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Politics : Evolution -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TigerPaw who wrote (1541)	2/24/2007 7:57:11 PM
From: Brumar89	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 69300

The fossil record caused Darwin grief because it didn't provide forebears for the creatures that showed up suddenly during the Cambrian era. Now we know that when the continents were joined that a smaller number of species out competed the rest and formed great families of similar species (especially land species which were the bulk of what Darwin could study). We don't "know" anything of the sort. During the Cambrian there was a giant supercontinent (Gondwana) stretching from the equator to the south pole. There was a completely separate continent (Laurentia) on the equator - not even close to Gondwana. During the Cambrian, two smaller parts drifted away from Laurentia, Baltica and Siberia. Anyway, there is no fossil evidence of complicated life forms prior to the Cambrian explosion. Then the continents broke up and the isolated groups changed in different ways. Then the continents reformed in a unified mass and certain groups again out competed others making for a more uniform pattern only to again have the great super-continent break up and isolate different groups on different floating landmasses. This doesn't even cover the great extinction events from comets or asteroids. Darwin assumed that the Earth was a much more stable place than it turned out to be, and he therefore assumed that the fossil record would have fewer fits and starts and blends than it really has. Modern studies have shown that the great changes in fossils do correspond to great changes in their environment. I don't know why you're introducing pangaea and continental drift. Pangaea began breaking up about 200M ya. And contrary to your statement above, never came back together (with the exception of the subcontinent of India which joined with southern Asia - it had been squeezed in between what became Africa and Antarctica back in the pangaea days). None of this has anything to do with the Cambrian explosion which occurred 300M yrs prior to the breakup of pangaea.