Ediacaran: October 2009

Saturday, October 10, 2009

The Cambrian Explosion, the Discovery Institute, and the Smithsonian

I intend to write a set of blog posts addressing the comments and thoughts on Darwin’s Dilemma from people who have seen the film. This is useful because people who do not have a background in the Cambrian Explosion or palaeontology are the people that the Discovery Institute is hoping to mislead. So what such people are taking away from the film, the messages that the Discovery Institute is hoping to instill, the questions raised in people’s minds, etc., are worth addressing.

Previous posts: The Cambrian Explosion, the Discovery Institute, and
Charles Doolitte Walcott (part 2)
James Valentine
Prof Paul Chien
Cambrian Ediacaran Extiction
Cambrian Diversity
Charles Doolittle Walcott

The California Science Center in Los Angeles was scheduled to show Darwin's Dilemma of October 25th, but has just announced that it has cancelled the performance. The Discovery Institute is making the usual claim of censorship, and that the cancellation was due to the Smithsonian putting pressure on the California Science Center. The Smithsonian? Well yes, the Smithsonian. But to understand this you have to understand the Discovery Institutes tactics here.

This is all part of the Discovery Institute's desperate attempt for legitimacy through the tactic of 'legitimacy via association'.

This operates by having recognised scientists in you product (even if you have to mislead them into appearing, and they do not support the claims of intelligent design creationism), showing a product in a museum (Seattle) or other science venue, which, by association, validates the claim that the content is scientific.

In their latest attempt at 'legitimacy via association', the Discovery Institute issued a press release promoting Darwin's Dilemma being shown at the California Science Center in Los Angeles, by referring to the Center as the Smithsonian Institution's west coast affiliate. See the tactic?

'We are showing Darwin's Dilemma at the California Science Center which is THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTE'S WEST COAST AFFILIATE! SEE? SCIENCE CENTER! SMITHSONIAN! ARE WE LEGIT OR WHAT?!'

The problem for the Discovery Institute is that this particular dishonest tactic is easy to expose.

Firstly, the claim that the California Science Center is the Smithsonian Institution's west coast affiliate. Is it? Actually, while it is a west coast Affiliate, it isn't the west coast Affiliate. The Smithsonian is currently affiliated with 20 fine Californian institutions:

Aerospace Museum of California - McClellan
Agua Caliente Cultural Museum - Palm Springs
Arts Council for Long Beach - Long Beach
Blackhawk Museum - Danville
California Science Center - Los Angeles
Cerritos Library - Cerritos
Chabot Space and Science Center - Oakland
Discovery Science Center - Santa Ana
Fresno Metropolitan Museum of Art and Science - Fresno
Hiller Aviation Museum - San Carlos
Japanese American National Museum - Los Angeles
LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes - Los Angeles
Mexican Heritage Plaza - San Jose
Millard Sheets Center for the Arts at Fairplex - Pomona
Museum of Latin American Art - Long Beach
Riverside Arts and Cultural Affairs Division, Riverside Metropolitan Museum - Riverside
San Diego Air and Space Museum - San Diego
San Diego Natural History Museum - San Diego
Sonoma County Museum - Santa Rosa
Western Center for Archaeology and Paleontology - Hemet

But lets look further up the west coast, north to the State that flies on her own wings. Any Smithsonian Affiliates there? Well yes,

Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum - McMinnville

But wait there's more west coast to go. Up to the Evergreen State. Any Smithsonian affiliates there? (you know the answer, right?)

Whatcom Museum of History and Art - Bellingham
The Museum of Flight - Seattle
Wing Luke Asian Museum - Seattle
Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture - Spokane

Hang on. Say what? Two in Seattle?! Isn't the Discovery Institute headquartered in Seattle? They missed two Smithsonian Affiliates right there in their home town?! Oops.

All in all, 25 Smithsonian Affiliates on the west coast.

OK, that's exposes the falsehood of the claim that the California Science Center is the Smithsonian Affiliate on the west coast, but what about the affiliate link anyway, what does that mean?

Clearly the Discovery Institute would want you to think that Affiliates are the Smithsonian in the regions, but what is an Affiliate?

