On Thursday, April 1, 2021 at 7:49:25 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> On Thursday, April 1, 2021 at 3:35:21 PM UTC-7, Glenn wrote:

Showing great restraint, I've deleted something that I dealt with vigorously in talk.origins.

This being over two months after the incident, I decided to let bygones be bygones.
I hope Erik follows suit.

> > Sound to me like you're trying to ditch integrity, so you can satisfy your evolutionary bias by desperately trying to prove animals existed before the Cambrian Explosion.
> >
> You misunderstand. I'm not trying to prove anything about Precambrian animals. I'm simply very curious about the *possible*
> relationships between the Ediacaran biota and "life as we know it" inthe Cambrian.

Your Subject: line, "Dickinsonia is very likely an animal" belies this disarming claim.

IOW, how many reverse gears does your bicycle have?

> I have very little concern for what ID does or
> does not say about that subject.

Nothing, AFAIK.

> The people involved with ID aren't well-represented among paleontologists..

That is an accident, due to the fact that involvement with ID is mostly by creationists,
most of whom are uninterested in all but the most superficial paleontology.

> > You should know that ID does not prohibit primitive life you want to call "animals", or even primitive animals existing in the Ediacaran, nor do I.. ID does, as well as I, not tolerate speculation that changes with the wind of what exactly occurred and existed more than a half billion years ago, before a well documented, obvious explosion of the appearance of the many advanced forms of life in a geological blink of an eye.

Glenn is right about the well documented, obvious explosion. The early Cambrian fossils include
representatives of almost every phylum known from fossils; there was only one "holdout" by
the end of the Cambrian, the bryozoa, and that appeared in the next period, the Ordovician.

At least as mysterious as this is the question: why no more fossilizable phyla in the next
500 million years, after an explosion less than one-tenth as long, by most geologists' reckoning?

>> Most everyone has given up on trying to discredit that fact. Now you're left with "maybe one or a few might" have been "kinda pseudo like" what we'd like to call "animal" rising from non-animal life a "little bit" before the explosion.

> "speculation that changes with the wind"? Does that mean data?

Partly data, partly interpretations of already known data. People were once confident that Dickinsonia
was an annelid. The latest speculation doesn't quite know where to place it, does it?

>I *really* don't care what ID doesn't tolerate, nor am I concerned with your limits of toleration.

Looks like ID has higher standards than you do. I take it Glenn was talking about what ID theorists
will tolerate within ID.

> > I'll leave you with a thought. Plant-like protists are called algae.
> >
> > Are algae plants? Plenty of pictures for you here:
> >
> > https://www.indefenseofplants.com/blog/2018/2/20/are-algae-plants

> Nice pictures. The text belies your confident assertions.

In what way? We've already seen how your text belies your confident
assertion in the Subject line: "Dickinsonia is very likely an animal"

> Stick with pictures.

Where did you justify this comment?

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

On Friday, June 11, 2021 at 6:04:54 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Thursday, April 1, 2021 at 7:49:25 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> > On Thursday, April 1, 2021 at 3:35:21 PM UTC-7, Glenn wrote:
> Showing great restraint, I've deleted something that I dealt with vigorously in talk.origins.
>
> This being over two months after the incident, I decided to let bygones be bygones.
> I hope Erik follows suit.
> > > Sound to me like you're trying to ditch integrity, so you can satisfy your evolutionary bias by desperately trying to prove animals existed before the Cambrian Explosion.
> > >
> > You misunderstand. I'm not trying to prove anything about Precambrian animals. I'm simply very curious about the *possible*
> > relationships between the Ediacaran biota and "life as we know it" inthe Cambrian.
> Your Subject: line, "Dickinsonia is very likely an animal" belies this disarming claim.
>
> IOW, how many reverse gears does your bicycle have?
> > I have very little concern for what ID does or
> > does not say about that subject.
> Nothing, AFAIK.
> > The people involved with ID aren't well-represented among paleontologists.
> That is an accident, due to the fact that involvement with ID is mostly by creationists,
> most of whom are uninterested in all but the most superficial paleontology.
> > > You should know that ID does not prohibit primitive life you want to call "animals", or even primitive animals existing in the Ediacaran, nor do I. ID does, as well as I, not tolerate speculation that changes with the wind of what exactly occurred and existed more than a half billion years ago, before a well documented, obvious explosion of the appearance of the many advanced forms of life in a geological blink of an eye.
> Glenn is right about the well documented, obvious explosion. The early Cambrian fossils include
> representatives of almost every phylum known from fossils; there was only one "holdout" by
> the end of the Cambrian, the bryozoa, and that appeared in the next period, the Ordovician.
>
> At least as mysterious as this is the question: why no more fossilizable phyla in the next
> 500 million years, after an explosion less than one-tenth as long, by most geologists' reckoning?
> >> Most everyone has given up on trying to discredit that fact. Now you're left with "maybe one or a few might" have been "kinda pseudo like" what we'd like to call "animal" rising from non-animal life a "little bit" before the explosion.
>
>
> > "speculation that changes with the wind"? Does that mean data?
> Partly data, partly interpretations of already known data. People were once confident that Dickinsonia
> was an annelid. The latest speculation doesn't quite know where to place it, does it?
> >I *really* don't care what ID doesn't tolerate, nor am I concerned with your limits of toleration.
> Looks like ID has higher standards than you do. I take it Glenn was talking about what ID theorists
> will tolerate within ID.
> > > I'll leave you with a thought. Plant-like protists are called algae.
> > >
> > > Are algae plants? Plenty of pictures for you here:
> > >
> > > https://www.indefenseofplants.com/blog/2018/2/20/are-algae-plants
>
>
> > Nice pictures. The text belies your confident assertions.
> In what way? We've already seen how your text belies your confident
> assertion in the Subject line: "Dickinsonia is very likely an animal"
>
> > Stick with pictures.
>
> Where did you justify this comment?
>
>
> Peter Nyikos
> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
> University of South Carolina
> http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

I have zero interest is discussing anything with Glenn, and I suspect the lack of interest is
mutual. You apparently hold him in some regard? I find that somewhat strange. Alas, I also
have no interest in discussing your contentious objections to the title of the thread, but I encourage
you to read the recent relevant material. I'm not going to dig through my files looking for all the relevant
papers, because I don't see that this will lead to any clarity, and most likely would only lead to another
angry meltdown. (It's actually fun to track down the references; at least I find it fun).

Bygones are bygones. I suggest showing even more restraint.

On Friday, June 11, 2021 at 10:55:08 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> On Friday, June 11, 2021 at 6:04:54 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > On Thursday, April 1, 2021 at 7:49:25 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> > > On Thursday, April 1, 2021 at 3:35:21 PM UTC-7, Glenn wrote:
> > Showing great restraint, I've deleted something that I dealt with vigorously in talk.origins.
> >
> > This being over two months after the incident, I decided to let bygones be bygones.
> > I hope Erik follows suit.
> > > > Sound to me like you're trying to ditch integrity, so you can satisfy your evolutionary bias by desperately trying to prove animals existed before the Cambrian Explosion.
> > > >
> > > You misunderstand. I'm not trying to prove anything about Precambrian animals. I'm simply very curious about the *possible*
> > > relationships between the Ediacaran biota and "life as we know it" inthe Cambrian.
> > Your Subject: line, "Dickinsonia is very likely an animal" belies this disarming claim.
> >
> > IOW, how many reverse gears does your bicycle have?
> > > I have very little concern for what ID does or
> > > does not say about that subject.
> > Nothing, AFAIK.
> > > The people involved with ID aren't well-represented among paleontologists.
> > That is an accident, due to the fact that involvement with ID is mostly by creationists,
> > most of whom are uninterested in all but the most superficial paleontology.
> > > > You should know that ID does not prohibit primitive life you want to call "animals", or even primitive animals existing in the Ediacaran, nor do I. ID does, as well as I, not tolerate speculation that changes with the wind of what exactly occurred and existed more than a half billion years ago, before a well documented, obvious explosion of the appearance of the many advanced forms of life in a geological blink of an eye.
> > Glenn is right about the well documented, obvious explosion. The early Cambrian fossils include
> > representatives of almost every phylum known from fossils; there was only one "holdout" by
> > the end of the Cambrian, the bryozoa, and that appeared in the next period, the Ordovician.
> >
> > At least as mysterious as this is the question: why no more fossilizable phyla in the next
> > 500 million years, after an explosion less than one-tenth as long, by most geologists' reckoning?
> > >> Most everyone has given up on trying to discredit that fact. Now you're left with "maybe one or a few might" have been "kinda pseudo like" what we'd like to call "animal" rising from non-animal life a "little bit" before the explosion.
> >
> >
> > > "speculation that changes with the wind"? Does that mean data?
> > Partly data, partly interpretations of already known data. People were once confident that Dickinsonia
> > was an annelid. The latest speculation doesn't quite know where to place it, does it?
> > >I *really* don't care what ID doesn't tolerate, nor am I concerned with your limits of toleration.
> > Looks like ID has higher standards than you do. I take it Glenn was talking about what ID theorists
> > will tolerate within ID.
> > > > I'll leave you with a thought. Plant-like protists are called algae..
> > > >
> > > > Are algae plants? Plenty of pictures for you here:
> > > >
> > > > https://www.indefenseofplants.com/blog/2018/2/20/are-algae-plants
> >
> >
> > > Nice pictures. The text belies your confident assertions.
> > In what way? We've already seen how your text belies your confident
> > assertion in the Subject line: "Dickinsonia is very likely an animal"
> >
> > > Stick with pictures.
> >
> > Where did you justify this comment?
> >
> >
> > Peter Nyikos
> > Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
> > University of South Carolina
> > http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

> I have zero interest is discussing anything with Glenn, and I suspect the lack of interest is
> mutual. You apparently hold him in some regard?

I hold the topics in high regard. You and Glenn are a good foundation for organizing my thoughts on
the fascinating subjects you were discussing: the status of Dickinsonia and the Cambrian explosion.

> I find that somewhat strange. Alas, I also
> have no interest in discussing your contentious objections to the title of the thread, but I encourage
> you to read the recent relevant material.

I've read a very long treatise exploring the status of Dickinsonia, which you don't seem to have read
very carefully (and Glenn might not have understood enough of it):

https://evolutionnews.org/2018/09/why-dickinsonia-was-most-probably-not-an-ediacaran-animal/

Did you dismiss it out of hand because it was written by a convert from atheism?

Be that as it may, I will write about it on Monday. It's too close to my bedtime now.

> I'm not going to dig through my files looking for all the relevant
> papers, because I don't see that this will lead to any clarity, and most likely would only lead to another
> angry meltdown. (It's actually fun to track down the references; at least I find it fun).

So do I. One of the main reasons I went into my office today (the only time I did it this week) was
so that I could get past the paywall erected around the _Nature_ article on a gliding Jurassic mammal
that Oxyaena had brought to my attention on the "For Peter" thread.

It was well worth the trouble, and I'll be reporting on it on Monday too.

Peter Nyikos

On Friday, June 11, 2021 at 8:23:52 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Friday, June 11, 2021 at 10:55:08 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> > On Friday, June 11, 2021 at 6:04:54 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > On Thursday, April 1, 2021 at 7:49:25 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> > > > On Thursday, April 1, 2021 at 3:35:21 PM UTC-7, Glenn wrote:
> > > Showing great restraint, I've deleted something that I dealt with vigorously in talk.origins.
> > >
> > > This being over two months after the incident, I decided to let bygones be bygones.
> > > I hope Erik follows suit.
> > > > > Sound to me like you're trying to ditch integrity, so you can satisfy your evolutionary bias by desperately trying to prove animals existed before the Cambrian Explosion.
> > > > >
> > > > You misunderstand. I'm not trying to prove anything about Precambrian animals. I'm simply very curious about the *possible*
> > > > relationships between the Ediacaran biota and "life as we know it" inthe Cambrian.
> > > Your Subject: line, "Dickinsonia is very likely an animal" belies this disarming claim.
> > >
> > > IOW, how many reverse gears does your bicycle have?
> > > > I have very little concern for what ID does or
> > > > does not say about that subject.
> > > Nothing, AFAIK.
> > > > The people involved with ID aren't well-represented among paleontologists.
> > > That is an accident, due to the fact that involvement with ID is mostly by creationists,
> > > most of whom are uninterested in all but the most superficial paleontology.
> > > > > You should know that ID does not prohibit primitive life you want to call "animals", or even primitive animals existing in the Ediacaran, nor do I. ID does, as well as I, not tolerate speculation that changes with the wind of what exactly occurred and existed more than a half billion years ago, before a well documented, obvious explosion of the appearance of the many advanced forms of life in a geological blink of an eye.
> > > Glenn is right about the well documented, obvious explosion. The early Cambrian fossils include
> > > representatives of almost every phylum known from fossils; there was only one "holdout" by
> > > the end of the Cambrian, the bryozoa, and that appeared in the next period, the Ordovician.
> > >
> > > At least as mysterious as this is the question: why no more fossilizable phyla in the next
> > > 500 million years, after an explosion less than one-tenth as long, by most geologists' reckoning?
> > > >> Most everyone has given up on trying to discredit that fact. Now you're left with "maybe one or a few might" have been "kinda pseudo like" what we'd like to call "animal" rising from non-animal life a "little bit" before the explosion.
> > >
> > >
> > > > "speculation that changes with the wind"? Does that mean data?
> > > Partly data, partly interpretations of already known data. People were once confident that Dickinsonia
> > > was an annelid. The latest speculation doesn't quite know where to place it, does it?
> > > >I *really* don't care what ID doesn't tolerate, nor am I concerned with your limits of toleration.
> > > Looks like ID has higher standards than you do. I take it Glenn was talking about what ID theorists
> > > will tolerate within ID.
> > > > > I'll leave you with a thought. Plant-like protists are called algae.
> > > > >
> > > > > Are algae plants? Plenty of pictures for you here:
> > > > >
> > > > > https://www.indefenseofplants.com/blog/2018/2/20/are-algae-plants
> > >
> > >
> > > > Nice pictures. The text belies your confident assertions.
> > > In what way? We've already seen how your text belies your confident
> > > assertion in the Subject line: "Dickinsonia is very likely an animal"
> > >
> > > > Stick with pictures.
> > >
> > > Where did you justify this comment?
> > >
> > >
> > > Peter Nyikos
> > > Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
> > > University of South Carolina
> > > http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
>
> > I have zero interest is discussing anything with Glenn, and I suspect the lack of interest is
> > mutual. You apparently hold him in some regard?
> I hold the topics in high regard. You and Glenn are a good foundation for organizing my thoughts on
> the fascinating subjects you were discussing: the status of Dickinsonia and the Cambrian explosion.
> > I find that somewhat strange. Alas, I also
> > have no interest in discussing your contentious objections to the title of the thread, but I encourage
> > you to read the recent relevant material.
> I've read a very long treatise exploring the status of Dickinsonia, which you don't seem to have read
> very carefully (and Glenn might not have understood enough of it):
>
> https://evolutionnews.org/2018/09/why-dickinsonia-was-most-probably-not-an-ediacaran-animal/
>
> Did you dismiss it out of hand because it was written by a convert from atheism?
>
> Be that as it may, I will write about it on Monday. It's too close to my bedtime now.
> > I'm not going to dig through my files looking for all the relevant
> > papers, because I don't see that this will lead to any clarity, and most likely would only lead to another
> > angry meltdown. (It's actually fun to track down the references; at least I find it fun).
> So do I. One of the main reasons I went into my office today (the only time I did it this week) was
> so that I could get past the paywall erected around the _Nature_ article on a gliding Jurassic mammal
> that Oxyaena had brought to my attention on the "For Peter" thread.
>
> It was well worth the trouble, and I'll be reporting on it on Monday too.
>
>
> Peter Nyikos

I do not dismiss Bechly's review out of hand, but I don't find it useful, and it's pretty obvious from both
its tone and its provinance where his sympathies lie.

