overall symmetry, to genetic level potentials.

 

This system forms as non-linear assemblage point from a fluid dissipative tours structure, though a geometric crystallization stage, to genomic algorithmic self-assembly stage. This process is powered by two connecting levels of flow, one of wave dynamics redirected into the structure by its shape, and one of chemical flow on the molecular level, [by the dissolving oolites in the microbial substrate.] These two flow patterns connect, and in doing so self-organize the physical components around this flow.[ see dissipative structure] [live rock, aragonite strontium]

[Christopher]

This fossil form contains a matrix of environmental components consisting of oolites, cyanobactia and what appears to be a colonization of eukaryotes geometrically dispersed throughout the structure.{ this eukaryote micro-fossils structure needs to confirmed with a laboratory analysis} the cyanobacterail structure is confirmed. This structure has also recorded the dynamical aspect of its environment. the oolites can only form in certain tidal conditions of shallow sea with long wave pulses the overall form{of oolites an cyanobateria filaments} also are consistent with this pattern of flow. It is the size and shape of a large ostrich egg with a flat underside. Probably larger originally} the pattering of construction is spiraled with two right and left apertures shaped in such a way as to redirect the flow of sea water into the structure. And then though the layers.

 

Now I can continue in this description step by step until it creates a cohesive eukaryote system in the form any complex heart based creature but, I am going to skip over to one particular step. It has to do with the oolite. These spheres are the main component of this self construction process they act as a fluid scaffolding allowing channels to form like a dynamic cellular automata. As they dissolve in the microbial substrate ,they will construct in these points in space flexible geodesic scaffolding {see extra cellular matrix} on the microscopic level this is what I am referring to as a {descending order of iteration matrices that self organize the cellular structure} and produce an outer shell in the prosses.{Shelled animals produce shells from this oolitic mineral aragonite} Not all will form shells though, but I can reduce all these shell structures to their origins to this Vesica attractor, and also fish, cephalopods and any of the structures that can be reduced to a torus a doughnut shape. This is a connect the dots process and this is just the tip of the iceberg, remember what these attractors do. They organize information. Also keep in mind these original points of organizations remain as a fixed feature for the phyla.

 

 

http://www.arn.org/ubb/ultimatebb.php/ubb/get_topic/f/13/t/002417/p/3.html

[damocles]

http://www.iscid.org/boards/ubb-get_topic-f-26-t-000007.html

 

Is that you?

 

A few questions;

 

How do you explain this in your presentation? Saying that environmental pressures will reinforce structural organizational principles that favor bilateral tubular symmetry and multicellular specialization in biological systems and then invoking the vesica tractor as a primary mechanism?

 

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/punc-eq.html

 

Furthermore what is profoundly new in what you've discovered? That oolites are left behind as evidence of animal planoform formation?

 

http://www.esp.org/books/chambers/vestiges/facsimile/contents/chambers-vestiges-chap-08-i.pdf

 

Your timescales are off, and what about plants?

[Christopher]

http://www.iscid.org/boards/ubb-get_topic-f-26-t-000007.html

 

Is that you?

 

A few questions;

 

How do you explain this in your presentation? Saying that environmental pressures will reinforce structural organizational principles that favor bilateral tubular symmetry and multicellular specialization in biological systems and then invoking the vesica tractor as a primary mechanism?

 

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/punc-eq.html

 

Furthermore what is profoundly new in what you've discovered? That oolites are left behind as evidence of animal planoform formation?

 

http://www.esp.org/books/chambers/vestiges/facsimile/contents/chambers-vestiges-chap-08-i.pdf

 

Your timescales are off, and what about plants?

 

 

 

 

The Second Ring of Life; The Vesica Attractor

by Christopher Humphrey

 

Abstract

 

The fossil record shows a disparity in the formation of complex body plans.

The individual eukaryote cannot build these structures. They do not carry within themselves a blue print for an overall structure. Science today is attempting to answer these questions via genomic constraints.

 

Recently discovered fossil evidence has led this author to develop a new evolutionary model that suggest the following;The missing information in the original body design was provided by a wave function acting on a mass of oolitic spheres bound by a microbial substrate.

This substrate crystallized into an archetypal pattern, the first complex animal life. [source of a body plan pattern] that then spawn an entire phyla.

This central archetype then becomes a sustained, central information bank for the phyla.

Releasing new genetic information in pulses over time.

This model not only accounts for the original forms, but also genetic control patterns of punctuated equilibrium. This is what the new evidence is showing in the context of the fossil record.

 

 

 

The Mystery of the Cambrian

 

 

Just prior to the Cambrian explosion, the sea contained a few multi-celled organisms, worms, sponges, and an assortment of single celled protozoan, but mostly filaments of blue green algae called cyanobacteria. Suddenly, 530 million years ago, something triggered an explosion of complex life. These original basic forms are the first and largest classification of animals called the phyla. Phyla include fish, snails, trilobites, crustaceans, ect. Two things that they have in common is they are very complex and they appeared at approximately the same time in the fossil record, seemingly without a history of development. This fact has puzzled evolutionary biologists since Darwin. This great scientist was aware of the problem, but assumed further fossil discoveries would fill in the gaps. However, to this day no precursors to these creatures can be found, infact, recently discovered fossil beds in China have pushed back the emergence of highly evolved fish to the first spark of the explosion.

Current genome research has suggested the phyla arose separately, simultaneously and abruptly, from a common "primordial pond" of genetics. (Senapathy) (Independent Birth of Organisms, Genome Press, 1994).

It has been postulated by (Behe) (Darwin’s black box) that the biological systems of these creatures could not have evolved from simpler origins. They would had to have been pre-designed and constructed all at once like a watch. He calls this " Intelligent Design" and has gained some support even though it smacks of creationism, which has its roots in a theological view. In hindsight, irreducibility is on the right track as far as a logistical approach, but still falls short on locating a blueprint.

 

Ironically, the reaction to all this, by some of the neo-Darwinist, has been to take a dogmatic position, defending the text that states the phyla arose in a step-by-step process, and that the fossil record completely supports it, which isn't really true, but who can blame them for defending that position as no new model can explain the gap, and it is currently the consensus view.

At the calm periphery of controversy we have the newest theoretical approach. These physics, biologists, and mathematicians deal in a systematic view of the world as patterns of relationships, rather than the traditional approach of reductionism. This type of ''systems view'' sees the world as patterns that contain information which can be utilized to see more patterns in a framework of connections that can be used as models. This type of science to me, represents an advanced perspective. A paradigm based not in the old hunter gatherer mentality, but on the predilection to see the universe as a network of cooperative functions, rather than unrelated parts to be collected and dispatched into categories.

 

One of these advanced perspective, "autopoeises" developed by (Mantarana; Varela,) States that an organism can be defined as a cycle of relationships unified into a circle of self creation, that contains component parts, which make parts, that in turn make those parts, in a recursive cycle of self-making. This unified system can simply be visualized as a ring.

In the pre-Cambrian Sea, these "rings", cells floated about dividing, some formed symbiotic bonds with other cells, and eventually merged into cells of more complexity. These cells we call eukaryote. They are the cells that make up the complex animals that are about to suddenly and mysteriously appear in the Cambrian.

So now we can ask, how did these eukaryote form into these complex circular systems so suddenly? What was the unifying force that brought the separate rings together into one? "One ring to rule them all."

