https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(22)01455-5“small shelly fossils,” often derived from larger animals with complex multi-element skeletons.2
"Among extant animals, Lophotrochozoa accounts for the majority of phyla.1 This bilaterian clade radiated rapidly during the Cambrian explosion, obfuscating its phylogenetic relationships and rendering many aspects of its early evolution uncertain. Many early lophotrochozoans are known only from isolated skeletal microfossils,
The discovery of articulated fossils has revealed surprising insights into the animals from which these skeletal pieces were derived, such as paired shells in the mollusc Halkieria.3rows of sclerites in a highly asymmetric arrangement, flanked by smaller, cap-shaped sclerites. The scleritome was fringed by iterated fascicles of chaetae and two layers of flattened lobes. Phylogenetic analysis confirms that camenellans occupy a deep
Tommotiids are a key group of phosphatic early skeletal fossils that first appear in the late early Cambrian.4
,5
Although their affinities were previously obscure, discoveries of partial scleritomes and investigations of growth and microstructure6
provide links with Brachiopoda7
,8
and Phoronida,9
two of the lophophorate phyla. By contrast, the body plan of camenellan tommotiids remains a palaeontological mystery, with hypothetical reconstructions representing motile, benthic, dorsally armored worms.4
,10
Here, we describe an articulated camenellan (Wufengella bengtsoni gen. et sp. nov.) from the Cambrian Chengjiang Biota, China, revealing the morphology of the scleritome and the first soft tissues from an adult tommotiid. Wufengella carries two dorsal
,12"
Another illustration that in the early Cambrian, many currently known "major phyla" probably wouldn't have been so classified by a Cambrian Linnaeus.
On 9/27/22 9:22 AM, erik simpson wrote:microfossils, “small shelly fossils,” often derived from larger animals with complex multi-element skeletons.2
https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(22)01455-5
"Among extant animals, Lophotrochozoa accounts for the majority of phyla.1 This bilaterian clade radiated rapidly during the Cambrian explosion, obfuscating its phylogenetic relationships and rendering many aspects of its early evolution uncertain. Many early lophotrochozoans are known only from isolated skeletal
dorsal rows of sclerites in a highly asymmetric arrangement, flanked by smaller, cap-shaped sclerites. The scleritome was fringed by iterated fascicles of chaetae and two layers of flattened lobes. Phylogenetic analysis confirms that camenellans occupy aThe discovery of articulated fossils has revealed surprising insights into the animals from which these skeletal pieces were derived, such as paired shells in the mollusc Halkieria.3
Tommotiids are a key group of phosphatic early skeletal fossils that first appear in the late early Cambrian.4
,5
Although their affinities were previously obscure, discoveries of partial scleritomes and investigations of growth and microstructure6
provide links with Brachiopoda7
,8
and Phoronida,9
two of the lophophorate phyla. By contrast, the body plan of camenellan tommotiids remains a palaeontological mystery, with hypothetical reconstructions representing motile, benthic, dorsally armored worms.4
,10
Here, we describe an articulated camenellan (Wufengella bengtsoni gen. et sp. nov.) from the Cambrian Chengjiang Biota, China, revealing the morphology of the scleritome and the first soft tissues from an adult tommotiid. Wufengella carries two
,12"
Another illustration that in the early Cambrian, many currently known "major phyla" probably wouldn't have been so classified by a Cambrian Linnaeus.Halkieriids are molluscs?
Well, here's the reference, but I can only see the abstract, and I can't tell from that whether the paper does make that claim. It compares
Halkieria with Wiwaxia, not generally supposed to be a mollusc, though
often thought to be an annelid. Perhaps this just shows your point, that really ancient members of separate phyla were not so separate.
https://www.nature.com/articles/345802a0
On Tuesday, September 27, 2022 at 9:39:32 AM UTC-7, John Harshman wrote:microfossils, “small shelly fossils,” often derived from larger animals with complex multi-element skeletons.2
On 9/27/22 9:22 AM, erik simpson wrote:
https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(22)01455-5
"Among extant animals, Lophotrochozoa accounts for the majority of phyla.1 >>> This bilaterian clade radiated rapidly during the Cambrian explosion, obfuscating its phylogenetic relationships and rendering many aspects of its early evolution uncertain. Many early lophotrochozoans are known only from isolated skeletal
dorsal rows of sclerites in a highly asymmetric arrangement, flanked by smaller, cap-shaped sclerites. The scleritome was fringed by iterated fascicles of chaetae and two layers of flattened lobes. Phylogenetic analysis confirms that camenellans occupy aThe discovery of articulated fossils has revealed surprising insights into the animals from which these skeletal pieces were derived, such as paired shells in the mollusc Halkieria.3
Tommotiids are a key group of phosphatic early skeletal fossils that first appear in the late early Cambrian.4
,5
Although their affinities were previously obscure, discoveries of partial scleritomes and investigations of growth and microstructure6
provide links with Brachiopoda7
,8
and Phoronida,9
two of the lophophorate phyla. By contrast, the body plan of camenellan tommotiids remains a palaeontological mystery, with hypothetical reconstructions representing motile, benthic, dorsally armored worms.4
,10
Here, we describe an articulated camenellan (Wufengella bengtsoni gen. et sp. nov.) from the Cambrian Chengjiang Biota, China, revealing the morphology of the scleritome and the first soft tissues from an adult tommotiid. Wufengella carries two
,12"Halkieriids are molluscs?
Another illustration that in the early Cambrian, many currently known "major phyla" probably wouldn't have been so classified by a Cambrian Linnaeus.
Well, here's the reference, but I can only see the abstract, and I can't
tell from that whether the paper does make that claim. It compares
Halkieria with Wiwaxia, not generally supposed to be a mollusc, though
often thought to be an annelid. Perhaps this just shows your point, that
really ancient members of separate phyla were not so separate.
https://www.nature.com/articles/345802a0
Halkieriids (and Wiwaxiids) are still problematic, after all these years. Here's an
interesting article relevant to the subject, and remarlably, open access:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-16304-6
On 9/27/22 11:19 AM, erik simpson wrote:microfossils, “small shelly fossils,” often derived from larger animals with complex multi-element skeletons.2
On Tuesday, September 27, 2022 at 9:39:32 AM UTC-7, John Harshman wrote:
On 9/27/22 9:22 AM, erik simpson wrote:
https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(22)01455-5
"Among extant animals, Lophotrochozoa accounts for the majority of phyla.1
This bilaterian clade radiated rapidly during the Cambrian explosion, obfuscating its phylogenetic relationships and rendering many aspects of its early evolution uncertain. Many early lophotrochozoans are known only from isolated skeletal
dorsal rows of sclerites in a highly asymmetric arrangement, flanked by smaller, cap-shaped sclerites. The scleritome was fringed by iterated fascicles of chaetae and two layers of flattened lobes. Phylogenetic analysis confirms that camenellans occupy aThe discovery of articulated fossils has revealed surprising insights into the animals from which these skeletal pieces were derived, such as paired shells in the mollusc Halkieria.3
Tommotiids are a key group of phosphatic early skeletal fossils that first appear in the late early Cambrian.4
,5
Although their affinities were previously obscure, discoveries of partial scleritomes and investigations of growth and microstructure6
provide links with Brachiopoda7
,8
and Phoronida,9
two of the lophophorate phyla. By contrast, the body plan of camenellan tommotiids remains a palaeontological mystery, with hypothetical reconstructions representing motile, benthic, dorsally armored worms.4
,10
Here, we describe an articulated camenellan (Wufengella bengtsoni gen. et sp. nov.) from the Cambrian Chengjiang Biota, China, revealing the morphology of the scleritome and the first soft tissues from an adult tommotiid. Wufengella carries two
,12"Halkieriids are molluscs?
Another illustration that in the early Cambrian, many currently known "major phyla" probably wouldn't have been so classified by a Cambrian Linnaeus.
Well, here's the reference, but I can only see the abstract, and I can't >> tell from that whether the paper does make that claim. It compares
Halkieria with Wiwaxia, not generally supposed to be a mollusc, though
often thought to be an annelid. Perhaps this just shows your point, that >> really ancient members of separate phyla were not so separate.
https://www.nature.com/articles/345802a0
Halkieriids (and Wiwaxiids) are still problematic, after all these years. Here's an
interesting article relevant to the subject, and remarlably, open access:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-16304-6
And these are all the animals Steven Meyer and the creationists claim
don't exist.
John's parting shot suggests that moving this thread to talk.originsmicrofossils, “small shelly fossils,” often derived from larger animals with complex multi-element skeletons.2
might generate a good deal of interest.
On Tuesday, September 27, 2022 at 6:43:30 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
On 9/27/22 11:19 AM, erik simpson wrote:
On Tuesday, September 27, 2022 at 9:39:32 AM UTC-7, John Harshman wrote:
On 9/27/22 9:22 AM, erik simpson wrote:
https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(22)01455-5 >>>
"Among extant animals, Lophotrochozoa accounts for the majority of phyla.1
This bilaterian clade radiated rapidly during the Cambrian explosion, obfuscating its phylogenetic relationships and rendering many aspects of its early evolution uncertain. Many early lophotrochozoans are known only from isolated skeletal
dorsal rows of sclerites in a highly asymmetric arrangement, flanked by smaller, cap-shaped sclerites. The scleritome was fringed by iterated fascicles of chaetae and two layers of flattened lobes. Phylogenetic analysis confirms that camenellans occupy aThe discovery of articulated fossils has revealed surprising insights into the animals from which these skeletal pieces were derived, such as paired shells in the mollusc Halkieria.3
Tommotiids are a key group of phosphatic early skeletal fossils that first appear in the late early Cambrian.4
,5
Although their affinities were previously obscure, discoveries of partial scleritomes and investigations of growth and microstructure6
provide links with Brachiopoda7
,8
and Phoronida,9
two of the lophophorate phyla. By contrast, the body plan of camenellan tommotiids remains a palaeontological mystery, with hypothetical reconstructions representing motile, benthic, dorsally armored worms.4
,10
Here, we describe an articulated camenellan (Wufengella bengtsoni gen. et sp. nov.) from the Cambrian Chengjiang Biota, China, revealing the morphology of the scleritome and the first soft tissues from an adult tommotiid. Wufengella carries two
,12"Halkieriids are molluscs?
Another illustration that in the early Cambrian, many currently known "major phyla" probably wouldn't have been so classified by a Cambrian Linnaeus.
Well, here's the reference, but I can only see the abstract, and I can't
tell from that whether the paper does make that claim. It compares
Halkieria with Wiwaxia, not generally supposed to be a mollusc, though >> often thought to be an annelid. Perhaps this just shows your point, that
really ancient members of separate phyla were not so separate.
https://www.nature.com/articles/345802a0
Halkieriids (and Wiwaxiids) are still problematic, after all these years. Here's an
interesting article relevant to the subject, and remarlably, open access:
The following is typical of the cluelessness of run of the mill anti-creationist [as distinct from anti-creationism, which I am] zealots:https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-16304-6
And these are all the animals Steven Meyer and the creationists claim don't exist.Meyer was well aware of Cambrian animals of problematic affinities, including Wiwaxia, and also Amiskwia, Eldonia, and Nectocaris,
and took them in his stride.
And the closing words of the abstract of the very paper you
are citing should have given you pause:
"On this view, the absence of fossil Ediacaran sclerites is evidence against any ‘Precambrian prelude’ to the explosive diversification of these phyla in the Cambrian, c. 540–530 million years ago."
Prothero might be turning in his grave, were he not still alive. :) :)
John's parting shot suggests that moving this thread to talk.originsmicrofossils, “small shelly fossils,” often derived from larger animals with complex multi-element skeletons.2
might generate a good deal of interest.
On Tuesday, September 27, 2022 at 6:43:30 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
On 9/27/22 11:19 AM, erik simpson wrote:
On Tuesday, September 27, 2022 at 9:39:32 AM UTC-7, John Harshman wrote: >>>> On 9/27/22 9:22 AM, erik simpson wrote:
https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(22)01455-5
"Among extant animals, Lophotrochozoa accounts for the majority of phyla.1
This bilaterian clade radiated rapidly during the Cambrian explosion, obfuscating its phylogenetic relationships and rendering many aspects of its early evolution uncertain. Many early lophotrochozoans are known only from isolated skeletal
dorsal rows of sclerites in a highly asymmetric arrangement, flanked by smaller, cap-shaped sclerites. The scleritome was fringed by iterated fascicles of chaetae and two layers of flattened lobes. Phylogenetic analysis confirms that camenellans occupy aThe discovery of articulated fossils has revealed surprising insights into the animals from which these skeletal pieces were derived, such as paired shells in the mollusc Halkieria.3
Tommotiids are a key group of phosphatic early skeletal fossils that first appear in the late early Cambrian.4
,5
Although their affinities were previously obscure, discoveries of partial scleritomes and investigations of growth and microstructure6
provide links with Brachiopoda7
,8
and Phoronida,9
two of the lophophorate phyla. By contrast, the body plan of camenellan tommotiids remains a palaeontological mystery, with hypothetical reconstructions representing motile, benthic, dorsally armored worms.4
,10
Here, we describe an articulated camenellan (Wufengella bengtsoni gen. et sp. nov.) from the Cambrian Chengjiang Biota, China, revealing the morphology of the scleritome and the first soft tissues from an adult tommotiid. Wufengella carries two
,12"Halkieriids are molluscs?
Another illustration that in the early Cambrian, many currently known "major phyla" probably wouldn't have been so classified by a Cambrian Linnaeus.
Well, here's the reference, but I can only see the abstract, and I can't >>>> tell from that whether the paper does make that claim. It compares
Halkieria with Wiwaxia, not generally supposed to be a mollusc, though >>>> often thought to be an annelid. Perhaps this just shows your point, that >>>> really ancient members of separate phyla were not so separate.
https://www.nature.com/articles/345802a0
Halkieriids (and Wiwaxiids) are still problematic, after all these years. Here's an
interesting article relevant to the subject, and remarlably, open access: >>>
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-16304-6
The following is typical of the cluelessness of run of the mill anti-creationist [as distinct from anti-creationism, which I am] zealots:
And these are all the animals Steven Meyer and the creationists claim
don't exist.
Meyer was well aware of Cambrian animals of problematic affinities,
including Wiwaxia, and also Amiskwia, Eldonia, and Nectocaris,
and took them in his stride.
And the closing words of the abstract of the very paper you
are citing should have given you pause:
"On this view, the absence of fossil Ediacaran sclerites is evidence against any ‘Precambrian prelude’ to the explosive diversification of these phyla in the Cambrian, c. 540–530 million years ago."
Prothero might be turning in his grave, were he not still alive. :) :)
On Tuesday, September 27, 2022 at 10:59:53 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
On 9/27/22 6:31 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
John's parting shot suggests that moving this thread to talk.origins
might generate a good deal of interest.
You didn't comment on this. Do you disagree?
microfossils, “small shelly fossils,” often derived from larger animals with complex multi-element skeletons.2On Tuesday, September 27, 2022 at 6:43:30 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote: >>>> On 9/27/22 11:19 AM, erik simpson wrote:
On Tuesday, September 27, 2022 at 9:39:32 AM UTC-7, John Harshman wrote: >>>>>> On 9/27/22 9:22 AM, erik simpson wrote:
https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(22)01455-5 >>>>>>>
"Among extant animals, Lophotrochozoa accounts for the majority of phyla.1
This bilaterian clade radiated rapidly during the Cambrian explosion, obfuscating its phylogenetic relationships and rendering many aspects of its early evolution uncertain. Many early lophotrochozoans are known only from isolated skeletal
dorsal rows of sclerites in a highly asymmetric arrangement, flanked by smaller, cap-shaped sclerites. The scleritome was fringed by iterated fascicles of chaetae and two layers of flattened lobes. Phylogenetic analysis confirms that camenellans occupy aThe discovery of articulated fossils has revealed surprising insights into the animals from which these skeletal pieces were derived, such as paired shells in the mollusc Halkieria.3
Tommotiids are a key group of phosphatic early skeletal fossils that first appear in the late early Cambrian.4
,5
Although their affinities were previously obscure, discoveries of partial scleritomes and investigations of growth and microstructure6
provide links with Brachiopoda7
,8
and Phoronida,9
two of the lophophorate phyla. By contrast, the body plan of camenellan tommotiids remains a palaeontological mystery, with hypothetical reconstructions representing motile, benthic, dorsally armored worms.4
,10
Here, we describe an articulated camenellan (Wufengella bengtsoni gen. et sp. nov.) from the Cambrian Chengjiang Biota, China, revealing the morphology of the scleritome and the first soft tissues from an adult tommotiid. Wufengella carries two
,12"Halkieriids are molluscs?