Smithsonian Affiliations offers broader opportunities than those found in standard museum loan programs. In addition to artifact loans, Smithsonian Affiliations helps member organizations identify appropriate resources within the Smithsonian to accompany exhibit loans: education and performing arts programs, expert speakers, teacher workshops, and technical assistance.

So Affiliates are entirely independent from the Smithsonian, and being an Affiliate simply means that they can gain access to the Smithsonian collections to support their own exhibitions. The Smithsonian has no control over the day to day operations of any Affiliate.

So, the California Science Centre is just one of 25 Smithsonian Affiliates on the west coast, and being an Affiliate simply means you get access to the Smithsonian collections, and the Smithsonian has no day to day control over Affiliates.

All this may appear to be nitpicking, but this slight of hand (or in this case slight of phrase) is the modus operandi of the Discovery Institute's dishonest tactic of 'legitimacy via association'.

Of course there would be no need of the tactic of 'legitimacy via association' if your claims weren't scientifically vacuous, but this is the Discovery Institute.

Monday, October 5, 2009

The Cambrian Explosion, the Discovery Institute, and Charles Doolittle Walcott (Part 2)

Stephen Meyer:'Like Darwin, Walcott thought that the Cambrian explosion was an illusion. He was convinced that the fossils were there. They were just inaccessible to scientific discovery. And he expected that they would eventually be found someplace buried deep beneath the oceans.'

Wow, a correct summary by Stephen Meyer! Yes, Walcott thought that the Precambrian sediments with fossils would be found far out to sea for the reasons stated here. He named the period of non-deposition on the continents at this time the Lipalian.

Narration: 'For decades, Walcott’s hypothesis was widely accepted, but untestable. However, later in the 20th century, new technologies [ocean oil platform] led to empirical conclusions.'

Nice of Stephen Meyer and Paul Nelson to pass the lie to the narrator rather than tell it themselves.

No, Walcott’s idea was not widely accepted at the time, let alone for decades. It was quietly forgotten:

He [walcott] suggested that a widespread unconformity at the top of the Proterozoic represented an interval oftime, the Lipalian, in which such an earlier fauna developed elsewhere, but was not recorded in any outcrop. The concept of naming a gap to represent a major missing segment of geologic time, did not result in any comment from the geologic community and the Lipalian Interval vanished (Yochelson 2006)

In the meantime people were finding Precambrian fossils right here on land, oblivious to the fact that they were supposed to be looking for them way out to sea:

Glaessner, M (1959) Precambrian Coelenterata from Australia, Africa and England. Nature. 183. P.1472-1473.

Ford T.D. (1958) Precambrian fossils from Charnwood Forest. Proceedings of the Yorkshire Geological Society. 31. P.211-217.

Stephen Meyer: ‘Once the oil companies started to drill offshore, they brought up what are called drill cores, and inside the core were hunks of sedimentary rock, and some of those rocks contained fossils. But none of them were made by animals that lived before the Cambrian explosion.’

This is an attempt to pretend that geologists were hoping to find Precambrian fossils in drill core. But the idea is nonsense, since it had been known for a long time that there were no Precambrian rocks out to sea and besides, people do not as a general rule drill Precambrian rocks for oil. Almost all offshore oil wells bottom out well before any Precambrian rocks are reached, so we wouldn’t expect to see Precambrian rocks, let alone fossils.

Besides, oil drilling is too close inshore to be useful. Real deep sea drilling didn’t take place until the 1980s, with the the Joint Oceanographic Institutions for Deep Earth Sampling Ocean Drilling program.

Narration: ‘Since the 1960s, scientists have also used radioactive minerals and evidence of changes in the earth’s magnetic field to analyze and date undersea sediments. From extensive surveys they have created this digital map that defines the age of the sea floor.’

Correct, which is why geologists were not hanging out for drill core to find Precambrian fossils. They already knew that the sea floor was too young. The Discovery Institute can’t have it both ways – hanging out for drill core at the same time as knowing the sea floor was too young.

Stephen Meyer: ‘We now know that the oldest rocks on the bottom only date back to the Jurassic period, which means that on the standard geologic time scale, they’re hundreds of millions of years younger than the rocks below the Cambrian strata.’