On 6/11/21 10:02 PM, erik simpson wrote:
> On Friday, June 11, 2021 at 8:23:52 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>> On Friday, June 11, 2021 at 10:55:08 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
>>> On Friday, June 11, 2021 at 6:04:54 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>>> On Thursday, April 1, 2021 at 7:49:25 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
>>>>> On Thursday, April 1, 2021 at 3:35:21 PM UTC-7, Glenn wrote:
>>>> Showing great restraint, I've deleted something that I dealt with vigorously in talk.origins.
>>>>
>>>> This being over two months after the incident, I decided to let bygones be bygones.
>>>> I hope Erik follows suit.
>>>>>> Sound to me like you're trying to ditch integrity, so you can satisfy your evolutionary bias by desperately trying to prove animals existed before the Cambrian Explosion.
>>>>>>
>>>>> You misunderstand. I'm not trying to prove anything about Precambrian animals. I'm simply very curious about the *possible*
>>>>> relationships between the Ediacaran biota and "life as we know it" inthe Cambrian.
>>>> Your Subject: line, "Dickinsonia is very likely an animal" belies this disarming claim.
>>>>
>>>> IOW, how many reverse gears does your bicycle have?
>>>>> I have very little concern for what ID does or
>>>>> does not say about that subject.
>>>> Nothing, AFAIK.
>>>>> The people involved with ID aren't well-represented among paleontologists.
>>>> That is an accident, due to the fact that involvement with ID is mostly by creationists,
>>>> most of whom are uninterested in all but the most superficial paleontology.
>>>>>> You should know that ID does not prohibit primitive life you want to call "animals", or even primitive animals existing in the Ediacaran, nor do I. ID does, as well as I, not tolerate speculation that changes with the wind of what exactly occurred and existed more than a half billion years ago, before a well documented, obvious explosion of the appearance of the many advanced forms of life in a geological blink of an eye.
>>>> Glenn is right about the well documented, obvious explosion. The early Cambrian fossils include
>>>> representatives of almost every phylum known from fossils; there was only one "holdout" by
>>>> the end of the Cambrian, the bryozoa, and that appeared in the next period, the Ordovician.
>>>>
>>>> At least as mysterious as this is the question: why no more fossilizable phyla in the next
>>>> 500 million years, after an explosion less than one-tenth as long, by most geologists' reckoning?
>>>>>> Most everyone has given up on trying to discredit that fact. Now you're left with "maybe one or a few might" have been "kinda pseudo like" what we'd like to call "animal" rising from non-animal life a "little bit" before the explosion.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> "speculation that changes with the wind"? Does that mean data?
>>>> Partly data, partly interpretations of already known data. People were once confident that Dickinsonia
>>>> was an annelid. The latest speculation doesn't quite know where to place it, does it?
>>>>> I *really* don't care what ID doesn't tolerate, nor am I concerned with your limits of toleration.
>>>> Looks like ID has higher standards than you do. I take it Glenn was talking about what ID theorists
>>>> will tolerate within ID.
>>>>>> I'll leave you with a thought. Plant-like protists are called algae.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Are algae plants? Plenty of pictures for you here:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> https://www.indefenseofplants.com/blog/2018/2/20/are-algae-plants
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> Nice pictures. The text belies your confident assertions.
>>>> In what way? We've already seen how your text belies your confident
>>>> assertion in the Subject line: "Dickinsonia is very likely an animal"
>>>>
>>>>> Stick with pictures.
>>>>
>>>> Where did you justify this comment?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Peter Nyikos
>>>> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
>>>> University of South Carolina
>>>> http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
>>
>>> I have zero interest is discussing anything with Glenn, and I suspect the lack of interest is
>>> mutual. You apparently hold him in some regard?
>> I hold the topics in high regard. You and Glenn are a good foundation for organizing my thoughts on
>> the fascinating subjects you were discussing: the status of Dickinsonia and the Cambrian explosion.
>>> I find that somewhat strange. Alas, I also
>>> have no interest in discussing your contentious objections to the title of the thread, but I encourage
>>> you to read the recent relevant material.
>> I've read a very long treatise exploring the status of Dickinsonia, which you don't seem to have read
>> very carefully (and Glenn might not have understood enough of it):
>>
>> https://evolutionnews.org/2018/09/why-dickinsonia-was-most-probably-not-an-ediacaran-animal/
>>
>> Did you dismiss it out of hand because it was written by a convert from atheism?
>>
>> Be that as it may, I will write about it on Monday. It's too close to my bedtime now.
>>> I'm not going to dig through my files looking for all the relevant
>>> papers, because I don't see that this will lead to any clarity, and most likely would only lead to another
>>> angry meltdown. (It's actually fun to track down the references; at least I find it fun).
>> So do I. One of the main reasons I went into my office today (the only time I did it this week) was
>> so that I could get past the paywall erected around the _Nature_ article on a gliding Jurassic mammal
>> that Oxyaena had brought to my attention on the "For Peter" thread.
>>
>> It was well worth the trouble, and I'll be reporting on it on Monday too.
>>
>>
>> Peter Nyikos
>
> I do not dismiss Bechly's review out of hand, but I don't find it useful, and it's pretty obvious from both
> its tone and its provinance where his sympathies lie.
>
It's actually hard to tell where his sympathies lie. He's said on
occasion that there is very good evidence for universal common descent,
and yet he continually tries to cast doubt on any particular examples,
including human relationships to chimps. He's all over the place.

But nobody should take anything published on EN&V seriously.

On Saturday, June 12, 2021 at 2:08:53 AM UTC-7, John Harshman wrote:
> On 6/11/21 10:02 PM, erik simpson wrote:
> > On Friday, June 11, 2021 at 8:23:52 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >> On Friday, June 11, 2021 at 10:55:08 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> >>> On Friday, June 11, 2021 at 6:04:54 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >>>> On Thursday, April 1, 2021 at 7:49:25 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> >>>>> On Thursday, April 1, 2021 at 3:35:21 PM UTC-7, Glenn wrote:
> >>>> Showing great restraint, I've deleted something that I dealt with vigorously in talk.origins.
> >>>>
> >>>> This being over two months after the incident, I decided to let bygones be bygones.
> >>>> I hope Erik follows suit.
> >>>>>> Sound to me like you're trying to ditch integrity, so you can satisfy your evolutionary bias by desperately trying to prove animals existed before the Cambrian Explosion.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>> You misunderstand. I'm not trying to prove anything about Precambrian animals. I'm simply very curious about the *possible*
> >>>>> relationships between the Ediacaran biota and "life as we know it" inthe Cambrian.
> >>>> Your Subject: line, "Dickinsonia is very likely an animal" belies this disarming claim.
> >>>>
> >>>> IOW, how many reverse gears does your bicycle have?
> >>>>> I have very little concern for what ID does or
> >>>>> does not say about that subject.
> >>>> Nothing, AFAIK.
> >>>>> The people involved with ID aren't well-represented among paleontologists.
> >>>> That is an accident, due to the fact that involvement with ID is mostly by creationists,
> >>>> most of whom are uninterested in all but the most superficial paleontology.
> >>>>>> You should know that ID does not prohibit primitive life you want to call "animals", or even primitive animals existing in the Ediacaran, nor do I. ID does, as well as I, not tolerate speculation that changes with the wind of what exactly occurred and existed more than a half billion years ago, before a well documented, obvious explosion of the appearance of the many advanced forms of life in a geological blink of an eye.
> >>>> Glenn is right about the well documented, obvious explosion. The early Cambrian fossils include
> >>>> representatives of almost every phylum known from fossils; there was only one "holdout" by
> >>>> the end of the Cambrian, the bryozoa, and that appeared in the next period, the Ordovician.
> >>>>
> >>>> At least as mysterious as this is the question: why no more fossilizable phyla in the next
> >>>> 500 million years, after an explosion less than one-tenth as long, by most geologists' reckoning?
> >>>>>> Most everyone has given up on trying to discredit that fact. Now you're left with "maybe one or a few might" have been "kinda pseudo like" what we'd like to call "animal" rising from non-animal life a "little bit" before the explosion.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>> "speculation that changes with the wind"? Does that mean data?
> >>>> Partly data, partly interpretations of already known data. People were once confident that Dickinsonia
> >>>> was an annelid. The latest speculation doesn't quite know where to place it, does it?
> >>>>> I *really* don't care what ID doesn't tolerate, nor am I concerned with your limits of toleration.
> >>>> Looks like ID has higher standards than you do. I take it Glenn was talking about what ID theorists
> >>>> will tolerate within ID.
> >>>>>> I'll leave you with a thought. Plant-like protists are called algae.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Are algae plants? Plenty of pictures for you here:
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> https://www.indefenseofplants.com/blog/2018/2/20/are-algae-plants
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>> Nice pictures. The text belies your confident assertions.
> >>>> In what way? We've already seen how your text belies your confident
> >>>> assertion in the Subject line: "Dickinsonia is very likely an animal"
> >>>>
> >>>>> Stick with pictures.
> >>>>
> >>>> Where did you justify this comment?
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> Peter Nyikos
> >>>> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
> >>>> University of South Carolina
> >>>> http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
> >>
> >>> I have zero interest is discussing anything with Glenn, and I suspect the lack of interest is
> >>> mutual. You apparently hold him in some regard?
> >> I hold the topics in high regard. You and Glenn are a good foundation for organizing my thoughts on
> >> the fascinating subjects you were discussing: the status of Dickinsonia and the Cambrian explosion.
> >>> I find that somewhat strange. Alas, I also
> >>> have no interest in discussing your contentious objections to the title of the thread, but I encourage
> >>> you to read the recent relevant material.
> >> I've read a very long treatise exploring the status of Dickinsonia, which you don't seem to have read
> >> very carefully (and Glenn might not have understood enough of it):
> >>
> >> https://evolutionnews.org/2018/09/why-dickinsonia-was-most-probably-not-an-ediacaran-animal/
> >>
> >> Did you dismiss it out of hand because it was written by a convert from atheism?
> >>
> >> Be that as it may, I will write about it on Monday. It's too close to my bedtime now.
> >>> I'm not going to dig through my files looking for all the relevant
> >>> papers, because I don't see that this will lead to any clarity, and most likely would only lead to another
> >>> angry meltdown. (It's actually fun to track down the references; at least I find it fun).
> >> So do I. One of the main reasons I went into my office today (the only time I did it this week) was
> >> so that I could get past the paywall erected around the _Nature_ article on a gliding Jurassic mammal
> >> that Oxyaena had brought to my attention on the "For Peter" thread.
> >>
> >> It was well worth the trouble, and I'll be reporting on it on Monday too.
> >>
> >>
> >> Peter Nyikos
> >
> > I do not dismiss Bechly's review out of hand, but I don't find it useful, and it's pretty obvious from both
> > its tone and its provinance where his sympathies lie.
> >
> It's actually hard to tell where his sympathies lie. He's said on
> occasion that there is very good evidence for universal common descent,
> and yet he continually tries to cast doubt on any particular examples,
> including human relationships to chimps. He's all over the place.
>
> But nobody should take anything published on EN&V seriously.

It's the first thing by Bechly that I've ever read. It struck me that he sounds like Glenn in casting doubt generally,
but a highly educated Glenn, if you can imagine it.

On 6/12/21 8:54 AM, erik simpson wrote:
> On Saturday, June 12, 2021 at 2:08:53 AM UTC-7, John Harshman wrote:
>> On 6/11/21 10:02 PM, erik simpson wrote:
>>> On Friday, June 11, 2021 at 8:23:52 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>>> On Friday, June 11, 2021 at 10:55:08 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
>>>>> On Friday, June 11, 2021 at 6:04:54 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>>>>> On Thursday, April 1, 2021 at 7:49:25 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
>>>>>>> On Thursday, April 1, 2021 at 3:35:21 PM UTC-7, Glenn wrote:
>>>>>> Showing great restraint, I've deleted something that I dealt with vigorously in talk.origins.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> This being over two months after the incident, I decided to let bygones be bygones.
>>>>>> I hope Erik follows suit.
>>>>>>>> Sound to me like you're trying to ditch integrity, so you can satisfy your evolutionary bias by desperately trying to prove animals existed before the Cambrian Explosion.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> You misunderstand. I'm not trying to prove anything about Precambrian animals. I'm simply very curious about the *possible*
>>>>>>> relationships between the Ediacaran biota and "life as we know it" inthe Cambrian.
>>>>>> Your Subject: line, "Dickinsonia is very likely an animal" belies this disarming claim.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> IOW, how many reverse gears does your bicycle have?
>>>>>>> I have very little concern for what ID does or
>>>>>>> does not say about that subject.
>>>>>> Nothing, AFAIK.
>>>>>>> The people involved with ID aren't well-represented among paleontologists.
>>>>>> That is an accident, due to the fact that involvement with ID is mostly by creationists,
>>>>>> most of whom are uninterested in all but the most superficial paleontology.
>>>>>>>> You should know that ID does not prohibit primitive life you want to call "animals", or even primitive animals existing in the Ediacaran, nor do I. ID does, as well as I, not tolerate speculation that changes with the wind of what exactly occurred and existed more than a half billion years ago, before a well documented, obvious explosion of the appearance of the many advanced forms of life in a geological blink of an eye.
>>>>>> Glenn is right about the well documented, obvious explosion. The early Cambrian fossils include
>>>>>> representatives of almost every phylum known from fossils; there was only one "holdout" by
>>>>>> the end of the Cambrian, the bryozoa, and that appeared in the next period, the Ordovician.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> At least as mysterious as this is the question: why no more fossilizable phyla in the next
>>>>>> 500 million years, after an explosion less than one-tenth as long, by most geologists' reckoning?
>>>>>>>> Most everyone has given up on trying to discredit that fact. Now you're left with "maybe one or a few might" have been "kinda pseudo like" what we'd like to call "animal" rising from non-animal life a "little bit" before the explosion.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> "speculation that changes with the wind"? Does that mean data?
>>>>>> Partly data, partly interpretations of already known data. People were once confident that Dickinsonia
>>>>>> was an annelid. The latest speculation doesn't quite know where to place it, does it?
>>>>>>> I *really* don't care what ID doesn't tolerate, nor am I concerned with your limits of toleration.
>>>>>> Looks like ID has higher standards than you do. I take it Glenn was talking about what ID theorists
>>>>>> will tolerate within ID.
>>>>>>>> I'll leave you with a thought. Plant-like protists are called algae.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Are algae plants? Plenty of pictures for you here:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> https://www.indefenseofplants.com/blog/2018/2/20/are-algae-plants
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Nice pictures. The text belies your confident assertions.
>>>>>> In what way? We've already seen how your text belies your confident
>>>>>> assertion in the Subject line: "Dickinsonia is very likely an animal"
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Stick with pictures.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Where did you justify this comment?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Peter Nyikos
>>>>>> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
>>>>>> University of South Carolina
>>>>>> http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
>>>>
>>>>> I have zero interest is discussing anything with Glenn, and I suspect the lack of interest is
>>>>> mutual. You apparently hold him in some regard?
>>>> I hold the topics in high regard. You and Glenn are a good foundation for organizing my thoughts on
>>>> the fascinating subjects you were discussing: the status of Dickinsonia and the Cambrian explosion.
>>>>> I find that somewhat strange. Alas, I also
>>>>> have no interest in discussing your contentious objections to the title of the thread, but I encourage
>>>>> you to read the recent relevant material.
>>>> I've read a very long treatise exploring the status of Dickinsonia, which you don't seem to have read
>>>> very carefully (and Glenn might not have understood enough of it):
>>>>
>>>> https://evolutionnews.org/2018/09/why-dickinsonia-was-most-probably-not-an-ediacaran-animal/
>>>>
>>>> Did you dismiss it out of hand because it was written by a convert from atheism?
>>>>
>>>> Be that as it may, I will write about it on Monday. It's too close to my bedtime now.
>>>>> I'm not going to dig through my files looking for all the relevant
>>>>> papers, because I don't see that this will lead to any clarity, and most likely would only lead to another
>>>>> angry meltdown. (It's actually fun to track down the references; at least I find it fun).
>>>> So do I. One of the main reasons I went into my office today (the only time I did it this week) was
>>>> so that I could get past the paywall erected around the _Nature_ article on a gliding Jurassic mammal
>>>> that Oxyaena had brought to my attention on the "For Peter" thread.
>>>>
>>>> It was well worth the trouble, and I'll be reporting on it on Monday too.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Peter Nyikos
>>>
>>> I do not dismiss Bechly's review out of hand, but I don't find it useful, and it's pretty obvious from both
>>> its tone and its provinance where his sympathies lie.
>>>
>> It's actually hard to tell where his sympathies lie. He's said on
>> occasion that there is very good evidence for universal common descent,
>> and yet he continually tries to cast doubt on any particular examples,
>> including human relationships to chimps. He's all over the place.
>>
>> But nobody should take anything published on EN&V seriously.
>
> It's the first thing by Bechly that I've ever read. It struck me that he sounds like Glenn in casting doubt generally,
> but a highly educated Glenn, if you can imagine it.
>

Try this:
https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/questions-for-gunter-bechly-and-swamidass-on-unbelievable/13822

Quoting from Bechly's web site manifesto:

“I am convinced that the evidence strongly points towards a combination
of old earth and common ancestry with saltational development. The
latter I see as quantum computations based on entangled DNA that
collapses into non-random adaptive macro-mutations, which because of
their survival value populate and propagate more branches of the wave
function. Intelligent Design is instantiated not by supernatural
interventions within spacetime but by fine-tuned initial conditions,
fine-tuned laws of nature, and a fine-tuned fitness landscape. The
fitness landscape of evolutionary biology is a discernible set of
alternative possibilities and as such a subset of Hilbert space of the
universal wave function in quantum mechanics. Due to entanglement the
wave function of the universe represents a single integrated information
state that is equivalent with a universal consciousness (based on
Tononi’s IIT). Universal wave function (platonic abstract objects) and
universal mind (consciousness) are co-dependent in a strange loop: The
universal wave function “lives” in the universal mind, and the universal
mind is based on the integrated information of this wave function. This
unifies Neoplatonism with objective (monistic) idealism and
(panen)theism. Spacetime emerges from entangled quantum information and
thus from universal consciousness.”