Another illustration that in the early Cambrian, many currently known "major phyla" probably wouldn't have been so classified by a Cambrian Linnaeus.
Well, here's the reference, but I can only see the abstract, and I can't >>>>>> tell from that whether the paper does make that claim. It compares >>>>>> Halkieria with Wiwaxia, not generally supposed to be a mollusc, though >>>>>> often thought to be an annelid. Perhaps this just shows your point, that >>>>>> really ancient members of separate phyla were not so separate.
https://www.nature.com/articles/345802a0
Halkieriids (and Wiwaxiids) are still problematic, after all these years. Here's an
interesting article relevant to the subject, and remarlably, open access: >>>>>
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-16304-6
The following is typical of the cluelessness of run of the mill
anti-creationist [as distinct from anti-creationism, which I am] zealots:
Well, one of us is clueless on this point. We may disagree on which one.
Time will tell. I hope Glenn can follow our debate.
You are off to a bad start below by saying "you mean" when what I meant
was that Meyer did not claim that the Cambrian explosion
gave rise to animals that cannot be placed into extant phyla.
d
Your comment was ambiguous, and mean-spirited:
And these are all the animals Steven Meyer and the creationists claim
don't exist.
Meyer was well aware of Cambrian animals of problematic affinities,
including Wiwaxia, and also Amiskwia, Eldonia, and Nectocaris,
and took them in his stride.
By "in his stride" you mean that he ignored the fact that several of
them contradicted his claim that there were no intermediates between phyla.
That "fact" remains to be seen. Just what do you mean by "intermediates"?
It would be anti-cladism heresy for you to claim that any of the groups that Erik identified were paraphyletic, wouldn't it?
So, what did you mean, and where is your evidence?
But the part about ignoring them was that he ignored the small,
shelly fauna that includes halkieriids and tommotiids, and that are
precursors to the Cambrian explosion.
I do recall an article about the "shellies" in a DI webpage, probably Evolution News,
where this omission was addressed.
In any event, the sentence I quoted below puts these particular
shellies in the Cambrian:
And the closing words of the abstract of the very paper you
are citing should have given you pause:
"On this view, the absence of fossil Ediacaran sclerites is evidence against any ‘Precambrian prelude’ to the explosive diversification of these phyla in the Cambrian, c. 540–530 million years ago."
You will note that this places the beginning of the Cambrian explosion
considerably before the time that Meyer attributes to it, in the
Chengjiang fauna, and long before the fossil appearance of most phyla.
I do not note any such thing. Meyer is very careful to note that "the Cambrian
explosion" has been given many different meanings by different people, and that he is primarily
concerned with what he calls "the main pulse" of the Cambrian explosion, which lasted approximately 6 million years and saw the emergence of
13 animal phyla in the fossil record by reckoning of Erwin et al.,
Science 334 (2011) 1091-97 and 16 animal phyla in a slightly different
ca. 6 my period by reckoning of Bowring et al, Science 261 (1993) 1293-98.
This explosive diversification they mention is not shown in the fossil
record until Cambrian Stage 3, about 520 ma.
What is your reference for this claim? It is inconsistent with what "they" wrote and I quoted: "...c. 540–530 million years ago."
It is also inconsistent with where Meyer centered the "main pulse": 530-525 mya.
Meyer makes no distinction
between "Cambrian" and "Cambrian Stage 3".
This is absurd on the face of it. What are you basing this claim on?
Prothero might be turning in his grave, were he not still alive. :) :)
Whatever that means.
You have a very leaky memory. Don't you remember how Prothero
wiped out all our comments and questions on his blog except your comment which
included the question of how he estimated 80 million years for what HE called the Cambrian explosion? He left in his response which evaded the
question. When he saw how you politely pointed this out, he went on his rampage
of deleting about 40 questions and comments, including your polite pointing-out.
On 9/27/22 6:31 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
John's parting shot suggests that moving this thread to talk.origins
might generate a good deal of interest.
microfossils, “small shelly fossils,” often derived from larger animals with complex multi-element skeletons.2On Tuesday, September 27, 2022 at 6:43:30 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
On 9/27/22 11:19 AM, erik simpson wrote:
On Tuesday, September 27, 2022 at 9:39:32 AM UTC-7, John Harshman wrote: >>>> On 9/27/22 9:22 AM, erik simpson wrote:
https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(22)01455-5 >>>>>
"Among extant animals, Lophotrochozoa accounts for the majority of phyla.1
This bilaterian clade radiated rapidly during the Cambrian explosion, obfuscating its phylogenetic relationships and rendering many aspects of its early evolution uncertain. Many early lophotrochozoans are known only from isolated skeletal
dorsal rows of sclerites in a highly asymmetric arrangement, flanked by smaller, cap-shaped sclerites. The scleritome was fringed by iterated fascicles of chaetae and two layers of flattened lobes. Phylogenetic analysis confirms that camenellans occupy aThe discovery of articulated fossils has revealed surprising insights into the animals from which these skeletal pieces were derived, such as paired shells in the mollusc Halkieria.3
Tommotiids are a key group of phosphatic early skeletal fossils that first appear in the late early Cambrian.4
,5
Although their affinities were previously obscure, discoveries of partial scleritomes and investigations of growth and microstructure6
provide links with Brachiopoda7
,8
and Phoronida,9
two of the lophophorate phyla. By contrast, the body plan of camenellan tommotiids remains a palaeontological mystery, with hypothetical reconstructions representing motile, benthic, dorsally armored worms.4
,10
Here, we describe an articulated camenellan (Wufengella bengtsoni gen. et sp. nov.) from the Cambrian Chengjiang Biota, China, revealing the morphology of the scleritome and the first soft tissues from an adult tommotiid. Wufengella carries two
,12"Halkieriids are molluscs?
Another illustration that in the early Cambrian, many currently known "major phyla" probably wouldn't have been so classified by a Cambrian Linnaeus.
Well, here's the reference, but I can only see the abstract, and I can't
tell from that whether the paper does make that claim. It compares
Halkieria with Wiwaxia, not generally supposed to be a mollusc, though >>>> often thought to be an annelid. Perhaps this just shows your point, that
really ancient members of separate phyla were not so separate.
https://www.nature.com/articles/345802a0
Halkieriids (and Wiwaxiids) are still problematic, after all these years. Here's an
interesting article relevant to the subject, and remarlably, open access:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-16304-6
The following is typical of the cluelessness of run of the mill anti-creationist [as distinct from anti-creationism, which I am] zealots:
Well, one of us is clueless on this point. We may disagree on which one.
And these are all the animals Steven Meyer and the creationists claim
don't exist.
Meyer was well aware of Cambrian animals of problematic affinities, including Wiwaxia, and also Amiskwia, Eldonia, and Nectocaris,
and took them in his stride.
By "in his stride" you mean that he ignored the fact that several of
them contradicted his claim that there were no intermediates between phyla.
But the part about ignoring them was that he ignored the small,
shelly fauna that includes halkieriids and tommotiids, and that are precursors to the Cambrian explosion.
And the closing words of the abstract of the very paper you
are citing should have given you pause:
"On this view, the absence of fossil Ediacaran sclerites is evidence against any ‘Precambrian prelude’ to the explosive diversification of these phyla in the Cambrian, c. 540–530 million years ago."
You will note that this places the beginning of the Cambrian explosion considerably before the time that Meyer attributes to it, in the
Chengjiang fauna, and long before the fossil appearance of most phyla.
This explosive diversification they mention is not shown in the fossil record until Cambrian Stage 3, about 520 ma.
Meyer makes no distinction
between "Cambrian" and "Cambrian Stage 3".
Prothero might be turning in his grave, were he not still alive. :) :)
Whatever that means.
On 9/28/22 2:32 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
On Tuesday, September 27, 2022 at 10:59:53 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
On 9/27/22 6:31 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
John's parting shot suggests that moving this thread to talk.origins
might generate a good deal of interest.
You didn't comment on this. Do you disagree?
Feel free to crosspost if you think so.
microfossils, “small shelly fossils,” often derived from larger animals with complex multi-element skeletons.2On Tuesday, September 27, 2022 at 6:43:30 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote: >>>> On 9/27/22 11:19 AM, erik simpson wrote:
On Tuesday, September 27, 2022 at 9:39:32 AM UTC-7, John Harshman wrote:
On 9/27/22 9:22 AM, erik simpson wrote:
https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(22)01455-5 >>>>>>>
"Among extant animals, Lophotrochozoa accounts for the majority of phyla.1
This bilaterian clade radiated rapidly during the Cambrian explosion, obfuscating its phylogenetic relationships and rendering many aspects of its early evolution uncertain. Many early lophotrochozoans are known only from isolated skeletal
dorsal rows of sclerites in a highly asymmetric arrangement, flanked by smaller, cap-shaped sclerites. The scleritome was fringed by iterated fascicles of chaetae and two layers of flattened lobes. Phylogenetic analysis confirms that camenellans occupy aThe discovery of articulated fossils has revealed surprising insights into the animals from which these skeletal pieces were derived, such as paired shells in the mollusc Halkieria.3
Tommotiids are a key group of phosphatic early skeletal fossils that first appear in the late early Cambrian.4
,5
Although their affinities were previously obscure, discoveries of partial scleritomes and investigations of growth and microstructure6
provide links with Brachiopoda7
,8
and Phoronida,9
two of the lophophorate phyla. By contrast, the body plan of camenellan tommotiids remains a palaeontological mystery, with hypothetical reconstructions representing motile, benthic, dorsally armored worms.4
,10
Here, we describe an articulated camenellan (Wufengella bengtsoni gen. et sp. nov.) from the Cambrian Chengjiang Biota, China, revealing the morphology of the scleritome and the first soft tissues from an adult tommotiid. Wufengella carries two
,12"
Another illustration that in the early Cambrian, many currently known "major phyla" probably wouldn't have been so classified by a Cambrian Linnaeus
Halkieriids are molluscs?
Well, here's the reference, but I can only see the abstract, and I can't
tell from that whether the paper does make that claim. It compares >>>>>> Halkieria with Wiwaxia, not generally supposed to be a mollusc, though
often thought to be an annelid. Perhaps this just shows your point, that
really ancient members of separate phyla were not so separate.
https://www.nature.com/articles/345802a0
Halkieriids (and Wiwaxiids) are still problematic, after all these years. Here's an
interesting article relevant to the subject, and remarlably, open access:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-16304-6
The following is typical of the cluelessness of run of the mill
anti-creationist [as distinct from anti-creationism, which I am] zealots:
Well, one of us is clueless on this point. We may disagree on which one.
Time will tell. I hope Glenn can follow our debate.
Why would you hope that?
Glenn is a troll.
Have you read anything he's
posted in the past week or two?
If that's your hope, maybe crossposting
is a bad idea.
You are off to a bad start below by saying "you mean" when what I meant was that Meyer did not claim that the Cambrian explosion
gave rise to animals that cannot be placed into extant phyla.
Your comment was ambiguous, and mean-spirited:
What did he claim, then?
Wouldn't that claim, if he had made it, be correct?
And these are all the animals Steven Meyer and the creationists claim >>>> don't exist.
On Wednesday, September 28, 2022 at 5:53:16 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:microfossils, “small shelly fossils,” often derived from larger animals with complex multi-element skeletons.2
On 9/28/22 2:32 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
On Tuesday, September 27, 2022 at 10:59:53 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
On 9/27/22 6:31 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
John's parting shot suggests that moving this thread to talk.origins >>> might generate a good deal of interest.
You didn't comment on this. Do you disagree?
Feel free to crosspost if you think so.Unlike old Google groups, the two newer versions do not make
crossposting possible. So if you don't want us moving this to
talk.origins, I'm staying put here.
On Tuesday, September 27, 2022 at 6:43:30 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
On 9/27/22 11:19 AM, erik simpson wrote:
On Tuesday, September 27, 2022 at 9:39:32 AM UTC-7, John Harshman wrote:
On 9/27/22 9:22 AM, erik simpson wrote:
https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(22)01455-5
"Among extant animals, Lophotrochozoa accounts for the majority of phyla.1
This bilaterian clade radiated rapidly during the Cambrian explosion, obfuscating its phylogenetic relationships and rendering many aspects of its early evolution uncertain. Many early lophotrochozoans are known only from isolated skeletal
two dorsal rows of sclerites in a highly asymmetric arrangement, flanked by smaller, cap-shaped sclerites. The scleritome was fringed by iterated fascicles of chaetae and two layers of flattened lobes. Phylogenetic analysis confirms that camenellansThe discovery of articulated fossils has revealed surprising insights into the animals from which these skeletal pieces were derived, such as paired shells in the mollusc Halkieria.3
Tommotiids are a key group of phosphatic early skeletal fossils that first appear in the late early Cambrian.4
,5
Although their affinities were previously obscure, discoveries of partial scleritomes and investigations of growth and microstructure6
provide links with Brachiopoda7
,8
and Phoronida,9
two of the lophophorate phyla. By contrast, the body plan of camenellan tommotiids remains a palaeontological mystery, with hypothetical reconstructions representing motile, benthic, dorsally armored worms.4
,10
Here, we describe an articulated camenellan (Wufengella bengtsoni gen. et sp. nov.) from the Cambrian Chengjiang Biota, China, revealing the morphology of the scleritome and the first soft tissues from an adult tommotiid. Wufengella carries
On the other hand, I've commented that if Linnaeus had been into subclasses, he would probably,12"
Another illustration that in the early Cambrian, many currently known "major phyla" probably wouldn't have been so classified by a Cambrian Linnaeus
have split Theria into Marsupilia, Cetacea, Chiroptera, and all other placentals.
But Harshman treated this as if it were a baseless speculation, and *a fortiori* I treat
Erik's "probably" in the same way.
Or perhaps not.Halkieriids are molluscs?
Well, here's the reference, but I can only see the abstract, and I can't
tell from that whether the paper does make that claim. It compares >>>>>> Halkieria with Wiwaxia, not generally supposed to be a mollusc, though
often thought to be an annelid. Perhaps this just shows your point, that
really ancient members of separate phyla were not so separate.
https://www.nature.com/articles/345802a0
Halkieriids (and Wiwaxiids) are still problematic, after all these years. Here's an
interesting article relevant to the subject, and remarlably, open access:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-16304-6
The following is typical of the cluelessness of run of the mill
anti-creationist [as distinct from anti-creationism, which I am] zealots:
Well, one of us is clueless on this point. We may disagree on which one.
Time will tell. I hope Glenn can follow our debate.
Why would you hope that?I'm hoping there will be a witness to your behavior who is not someone has been in a "see no evil,
hear no evil, speak no evil" relationship with you from the get-go.
Glenn is a troll.
Insults like this only make you look bad in the light of how irresponsibly you treated Glenn back in July.
I gave details about that in the following post, about an hour ago:
https://groups.google.com/g/sci.bio.paleontology/c/s4GvNGVaSWg/m/biZhrD-dBgAJ
Re: Where's Erik?
Have you read anything he'sYes. He posted on this thread yesterday. Why aren't you showing any awareness that?
posted in the past week or two?
Could it be because he was NOT trolling?
If that's your hope, maybe crossposting
is a bad idea.
You are off to a bad start below by saying "you mean" when what I meant was that Meyer did not claim that the Cambrian explosion
gave rise to animals that cannot be placed into extant phyla.
Your comment was ambiguous, and mean-spirited:
What did he claim, then?This question is so asinine, it makes you look like a troll. Meyer made hundreds of claims in _Darwin's_Doubt_
Wouldn't that claim, if he had made it, be correct?Another asinine question. It obviously be incorrect to claim that a
creature of which we have fossils, didn't exist. Yet that's what you
wrote here seems to be saying:
You made all creationists sound omphalic with these clumsily chosenAnd these are all the animals Steven Meyer and the creationists claim >>>> don't exist.
words of yours.
On Wednesday, September 28, 2022 at 7:08:03 PM UTC-7, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:microfossils, “small shelly fossils,” often derived from larger animals with complex multi-element skeletons.2
On Wednesday, September 28, 2022 at 5:53:16 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
On 9/28/22 2:32 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
On Tuesday, September 27, 2022 at 10:59:53 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
On 9/27/22 6:31 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
John's parting shot suggests that moving this thread to talk.origins >>> might generate a good deal of interest.
You didn't comment on this. Do you disagree?
Feel free to crosspost if you think so.Unlike old Google groups, the two newer versions do not make
crossposting possible. So if you don't want us moving this to talk.origins, I'm staying put here.