The answer came to me in the form of a Rosetta stone of the Cambrian era. This artifact told the story of how many came together as one, and in so doing, created a new world. This stone is in the form of a ring itself, and written on this one ring is the most ancient of languages, geometry. This sacred music of the universe tells a story of self-making, whispered in the sea by many, and brought together into one rhythmic pulse.

 

The Sea of Self-Making

 

Another theory from the top systems biologist of our time (Kauffman)( Origins of order) states that once a system reaches a threshold of complexity it can, under the right conditions, spontaneously form into a higher organizational state. He calls this "Order for free." The following process will attempt to show how life forms can emerge all at once, into rings of higher order, from a point of spontaneous organization.

This point being an attractor that starts by recapitulating pre-existing organizational phases of its environment, These "vesica attractors" begin as a points of instability between the microcosm and the macrocosm. This instability manifesting initially into concentrically formed mineral spheres called oolites. These spheres are connected by filaments of cyanobacteria that form a fabric. This fabric is then rolled together into a concentric wheel or bagel configuration that contains an enfolded pattern that represents the ebb and flow of waves and tides. This embryonic form emerging as a self-constructed, self-contained micro-environment in a stunningly short period of time.

The phases of development for the original body plans start with the simple attractor moving in smooth transitional phases from the point attractor, forming mineral spheres. The cycle attractor, cyanobacterial filaments that bind and order the spheres into a contained recursive structure. The torus attractor that opens a central aperture and connects the internal environment with external dynamics (cyclical flow of waves and tides) and then finally the self reflexive, "vesica attractor" that becomes fertilized by a eukaryote cell that enters though the central "vesica aperture" in this phase the complex cells adopt the energetic pattern built by the oolites and cyanobacterial filaments. This scenario also representing a recurring theme of evolution. The mineral kingdom preparing the environment for the simple photosynthetic cell, that intern prepares the environment for the more complex animal cell. If these phases are completed successfully, a unification results between the microcosm and the macrocosm. This dynamic link represented by the emergence of an animal of complex form.

 

"The vesica is the interlocking of two realms--an overlapping where two worlds merge and exchange force fields."(Gail Thomas, Ph.D)

 

These attractors seem to form as connecting points between two converging evolutionary arcs that overlap and spiral together to complete a circuit. These points constructing a contained biological system patterned after forces below and above, and can account for almost all the body plans that emerged during the Cambrian. Morphological disparity can be simply be traced to variances in perturbations in the separately emerging attractors.

The levels of organizations in non-biological realms that precede the emergence of life, begin as points that spiral inward. These basins form into attractors that bring order out of chaos, although the order may have existed as pre-existing probabilities, that curled up into basins where energetic thresholds are reached, or more precisely focuses pre-existing order at large into a nexus point. These nexus points form everything from black holes, stars, galaxies, to planets that make up the macro-universe. This spin is also the underlying dynamic that sustains the micro-universe of elemental particles.

What I see as a fundamental difference in the vesica attractor is in its spiraling form, it is not like any other attractor that proceeded it, in that its construction is not simply a spiral that spins in the same direction, but is formed by turning back on itself in a cycle of recursion. This recursive cycle having been patterned after the ebb and flow of tide and wave pulses. This cycle recorded in concentric layers of enfolded oolitic spheres connected by filaments of cyanobacteria.

 

 

 

 

Once the form reaches a critical mass it becomes stationary and is reformed into an egg shaped vessel. The wave pulse then becomes internalized bringing the inner clockwork pattern into a dynamic synchronicity with the macro-environment at large. These layers form a symmetrical pattern of embedded concentric channels that unite at a central basin. Seawater is directed into right and left apertures that have opened into logarithmic spirals. This energetic form being shaped by the balance between internal structure and external flow. This recursive logarithmic structure appears to be the key in the self-reflexive nature of a biological system.

 

 

 

Another key in the self-making ability of the embryonic material that forms the vesica attractor is in it's ability to shape-shift around the tendency of a fluid to seek an ordered path though and around a medium. This medium having a fine balance of cohesion and plasticity.

The next key is in the mineral content of the spheres. Aragonite, this form of calcium carbonate has properties that promote microbial growth and acts as a mineral substrate for initiating an autopoetic biochemical cycle. This mineral has been discovered to be a fundamental element in maintaining an autopoetic system in coral reefs and closed artificial systems such as salt water aquariums.

Another important roll of the oolites is in their ability to act as a dynamic scaffolding. As the aragonite spheres dissolve though chemical and mechanical forces, a synergy unfolds throughout the emerging structure, As the oolites shrink they become point attractors among the eukaryote cells, that have now adopted the fluid energetic pattern left by the cyanobacteria filaments. As the oolites lose mass they induce the production of new filaments that emerge from the outer cellular membranes of the eukaryotes. Anchoring proteins extend through the plasma membrane to link to the emerging cytoskeleton structure. Simply put, as the temporary oolitic scaffolding deconstructs, it constructs it's permanent replacement. These Anchoring-type junctions not only hold cells together but provide tissues with structural cohesion. These junctions are produced more abundantly in tissues that are subject to higher mechanical stress such as the outer skin and heart. Connective tissues begin forming flexible geodesic scaffolding by drawing in and connecting to points in space where the oolites have now vacated. These connecting points form the extracellular matrix, meanwhile the vesica apertures acts as a cycle attractor spiraling inward keeping a central tension as the embryo loses mass and takes shape, simultaneously providing a flow of renewing sea water though the recursive system as it pulses in time with wave cycles. The central apertures begins to coil in slack in the form of a layered network of connected cells. This dense mass of wound together cells will form heart tissue. This tension that connects eukaryote cells in a medium of cohesion is called (tensegrity). Tensegrity results in a crystallization of connections in the architecture of the emerging organism, enabling the individual cell though it's own intracellular matrix to respond to a potential fitness space. This crystallization of the recursive dynamic structure might well result in an "algorithmic self-assembly" of genetic probabilities.

Developing layers of the body plan are connected from heart, shell, exo-skeleton or notochord, down to the strands of DNA in the cells nucleus by this network of filaments, thus tuning the cells information bank to circuits of communication though the internal structure, then out to the universe at large. A current of information begins to flow between the micro-cellular universe below to a cognitive landscape of the macro-universe above. "Cogito ergo sum"

[Christopher]

Your timescales are off, and what about plants?

 

 

 

"I will postulate that complex algae formed as a result of an unfertilized vesica attractor."

 

 

All the complex phyla arrived about the same time in the cambrian.

[emessay]

Christopher, what's kind function of 'tie-switch' which you compare with tie-switch electrical circuit breaker[mainly functioning for maintenance purposes of stand-by power source like genset or power transformer] ? Maybe it's better using term of 'synchronizing-switch'.

 

By the way , Cambrian explosion is very interesting history we've to follow it. Remember from 1 zygote growing to be 30 trillion well-organized cells in 17 years, it's somekind explosion also.

[damocles]

the sea contained a few multi-celled organisms, worms, sponges, and an assortment of single celled protozoan, but mostly filaments of blue green algae called cyanobacteria

 

By Christopher

 

 

1. Your source of planform morphological radiation is already present and preset in these forms.

 

2. The abrupt appearance of hard part animal and plant fossilization is not evidence of some sudden appearance of complex forms. It is evidence of hard part animal and plant fossilization.