On Sunday, June 13, 2021 at 12:46:42 AM UTC-7, John Harshman wrote:
> On 6/12/21 8:54 AM, erik simpson wrote:
> > On Saturday, June 12, 2021 at 2:08:53 AM UTC-7, John Harshman wrote:
> >> On 6/11/21 10:02 PM, erik simpson wrote:
> >>> On Friday, June 11, 2021 at 8:23:52 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >>>> On Friday, June 11, 2021 at 10:55:08 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> >>>>> On Friday, June 11, 2021 at 6:04:54 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >>>>>> On Thursday, April 1, 2021 at 7:49:25 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> >>>>>>> On Thursday, April 1, 2021 at 3:35:21 PM UTC-7, Glenn wrote:
> >>>>>> Showing great restraint, I've deleted something that I dealt with vigorously in talk.origins.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> This being over two months after the incident, I decided to let bygones be bygones.
> >>>>>> I hope Erik follows suit.
> >>>>>>>> Sound to me like you're trying to ditch integrity, so you can satisfy your evolutionary bias by desperately trying to prove animals existed before the Cambrian Explosion.
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> You misunderstand. I'm not trying to prove anything about Precambrian animals. I'm simply very curious about the *possible*
> >>>>>>> relationships between the Ediacaran biota and "life as we know it" inthe Cambrian.
> >>>>>> Your Subject: line, "Dickinsonia is very likely an animal" belies this disarming claim.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> IOW, how many reverse gears does your bicycle have?
> >>>>>>> I have very little concern for what ID does or
> >>>>>>> does not say about that subject.
> >>>>>> Nothing, AFAIK.
> >>>>>>> The people involved with ID aren't well-represented among paleontologists.
> >>>>>> That is an accident, due to the fact that involvement with ID is mostly by creationists,
> >>>>>> most of whom are uninterested in all but the most superficial paleontology.
> >>>>>>>> You should know that ID does not prohibit primitive life you want to call "animals", or even primitive animals existing in the Ediacaran, nor do I. ID does, as well as I, not tolerate speculation that changes with the wind of what exactly occurred and existed more than a half billion years ago, before a well documented, obvious explosion of the appearance of the many advanced forms of life in a geological blink of an eye.
> >>>>>> Glenn is right about the well documented, obvious explosion. The early Cambrian fossils include
> >>>>>> representatives of almost every phylum known from fossils; there was only one "holdout" by
> >>>>>> the end of the Cambrian, the bryozoa, and that appeared in the next period, the Ordovician.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> At least as mysterious as this is the question: why no more fossilizable phyla in the next
> >>>>>> 500 million years, after an explosion less than one-tenth as long, by most geologists' reckoning?
> >>>>>>>> Most everyone has given up on trying to discredit that fact. Now you're left with "maybe one or a few might" have been "kinda pseudo like" what we'd like to call "animal" rising from non-animal life a "little bit" before the explosion.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>> "speculation that changes with the wind"? Does that mean data?
> >>>>>> Partly data, partly interpretations of already known data. People were once confident that Dickinsonia
> >>>>>> was an annelid. The latest speculation doesn't quite know where to place it, does it?
> >>>>>>> I *really* don't care what ID doesn't tolerate, nor am I concerned with your limits of toleration.
> >>>>>> Looks like ID has higher standards than you do. I take it Glenn was talking about what ID theorists
> >>>>>> will tolerate within ID.
> >>>>>>>> I'll leave you with a thought. Plant-like protists are called algae.
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> Are algae plants? Plenty of pictures for you here:
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> https://www.indefenseofplants.com/blog/2018/2/20/are-algae-plants
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Nice pictures. The text belies your confident assertions.
> >>>>>> In what way? We've already seen how your text belies your confident
> >>>>>> assertion in the Subject line: "Dickinsonia is very likely an animal"
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Stick with pictures.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Where did you justify this comment?
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Peter Nyikos
> >>>>>> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
> >>>>>> University of South Carolina
> >>>>>> http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
> >>>>
> >>>>> I have zero interest is discussing anything with Glenn, and I suspect the lack of interest is
> >>>>> mutual. You apparently hold him in some regard?
> >>>> I hold the topics in high regard. You and Glenn are a good foundation for organizing my thoughts on
> >>>> the fascinating subjects you were discussing: the status of Dickinsonia and the Cambrian explosion.
> >>>>> I find that somewhat strange. Alas, I also
> >>>>> have no interest in discussing your contentious objections to the title of the thread, but I encourage
> >>>>> you to read the recent relevant material.
> >>>> I've read a very long treatise exploring the status of Dickinsonia, which you don't seem to have read
> >>>> very carefully (and Glenn might not have understood enough of it):
> >>>>
> >>>> https://evolutionnews.org/2018/09/why-dickinsonia-was-most-probably-not-an-ediacaran-animal/
> >>>>
> >>>> Did you dismiss it out of hand because it was written by a convert from atheism?
> >>>>
> >>>> Be that as it may, I will write about it on Monday. It's too close to my bedtime now.
> >>>>> I'm not going to dig through my files looking for all the relevant
> >>>>> papers, because I don't see that this will lead to any clarity, and most likely would only lead to another
> >>>>> angry meltdown. (It's actually fun to track down the references; at least I find it fun).
> >>>> So do I. One of the main reasons I went into my office today (the only time I did it this week) was
> >>>> so that I could get past the paywall erected around the _Nature_ article on a gliding Jurassic mammal
> >>>> that Oxyaena had brought to my attention on the "For Peter" thread.
> >>>>
> >>>> It was well worth the trouble, and I'll be reporting on it on Monday too.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> Peter Nyikos
> >>>
> >>> I do not dismiss Bechly's review out of hand, but I don't find it useful, and it's pretty obvious from both
> >>> its tone and its provinance where his sympathies lie.
> >>>
> >> It's actually hard to tell where his sympathies lie. He's said on
> >> occasion that there is very good evidence for universal common descent,
> >> and yet he continually tries to cast doubt on any particular examples,
> >> including human relationships to chimps. He's all over the place.
> >>
> >> But nobody should take anything published on EN&V seriously.
> >
> > It's the first thing by Bechly that I've ever read. It struck me that he sounds like Glenn in casting doubt generally,
> > but a highly educated Glenn, if you can imagine it.
> >
> Try this:
> https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/questions-for-gunter-bechly-and-swamidass-on-unbelievable/13822
>
> Quoting from Bechly's web site manifesto:
>
> “I am convinced that the evidence strongly points towards a combination
> of old earth and common ancestry with saltational development. The
> latter I see as quantum computations based on entangled DNA that
> collapses into non-random adaptive macro-mutations, which because of
> their survival value populate and propagate more branches of the wave
> function. Intelligent Design is instantiated not by supernatural
> interventions within spacetime but by fine-tuned initial conditions,
> fine-tuned laws of nature, and a fine-tuned fitness landscape. The
> fitness landscape of evolutionary biology is a discernible set of
> alternative possibilities and as such a subset of Hilbert space of the
> universal wave function in quantum mechanics. Due to entanglement the
> wave function of the universe represents a single integrated information
> state that is equivalent with a universal consciousness (based on
> Tononi’s IIT). Universal wave function (platonic abstract objects) and
> universal mind (consciousness) are co-dependent in a strange loop: The
> universal wave function “lives” in the universal mind, and the universal
> mind is based on the integrated information of this wave function. This
> unifies Neoplatonism with objective (monistic) idealism and
> (panen)theism. Spacetime emerges from entangled quantum information and
> thus from universal consciousness.”

On Saturday, June 12, 2021 at 5:08:53 AM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> On 6/11/21 10:02 PM, erik simpson wrote:
> > On Friday, June 11, 2021 at 8:23:52 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >> On Friday, June 11, 2021 at 10:55:08 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> >>> On Friday, June 11, 2021 at 6:04:54 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >>>> On Thursday, April 1, 2021 at 7:49:25 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> >>>>> On Thursday, April 1, 2021 at 3:35:21 PM UTC-7, Glenn wrote:
> >>>> Showing great restraint, I've deleted something that I dealt with vigorously in talk.origins.
> >>>>
> >>>> This being over two months after the incident, I decided to let bygones be bygones.
> >>>> I hope Erik follows suit.
> >>>>>> Sound to me like you're trying to ditch integrity, so you can satisfy your evolutionary bias by desperately trying to prove animals existed before the Cambrian Explosion.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>> You misunderstand. I'm not trying to prove anything about Precambrian animals. I'm simply very curious about the *possible*
> >>>>> relationships between the Ediacaran biota and "life as we know it" inthe Cambrian.
> >>>> Your Subject: line, "Dickinsonia is very likely an animal" belies this disarming claim.
> >>>>
> >>>> IOW, how many reverse gears does your bicycle have?
> >>>>> I have very little concern for what ID does or
> >>>>> does not say about that subject.
> >>>> Nothing, AFAIK.
> >>>>> The people involved with ID aren't well-represented among paleontologists.
> >>>> That is an accident, due to the fact that involvement with ID is mostly by creationists,
> >>>> most of whom are uninterested in all but the most superficial paleontology.
> >>>>>> You should know that ID does not prohibit primitive life you want to call "animals", or even primitive animals existing in the Ediacaran, nor do I. ID does, as well as I, not tolerate speculation that changes with the wind of what exactly occurred and existed more than a half billion years ago, before a well documented, obvious explosion of the appearance of the many advanced forms of life in a geological blink of an eye.
> >>>> Glenn is right about the well documented, obvious explosion. The early Cambrian fossils include
> >>>> representatives of almost every phylum known from fossils; there was only one "holdout" by
> >>>> the end of the Cambrian, the bryozoa, and that appeared in the next period, the Ordovician.
> >>>>
> >>>> At least as mysterious as this is the question: why no more fossilizable phyla in the next
> >>>> 500 million years, after an explosion less than one-tenth as long, by most geologists' reckoning?
> >>>>>> Most everyone has given up on trying to discredit that fact. Now you're left with "maybe one or a few might" have been "kinda pseudo like" what we'd like to call "animal" rising from non-animal life a "little bit" before the explosion.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>> "speculation that changes with the wind"? Does that mean data?
> >>>> Partly data, partly interpretations of already known data. People were once confident that Dickinsonia
> >>>> was an annelid. The latest speculation doesn't quite know where to place it, does it?
> >>>>> I *really* don't care what ID doesn't tolerate, nor am I concerned with your limits of toleration.
> >>>> Looks like ID has higher standards than you do. I take it Glenn was talking about what ID theorists
> >>>> will tolerate within ID.
> >>>>>> I'll leave you with a thought. Plant-like protists are called algae.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Are algae plants? Plenty of pictures for you here:
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> https://www.indefenseofplants.com/blog/2018/2/20/are-algae-plants
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>> Nice pictures. The text belies your confident assertions.
> >>>> In what way? We've already seen how your text belies your confident
> >>>> assertion in the Subject line: "Dickinsonia is very likely an animal"
> >>>>
> >>>>> Stick with pictures.
> >>>>
> >>>> Where did you justify this comment?
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> Peter Nyikos
> >>>> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
> >>>> University of South Carolina
> >>>> http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
> >>
> >>> I have zero interest is discussing anything with Glenn, and I suspect the lack of interest is
> >>> mutual. You apparently hold him in some regard?
> >> I hold the topics in high regard. You and Glenn are a good foundation for organizing my thoughts on
> >> the fascinating subjects you were discussing: the status of Dickinsonia and the Cambrian explosion.
> >>> I find that somewhat strange. Alas, I also
> >>> have no interest in discussing your contentious objections to the title of the thread, but I encourage
> >>> you to read the recent relevant material.
> >> I've read a very long treatise exploring the status of Dickinsonia, which you don't seem to have read
> >> very carefully (and Glenn might not have understood enough of it):
> >>
> >> https://evolutionnews.org/2018/09/why-dickinsonia-was-most-probably-not-an-ediacaran-animal/
> >>
> >> Did you dismiss it out of hand because it was written by a convert from atheism?
> >>
> >> Be that as it may, I will write about it on Monday. It's too close to my bedtime now.
> >>> I'm not going to dig through my files looking for all the relevant
> >>> papers, because I don't see that this will lead to any clarity, and most likely would only lead to another
> >>> angry meltdown. (It's actually fun to track down the references; at least I find it fun).
> >> So do I. One of the main reasons I went into my office today (the only time I did it this week) was
> >> so that I could get past the paywall erected around the _Nature_ article on a gliding Jurassic mammal
> >> that Oxyaena had brought to my attention on the "For Peter" thread.
> >>
> >> It was well worth the trouble, and I'll be reporting on it on Monday too.
> >>
> >>
> >> Peter Nyikos
> >
> > I do not dismiss Bechly's review out of hand, but I don't find it useful, and it's pretty obvious from both
> > its tone and its provinance where his sympathies lie.
> >
> It's actually hard to tell where his sympathies lie. He's said on
> occasion that there is very good evidence for universal common descent,
> and yet he continually tries to cast doubt on any particular examples,
> including human relationships to chimps. He's all over the place.
>
> But nobody should take anything published on EN&V seriously.

Please confine this attitude to talk.origins, where it belongs.

Peter Nyikos

On 6/14/21 4:45 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Saturday, June 12, 2021 at 5:08:53 AM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
>> On 6/11/21 10:02 PM, erik simpson wrote:
>>> On Friday, June 11, 2021 at 8:23:52 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>>> On Friday, June 11, 2021 at 10:55:08 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
>>>>> On Friday, June 11, 2021 at 6:04:54 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>>>>> On Thursday, April 1, 2021 at 7:49:25 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
>>>>>>> On Thursday, April 1, 2021 at 3:35:21 PM UTC-7, Glenn wrote:
>>>>>> Showing great restraint, I've deleted something that I dealt with vigorously in talk.origins.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> This being over two months after the incident, I decided to let bygones be bygones.
>>>>>> I hope Erik follows suit.
>>>>>>>> Sound to me like you're trying to ditch integrity, so you can satisfy your evolutionary bias by desperately trying to prove animals existed before the Cambrian Explosion.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> You misunderstand. I'm not trying to prove anything about Precambrian animals. I'm simply very curious about the *possible*
>>>>>>> relationships between the Ediacaran biota and "life as we know it" inthe Cambrian.
>>>>>> Your Subject: line, "Dickinsonia is very likely an animal" belies this disarming claim.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> IOW, how many reverse gears does your bicycle have?
>>>>>>> I have very little concern for what ID does or
>>>>>>> does not say about that subject.
>>>>>> Nothing, AFAIK.
>>>>>>> The people involved with ID aren't well-represented among paleontologists.
>>>>>> That is an accident, due to the fact that involvement with ID is mostly by creationists,
>>>>>> most of whom are uninterested in all but the most superficial paleontology.
>>>>>>>> You should know that ID does not prohibit primitive life you want to call "animals", or even primitive animals existing in the Ediacaran, nor do I. ID does, as well as I, not tolerate speculation that changes with the wind of what exactly occurred and existed more than a half billion years ago, before a well documented, obvious explosion of the appearance of the many advanced forms of life in a geological blink of an eye.
>>>>>> Glenn is right about the well documented, obvious explosion. The early Cambrian fossils include
>>>>>> representatives of almost every phylum known from fossils; there was only one "holdout" by
>>>>>> the end of the Cambrian, the bryozoa, and that appeared in the next period, the Ordovician.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> At least as mysterious as this is the question: why no more fossilizable phyla in the next
>>>>>> 500 million years, after an explosion less than one-tenth as long, by most geologists' reckoning?
>>>>>>>> Most everyone has given up on trying to discredit that fact. Now you're left with "maybe one or a few might" have been "kinda pseudo like" what we'd like to call "animal" rising from non-animal life a "little bit" before the explosion.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> "speculation that changes with the wind"? Does that mean data?
>>>>>> Partly data, partly interpretations of already known data. People were once confident that Dickinsonia
>>>>>> was an annelid. The latest speculation doesn't quite know where to place it, does it?
>>>>>>> I *really* don't care what ID doesn't tolerate, nor am I concerned with your limits of toleration.
>>>>>> Looks like ID has higher standards than you do. I take it Glenn was talking about what ID theorists
>>>>>> will tolerate within ID.
>>>>>>>> I'll leave you with a thought. Plant-like protists are called algae.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Are algae plants? Plenty of pictures for you here:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> https://www.indefenseofplants.com/blog/2018/2/20/are-algae-plants
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Nice pictures. The text belies your confident assertions.
>>>>>> In what way? We've already seen how your text belies your confident
>>>>>> assertion in the Subject line: "Dickinsonia is very likely an animal"
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Stick with pictures.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Where did you justify this comment?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Peter Nyikos
>>>>>> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
>>>>>> University of South Carolina
>>>>>> http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
>>>>
>>>>> I have zero interest is discussing anything with Glenn, and I suspect the lack of interest is
>>>>> mutual. You apparently hold him in some regard?
>>>> I hold the topics in high regard. You and Glenn are a good foundation for organizing my thoughts on
>>>> the fascinating subjects you were discussing: the status of Dickinsonia and the Cambrian explosion.
>>>>> I find that somewhat strange. Alas, I also
>>>>> have no interest in discussing your contentious objections to the title of the thread, but I encourage
>>>>> you to read the recent relevant material.
>>>> I've read a very long treatise exploring the status of Dickinsonia, which you don't seem to have read
>>>> very carefully (and Glenn might not have understood enough of it):
>>>>
>>>> https://evolutionnews.org/2018/09/why-dickinsonia-was-most-probably-not-an-ediacaran-animal/
>>>>
>>>> Did you dismiss it out of hand because it was written by a convert from atheism?
>>>>
>>>> Be that as it may, I will write about it on Monday. It's too close to my bedtime now.
>>>>> I'm not going to dig through my files looking for all the relevant
>>>>> papers, because I don't see that this will lead to any clarity, and most likely would only lead to another
>>>>> angry meltdown. (It's actually fun to track down the references; at least I find it fun).
>>>> So do I. One of the main reasons I went into my office today (the only time I did it this week) was
>>>> so that I could get past the paywall erected around the _Nature_ article on a gliding Jurassic mammal
>>>> that Oxyaena had brought to my attention on the "For Peter" thread.
>>>>
>>>> It was well worth the trouble, and I'll be reporting on it on Monday too.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Peter Nyikos
>>>
>>> I do not dismiss Bechly's review out of hand, but I don't find it useful, and it's pretty obvious from both
>>> its tone and its provinance where his sympathies lie.
>>>
>> It's actually hard to tell where his sympathies lie. He's said on
>> occasion that there is very good evidence for universal common descent,
>> and yet he continually tries to cast doubt on any particular examples,
>> including human relationships to chimps. He's all over the place.
>>
>> But nobody should take anything published on EN&V seriously.
>
> Please confine this attitude to talk.origins, where it belongs.

Why doesn't it belong here?