On Tuesday, September 27, 2022 at 6:43:30 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
On 9/27/22 11:19 AM, erik simpson wrote:
On Tuesday, September 27, 2022 at 9:39:32 AM UTC-7, John Harshman wrote:
On 9/27/22 9:22 AM, erik simpson wrote:
https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(22)01455-5
"Among extant animals, Lophotrochozoa accounts for the majority of phyla.1
This bilaterian clade radiated rapidly during the Cambrian explosion, obfuscating its phylogenetic relationships and rendering many aspects of its early evolution uncertain. Many early lophotrochozoans are known only from isolated skeletal
two dorsal rows of sclerites in a highly asymmetric arrangement, flanked by smaller, cap-shaped sclerites. The scleritome was fringed by iterated fascicles of chaetae and two layers of flattened lobes. Phylogenetic analysis confirms that camenellansThe discovery of articulated fossils has revealed surprising insights into the animals from which these skeletal pieces were derived, such as paired shells in the mollusc Halkieria.3
Tommotiids are a key group of phosphatic early skeletal fossils that first appear in the late early Cambrian.4
,5
Although their affinities were previously obscure, discoveries of partial scleritomes and investigations of growth and microstructure6
provide links with Brachiopoda7
,8
and Phoronida,9
two of the lophophorate phyla. By contrast, the body plan of camenellan tommotiids remains a palaeontological mystery, with hypothetical reconstructions representing motile, benthic, dorsally armored worms.4
,10
Here, we describe an articulated camenellan (Wufengella bengtsoni gen. et sp. nov.) from the Cambrian Chengjiang Biota, China, revealing the morphology of the scleritome and the first soft tissues from an adult tommotiid. Wufengella carries
On the other hand, I've commented that if Linnaeus had been into subclasses, he would probably,12"
Another illustration that in the early Cambrian, many currently known "major phyla" probably wouldn't have been so classified by a Cambrian Linnaeus
have split Theria into Marsupilia, Cetacea, Chiroptera, and all other placentals.
But Harshman treated this as if it were a baseless speculation, and *a fortiori* I treat
Erik's "probably" in the same way.
Or perhaps not.Halkieriids are molluscs?
Well, here's the reference, but I can only see the abstract, and I can't
tell from that whether the paper does make that claim. It compares
Halkieria with Wiwaxia, not generally supposed to be a mollusc, though
often thought to be an annelid. Perhaps this just shows your point, that
really ancient members of separate phyla were not so separate.
https://www.nature.com/articles/345802a0
Halkieriids (and Wiwaxiids) are still problematic, after all these years. Here's an
interesting article relevant to the subject, and remarlably, open access:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-16304-6
The following is typical of the cluelessness of run of the mill
anti-creationist [as distinct from anti-creationism, which I am] zealots:
Well, one of us is clueless on this point. We may disagree on which one.
Time will tell. I hope Glenn can follow our debate.
Why would you hope that?
I'm hoping there will be a witness to your behavior who is not someone has been in a "see no evil,
hear no evil, speak no evil" relationship with you from the get-go.
Glenn is a troll.
Insults like this only make you look bad in the light of how irresponsibly you treated Glenn back in July.
I gave details about that in the following post, about an hour ago:
https://groups.google.com/g/sci.bio.paleontology/c/s4GvNGVaSWg/m/biZhrD-dBgAJ
Re: Where's Erik?
Have you read anything he's posted in the past week or two?
Yes. He posted on this thread yesterday. Why aren't you showing any awareness that?
Could it be because he was NOT trolling?
If that's your hope, maybe crossposting
is a bad idea.
You are off to a bad start below by saying "you mean" when what I meant
was that Meyer did not claim that the Cambrian explosion
gave rise to animals that cannot be placed into extant phyla.
Your comment was ambiguous, and mean-spirited:
What did he claim, then?This question is so asinine, it makes you look like a troll. Meyer made hundreds of claims in _Darwin's_Doubt_
Wouldn't that claim, if he had made it, be correct?Another asinine question. It obviously be incorrect to claim that a creature of which we have fossils, didn't exist. Yet that's what you
wrote here seems to be saying:
Re: Darwin's Doubt: a recycled threadYou made all creationists sound omphalic with these clumsily chosenAnd these are all the animals Steven Meyer and the creationists claim
don't exist.
words of yours.
Take his word for everything, he's smart.
" And he relegates potential
transitional fossils (Anomalocaris, Opabinia, halkieriids, etc.) either
to extant phyla or to new phyla, again unrelated to any others."
https://groups.google.com/g/talk.origins/c/Q6fpUBRFUjk/m/0hi862E9r_wJ
Let's see. "I forgot". Hmm, that might work. "That is not what I meant". Hmm, that might work. Which should I try first? Hmm. I could avoid the quote, and distract by focusing on another, perhaps by asking a question about something else. Hmm.eh John?
Take it from there, John. Oops, now that Glenn has posted the above, perhaps I should get real and say I was wrong. Nah... I could still claim "the creationists" claim such animals don't exist, and then associate Meyer with them...hey, great thought,
On 9/28/22 2:32 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:microfossils, “small shelly fossils,” often derived from larger animals with complex multi-element skeletons.2
On Tuesday, September 27, 2022 at 10:59:53 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
On 9/27/22 6:31 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
John's parting shot suggests that moving this thread to talk.origins
might generate a good deal of interest.
You didn't comment on this. Do you disagree?Feel free to crosspost if you think so.
On Tuesday, September 27, 2022 at 6:43:30 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote: >>>> On 9/27/22 11:19 AM, erik simpson wrote:
On Tuesday, September 27, 2022 at 9:39:32 AM UTC-7, John Harshman wrote:
On 9/27/22 9:22 AM, erik simpson wrote:
https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(22)01455-5 >>>>>>>
"Among extant animals, Lophotrochozoa accounts for the majority of phyla.1
This bilaterian clade radiated rapidly during the Cambrian explosion, obfuscating its phylogenetic relationships and rendering many aspects of its early evolution uncertain. Many early lophotrochozoans are known only from isolated skeletal
dorsal rows of sclerites in a highly asymmetric arrangement, flanked by smaller, cap-shaped sclerites. The scleritome was fringed by iterated fascicles of chaetae and two layers of flattened lobes. Phylogenetic analysis confirms that camenellans occupy aThe discovery of articulated fossils has revealed surprising insights into the animals from which these skeletal pieces were derived, such as paired shells in the mollusc Halkieria.3
Tommotiids are a key group of phosphatic early skeletal fossils that first appear in the late early Cambrian.4
,5
Although their affinities were previously obscure, discoveries of partial scleritomes and investigations of growth and microstructure6
provide links with Brachiopoda7
,8
and Phoronida,9
two of the lophophorate phyla. By contrast, the body plan of camenellan tommotiids remains a palaeontological mystery, with hypothetical reconstructions representing motile, benthic, dorsally armored worms.4
,10
Here, we describe an articulated camenellan (Wufengella bengtsoni gen. et sp. nov.) from the Cambrian Chengjiang Biota, China, revealing the morphology of the scleritome and the first soft tissues from an adult tommotiid. Wufengella carries two
,12"Halkieriids are molluscs?
Another illustration that in the early Cambrian, many currently known "major phyla" probably wouldn't have been so classified by a Cambrian Linnaeus.
Well, here's the reference, but I can only see the abstract, and I can't
tell from that whether the paper does make that claim. It compares >>>>>> Halkieria with Wiwaxia, not generally supposed to be a mollusc, though
often thought to be an annelid. Perhaps this just shows your point, that
really ancient members of separate phyla were not so separate.
https://www.nature.com/articles/345802a0
Halkieriids (and Wiwaxiids) are still problematic, after all these years. Here's an
interesting article relevant to the subject, and remarlably, open access:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-16304-6
The following is typical of the cluelessness of run of the mill
anti-creationist [as distinct from anti-creationism, which I am] zealots:
And these are all the animals Steven Meyer and the creationists claim >>>> don't exist.
Meyer was well aware of Cambrian animals of problematic affinities,
including Wiwaxia, and also Amiskwia, Eldonia, and Nectocaris,
and took them in his stride.
[Your words] "in his stride" [remind me that] he ignored the fact that several of
them contradicted his claim that there were no intermediates between phyla.
That "fact" remains to be seen. Just what do you mean by "intermediates"?
It would be anti-cladism heresy for you to claim that any of the groups that
Erik identified were paraphyletic, wouldn't it?
No, it would not, but I don't claim such a thing anyway.
So, what did you mean, and where is your evidence?
I suggest reading Budd G.E., Jensen S. A critical reappraisal of the
fossil record of the bilaterian phyla. Biological Reviews 2000; 75:253-295.
Essentially, many Cambrian taxa are stem-members of their associated
phyla and some of them are stem-members of groups of phyla.
"Lobopods", for example, are stem-members of different ecdysozoan phyla.
Halkieriids and/or tommotiids may (i.e., less certainly) be stem-lophotrochozoans.
It would be anti-cladism heresy for you to claim that any of the groups that
Erik identified were paraphyletic, wouldn't it?
No, it would not, but I don't claim such a thing anyway.
But the part about ignoring them was that he ignored the small,
shelly fauna that includes halkieriids and tommotiids, and that are
precursors to the Cambrian explosion.
I do recall an article about the "shellies" in a DI webpage, probably Evolution News,
where this omission was addressed.
In what way was it addressed?
In any event, the sentence I quoted below puts these particularYes, mostly, though a few are Precambrian.
shellies in the Cambrian:
But the point is that they
predate the visible explosion, i.e. the appearance of most phyla, which isn't until Cambrian Stage 3.
And the closing words of the abstract of the very paper you
are citing should have given you pause:
"On this view, the absence of fossil Ediacaran sclerites is evidence against any ‘Precambrian prelude’ to the explosive diversification of these phyla in the Cambrian, c. 540–530 million years ago."
You will note that this places the beginning of the Cambrian explosion
considerably before the time that Meyer attributes to it, in the
Chengjiang fauna, and long before the fossil appearance of most phyla.
I do not note any such thing. Meyer is very careful to note that "the Cambrian
explosion" has been given many different meanings by different people, and that he is primarily
concerned with what he calls "the main pulse" of the Cambrian explosion, which lasted approximately 6 million years and saw the emergence of
13 animal phyla in the fossil record by reckoning of Erwin et al.,
Science 334 (2011) 1091-97 and 16 animal phyla in a slightly different
ca. 6 my period by reckoning of Bowring et al, Science 261 (1993) 1293-98.
What they're talking about there is Cambrian Stage 3, long after the
rise of the small shellies. Meyer, and perhaps you also, is confused
about the difference between the fossil record and the actual origins of taxa.
The small shellies and the ichnofossil record are clues that the
explosion is underway considerably before we get a good look at it. And
also evidence that it was a gradual expansion.
This explosive diversification they mention is not shown in the fossil
record until Cambrian Stage 3, about 520 ma.
What is your reference for this claim? It is inconsistent with what "they" wrote and I quoted: "...c. 540–530 million years ago."
Try Erwin & Valentine.
Prothero might be turning in his grave, were he not still alive. :) :)
Whatever that means.
You have a very leaky memory. Don't you remember how Prothero
wiped out all our comments and questions on his blog except your comment which
included the question of how he estimated 80 million years for what HE called
the Cambrian explosion? He left in his response which evaded the
question. When he saw how you politely pointed this out, he went on his rampage
of deleting about 40 questions and comments, including your polite pointing-out.
I didn't know he had done that much,
but at any rate how would that be
relevant to the present case?
Or did you just want to revive a grievance against him?
On Wednesday, September 28, 2022 at 5:53:16 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:microfossils, “small shelly fossils,” often derived from larger animals with complex multi-element skeletons.2
On 9/28/22 2:32 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
On Tuesday, September 27, 2022 at 10:59:53 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote: >>>> On 9/27/22 6:31 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:Feel free to crosspost if you think so.
John's parting shot suggests that moving this thread to talk.origins >>>>> might generate a good deal of interest.
You didn't comment on this. Do you disagree?
On Tuesday, September 27, 2022 at 6:43:30 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote: >>>>>> On 9/27/22 11:19 AM, erik simpson wrote:
On Tuesday, September 27, 2022 at 9:39:32 AM UTC-7, John Harshman wrote:
On 9/27/22 9:22 AM, erik simpson wrote:
https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(22)01455-5 >>>>>>>>>
"Among extant animals, Lophotrochozoa accounts for the majority of phyla.1
This bilaterian clade radiated rapidly during the Cambrian explosion, obfuscating its phylogenetic relationships and rendering many aspects of its early evolution uncertain. Many early lophotrochozoans are known only from isolated skeletal
dorsal rows of sclerites in a highly asymmetric arrangement, flanked by smaller, cap-shaped sclerites. The scleritome was fringed by iterated fascicles of chaetae and two layers of flattened lobes. Phylogenetic analysis confirms that camenellans occupy aThe discovery of articulated fossils has revealed surprising insights into the animals from which these skeletal pieces were derived, such as paired shells in the mollusc Halkieria.3
Tommotiids are a key group of phosphatic early skeletal fossils that first appear in the late early Cambrian.4
,5
Although their affinities were previously obscure, discoveries of partial scleritomes and investigations of growth and microstructure6
provide links with Brachiopoda7
,8
and Phoronida,9
two of the lophophorate phyla. By contrast, the body plan of camenellan tommotiids remains a palaeontological mystery, with hypothetical reconstructions representing motile, benthic, dorsally armored worms.4
,10
Here, we describe an articulated camenellan (Wufengella bengtsoni gen. et sp. nov.) from the Cambrian Chengjiang Biota, China, revealing the morphology of the scleritome and the first soft tissues from an adult tommotiid. Wufengella carries two
,12"Halkieriids are molluscs?
Another illustration that in the early Cambrian, many currently known "major phyla" probably wouldn't have been so classified by a Cambrian Linnaeus.
Well, here's the reference, but I can only see the abstract, and I can't
tell from that whether the paper does make that claim. It compares >>>>>>>> Halkieria with Wiwaxia, not generally supposed to be a mollusc, though >>>>>>>> often thought to be an annelid. Perhaps this just shows your point, that
really ancient members of separate phyla were not so separate. >>>>>>>>
https://www.nature.com/articles/345802a0
Halkieriids (and Wiwaxiids) are still problematic, after all these years. Here's an
interesting article relevant to the subject, and remarlably, open access:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-16304-6
The following is typical of the cluelessness of run of the mill
anti-creationist [as distinct from anti-creationism, which I am] zealots:
<snip of things dealt with in my first reply>
And these are all the animals Steven Meyer and the creationists claim >>>>>> don't exist.
With the above for context, I pick up where I left off in my first reply.
Meyer was well aware of Cambrian animals of problematic affinities,
including Wiwaxia, and also Amiskwia, Eldonia, and Nectocaris,
and took them in his stride.
[Your words] "in his stride" [remind me that] he ignored the fact that several of
them contradicted his claim that there were no intermediates between phyla.
The bracketed parts replace incorrect words that made your statement literally false.
I believe they now make the statement true.
That "fact" remains to be seen. Just what do you mean by "intermediates"?
Your explanation below makes it clear that you do not use the word
in any sense that is easily explainable to laymen. Meyer was writing
for a general audience, so he must have meant something else.
So I need to see what words of his you are [mis]interpreting above.
It would be anti-cladism heresy for you to claim that any of the groups that
Erik identified were paraphyletic, wouldn't it?
No, it would not, but I don't claim such a thing anyway.
So, what did you mean, and where is your evidence?
I suggest reading Budd G.E., Jensen S. A critical reappraisal of the
fossil record of the bilaterian phyla. Biological Reviews 2000; 75:253-295.
If it does a MUCH better job of defining "intermediates" than you do below, why didn't you simply quote its definition?
Essentially, many Cambrian taxa are stem-members of their associated
phyla and some of them are stem-members of groups of phyla.
"Lobopods", for example, are stem-members of different ecdysozoan phyla.
Phyla are clades, so this would make "lobopods" a polyphyletic assemblage. Might they be a "wastebasket taxon," like "Cotylosauria", "Thecodonta," "Insectivora," etc.?
Halkieriids and/or tommotiids may (i.e., less certainly) be stem-lophotrochozoans.
IOW, they may be outside the crown group of all lophotrochozoans.
The following analogy comes to mind: the Sparassodonta, a clade which includes the formidable saber-tooth Thylacosmilus, are stem-marsupials.
But no paleontologist would claim that they shed any light on the relationship between marsupials and eutherians, or between the
various (crown) marsupial orders.
It would be anti-cladism heresy for you to claim that any of the groups that
Erik identified were paraphyletic, wouldn't it?
No, it would not, but I don't claim such a thing anyway.