 

This type of science to me, represents an advanced perspective. A paradigm based not in the old hunter gatherer mentality, but on the predilection to see the universe as a network of cooperative functions, rather than unrelated parts to be collected and dispatched into categories.

 

Nonsense. That is touchy feely philosophy not based on physical observation and experimental verification that shows the universal paradigm is based on the laws of thermodynamics and has organizational principles based on competitive energy states and distributed states of corresponding mass.

 

"recursive cycle of self-making"

 

Are you confusing self-reinforcing adaptation with circular logic loops?

 

"The vesica is the interlocking of two realms--an overlapping where two worlds merge and exchange force fields."(Gail Thomas, Ph.D)

 

Now that is nonsense. Binding forces can combine if sufficiently hot and volumetrically dense or separate if sufficiently cold and volumetrically diffuse, but their field effects cannot "exchange". Are you confusing a merge or overlap of two biological adaptation solution sets-say on the organinism macro-morph and cellular specialization levels?

 

These basins form into attractors that bring order out of chaos, although the order may have existed as pre-existing probabilities, that curled up into basins where energetic thresholds are reached, or more precisely focuses pre-existing order at large into a nexus point. These nexus points form everything from black holes, stars, galaxies, to planets that make up the macro-universe. This spin is also the underlying dynamic that sustains the micro-universe of elemental particles.

 

Don't confuse the "spatial shape" of elemental particle/wave physics with the "shape" imposed on chemical compounds by elemental electrical bonding. Its not the same. This is especially true for proteins that to a large extent drive the "shape" of animal organisms far more than any so called macro-wave flow.

 

http://fig.cox.miami.edu/~cmallery/150/protein/proteinsb.htm

 

I find your hypothesis for the formation of sessile shelled animals to be remarkably obtuse and difficult to follow, model-limited to that specific life planform and as I said somewhat out of step with the actual fossil timeline.

 

There is nothing new in your evidence presentation or hypothesis that Thomas Huxley hadn't argued. You, also, misread the Pre-Cambrian morphological radiation event like so many......

 

To wit, I refer;

 

http://www.ncseweb.org/icons/icon2tol.html

 

The Cambrian Explosion

Wells claims that the Cambrian Explosion "presents a serious challenge to Darwinian evolution" (Wells 2000:41) and the validity of phylogenetic trees. The gist of Wells's argument is that the Cambrian Explosion happened too fast to allow large-scale morphological evolution to occur by natural selection ("Darwinism"), and that the Cambrian Explosion shows "top-down" origination of taxa ("major" "phyla" level differences appear early in the fossil record rather than develop gradually), which he claims is the opposite of what evolution predicts. He asserts that phylogenetic trees predict a different pattern for evolution than what we see in the Cambrian Explosion. These arguments are spurious and show his lack of understanding of basic aspects of both paleontology and evolution.

 

Wells mistakenly presents the Cambrian Explosion as if it were a single event. The Cambrian Explosion is, rather, the preservation of a series of faunas that occur over a 15-20 million year period starting around 535 million years ago (MA). A fauna is a group of organisms that live together and interact as an ecosystem; in paleontology, "fauna" refers to a group of organisms that are fossilized together because they lived together. The first fauna that shows extensive body plan diversity is the Sirius Passet fauna of Greenland, which is dated at around 535 MA (Conway Morris, 2000). The organisms preserved become more diverse by around 530 MA, as the Chenjiang fauna of China illustrates (Conway Morris, 2000). Wells erroneously claims that the Chenjiang fauna predates the Sirius Passet (Wells 2000:39). The diversification continues through the Burgess shale fauna of Canada at around 520 MA, when the Cambrian faunas are at their peak (Conway Morris, 2000). Wells makes an even more important paleontological error when he does not explain that the "explosion" of the middle Cambrian is preceded by the less diverse "small shelly" metazoan faunas, which appear at the beginning of the Cambrian (545 MA). These faunas are dated to the early Cambrian, not the Precambrian as stated by Wells (Wells 2000:38). This enables Wells to omit the steady rise in fossil diversity between the beginning of the Cambrian and the Cambrian Explosion (Knoll and Carroll, 1999).

 

In his attempt to make the Cambrian Explosion seem instantaneous, Wells also grossly mischaracterizes the Precambrian fossil record. In order to argue that there was not enough time for the necessary evolution to occur, Wells implies that there are no fossils in the Precambrian record that suggest the coming diversity or provide evidence of more primitive multicellular animals than those seen in the Cambrian Explosion (Wells 2000:42-45). He does this not by producing original research, but by selectively quoting paleontological literature on the fossil record and claiming that this proves that the fossil record is complete enough to show that there were no precursors for the Cambrian Explosion animals. This claim is false. His evidence for this "well documented" Precambrian fossil record is a selective quote from the final sentence in an article by Benton et al. (2000). While the paper's final sentence does literally say that the "early" parts of the fossil record are adequate for studying the patterns of life, Wells leaves out a critical detail: the sentence refers not to the Precambrian, but to the Cambrian and later times. Even more ironic is the fact that the conclusion of the paper directly refutes Wells's claim that the fossil record does not support the "tree of life." Benton et al. (2000) assessed the completeness of the fossil record using both molecular and morphological analyses of phylogeny. They showed that the sequence of appearance of major taxa in the fossil record is consistent with the pattern of phylogenetic relationships of the same taxa. Thus they concluded that the fossil record is consistent with the tree of life, entirely opposite to how Wells uses their paper.

 

Wells further asserts that there is no evidence for metazoan life until "just before" the Cambrian explosion, thereby denying the necessary time for evolution to occur. Yet Wells is evasive about what counts as "just before" the Cambrian. Cnidarian and possible arthropod embryos are present 30 million years "just before" the Cambrian (Xiao, et al., 1998). There is also a mollusc, Kimberella, from the White Sea of Russia (Fedonkin and Waggoner, 1997) dated approximately 555 million years ago, or 10 million years "just before" the Cambrian (Martin et al., 2000). This primitive animal has an uncalcified "shell," a muscular foot (Fedonkin and Waggoner, 1997), and a radula inferred from "mat-scratching" feeding patterns surrounding fossilized individuals (personal observation; Seilacher, pers. comm.). These features enable us to recognize it as a primitive relative of molluscs, even though it lacks a calcified shell. There are also Precambrian sponges (Gehling and Rigby, 1996) as well as numerous trace fossils indicating burrowing by wormlike metazoans beneath the surface of the ocean's floor (Seilacher, 1994; Fedonkin, 1994). Trace fossils demonstrate the presence of at least one ancestral lineage of bilateral animals nearly 60 million years "just" before the Cambrian (Valentine, 2000). Sixty million years is approximately the same amount of time that has elapsed since the extinction of non-avian dinosaurs, providing plenty of time for evolution. In treating the Cambrian Explosion as a single event preceded by nothing, Wells misrepresents fact -- the Cambrian explosion is not a single event, nor is it instantaneous and lacking in any precursors.

 

Continuing to move the shells, Wells invokes a semantic sleight of hand in resurrecting a "top-down" explanation for the diversity of the Cambrian faunas, implying that phyla appear first in the fossil record, before lower categories. However, his argument is an artifact of taxonomic practice, not real morphology. In traditional taxonomy, the recognition of a species implies a phylum. This is due to the rules of the taxonomy, which state that if you find a new organism, you have to assign it to all the necessary taxonomic ranks. Thus when a new organism is found, either it has to be placed into an existing phylum or a new one has to be erected for it. Cambrian organisms are either assigned to existing "phyla" or new ones are erected for them, thereby creating the effect of a "top-down" emergence of taxa.