On Monday, June 14, 2021 at 7:52:50 AM UTC-7, John Harshman wrote:
> On 6/14/21 4:45 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > On Saturday, June 12, 2021 at 5:08:53 AM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> >> On 6/11/21 10:02 PM, erik simpson wrote:
> >>> On Friday, June 11, 2021 at 8:23:52 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >>>> On Friday, June 11, 2021 at 10:55:08 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> >>>>> On Friday, June 11, 2021 at 6:04:54 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >>>>>> On Thursday, April 1, 2021 at 7:49:25 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> >>>>>>> On Thursday, April 1, 2021 at 3:35:21 PM UTC-7, Glenn wrote:
> >>>>>> Showing great restraint, I've deleted something that I dealt with vigorously in talk.origins.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> This being over two months after the incident, I decided to let bygones be bygones.
> >>>>>> I hope Erik follows suit.
> >>>>>>>> Sound to me like you're trying to ditch integrity, so you can satisfy your evolutionary bias by desperately trying to prove animals existed before the Cambrian Explosion.
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> You misunderstand. I'm not trying to prove anything about Precambrian animals. I'm simply very curious about the *possible*
> >>>>>>> relationships between the Ediacaran biota and "life as we know it" inthe Cambrian.
> >>>>>> Your Subject: line, "Dickinsonia is very likely an animal" belies this disarming claim.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> IOW, how many reverse gears does your bicycle have?
> >>>>>>> I have very little concern for what ID does or
> >>>>>>> does not say about that subject.
> >>>>>> Nothing, AFAIK.
> >>>>>>> The people involved with ID aren't well-represented among paleontologists.
> >>>>>> That is an accident, due to the fact that involvement with ID is mostly by creationists,
> >>>>>> most of whom are uninterested in all but the most superficial paleontology.
> >>>>>>>> You should know that ID does not prohibit primitive life you want to call "animals", or even primitive animals existing in the Ediacaran, nor do I. ID does, as well as I, not tolerate speculation that changes with the wind of what exactly occurred and existed more than a half billion years ago, before a well documented, obvious explosion of the appearance of the many advanced forms of life in a geological blink of an eye.
> >>>>>> Glenn is right about the well documented, obvious explosion. The early Cambrian fossils include
> >>>>>> representatives of almost every phylum known from fossils; there was only one "holdout" by
> >>>>>> the end of the Cambrian, the bryozoa, and that appeared in the next period, the Ordovician.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> At least as mysterious as this is the question: why no more fossilizable phyla in the next
> >>>>>> 500 million years, after an explosion less than one-tenth as long, by most geologists' reckoning?
> >>>>>>>> Most everyone has given up on trying to discredit that fact. Now you're left with "maybe one or a few might" have been "kinda pseudo like" what we'd like to call "animal" rising from non-animal life a "little bit" before the explosion.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>> "speculation that changes with the wind"? Does that mean data?
> >>>>>> Partly data, partly interpretations of already known data. People were once confident that Dickinsonia
> >>>>>> was an annelid. The latest speculation doesn't quite know where to place it, does it?
> >>>>>>> I *really* don't care what ID doesn't tolerate, nor am I concerned with your limits of toleration.
> >>>>>> Looks like ID has higher standards than you do. I take it Glenn was talking about what ID theorists
> >>>>>> will tolerate within ID.
> >>>>>>>> I'll leave you with a thought. Plant-like protists are called algae.
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> Are algae plants? Plenty of pictures for you here:
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> https://www.indefenseofplants.com/blog/2018/2/20/are-algae-plants
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Nice pictures. The text belies your confident assertions.
> >>>>>> In what way? We've already seen how your text belies your confident
> >>>>>> assertion in the Subject line: "Dickinsonia is very likely an animal"
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Stick with pictures.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Where did you justify this comment?
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Peter Nyikos
> >>>>>> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
> >>>>>> University of South Carolina
> >>>>>> http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
> >>>>
> >>>>> I have zero interest is discussing anything with Glenn, and I suspect the lack of interest is
> >>>>> mutual. You apparently hold him in some regard?
> >>>> I hold the topics in high regard. You and Glenn are a good foundation for organizing my thoughts on
> >>>> the fascinating subjects you were discussing: the status of Dickinsonia and the Cambrian explosion.
> >>>>> I find that somewhat strange. Alas, I also
> >>>>> have no interest in discussing your contentious objections to the title of the thread, but I encourage
> >>>>> you to read the recent relevant material.
> >>>> I've read a very long treatise exploring the status of Dickinsonia, which you don't seem to have read
> >>>> very carefully (and Glenn might not have understood enough of it):
> >>>>
> >>>> https://evolutionnews.org/2018/09/why-dickinsonia-was-most-probably-not-an-ediacaran-animal/
> >>>>
> >>>> Did you dismiss it out of hand because it was written by a convert from atheism?
> >>>>
> >>>> Be that as it may, I will write about it on Monday. It's too close to my bedtime now.
> >>>>> I'm not going to dig through my files looking for all the relevant
> >>>>> papers, because I don't see that this will lead to any clarity, and most likely would only lead to another
> >>>>> angry meltdown. (It's actually fun to track down the references; at least I find it fun).
> >>>> So do I. One of the main reasons I went into my office today (the only time I did it this week) was
> >>>> so that I could get past the paywall erected around the _Nature_ article on a gliding Jurassic mammal
> >>>> that Oxyaena had brought to my attention on the "For Peter" thread.
> >>>>
> >>>> It was well worth the trouble, and I'll be reporting on it on Monday too.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> Peter Nyikos
> >>>
> >>> I do not dismiss Bechly's review out of hand, but I don't find it useful, and it's pretty obvious from both
> >>> its tone and its provinance where his sympathies lie.
> >>>
> >> It's actually hard to tell where his sympathies lie. He's said on
> >> occasion that there is very good evidence for universal common descent,
> >> and yet he continually tries to cast doubt on any particular examples,
> >> including human relationships to chimps. He's all over the place.
> >>
> >> But nobody should take anything published on EN&V seriously.
> >
> > Please confine this attitude to talk.origins, where it belongs.
> Why doesn't it belong here?

My perception of TO is that nothing belongs there, The SNR is neglible there. Anything even slightly informative
is immediately buried under an avalanche of dreck.

On Monday, June 14, 2021 at 10:52:50 AM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> On 6/14/21 4:45 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > On Saturday, June 12, 2021 at 5:08:53 AM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> >> On 6/11/21 10:02 PM, erik simpson wrote:
> >>> On Friday, June 11, 2021 at 8:23:52 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >>>> On Friday, June 11, 2021 at 10:55:08 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> >>>>> On Friday, June 11, 2021 at 6:04:54 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >>>>>> On Thursday, April 1, 2021 at 7:49:25 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> >>>>>>> On Thursday, April 1, 2021 at 3:35:21 PM UTC-7, Glenn wrote:
> >>>>>> Showing great restraint, I've deleted something that I dealt with vigorously in talk.origins.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> This being over two months after the incident, I decided to let bygones be bygones.
> >>>>>> I hope Erik follows suit.
> >>>>>>>> Sound to me like you're trying to ditch integrity, so you can satisfy your evolutionary bias by desperately trying to prove animals existed before the Cambrian Explosion.
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> You misunderstand. I'm not trying to prove anything about Precambrian animals. I'm simply very curious about the *possible*
> >>>>>>> relationships between the Ediacaran biota and "life as we know it" inthe Cambrian.
> >>>>>> Your Subject: line, "Dickinsonia is very likely an animal" belies this disarming claim.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> IOW, how many reverse gears does your bicycle have?
> >>>>>>> I have very little concern for what ID does or
> >>>>>>> does not say about that subject.
> >>>>>> Nothing, AFAIK.
> >>>>>>> The people involved with ID aren't well-represented among paleontologists.
> >>>>>> That is an accident, due to the fact that involvement with ID is mostly by creationists,
> >>>>>> most of whom are uninterested in all but the most superficial paleontology.
> >>>>>>>> You should know that ID does not prohibit primitive life you want to call "animals", or even primitive animals existing in the Ediacaran, nor do I. ID does, as well as I, not tolerate speculation that changes with the wind of what exactly occurred and existed more than a half billion years ago, before a well documented, obvious explosion of the appearance of the many advanced forms of life in a geological blink of an eye.
> >>>>>> Glenn is right about the well documented, obvious explosion. The early Cambrian fossils include
> >>>>>> representatives of almost every phylum known from fossils; there was only one "holdout" by
> >>>>>> the end of the Cambrian, the bryozoa, and that appeared in the next period, the Ordovician.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> At least as mysterious as this is the question: why no more fossilizable phyla in the next
> >>>>>> 500 million years, after an explosion less than one-tenth as long, by most geologists' reckoning?
> >>>>>>>> Most everyone has given up on trying to discredit that fact. Now you're left with "maybe one or a few might" have been "kinda pseudo like" what we'd like to call "animal" rising from non-animal life a "little bit" before the explosion.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>> "speculation that changes with the wind"? Does that mean data?
> >>>>>> Partly data, partly interpretations of already known data. People were once confident that Dickinsonia
> >>>>>> was an annelid. The latest speculation doesn't quite know where to place it, does it?
> >>>>>>> I *really* don't care what ID doesn't tolerate, nor am I concerned with your limits of toleration.
> >>>>>> Looks like ID has higher standards than you do. I take it Glenn was talking about what ID theorists
> >>>>>> will tolerate within ID.
> >>>>>>>> I'll leave you with a thought. Plant-like protists are called algae.
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> Are algae plants? Plenty of pictures for you here:
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> https://www.indefenseofplants.com/blog/2018/2/20/are-algae-plants
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Nice pictures. The text belies your confident assertions.
> >>>>>> In what way? We've already seen how your text belies your confident
> >>>>>> assertion in the Subject line: "Dickinsonia is very likely an animal"
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Stick with pictures.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Where did you justify this comment?
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Peter Nyikos
> >>>>>> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
> >>>>>> University of South Carolina
> >>>>>> http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
> >>>>
> >>>>> I have zero interest is discussing anything with Glenn, and I suspect the lack of interest is
> >>>>> mutual. You apparently hold him in some regard?
> >>>> I hold the topics in high regard. You and Glenn are a good foundation for organizing my thoughts on
> >>>> the fascinating subjects you were discussing: the status of Dickinsonia and the Cambrian explosion.
> >>>>> I find that somewhat strange. Alas, I also
> >>>>> have no interest in discussing your contentious objections to the title of the thread, but I encourage
> >>>>> you to read the recent relevant material.
> >>>> I've read a very long treatise exploring the status of Dickinsonia, which you don't seem to have read
> >>>> very carefully (and Glenn might not have understood enough of it):
> >>>>
> >>>> https://evolutionnews.org/2018/09/why-dickinsonia-was-most-probably-not-an-ediacaran-animal/
> >>>>
> >>>> Did you dismiss it out of hand because it was written by a convert from atheism?
> >>>>
> >>>> Be that as it may, I will write about it on Monday. It's too close to my bedtime now.
> >>>>> I'm not going to dig through my files looking for all the relevant
> >>>>> papers, because I don't see that this will lead to any clarity, and most likely would only lead to another
> >>>>> angry meltdown. (It's actually fun to track down the references; at least I find it fun).
> >>>> So do I. One of the main reasons I went into my office today (the only time I did it this week) was
> >>>> so that I could get past the paywall erected around the _Nature_ article on a gliding Jurassic mammal
> >>>> that Oxyaena had brought to my attention on the "For Peter" thread.
> >>>>
> >>>> It was well worth the trouble, and I'll be reporting on it on Monday too.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> Peter Nyikos
> >>>
> >>> I do not dismiss Bechly's review out of hand, but I don't find it useful, and it's pretty obvious from both
> >>> its tone and its provinance where his sympathies lie.
> >>>
> >> It's actually hard to tell where his sympathies lie. He's said on
> >> occasion that there is very good evidence for universal common descent,
> >> and yet he continually tries to cast doubt on any particular examples,
> >> including human relationships to chimps. He's all over the place.
> >>
> >> But nobody should take anything published on EN&V seriously.

> > Please confine this attitude to talk.origins, where it belongs.

It belongs in talk.origins because the main emphasis there is political rather than scientific.
The "on topic" focus is on discrediting individuals, e.g. creationists, as opposed to refuting arguments
or discussing on topic issues on which there is significant disagreement.

> Why doesn't it belong here?

Because s.b.p. is a science newsgroup, and unscientific dismissals of material
containing scientific data (of which there is plenty in the article on Dickinsonia linked above)
are counterproductive to progress in understanding the science being discussed here.

On Monday, June 14, 2021 at 11:09:44 AM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> On Monday, June 14, 2021 at 7:52:50 AM UTC-7, John Harshman wrote:
> > On 6/14/21 4:45 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > On Saturday, June 12, 2021 at 5:08:53 AM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:

> > >> But nobody should take anything published on EN&V seriously.
> > >
> > > Please confine this attitude to talk.origins, where it belongs.

> > Why doesn't it belong here?

> My perception of TO is that nothing belongs there, The SNR is neglible there. Anything even slightly informative
> is immediately buried under an avalanche of dreck.

Then why has your output there over the last decade dwarfed your output in s.b.p.?

As for me, I've learned to make lemonade out of lemons in t.o. sufficiently often
so that I can still get some benefit from it. I've done a good long reply to you earlier
about this, both here and in talk.origins.

Documentation on request.

Peter Nyikos

On Monday, June 14, 2021 at 11:36:56 AM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Monday, June 14, 2021 at 11:09:44 AM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> > On Monday, June 14, 2021 at 7:52:50 AM UTC-7, John Harshman wrote:
> > > On 6/14/21 4:45 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > > On Saturday, June 12, 2021 at 5:08:53 AM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
>
> > > >> But nobody should take anything published on EN&V seriously.
> > > >
> > > > Please confine this attitude to talk.origins, where it belongs.
>
> > > Why doesn't it belong here?
>
> > My perception of TO is that nothing belongs there, The SNR is neglible there. Anything even slightly informative
> > is immediately buried under an avalanche of dreck.
> Then why has your output there over the last decade dwarfed your output in s.b.p.?
>
> As for me, I've learned to make lemonade out of lemons in t.o. sufficiently often
> so that I can still get some benefit from it. I've done a good long reply to you earlier
> about this, both here and in talk.origins.
>
> Documentation on request.
>
>
> Peter Nyikos

I rarely even look at TO because over the last decade (sometimes I learn slowly) I've learned there's
very rarely anything happening there that is of much interest to me. My ocaisional visits confirm my
opinion that it's getting worse, not better.

The lengthy quote John provided above from Bechly's website provides quite a bit of evidence that he
has picked up some of the mystic/philosophic quantum gibberish disease. Whether that discredits
him is another matter entirely. It's certainly not paleontology.

On 6/14/21 11:31 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Monday, June 14, 2021 at 10:52:50 AM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
>> On 6/14/21 4:45 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>> On Saturday, June 12, 2021 at 5:08:53 AM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
>>>> On 6/11/21 10:02 PM, erik simpson wrote:
>>>>> On Friday, June 11, 2021 at 8:23:52 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>>>>> On Friday, June 11, 2021 at 10:55:08 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
>>>>>>> On Friday, June 11, 2021 at 6:04:54 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>>>>>>> On Thursday, April 1, 2021 at 7:49:25 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
>>>>>>>>> On Thursday, April 1, 2021 at 3:35:21 PM UTC-7, Glenn wrote:
>>>>>>>> Showing great restraint, I've deleted something that I dealt with vigorously in talk.origins.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> This being over two months after the incident, I decided to let bygones be bygones.
>>>>>>>> I hope Erik follows suit.
>>>>>>>>>> Sound to me like you're trying to ditch integrity, so you can satisfy your evolutionary bias by desperately trying to prove animals existed before the Cambrian Explosion.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> You misunderstand. I'm not trying to prove anything about Precambrian animals. I'm simply very curious about the *possible*
>>>>>>>>> relationships between the Ediacaran biota and "life as we know it" inthe Cambrian.
>>>>>>>> Your Subject: line, "Dickinsonia is very likely an animal" belies this disarming claim.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> IOW, how many reverse gears does your bicycle have?
>>>>>>>>> I have very little concern for what ID does or
>>>>>>>>> does not say about that subject.
>>>>>>>> Nothing, AFAIK.
>>>>>>>>> The people involved with ID aren't well-represented among paleontologists.
>>>>>>>> That is an accident, due to the fact that involvement with ID is mostly by creationists,
>>>>>>>> most of whom are uninterested in all but the most superficial paleontology.
>>>>>>>>>> You should know that ID does not prohibit primitive life you want to call "animals", or even primitive animals existing in the Ediacaran, nor do I. ID does, as well as I, not tolerate speculation that changes with the wind of what exactly occurred and existed more than a half billion years ago, before a well documented, obvious explosion of the appearance of the many advanced forms of life in a geological blink of an eye.
>>>>>>>> Glenn is right about the well documented, obvious explosion. The early Cambrian fossils include
>>>>>>>> representatives of almost every phylum known from fossils; there was only one "holdout" by
>>>>>>>> the end of the Cambrian, the bryozoa, and that appeared in the next period, the Ordovician.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> At least as mysterious as this is the question: why no more fossilizable phyla in the next
>>>>>>>> 500 million years, after an explosion less than one-tenth as long, by most geologists' reckoning?
>>>>>>>>>> Most everyone has given up on trying to discredit that fact. Now you're left with "maybe one or a few might" have been "kinda pseudo like" what we'd like to call "animal" rising from non-animal life a "little bit" before the explosion.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> "speculation that changes with the wind"? Does that mean data?
>>>>>>>> Partly data, partly interpretations of already known data. People were once confident that Dickinsonia
>>>>>>>> was an annelid. The latest speculation doesn't quite know where to place it, does it?
>>>>>>>>> I *really* don't care what ID doesn't tolerate, nor am I concerned with your limits of toleration.
>>>>>>>> Looks like ID has higher standards than you do. I take it Glenn was talking about what ID theorists
>>>>>>>> will tolerate within ID.
>>>>>>>>>> I'll leave you with a thought. Plant-like protists are called algae.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Are algae plants? Plenty of pictures for you here:
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> https://www.indefenseofplants.com/blog/2018/2/20/are-algae-plants
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Nice pictures. The text belies your confident assertions.
>>>>>>>> In what way? We've already seen how your text belies your confident
>>>>>>>> assertion in the Subject line: "Dickinsonia is very likely an animal"
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Stick with pictures.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Where did you justify this comment?
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Peter Nyikos
>>>>>>>> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
>>>>>>>> University of South Carolina
>>>>>>>> http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I have zero interest is discussing anything with Glenn, and I suspect the lack of interest is
>>>>>>> mutual. You apparently hold him in some regard?
>>>>>> I hold the topics in high regard. You and Glenn are a good foundation for organizing my thoughts on
>>>>>> the fascinating subjects you were discussing: the status of Dickinsonia and the Cambrian explosion.
>>>>>>> I find that somewhat strange. Alas, I also
>>>>>>> have no interest in discussing your contentious objections to the title of the thread, but I encourage
>>>>>>> you to read the recent relevant material.
>>>>>> I've read a very long treatise exploring the status of Dickinsonia, which you don't seem to have read
>>>>>> very carefully (and Glenn might not have understood enough of it):
>>>>>>
>>>>>> https://evolutionnews.org/2018/09/why-dickinsonia-was-most-probably-not-an-ediacaran-animal/
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Did you dismiss it out of hand because it was written by a convert from atheism?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Be that as it may, I will write about it on Monday. It's too close to my bedtime now.
>>>>>>> I'm not going to dig through my files looking for all the relevant
>>>>>>> papers, because I don't see that this will lead to any clarity, and most likely would only lead to another
>>>>>>> angry meltdown. (It's actually fun to track down the references; at least I find it fun).
>>>>>> So do I. One of the main reasons I went into my office today (the only time I did it this week) was
>>>>>> so that I could get past the paywall erected around the _Nature_ article on a gliding Jurassic mammal
>>>>>> that Oxyaena had brought to my attention on the "For Peter" thread.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> It was well worth the trouble, and I'll be reporting on it on Monday too.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Peter Nyikos
>>>>>
>>>>> I do not dismiss Bechly's review out of hand, but I don't find it useful, and it's pretty obvious from both
>>>>> its tone and its provinance where his sympathies lie.
>>>>>
>>>> It's actually hard to tell where his sympathies lie. He's said on
>>>> occasion that there is very good evidence for universal common descent,
>>>> and yet he continually tries to cast doubt on any particular examples,
>>>> including human relationships to chimps. He's all over the place.
>>>>
>>>> But nobody should take anything published on EN&V seriously.
>
>>> Please confine this attitude to talk.origins, where it belongs.
>
> It belongs in talk.origins because the main emphasis there is political rather than scientific.
> The "on topic" focus is on discrediting individuals, e.g. creationists, as opposed to refuting arguments
> or discussing on topic issues on which there is significant disagreement.