You may have to, if you can't improve on what you have done so far.
But the part about ignoring them was that he ignored the small,
shelly fauna that includes halkieriids and tommotiids, and that are
precursors to the Cambrian explosion.
I do recall an article about the "shellies" in a DI webpage, probably Evolution News,
where this omission was addressed.
In what way was it addressed?
Maybe Glenn can help us out here. I am short on time today, likely shorter than you.
But the bottom line is, you are basing the "ignoring" on a book that may sparked the
intense interest in the "shellies" in the blogosphere. Do you disagree?
In any event, the sentence I quoted below puts these particularYes, mostly, though a few are Precambrian.
shellies in the Cambrian:
You are obviously referring to something I did not quote. What is it?
But the point is that they
predate the visible explosion, i.e. the appearance of most phyla, which
isn't until Cambrian Stage 3.
"the visible explosion" refers to what Meyer calls "the main pulse of the Cambrian explosion,"
rather than what he calls the explosion itself.
And the closing words of the abstract of the very paper you
are citing should have given you pause:
"On this view, the absence of fossil Ediacaran sclerites is evidence against any ‘Precambrian prelude’ to the explosive diversification of these phyla in the Cambrian, c. 540–530 million years ago."
Note: NO precambrian exceptions, contrary to what you wrote above.
You will note that this places the beginning of the Cambrian explosion >>>> considerably before the time that Meyer attributes to it, in the
Chengjiang fauna, and long before the fossil appearance of most phyla.
I do not note any such thing. Meyer is very careful to note that "the Cambrian
explosion" has been given many different meanings by different people, and that he is primarily
concerned with what he calls "the main pulse" of the Cambrian explosion, >>> which lasted approximately 6 million years and saw the emergence of
13 animal phyla in the fossil record by reckoning of Erwin et al.,
Science 334 (2011) 1091-97 and 16 animal phyla in a slightly different
ca. 6 my period by reckoning of Bowring et al, Science 261 (1993) 1293-98.
What they're talking about there is Cambrian Stage 3, long after the
rise of the small shellies. Meyer, and perhaps you also, is confused
about the difference between the fossil record and the actual origins of taxa.
Correction: possibly Meyer, but it is a baseless insult to add "perhaps you also."
The small shellies and the ichnofossil record are clues that the
explosion is underway considerably before we get a good look at it. And
also evidence that it was a gradual expansion.
I would not call "all fossilizable phyla in 40 million years" a gradual expansion,
given that some of the phyla seem to have gone extinct and NONE were added
in the subsequent 500+ million years.
You are a strange bedfellow of Donald Prothero, who nicknamed the Cambrian explosion
the "Cambrian slow fuse," claiming it took 80 million years.
I wrote some interesting things about him and you
last time around (see below), hence the "strange" in "strange bedfellow."
<snip of things to be dealt with tomorrow. I am short on time today>
This explosive diversification they mention is not shown in the fossil >>>> record until Cambrian Stage 3, about 520 ma.
What is your reference for this claim? It is inconsistent with what "they" >>> wrote and I quoted: "...c. 540–530 million years ago."
See the full quote above. It is NOT due to Erwin & Valentine, despite
what you say next:
Try Erwin & Valentine.
Prothero might be turning in his grave, were he not still alive. :) :) >>>Whatever that means.
You have a very leaky memory. Don't you remember how Prothero
wiped out all our comments and questions on his blog except your comment which
included the question of how he estimated 80 million years for what HE called
the Cambrian explosion? He left in his response which evaded the
question. When he saw how you politely pointed this out, he went on his rampage
of deleting about 40 questions and comments, including your polite pointing-out.
I didn't know he had done that much,
You did know it, and you commented on it at the time. Another manifestation of
your leaky memory.
Seems you don't recall how you were barred from commenting anywhere in
the misnamed "Skepticblog," not just from that article by Prothero.
but at any rate how would that be
relevant to the present case?
See above about the 80 million "short fuse," which he also called the Cambrian explosion.
Or did you just want to revive a grievance against him?
The real aggrieved party is Meyer, whose book Prothero flagrantly misrepresented,
including an out and out lie about what Meyer wrote about the 80 million period.
As for me, you and I have almost the same grievance as far as that mass censorship is concerned.
But his treatment of you was the more inexcusable of the two.
On Thursday, September 29, 2022 at 12:27:27 PM UTC-7, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:microfossils, “small shelly fossils,” often derived from larger animals with complex multi-element skeletons.2
On Wednesday, September 28, 2022 at 5:53:16 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote: >>> On 9/28/22 2:32 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
On Tuesday, September 27, 2022 at 10:59:53 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote: >>>>> On 9/27/22 6:31 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:Feel free to crosspost if you think so.
John's parting shot suggests that moving this thread to talk.origins >>>>>> might generate a good deal of interest.
You didn't comment on this. Do you disagree?
On Tuesday, September 27, 2022 at 6:43:30 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote: >>>>>>> On 9/27/22 11:19 AM, erik simpson wrote:
On Tuesday, September 27, 2022 at 9:39:32 AM UTC-7, John Harshman wrote:
On 9/27/22 9:22 AM, erik simpson wrote:
https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(22)01455-5 >>>>>>>>>>
"Among extant animals, Lophotrochozoa accounts for the majority of phyla.1
This bilaterian clade radiated rapidly during the Cambrian explosion, obfuscating its phylogenetic relationships and rendering many aspects of its early evolution uncertain. Many early lophotrochozoans are known only from isolated skeletal
two dorsal rows of sclerites in a highly asymmetric arrangement, flanked by smaller, cap-shaped sclerites. The scleritome was fringed by iterated fascicles of chaetae and two layers of flattened lobes. Phylogenetic analysis confirms that camenellansThe discovery of articulated fossils has revealed surprising insights into the animals from which these skeletal pieces were derived, such as paired shells in the mollusc Halkieria.3
Tommotiids are a key group of phosphatic early skeletal fossils that first appear in the late early Cambrian.4
,5
Although their affinities were previously obscure, discoveries of partial scleritomes and investigations of growth and microstructure6
provide links with Brachiopoda7
,8
and Phoronida,9
two of the lophophorate phyla. By contrast, the body plan of camenellan tommotiids remains a palaeontological mystery, with hypothetical reconstructions representing motile, benthic, dorsally armored worms.4
,10
Here, we describe an articulated camenellan (Wufengella bengtsoni gen. et sp. nov.) from the Cambrian Chengjiang Biota, China, revealing the morphology of the scleritome and the first soft tissues from an adult tommotiid. Wufengella carries
If you have actual interest in the "small shelly fauna" (pretty essential for anyone interested in "Cambrian explosion),<snip of things dealt with in my first reply>,12"Halkieriids are molluscs?
Another illustration that in the early Cambrian, many currently known "major phyla" probably wouldn't have been so classified by a Cambrian Linnaeus.
Well, here's the reference, but I can only see the abstract, and I can't
tell from that whether the paper does make that claim. It compares >>>>>>>>> Halkieria with Wiwaxia, not generally supposed to be a mollusc, though
often thought to be an annelid. Perhaps this just shows your point, that
really ancient members of separate phyla were not so separate. >>>>>>>>>
https://www.nature.com/articles/345802a0
Halkieriids (and Wiwaxiids) are still problematic, after all these years. Here's an
interesting article relevant to the subject, and remarlably, open access:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-16304-6
The following is typical of the cluelessness of run of the mill
anti-creationist [as distinct from anti-creationism, which I am] zealots:
With the above for context, I pick up where I left off in my first reply. >>>>>>And these are all the animals Steven Meyer and the creationists claim >>>>>>> don't exist.
The bracketed parts replace incorrect words that made your statement literally false.Meyer was well aware of Cambrian animals of problematic affinities, >>>>>> including Wiwaxia, and also Amiskwia, Eldonia, and Nectocaris,
and took them in his stride.
[Your words] "in his stride" [remind me that] he ignored the fact that several of
them contradicted his claim that there were no intermediates between phyla.
I believe they now make the statement true.
in any sense that is easily explainable to laymen. Meyer was writing
That "fact" remains to be seen. Just what do you mean by "intermediates"? >> Your explanation below makes it clear that you do not use the word
for a general audience, so he must have meant something else.
So I need to see what words of his you are [mis]interpreting above.
It would be anti-cladism heresy for you to claim that any of the groups that
Erik identified were paraphyletic, wouldn't it?
No, it would not, but I don't claim such a thing anyway.
So, what did you mean, and where is your evidence?
I suggest reading Budd G.E., Jensen S. A critical reappraisal of the
fossil record of the bilaterian phyla. Biological Reviews 2000; 75:253-295. >> If it does a MUCH better job of defining "intermediates" than you do below, >> why didn't you simply quote its definition?
Essentially, many Cambrian taxa are stem-members of their associated
phyla and some of them are stem-members of groups of phyla.
"Lobopods", for example, are stem-members of different ecdysozoan phyla.Phyla are clades, so this would make "lobopods" a polyphyletic assemblage. >> Might they be a "wastebasket taxon," like "Cotylosauria", "Thecodonta," "Insectivora," etc.?
Halkieriids and/or tommotiids may (i.e., less certainly) be stem-lophotrochozoans.IOW, they may be outside the crown group of all lophotrochozoans.
The following analogy comes to mind: the Sparassodonta, a clade which
includes the formidable saber-tooth Thylacosmilus, are stem-marsupials.
But no paleontologist would claim that they shed any light on the
relationship between marsupials and eutherians, or between the
various (crown) marsupial orders.
You may have to, if you can't improve on what you have done so far.It would be anti-cladism heresy for you to claim that any of the groups that
Erik identified were paraphyletic, wouldn't it?
No, it would not, but I don't claim such a thing anyway.
Maybe Glenn can help us out here. I am short on time today, likely shorter than you.But the part about ignoring them was that he ignored the small,
shelly fauna that includes halkieriids and tommotiids, and that are
precursors to the Cambrian explosion.
I do recall an article about the "shellies" in a DI webpage, probably Evolution News,
where this omission was addressed.
In what way was it addressed?
But the bottom line is, you are basing the "ignoring" on a book that may sparked the
intense interest in the "shellies" in the blogosphere. Do you disagree?
You are obviously referring to something I did not quote. What is it?In any event, the sentence I quoted below puts these particularYes, mostly, though a few are Precambrian.
shellies in the Cambrian:
But the point is that they"the visible explosion" refers to what Meyer calls "the main pulse of the Cambrian explosion,"
predate the visible explosion, i.e. the appearance of most phyla, which
isn't until Cambrian Stage 3.
rather than what he calls the explosion itself.
Note: NO precambrian exceptions, contrary to what you wrote above.And the closing words of the abstract of the very paper you
are citing should have given you pause:
"On this view, the absence of fossil Ediacaran sclerites is evidence against any ‘Precambrian prelude’ to the explosive diversification of these phyla in the Cambrian, c. 540–530 million years ago."
Correction: possibly Meyer, but it is a baseless insult to add "perhaps you also."What they're talking about there is Cambrian Stage 3, long after the
You will note that this places the beginning of the Cambrian explosion >>>>> considerably before the time that Meyer attributes to it, in theI do not note any such thing. Meyer is very careful to note that "the Cambrian
Chengjiang fauna, and long before the fossil appearance of most phyla. >>>>
explosion" has been given many different meanings by different people, and that he is primarily
concerned with what he calls "the main pulse" of the Cambrian explosion, >>>> which lasted approximately 6 million years and saw the emergence of
13 animal phyla in the fossil record by reckoning of Erwin et al.,
Science 334 (2011) 1091-97 and 16 animal phyla in a slightly different >>>> ca. 6 my period by reckoning of Bowring et al, Science 261 (1993) 1293-98. >>
rise of the small shellies. Meyer, and perhaps you also, is confused
about the difference between the fossil record and the actual origins of taxa.
The small shellies and the ichnofossil record are clues that theI would not call "all fossilizable phyla in 40 million years" a gradual expansion,
explosion is underway considerably before we get a good look at it. And
also evidence that it was a gradual expansion.
given that some of the phyla seem to have gone extinct and NONE were added >> in the subsequent 500+ million years.
You are a strange bedfellow of Donald Prothero, who nicknamed the Cambrian explosion
the "Cambrian slow fuse," claiming it took 80 million years.
I wrote some interesting things about him and you
last time around (see below), hence the "strange" in "strange bedfellow."
<snip of things to be dealt with tomorrow. I am short on time today>
See the full quote above. It is NOT due to Erwin & Valentine, despiteThis explosive diversification they mention is not shown in the fossil >>>>> record until Cambrian Stage 3, about 520 ma.
What is your reference for this claim? It is inconsistent with what "they" >>>> wrote and I quoted: "...c. 540–530 million years ago."
what you say next:
Try Erwin & Valentine.
<snip for focus>
Prothero might be turning in his grave, were he not still alive. :) :) >>>>Whatever that means.
You have a very leaky memory. Don't you remember how Prothero
wiped out all our comments and questions on his blog except your comment which
included the question of how he estimated 80 million years for what HE called
the Cambrian explosion? He left in his response which evaded the
question. When he saw how you politely pointed this out, he went on his rampage
of deleting about 40 questions and comments, including your polite pointing-out.
I didn't know he had done that much,You did know it, and you commented on it at the time. Another manifestation of
your leaky memory.
Seems you don't recall how you were barred from commenting anywhere in
the misnamed "Skepticblog," not just from that article by Prothero.
but at any rate how would that beSee above about the 80 million "short fuse," which he also called the Cambrian explosion.
relevant to the present case?
Or did you just want to revive a grievance against him?The real aggrieved party is Meyer, whose book Prothero flagrantly misrepresented,
including an out and out lie about what Meyer wrote about the 80 million period.
As for me, you and I have almost the same grievance as far as that mass censorship is concerned.
But his treatment of you was the more inexcusable of the two.
Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
Univ. of South Carolina at Columbia
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
the Wiki entry for it is actually not a bad place to start. The SSF present quite a continuous (Ediacaran-Cambrian) record
of early stages of metazoan mineralization. It gives an extensive list of references, including (of course)
Budd et. al's excellent, if slightly dated review. if you are really suggesting that Meyer's book had anything to do with
"sparking interest" in this fossil record, that's truly ridiculous. Have you ever looked? It also appears you still have
not looked at Erwin & Valentine's book, which would be inexplicable for anyone interested in the subject.
On Wednesday, September 28, 2022 at 5:53:16 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:microfossils, “small shelly fossils,” often derived from larger animals with complex multi-element skeletons.2
On 9/28/22 2:32 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
On Tuesday, September 27, 2022 at 10:59:53 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
On 9/27/22 6:31 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
John's parting shot suggests that moving this thread to talk.origins >>> might generate a good deal of interest.
You didn't comment on this. Do you disagree?Feel free to crosspost if you think so.
On Tuesday, September 27, 2022 at 6:43:30 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
On 9/27/22 11:19 AM, erik simpson wrote:
On Tuesday, September 27, 2022 at 9:39:32 AM UTC-7, John Harshman wrote:
On 9/27/22 9:22 AM, erik simpson wrote:
https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(22)01455-5
"Among extant animals, Lophotrochozoa accounts for the majority of phyla.1
This bilaterian clade radiated rapidly during the Cambrian explosion, obfuscating its phylogenetic relationships and rendering many aspects of its early evolution uncertain. Many early lophotrochozoans are known only from isolated skeletal
two dorsal rows of sclerites in a highly asymmetric arrangement, flanked by smaller, cap-shaped sclerites. The scleritome was fringed by iterated fascicles of chaetae and two layers of flattened lobes. Phylogenetic analysis confirms that camenellansThe discovery of articulated fossils has revealed surprising insights into the animals from which these skeletal pieces were derived, such as paired shells in the mollusc Halkieria.3
Tommotiids are a key group of phosphatic early skeletal fossils that first appear in the late early Cambrian.4
,5
Although their affinities were previously obscure, discoveries of partial scleritomes and investigations of growth and microstructure6
provide links with Brachiopoda7
,8
and Phoronida,9
two of the lophophorate phyla. By contrast, the body plan of camenellan tommotiids remains a palaeontological mystery, with hypothetical reconstructions representing motile, benthic, dorsally armored worms.4
,10
Here, we describe an articulated camenellan (Wufengella bengtsoni gen. et sp. nov.) from the Cambrian Chengjiang Biota, China, revealing the morphology of the scleritome and the first soft tissues from an adult tommotiid. Wufengella carries
<snip of things dealt with in my first reply>,12"Halkieriids are molluscs?
Another illustration that in the early Cambrian, many currently known "major phyla" probably wouldn't have been so classified by a Cambrian Linnaeus.
