Quite apart from any factual errors, about which I’m not at all qualified to judge, here is what seems to me to be Meyer’s fundamental logical error IMO:
According to Darwin’s theory, the differences in form, or “morphological distance,” between evolving organisms should increase gradually over time as small-scale variations accumulate by natural selection to produce increasingly complex forms and structures (including, eventually, new body plans). In other words, one would expect small-scale differences or diversity among species to precede large-scale morphological disparity among phyla.
(Darwin’s Doubt, Chapter 2)
He illustrates this by asking us to comparing this figure, which he says is what we do see:
With this (appallingly badly drawn) one:
Which he claims Darwin’s theory says we ought to see.
And he says:
The actual pattern in the fossil record, however, contradicts this expectation (compare Fig. 2.12 to Fig 2.11b). Instead of more species eventually leading to more genera, leading to more families, orders, classes and phyla, the fossil record shows representatives of separate phyla appearing first followed by lower-level diversification on those basic themes.
Well, of course it does, Dr Meyer! You have just, in Chapter 2 of your fat book made an absolutely fundamental error of understanding of the entire principle of phylogenetics and taxonomy. No, of course you wouldn’t expect phyla to follow “lower-level diversification on those basic themes”. How could it possibly? And how could you possibly so fundamentally misunderstand the entire point of Darwin’s tree and its relationship to the nested hierarchies observe by Linnaeus?
All branching events, in Darwin’s proposal, whether the resulting lineages end up as different phyla or merely different species, start in the same way, with two populations where there once was one, and a short morphological distance between them. It is perfectly true that the longer both lineages persist for, the greater the morphological distance will become. But that isn’t because they started different, or because the phyla come later. It’s because what we call phyla are groups of organisms with an early common ancestor, whose later descendents have evolved to form a group that has a large morphological distance from contemporary populations who descended from a different early common ancestor.
So when a phylum, or a class, or even a kingdom first diverges from a single population into two lineages, the “morphological distance” from the other lineage will be very short. We only call it a “phylum” because eventually, owning to separate evolution, that distance becomes very large.
I’ve amended the drawings in the book as below, and, instead of labeling the trees by what a contemporary phylogeneticists might have called them, I’ve called each tree a phylum, and I’ve drawn round the organisms that constitute various subdivisions of phyla in colours from orange to green to represent successive branchings. Rather than the little bunch of twigs marked “families” by Meyer, I’ve indicated the entire clade for each subdivision, or tried to.
In Meyer’s version, he called the early sprout “ONE SPECIES”, which a contemporary phylogeneticist (Dr Stephen Chordata perhaps) would have called a “species”. But by the time of the next tree (which I think is supposed to incorporate the first), and Dr Chordata’s distant descendent comes along, she may call it an entire “genus”, and become rather more interested in the “species” that she observes it contains. Move along one to the next tree on Meyer’s time-line and an even more distantly descendent will call the whole tree a “family” containing “genera” and “species”. What was a “genus” to her great^10 grandmother will be several genera to her, and so on. And with each multi-generation of palaeontologist, the descendents of what were close relations in her ancestral palaentologist’s day are now separated by a wide “morphological distance.
So of course, if we look at the fossil record as these speciation-events were happening and try to categorise the organisms in terms of their modern descendents, we will find a great number of different phyla, and far fewer species. Of course they have different body plans, because they lived at a time when many different lineages from the first populations of rather amorphous multi-cell colonies were still around, some with not much symmetry, some with bilateral symmetry, some with five-fold symmetry, and many that didn’t go very far and left no extant lineages. Because of course Meyer also forgets the big extinction events, which are the other part of the answer to why one particular branch “exploded” while the others were never seen again. It’s even in his terrible Figure 1.11. Which he may not have been responsible for drawing, but he should at least have looked at.
ETA: the other drawing, fixed:
ETA2:
Another extraordinary example of Meyer’s complete failure to understand what a clade is, or that the words “phyla” and “class” refer to clades. Coloured emendations are mine (orange/red for Meyer’s “phyla”, blue for Meyer’s “class”):
I’d have expected an urbane, Cambridge-educated guy like Meyer to know the [ETA: spot the erroneous] singular of “phyla” but that’s minor compared to his crashing howler of an attempt to demonstrate what the term means.
ETA:3 Note: As Mung has pointed out, Meyer shows that he does know the singular of “phyla”, he just doesn’t get it correct it in this particular diagram. However, as I have said elsewhere (and above), this error is minor compared with the howler of including only a group of of descendents in his circled “phyla”, not the whole branch, which as I’ve said, undermines his entire argument.
If you seriously hold the clownish belief that one must read a whole text before being skeptical of any part of it, then it seems you have a lot of reading to do.