 

Another reason why the "higher" taxonomic groups appear at the Cambrian Explosion is because the Cambrian Explosion organisms are often the first to show features that allow us to relate them to living groups. The Cambrian Explosion, for example, is the first time we are able to distinguish a chordate from an arthropod. This does not mean that the chordate or arthropod lineages evolved then, only that they then became recognizable as such. For a simple example, consider the turtle. How do you know a turtle is a turtle? By the shell. How would you recognize the ancestors of the living turtle, before they evolved the shell? That is more complicated. Because its ancestors would have lacked the diagnostic feature of a shell, ancestral turtles may be hard to recognize (Lee, 1993). In order to locate the remote ancestors of turtles, other, more subtle, features must be found.

 

Similarly, before the Cambrian Explosion, there were lots of "worms," now preserved as trace fossils (i.e., there is evidence of burrowing in the sediments). However, we cannot distinguish the chordate "worms" from the mollusc "worms" from the arthropod "worms" from the worm "worms." Evolution predicts that the ancestor of all these groups was worm-like, but which worm evolved the notochord, and which the jointed appendages? In his argument, Wells confuses the identity of the individual with how we diagnose that identity, a failure of logic that dogs his discussion of homology in the following chapter. If the animal does not have the typical diagnostic features of a known phyla, then we would be unable to place it and (by the rules of taxonomy) we would probably have to erect a new phylum for it. When paleontologists talk about the "sudden" origin of major animal "body plans," what is "sudden" is not the appearance of animals with a particular body plan, but the appearance of animals that we can recognize as having a particular body plan. Overall, however, the fossil record fits the pattern of evolution: we see evidence for worm-like bodies first, followed by variations on the worm theme. Wells seems to ignore a growing body of literature showing that there are indeed organisms of intermediate morphology present in the Cambrian record and that the classic "phyla" distinctions are becoming blurred by fossil evidence (Budd, 1998, 1999; Budd and Jensen, 2000).

 

Finally, the "top-down" appearance of body-plans is, contrary to Wells, compatible with the predictions of evolution. The issue to be considered is the practical one that "large-scale" body-plan change would of course evolve before minor ones. (How can you vary the lengths of the beaks before you have a head?) The difference is that, many of the "major changes" in the Cambrian were initially minor ones. Through time they became highly significant and the basis for "body-plans." For example, the most primitive living chordate Amphioxus is very similar to the Cambrian fossil chordate Pikia. Both are basically worms with a stiff rod (the notochord) in them. The amount of change between a worm and a worm with a stiff rod is relatively small, but the presence of a notochord is a major "body-plan" distinction of a chordate. Further, it is just another small step from a worm with a stiff rod to a worm with a stiff rod and a head (e.g., Haikouella; Chen et al., 1999) or a worm with a segmented stiff rod (vertebrae), a head, and fin folds (e.g., Haikouichthyes; Shu et al., 1999). Finally add a fusiform body, fin differentiation, and scales: the result is something resembling a "fish" (Figure 3). But, as soon as the stiff rod evolved, the animal was suddenly no longer just a worm but a chordate -- representative of a whole new phylum! Thus these "major" changes are really minor in the beginning, which is the Precambrian-Cambrian period with which we are concerned.

 

In fact I suggest a complete read of this gentleman who writes clearly and concisely to the issue:

 

http://www.ncseweb.org/icons/index.htm#

 

Incidentally, oolites are calcite mineral deposits left by small organisms that to my knowledge are the evidenciary result of, and not the evidenciary prescursor(vessica tractor) to complex animal morphology. (That oyster had to make that pearl.)

[Eclogite]

I then found this represented a missing piece of information needed to explain the sudden appearance of complex morphology during the Cambrian explosion.

What about the recent announcement that complex organisms, without hard parts that would be readily fossilised, and microscopic in size, so that they are difficult to find, have now be found in late Pre-Cambrian strata? This discovery clearly demonstrates that complexity preceded the Cambrian explosion. The Cambrian explosion then becomes the appearance of readily preserved, macroscopic fossils, rather than the emergence of complexity. This then negates (and pre-dates) the need for your 'vessica attractor'. http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&colID=1&articleID=00034647-C88D-12DB-882283414B7F0000

[Christopher]

Christopher, what's kind function of 'tie-switch' which you compare with tie-switch electrical circuit breaker[mainly functioning for maintenance purposes of stand-by power source like genset or power transformer] ? Maybe it's better using term of 'synchronizing-switch'.

 

By the way , Cambrian explosion is very interesting history we've to follow it. Remember from 1 zygote growing to be 30 trillion well-organized cells in 17 years, it's somekind explosion also.

Let me approach this from architectural view point. When building a structure using regular geometry, small mistakes in the initial measurements will be amplified as the construction progresses, until a point is reached were the initial small instability surpasses and overwhelms the stability factors causing a catastrophic collapse, destroying the intended design.

 

Vesica Attractor

Now catastrophe theory combined with embedded phi-wave dynamics and a dissipative physical component is were this scenario happens in reverse.

The instant all the physical and dynamic elements arrive they cause a catastrophic constructive collapse toward a higher ordered state, in this particular scenario the attractor forms around water waves. Initial instabilities become creative as they are compresses by the horizontal “whirlwind” or phi-waves dynamics. This state of creative instability is referred to as “edge of chaos” Coined by Doyne Farmer this state exist between the chaotic regime and the order regime. These attractors self-construct, by generating a circular vortex drawing energy from its environment. Most of these forms are short lived as in actual vortexes of just wind and water.

 

 

A comparison can be made between the vesica attractor and a black hole they both form stable attractors one though gravity, the other though cognition. These two forces seem to be the only way to stabilizing a point in the quantum field.

 

This math is central to evolution, it is how biological systems self organize, and evolve.

You need to look no further than this math to understand how life evolves.

 

It is the geometry of creation.

-------------------------------------------------

This scenario is counter intuitive because it is diametrically opposed to how we believe the universe operates.

[Christopher]

Quote;

 

The Emergence of a Science of Emergence

 

Prigogine's non-equilibrium Thermodynamics, Haken's synergetics, Von Bertalanffi's general systems theory and Kauffman's complex adaptive systems all point to the same scenario : the origin of life from inorganic matter is due to emergent processes of self-organization. The same processes account for phenomena at different levels in the organization of the universe, and, in particular, for cognition. Cognition appears to be a general property of systems, not an exclusive of the human mind.

 

A science of emergence, as an alternative to traditional, reductionism, science, could possibly explain all systems (living and not).Quote

 

http://www.thymos.com/tat/emergenc.html

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The simple animals before the Cambrian such as a jellyfish and worms did not have the genetic diversity to form complex cellular networks and formed around differing dynamics. The jellyfish for instance relates to the environment in cycles that move up and down with the sun, and still posses a symbiosis with the photosynthetic cells. In the more advanced vesica attractor the simple photosynthetic cells and oolites allowed the now more genetically diverse eukaryote cells a way to bridge an organizational gap the eukaryotes could not do this alone.

They needed an energetic " stepping stone " until the structure was up and running.