Well, here's the reference, but I can only see the abstract, and I can't
tell from that whether the paper does make that claim. It compares >>>>>> Halkieria with Wiwaxia, not generally supposed to be a mollusc, though
often thought to be an annelid. Perhaps this just shows your point, that
really ancient members of separate phyla were not so separate. >>>>>>
https://www.nature.com/articles/345802a0
Halkieriids (and Wiwaxiids) are still problematic, after all these years. Here's an
interesting article relevant to the subject, and remarlably, open access:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-16304-6
The following is typical of the cluelessness of run of the mill
anti-creationist [as distinct from anti-creationism, which I am] zealots:
With the above for context, I pick up where I left off in my first reply.And these are all the animals Steven Meyer and the creationists claim >>>> don't exist.
Meyer was well aware of Cambrian animals of problematic affinities, >>> including Wiwaxia, and also Amiskwia, Eldonia, and Nectocaris,
and took them in his stride.
The bracketed parts replace incorrect words that made your statement literally false.[Your words] "in his stride" [remind me that] he ignored the fact that several of
them contradicted his claim that there were no intermediates between phyla.
I believe they now make the statement true.
Your explanation below makes it clear that you do not use the wordThat "fact" remains to be seen. Just what do you mean by "intermediates"?
in any sense that is easily explainable to laymen. Meyer was writing
for a general audience, so he must have meant something else.
So I need to see what words of his you are [mis]interpreting above.
It would be anti-cladism heresy for you to claim that any of the groups that
Erik identified were paraphyletic, wouldn't it?
No, it would not, but I don't claim such a thing anyway.
So, what did you mean, and where is your evidence?
I suggest reading Budd G.E., Jensen S. A critical reappraisal of the fossil record of the bilaterian phyla. Biological Reviews 2000; 75:253-295.If it does a MUCH better job of defining "intermediates" than you do below, why didn't you simply quote its definition?
Essentially, many Cambrian taxa are stem-members of their associated
phyla and some of them are stem-members of groups of phyla.
"Lobopods", for example, are stem-members of different ecdysozoan phyla.Phyla are clades, so this would make "lobopods" a polyphyletic assemblage. Might they be a "wastebasket taxon," like "Cotylosauria", "Thecodonta," "Insectivora," etc.?
Halkieriids and/or tommotiids may (i.e., less certainly) be stem-lophotrochozoans.IOW, they may be outside the crown group of all lophotrochozoans.
The following analogy comes to mind: the Sparassodonta, a clade which includes the formidable saber-tooth Thylacosmilus, are stem-marsupials.
But no paleontologist would claim that they shed any light on the relationship between marsupials and eutherians, or between the
various (crown) marsupial orders.
It would be anti-cladism heresy for you to claim that any of the groups that
Erik identified were paraphyletic, wouldn't it?
No, it would not, but I don't claim such a thing anyway.You may have to, if you can't improve on what you have done so far.
But the part about ignoring them was that he ignored the small,
shelly fauna that includes halkieriids and tommotiids, and that are
precursors to the Cambrian explosion.
I do recall an article about the "shellies" in a DI webpage, probably Evolution News,
where this omission was addressed.
In what way was it addressed?Maybe Glenn can help us out here. I am short on time today, likely shorter than you.
But the bottom line is, you are basing the "ignoring" on a book that may sparked the
intense interest in the "shellies" in the blogosphere. Do you disagree?
You are obviously referring to something I did not quote. What is it?In any event, the sentence I quoted below puts these particularYes, mostly, though a few are Precambrian.
shellies in the Cambrian:
But the point is that they"the visible explosion" refers to what Meyer calls "the main pulse of the Cambrian explosion,"
predate the visible explosion, i.e. the appearance of most phyla, which isn't until Cambrian Stage 3.
rather than what he calls the explosion itself.
Note: NO precambrian exceptions, contrary to what you wrote above.And the closing words of the abstract of the very paper you
are citing should have given you pause:
"On this view, the absence of fossil Ediacaran sclerites is evidence against any ‘Precambrian prelude’ to the explosive diversification of these phyla in the Cambrian, c. 540–530 million years ago."
You will note that this places the beginning of the Cambrian explosion >> considerably before the time that Meyer attributes to it, in the
Chengjiang fauna, and long before the fossil appearance of most phyla.
I do not note any such thing. Meyer is very careful to note that "the Cambrian
explosion" has been given many different meanings by different people, and that he is primarily
concerned with what he calls "the main pulse" of the Cambrian explosion, which lasted approximately 6 million years and saw the emergence of
13 animal phyla in the fossil record by reckoning of Erwin et al., Science 334 (2011) 1091-97 and 16 animal phyla in a slightly different ca. 6 my period by reckoning of Bowring et al, Science 261 (1993) 1293-98.
What they're talking about there is Cambrian Stage 3, long after theCorrection: possibly Meyer, but it is a baseless insult to add "perhaps you also."
rise of the small shellies. Meyer, and perhaps you also, is confused
about the difference between the fossil record and the actual origins of taxa.
The small shellies and the ichnofossil record are clues that theI would not call "all fossilizable phyla in 40 million years" a gradual expansion,
explosion is underway considerably before we get a good look at it. And also evidence that it was a gradual expansion.
given that some of the phyla seem to have gone extinct and NONE were added in the subsequent 500+ million years.
You are a strange bedfellow of Donald Prothero, who nicknamed the Cambrian explosion
the "Cambrian slow fuse," claiming it took 80 million years.
I wrote some interesting things about him and you
last time around (see below), hence the "strange" in "strange bedfellow."
<snip of things to be dealt with tomorrow. I am short on time today>
This explosive diversification they mention is not shown in the fossil >> record until Cambrian Stage 3, about 520 ma.
See the full quote above. It is NOT due to Erwin & Valentine, despiteWhat is your reference for this claim? It is inconsistent with what "they"
wrote and I quoted: "...c. 540–530 million years ago."
what you say next:
Try Erwin & Valentine.
<snip for focus>
Prothero might be turning in his grave, were he not still alive. :) :)
Whatever that means.
You have a very leaky memory. Don't you remember how Prothero
wiped out all our comments and questions on his blog except your comment which
included the question of how he estimated 80 million years for what HE called
the Cambrian explosion? He left in his response which evaded the question. When he saw how you politely pointed this out, he went on his rampage
of deleting about 40 questions and comments, including your polite pointing-out.
If you have actual interest in the "small shelly fauna" (pretty essential for anyone interested in "Cambrian explosion),I didn't know he had done that much,You did know it, and you commented on it at the time. Another manifestation of
your leaky memory.
Seems you don't recall how you were barred from commenting anywhere in
the misnamed "Skepticblog," not just from that article by Prothero.
but at any rate how would that beSee above about the 80 million "short fuse," which he also called the Cambrian explosion.
relevant to the present case?
Or did you just want to revive a grievance against him?The real aggrieved party is Meyer, whose book Prothero flagrantly misrepresented,
including an out and out lie about what Meyer wrote about the 80 million period.
As for me, you and I have almost the same grievance as far as that mass censorship is concerned.
But his treatment of you was the more inexcusable of the two.
Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
Univ. of South Carolina at Columbia
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
On Thursday, September 29, 2022 at 12:27:27 PM UTC-7, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:microfossils, “small shelly fossils,” often derived from larger animals with complex multi-element skeletons.2
On Wednesday, September 28, 2022 at 5:53:16 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
On 9/28/22 2:32 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
On Tuesday, September 27, 2022 at 10:59:53 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
On 9/27/22 6:31 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
John's parting shot suggests that moving this thread to talk.origins >>> might generate a good deal of interest.
You didn't comment on this. Do you disagree?Feel free to crosspost if you think so.
On Tuesday, September 27, 2022 at 6:43:30 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
On 9/27/22 11:19 AM, erik simpson wrote:
On Tuesday, September 27, 2022 at 9:39:32 AM UTC-7, John Harshman wrote:
On 9/27/22 9:22 AM, erik simpson wrote:
https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(22)01455-5
"Among extant animals, Lophotrochozoa accounts for the majority of phyla.1
This bilaterian clade radiated rapidly during the Cambrian explosion, obfuscating its phylogenetic relationships and rendering many aspects of its early evolution uncertain. Many early lophotrochozoans are known only from isolated skeletal
The discovery of articulated fossils has revealed surprising insights into the animals from which these skeletal pieces were derived, such as paired shells in the mollusc Halkieria.3
Tommotiids are a key group of phosphatic early skeletal fossils that first appear in the late early Cambrian.4
,5
two dorsal rows of sclerites in a highly asymmetric arrangement, flanked by smaller, cap-shaped sclerites. The scleritome was fringed by iterated fascicles of chaetae and two layers of flattened lobes. Phylogenetic analysis confirms that camenellansAlthough their affinities were previously obscure, discoveries of partial scleritomes and investigations of growth and microstructure6
provide links with Brachiopoda7
,8
and Phoronida,9
two of the lophophorate phyla. By contrast, the body plan of camenellan tommotiids remains a palaeontological mystery, with hypothetical reconstructions representing motile, benthic, dorsally armored worms.4
,10
Here, we describe an articulated camenellan (Wufengella bengtsoni gen. et sp. nov.) from the Cambrian Chengjiang Biota, China, revealing the morphology of the scleritome and the first soft tissues from an adult tommotiid. Wufengella carries
<snip of things dealt with in my first reply>,12"Halkieriids are molluscs?
Another illustration that in the early Cambrian, many currently known "major phyla" probably wouldn't have been so classified by a Cambrian Linnaeus.
Well, here's the reference, but I can only see the abstract, and I can't
tell from that whether the paper does make that claim. It compares
Halkieria with Wiwaxia, not generally supposed to be a mollusc, though
often thought to be an annelid. Perhaps this just shows your point, that
really ancient members of separate phyla were not so separate. >>>>>>
https://www.nature.com/articles/345802a0
Halkieriids (and Wiwaxiids) are still problematic, after all these years. Here's an
interesting article relevant to the subject, and remarlably, open access:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-16304-6
The following is typical of the cluelessness of run of the mill
anti-creationist [as distinct from anti-creationism, which I am] zealots:
With the above for context, I pick up where I left off in my first reply.And these are all the animals Steven Meyer and the creationists claim
don't exist.
Meyer was well aware of Cambrian animals of problematic affinities, >>> including Wiwaxia, and also Amiskwia, Eldonia, and Nectocaris,
and took them in his stride.
The bracketed parts replace incorrect words that made your statement literally false.[Your words] "in his stride" [remind me that] he ignored the fact that several of
them contradicted his claim that there were no intermediates between phyla.
I believe they now make the statement true.
Your explanation below makes it clear that you do not use the wordThat "fact" remains to be seen. Just what do you mean by "intermediates"?
in any sense that is easily explainable to laymen. Meyer was writing
for a general audience, so he must have meant something else.
So I need to see what words of his you are [mis]interpreting above.
It would be anti-cladism heresy for you to claim that any of the groups that
Erik identified were paraphyletic, wouldn't it?
No, it would not, but I don't claim such a thing anyway.
So, what did you mean, and where is your evidence?
I suggest reading Budd G.E., Jensen S. A critical reappraisal of the fossil record of the bilaterian phyla. Biological Reviews 2000; 75:253-295.If it does a MUCH better job of defining "intermediates" than you do below,
why didn't you simply quote its definition?
Essentially, many Cambrian taxa are stem-members of their associated phyla and some of them are stem-members of groups of phyla.
"Lobopods", for example, are stem-members of different ecdysozoan phyla.Phyla are clades, so this would make "lobopods" a polyphyletic assemblage. Might they be a "wastebasket taxon," like "Cotylosauria", "Thecodonta," "Insectivora," etc.?
Halkieriids and/or tommotiids may (i.e., less certainly) be stem-lophotrochozoans.IOW, they may be outside the crown group of all lophotrochozoans.
The following analogy comes to mind: the Sparassodonta, a clade which includes the formidable saber-tooth Thylacosmilus, are stem-marsupials. But no paleontologist would claim that they shed any light on the relationship between marsupials and eutherians, or between the
various (crown) marsupial orders.
It would be anti-cladism heresy for you to claim that any of the groups that
Erik identified were paraphyletic, wouldn't it?
No, it would not, but I don't claim such a thing anyway.You may have to, if you can't improve on what you have done so far.
But the part about ignoring them was that he ignored the small,
shelly fauna that includes halkieriids and tommotiids, and that are >> precursors to the Cambrian explosion.
I do recall an article about the "shellies" in a DI webpage, probably Evolution News,
where this omission was addressed.
In what way was it addressed?
Maybe Glenn can help us out here. I am short on time today, likely shorter than you.
But the bottom line is, you are basing the "ignoring" on a book that may sparked the
intense interest in the "shellies" in the blogosphere. Do you disagree?
You are obviously referring to something I did not quote. What is it?In any event, the sentence I quoted below puts these particular shellies in the Cambrian:Yes, mostly, though a few are Precambrian.
But the point is that they"the visible explosion" refers to what Meyer calls "the main pulse of the Cambrian explosion,"
predate the visible explosion, i.e. the appearance of most phyla, which isn't until Cambrian Stage 3.
rather than what he calls the explosion itself.
Note: NO precambrian exceptions, contrary to what you wrote above.And the closing words of the abstract of the very paper you
are citing should have given you pause:
"On this view, the absence of fossil Ediacaran sclerites is evidence against any ‘Precambrian prelude’ to the explosive diversification of these phyla in the Cambrian, c. 540–530 million years ago."
You will note that this places the beginning of the Cambrian explosion
considerably before the time that Meyer attributes to it, in the
Chengjiang fauna, and long before the fossil appearance of most phyla.
I do not note any such thing. Meyer is very careful to note that "the Cambrian
explosion" has been given many different meanings by different people, and that he is primarily
concerned with what he calls "the main pulse" of the Cambrian explosion,
which lasted approximately 6 million years and saw the emergence of
13 animal phyla in the fossil record by reckoning of Erwin et al., Science 334 (2011) 1091-97 and 16 animal phyla in a slightly different ca. 6 my period by reckoning of Bowring et al, Science 261 (1993) 1293-98.
What they're talking about there is Cambrian Stage 3, long after the rise of the small shellies. Meyer, and perhaps you also, is confused about the difference between the fossil record and the actual origins of taxa.
Correction: possibly Meyer, but it is a baseless insult to add "perhaps you also."
The small shellies and the ichnofossil record are clues that the explosion is underway considerably before we get a good look at it. And also evidence that it was a gradual expansion.
I would not call "all fossilizable phyla in 40 million years" a gradual expansion,
given that some of the phyla seem to have gone extinct and NONE were added in the subsequent 500+ million years.
You are a strange bedfellow of Donald Prothero, who nicknamed the Cambrian explosion
the "Cambrian slow fuse," claiming it took 80 million years.
I wrote some interesting things about him and you
last time around (see below), hence the "strange" in "strange bedfellow."
<snip of things to be dealt with tomorrow. I am short on time today>
This explosive diversification they mention is not shown in the fossil
record until Cambrian Stage 3, about 520 ma.
See the full quote above. It is NOT due to Erwin & Valentine, despiteWhat is your reference for this claim? It is inconsistent with what "they"
wrote and I quoted: "...c. 540–530 million years ago."
what you say next:
Try Erwin & Valentine.
<snip for focus>
Prothero might be turning in his grave, were he not still alive. :) :)
Whatever that means.
You have a very leaky memory. Don't you remember how Prothero
wiped out all our comments and questions on his blog except your comment which
included the question of how he estimated 80 million years for what HE called
the Cambrian explosion? He left in his response which evaded the question. When he saw how you politely pointed this out, he went on his rampage
of deleting about 40 questions and comments, including your polite pointing-out.
I didn't know he had done that much,You did know it, and you commented on it at the time. Another manifestation of
your leaky memory.
Seems you don't recall how you were barred from commenting anywhere in
the misnamed "Skepticblog," not just from that article by Prothero.
but at any rate how would that beSee above about the 80 million "short fuse," which he also called the Cambrian explosion.
relevant to the present case?
Or did you just want to revive a grievance against him?The real aggrieved party is Meyer, whose book Prothero flagrantly misrepresented,
including an out and out lie about what Meyer wrote about the 80 million period.
As for me, you and I have almost the same grievance as far as that mass censorship is concerned.
But his treatment of you was the more inexcusable of the two.
Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
Univ. of South Carolina at Columbia
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
If you have actual interest in the "small shelly fauna" (pretty essential for anyone interested in "Cambrian explosion),
the Wiki entry for it is actually not a bad place to start. The SSF present quite a continuous (Ediacaran-Cambrian) record
of early stages of metazoan mineralization.
