Transitional Forms And The Cambrian Explosion example essay topic

Evolution vs. Creationism The Evolution vs. Creationism controversy goes all the way back to the Publishing of Origin of Species in 1859 by Darwin laying the foundation for the evolution of life to be understood. Scientists are continuously finding more evidence to support Darwin's conclusion; that organisms descended from a common ancestor modified by the mechanism of natural selection resulting in the evolution of species adapting to their environment. The following are the main geological topics concerning creationism: radiometric dating, transitional forms and the Cambrian explosion. Creationism is nothing more than a child's fairytale that lacks any scientific proof. The aspect of radiometric dating is controversial to most creationists on the grounds that it is unreliable and has error factors. One creationist points out: "a living mollusk was once shown by carbon-14 dating to be dead for 3,000 years" (Geology).

There are several things wrong with this idea. Creationists who determined this value used carbon 14 dating which is useful for determining the age of organism 50,000 years old. It is not suitable to be used for such a young organism, so the creationists make it seem as if there is something incorrect with the technique which leads to incorrect dates. Even the biggest errors, found in Carbon 14 dating, do not correspond to the 6000 year old earth that the Bible suggests. It's almost as if they are trying to 'create' problems on the purpose so they can prove scientists incorrect. Creationists also point out that radiometric dating has errors of millions of years, but in the geological time scale this is irrelevant.

Plus or minus a couple million years has a negligible effect on the results attempting to be obtained. Radiometric dating consistently prove from analysis of bolide fragments that the earth is about 4.6 billion years old and once again disproving the Bible's 6,000 years. The problem for creationism is that they can't prove there 'fairytale' correct because it's based on little fact, so they attempt to make the other valid ideas sound ridiculous. Therefore, creationism attempts to prove radiometric dating incorrect and is nothing more than a feeble attempt to bring credibility to there own ideas and beliefs. Secondly, a once thought problem with evolution was the lack of transitional phases in the fossil record. For example it was once thought there were no transitional phases between birds and reptiles; this has now been proven false by paleontologists.

Archaeopteryx has distinctive avian characteristics including a wishbone, a bony sternum and feathers (Geology). Several of its reptilian characteristics include un fused metacarpal bones, a long bony tail and three well developed fingers. What is also interesting is that archaeopteryx lived at the same time as the dinosaurs. Again, it seems as if creationists randomly start making assumptions in an attempt to slander other valid theories rather than proving there's correct (even thought that's impossible). "If evolution were true, there would be more transitional forms". Evolution doesn't account for the probability of fossilization because certain conditions are required for even shelled organisms like brachiopods (Geology).

As a result, some transitional phases are lost because of this problem. Soft bodied organisms are extremely rare; one particularly extraordinary find is the Burgess Shale in Field BC. Thousands of invertebrates have been preserved under rare fossilization conditions and have given us glimpses to the distant past. It's amazing how many did survive and allow us to prove that change does occur.

Some lack of transitional phases can scientifically explained therefore proving once again that the creationism theory is incorrect (Five). Thirdly, on the paleontological subject again, the Cambrian explosion is not proof of creation. The first thing to point out is that fossils did exist before the Cambrian period, so it is not some random appearance of life that some creationists try to suggest. Paleontologists are unsure whether there was an explosion in diversity or an increase the probability of fossilization.

Some scientists believe that the phyla were all developed during the Precambrian at the multi cellular level and were pressured by global climate change to develop hard shells increasing fossilization probability (Geology). This explains the evolutionary theory for this increase of life. The rate of evolutionary change is normal for this time period as compared with the rest of the geological time scale. The biblical idea of everything being created in 7 days 6000 years ago can't even begin to tackle such a monstrous task...

The fact that science can prove it using our five senses only adds to fact that evolution does occur. Then everybody can see it or even touch it in some aspect, it's not like the bible which is a story which no one can prove. Science doesn't make anything up it just takes what we have around us and explains it in a logical fashion. This is only the geological parameters that have been accessed there is still the subject of cosmology that further disproves creationism. Radiometric dating, transitional forms are the two that are continuously thought to be incorrect by creationists.

It seems they are determined to only let science be correct outside there three dimensional book. I doubt if everyone will ever believe in evolution, but perhaps with a better understand of what evolution is they could at least get some reasonably competent answers (National). The fact is they have no supporting argument that is worth anyone listening to. I am not implying that what the lessons the Bible teaches are wrong, but as far as the origin of the Earth is concerned; it is about as real as a child's bedtime story.