They needed a circulatory system, that could be built and sustained all at once and crystallized into a cohesive whole.This is what this artifact is showing A frozen mid point in this self construction process

 

http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/~pbourke/fractals/lorenz

 

This vesica attractor represents an emerging eukaryote system that crystallizes though successive stages from higher to lower order iteration matrices, while being shaped by an internal and external fluid dynamics.

An attractor in the form of a mobile circular mass of cyanobacterail filaments and oolites capture and contain a circular flow of sea water after it comes to rest.

This internalized flow inside the micro-environment is then captured a second time, and further ordered by Eukaryote cells as they reproduce in this layered internal system. The eukaryote growth appears to radiate out from these flow channels, creating a recursive symmetrical circulatory system.

 

To visualize this layered pattern take a pencil, tape the end of a ribbon around the pencil now wrap the ribbon tightly three or four times in a clockwise direction. Now reverse the direction counterclockwise do this about 7-8 times. Now tape down the outside all the way around tightly. now wrap your thumb and forefinger around the ribbon in a circle. take the end of the pencil and turn in a ratcheting motion. You will get a rough idea of the internal dynamic of the vesica attractor. A central paisley turning in unison with the surrounding layers resembling a circulating toaist Mandela , contained in a torus or bagel structure.

 

I believe this recursive concentric system is the bases for most, if not all the complex body plans of the higher taxon that emerged during the Cambrian. This particular scenario reflects one of a fish, the most perfect of all the emerging vesica attractors. differing body plans would result from differing perturbations of separately emerging attractors. As the eukaryote system develops, the layered structure begins to differentiate as the oolitic matrix shrinks. A tension emerges throughout the system and starts to divide into three main domains. The still open heart cavity, the outer layers conforming around external dynamics. The domain of loosely bound middle layers that will form into some of the internal organs, but at the moment only contain a developing symmetrical circulatory system powered by external forces.

 

As the oolites shrink the domains begin to differentiate even further. This ever increasing tension crystallizes the form in an descending order of smaller domains of connectives, until the oolites have completely dissolved leaving in there place a vast patterned array of flexible geodesic scaffolding. called the extra-cellular matrix, at this phase the connectives is on a very fine cellular level, also at this stage the central heart tissue forms by coiling connected cells inward like a watch spring, separating from the outer right and left apertures that have now become subject to their own domain of connectives, a few layers of this heart tissue will be taken by the apertures as they differentiate from the central chamber. Two very critical steps take place at this stage. A connection is maintained though this tissue between the chamber and apertures while the heart chamber is enclosed as apertures shift and redirect and access an second outer layer. The sea water is redirected into this new layer opening a second cavity. This new chamber forms the, mouth, digestive system and anus and the apertures form the gill slits. A flow is maintain throughout this process but now blood cells begin to circulate though the enclosed internal circulatory system. The yet unformed mouth acts as an placental attachment to the oolitic bed which provides a nursery food of mineral spheres and algae. This substance begins to help form the developing digestive track.

 

The developing cellular matrix begins to respond to, and is further ordered by a finer flow of information now passing from the cellular microcosm to the macrocosm of the environment.

A cognitive system forms around this flow of light, sound and movement between these two worlds. This connecting flow of information is the key to an understanding the evolutionary roll of cognition in a biological system. Once this synergetic vortex is opened and set in motion it becomes a self-sustaining system. These original connecting points have been the central circulating force of information in evolution ever since. Christopher

[Christopher]

I find your hypothesis for the formation of sessile shelled animals to be remarkably obtuse and difficult to follow, model-limited to that specific life planform and as I said somewhat out of step with the actual fossil timeline.

 

 

 

Here are a few scientist that read the fossil record the same way I do

 

quote

 

Origin of the Cambrian animals

"Beyond the latest Precambrian there occurred what has appropriately been called an explosion of life forms, many of which seem to be extraordinary experiments in animal design. For a long time it was supposed that the idea of a sudden rise of complex forms of life in the Cambrian Period (on the Proterozoic-Phanerozoic border) was in fact a fallacy created by the nature of the fossil record, and that it simply represented the time when the first shelled creatures began to appear. Since shells are hard objects, they are much more capable of being preserved than soft-bodied creatures. However, from recent research it really does look as though the Earth presented these early organisms with a "clean sheet" upon which to develop all manner of designs." (Dr. David Norman, Prehistoric Life: The Rise of the Vertebrates, pub. Boxtree limited, 1994, p. 32) Dr. Norman is Director of the Sedgwick Museum and lectures on paleontology and evolution at the University of Cambridge.quote

 

 

 

---------------------------------------------------------------------

"It is still, as it was in Darwin's day, overwhelmingly true that the first representatives of all the major classes of organisms known to biology are already highly characteristic of their class when they make their initial appearance in the fossil record. This phenomenon is particularly obvious in the case of the invertebrate fossil record. At its first appearance in the ancient paleozoic seas, invertebrate life was already divided into practically all the major groups with which we are familiar today.

 

Denton, Michael (1986)

Evolution: A Theory in Crisis

Bethesda, Maryland, Adler & Adler, Pub., p.162

 

 

As the years passed after the Darwinian revolution, and as evolution became more and more consolidated into dogma, the gestalt of continuity imposed itself on every facet of biology. The discontinuities of nature could no longer be perceived. (p. 74)

 

Denton, Michael (1986)

Evolution: A Theory in Crisis

Bethesda, Maryland, Adler & Adler, Pub.

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

No wonder paleontologists shied away from evolution for so long. It never seemed to happen. Assiduous collecting up cliff faces yields zigzags, minor oscillations, and the very occasional slight accumulation of change--over millions of years, at a rate too slow to account for all the prodigious change that has occurred in evolutionary history. When we do see the introduction of evolutionary novelty, it usually shows up with a bang, and often with no firm evidence that the fossils did not evolve elsewhere! Evolution cannot forever be going on somewhere else. Yet that's how the fossil record has struck many a forlorn paleontologist looking to learn something about evolution.

 

Eldredge, N., 1995

Reinventing Darwin

Wiley, New York, p. 95

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Most families, orders, classes, and phyla appear rather suddenly in the fossil record, often without anatomically intermediate forms smoothly interlinking evolutionarily derived descendant taxa with their presumed ancestors.

 

Eldredge, N., 1989

Macro-Evolutionary Dynamics: Species, Niches, and Adaptive Peaks

McGraw-Hill Publishing Company, New York, p. 22

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We are faced more with a great leap of faith -- that gradual, progressive adaptive change underlies the general pattern of evolutionary change we see in the rocks -- than any hard evidence.

 

Eldredge, N. and Tattersall, I. (1982)

The Myths of Human Evolution

Columbia University Press, p. 57

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The record jumps, and all the evidence shows that the record is real: the gaps we see reflect real events in life's history -- not the artifact of a poor fossil record.

 

Eldredge, N. and Tattersall, I. (1982)

The Myths of Human Evolution

Columbia University Press, p. 59

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The fossil record flatly fails to substantiate this expectation of finely graded change.

 

Eldredge, N. and Tattersall, I. (1982)

The Myths of Human Evolution

Columbia University Press, p. 163

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The fossil record suggests that the major pulse of diversification of phyla occurs before that of classes, classes before that of orders, and orders before families. This is not to say that each higher taxon originated before species (each phylum, class, or order contained at least one species, genus, family, etc. upon appearance), but the higher taxa do not seem to have diverged through an accumulation of lower taxa.