On Monday, June 14, 2021 at 12:59:40 PM UTC-7, John Harshman wrote:
> On 6/14/21 11:31 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > On Monday, June 14, 2021 at 10:52:50 AM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> >> On 6/14/21 4:45 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >>> On Saturday, June 12, 2021 at 5:08:53 AM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> >>>> On 6/11/21 10:02 PM, erik simpson wrote:
> >>>>> On Friday, June 11, 2021 at 8:23:52 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >>>>>> On Friday, June 11, 2021 at 10:55:08 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> >>>>>>> On Friday, June 11, 2021 at 6:04:54 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >>>>>>>> On Thursday, April 1, 2021 at 7:49:25 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> >>>>>>>>> On Thursday, April 1, 2021 at 3:35:21 PM UTC-7, Glenn wrote:
> >>>>>>>> Showing great restraint, I've deleted something that I dealt with vigorously in talk.origins.
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> This being over two months after the incident, I decided to let bygones be bygones.
> >>>>>>>> I hope Erik follows suit.
> >>>>>>>>>> Sound to me like you're trying to ditch integrity, so you can satisfy your evolutionary bias by desperately trying to prove animals existed before the Cambrian Explosion.
> >>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>> You misunderstand. I'm not trying to prove anything about Precambrian animals. I'm simply very curious about the *possible*
> >>>>>>>>> relationships between the Ediacaran biota and "life as we know it" inthe Cambrian.
> >>>>>>>> Your Subject: line, "Dickinsonia is very likely an animal" belies this disarming claim.
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> IOW, how many reverse gears does your bicycle have?
> >>>>>>>>> I have very little concern for what ID does or
> >>>>>>>>> does not say about that subject.
> >>>>>>>> Nothing, AFAIK.
> >>>>>>>>> The people involved with ID aren't well-represented among paleontologists.
> >>>>>>>> That is an accident, due to the fact that involvement with ID is mostly by creationists,
> >>>>>>>> most of whom are uninterested in all but the most superficial paleontology.
> >>>>>>>>>> You should know that ID does not prohibit primitive life you want to call "animals", or even primitive animals existing in the Ediacaran, nor do I. ID does, as well as I, not tolerate speculation that changes with the wind of what exactly occurred and existed more than a half billion years ago, before a well documented, obvious explosion of the appearance of the many advanced forms of life in a geological blink of an eye.
> >>>>>>>> Glenn is right about the well documented, obvious explosion. The early Cambrian fossils include
> >>>>>>>> representatives of almost every phylum known from fossils; there was only one "holdout" by
> >>>>>>>> the end of the Cambrian, the bryozoa, and that appeared in the next period, the Ordovician.
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> At least as mysterious as this is the question: why no more fossilizable phyla in the next
> >>>>>>>> 500 million years, after an explosion less than one-tenth as long, by most geologists' reckoning?
> >>>>>>>>>> Most everyone has given up on trying to discredit that fact. Now you're left with "maybe one or a few might" have been "kinda pseudo like" what we'd like to call "animal" rising from non-animal life a "little bit" before the explosion.
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>> "speculation that changes with the wind"? Does that mean data?
> >>>>>>>> Partly data, partly interpretations of already known data. People were once confident that Dickinsonia
> >>>>>>>> was an annelid. The latest speculation doesn't quite know where to place it, does it?
> >>>>>>>>> I *really* don't care what ID doesn't tolerate, nor am I concerned with your limits of toleration.
> >>>>>>>> Looks like ID has higher standards than you do. I take it Glenn was talking about what ID theorists
> >>>>>>>> will tolerate within ID.
> >>>>>>>>>> I'll leave you with a thought. Plant-like protists are called algae.
> >>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>> Are algae plants? Plenty of pictures for you here:
> >>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>> https://www.indefenseofplants.com/blog/2018/2/20/are-algae-plants
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>> Nice pictures. The text belies your confident assertions.
> >>>>>>>> In what way? We've already seen how your text belies your confident
> >>>>>>>> assertion in the Subject line: "Dickinsonia is very likely an animal"
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>> Stick with pictures.
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> Where did you justify this comment?
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> Peter Nyikos
> >>>>>>>> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
> >>>>>>>> University of South Carolina
> >>>>>>>> http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>> I have zero interest is discussing anything with Glenn, and I suspect the lack of interest is
> >>>>>>> mutual. You apparently hold him in some regard?
> >>>>>> I hold the topics in high regard. You and Glenn are a good foundation for organizing my thoughts on
> >>>>>> the fascinating subjects you were discussing: the status of Dickinsonia and the Cambrian explosion.
> >>>>>>> I find that somewhat strange. Alas, I also
> >>>>>>> have no interest in discussing your contentious objections to the title of the thread, but I encourage
> >>>>>>> you to read the recent relevant material.
> >>>>>> I've read a very long treatise exploring the status of Dickinsonia, which you don't seem to have read
> >>>>>> very carefully (and Glenn might not have understood enough of it):
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> https://evolutionnews.org/2018/09/why-dickinsonia-was-most-probably-not-an-ediacaran-animal/
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Did you dismiss it out of hand because it was written by a convert from atheism?
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Be that as it may, I will write about it on Monday. It's too close to my bedtime now.
> >>>>>>> I'm not going to dig through my files looking for all the relevant
> >>>>>>> papers, because I don't see that this will lead to any clarity, and most likely would only lead to another
> >>>>>>> angry meltdown. (It's actually fun to track down the references; at least I find it fun).
> >>>>>> So do I. One of the main reasons I went into my office today (the only time I did it this week) was
> >>>>>> so that I could get past the paywall erected around the _Nature_ article on a gliding Jurassic mammal
> >>>>>> that Oxyaena had brought to my attention on the "For Peter" thread..
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> It was well worth the trouble, and I'll be reporting on it on Monday too.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Peter Nyikos
> >>>>>
> >>>>> I do not dismiss Bechly's review out of hand, but I don't find it useful, and it's pretty obvious from both
> >>>>> its tone and its provinance where his sympathies lie.
> >>>>>
> >>>> It's actually hard to tell where his sympathies lie. He's said on
> >>>> occasion that there is very good evidence for universal common descent,
> >>>> and yet he continually tries to cast doubt on any particular examples,
> >>>> including human relationships to chimps. He's all over the place.
> >>>>
> >>>> But nobody should take anything published on EN&V seriously.
> >
> >>> Please confine this attitude to talk.origins, where it belongs.
> >
> > It belongs in talk.origins because the main emphasis there is political rather than scientific.
> > The "on topic" focus is on discrediting individuals, e.g. creationists, as opposed to refuting arguments
> > or discussing on topic issues on which there is significant disagreement.
>
> >> Why doesn't it belong here?
> >
> > Because s.b.p. is a science newsgroup, and unscientific dismissals of material
> > containing scientific data (of which there is plenty in the article on Dickinsonia linked above)
> > are counterproductive to progress in understanding the science being discussed here.
> It's hardly an unscientifc dismissal. EN&V is a political site,
> specifically a creationist site. Their treatment of science is strongly
> biased, and you are better advised to go the original sources if you
> want to see the science.

On Monday, June 14, 2021 at 11:31:03 AM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Monday, June 14, 2021 at 10:52:50 AM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> > On 6/14/21 4:45 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > On Saturday, June 12, 2021 at 5:08:53 AM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> > >> On 6/11/21 10:02 PM, erik simpson wrote:
> > >>> On Friday, June 11, 2021 at 8:23:52 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > >>>> On Friday, June 11, 2021 at 10:55:08 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> > >>>>> On Friday, June 11, 2021 at 6:04:54 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > >>>>>> On Thursday, April 1, 2021 at 7:49:25 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> > >>>>>>> On Thursday, April 1, 2021 at 3:35:21 PM UTC-7, Glenn wrote:
> > >>>>>> Showing great restraint, I've deleted something that I dealt with vigorously in talk.origins.
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>> This being over two months after the incident, I decided to let bygones be bygones.
> > >>>>>> I hope Erik follows suit.
> > >>>>>>>> Sound to me like you're trying to ditch integrity, so you can satisfy your evolutionary bias by desperately trying to prove animals existed before the Cambrian Explosion.
> > >>>>>>>>
> > >>>>>>> You misunderstand. I'm not trying to prove anything about Precambrian animals. I'm simply very curious about the *possible*
> > >>>>>>> relationships between the Ediacaran biota and "life as we know it" inthe Cambrian.
> > >>>>>> Your Subject: line, "Dickinsonia is very likely an animal" belies this disarming claim.
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>> IOW, how many reverse gears does your bicycle have?
> > >>>>>>> I have very little concern for what ID does or
> > >>>>>>> does not say about that subject.
> > >>>>>> Nothing, AFAIK.
> > >>>>>>> The people involved with ID aren't well-represented among paleontologists.
> > >>>>>> That is an accident, due to the fact that involvement with ID is mostly by creationists,
> > >>>>>> most of whom are uninterested in all but the most superficial paleontology.
> > >>>>>>>> You should know that ID does not prohibit primitive life you want to call "animals", or even primitive animals existing in the Ediacaran, nor do I. ID does, as well as I, not tolerate speculation that changes with the wind of what exactly occurred and existed more than a half billion years ago, before a well documented, obvious explosion of the appearance of the many advanced forms of life in a geological blink of an eye.
> > >>>>>> Glenn is right about the well documented, obvious explosion. The early Cambrian fossils include
> > >>>>>> representatives of almost every phylum known from fossils; there was only one "holdout" by
> > >>>>>> the end of the Cambrian, the bryozoa, and that appeared in the next period, the Ordovician.
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>> At least as mysterious as this is the question: why no more fossilizable phyla in the next
> > >>>>>> 500 million years, after an explosion less than one-tenth as long, by most geologists' reckoning?
> > >>>>>>>> Most everyone has given up on trying to discredit that fact. Now you're left with "maybe one or a few might" have been "kinda pseudo like" what we'd like to call "animal" rising from non-animal life a "little bit" before the explosion.
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>>> "speculation that changes with the wind"? Does that mean data?
> > >>>>>> Partly data, partly interpretations of already known data. People were once confident that Dickinsonia
> > >>>>>> was an annelid. The latest speculation doesn't quite know where to place it, does it?
> > >>>>>>> I *really* don't care what ID doesn't tolerate, nor am I concerned with your limits of toleration.
> > >>>>>> Looks like ID has higher standards than you do. I take it Glenn was talking about what ID theorists
> > >>>>>> will tolerate within ID.
> > >>>>>>>> I'll leave you with a thought. Plant-like protists are called algae.
> > >>>>>>>>
> > >>>>>>>> Are algae plants? Plenty of pictures for you here:
> > >>>>>>>>
> > >>>>>>>> https://www.indefenseofplants.com/blog/2018/2/20/are-algae-plants
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>>> Nice pictures. The text belies your confident assertions.
> > >>>>>> In what way? We've already seen how your text belies your confident
> > >>>>>> assertion in the Subject line: "Dickinsonia is very likely an animal"
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>>> Stick with pictures.
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>> Where did you justify this comment?
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>> Peter Nyikos
> > >>>>>> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
> > >>>>>> University of South Carolina
> > >>>>>> http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
> > >>>>
> > >>>>> I have zero interest is discussing anything with Glenn, and I suspect the lack of interest is
> > >>>>> mutual. You apparently hold him in some regard?
> > >>>> I hold the topics in high regard. You and Glenn are a good foundation for organizing my thoughts on
> > >>>> the fascinating subjects you were discussing: the status of Dickinsonia and the Cambrian explosion.
> > >>>>> I find that somewhat strange. Alas, I also
> > >>>>> have no interest in discussing your contentious objections to the title of the thread, but I encourage
> > >>>>> you to read the recent relevant material.
> > >>>> I've read a very long treatise exploring the status of Dickinsonia, which you don't seem to have read
> > >>>> very carefully (and Glenn might not have understood enough of it):
> > >>>>
> > >>>> https://evolutionnews.org/2018/09/why-dickinsonia-was-most-probably-not-an-ediacaran-animal/
> > >>>>
> > >>>> Did you dismiss it out of hand because it was written by a convert from atheism?
> > >>>>
> > >>>> Be that as it may, I will write about it on Monday. It's too close to my bedtime now.
> > >>>>> I'm not going to dig through my files looking for all the relevant
> > >>>>> papers, because I don't see that this will lead to any clarity, and most likely would only lead to another
> > >>>>> angry meltdown. (It's actually fun to track down the references; at least I find it fun).
> > >>>> So do I. One of the main reasons I went into my office today (the only time I did it this week) was
> > >>>> so that I could get past the paywall erected around the _Nature_ article on a gliding Jurassic mammal
> > >>>> that Oxyaena had brought to my attention on the "For Peter" thread..
> > >>>>
> > >>>> It was well worth the trouble, and I'll be reporting on it on Monday too.
> > >>>>
> > >>>>
> > >>>> Peter Nyikos
> > >>>
> > >>> I do not dismiss Bechly's review out of hand, but I don't find it useful, and it's pretty obvious from both
> > >>> its tone and its provinance where his sympathies lie.
> > >>>
> > >> It's actually hard to tell where his sympathies lie. He's said on
> > >> occasion that there is very good evidence for universal common descent,
> > >> and yet he continually tries to cast doubt on any particular examples,
> > >> including human relationships to chimps. He's all over the place.
> > >>
> > >> But nobody should take anything published on EN&V seriously.
>
> > > Please confine this attitude to talk.origins, where it belongs.
> It belongs in talk.origins because the main emphasis there is political rather than scientific.
> The "on topic" focus is on discrediting individuals, e.g. creationists, as opposed to refuting arguments
> or discussing on topic issues on which there is significant disagreement.
> > Why doesn't it belong here?
> Because s.b.p. is a science newsgroup, and unscientific dismissals of material
> containing scientific data (of which there is plenty in the article on Dickinsonia linked above)
> are counterproductive to progress in understanding the science being discussed here.
>
in the two weeks since Eric posted the OP, there has been zero discussion of the science behind this attempt to place animals evolving millions of years before the Cambrian Explosion. A google search will find hundreds of claims, many in the titles, that Dickinsonia has been proven to be an animal. Wiki describes it as a "basal" animal.

