| The Cambrian 541 - 485 mya |
Waterworld
The Cambrian is Sea World or Water World. The land is still barren. Gaia has not grown any hairs. The
revolution is entirely in the oceans. Life multiplies, especially in shallow waters.
Although the base of the Cambrian is still in dispute and officially taken as assemblage of trace fossils
known as the Treptichnus pedum, for the average man it essentially begins with the appearance of
Trilobites, specifically of the class Olenellina. The Olenellina as well as the meteoric sessile reef builders
that proliferated in the Early Cambrian decline rapidly some time around the Middle of the Cambrian,
coincidentally with the disappearance of the top predator of the time: the meter-long Anomalocaris. It is
tempting to conclude that Anomalocaris depended on one of these two groups and that they all
disappeared in a mass extinction.
The origin of life
The main issue with the Cambrian, however, is of more concern to biologists than to paleontologists.
How did life start? Biologists deal with life. Paleontologists deal with death.
Religious folk use the Cambrian to try to undermine the Theory of Evolution. Known as the Cambrian
Explosion, life multiplied rather swiftly in geological terms during this era and biologists fumble for an
explanation.
Do we descend from Wiwaxia or from Anomalocaris? The question is valid because if evolution has any
merit we should be able to trace our lineage all the way to the Cambrian and beyond. We should have
an uninterrupted dynasty that started with the first cells.
I venture to say that we don't descend from either. These two animals became extinct towards the end
of the Cambrian. We don't find them at the next level, at the Ordovician. And, hopefully, the 'experts'
won't argue that we descend from the dead.
The process of evolution leads us to conclude that we descend from some animal that lived side by side
with Wiwaxia and Anomalocaris, perhaps some insignificant simple-celled creature which we won't find
so readily in the rock. And that creature certainly didn't pop into existence from the void. We should be
able to trace our lineage all the way to the first cells.
Human evolution according to the 'experts' Tiktaalik, Thrinaxodon, and Purgatorius were your great-grandfathers. |
Panspermia
A recent religion known as Panspermia proposes that life was imported from another planet. We are
descendants of extraterrestrial aliens. The Panspermian is a gullible individual who has been led to
believe that life can travel from star to star and perhaps from galaxy to galaxy. It never occurred to
these poor souls that living entities have no chance of traveling to the nearest star. Interstellar travel
is nothing more than NASA propaganda. It is delusional individuals in Houston and others such as
members of SETI who dream of terraforming and colonizing other planets and contacting LGM.
The most famous deluded crusader who dreamed of contacting our extraterrestrial forefathers either
through EM 'waves' or through personal contact was Carl Sagan. My only regret is having been a
great fan of his. Although, like Richard Feynman, Sagan was an effective teacher, these fellows
spread irrational religions in the guise of science.
Traditional religions
What the traditional religious community offers in the alternative, however, is not much better than
Panspermia. The theory is that God just waved His Magic Wand and said "Abracadabra!" And the
sad truth of the matter is that the majority of people in the world, one way or another, still explain
the birth of life with magic (Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists - see below), It makes you
wonder whether we are really the most intelligent creatures on our planet.
The answer of a rational individual is simple: "There is no evidence whatsoever that 'intelligence'
can create life!" God knows we've tried...
| < Christians The amusing version of the Bible... "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." Genesis 1:1 |
Muslims ^
"He who created the earth in two days...
That is the Lord of the worlds...
He placed on the earth firmly set
mountains over its surface...
He directed Himself to the heaven
while it was smoke and said to it
and to the earth, "Come [into being],
willingly or by compulsion."
They said, "We have come willingly...
And He completed them as seven
heavens within two days"
Surah Fussilat 41:9-12, Quran
Hindus >
"I am the creator, the sustainer
and the destroyer of all the
worlds...try to understand me
as the eternal origin of all living
entities..."
Bhagavad Gita (Holy book of
Hinduism), Chapter 7:6-10
Knowledge of the Ultimate Truth
< Buddhists
"sooner or later after a long period, this world
contracts... after a very long period, this world
begins to expand again...
At that period... there was just one mass of water,
and all was darkness, blinding darkness.
Neither moon nor sun appeared,
no constellations or stars appeared,
night and day were not distinguished,
nor months and fortnights,
no years or seasons...
...after a very long period of time, savoury earth
spread itself over the waters... , the moon and the
sun appeared, night and day were distinguished,
months and fortnights appeared, and the year and
its seasons. To that extent the world re-evolved.
It seems more rational to conclude that some other living entity developed in parallel to all these extinct species and eventually evolved into Man. |
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| To comment on any of the pages in this website go to: Rational Scientific Method |
| The History of Life on Earth |
| The origin of Life |
Agganna Sutta: On Knowledge of Beginnings,
No. 27 of The Long Discourses (Digha Nikaya)
80.1 - 80.32 from the Sutta Pitaka, Tipitaka,
teachings attributed to the Buddha,
passed down orally and later written.
Buddhists lately illustrate the Oscillating Universe, an idea that they claim Gautama invented before
Einstein and General Relativity were born. They do so well aware that the world has already bought
into Relativity. In other words, the Buddhists insinuate that they had already 'proven' what it took
'science' to discover thousands of years later.
Of course, if General Relativity ends up being garbage, then so does Gautama's Buddhism.