 

Erwin, D., Valentine, J., and Sepkoski, J. (1988)

"A Comparative Study of Diversification Events"

Evolution, vol. 41, p. 1183

 

 

------

"Moreover, within the slowly evolving series, like the famous horse series, the decisive steps are abrupt and without transition."

 

Goldschmidt, Richard B. (1952)

"Evolution, As Viewed By One Geneticist"

American Scientist, Vol. 40, No. 1, pp. 84-94

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The history of most fossil species include two features particularly inconsistent with gradualism:

 

1) Stasis - most species exhibit no directional change during their tenure on earth. They appear in the fossil record looking much the same as when they disappear; morphological change is usually limited and directionless;

 

2) Sudden appearance - in any local area, a species does not arise gradually by the steady transformation of its ancestors; it appears all at once and 'fully formed'.

 

Gould, S.J. (1977)

"Evolution's Erratic Pace"

Natural History, vol. 86, May

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

Writing on Darwin's decision to portray evolution as a gradual and stately process, Gould states, "I do not know why Darwin chose to follow Lyell and the gradualists so strictly, but I am certain of one thing: preference for one view or the other had nothing to do with superior perception of empirical information. On this question, nature spoke (and continues to speak) ambiguously and multifariously. Cultural and methodological preferences had as much influence upon any decision as the actual data."

 

...

 

"... in defending gradualism as a nearly universal tempo, Darwin had to use Lyell's most characteristic method of argument -- he had to reject literal appearance and common sense for an underlying "reality." (Contrary to popular myths, Darwin and Lyell were not the heroes of true science, defending objectivity against the the theological fantasies of such "catastrophists" as Cuvier and Buckland. Catastrophists were as committed to science as any gradualist; in fact, they adopted the more "objective" view that one should believe what one sees and not interpolate missing bits of a gradual record into a literal tale of rapid change."

 

...

 

"The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils. Yet Darwin was so wedded to gradualism that he wagered his entire theory on a denial of this literal record:

 

The geological record is extremely imperfect and this fact will to a large extent explain why we do not find interminable varieties, connecting together all the extinct and existing forms of life by the finest graduated steps. He who rejects these views on the nature of the geological record, will rightly reject my whole theory.

 

Darwin's argument still persists as the favored escape of most paleontologists from the embarrassment of a record that seems to show so little of evolution. In exposing the its cultural and methodological roots, I wish in no way to impugn the potential validity of gradualism (for all general views have similar roots). I wish only to point out that it was never "seen" in the rocks.

 

Paleontologists have paid an exorbitant price for Darwin's argument. We fancy ourselves as the only true students of life's history, yet to preserve our favored account of evolution by natural selection we view our data as so bad that we never see the very process we profess to study."

 

...

 

Comment: Gould goes on to explain that Darwinian process do not require slow gradual change and that a model of punctuated equilibrium can explain the pattern of sudden appearance and stasis in the fossil record. "Eldredge and I believe that speciation is responsible for almost all evolutionary change." The problem is complicated, however, by the fact that species diversity is the one feature conspiculously absent upon the appearance of most phyla. See Valentine, J., and Erwin, D. (1985) "Interpreting Great Developmental Experiments: The Fossil Record", Development as an Evolutionary Process.

 

...

 

"The history of most fossil species include two features particularly inconsistent with gradualism:

 

1) Stasis - most species exhibit no directional change during their tenure on earth. They appear in the fossil record looking much the same as when they disappear; morphological change is usually limited and directionless;

 

2) Sudden appearance - in any local area, a species does not arise gradually by the steady transformation of its ancestors; it appears all at once and 'fully formed'."

 

Gould, S.J. (1977)

"Evolution's Erratic Pace"

Natural History, vol. 86, May

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Gould honestly admits that the neo-Darwinian synthesis is not supported by the fossil evidence and "is effectively dead, despite its persistence as textbook orthodoxy."

 

Gould, S. J. (1980)

"Is a new and general theory of evolution emerging?"

Paleobiology, 6(1), p. 120

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[T]he absence of fossil evidence for intermediate stages between major transitions in organic design, indeed our inability, even in our imagination, to construct functional intermediates in many cases, has been a persistent and nagging problem for gradualistic accounts of evolution.

 

Gould, S.J., 1982

"Is a new and general theory of evolution emerging?"

Evolution Now: A Century After Darwin

Maynard Smith, J. (editor)

W. H. Freeman and Co. in association with Nature, p. 140

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Indeed, it is the chief frustration of the fossil record that we do not have empirical evidence for sustained trends in the evolution of most complex morphological adaptations.

 

Gould, S. J. and Eldredge, N., 1988

"Species selection: its range and power"

Scientific correspondence in Nature, Vol. 334, p. 19

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"As is now well known, most fossil species appear instantaneously in the fossil record."

 

Kemp, Tom (1985)

"A Fresh Look at the Fossil Record"

New Scientist, Vol. 108, No. 1485, December 5, 1985), p. 66

(Dr. Tom Kemp is Curator of Zoological Collections at the Oxford University Museum.)

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Described recently as "the most important evolutionary event during the entire history of the Metazoa," the Cambrian explosion established virtually all the major animal body forms -- Bauplane or phyla -- that would exist thereafter, including many that were 'weeded out' and became extinct. Compared with the 30 or so extant phyla, some people estimate that the Cambrian explosion may have generated as many as 100. The evolutionary innovation of the Precambrian/Cambrian boundary had clearly been extremely broad: "unprecedented and unsurpassed," as James Valentine of the University of California, Santa Barbara, recently put it (Lewin, 1988).

Lewin then asked the all important question:

 

"Why, in subsequent periods of great evolutionary activity when countless species, genera, and families arose, have there been no new animal body plans produced, no new phyla?"

 

Lewin, R. (1988)

Science, vol. 241, 15 July, p. 291

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Paleontologists had long been aware of a seeming contradiction between Darwin's postulate of gradualism ... and the actual findings of paleontology. Following phyletic lines through time seemed to reveal only minimal gradual changes but no clear evidence for any change of a species into a different genus or for the gradual origin of an evolutionary novelty. Anything truly novel always seemed to appear quite abruptly in the fossil record.

 

Mayr, E., 1991

One Long Argument: Charles Darwin and the Genesis of Modern Evolutionary Thought

Harvard University Press, Cambridge, p. 138

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What one actually found was nothing but discontinuities. All species are separated from each other by bridgeless gaps; intermediates between species are not observed. ... The problem was even more serious at the level of the higher categories.

 

Mayr, E., 1982

The Growth of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution, and Inheritance

The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, p. 524

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[W]e have so many gaps in the evolutionary history of life, gaps in such key areas as the origin of the multicellular organisms, the origin of the vertebrates, not to mention the origins of most invertebrate groups.

 

McGowan, C., 1984

In the Beginning... A Scientist Shows Why the Creationists are Wrong

Prometheus Books, p. 95

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

With the benefit of hindsight, it is amazing that palaeontologists could have accepted gradual evolution as a universal pattern on the basis of a handful of supposedly well-documented lineages (e.g. Gryphaea, Micraster, Zaphrentis) none of which actually withstands close scrutiny.

 

Paul, C. R. C., 1989

"Patterns of Evolution and Extinction in Invertebrates"

Allen, K. C. and Briggs, D. E. G. (editors),

Evolution and the Fossil Record

Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D. C., 1989, p. 105

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[G]aps between higher taxonomic levels are general and large.