On Monday, June 14, 2021 at 2:53:45 PM UTC-7, Glenn wrote:
> On Monday, June 14, 2021 at 11:31:03 AM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > On Monday, June 14, 2021 at 10:52:50 AM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> > > On 6/14/21 4:45 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > > On Saturday, June 12, 2021 at 5:08:53 AM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> > > >> On 6/11/21 10:02 PM, erik simpson wrote:
> > > >>> On Friday, June 11, 2021 at 8:23:52 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > >>>> On Friday, June 11, 2021 at 10:55:08 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> > > >>>>> On Friday, June 11, 2021 at 6:04:54 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > >>>>>> On Thursday, April 1, 2021 at 7:49:25 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> > > >>>>>>> On Thursday, April 1, 2021 at 3:35:21 PM UTC-7, Glenn wrote:
> > > >>>>>> Showing great restraint, I've deleted something that I dealt with vigorously in talk.origins.
> > > >>>>>>
> > > >>>>>> This being over two months after the incident, I decided to let bygones be bygones.
> > > >>>>>> I hope Erik follows suit.
> > > >>>>>>>> Sound to me like you're trying to ditch integrity, so you can satisfy your evolutionary bias by desperately trying to prove animals existed before the Cambrian Explosion.
> > > >>>>>>>>
> > > >>>>>>> You misunderstand. I'm not trying to prove anything about Precambrian animals. I'm simply very curious about the *possible*
> > > >>>>>>> relationships between the Ediacaran biota and "life as we know it" inthe Cambrian.
> > > >>>>>> Your Subject: line, "Dickinsonia is very likely an animal" belies this disarming claim.
> > > >>>>>>
> > > >>>>>> IOW, how many reverse gears does your bicycle have?
> > > >>>>>>> I have very little concern for what ID does or
> > > >>>>>>> does not say about that subject.
> > > >>>>>> Nothing, AFAIK.
> > > >>>>>>> The people involved with ID aren't well-represented among paleontologists.
> > > >>>>>> That is an accident, due to the fact that involvement with ID is mostly by creationists,
> > > >>>>>> most of whom are uninterested in all but the most superficial paleontology.
> > > >>>>>>>> You should know that ID does not prohibit primitive life you want to call "animals", or even primitive animals existing in the Ediacaran, nor do I. ID does, as well as I, not tolerate speculation that changes with the wind of what exactly occurred and existed more than a half billion years ago, before a well documented, obvious explosion of the appearance of the many advanced forms of life in a geological blink of an eye.
> > > >>>>>> Glenn is right about the well documented, obvious explosion. The early Cambrian fossils include
> > > >>>>>> representatives of almost every phylum known from fossils; there was only one "holdout" by
> > > >>>>>> the end of the Cambrian, the bryozoa, and that appeared in the next period, the Ordovician.
> > > >>>>>>
> > > >>>>>> At least as mysterious as this is the question: why no more fossilizable phyla in the next
> > > >>>>>> 500 million years, after an explosion less than one-tenth as long, by most geologists' reckoning?
> > > >>>>>>>> Most everyone has given up on trying to discredit that fact. Now you're left with "maybe one or a few might" have been "kinda pseudo like" what we'd like to call "animal" rising from non-animal life a "little bit" before the explosion.
> > > >>>>>>
> > > >>>>>>
> > > >>>>>>> "speculation that changes with the wind"? Does that mean data?
> > > >>>>>> Partly data, partly interpretations of already known data. People were once confident that Dickinsonia
> > > >>>>>> was an annelid. The latest speculation doesn't quite know where to place it, does it?
> > > >>>>>>> I *really* don't care what ID doesn't tolerate, nor am I concerned with your limits of toleration.
> > > >>>>>> Looks like ID has higher standards than you do. I take it Glenn was talking about what ID theorists
> > > >>>>>> will tolerate within ID.
> > > >>>>>>>> I'll leave you with a thought. Plant-like protists are called algae.
> > > >>>>>>>>
> > > >>>>>>>> Are algae plants? Plenty of pictures for you here:
> > > >>>>>>>>
> > > >>>>>>>> https://www.indefenseofplants.com/blog/2018/2/20/are-algae-plants
> > > >>>>>>
> > > >>>>>>
> > > >>>>>>> Nice pictures. The text belies your confident assertions.
> > > >>>>>> In what way? We've already seen how your text belies your confident
> > > >>>>>> assertion in the Subject line: "Dickinsonia is very likely an animal"
> > > >>>>>>
> > > >>>>>>> Stick with pictures.
> > > >>>>>>
> > > >>>>>> Where did you justify this comment?
> > > >>>>>>
> > > >>>>>>
> > > >>>>>> Peter Nyikos
> > > >>>>>> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
> > > >>>>>> University of South Carolina
> > > >>>>>> http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
> > > >>>>
> > > >>>>> I have zero interest is discussing anything with Glenn, and I suspect the lack of interest is
> > > >>>>> mutual. You apparently hold him in some regard?
> > > >>>> I hold the topics in high regard. You and Glenn are a good foundation for organizing my thoughts on
> > > >>>> the fascinating subjects you were discussing: the status of Dickinsonia and the Cambrian explosion.
> > > >>>>> I find that somewhat strange. Alas, I also
> > > >>>>> have no interest in discussing your contentious objections to the title of the thread, but I encourage
> > > >>>>> you to read the recent relevant material.
> > > >>>> I've read a very long treatise exploring the status of Dickinsonia, which you don't seem to have read
> > > >>>> very carefully (and Glenn might not have understood enough of it):
> > > >>>>
> > > >>>> https://evolutionnews.org/2018/09/why-dickinsonia-was-most-probably-not-an-ediacaran-animal/
> > > >>>>
> > > >>>> Did you dismiss it out of hand because it was written by a convert from atheism?
> > > >>>>
> > > >>>> Be that as it may, I will write about it on Monday. It's too close to my bedtime now.
> > > >>>>> I'm not going to dig through my files looking for all the relevant
> > > >>>>> papers, because I don't see that this will lead to any clarity, and most likely would only lead to another
> > > >>>>> angry meltdown. (It's actually fun to track down the references; at least I find it fun).
> > > >>>> So do I. One of the main reasons I went into my office today (the only time I did it this week) was
> > > >>>> so that I could get past the paywall erected around the _Nature_ article on a gliding Jurassic mammal
> > > >>>> that Oxyaena had brought to my attention on the "For Peter" thread.
> > > >>>>
> > > >>>> It was well worth the trouble, and I'll be reporting on it on Monday too.
> > > >>>>
> > > >>>>
> > > >>>> Peter Nyikos
> > > >>>
> > > >>> I do not dismiss Bechly's review out of hand, but I don't find it useful, and it's pretty obvious from both
> > > >>> its tone and its provinance where his sympathies lie.
> > > >>>
> > > >> It's actually hard to tell where his sympathies lie. He's said on
> > > >> occasion that there is very good evidence for universal common descent,
> > > >> and yet he continually tries to cast doubt on any particular examples,
> > > >> including human relationships to chimps. He's all over the place.
> > > >>
> > > >> But nobody should take anything published on EN&V seriously.
> >
> > > > Please confine this attitude to talk.origins, where it belongs.
> > It belongs in talk.origins because the main emphasis there is political rather than scientific.
> > The "on topic" focus is on discrediting individuals, e.g. creationists, as opposed to refuting arguments
> > or discussing on topic issues on which there is significant disagreement.
> > > Why doesn't it belong here?
> > Because s.b.p. is a science newsgroup, and unscientific dismissals of material
> > containing scientific data (of which there is plenty in the article on Dickinsonia linked above)
> > are counterproductive to progress in understanding the science being discussed here.
> >
> in the two weeks since Eric posted the OP, there has been zero discussion of the science behind this attempt to place animals evolving millions of years before the Cambrian Explosion. A google search will find hundreds of claims, many in the titles, that Dickinsonia has been proven to be an animal.. Wiki describes it as a "basal" animal.
>
> Yet, for instance,
>
> '‘We’re not saying it wasn’t sponges or it wasn’t protists [non-animal organisms that also produce small amounts of C30 steranes]3, we just say we have to be agnostic in this regard,’ says Hallmann." "‘We think that the safest thing to do right now is to indeed not use molecular fossils anymore as a collaboration point for earliest animals, but to revert back to the earliest [body] fossils."
>
> https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/steroid-fossilisation-discovery-opens-new-chapter-in-debate-around-oldest-animal/4012869.article
>
> As I said earlier, no one in this thread has directed their attention and discussion to what I said in my first post, and as another impetus now this:
>
> "But now, two research teams have discovered that C30 steranes might not be of animal origin but might come from ancient algae, with the compounds’ unusual substitution pattern byproducts of geological alteration."
>
> (From the previous url)
>
> I think for now that Bechly's article is a fair and balanced skepticism of the loud voices cheering for the early origin of animals.
>
> But even that article was thrown out by default by the "conversers" of science here.

On Monday, June 14, 2021 at 5:08:57 PM UTC-7, erik simpson wrote:
> On Monday, June 14, 2021 at 2:53:45 PM UTC-7, Glenn wrote:
> > On Monday, June 14, 2021 at 11:31:03 AM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > On Monday, June 14, 2021 at 10:52:50 AM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> > > > On 6/14/21 4:45 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > > > On Saturday, June 12, 2021 at 5:08:53 AM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> > > > >> On 6/11/21 10:02 PM, erik simpson wrote:
> > > > >>> On Friday, June 11, 2021 at 8:23:52 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > > >>>> On Friday, June 11, 2021 at 10:55:08 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> > > > >>>>> On Friday, June 11, 2021 at 6:04:54 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > > >>>>>> On Thursday, April 1, 2021 at 7:49:25 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> > > > >>>>>>> On Thursday, April 1, 2021 at 3:35:21 PM UTC-7, Glenn wrote:
> > > > >>>>>> Showing great restraint, I've deleted something that I dealt with vigorously in talk.origins.
> > > > >>>>>>
> > > > >>>>>> This being over two months after the incident, I decided to let bygones be bygones.
> > > > >>>>>> I hope Erik follows suit.
> > > > >>>>>>>> Sound to me like you're trying to ditch integrity, so you can satisfy your evolutionary bias by desperately trying to prove animals existed before the Cambrian Explosion.
> > > > >>>>>>>>
> > > > >>>>>>> You misunderstand. I'm not trying to prove anything about Precambrian animals. I'm simply very curious about the *possible*
> > > > >>>>>>> relationships between the Ediacaran biota and "life as we know it" inthe Cambrian.
> > > > >>>>>> Your Subject: line, "Dickinsonia is very likely an animal" belies this disarming claim.
> > > > >>>>>>
> > > > >>>>>> IOW, how many reverse gears does your bicycle have?
> > > > >>>>>>> I have very little concern for what ID does or
> > > > >>>>>>> does not say about that subject.
> > > > >>>>>> Nothing, AFAIK.
> > > > >>>>>>> The people involved with ID aren't well-represented among paleontologists.
> > > > >>>>>> That is an accident, due to the fact that involvement with ID is mostly by creationists,
> > > > >>>>>> most of whom are uninterested in all but the most superficial paleontology.
> > > > >>>>>>>> You should know that ID does not prohibit primitive life you want to call "animals", or even primitive animals existing in the Ediacaran, nor do I. ID does, as well as I, not tolerate speculation that changes with the wind of what exactly occurred and existed more than a half billion years ago, before a well documented, obvious explosion of the appearance of the many advanced forms of life in a geological blink of an eye.
> > > > >>>>>> Glenn is right about the well documented, obvious explosion. The early Cambrian fossils include
> > > > >>>>>> representatives of almost every phylum known from fossils; there was only one "holdout" by
> > > > >>>>>> the end of the Cambrian, the bryozoa, and that appeared in the next period, the Ordovician.
> > > > >>>>>>
> > > > >>>>>> At least as mysterious as this is the question: why no more fossilizable phyla in the next
> > > > >>>>>> 500 million years, after an explosion less than one-tenth as long, by most geologists' reckoning?
> > > > >>>>>>>> Most everyone has given up on trying to discredit that fact. Now you're left with "maybe one or a few might" have been "kinda pseudo like" what we'd like to call "animal" rising from non-animal life a "little bit" before the explosion.
> > > > >>>>>>
> > > > >>>>>>
> > > > >>>>>>> "speculation that changes with the wind"? Does that mean data?
> > > > >>>>>> Partly data, partly interpretations of already known data. People were once confident that Dickinsonia
> > > > >>>>>> was an annelid. The latest speculation doesn't quite know where to place it, does it?
> > > > >>>>>>> I *really* don't care what ID doesn't tolerate, nor am I concerned with your limits of toleration.
> > > > >>>>>> Looks like ID has higher standards than you do. I take it Glenn was talking about what ID theorists
> > > > >>>>>> will tolerate within ID.
> > > > >>>>>>>> I'll leave you with a thought. Plant-like protists are called algae.
> > > > >>>>>>>>
> > > > >>>>>>>> Are algae plants? Plenty of pictures for you here:
> > > > >>>>>>>>
> > > > >>>>>>>> https://www.indefenseofplants.com/blog/2018/2/20/are-algae-plants
> > > > >>>>>>
> > > > >>>>>>
> > > > >>>>>>> Nice pictures. The text belies your confident assertions.
> > > > >>>>>> In what way? We've already seen how your text belies your confident
> > > > >>>>>> assertion in the Subject line: "Dickinsonia is very likely an animal"
> > > > >>>>>>
> > > > >>>>>>> Stick with pictures.
> > > > >>>>>>
> > > > >>>>>> Where did you justify this comment?
> > > > >>>>>>
> > > > >>>>>>
> > > > >>>>>> Peter Nyikos
> > > > >>>>>> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
> > > > >>>>>> University of South Carolina
> > > > >>>>>> http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
> > > > >>>>
> > > > >>>>> I have zero interest is discussing anything with Glenn, and I suspect the lack of interest is
> > > > >>>>> mutual. You apparently hold him in some regard?
> > > > >>>> I hold the topics in high regard. You and Glenn are a good foundation for organizing my thoughts on
> > > > >>>> the fascinating subjects you were discussing: the status of Dickinsonia and the Cambrian explosion.
> > > > >>>>> I find that somewhat strange. Alas, I also
> > > > >>>>> have no interest in discussing your contentious objections to the title of the thread, but I encourage
> > > > >>>>> you to read the recent relevant material.
> > > > >>>> I've read a very long treatise exploring the status of Dickinsonia, which you don't seem to have read
> > > > >>>> very carefully (and Glenn might not have understood enough of it):
> > > > >>>>
> > > > >>>> https://evolutionnews.org/2018/09/why-dickinsonia-was-most-probably-not-an-ediacaran-animal/
> > > > >>>>
> > > > >>>> Did you dismiss it out of hand because it was written by a convert from atheism?
> > > > >>>>
> > > > >>>> Be that as it may, I will write about it on Monday. It's too close to my bedtime now.
> > > > >>>>> I'm not going to dig through my files looking for all the relevant
> > > > >>>>> papers, because I don't see that this will lead to any clarity, and most likely would only lead to another
> > > > >>>>> angry meltdown. (It's actually fun to track down the references; at least I find it fun).
> > > > >>>> So do I. One of the main reasons I went into my office today (the only time I did it this week) was
> > > > >>>> so that I could get past the paywall erected around the _Nature_ article on a gliding Jurassic mammal
> > > > >>>> that Oxyaena had brought to my attention on the "For Peter" thread.
> > > > >>>>
> > > > >>>> It was well worth the trouble, and I'll be reporting on it on Monday too.
> > > > >>>>
> > > > >>>>
> > > > >>>> Peter Nyikos
> > > > >>>
> > > > >>> I do not dismiss Bechly's review out of hand, but I don't find it useful, and it's pretty obvious from both
> > > > >>> its tone and its provinance where his sympathies lie.
> > > > >>>
> > > > >> It's actually hard to tell where his sympathies lie. He's said on
> > > > >> occasion that there is very good evidence for universal common descent,
> > > > >> and yet he continually tries to cast doubt on any particular examples,
> > > > >> including human relationships to chimps. He's all over the place..
> > > > >>
> > > > >> But nobody should take anything published on EN&V seriously.
> > >
> > > > > Please confine this attitude to talk.origins, where it belongs.
> > > It belongs in talk.origins because the main emphasis there is political rather than scientific.
> > > The "on topic" focus is on discrediting individuals, e.g. creationists, as opposed to refuting arguments
> > > or discussing on topic issues on which there is significant disagreement.
> > > > Why doesn't it belong here?
> > > Because s.b.p. is a science newsgroup, and unscientific dismissals of material
> > > containing scientific data (of which there is plenty in the article on Dickinsonia linked above)
> > > are counterproductive to progress in understanding the science being discussed here.
> > >
> > in the two weeks since Eric posted the OP, there has been zero discussion of the science behind this attempt to place animals evolving millions of years before the Cambrian Explosion. A google search will find hundreds of claims, many in the titles, that Dickinsonia has been proven to be an animal. Wiki describes it as a "basal" animal.
> >
> > Yet, for instance,
> >
> > '‘We’re not saying it wasn’t sponges or it wasn’t protists [non-animal organisms that also produce small amounts of C30 steranes]3, we just say we have to be agnostic in this regard,’ says Hallmann." "‘We think that the safest thing to do right now is to indeed not use molecular fossils anymore as a collaboration point for earliest animals, but to revert back to the earliest [body] fossils."
> >
> > https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/steroid-fossilisation-discovery-opens-new-chapter-in-debate-around-oldest-animal/4012869.article
> >
> > As I said earlier, no one in this thread has directed their attention and discussion to what I said in my first post, and as another impetus now this:
> >
> > "But now, two research teams have discovered that C30 steranes might not be of animal origin but might come from ancient algae, with the compounds’ unusual substitution pattern byproducts of geological alteration."
> >
> > (From the previous url)
> >
> > I think for now that Bechly's article is a fair and balanced skepticism of the loud voices cheering for the early origin of animals.
> >
> > But even that article was thrown out by default by the "conversers" of science here.
> The point of the first reference in the OP (Bobrovskiy et al) is the differential chemistry seen in on- and off-fossil samples, NOT
> simply detection of steranes.

On Monday, June 14, 2021 at 9:31:21 PM UTC-4, Glenn wrote:
> On Monday, June 14, 2021 at 5:08:57 PM UTC-7, erik simpson wrote:
> > On Monday, June 14, 2021 at 2:53:45 PM UTC-7, Glenn wrote:
> > > On Monday, June 14, 2021 at 11:31:03 AM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > > On Monday, June 14, 2021 at 10:52:50 AM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> > > > > On 6/14/21 4:45 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > > > > On Saturday, June 12, 2021 at 5:08:53 AM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> > > > > >> On 6/11/21 10:02 PM, erik simpson wrote:
> > > > > >>> On Friday, June 11, 2021 at 8:23:52 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > > > >>>> On Friday, June 11, 2021 at 10:55:08 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> > > > > >>>>> On Friday, June 11, 2021 at 6:04:54 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > > > >>>>>> On Thursday, April 1, 2021 at 7:49:25 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> > > > > >>>>>>> On Thursday, April 1, 2021 at 3:35:21 PM UTC-7, Glenn wrote:

> > > > > >>>>>>>> You should know that ID does not prohibit primitive life you want to call "animals", or even primitive animals existing in the Ediacaran, nor do I. ID does, as well as I, not tolerate speculation that changes with the wind of what exactly occurred and existed more than a half billion years ago, before a well documented, obvious explosion of the appearance of the many advanced forms of life in a geological blink of an eye.
> > > > > >>>>>> Glenn is right about the well documented, obvious explosion. The early Cambrian fossils include
> > > > > >>>>>> representatives of almost every phylum known from fossils; there was only one "holdout" by
> > > > > >>>>>> the end of the Cambrian, the bryozoa, and that appeared in the next period, the Ordovician.
> > > > > >>>>>>
> > > > > >>>>>> At least as mysterious as this is the question: why no more fossilizable phyla in the next
> > > > > >>>>>> 500 million years, after an explosion less than one-tenth as long, by most geologists' reckoning?

Nobody has commented on this question.

> > > > > >>>>>>>> Most everyone has given up on trying to discredit that fact. Now you're left with "maybe one or a few might" have been "kinda pseudo like" what we'd like to call "animal" rising from non-animal life a "little bit" before the explosion.
> > > > > >>>>>>
> > > > > >>>>>>
> > > > > >>>>>>> "speculation that changes with the wind"? Does that mean data?
> > > > > >>>>>> Partly data, partly interpretations of already known data. People were once confident that Dickinsonia
> > > > > >>>>>> was an annelid. The latest speculation doesn't quite know where to place it, does it?
> > > > > >>>>>>> I *really* don't care what ID doesn't tolerate, nor am I concerned with your limits of toleration.
> > > > > >>>>>> Looks like ID has higher standards than you do. I take it Glenn was talking about what ID theorists
> > > > > >>>>>> will tolerate within ID.

Did I guess right here about your meaning, Glenn?

> > > > > >>>>>>>> I'll leave you with a thought. Plant-like protists are called algae.
> > > > > >>>>>>>>
> > > > > >>>>>>>> Are algae plants? Plenty of pictures for you here:
> > > > > >>>>>>>>
> > > > > >>>>>>>> https://www.indefenseofplants.com/blog/2018/2/20/are-algae-plants
> > > > > >>>>>>
> > > > > >>>>>>
> > > > > >>>>>>> Nice pictures. The text belies your confident assertions.
> > > > > >>>>>> In what way? We've already seen how your text belies your confident
> > > > > >>>>>> assertion in the Subject line: "Dickinsonia is very likely an animal"
> > > > > >>>>>>
> > > > > >>>>>>> Stick with pictures.
> > > > > >>>>>>
> > > > > >>>>>> Where did you justify this comment?
> > > > > >>>>>>
> > > > > >>>>>>
> > > > > >>>>>> Peter Nyikos
> > > > > >>>>>> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
> > > > > >>>>>> University of South Carolina
> > > > > >>>>>> http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
> > > > > >>>>
> > > > > >>>>> I have zero interest is discussing anything with Glenn, and I suspect the lack of interest is
> > > > > >>>>> mutual. You apparently hold him in some regard?
> > > > > >>>> I hold the topics in high regard. You and Glenn are a good foundation for organizing my thoughts on
> > > > > >>>> the fascinating subjects you were discussing: the status of Dickinsonia and the Cambrian explosion.
> > > > > >>>>> I find that somewhat strange. Alas, I also
> > > > > >>>>> have no interest in discussing your contentious objections to the title of the thread, but I encourage
> > > > > >>>>> you to read the recent relevant material.