"We now know"? "We NOW know"? Stephen, we knew 40 YEARS ago! Again, the Discovery Institute can’t have it both ways – hanging out for drill core at the same time as knowing the sea floor was too young.

Paul Nelson: ‘If you are looking for the ancestors to the Cambrian groups, the last place you would expect to find them is out somewhere on the sea floor. Those rocks are much too young.’

Well gee Paul, we’ve known that for 40 years, and have had Precambrian fossils on land for over 50 years, but thanks for pointing that out.

OK, it is clear now that the Discovery Institute is trying to lay the groundwork for Intelligent Design creationism by trying to paint geologists as holding onto Walcott’s Lipalian idea as the only hope to explain the lack of Precambrian fossils.

Their version of events does not tally with reality, but then this is the Discovery Institute.

Yochelson, E.L. (2006) The Lipalian interval: A forgotten, novel concept in the geologic column. Earth Science History. 26(2), p.251-269

The Cambrian Explosion, the Discovery Institute, and James Valentine

Update

Professor Valentine has endorsed the use of his statement on this site.

24 September 2009

What James Valentine Really Thinks About Evolution
Dr. James Valentine, an evolutionary biologist and Professor Emeritus in the Department of Integrative Biology at the University of California at Berkeley, is featured in the intelligent design movie Darwin’s Dilemma.

I wish to clarify my role in the new film Darwin’s Dilemma. When I was interviewed about a decade ago for the material used in this movie, I was unaware that this interview might appear in a film promoting intelligent design. My appearance should not be misconstrued as support for any creationist agenda.

I support evolution.

I disagree with the view that the best explanation for the Cambrian record is the action of an “intelligent designer” instantaneously creating phyla. Had the filmmakers bothered to read my book On the Origin of Phyla, they would have understood that I do not support a creationist interpretation of the Cambrian explosion or the fossil record. Scientific findings in many fields, including my own (paleobiology) as well as geology, geophysics, geochemistry, developmental biology, and systematics, have led to a synthesis of the events surrounding the Cambrian explosion that is in full accord with well-established evolutionary principles.

When watching Darwin’s Dilemma, I ask viewers to note:

My interview statements do not criticize evolution
My interview statements do not promote creationism or intelligent design
Even though my interview is interspersed with several intelligent design advocates, I do not share their interpretation of the Cambrian record

I would like viewers to know:
I think evolution is the best scientific interpretation of the fossil record
While the religious views of individuals should be respected, scientists also merit respect earned by generations of hard work in their fields.
Dr. James Valentine
University of California,
Berkeley

Apparently the film makers also forgot to tell Simon Conway Morris (who also appears in the film) the true reason for the interview and intent of the film.

So the experts on palaeontology and palaeobiology that appear do not support the central creationist tenet of the film, which is why, of course, they have Prof Chien as the spokesperson - someone with no background in palaeontology or palaeobiology.

What is it with creationism film makers and their inability to tell the truth about their intentions?

Sunday, October 4, 2009

The Cambrian Explosion, the Discovery Institute, and Prof Paul Chien

Paul Chien is a marine biologist at the University of San Francisco and Discovery Institute fellow. According to the USF website, “Prof. Chien is interested in the physiology and ecology of inter-tidal organisms. His research has involved the transport of amino acids and metal ions across cell membranes and the detoxification mechanisms of metal ions”. While the movie presents him as someone who has “done research in the renowned fossil beds of Chengjiang, China”, there’s no evidence to suggest that Chien is a palaeontologist or that he has published any of this findings (outside of Discovery Institute publications). In the movie, Chien is shown visiting the Chengjiang site. If you listen carefully to the what is said, it appears that he did so simply as an interested member of the public, not as an involved researcher. But the viewer is left with the distinct impression that he worked at the site. The movie’s website goes further, claiming that “Dr. Chien has done research in the renowned fossil beds of Chengjiang, China”. While this is possible, I saw nothing in the movie that actually supports this assertion.

Ian's not alone. I couldn't find any publications in peer-reviewed science journals by Prof Chien on the Chengjiang fauna. However, I'd be pleased to list them here if anyone knows of any.