 

Raff, R. A. and Kaufman, T. C., 1991

Embryos, Genes, and Evolution: The Developmental-Genetic Basis of Evolutionary Change

Indiana University Press, p. 35

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"A large number of well-trained scientists outside of evolutionary biology and paleontology have unfortunately gotten the idea that the fossil record is far more Darwinian than it is. This probably comes from the oversimplification inevitable in secondary sources: low-level textbooks, semipopular articles, and so on. Also, there is probably some wishful thinking involved. In the years after Darwin, his advocates hoped to find predictable progressions. In general these have not been found yet the optimism has died hard, and some pure fantasy has crept into textbooks."

 

Science

July 17, 1981, p. 289

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The known fossil record is not, and has never has been, in accord with gradualism. What is remarkable is that, through a variety of historical circumstances, even the history of opposition has been obscured. ... 'The majority of paleontologists felt their evidence simply contradicted Darwin's stress on minute, slow, and cumulative changes leading to species transformation.' ... their story has been suppressed.

 

Stanley, S. M., 1981

The New Evolutionary Timetable: Fossils, Genes, and the Origin of Species

Basic Books, Inc., Publishers, N.Y., p. 71

 

If any event in life's history resembles man's creation myths, it is this sudden diversification of marine life when multicellular organisms took over as the dominant actors in ecology and evolution. Baffling (and embarrassing) to Darwin, this event still dazzles us and stands as a major biological revolution on a par with the invention of self-replication and the origin of the eukariotic cell. The animal phyla emerged out of the Precambrian mists with most of the attributes of their modern descendants."

 

Bengston, Stefan (1990)

Nature 345:765

 

Simpson, G. G. (1944)

Tempo and Mode in Evolution

Columbia University Press, New York, p. 105, 107

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"It remains true, as every paleontologist knows, that most new species, genera, and families, and that nearly all categories above the level of families, appear in the [fossil] record suddenly, and are not led up to by gradual, completely continuous transitional sequences"

 

Simpson, George Gaylord (1953)

The Major Features of Evolution

New York: Columbia University Press, p. 360

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[F]or more than a century biologists have portrayed the evolution of life as a gradual unfolding ... Today the fossil record ... is forcing us to revise this conventional view.

Stanley, S. M., 1981

The New Evolutionary Timetable: Fossils, Genes, and the Origin of Species

Basic Books, Inc., Publishers, N.Y., p.3

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[T]he fossil record itself provided no documentation of continuity -- of gradual transitions from one kind of animal or plant to another of quite different form.

 

Stanley, S. M., 1981

The New Evolutionary Timetable: Fossils, Genes, and the Origin of Species

Basic Books, Inc., Publishers, N.Y., p. 40

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Since the time of Darwin, paleontologists have found themselves confronted with evidence that conflicts with gradualism, yet the message of the fossil record has been ignored. This strange circumstance constitutes a remarkable chapter in the history of science, and one that gives students of the fossil record cause for concern.

 

Stanley, S. M., 1981

The New Evolutionary Timetable: Fossils, Genes, and the Origin of Species

Basic Books, Inc., Publishers, N.Y., p. 101

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The gaps in the fossil record are real, however. The absence of a record of any important branching is quite phenomenal. Species are usually static, or nearly so, for long periods, species seldom and genera never show evolution into new species or genera but replacement of one by another, and change is more or less abrupt.

 

Wesson, R., 1991

Beyond Natural Selection

MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, p. 45

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[T]he origin of no innovation of large evolutionary significance is known.

 

Wesson, R., 1991

Beyond Natural Selection

MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, p. 45

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[L]arge evolutionary innovations are not well understood. None has ever been observed, and we have no idea whether any may be in progress. There is no good fossil record of any.

 

Wesson, R., 1991

Beyond Natural Selection

MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, p. 206

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Taxa recognized as orders during the (Precambrian-Cambrian) transition chiefly appear without connection to an ancestral clade via a fossil intermediate. This situation is in fact true of most invertebrate orders during the remaining Phanerozoic as well. There are no chains of taxa leading gradually from an ancestral condition to the new ordinal body type. Orders thus appear as rather distinctive subdivisions of classes rather than as being segments in some sort of morphological continuum.

Valentine, J.W., Awramik, S.M., Signor, P.W., and Sadler, P.M. (1991)

"The Biological Explosion at the Precambrian-Cambrian Boundary"

Evolutionary Biology, Vol. 25, Max K. Hecht, editor, Plenum Press, New York and London, p.284

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Valentine and Erwin review hypotheses as to the mode of origin of animal body plans for consistency with the fossil evidence. They conclude that both Darwinian gradualism and punctuated equilibrium are inadequate to account for the appearance of invertebrate body plans and their major modifications:

 

"The models we consider are of three sorts: those that extrapolate processes of speciation to account for higher taxa via divergence, those that invoke selection among species, and those that emphasize that many higher taxa originated as novel lineages in their own right, not only as a consequence of species-level processes. It is in this latter class of model that we believe the record favors." (Valentine and Erwin, 1985, p. 71)

 

If large populations have gradually evolved there should be unmistakable evidence in the fossil record, yet it is simply not found.

 

"... many of the large populations should have been preserved, yet we simply do not find them. Small populations are called for, then, but there are difficulties here also. The populations must remain small (and undetected) and evolve steadily and consistently toward the body plan that comprises the basis of a new phylum (or class). This is asking a lot. Deleterious mutations would tend to accumulate in small populations to form genetic loads that selection might not be able to handle. Stable intermediate adaptive modes cannot be invoked as a regular feature, since we are then again faced with the problem of just where their remains are. We might imagine vast arrays of such small populations fanning continually and incessantly into adaptive space. Vast arrays should have produced at least some fossil remains also. Perhaps an even greater difficulty is the requirement that these arrays of lineages change along a rather straight and true course --- morphological side trips or detours of any frequency should lengthen the time of origin of higher taxa beyond what appears to be available. Why should an opportunistic, tinkering process set on such a course and hold it for so long successfully among so many lineages?

 

We conclude that the extrapolation of microevolutionary rates to explain the origin of new body plans is possible, but does not accord with the primary evidence." (Valentine and Erwin, 1985, pp. 95, 96)

 

The model of punctuated equilibrium or species selection attempts to account for the lack of evidence by relying primarily on the evolution of small isolated populations which would have a diminished chance of leaving a fossil record. This scenario has its difficulties, however, as Valentine and Erwin point out:

 

"The required rapidity of the change implies either a few large steps or many and exceedingly rapid smaller ones. Large steps are tantamount to saltations and raise the problems of fitness barriers; small steps must be numerous and entail the problems discussed under microevolution. The periods of stasis raise the possibility that the lineage would enter the fossil record, and we reiterate that we can identify none of the postulated intermediate forms. Finally, the large numbers of species that must be generated so as to form a pool from which the successful lineage is selected are nowhere to be found. We conclude that the probability that species selection is a general solution to the origin of higher taxa is not great, and that neither of the contending theories of evolutionary change at the species level, phyletic gradualism or punctuated equilibrium, seem applicable to the origin of new body plans." (p. 96)

 

Valentine, J., and Erwin, D. (1985)

"Interpreting Great Developmental Experiments: The Fossil Record"

Development as an Evolutionary Process

Rudolf A. Raff and Elizabeth C. Raff, Editors

Alan R. Liss, Inc., New York, pp. 71, 95, 96

 

 

quote

Gastropods are univalve with an aragonite shell which is usually coiled in a spiral and elaborately ornamented. quote

---------------------------------------------

Darwinian models do not address major gaps in our understanding of the development of complex morphology.