Notice how cantankerous Erik is here. Here and later, he reminds me of the Shakesperian quote, "The lady
doth protest too much, methinks."

> > > > > >>>> I've read a very long treatise exploring the status of Dickinsonia, which you don't seem to have read
> > > > > >>>> very carefully (and Glenn might not have understood enough of it):
> > > > > >>>>
> > > > > >>>> https://evolutionnews.org/2018/09/why-dickinsonia-was-most-probably-not-an-ediacaran-animal/
> > > > > >>>>
> > > > > >>>> Did you dismiss it out of hand because it was written by a convert from atheism?
> > > > > >>>>
> > > > > >>>> Be that as it may, I will write about it on Monday. It's too close to my bedtime now.

Yesterday was a lot more productive than I thought it would be in talk.origins, and the thread I started
here on gliding mammals is also more productive than expected, so the debut of this new thread
will be tomorrow (or Thursday at the latest).

> > > > > >>>>> I'm not going to dig through my files looking for all the relevant
> > > > > >>>>> papers, because I don't see that this will lead to any clarity, and most likely would only lead to another
> > > > > >>>>> angry meltdown.

"most likely" reminds me of "very likely" in the thread title, and there is much less reason to think it is correct.

> (It's actually fun to track down the references; at least I find it fun).
> > > > > >>>> So do I. One of the main reasons I went into my office today (the only time I did it this week) was
> > > > > >>>> so that I could get past the paywall erected around the _Nature_ article on a gliding Jurassic mammal
> > > > > >>>> that Oxyaena had brought to my attention on the "For Peter" thread.
> > > > > >>>>
> > > > > >>>> It was well worth the trouble, and I'll be reporting on it on Monday too.

And I did, too. Have you seen it, Glenn?

> > > > > >>>>
> > > > > >>>> Peter Nyikos
> > > > > >>>
> > > > > >>> I do not dismiss Bechly's review out of hand, but I don't find it useful, and it's pretty obvious from both
> > > > > >>> its tone and its provinance where his sympathies lie.
> > > > > >>>
> > > > > >> It's actually hard to tell where his sympathies lie. He's said on
> > > > > >> occasion that there is very good evidence for universal common descent,
> > > > > >> and yet he continually tries to cast doubt on any particular examples,
> > > > > >> including human relationships to chimps. He's all over the place.
> > > > > >>
> > > > > >> But nobody should take anything published on EN&V seriously.
> > > >
> > > > > > Please confine this attitude to talk.origins, where it belongs.
> > > > It belongs in talk.origins because the main emphasis there is political rather than scientific.
> > > > The "on topic" focus is on discrediting individuals, e.g. creationists, as opposed to refuting arguments
> > > > or discussing on topic issues on which there is significant disagreement.
> > > > > Why doesn't it belong here?
> > > > Because s.b.p. is a science newsgroup, and unscientific dismissals of material
> > > > containing scientific data (of which there is plenty in the article on Dickinsonia linked above)
> > > > are counterproductive to progress in understanding the science being discussed here.
> > > >
> > > in the two weeks since Eric posted the OP, there has been zero discussion of the science behind this attempt to place animals evolving millions of years before the Cambrian Explosion. A google search will find hundreds of claims, many in the titles, that Dickinsonia has been proven to be an animal. Wiki describes it as a "basal" animal.

On Tuesday, June 15, 2021 at 1:05:38 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Monday, June 14, 2021 at 9:31:21 PM UTC-4, Glenn wrote:
> > On Monday, June 14, 2021 at 5:08:57 PM UTC-7, erik simpson wrote:
> > > On Monday, June 14, 2021 at 2:53:45 PM UTC-7, Glenn wrote:
> > > > On Monday, June 14, 2021 at 11:31:03 AM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > > > On Monday, June 14, 2021 at 10:52:50 AM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> > > > > > On 6/14/21 4:45 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > > > > > On Saturday, June 12, 2021 at 5:08:53 AM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> > > > > > >> On 6/11/21 10:02 PM, erik simpson wrote:
> > > > > > >>> On Friday, June 11, 2021 at 8:23:52 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > > > > >>>> On Friday, June 11, 2021 at 10:55:08 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> > > > > > >>>>> On Friday, June 11, 2021 at 6:04:54 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > > > > >>>>>> On Thursday, April 1, 2021 at 7:49:25 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> > > > > > >>>>>>> On Thursday, April 1, 2021 at 3:35:21 PM UTC-7, Glenn wrote:
>
> > > > > > >>>>>>>> You should know that ID does not prohibit primitive life you want to call "animals", or even primitive animals existing in the Ediacaran, nor do I. ID does, as well as I, not tolerate speculation that changes with the wind of what exactly occurred and existed more than a half billion years ago, before a well documented, obvious explosion of the appearance of the many advanced forms of life in a geological blink of an eye.
> > > > > > >>>>>> Glenn is right about the well documented, obvious explosion. The early Cambrian fossils include
> > > > > > >>>>>> representatives of almost every phylum known from fossils; there was only one "holdout" by
> > > > > > >>>>>> the end of the Cambrian, the bryozoa, and that appeared in the next period, the Ordovician.
> > > > > > >>>>>>
> > > > > > >>>>>> At least as mysterious as this is the question: why no more fossilizable phyla in the next
> > > > > > >>>>>> 500 million years, after an explosion less than one-tenth as long, by most geologists' reckoning?
> Nobody has commented on this question.
> > > > > > >>>>>>>> Most everyone has given up on trying to discredit that fact. Now you're left with "maybe one or a few might" have been "kinda pseudo like" what we'd like to call "animal" rising from non-animal life a "little bit" before the explosion.
> > > > > > >>>>>>
> > > > > > >>>>>>
> > > > > > >>>>>>> "speculation that changes with the wind"? Does that mean data?
> > > > > > >>>>>> Partly data, partly interpretations of already known data. People were once confident that Dickinsonia
> > > > > > >>>>>> was an annelid. The latest speculation doesn't quite know where to place it, does it?
> > > > > > >>>>>>> I *really* don't care what ID doesn't tolerate, nor am I concerned with your limits of toleration.
> > > > > > >>>>>> Looks like ID has higher standards than you do. I take it Glenn was talking about what ID theorists
> > > > > > >>>>>> will tolerate within ID.
> Did I guess right here about your meaning, Glenn?
> > > > > > >>>>>>>> I'll leave you with a thought. Plant-like protists are called algae.
> > > > > > >>>>>>>>
> > > > > > >>>>>>>> Are algae plants? Plenty of pictures for you here:
> > > > > > >>>>>>>>
> > > > > > >>>>>>>> https://www.indefenseofplants.com/blog/2018/2/20/are-algae-plants
> > > > > > >>>>>>
> > > > > > >>>>>>
> > > > > > >>>>>>> Nice pictures. The text belies your confident assertions.
> > > > > > >>>>>> In what way? We've already seen how your text belies your confident
> > > > > > >>>>>> assertion in the Subject line: "Dickinsonia is very likely an animal"
> > > > > > >>>>>>
> > > > > > >>>>>>> Stick with pictures.
> > > > > > >>>>>>
> > > > > > >>>>>> Where did you justify this comment?
> > > > > > >>>>>>
> > > > > > >>>>>>
> > > > > > >>>>>> Peter Nyikos
> > > > > > >>>>>> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
> > > > > > >>>>>> University of South Carolina
> > > > > > >>>>>> http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
> > > > > > >>>>
> > > > > > >>>>> I have zero interest is discussing anything with Glenn, and I suspect the lack of interest is
> > > > > > >>>>> mutual. You apparently hold him in some regard?
> > > > > > >>>> I hold the topics in high regard. You and Glenn are a good foundation for organizing my thoughts on
> > > > > > >>>> the fascinating subjects you were discussing: the status of Dickinsonia and the Cambrian explosion.
> > > > > > >>>>> I find that somewhat strange. Alas, I also
> > > > > > >>>>> have no interest in discussing your contentious objections to the title of the thread, but I encourage
> > > > > > >>>>> you to read the recent relevant material.
> Notice how cantankerous Erik is here. Here and later, he reminds me of the Shakesperian quote, "The lady
> doth protest too much, methinks."
> > > > > > >>>> I've read a very long treatise exploring the status of Dickinsonia, which you don't seem to have read
> > > > > > >>>> very carefully (and Glenn might not have understood enough of it):
> > > > > > >>>>
> > > > > > >>>> https://evolutionnews.org/2018/09/why-dickinsonia-was-most-probably-not-an-ediacaran-animal/
> > > > > > >>>>
> > > > > > >>>> Did you dismiss it out of hand because it was written by a convert from atheism?
> > > > > > >>>>
> > > > > > >>>> Be that as it may, I will write about it on Monday. It's too close to my bedtime now.
> Yesterday was a lot more productive than I thought it would be in talk.origins, and the thread I started
> here on gliding mammals is also more productive than expected, so the debut of this new thread
> will be tomorrow (or Thursday at the latest).
> > > > > > >>>>> I'm not going to dig through my files looking for all the relevant
> > > > > > >>>>> papers, because I don't see that this will lead to any clarity, and most likely would only lead to another
> > > > > > >>>>> angry meltdown.
> "most likely" reminds me of "very likely" in the thread title, and there is much less reason to think it is correct.
> > (It's actually fun to track down the references; at least I find it fun).
> > > > > > >>>> So do I. One of the main reasons I went into my office today (the only time I did it this week) was
> > > > > > >>>> so that I could get past the paywall erected around the _Nature_ article on a gliding Jurassic mammal
> > > > > > >>>> that Oxyaena had brought to my attention on the "For Peter" thread.
> > > > > > >>>>
> > > > > > >>>> It was well worth the trouble, and I'll be reporting on it on Monday too.
> And I did, too. Have you seen it, Glenn?
> > > > > > >>>>
> > > > > > >>>> Peter Nyikos
> > > > > > >>>
> > > > > > >>> I do not dismiss Bechly's review out of hand, but I don't find it useful, and it's pretty obvious from both
> > > > > > >>> its tone and its provinance where his sympathies lie.
> > > > > > >>>
> > > > > > >> It's actually hard to tell where his sympathies lie. He's said on
> > > > > > >> occasion that there is very good evidence for universal common descent,
> > > > > > >> and yet he continually tries to cast doubt on any particular examples,
> > > > > > >> including human relationships to chimps. He's all over the place.
> > > > > > >>
> > > > > > >> But nobody should take anything published on EN&V seriously.
> > > > >
> > > > > > > Please confine this attitude to talk.origins, where it belongs.
> > > > > It belongs in talk.origins because the main emphasis there is political rather than scientific.
> > > > > The "on topic" focus is on discrediting individuals, e.g. creationists, as opposed to refuting arguments
> > > > > or discussing on topic issues on which there is significant disagreement.
> > > > > > Why doesn't it belong here?
> > > > > Because s.b.p. is a science newsgroup, and unscientific dismissals of material
> > > > > containing scientific data (of which there is plenty in the article on Dickinsonia linked above)
> > > > > are counterproductive to progress in understanding the science being discussed here.
> > > > >
> > > > in the two weeks since Eric posted the OP, there has been zero discussion of the science behind this attempt to place animals evolving millions of years before the Cambrian Explosion. A google search will find hundreds of claims, many in the titles, that Dickinsonia has been proven to be an animal. Wiki describes it as a "basal" animal.
> It does not, however, dismiss the alternatives out of hand.
> > > >
> > > > Yet, for instance,
> > > >
> > > > '‘We’re not saying it wasn’t sponges or it wasn’t protists [non-animal organisms that also produce small amounts of C30 steranes]3, we just say we have to be agnostic in this regard,’ says Hallmann." "‘We think that the safest thing to do right now is to indeed not use molecular fossils anymore as a collaboration point for earliest animals, but to revert back to the earliest [body] fossils."
> > > >
> > > > https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/steroid-fossilisation-discovery-opens-new-chapter-in-debate-around-oldest-animal/4012869.article
> > > >
> > > > As I said earlier, no one in this thread has directed their attention and discussion to what I said in my first post, and as another impetus now this:
> > > >
> > > > "But now, two research teams have discovered that C30 steranes might not be of animal origin but might come from ancient algae, with the compounds’ unusual substitution pattern byproducts of geological alteration."
> > > >
> > > > (From the previous url)
> > > >
> > > > I think for now that Bechly's article is a fair and balanced skepticism of the loud voices cheering for the early origin of animals.
> I tend to think you are right about this, Glenn.
> > > > But even that article was thrown out by default by the "conversers" of science here.
> > > The point of the first reference in the OP (Bobrovskiy et al) is the differential chemistry seen in on- and off-fossil samples, NOT
> > > simply detection of steranes.
> > Argue with the quotes provided as much as you wish, including your own and your own claims. No one said the speculations are from simple detection of steranes. In fact, there is no such thing.
> > >As for the "cheering", it may matter to you if Dickinsonia is an animal, but I have no emotional
> > > investment. A conculsive determination of its affinities would be equally ineresting either way.
> "The lady doth protest too much, methinks."
> > Actually it doesn't really matter to anyone, and there can be no conclusive determination. As far as that goes, many have already assumed a conclusive determination. Sorry, I don't believe that you are "just interested". If you can't see how far people are going to try to pin that label on to such a fossil, you don't want to see. And I can see only one reason for that, and it *is* an obvious reason.
> Animals are not only more popular than plants [compare the number of books of paleontology of animals with books on paleobotany],
> but animals represent a higher grade of organization than plants, and Dickinsonia is often touted to be of a higher grade
> than sponges, placozoans, ctenophores, or cnidarians.
> Peter Nyikos
> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
> Univ. of South Carolina at Columbia
> http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

On Monday, June 14, 2021 at 3:59:40 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> On 6/14/21 11:31 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > On Monday, June 14, 2021 at 10:52:50 AM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> >> On 6/14/21 4:45 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >>> On Saturday, June 12, 2021 at 5:08:53 AM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> >>>> On 6/11/21 10:02 PM, erik simpson wrote:
> >>>>> On Friday, June 11, 2021 at 8:23:52 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >>>>>> On Friday, June 11, 2021 at 10:55:08 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> >>>>>>> On Friday, June 11, 2021 at 6:04:54 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >>>>>>>> On Thursday, April 1, 2021 at 7:49:25 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> >>>>>>>>> On Thursday, April 1, 2021 at 3:35:21 PM UTC-7, Glenn wrote:
> >>>>>>>> Showing great restraint, I've deleted something that I dealt with vigorously in talk.origins.
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> This being over two months after the incident, I decided to let bygones be bygones.
> >>>>>>>> I hope Erik follows suit.
> >>>>>>>>>> Sound to me like you're trying to ditch integrity, so you can satisfy your evolutionary bias by desperately trying to prove animals existed before the Cambrian Explosion.
> >>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>> You misunderstand. I'm not trying to prove anything about Precambrian animals. I'm simply very curious about the *possible*
> >>>>>>>>> relationships between the Ediacaran biota and "life as we know it" inthe Cambrian.
> >>>>>>>> Your Subject: line, "Dickinsonia is very likely an animal" belies this disarming claim.
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> IOW, how many reverse gears does your bicycle have?
> >>>>>>>>> I have very little concern for what ID does or
> >>>>>>>>> does not say about that subject.
> >>>>>>>> Nothing, AFAIK.
> >>>>>>>>> The people involved with ID aren't well-represented among paleontologists.
> >>>>>>>> That is an accident, due to the fact that involvement with ID is mostly by creationists,
> >>>>>>>> most of whom are uninterested in all but the most superficial paleontology.
> >>>>>>>>>> You should know that ID does not prohibit primitive life you want to call "animals", or even primitive animals existing in the Ediacaran, nor do I. ID does, as well as I, not tolerate speculation that changes with the wind of what exactly occurred and existed more than a half billion years ago, before a well documented, obvious explosion of the appearance of the many advanced forms of life in a geological blink of an eye.
> >>>>>>>> Glenn is right about the well documented, obvious explosion. The early Cambrian fossils include
> >>>>>>>> representatives of almost every phylum known from fossils; there was only one "holdout" by
> >>>>>>>> the end of the Cambrian, the bryozoa, and that appeared in the next period, the Ordovician.
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> At least as mysterious as this is the question: why no more fossilizable phyla in the next
> >>>>>>>> 500 million years, after an explosion less than one-tenth as long, by most geologists' reckoning?
> >>>>>>>>>> Most everyone has given up on trying to discredit that fact. Now you're left with "maybe one or a few might" have been "kinda pseudo like" what we'd like to call "animal" rising from non-animal life a "little bit" before the explosion.
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>> "speculation that changes with the wind"? Does that mean data?
> >>>>>>>> Partly data, partly interpretations of already known data. People were once confident that Dickinsonia
> >>>>>>>> was an annelid. The latest speculation doesn't quite know where to place it, does it?
> >>>>>>>>> I *really* don't care what ID doesn't tolerate, nor am I concerned with your limits of toleration.
> >>>>>>>> Looks like ID has higher standards than you do. I take it Glenn was talking about what ID theorists
> >>>>>>>> will tolerate within ID.
> >>>>>>>>>> I'll leave you with a thought. Plant-like protists are called algae.
> >>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>> Are algae plants? Plenty of pictures for you here:
> >>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>> https://www.indefenseofplants.com/blog/2018/2/20/are-algae-plants
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>> Nice pictures. The text belies your confident assertions.
> >>>>>>>> In what way? We've already seen how your text belies your confident
> >>>>>>>> assertion in the Subject line: "Dickinsonia is very likely an animal"
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>> Stick with pictures.
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> Where did you justify this comment?
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> Peter Nyikos
> >>>>>>>> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
> >>>>>>>> University of South Carolina
> >>>>>>>> http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>> I have zero interest is discussing anything with Glenn, and I suspect the lack of interest is
> >>>>>>> mutual. You apparently hold him in some regard?
> >>>>>> I hold the topics in high regard. You and Glenn are a good foundation for organizing my thoughts on
> >>>>>> the fascinating subjects you were discussing: the status of Dickinsonia and the Cambrian explosion.
> >>>>>>> I find that somewhat strange. Alas, I also
> >>>>>>> have no interest in discussing your contentious objections to the title of the thread, but I encourage
> >>>>>>> you to read the recent relevant material.
> >>>>>> I've read a very long treatise exploring the status of Dickinsonia, which you don't seem to have read
> >>>>>> very carefully (and Glenn might not have understood enough of it):
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> https://evolutionnews.org/2018/09/why-dickinsonia-was-most-probably-not-an-ediacaran-animal/
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Did you dismiss it out of hand because it was written by a convert from atheism?
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Be that as it may, I will write about it on Monday. It's too close to my bedtime now.
> >>>>>>> I'm not going to dig through my files looking for all the relevant
> >>>>>>> papers, because I don't see that this will lead to any clarity, and most likely would only lead to another
> >>>>>>> angry meltdown. (It's actually fun to track down the references; at least I find it fun).
> >>>>>> So do I. One of the main reasons I went into my office today (the only time I did it this week) was
> >>>>>> so that I could get past the paywall erected around the _Nature_ article on a gliding Jurassic mammal
> >>>>>> that Oxyaena had brought to my attention on the "For Peter" thread..
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> It was well worth the trouble, and I'll be reporting on it on Monday too.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Peter Nyikos
> >>>>>
> >>>>> I do not dismiss Bechly's review out of hand, but I don't find it useful, and it's pretty obvious from both
> >>>>> its tone and its provinance where his sympathies lie.
> >>>>>
> >>>> It's actually hard to tell where his sympathies lie. He's said on
> >>>> occasion that there is very good evidence for universal common descent,
> >>>> and yet he continually tries to cast doubt on any particular examples,
> >>>> including human relationships to chimps. He's all over the place.
> >>>>
> >>>> But nobody should take anything published on EN&V seriously.
> >
> >>> Please confine this attitude to talk.origins, where it belongs.
> >
> > It belongs in talk.origins because the main emphasis there is political rather than scientific.
> > The "on topic" focus is on discrediting individuals, e.g. creationists, as opposed to refuting arguments
> > or discussing on topic issues on which there is significant disagreement.
>
> >> Why doesn't it belong here?
> >
> > Because s.b.p. is a science newsgroup, and unscientific dismissals of material
> > containing scientific data (of which there is plenty in the article on Dickinsonia linked above)
> > are counterproductive to progress in understanding the science being discussed here.