It appears that Prof Chien is not a palaeontologist, he has no palaeontology experience, he has done no palaeontological research. Prof Chien is not an evolutionary biologist, nor a paleobiologist.

And Nigel Hughes says, “As far as I know, P.K. Chien is not a paleontologist and has published no peer-reviewed papers in paleontology. He is not a ‘player’ in scientific issues related to the Cambrian radiation”. David Bottjer observed that “Chien has tried to produce straight science papers on the Chengjiang fossils, but so far I don’t believe that there have been any publications. He has a Chengjiang fossil collection . . . but even if he does have a lot of specimens, that is not proof that he has or can do anything scientific with them; lots of amateurs (non-scientist) individuals have large fossil collections. From my interactions with him in China I can say that Chien knows nothing about the science. He is interested in creationist goals. (Forrest and Gross 2005 p. 56)

So why is Prof Chien used?

According to Kevin Padian, curator of the Museum of Paleontology and professor of paleontology and evolutionary biology at the University of California-Berkeley “Dr Chien admits that he has no expertise or training in paleontology. He admits in interviews that he came into the issue believing that evolution is not true (Forrest and Gross 2005 p. 56)

Prof Chien is also a CSC Fellow of the Discovery Institute, and has translated Phillip Johnson's book Darwin on Trial into Chinese. Prof Chien is the Discovery Institute's spokesperson for Early Cambrian Chinese fossils because noone with actual experience would associate with the Institute and Intelligent Design

Hmm. So having Prof Chien as a spokesperson for Early Cambrian Chinese fossils is kind of like having Orly Taitz as a spokesperson for the legality of the Obama Presidency. No, that’s not fair, at least Orly has legal qualifications, but this is the Discovery Institute.

Forrest, B. and Gross, P.R. (2005) Creationism's Trojan horse: the wedge of intelligent design. Oxford University Press.

The Cambrian Explosion, the Discovery Institute, and Cambrian Ediacaran Extinction

While the movie spends a lot of time on the Doushantuo microfossils, little is said about the remainder of the Ediacaran fauna. They’re basically characterised as outliers, unusual organisms that bear little relation to the groups of organisms present in the Cambrian. And they were said to have disappeared before the beginning of the Cambrian.

So the Ediacaran fauna became extinct prior to the Cambrian. Anyone want to bet that the Ediacaran fauna became extinct before the Cambrian? Anyone? Anyone want to put their money where the Discovery Institute’s mouth is? Anyone? No? Aww . . . you people are no fun. Either that or you’ve learned about the Discovery Institute.

Ediacara-type fossils are rare in the southwestern United States, and Cambrian occurrences of soft-bodied Ediacaran-type fossils are extremely rare. We report both discoidal and frondlike fossils comparable to Ediacaran taxa from the western edge of the Great Basin. We describe one specimen of a discoidal fossil, referred to the form species ?Tirasiana disciformis, from the upper member of the Lower Cambrian Wood Canyon Formation from the Salt Spring Hills, California. Two fragmentary specimens of frond-like soft-bodied fossils are described from the middle member of the Lower Cambrian Poleta Formation in the White Mountains, California, and the upper member of the Wood Canyon Formation in the southern Kelso Mountains, California. On the basis of similarities with fossils from the lower member of the Wood Canyon Formation and from the Spitzkopf Member of the Urusis Formation of Namibia, these specimens are interpreted as cf. Swartpuntia. All fossils were collected from strata containing diagnostic Early Cambrian body and trace fossils, and thus add to previous reports of complex Ediacaran forms in Cambrian marine environments. In this region, Swartpuntia persists through several hundred meters of section, spanning at least two trilobite zones. (Hagadorn et al 2000)

Hagadorn, J.W., Fedo, C.M. and Waggoner, B.M. (2000) Journal of Paleontology. 74(4). p.731-740

The Cambrian Explosion, the Discovery Institute, and Cambrian Diversity

Although the Chengjiang fauna is about 10 million years older than those of the Burgess Shale, it is described as being more diverse. This, the movie argues, narrows the window of time in which these distinct groups of species could have evolved. The shorter the window of time, the less likely it is that these groups would have evolved “by chance”.