It gives an extensive list of references, including (of course)
Budd et. al's excellent, if slightly dated review. if you are really suggesting that Meyer's book had anything to do with
"sparking interest" in this fossil record, that's truly ridiculous.
Have you ever looked? It also appears you still have
not looked at Erwin & Valentine's book,
which would be inexplicable for anyone interested in the subject.
On Friday, September 30, 2022 at 11:02:23 AM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:skeletal microfossils, “small shelly fossils,” often derived from larger animals with complex multi-element skeletons.2
On Thursday, September 29, 2022 at 12:27:27 PM UTC-7, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
On Wednesday, September 28, 2022 at 5:53:16 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
On 9/28/22 2:32 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
On Tuesday, September 27, 2022 at 10:59:53 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
On 9/27/22 6:31 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
John's parting shot suggests that moving this thread to talk.origins
might generate a good deal of interest.
You didn't comment on this. Do you disagree?Feel free to crosspost if you think so.
On Tuesday, September 27, 2022 at 6:43:30 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
On 9/27/22 11:19 AM, erik simpson wrote:
On Tuesday, September 27, 2022 at 9:39:32 AM UTC-7, John Harshman wrote:
On 9/27/22 9:22 AM, erik simpson wrote:
https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(22)01455-5
"Among extant animals, Lophotrochozoa accounts for the majority of phyla.1
This bilaterian clade radiated rapidly during the Cambrian explosion, obfuscating its phylogenetic relationships and rendering many aspects of its early evolution uncertain. Many early lophotrochozoans are known only from isolated
Compare this comment with the my PS at the end of my post.carries two dorsal rows of sclerites in a highly asymmetric arrangement, flanked by smaller, cap-shaped sclerites. The scleritome was fringed by iterated fascicles of chaetae and two layers of flattened lobes. Phylogenetic analysis confirms that
And not during the Tommotian? See my comment about that near the end.The discovery of articulated fossils has revealed surprising insights into the animals from which these skeletal pieces were derived, such as paired shells in the mollusc Halkieria.3
Tommotiids are a key group of phosphatic early skeletal fossils that first appear in the late early Cambrian.4
,5
Although their affinities were previously obscure, discoveries of partial scleritomes and investigations of growth and microstructure6
provide links with Brachiopoda7
,8
and Phoronida,9
two of the lophophorate phyla. By contrast, the body plan of camenellan tommotiids remains a palaeontological mystery, with hypothetical reconstructions representing motile, benthic, dorsally armored worms.4
,10
Here, we describe an articulated camenellan (Wufengella bengtsoni gen. et sp. nov.) from the Cambrian Chengjiang Biota, China, revealing the morphology of the scleritome and the first soft tissues from an adult tommotiid. Wufengella
<snip of things dealt with in my first reply>,12"Halkieriids are molluscs?
Another illustration that in the early Cambrian, many currently known "major phyla" probably wouldn't have been so classified by a Cambrian Linnaeus.
Well, here's the reference, but I can only see the abstract, and I can't
tell from that whether the paper does make that claim. It compares
Halkieria with Wiwaxia, not generally supposed to be a mollusc, though
often thought to be an annelid. Perhaps this just shows your point, that
really ancient members of separate phyla were not so separate. >>>>>>
https://www.nature.com/articles/345802a0
Halkieriids (and Wiwaxiids) are still problematic, after all these years. Here's an
interesting article relevant to the subject, and remarlably, open access:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-16304-6
The following is typical of the cluelessness of run of the mill >>> anti-creationist [as distinct from anti-creationism, which I am] zealots:
With the above for context, I pick up where I left off in my first reply.And these are all the animals Steven Meyer and the creationists claim
don't exist.
Meyer was well aware of Cambrian animals of problematic affinities,
including Wiwaxia, and also Amiskwia, Eldonia, and Nectocaris,
and took them in his stride.
The bracketed parts replace incorrect words that made your statement literally false.[Your words] "in his stride" [remind me that] he ignored the fact that several of
them contradicted his claim that there were no intermediates between phyla.
I believe they now make the statement true.
Your explanation below makes it clear that you do not use the wordThat "fact" remains to be seen. Just what do you mean by "intermediates"?
in any sense that is easily explainable to laymen. Meyer was writing
for a general audience, so he must have meant something else.
So I need to see what words of his you are [mis]interpreting above.
It would be anti-cladism heresy for you to claim that any of the groups that
Erik identified were paraphyletic, wouldn't it?
No, it would not, but I don't claim such a thing anyway.
So, what did you mean, and where is your evidence?
I suggest reading Budd G.E., Jensen S. A critical reappraisal of the fossil record of the bilaterian phyla. Biological Reviews 2000; 75:253-295.If it does a MUCH better job of defining "intermediates" than you do below,
why didn't you simply quote its definition?
Essentially, many Cambrian taxa are stem-members of their associated phyla and some of them are stem-members of groups of phyla.
"Lobopods", for example, are stem-members of different ecdysozoan phyla.Phyla are clades, so this would make "lobopods" a polyphyletic assemblage.
Might they be a "wastebasket taxon," like "Cotylosauria", "Thecodonta," "Insectivora," etc.?
Halkieriids and/or tommotiids may (i.e., less certainly) be stem-lophotrochozoans.IOW, they may be outside the crown group of all lophotrochozoans.
The following analogy comes to mind: the Sparassodonta, a clade which includes the formidable saber-tooth Thylacosmilus, are stem-marsupials. But no paleontologist would claim that they shed any light on the relationship between marsupials and eutherians, or between the
various (crown) marsupial orders.
It would be anti-cladism heresy for you to claim that any of the groups that
Erik identified were paraphyletic, wouldn't it?
No, it would not, but I don't claim such a thing anyway.You may have to, if you can't improve on what you have done so far.
But the part about ignoring them was that he ignored the small,
shelly fauna that includes halkieriids and tommotiids, and that are >> precursors to the Cambrian explosion.
I do recall an article about the "shellies" in a DI webpage, probably Evolution News,
where this omission was addressed.
In what way was it addressed?
Maybe Glenn can help us out here. I am short on time today, likely shorter than you.
But the bottom line is, you are basing the "ignoring" on a book that may sparked the
intense interest in the "shellies" in the blogosphere. Do you disagree?
You are obviously referring to something I did not quote. What is it?In any event, the sentence I quoted below puts these particular shellies in the Cambrian:Yes, mostly, though a few are Precambrian.
But the point is that they"the visible explosion" refers to what Meyer calls "the main pulse of the Cambrian explosion,"
predate the visible explosion, i.e. the appearance of most phyla, which
isn't until Cambrian Stage 3.
rather than what he calls the explosion itself.
Note: NO precambrian exceptions, contrary to what you wrote above.And the closing words of the abstract of the very paper you
are citing should have given you pause:
"On this view, the absence of fossil Ediacaran sclerites is evidence against any ‘Precambrian prelude’ to the explosive diversification of these phyla in the Cambrian, c. 540–530 million years ago."
You will note that this places the beginning of the Cambrian explosion
considerably before the time that Meyer attributes to it, in the
Chengjiang fauna, and long before the fossil appearance of most phyla.
I do not note any such thing. Meyer is very careful to note that "the Cambrian
explosion" has been given many different meanings by different people, and that he is primarily
concerned with what he calls "the main pulse" of the Cambrian explosion,
which lasted approximately 6 million years and saw the emergence of 13 animal phyla in the fossil record by reckoning of Erwin et al., Science 334 (2011) 1091-97 and 16 animal phyla in a slightly different
ca. 6 my period by reckoning of Bowring et al, Science 261 (1993) 1293-98.
What they're talking about there is Cambrian Stage 3, long after the rise of the small shellies. Meyer, and perhaps you also, is confused about the difference between the fossil record and the actual origins of taxa.
Hence my remark about Harshman's no-brainer reply to thisCorrection: possibly Meyer, but it is a baseless insult to add "perhaps you also."
post of yours below, Erik.
The small shellies and the ichnofossil record are clues that the explosion is underway considerably before we get a good look at it. And
also evidence that it was a gradual expansion.
I would not call "all fossilizable phyla in 40 million years" a gradual expansion,
given that some of the phyla seem to have gone extinct and NONE were added
in the subsequent 500+ million years.
You are a strange bedfellow of Donald Prothero, who nicknamed the Cambrian explosion
the "Cambrian slow fuse," claiming it took 80 million years.
I wrote some interesting things about him and you
last time around (see below), hence the "strange" in "strange bedfellow."
<snip of things to be dealt with tomorrow. I am short on time today>
This explosive diversification they mention is not shown in the fossil
record until Cambrian Stage 3, about 520 ma.
See the full quote above. It is NOT due to Erwin & Valentine, despite what you say next:What is your reference for this claim? It is inconsistent with what "they"
wrote and I quoted: "...c. 540–530 million years ago."
Try Erwin & Valentine.
<snip for focus>
Prothero might be turning in his grave, were he not still alive. :) :)
Whatever that means.
You have a very leaky memory. Don't you remember how Prothero
wiped out all our comments and questions on his blog except your comment which
included the question of how he estimated 80 million years for what HE called
the Cambrian explosion? He left in his response which evaded the question. When he saw how you politely pointed this out, he went on his rampage
of deleting about 40 questions and comments, including your polite pointing-out.
I didn't know he had done that much,You did know it, and you commented on it at the time. Another manifestation of
your leaky memory.
Seems you don't recall how you were barred from commenting anywhere in the misnamed "Skepticblog," not just from that article by Prothero.
but at any rate how would that beSee above about the 80 million "short fuse," which he also called the Cambrian explosion.
relevant to the present case?
Or did you just want to revive a grievance against him?The real aggrieved party is Meyer, whose book Prothero flagrantly misrepresented,
including an out and out lie about what Meyer wrote about the 80 million period.
As for me, you and I have almost the same grievance as far as that mass censorship is concerned.
But his treatment of you was the more inexcusable of the two.
Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
Univ. of South Carolina at Columbia
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
If you have actual interest in the "small shelly fauna" (pretty essential for anyone interested in "Cambrian explosion),I recall looking years ago, and if John does not come up with a better starting point, I'll take a look.
the Wiki entry for it is actually not a bad place to start. The SSF present quite a continuous (Ediacaran-Cambrian) record
of early stages of metazoan mineralization.
It gives an extensive list of references, including (of course)You left out "in the blogosphere" as opposed to the small number of professionals who had
Budd et. al's excellent, if slightly dated review. if you are really suggesting that Meyer's book had anything to do with
"sparking interest" in this fossil record, that's truly ridiculous.
reasons to be interested that were unrelated to the feeding frenzy that greeted Meyer's book.
Hence your "truly ridiculous" is disingenuous.
Have you ever looked? It also appears you still haveOnly to the top of Harshman's head from where he got that false idea, and to you blindly following him.
not looked at Erwin & Valentine's book,
I bought a copy of their book for a close friend who is as widely interested in science
as myself, about 7 years ago, but I read it from cover to cover before leaving it with him.
Here is one thing that sticks in my mind: it said that the names "Tommotian" and "Atdabanian"
for the second and third stages of the Cambrian, of which Prothero childishly made
so much in his "review", were unworkable because they were based on Siberian strata
that cannot be coordinated with strata found elsewhere in the world.
Yet Prothero ALSO touted the Erwin and Valentine book to the high heavens
in the same "review." Go figure.
which would be inexplicable for anyone interested in the subject.Too bad for you that I am very interested, and too bad for John, with his no-brainer reply to this post of yours.
Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
PS Did YOU read the Erwin & Valentine book? can you remember
whether it tried to assign any of the little shellies to various phyla?
On Friday, September 30, 2022 at 2:47:08 PM UTC-7, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:skeletal microfossils, “small shelly fossils,” often derived from larger animals with complex multi-element skeletons.2
On Friday, September 30, 2022 at 11:02:23 AM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
On Thursday, September 29, 2022 at 12:27:27 PM UTC-7, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
On Wednesday, September 28, 2022 at 5:53:16 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
On 9/28/22 2:32 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
On Tuesday, September 27, 2022 at 10:59:53 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
On 9/27/22 6:31 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
John's parting shot suggests that moving this thread to talk.origins
might generate a good deal of interest.
You didn't comment on this. Do you disagree?Feel free to crosspost if you think so.
On Tuesday, September 27, 2022 at 6:43:30 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
On 9/27/22 11:19 AM, erik simpson wrote:
On Tuesday, September 27, 2022 at 9:39:32 AM UTC-7, John Harshman wrote:
On 9/27/22 9:22 AM, erik simpson wrote:
https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(22)01455-5
"Among extant animals, Lophotrochozoa accounts for the majority of phyla.1
This bilaterian clade radiated rapidly during the Cambrian explosion, obfuscating its phylogenetic relationships and rendering many aspects of its early evolution uncertain. Many early lophotrochozoans are known only from isolated
carries two dorsal rows of sclerites in a highly asymmetric arrangement, flanked by smaller, cap-shaped sclerites. The scleritome was fringed by iterated fascicles of chaetae and two layers of flattened lobes. Phylogenetic analysis confirms thatCompare this comment with the my PS at the end of my post.
And not during the Tommotian? See my comment about that near the end.The discovery of articulated fossils has revealed surprising insights into the animals from which these skeletal pieces were derived, such as paired shells in the mollusc Halkieria.3
Tommotiids are a key group of phosphatic early skeletal fossils that first appear in the late early Cambrian.4
,5
Although their affinities were previously obscure, discoveries of partial scleritomes and investigations of growth and microstructure6
provide links with Brachiopoda7
,8
and Phoronida,9
two of the lophophorate phyla. By contrast, the body plan of camenellan tommotiids remains a palaeontological mystery, with hypothetical reconstructions representing motile, benthic, dorsally armored worms.4
,10
Here, we describe an articulated camenellan (Wufengella bengtsoni gen. et sp. nov.) from the Cambrian Chengjiang Biota, China, revealing the morphology of the scleritome and the first soft tissues from an adult tommotiid. Wufengella
<snip of things dealt with in my first reply>,12"Halkieriids are molluscs?
Another illustration that in the early Cambrian, many currently known "major phyla" probably wouldn't have been so classified by a Cambrian Linnaeus.
Well, here's the reference, but I can only see the abstract, and I can't
tell from that whether the paper does make that claim. It compares
Halkieria with Wiwaxia, not generally supposed to be a mollusc, though
often thought to be an annelid. Perhaps this just shows your point, that
really ancient members of separate phyla were not so separate.
https://www.nature.com/articles/345802a0
Halkieriids (and Wiwaxiids) are still problematic, after all these years. Here's an
interesting article relevant to the subject, and remarlably, open access:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-16304-6
The following is typical of the cluelessness of run of the mill >>> anti-creationist [as distinct from anti-creationism, which I am] zealots:
With the above for context, I pick up where I left off in my first reply.And these are all the animals Steven Meyer and the creationists claim
don't exist.
Meyer was well aware of Cambrian animals of problematic affinities,
including Wiwaxia, and also Amiskwia, Eldonia, and Nectocaris, >>> and took them in his stride.
The bracketed parts replace incorrect words that made your statement literally false.[Your words] "in his stride" [remind me that] he ignored the fact that several of
them contradicted his claim that there were no intermediates between phyla.
I believe they now make the statement true.
Your explanation below makes it clear that you do not use the wordThat "fact" remains to be seen. Just what do you mean by "intermediates"?
in any sense that is easily explainable to laymen. Meyer was writing for a general audience, so he must have meant something else.
So I need to see what words of his you are [mis]interpreting above.
It would be anti-cladism heresy for you to claim that any of the groups that
Erik identified were paraphyletic, wouldn't it?
No, it would not, but I don't claim such a thing anyway.
So, what did you mean, and where is your evidence?
I suggest reading Budd G.E., Jensen S. A critical reappraisal of the fossil record of the bilaterian phyla. Biological Reviews 2000; 75:253-295.If it does a MUCH better job of defining "intermediates" than you do below,
why didn't you simply quote its definition?
Essentially, many Cambrian taxa are stem-members of their associated phyla and some of them are stem-members of groups of phyla.
"Lobopods", for example, are stem-members of different ecdysozoan phyla.Phyla are clades, so this would make "lobopods" a polyphyletic assemblage.
Might they be a "wastebasket taxon," like "Cotylosauria", "Thecodonta," "Insectivora," etc.?
Halkieriids and/or tommotiids may (i.e., less certainly) be stem-lophotrochozoans.IOW, they may be outside the crown group of all lophotrochozoans.
The following analogy comes to mind: the Sparassodonta, a clade which includes the formidable saber-tooth Thylacosmilus, are stem-marsupials.