On Tuesday, June 15, 2021 at 4:42:35 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> On Tuesday, June 15, 2021 at 1:05:38 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > On Monday, June 14, 2021 at 9:31:21 PM UTC-4, Glenn wrote:
> > > On Monday, June 14, 2021 at 5:08:57 PM UTC-7, erik simpson wrote:
> > > > On Monday, June 14, 2021 at 2:53:45 PM UTC-7, Glenn wrote:
> > > > > On Monday, June 14, 2021 at 11:31:03 AM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > > > > On Monday, June 14, 2021 at 10:52:50 AM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> > > > > > > On 6/14/21 4:45 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > > > > > > On Saturday, June 12, 2021 at 5:08:53 AM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> > > > > > > >> On 6/11/21 10:02 PM, erik simpson wrote:
> > > > > > > >>> On Friday, June 11, 2021 at 8:23:52 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > > > > > >>>> On Friday, June 11, 2021 at 10:55:08 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> > > > > > > >>>>> On Friday, June 11, 2021 at 6:04:54 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > > > > > >>>>>> On Thursday, April 1, 2021 at 7:49:25 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> > > > > > > >>>>>>> On Thursday, April 1, 2021 at 3:35:21 PM UTC-7, Glenn wrote:
> >
> > > > > > > >>>>>>>> You should know that ID does not prohibit primitive life you want to call "animals", or even primitive animals existing in the Ediacaran, nor do I. ID does, as well as I, not tolerate speculation that changes with the wind of what exactly occurred and existed more than a half billion years ago, before a well documented, obvious explosion of the appearance of the many advanced forms of life in a geological blink of an eye.
> > > > > > > >>>>>> Glenn is right about the well documented, obvious explosion. The early Cambrian fossils include
> > > > > > > >>>>>> representatives of almost every phylum known from fossils; there was only one "holdout" by
> > > > > > > >>>>>> the end of the Cambrian, the bryozoa, and that appeared in the next period, the Ordovician.
> > > > > > > >>>>>>
> > > > > > > >>>>>> At least as mysterious as this is the question: why no more fossilizable phyla in the next
> > > > > > > >>>>>> 500 million years, after an explosion less than one-tenth as long, by most geologists' reckoning?
> > Nobody has commented on this question.
> > > > > > > >>>>>>>> Most everyone has given up on trying to discredit that fact. Now you're left with "maybe one or a few might" have been "kinda pseudo like" what we'd like to call "animal" rising from non-animal life a "little bit" before the explosion.
> > > > > > > >>>>>>
> > > > > > > >>>>>>
> > > > > > > >>>>>>> "speculation that changes with the wind"? Does that mean data?
> > > > > > > >>>>>> Partly data, partly interpretations of already known data. People were once confident that Dickinsonia
> > > > > > > >>>>>> was an annelid. The latest speculation doesn't quite know where to place it, does it?
> > > > > > > >>>>>>> I *really* don't care what ID doesn't tolerate, nor am I concerned with your limits of toleration.
> > > > > > > >>>>>> Looks like ID has higher standards than you do. I take it Glenn was talking about what ID theorists
> > > > > > > >>>>>> will tolerate within ID.
> > Did I guess right here about your meaning, Glenn?
> > > > > > > >>>>>>>> I'll leave you with a thought. Plant-like protists are called algae.
> > > > > > > >>>>>>>>
> > > > > > > >>>>>>>> Are algae plants? Plenty of pictures for you here:
> > > > > > > >>>>>>>>
> > > > > > > >>>>>>>> https://www.indefenseofplants.com/blog/2018/2/20/are-algae-plants
> > > > > > > >>>>>>
> > > > > > > >>>>>>
> > > > > > > >>>>>>> Nice pictures. The text belies your confident assertions.
> > > > > > > >>>>>> In what way? We've already seen how your text belies your confident
> > > > > > > >>>>>> assertion in the Subject line: "Dickinsonia is very likely an animal"
> > > > > > > >>>>>>
> > > > > > > >>>>>>> Stick with pictures.
> > > > > > > >>>>>>
> > > > > > > >>>>>> Where did you justify this comment?
> > > > > > > >>>>>>
> > > > > > > >>>>>>
> > > > > > > >>>>>> Peter Nyikos
> > > > > > > >>>>>> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
> > > > > > > >>>>>> University of South Carolina
> > > > > > > >>>>>> http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
> > > > > > > >>>>
> > > > > > > >>>>> I have zero interest is discussing anything with Glenn, and I suspect the lack of interest is
> > > > > > > >>>>> mutual. You apparently hold him in some regard?
> > > > > > > >>>> I hold the topics in high regard. You and Glenn are a good foundation for organizing my thoughts on
> > > > > > > >>>> the fascinating subjects you were discussing: the status of Dickinsonia and the Cambrian explosion.
> > > > > > > >>>>> I find that somewhat strange. Alas, I also
> > > > > > > >>>>> have no interest in discussing your contentious objections to the title of the thread, but I encourage
> > > > > > > >>>>> you to read the recent relevant material.

> > Notice how cantankerous Erik is here. Here and later, he reminds me of the Shakesperian quote,
> > "The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

> > > > > > > >>>> I've read a very long treatise exploring the status of Dickinsonia, which you don't seem to have read
> > > > > > > >>>> very carefully (and Glenn might not have understood enough of it):
> > > > > > > >>>>
> > > > > > > >>>> https://evolutionnews.org/2018/09/why-dickinsonia-was-most-probably-not-an-ediacaran-animal/
> > > > > > > >>>>
> > > > > > > >>>> Did you dismiss it out of hand because it was written by a convert from atheism?
> > > > > > > >>>>
> > > > > > > >>>> Be that as it may, I will write about it on Monday. It's too close to my bedtime now.
> > Yesterday was a lot more productive than I thought it would be in talk.origins, and the thread I started
> > here on gliding mammals is also more productive than expected, so the debut of this new thread
> > will be tomorrow (or Thursday at the latest).

> > > > > > > >>>>> I'm not going to dig through my files looking for all the relevant
> > > > > > > >>>>> papers, because I don't see that this will lead to any clarity, and most likely would only lead to another
> > > > > > > >>>>> angry meltdown.

> > "most likely" reminds me of "very likely" in the thread title, and there is much less reason to think it is correct.

> > > (It's actually fun to track down the references; at least I find it fun).
> > > > > > > >>>> So do I. One of the main reasons I went into my office today (the only time I did it this week) was
> > > > > > > >>>> so that I could get past the paywall erected around the _Nature_ article on a gliding Jurassic mammal
> > > > > > > >>>> that Oxyaena had brought to my attention on the "For Peter" thread.
> > > > > > > >>>>
> > > > > > > >>>> It was well worth the trouble, and I'll be reporting on it on Monday too.
> > And I did, too. Have you seen it, Glenn?
> > > > > > > >>>>
> > > > > > > >>>> Peter Nyikos
> > > > > > > >>>
> > > > > > > >>> I do not dismiss Bechly's review out of hand, but I don't find it useful, and it's pretty obvious from both
> > > > > > > >>> its tone and its provinance where his sympathies lie.
> > > > > > > >>>
> > > > > > > >> It's actually hard to tell where his sympathies lie. He's said on
> > > > > > > >> occasion that there is very good evidence for universal common descent,
> > > > > > > >> and yet he continually tries to cast doubt on any particular examples,
> > > > > > > >> including human relationships to chimps. He's all over the place.
> > > > > > > >>
> > > > > > > >> But nobody should take anything published on EN&V seriously.
> > > > > > > > Please confine this attitude to talk.origins, where it belongs.
> > > > > > It belongs in talk.origins because the main emphasis there is political rather than scientific.
> > > > > > The "on topic" focus is on discrediting individuals, e.g. creationists, as opposed to refuting arguments
> > > > > > or discussing on topic issues on which there is significant disagreement.
> > > > > > > Why doesn't it belong here?
> > > > > > Because s.b.p. is a science newsgroup, and unscientific dismissals of material
> > > > > > containing scientific data (of which there is plenty in the article on Dickinsonia linked above)
> > > > > > are counterproductive to progress in understanding the science being discussed here.
> > > > > >
> > > > > in the two weeks since Eric posted the OP, there has been zero discussion of the science behind this attempt to place animals evolving millions of years before the Cambrian Explosion. A google search will find hundreds of claims, many in the titles, that Dickinsonia has been proven to be an animal. Wiki describes it as a "basal" animal.

On 6/15/21 1:05 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>> At least as mysterious as this is the question: why no more fossilizable phyla in the next
>>>>>>>>>>>> 500 million years, after an explosion less than one-tenth as long, by most geologists' reckoning?
> Nobody has commented on this question.
>
Sure. There are three general ideas that I'm aware of: 1) the loose
genes theory, 2) the empty barrel theory, and 3) the taxonomic artifact
theory.

Under the "loose genes" theory, developmental programs since the
Cambrian have become increasingly integrated, interconnected, buffered,
and canalized so that fundamental changes are unlikely.

Under the "empty barrel" theory, there were more opportunities to find
unoccupied major niches before life filled them up.

Under the taxonomic artifact theory, it's just that the ancestors of
phyla must pre-date the ancestors of their included classes, which must
pre-date ancestors of included orders, etc. Thus phyla come early, not late.

Of course it could be all three or something else entirely.

Or are you wondering why gains of readily preserved skeletons have been
rare in earth history but fairly common in the early Cambrian? That's a
different question, and there are certainly many examples of
skeletonization after the Cambrian, and not just bryozoans. But they
aren't considered new phyla.

On 6/15/21 3:52 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Monday, June 14, 2021 at 3:59:40 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
>> On 6/14/21 11:31 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>> On Monday, June 14, 2021 at 10:52:50 AM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
>>>> On 6/14/21 4:45 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>>>> On Saturday, June 12, 2021 at 5:08:53 AM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
>>>>>> On 6/11/21 10:02 PM, erik simpson wrote:
>>>>>>> On Friday, June 11, 2021 at 8:23:52 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>>>>>>> On Friday, June 11, 2021 at 10:55:08 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
>>>>>>>>> On Friday, June 11, 2021 at 6:04:54 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>>>>>>>>> On Thursday, April 1, 2021 at 7:49:25 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>> On Thursday, April 1, 2021 at 3:35:21 PM UTC-7, Glenn wrote:
>>>>>>>>>> Showing great restraint, I've deleted something that I dealt with vigorously in talk.origins.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> This being over two months after the incident, I decided to let bygones be bygones.
>>>>>>>>>> I hope Erik follows suit.
>>>>>>>>>>>> Sound to me like you're trying to ditch integrity, so you can satisfy your evolutionary bias by desperately trying to prove animals existed before the Cambrian Explosion.
>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> You misunderstand. I'm not trying to prove anything about Precambrian animals. I'm simply very curious about the *possible*
>>>>>>>>>>> relationships between the Ediacaran biota and "life as we know it" inthe Cambrian.
>>>>>>>>>> Your Subject: line, "Dickinsonia is very likely an animal" belies this disarming claim.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> IOW, how many reverse gears does your bicycle have?
>>>>>>>>>>> I have very little concern for what ID does or
>>>>>>>>>>> does not say about that subject.
>>>>>>>>>> Nothing, AFAIK.
>>>>>>>>>>> The people involved with ID aren't well-represented among paleontologists.
>>>>>>>>>> That is an accident, due to the fact that involvement with ID is mostly by creationists,
>>>>>>>>>> most of whom are uninterested in all but the most superficial paleontology.
>>>>>>>>>>>> You should know that ID does not prohibit primitive life you want to call "animals", or even primitive animals existing in the Ediacaran, nor do I. ID does, as well as I, not tolerate speculation that changes with the wind of what exactly occurred and existed more than a half billion years ago, before a well documented, obvious explosion of the appearance of the many advanced forms of life in a geological blink of an eye.
>>>>>>>>>> Glenn is right about the well documented, obvious explosion. The early Cambrian fossils include
>>>>>>>>>> representatives of almost every phylum known from fossils; there was only one "holdout" by
>>>>>>>>>> the end of the Cambrian, the bryozoa, and that appeared in the next period, the Ordovician.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> At least as mysterious as this is the question: why no more fossilizable phyla in the next
>>>>>>>>>> 500 million years, after an explosion less than one-tenth as long, by most geologists' reckoning?
>>>>>>>>>>>> Most everyone has given up on trying to discredit that fact. Now you're left with "maybe one or a few might" have been "kinda pseudo like" what we'd like to call "animal" rising from non-animal life a "little bit" before the explosion.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> "speculation that changes with the wind"? Does that mean data?
>>>>>>>>>> Partly data, partly interpretations of already known data. People were once confident that Dickinsonia
>>>>>>>>>> was an annelid. The latest speculation doesn't quite know where to place it, does it?
>>>>>>>>>>> I *really* don't care what ID doesn't tolerate, nor am I concerned with your limits of toleration.
>>>>>>>>>> Looks like ID has higher standards than you do. I take it Glenn was talking about what ID theorists
>>>>>>>>>> will tolerate within ID.
>>>>>>>>>>>> I'll leave you with a thought. Plant-like protists are called algae.
>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>> Are algae plants? Plenty of pictures for you here:
>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>> https://www.indefenseofplants.com/blog/2018/2/20/are-algae-plants
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> Nice pictures. The text belies your confident assertions.
>>>>>>>>>> In what way? We've already seen how your text belies your confident
>>>>>>>>>> assertion in the Subject line: "Dickinsonia is very likely an animal"
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> Stick with pictures.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Where did you justify this comment?
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Peter Nyikos
>>>>>>>>>> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
>>>>>>>>>> University of South Carolina
>>>>>>>>>> http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> I have zero interest is discussing anything with Glenn, and I suspect the lack of interest is
>>>>>>>>> mutual. You apparently hold him in some regard?
>>>>>>>> I hold the topics in high regard. You and Glenn are a good foundation for organizing my thoughts on
>>>>>>>> the fascinating subjects you were discussing: the status of Dickinsonia and the Cambrian explosion.
>>>>>>>>> I find that somewhat strange. Alas, I also
>>>>>>>>> have no interest in discussing your contentious objections to the title of the thread, but I encourage
>>>>>>>>> you to read the recent relevant material.
>>>>>>>> I've read a very long treatise exploring the status of Dickinsonia, which you don't seem to have read
>>>>>>>> very carefully (and Glenn might not have understood enough of it):
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> https://evolutionnews.org/2018/09/why-dickinsonia-was-most-probably-not-an-ediacaran-animal/
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Did you dismiss it out of hand because it was written by a convert from atheism?
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Be that as it may, I will write about it on Monday. It's too close to my bedtime now.
>>>>>>>>> I'm not going to dig through my files looking for all the relevant
>>>>>>>>> papers, because I don't see that this will lead to any clarity, and most likely would only lead to another
>>>>>>>>> angry meltdown. (It's actually fun to track down the references; at least I find it fun).
>>>>>>>> So do I. One of the main reasons I went into my office today (the only time I did it this week) was
>>>>>>>> so that I could get past the paywall erected around the _Nature_ article on a gliding Jurassic mammal
>>>>>>>> that Oxyaena had brought to my attention on the "For Peter" thread.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> It was well worth the trouble, and I'll be reporting on it on Monday too.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Peter Nyikos
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I do not dismiss Bechly's review out of hand, but I don't find it useful, and it's pretty obvious from both
>>>>>>> its tone and its provinance where his sympathies lie.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> It's actually hard to tell where his sympathies lie. He's said on
>>>>>> occasion that there is very good evidence for universal common descent,
>>>>>> and yet he continually tries to cast doubt on any particular examples,
>>>>>> including human relationships to chimps. He's all over the place.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> But nobody should take anything published on EN&V seriously.
>>>
>>>>> Please confine this attitude to talk.origins, where it belongs.
>>>
>>> It belongs in talk.origins because the main emphasis there is political rather than scientific.
>>> The "on topic" focus is on discrediting individuals, e.g. creationists, as opposed to refuting arguments
>>> or discussing on topic issues on which there is significant disagreement.
>>
>>>> Why doesn't it belong here?
>>>
>>> Because s.b.p. is a science newsgroup, and unscientific dismissals of material
>>> containing scientific data (of which there is plenty in the article on Dickinsonia linked above)
>>> are counterproductive to progress in understanding the science being discussed here.
>
>> It's hardly an unscientifc dismissal.
>
> IMO, it is a purely political dismissal. One of the reasons I have postponed starting the thread,
> "What kind of organism is Dickinsonia?" is that we need to come to some kind of understanding
> about our different approaches to scientific truth and where it might be found.