 

 

A quote from The Cambrian Big Bang;

'' Furthermore the postulation of exclusively soft-bodied ancestor for hard-bodied Cambrian organism seems implausible on anatomical grounds many phyla such as brachiopods and arthropods could have not evolved their soft parts first and then added shells later , since their survival depends in large part upon their ability to protect their soft parts from hostile environmental forces. Instead soft and hard parts had to arise together.

 

As Valentine notes in the case of brachiopods, “the brachiopod bauplane cannot function without a durable skeleton.” To admit that hard-bodied parts in the Cambrian animals had not yet evolved. As Chen and Zhou explain: [A]nimals such as brachiopods and most echinoderms and mollusks cannot exists without mineralized skeletons. Arthropods bear jointed appendages and likewise require a hard, organic or mineralized skeleton. Therefore the existence of these organisms in the distant past should be recorded either by fossil tracks and trails or remains of skeletons. The observations that such fossils are absent in the Precambrian strata proves that these phyla arose in the Cambrian.

quote:

 

-------------------------------------------

 

quote

 

This strikingly asymmetric pattern demands explanation , not only in itself but also in what it might imply about the origin of major evolutionary innovation in general. This is especially important because, as David Jablonski, of the University of Chicago, and David Bottjer, of the University of Southern California recently observed: 'The most dramatic kinds of evolutionary novelty, major innovations, are among the least understood , are among the least understood components of the evolutionary process.'"(Lewin, Roger, "A Lopsided Look at Evolution," Science, vol. 241 (July 15, 1988), pp. 291-293)quote

----------------------------------------

 

quote

 

"… the Cambrian strata of rocks, vintage about 600 million years [evolutionists are now dating the beginning of the Cambrian at about 530 million years], are the oldest in which we find most of the major invertebrate groups. And we find many of them already in an advanced state of evolution, the very first time they appear. It is as though they were just planted there , without any evolutionary history. Needless to say, this appearance of sudden planting has delighted creationists." (Dawkins, Richard, The Blind Watchmaker (New York: W. W. Norton, 1987, p. 229)

quote

-------------------------------------------

quote

Clearly many difficult questions remain about the early radiation of animals. Why did so many unusual morphologies appear when they did, and not earlier or later? The trigger of the Cambrian explosion is still uncertain, although ideas abound. If the evolutionary trees are right and the fossil record is not deceptive, then many different lineages must have acquired complex anatomies and hard parts at about the same time."(Douglas, Erwin, James W. Valentine, and David Jablonski, "The Origin of Animal Body Plans," American Scientist, vol. 85 (March/April 1997), p. 137)quote

 

 

--------------------------------------------

 

Quote

"Studies that began in the early 1950s and continue at an accelerating pace today have revealed an extensive Precambrian fossil record, but the problem of the Cambrian explosion has not receeded, since our more extensive labor has still failed to identify any creature that might serve as a plausible immediate ancestor for the Cambrian faunas."

Quote

----------------------------------------

 

Quote

 

"Where, then, are all the Precambrian ancestors—or, if they didn't exist in recognizable form, how did modern complexity get off to such a fast start?" (Gould, Stephen Jay, "A Short Way to Big Ends," Natural History, vol. 95 (January 1986), pp. 18-28

Quote

--------------------------------------------

 

quote

 

" Before the Cambrian period, almost all life was microscopic , except for some enigmatic soft-bodied organisms. At the start of the Cambrian, about 544 million years ago, animals burst forth in a rash of evolutionary activity never since equaled. Ocean creatures acquired the ability to grow hard shells , and a broad range of new body plans emerged within the geologically short span of 10 million years. Paleontologists have proposed many theories to explain this revolution but have agreed on none."(Monastersky, R., "When Earth Tipped, Life Went Wild," Science News, vol. 152 (July 26, 1997), p. 52)quote

 

---------------------------------------------

quote

Two things in particular emerge from a consideration of the Cambrian Period. First, and most obviously, this Period, as evidenced by the Burgess Shale, definitely seems to mark a spectacular rise in the range and variety of organisms. In the space of a few million years the pace of evolution of animal life appears to have increased enormously. Many attempts have been made to explain this phenomen - linking it with rising oxygen levels, the first appearance of predators, and changes in ocean chemistry - but none is entirely convincing. The rapid emergence of complex forms of life still remains one of the Earth's great mysteries." (Dr. David Norman, Prehistoric Life: The Rise of the Vertebrates, pub. Boxtree limited, 1994, p. 49)

quote

-----------------------------------------------

 

quote

 

If invertebrates with hard parts evolved from soft-bodied creatures, that change had to be gradual and there would have been many intermediate stages permitting a gradual acquisition of hard parts and changes in the way of life of these creatures. This gradual acquisition of hard parts by these many creatures should be abundantly documented in the fossil record. Fossils of thousands of these intermediate stages should grace museum displays. None have been found .(Evolution: the fossils still say no! , Duane Gish, 1995, p. 68)quote

--------------------------------------------

 

 

quote

"… the Precambrian fossil record is little more … than 2.5 billion years of bacteria and blue-green algae . Complex life did arise with startling speed near the base of the Cambrian."quote

 

------------------------------------------

quote

 

 

Most of evolution's dramatic leaps occurred rather abruptly and soon after multicellular organisms first evolved, nearly 600 million years ago during a period called the Cambrian. The body plans that evolved in the Cambrian by and large served as the blueprints for those seen today. Few new major body plans have appeared since that time. Just as all automobiles are fundamentally modeled after the first four-wheel vehicles, all the evolutionary changes since the Cambrian period have been mere variations on those basic themes ."(Levinton, Jeffrey S., "The Big Bang of Animal Evolution," Scientific American, vol. 267 (November 1992), p. 84) Levinton is Chairman, Department of Ecology and Evolution, State University of New York at Stony Brook quote

 

-----------------------------------------------

quote

 

All of the basic architectures of animals were apparently established by the close of the Cambrian explosion ; subsequent evolutionary changes, even those that allowed animals to move out of the sea onto land, involved only modifications of those basic body plans . About 37 distinct body architectures are recognized among present-day animals and from the basis of the taxonomic classification level of phyla." quote

[Christopher]

These complex forms could not have developed from simpler forms by being built up in a step by step process.

It is not only mathematically impossible there is no evidence in the fossil record of this. These system formed all at once, separately from a simple geometric form.... a torus.

 

This is the source of the bilateral symmetry, this is the first time an explanation has been put forward to explain the origin of this feature of complex morphology

 

-----------------------------------------------------------

 

Darwin was not wrong just incomplete ;

 

Darwin assumed transitional fossils would be rare and postulated that these gaps would be filled in with new fossil discoveries, yet after 150 years these gaps have not been filled. He also postulated;

 

"The number of intermediate varieties, which have formerly existed on the earth, (must) be truly enormous. Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against my theory".

 

These views are not contradictory , he was just stating that his model was subject to new evidence. He was making sure that people understood that fact, because he was a great scientist , and understood that all scientific models are only stepping stones to understanding, not dogma.