OK, to describe the difference in diversity between the two faunas as anything meaningful is to look at the issue purely from a simplistic, superficial view. But then Intelligent Design is a monument to the superficial viewpoint, based as it is on the idea that, ‘gee willikers, that there fla-gell-um looks toooo complex to have e-volved, it must have been de-signed’.

Detailed investigation (i.e. science) is the antithesis of the Art of the Superficial. Detailed investigation blew away the myth that the flagellum was irreducibly complex, and showed that it was similar to a type III secretion system.

Detailed investigation shows that the Chengjiang fauna is more diverse that the Burgess Shale fauna for reasons that have nothing to do with the diversity of life at the time. It is known that the Burgess Shale fauna, while spectacular, is a restricted fauna. It does not represent the breadth of life at the time. The fauna has been washed in over a steep limestone escarpment into deep, oxygen poor, water over 160 metres deep (see for example Briggs et al 1994).

The Chengjiang fauna, while also predominately a washed-in fauna, was positioned in open water at the foot of a delta at around 100 metres deep (see for example Chen and Zhou 1997, Hou et al 2004). A much more open system and so would be expected to sample a greater range of organisms.

One datum point from one location in Chengjiang and Burgess Shale time does not tell us about overall diversity during either time, unless you use the Art of the Superficial.

Briggs, D.E.G., Erwin, D.H. and Collier, F.J. (1994) The Fossils of the Burgess Shale. Smithsonian Institute Press. 238pp.

Hou, X-G; Aldridge, R.J., Bengstrom, J, Siveter, D. J., Feng, X-H (2004) The Cambrian Fossils of Chengjang, China. Blackwell Science. 233pp.

Junyuan Chen and Guiqing Zhou (1997) Biology of the Chengjiang fauna. Bulletin of the National Museum of Natural Science. 10. p.11-106.

Saturday, October 3, 2009

The Cambrian Explosion, the Discovery Institute, and Charles Doolittle Walcott

The Discovery Institute is back with another attempt to legitimize Intelligent Design, this time with a movie on the Cambrian Explosion - Darwin’s Dilemma.

I haven’t seen the film, but given the well documented problems the Discovery Institute and its cohorts seem to have with basic honesty, I’m expecting the usual snow job.

I intend to write a set of blog posts addressing the comments and thoughts on Darwin’s Dilemma from people who have seen the film. This is useful because people who do not have a background in the Cambrian Explosion or palaeontology are the people that the Discovery Institute is hoping to mislead. So what such people are taking away from the film, the messages that the Discovery Institute is hoping to instill, the questions raised in people’s minds, etc., are worth addressing.

This post is in response to Ian’s comments here, to address what appears to be a misleading section in the film regarding Charles Doolittle Walcott (the discoverer of the Burgess Shale) and alleged contemporary geological ideas as to the whereabouts, and lack, of Precambrian fossils.

Ian writes:

According to the movie Walcott (the discovered of the Burgess Shale) suggested that the transitional Precambrian fossils might be found beneath the ocean floor. I have no idea whether this was a serious prediction or not, but the movie treats it as if it were. They say that Walcott’s hypothesis remained untested until deep-water drilling for oil has brought lots of drill cores from the bottom of the ocean, and none have revealed Precambrian fossils. They then go on to say that ocean-floor mapping has revealed that the rocks of the ocean floor are relatively young, and the ocean floor is an entirely unsuitable place to look for Precambrian fossils.

So is this correct? Well, the first part is – but needs some clarification (surprised?), but the rest is pure bollocks.

Firstly did Walcott suggest that Precambrian fossils would be found beneath the ocean floor? Well, yes he did, but deep under the ocean, not necessarily deep under the ocean floor. This was in response to his being unable to find Precambrian fossils.