But no paleontologist would claim that they shed any light on the relationship between marsupials and eutherians, or between the
various (crown) marsupial orders.
It would be anti-cladism heresy for you to claim that any of the groups that
Erik identified were paraphyletic, wouldn't it?
No, it would not, but I don't claim such a thing anyway.You may have to, if you can't improve on what you have done so far.
But the part about ignoring them was that he ignored the small, >> shelly fauna that includes halkieriids and tommotiids, and that are
precursors to the Cambrian explosion.
I do recall an article about the "shellies" in a DI webpage, probably Evolution News,
where this omission was addressed.
In what way was it addressed?
Maybe Glenn can help us out here. I am short on time today, likely shorter than you.
But the bottom line is, you are basing the "ignoring" on a book that may sparked the
intense interest in the "shellies" in the blogosphere. Do you disagree?
You are obviously referring to something I did not quote. What is it?In any event, the sentence I quoted below puts these particular shellies in the Cambrian:Yes, mostly, though a few are Precambrian.
But the point is that they"the visible explosion" refers to what Meyer calls "the main pulse of the Cambrian explosion,"
predate the visible explosion, i.e. the appearance of most phyla, which
isn't until Cambrian Stage 3.
rather than what he calls the explosion itself.
Note: NO precambrian exceptions, contrary to what you wrote above.And the closing words of the abstract of the very paper you
are citing should have given you pause:
"On this view, the absence of fossil Ediacaran sclerites is evidence against any ‘Precambrian prelude’ to the explosive diversification of these phyla in the Cambrian, c. 540–530 million years ago."
You will note that this places the beginning of the Cambrian explosion
considerably before the time that Meyer attributes to it, in the >> Chengjiang fauna, and long before the fossil appearance of most phyla.
I do not note any such thing. Meyer is very careful to note that "the Cambrian
explosion" has been given many different meanings by different people, and that he is primarily
concerned with what he calls "the main pulse" of the Cambrian explosion,
which lasted approximately 6 million years and saw the emergence of
13 animal phyla in the fossil record by reckoning of Erwin et al., Science 334 (2011) 1091-97 and 16 animal phyla in a slightly different
ca. 6 my period by reckoning of Bowring et al, Science 261 (1993) 1293-98.
What they're talking about there is Cambrian Stage 3, long after the rise of the small shellies. Meyer, and perhaps you also, is confused about the difference between the fossil record and the actual origins of taxa.
Hence my remark about Harshman's no-brainer reply to thisCorrection: possibly Meyer, but it is a baseless insult to add "perhaps you also."
post of yours below, Erik.
The small shellies and the ichnofossil record are clues that the explosion is underway considerably before we get a good look at it. And
also evidence that it was a gradual expansion.
I would not call "all fossilizable phyla in 40 million years" a gradual expansion,
given that some of the phyla seem to have gone extinct and NONE were added
in the subsequent 500+ million years.
You are a strange bedfellow of Donald Prothero, who nicknamed the Cambrian explosion
the "Cambrian slow fuse," claiming it took 80 million years.
I wrote some interesting things about him and you
last time around (see below), hence the "strange" in "strange bedfellow."
<snip of things to be dealt with tomorrow. I am short on time today>
This explosive diversification they mention is not shown in the fossil
record until Cambrian Stage 3, about 520 ma.
See the full quote above. It is NOT due to Erwin & Valentine, despite what you say next:What is your reference for this claim? It is inconsistent with what "they"
wrote and I quoted: "...c. 540–530 million years ago."
Try Erwin & Valentine.
<snip for focus>
Prothero might be turning in his grave, were he not still alive. :) :)
Whatever that means.
You have a very leaky memory. Don't you remember how Prothero wiped out all our comments and questions on his blog except your comment which
included the question of how he estimated 80 million years for what HE called
the Cambrian explosion? He left in his response which evaded the question. When he saw how you politely pointed this out, he went on his rampage
of deleting about 40 questions and comments, including your polite pointing-out.
I didn't know he had done that much,You did know it, and you commented on it at the time. Another manifestation of
your leaky memory.
Seems you don't recall how you were barred from commenting anywhere in the misnamed "Skepticblog," not just from that article by Prothero.
but at any rate how would that beSee above about the 80 million "short fuse," which he also called the Cambrian explosion.
relevant to the present case?
Or did you just want to revive a grievance against him?The real aggrieved party is Meyer, whose book Prothero flagrantly misrepresented,
including an out and out lie about what Meyer wrote about the 80 million period.
As for me, you and I have almost the same grievance as far as that mass censorship is concerned.
But his treatment of you was the more inexcusable of the two.
Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
Univ. of South Carolina at Columbia
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
If you have actual interest in the "small shelly fauna" (pretty essential for anyone interested in "Cambrian explosion),I recall looking years ago, and if John does not come up with a better starting point, I'll take a look.
the Wiki entry for it is actually not a bad place to start. The SSF present quite a continuous (Ediacaran-Cambrian) record
of early stages of metazoan mineralization.
It gives an extensive list of references, including (of course)You left out "in the blogosphere" as opposed to the small number of professionals who had
Budd et. al's excellent, if slightly dated review. if you are really suggesting that Meyer's book had anything to do with
"sparking interest" in this fossil record, that's truly ridiculous.
reasons to be interested that were unrelated to the feeding frenzy that greeted Meyer's book.
Hence your "truly ridiculous" is disingenuous.And you left out that I said *IF* you are really suggesting...". As you acknowledge that
professionals (and interested amateurs) were unaffected by Meyer's work, I acknowledge
that you aren't suggesting that they were "sparked". Hence your accusation of my disingenuity
is disingenuous.
Have you ever looked? It also appears you still haveOnly to the top of Harshman's head from where he got that false idea, and to you blindly following him.
not looked at Erwin & Valentine's book,
I bought a copy of their book for a close friend who is as widely interested in science
as myself, about 7 years ago, but I read it from cover to cover before leaving it with him.
Here is one thing that sticks in my mind: it said that the names "Tommotian" and "Atdabanian"
for the second and third stages of the Cambrian, of which Prothero childishly made
so much in his "review", were unworkable because they were based on Siberian strata
that cannot be coordinated with strata found elsewhere in the world.
Yet Prothero ALSO touted the Erwin and Valentine book to the high heavens in the same "review." Go figure.I'm not familiar with Prothero's review, but E&V have a table correlating the various "stage names" that have
been used in the literature, not just for Laurentia and SIberia, but many other locations as well. There is no
current confusion.
Why is this "too bad" for me or anybody else? I'm glad you read it, but you've never said anything that I'vewhich would be inexplicable for anyone interested in the subject.Too bad for you that I am very interested, and too bad for John, with his no-brainer reply to this post of yours.
noticed that indicated familiarity with it. And judging form your remarks above, it still isn't obvious that
you're that familiar with it.
Peter NyikosVery good. More disingenuous insults. Of course I've read it (parts several times), and of course they
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
PS Did YOU read the Erwin & Valentine book? can you remember
whether it tried to assign any of the little shellies to various phyla?
suggest correspondence of the SSF:
"Although some of the SSFs are whole shells, such as thoseof tiny brachiopods, mollusks, and an array
of cones of uncertain affinities, others are individual plates, spines, and other skeletal elements that once
adorned larger animals and were preserved by the same phosphatization processes."
...
"The morphological diversity of early Cambrian small shelly sclerites suggest that they represent many different
clades, although lophotrochozoans are most commonly represented."
On Friday, September 30, 2022 at 4:20:57 PM UTC-7, erik simpson wrote:skeletal microfossils, “small shelly fossils,” often derived from larger animals with complex multi-element skeletons.2
On Friday, September 30, 2022 at 2:47:08 PM UTC-7, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
On Friday, September 30, 2022 at 11:02:23 AM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
On Thursday, September 29, 2022 at 12:27:27 PM UTC-7, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
On Wednesday, September 28, 2022 at 5:53:16 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
On 9/28/22 2:32 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
On Tuesday, September 27, 2022 at 10:59:53 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
On 9/27/22 6:31 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
John's parting shot suggests that moving this thread to talk.origins
might generate a good deal of interest.
You didn't comment on this. Do you disagree?Feel free to crosspost if you think so.
On Tuesday, September 27, 2022 at 6:43:30 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
On 9/27/22 11:19 AM, erik simpson wrote:
On Tuesday, September 27, 2022 at 9:39:32 AM UTC-7, John Harshman wrote:
On 9/27/22 9:22 AM, erik simpson wrote:
https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(22)01455-5
"Among extant animals, Lophotrochozoa accounts for the majority of phyla.1
This bilaterian clade radiated rapidly during the Cambrian explosion, obfuscating its phylogenetic relationships and rendering many aspects of its early evolution uncertain. Many early lophotrochozoans are known only from isolated
carries two dorsal rows of sclerites in a highly asymmetric arrangement, flanked by smaller, cap-shaped sclerites. The scleritome was fringed by iterated fascicles of chaetae and two layers of flattened lobes. Phylogenetic analysis confirms thatCompare this comment with the my PS at the end of my post.
And not during the Tommotian? See my comment about that near the end.The discovery of articulated fossils has revealed surprising insights into the animals from which these skeletal pieces were derived, such as paired shells in the mollusc Halkieria.3
Tommotiids are a key group of phosphatic early skeletal fossils that first appear in the late early Cambrian.4
,5
Although their affinities were previously obscure, discoveries of partial scleritomes and investigations of growth and microstructure6
provide links with Brachiopoda7
,8
and Phoronida,9
two of the lophophorate phyla. By contrast, the body plan of camenellan tommotiids remains a palaeontological mystery, with hypothetical reconstructions representing motile, benthic, dorsally armored worms.4
,10
Here, we describe an articulated camenellan (Wufengella bengtsoni gen. et sp. nov.) from the Cambrian Chengjiang Biota, China, revealing the morphology of the scleritome and the first soft tissues from an adult tommotiid. Wufengella
<snip of things dealt with in my first reply>,12"Halkieriids are molluscs?
Another illustration that in the early Cambrian, many currently known "major phyla" probably wouldn't have been so classified by a Cambrian Linnaeus.
Well, here's the reference, but I can only see the abstract, and I can't
tell from that whether the paper does make that claim. It compares
Halkieria with Wiwaxia, not generally supposed to be a mollusc, though
often thought to be an annelid. Perhaps this just shows your point, that
really ancient members of separate phyla were not so separate.
https://www.nature.com/articles/345802a0
Halkieriids (and Wiwaxiids) are still problematic, after all these years. Here's an
interesting article relevant to the subject, and remarlably, open access:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-16304-6
The following is typical of the cluelessness of run of the mill
anti-creationist [as distinct from anti-creationism, which I am] zealots:
With the above for context, I pick up where I left off in my first reply.And these are all the animals Steven Meyer and the creationists claim
don't exist.
Meyer was well aware of Cambrian animals of problematic affinities,
including Wiwaxia, and also Amiskwia, Eldonia, and Nectocaris, >>> and took them in his stride.
The bracketed parts replace incorrect words that made your statement literally false.[Your words] "in his stride" [remind me that] he ignored the fact that several of
them contradicted his claim that there were no intermediates between phyla.
I believe they now make the statement true.
Your explanation below makes it clear that you do not use the word in any sense that is easily explainable to laymen. Meyer was writing for a general audience, so he must have meant something else.That "fact" remains to be seen. Just what do you mean by "intermediates"?
So I need to see what words of his you are [mis]interpreting above.
It would be anti-cladism heresy for you to claim that any of the groups that
Erik identified were paraphyletic, wouldn't it?
No, it would not, but I don't claim such a thing anyway.
So, what did you mean, and where is your evidence?
I suggest reading Budd G.E., Jensen S. A critical reappraisal of theIf it does a MUCH better job of defining "intermediates" than you do below,
fossil record of the bilaterian phyla. Biological Reviews 2000; 75:253-295.
why didn't you simply quote its definition?
Essentially, many Cambrian taxa are stem-members of their associated
phyla and some of them are stem-members of groups of phyla.
"Lobopods", for example, are stem-members of different ecdysozoan phyla.Phyla are clades, so this would make "lobopods" a polyphyletic assemblage.
Might they be a "wastebasket taxon," like "Cotylosauria", "Thecodonta," "Insectivora," etc.?
Halkieriids and/or tommotiids may (i.e., less certainly) be stem-lophotrochozoans.IOW, they may be outside the crown group of all lophotrochozoans. The following analogy comes to mind: the Sparassodonta, a clade which
includes the formidable saber-tooth Thylacosmilus, are stem-marsupials.
But no paleontologist would claim that they shed any light on the relationship between marsupials and eutherians, or between the various (crown) marsupial orders.
It would be anti-cladism heresy for you to claim that any of the groups that
Erik identified were paraphyletic, wouldn't it?
No, it would not, but I don't claim such a thing anyway.You may have to, if you can't improve on what you have done so far.
But the part about ignoring them was that he ignored the small, >> shelly fauna that includes halkieriids and tommotiids, and that are
precursors to the Cambrian explosion.
I do recall an article about the "shellies" in a DI webpage, probably Evolution News,
where this omission was addressed.
In what way was it addressed?
Maybe Glenn can help us out here. I am short on time today, likely shorter than you.
But the bottom line is, you are basing the "ignoring" on a book that may sparked the
intense interest in the "shellies" in the blogosphere. Do you disagree?
You are obviously referring to something I did not quote. What is it?In any event, the sentence I quoted below puts these particular shellies in the Cambrian:Yes, mostly, though a few are Precambrian.
But the point is that they"the visible explosion" refers to what Meyer calls "the main pulse of the Cambrian explosion,"
predate the visible explosion, i.e. the appearance of most phyla, which
isn't until Cambrian Stage 3.
rather than what he calls the explosion itself.
Note: NO precambrian exceptions, contrary to what you wrote above.And the closing words of the abstract of the very paper you >>> are citing should have given you pause:
"On this view, the absence of fossil Ediacaran sclerites is evidence against any ‘Precambrian prelude’ to the explosive diversification of these phyla in the Cambrian, c. 540–530 million years ago."
You will note that this places the beginning of the Cambrian explosion
considerably before the time that Meyer attributes to it, in the
Chengjiang fauna, and long before the fossil appearance of most phyla.
I do not note any such thing. Meyer is very careful to note that "the Cambrian
explosion" has been given many different meanings by different people, and that he is primarily
concerned with what he calls "the main pulse" of the Cambrian explosion,
which lasted approximately 6 million years and saw the emergence of
13 animal phyla in the fossil record by reckoning of Erwin et al.,
Science 334 (2011) 1091-97 and 16 animal phyla in a slightly different
ca. 6 my period by reckoning of Bowring et al, Science 261 (1993) 1293-98.
What they're talking about there is Cambrian Stage 3, long after the
rise of the small shellies. Meyer, and perhaps you also, is confused
about the difference between the fossil record and the actual origins of taxa.
Hence my remark about Harshman's no-brainer reply to thisCorrection: possibly Meyer, but it is a baseless insult to add "perhaps you also."
post of yours below, Erik.
The small shellies and the ichnofossil record are clues that the explosion is underway considerably before we get a good look at it. And
also evidence that it was a gradual expansion.
I would not call "all fossilizable phyla in 40 million years" a gradual expansion,
given that some of the phyla seem to have gone extinct and NONE were added
in the subsequent 500+ million years.
You are a strange bedfellow of Donald Prothero, who nicknamed the Cambrian explosion
the "Cambrian slow fuse," claiming it took 80 million years.
I wrote some interesting things about him and you
last time around (see below), hence the "strange" in "strange bedfellow."
<snip of things to be dealt with tomorrow. I am short on time today>
This explosive diversification they mention is not shown in the fossil
record until Cambrian Stage 3, about 520 ma.
See the full quote above. It is NOT due to Erwin & Valentine, despiteWhat is your reference for this claim? It is inconsistent with what "they"
wrote and I quoted: "...c. 540–530 million years ago."
what you say next:
Try Erwin & Valentine.
<snip for focus>
Prothero might be turning in his grave, were he not still alive. :) :)
Whatever that means.
You have a very leaky memory. Don't you remember how Prothero wiped out all our comments and questions on his blog except your comment which
included the question of how he estimated 80 million years for what HE called
the Cambrian explosion? He left in his response which evaded the question. When he saw how you politely pointed this out, he went on his rampage
of deleting about 40 questions and comments, including your polite pointing-out.
I didn't know he had done that much,You did know it, and you commented on it at the time. Another manifestation of
your leaky memory.
Seems you don't recall how you were barred from commenting anywhere in
the misnamed "Skepticblog," not just from that article by Prothero.
but at any rate how would that beSee above about the 80 million "short fuse," which he also called the Cambrian explosion.
relevant to the present case?
Or did you just want to revive a grievance against him?The real aggrieved party is Meyer, whose book Prothero flagrantly misrepresented,
including an out and out lie about what Meyer wrote about the 80 million period.
As for me, you and I have almost the same grievance as far as that mass censorship is concerned.
But his treatment of you was the more inexcusable of the two.
Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
Univ. of South Carolina at Columbia
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
If you have actual interest in the "small shelly fauna" (pretty essential for anyone interested in "Cambrian explosion),I recall looking years ago, and if John does not come up with a better starting point, I'll take a look.
the Wiki entry for it is actually not a bad place to start. The SSF present quite a continuous (Ediacaran-Cambrian) record
of early stages of metazoan mineralization.
It gives an extensive list of references, including (of course)You left out "in the blogosphere" as opposed to the small number of professionals who had
Budd et. al's excellent, if slightly dated review. if you are really suggesting that Meyer's book had anything to do with
"sparking interest" in this fossil record, that's truly ridiculous.
reasons to be interested that were unrelated to the feeding frenzy that greeted Meyer's book.
Hence your "truly ridiculous" is disingenuous.And you left out that I said *IF* you are really suggesting...". As you acknowledge that
professionals (and interested amateurs) were unaffected by Meyer's work, I acknowledge
that you aren't suggesting that they were "sparked". Hence your accusation of my disingenuity
is disingenuous.
Have you ever looked? It also appears you still haveOnly to the top of Harshman's head from where he got that false idea, and to you blindly following him.
not looked at Erwin & Valentine's book,
I bought a copy of their book for a close friend who is as widely interested in science
as myself, about 7 years ago, but I read it from cover to cover before leaving it with him.
Here is one thing that sticks in my mind: it said that the names "Tommotian" and "Atdabanian"
for the second and third stages of the Cambrian, of which Prothero childishly made
so much in his "review", were unworkable because they were based on Siberian strata
that cannot be coordinated with strata found elsewhere in the world.
Yet Prothero ALSO touted the Erwin and Valentine book to the high heavensI'm not familiar with Prothero's review, but E&V have a table correlating the various "stage names" that have
in the same "review." Go figure.
been used in the literature, not just for Laurentia and SIberia, but many other locations as well. There is no
current confusion.
Why is this "too bad" for me or anybody else? I'm glad you read it, but you've never said anything that I'vewhich would be inexplicable for anyone interested in the subject.Too bad for you that I am very interested, and too bad for John, with his
no-brainer reply to this post of yours.
noticed that indicated familiarity with it. And judging form your remarks above, it still isn't obvious that
you're that familiar with it.
Peter NyikosVery good. More disingenuous insults. Of course I've read it (parts several times), and of course they
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
PS Did YOU read the Erwin & Valentine book? can you remember
whether it tried to assign any of the little shellies to various phyla?
suggest correspondence of the SSF:
"Although some of the SSFs are whole shells, such as thoseof tiny brachiopods, mollusks, and an arrayCan the ancestry of various Cambrian phyla be resolved by a cladistic system of classification?
of cones of uncertain affinities, others are individual plates, spines, and other skeletal elements that once
adorned larger animals and were preserved by the same phosphatization processes."
...
"The morphological diversity of early Cambrian small shelly sclerites suggest that they represent many different
clades, although lophotrochozoans are most commonly represented."
On Friday, September 30, 2022 at 7:43:45 PM UTC-7, Glenn wrote:skeletal microfossils, “small shelly fossils,” often derived from larger animals with complex multi-element skeletons.2
On Friday, September 30, 2022 at 4:20:57 PM UTC-7, erik simpson wrote:
On Friday, September 30, 2022 at 2:47:08 PM UTC-7, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
On Friday, September 30, 2022 at 11:02:23 AM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
On Thursday, September 29, 2022 at 12:27:27 PM UTC-7, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
On Wednesday, September 28, 2022 at 5:53:16 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
On 9/28/22 2:32 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
On Tuesday, September 27, 2022 at 10:59:53 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
On 9/27/22 6:31 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
John's parting shot suggests that moving this thread to talk.origins
might generate a good deal of interest.
You didn't comment on this. Do you disagree?Feel free to crosspost if you think so.
On Tuesday, September 27, 2022 at 6:43:30 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
On 9/27/22 11:19 AM, erik simpson wrote:
On Tuesday, September 27, 2022 at 9:39:32 AM UTC-7, John Harshman wrote:
On 9/27/22 9:22 AM, erik simpson wrote:
https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(22)01455-5
"Among extant animals, Lophotrochozoa accounts for the majority of phyla.1
This bilaterian clade radiated rapidly during the Cambrian explosion, obfuscating its phylogenetic relationships and rendering many aspects of its early evolution uncertain. Many early lophotrochozoans are known only from isolated
carries two dorsal rows of sclerites in a highly asymmetric arrangement, flanked by smaller, cap-shaped sclerites. The scleritome was fringed by iterated fascicles of chaetae and two layers of flattened lobes. Phylogenetic analysis confirms thatCompare this comment with the my PS at the end of my post.
And not during the Tommotian? See my comment about that near the end.The discovery of articulated fossils has revealed surprising insights into the animals from which these skeletal pieces were derived, such as paired shells in the mollusc Halkieria.3
Tommotiids are a key group of phosphatic early skeletal fossils that first appear in the late early Cambrian.4
,5
Although their affinities were previously obscure, discoveries of partial scleritomes and investigations of growth and microstructure6
provide links with Brachiopoda7
,8
and Phoronida,9
two of the lophophorate phyla. By contrast, the body plan of camenellan tommotiids remains a palaeontological mystery, with hypothetical reconstructions representing motile, benthic, dorsally armored worms.4
,10
Here, we describe an articulated camenellan (Wufengella bengtsoni gen. et sp. nov.) from the Cambrian Chengjiang Biota, China, revealing the morphology of the scleritome and the first soft tissues from an adult tommotiid. Wufengella
<snip of things dealt with in my first reply>,12"Halkieriids are molluscs?
Another illustration that in the early Cambrian, many currently known "major phyla" probably wouldn't have been so classified by a Cambrian Linnaeus.
Well, here's the reference, but I can only see the abstract, and I can't
tell from that whether the paper does make that claim. It compares
Halkieria with Wiwaxia, not generally supposed to be a mollusc, though
often thought to be an annelid. Perhaps this just shows your point, that
really ancient members of separate phyla were not so separate.
https://www.nature.com/articles/345802a0
Halkieriids (and Wiwaxiids) are still problematic, after all these years. Here's an
interesting article relevant to the subject, and remarlably, open access:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-16304-6
The following is typical of the cluelessness of run of the mill
anti-creationist [as distinct from anti-creationism, which I am] zealots:
With the above for context, I pick up where I left off in my first reply.And these are all the animals Steven Meyer and the creationists claim
don't exist.
Meyer was well aware of Cambrian animals of problematic affinities,
including Wiwaxia, and also Amiskwia, Eldonia, and Nectocaris,
and took them in his stride.
The bracketed parts replace incorrect words that made your statement literally false.[Your words] "in his stride" [remind me that] he ignored the fact that several of
them contradicted his claim that there were no intermediates between phyla.
I believe they now make the statement true.
Your explanation below makes it clear that you do not use the word in any sense that is easily explainable to laymen. Meyer was writingThat "fact" remains to be seen. Just what do you mean by "intermediates"?
for a general audience, so he must have meant something else.
So I need to see what words of his you are [mis]interpreting above.
It would be anti-cladism heresy for you to claim that any of the groups that
Erik identified were paraphyletic, wouldn't it?
No, it would not, but I don't claim such a thing anyway.
So, what did you mean, and where is your evidence?
I suggest reading Budd G.E., Jensen S. A critical reappraisal of theIf it does a MUCH better job of defining "intermediates" than you do below,
fossil record of the bilaterian phyla. Biological Reviews 2000; 75:253-295.
why didn't you simply quote its definition?
Essentially, many Cambrian taxa are stem-members of their associated
phyla and some of them are stem-members of groups of phyla.
"Lobopods", for example, are stem-members of different ecdysozoan phyla.Phyla are clades, so this would make "lobopods" a polyphyletic assemblage.
Might they be a "wastebasket taxon," like "Cotylosauria", "Thecodonta," "Insectivora," etc.?
Halkieriids and/or tommotiids may (i.e., less certainly) be stem-lophotrochozoans.IOW, they may be outside the crown group of all lophotrochozoans. The following analogy comes to mind: the Sparassodonta, a clade which
includes the formidable saber-tooth Thylacosmilus, are stem-marsupials.
But no paleontologist would claim that they shed any light on the relationship between marsupials and eutherians, or between the various (crown) marsupial orders.
It would be anti-cladism heresy for you to claim that any of the groups that
Erik identified were paraphyletic, wouldn't it?
No, it would not, but I don't claim such a thing anyway.You may have to, if you can't improve on what you have done so far.
But the part about ignoring them was that he ignored the small,
shelly fauna that includes halkieriids and tommotiids, and that are
precursors to the Cambrian explosion.
I do recall an article about the "shellies" in a DI webpage, probably Evolution News,
where this omission was addressed.
In what way was it addressed?
Maybe Glenn can help us out here. I am short on time today, likely shorter than you.
But the bottom line is, you are basing the "ignoring" on a book that may sparked the
intense interest in the "shellies" in the blogosphere. Do you disagree?
You are obviously referring to something I did not quote. What is it?In any event, the sentence I quoted below puts these particularYes, mostly, though a few are Precambrian.
shellies in the Cambrian:
But the point is that they"the visible explosion" refers to what Meyer calls "the main pulse of the Cambrian explosion,"
predate the visible explosion, i.e. the appearance of most phyla, which
isn't until Cambrian Stage 3.
rather than what he calls the explosion itself.
Note: NO precambrian exceptions, contrary to what you wrote above.And the closing words of the abstract of the very paper you >>> are citing should have given you pause:
"On this view, the absence of fossil Ediacaran sclerites is evidence against any ‘Precambrian prelude’ to the explosive diversification of these phyla in the Cambrian, c. 540–530 million years ago."
You will note that this places the beginning of the Cambrian explosion
considerably before the time that Meyer attributes to it, in the
Chengjiang fauna, and long before the fossil appearance of most phyla.
I do not note any such thing. Meyer is very careful to note that "the Cambrian
explosion" has been given many different meanings by different people, and that he is primarily
concerned with what he calls "the main pulse" of the Cambrian explosion,
which lasted approximately 6 million years and saw the emergence of
13 animal phyla in the fossil record by reckoning of Erwin et al.,
Science 334 (2011) 1091-97 and 16 animal phyla in a slightly different
ca. 6 my period by reckoning of Bowring et al, Science 261 (1993) 1293-98.
What they're talking about there is Cambrian Stage 3, long after the
rise of the small shellies. Meyer, and perhaps you also, is confused
about the difference between the fossil record and the actual origins of taxa.
Hence my remark about Harshman's no-brainer reply to thisCorrection: possibly Meyer, but it is a baseless insult to add "perhaps you also."
post of yours below, Erik.
The small shellies and the ichnofossil record are clues that the explosion is underway considerably before we get a good look at it. And
also evidence that it was a gradual expansion.
I would not call "all fossilizable phyla in 40 million years" a gradual expansion,
given that some of the phyla seem to have gone extinct and NONE were added
in the subsequent 500+ million years.
You are a strange bedfellow of Donald Prothero, who nicknamed the Cambrian explosion
the "Cambrian slow fuse," claiming it took 80 million years.
I wrote some interesting things about him and you
last time around (see below), hence the "strange" in "strange bedfellow."
<snip of things to be dealt with tomorrow. I am short on time today>
This explosive diversification they mention is not shown in the fossil
record until Cambrian Stage 3, about 520 ma.
See the full quote above. It is NOT due to Erwin & Valentine, despiteWhat is your reference for this claim? It is inconsistent with what "they"
wrote and I quoted: "...c. 540–530 million years ago."
what you say next:
Try Erwin & Valentine.
<snip for focus>
Prothero might be turning in his grave, were he not still alive. :) :)
Whatever that means.
You have a very leaky memory. Don't you remember how Prothero wiped out all our comments and questions on his blog except your comment which
included the question of how he estimated 80 million years for what HE called
the Cambrian explosion? He left in his response which evaded the
question. When he saw how you politely pointed this out, he went on his rampage
of deleting about 40 questions and comments, including your polite pointing-out.
I didn't know he had done that much,You did know it, and you commented on it at the time. Another manifestation of
your leaky memory.
Seems you don't recall how you were barred from commenting anywhere in
the misnamed "Skepticblog," not just from that article by Prothero.
but at any rate how would that beSee above about the 80 million "short fuse," which he also called the Cambrian explosion.
relevant to the present case?
Or did you just want to revive a grievance against him?The real aggrieved party is Meyer, whose book Prothero flagrantly misrepresented,
including an out and out lie about what Meyer wrote about the 80 million period.
As for me, you and I have almost the same grievance as far as that mass censorship is concerned.
But his treatment of you was the more inexcusable of the two. Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
Univ. of South Carolina at Columbia http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
If you have actual interest in the "small shelly fauna" (pretty essential for anyone interested in "Cambrian explosion),I recall looking years ago, and if John does not come up with a better starting point, I'll take a look.
the Wiki entry for it is actually not a bad place to start. The SSF present quite a continuous (Ediacaran-Cambrian) record
of early stages of metazoan mineralization.
It gives an extensive list of references, including (of course)You left out "in the blogosphere" as opposed to the small number of professionals who had
Budd et. al's excellent, if slightly dated review. if you are really suggesting that Meyer's book had anything to do with
"sparking interest" in this fossil record, that's truly ridiculous.
reasons to be interested that were unrelated to the feeding frenzy that greeted Meyer's book.
Hence your "truly ridiculous" is disingenuous.And you left out that I said *IF* you are really suggesting...". As you acknowledge that
professionals (and interested amateurs) were unaffected by Meyer's work, I acknowledge
that you aren't suggesting that they were "sparked". Hence your accusation of my disingenuity
is disingenuous.
Have you ever looked? It also appears you still haveOnly to the top of Harshman's head from where he got that false idea, and to you blindly following him.
not looked at Erwin & Valentine's book,
I bought a copy of their book for a close friend who is as widely interested in science
as myself, about 7 years ago, but I read it from cover to cover before leaving it with him.
Here is one thing that sticks in my mind: it said that the names "Tommotian" and "Atdabanian"
for the second and third stages of the Cambrian, of which Prothero childishly made
so much in his "review", were unworkable because they were based on Siberian strata
that cannot be coordinated with strata found elsewhere in the world.
Yet Prothero ALSO touted the Erwin and Valentine book to the high heavensI'm not familiar with Prothero's review, but E&V have a table correlating the various "stage names" that have
in the same "review." Go figure.
been used in the literature, not just for Laurentia and SIberia, but many other locations as well. There is no
current confusion.
Why is this "too bad" for me or anybody else? I'm glad you read it, but you've never said anything that I'vewhich would be inexplicable for anyone interested in the subject.Too bad for you that I am very interested, and too bad for John, with his
no-brainer reply to this post of yours.
noticed that indicated familiarity with it. And judging form your remarks above, it still isn't obvious that
you're that familiar with it.
Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
PS Did YOU read the Erwin & Valentine book? can you remember
whether it tried to assign any of the little shellies to various phyla?
Very good. More disingenuous insults.
suggest correspondence of the SSF:
"Although some of the SSFs are whole shells, such as thoseof tiny brachiopods, mollusks, and an array
of cones of uncertain affinities, others are individual plates, spines, and other skeletal elements that once
adorned larger animals and were preserved by the same phosphatization processes."
...
"The morphological diversity of early Cambrian small shelly sclerites suggest that they represent many different
clades, although lophotrochozoans are most commonly represented."
Can the ancestry of various Cambrian phyla be resolved by a cladistic system of classification?
I'll take that as a genuine question, although I have doubt that's your intention.
It depends on what you mean
by "ancestry" and "resolved". As to "ancestry" probably not, since "resolution" is very difficult.
It's more likely that "affinities" as in "X is more likely to be related to Y than to Z".
This is frequently the case when the divisions
are very deep in time and happened during a period of rapid diversification. You can insome cases do better. for
example "Onychophorans are descended from lobopods" or "tardigrades are descended from lobopods" and "arthropods
are dscended from lobopods" are all generally accepted, but we can't identify which lobopods, nor whether each descended
from different lobopods, although the last is more likely. Would you consider that ancestry?
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