I have for the past 18 years watched the geological and paleontological evidence that might aid in solving the problem of Precambrian life. The great series of Cambrian and Precambrian strata in eastern North America from Alabama to Labrador in western North America from Nevada and California far into Alberta and British Columbia, and also China, have been studied and searched for evidences of life until the conclusion had gradually been forced upon one that on the North American continent we have no known Precambrian marine deposits containing traces of organic remains, . . . (Walcott 1910, p.2)

To explain this Walcott suggested that the Precambrian continents were much greater in extent than the present, or even the Cambrian, continents, and so the Precambrian ‘coastlines’ – and hence shallow water marine sediments to look for fossils – were much further out to sea compared with the current coastline. In other words, the current continents are the centres of the Precambrian continent and represent

. . a period of continental elevation and largely terrigenous sedimentation in non-marine bodies of water, also a period of deposition by aerial and stream processes over considerable areas (Walcott 1910, p.4)

Walcott hypothesized a much larger Precambrian continent to account for the lack of marine Precambrian sediments because he was working in a time before the theory of plate tectonics revolutionized our understanding of continental processes. In Walcott’s time the continents were considered stationary, and so a lack of sediments represented a period of uplift and wider continents, whereas the presence of marine sediments represented a period of subsidence and seas inundating the margins of the continents.

So Walcott considered that the margins of the Precambrian continent were much further out in the oceans that the present continental margin, and hence the shallow marine sediments with Precambrian fossils would be found under the deep ocean. This period of unknown marine sedimentation was named the Lipalian period. But Walcott’s hypothesis and the Lipalian period was short lived.

Which brings up to the second claim, that Walcott’s hypothesis remained untested until deep-water drilling for oil has brought lots of drill cores from the bottom of the ocean, and none have revealed Precambrian fossils.

Say what?!

Umm, Walcott’s hypothesis of the Lapilian period of non-deposition was largely ignored,

Despite Walcott's diligent search, hardly any fossils were found in these older strata, and those discovered did not assist in biostratigraphy. Years later, when attempting to explain the issue of a diverse Cambrian fauna seemingly without any antecedents, Walcott developed a hypothesis to explain the absence of earlier fossils based on geological, rather than biological, features. He suggested that a widespread unconformity at the top of the Proterozoic represented an interval oftime, the Lipalian, in which such an earlier fauna developed elsewhere, but was not recorded in any outcrop. The concept of naming a gap to represent a major missing segment of geologic time, did not result in any comment from the geologic community and the Lipalian Interval vanished. (Yochelson 2006)

Walcott was doing science. He had observations – apparent lack of marine Precambrian sediments – and produced a hypothesis to account for them. But the hypothesis was not taken up. It was, however, tested, albeit indirectly.

By the late 1950 and early 1960’s the theory of sea floor spreading was becoming well established and by the end of the 1960 it was shown that the ocean floor was younger than Precambrian through measuring the magnetic striping caused by magnetized lava formations (see for example Heirtzler 1968). See floor spreading and plate tectonics rendered any vestige of Walcott's hypothesis redundant.

So, far from waiting until deep sea coring (not incidentally related to oil exploration, but to the Joint Oceanographic Institutions for Deep Earth Sampling, Ocean Drilling program in the mid 1980’s), it has been well known that there are no Precambrian rocks awaiting discovery under the deep oceans for at least 40 years.

But the Discovery Institute film also neglects the fact that fossil-bearing marine Precambrian rock had been discovered before this: Charnwood Forest, England (Ford 1958); South Australia and Namibia (Glaessner 1959); and subsequently from Canada, Russia, and the USA.

To suggest that Walcott's hypothesis wasn't tested, or that palaeontologists were somehow hanging out for deep sea cores to provide Precambrian fossils, is laughable, but this is the Discovery Institute.

Ford T.D. (1958) Precambrian fossils from Charnwood Forest. Proceedings of the Yorkshire Geological Society. 31. p.211-217

Glaessner, M (1959) Precambrian Coelenterata from Australia, Africa and England. Nature. 183. p.1472-1473.

Heirtzler, J.R. Sea Floor Spreading. Scientific American, December 1968, p.60-70.

Walcott, C.D. (1910) Abrupt appearance of the Cambrian fauna on the North American Continent. Cambrian Geology and Paleontology II. Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections 57. p.1-16.

Yochelson, E.L. (2006) The Lipalian interval: A forgotten, novel concept in the geologic column. Earth Science History. 26(2), p.251-269.