You go and read nearly 3 million papers. We’ll wait.
I can, in fact, because Lizzie has kindly provided it in the OP:
This is the same misunderstanding that you beautifully illustrated in an earlier comment.
Yes, really.
Yes, really.
Alan Fox:
You came to appreciate the “magnitude” of Meyer’s ignorance over the concept of clades by reading Meyer? Or by reading Lizzie?
Let me explain to you, as kindly as I can, what a fool you are. Elizabeth is trying to critique a drawing from chapter 2 of Meyer’s book. That drawing does not mention clades. One would almost think that Elizabeth completely ignored what Meyer did say about clades in ch 2 of his book.
Please show, from the OP, just what Meyer did say about clades in chapter 2 of his book. Can’t do it? Feel free to read the book for yourself then.
davehooke:
just chapter 2. that’s all. that’s what Lizzie claims to critique in this thread.
can’t read? don’t want to read that chapter? I’m cool.
Just don’t PRETEND to be skeptical of something you haven’t even bothered to read.
I grant that Elizabeth has read the chapter, Alan hasn’t. You haven’t. Numerous other “skeptics” posting here at TSZ haven’t.
Mung:
Elizabeth:
So two different phyla can somehow converge into one.
One has to admire the plasticity of evolutionary theory.
Wasn't that the exact point that WJM was making?
By reading Lizzie’s critique of course. I am not yet convinced that it is worth buying Meyer’s book. From the parts Lizzie quotes, it appears Meyer has misunderstood the concept of clades according to the quoted text and illustrations.
Which is a complete misunderstanding of what evolutionary theory says. The separation of two phyla would involve no greater a speciation event than which happens at any bifurcation. Just prior to the bifurcation, those antecedents would be members of the same gene pool.
Now if you are saying that Meyer says something else elsewhere, which refutes the suggestion that he misunderstands the conception of how phyla (monophyletic group) bifurcate as illustrated in his drawings and the text Lizzie quoted, then I guess I’ll have to get the book. Just point me to the relevant passage. Do you have a page reference?
ETA On second thoughts. If Meyer gets it badly wrong in one place and, according to mung, gets it right about cladistics elsewhere, does that not indicate some sort of deliberate misrepresentation?
No. That’s the whole point of a nested hierarchy that flows from successive bifurcations or speciations. Once populations are genetically isolated and speciation is complete, remixing does not occur (OK plant hybridization is common among closely enough related species). So two very ancient closely related species end up classified in separate clades. Lizzie already said this upthread.
Neil Rickert:
No, you were not illustrating anything. And to the extent to which you were making a point about “branching processes” (whatever that means), you were agreeing with Meyer, contra Elizabeth.
Mung:
Elizabeth:
Mung:
Alan Fox:
Divergence yes. Convergence no. Right, Alan?
So you disagree with Elizabeth, or you didn’t understand what Elizabeth said, or you think I misrepresented what Elizabeth said, or you can’t be bothered to read Meyer in a thread about what Meyer wrote.
It has been pointed out a number of times on a number of websites – including here and on Panda’s Thumb – that one doesn’t have to read every ID/creationist book to know what is going on.
ID/creationists have been making these same arguments going all the way back to Morris and Gish; they just keep recycling them.
When Nick Matzke did his critique, a number of us already knew that Nick had worked at the National Center for Science Education and knew all the ID/creationist arguments well enough to anticipate what any ID/creationist would put in a “new” book. All he had to do was verify that the arguments were there, check to see that they were in the same form, and he could cover large swaths of the book in short order. Simple spot checks can verify what one already anticipates.
Most of us who have followed ID/creationism for any length time can do it; and we are never surprised. There are fundamental arguments and tactics that all ID/creationists use. They don’t know enough science to be able to think on their feet because they don’t ever really learn any science. They quote mine and package their quote mines as a socio/political presentation.
Furthermore, any expert in any field of science can spot the fundamental misconceptions and misrepresentations of ID/creationists almost instantly. Both Matzke and Prothero are experts on the Cambrian and Precambrian; they would spot the misrepresentations very quickly. We count on their expertise and earned reputations.
I’m not skeptical of Chapter 2 or Meyer’s concept of clades and phyla in particular. I’m skeptical of the whole thing, for reasons already given in the Darwin’s Doubt thread. Dispute those reasons in that thread, if you like. Reiterate your contention that one has to read a whole text to be skeptical of any part of it, if you like. If that’s the case, you have around three million papers to read.
Anyhow, you were saying that figure 2.11 does not “mention” clades?
Lizzie wrote, perfectly clearly
Mung responded
And Lizzie replied:
* emphasis mine
She was saying, no, you have missed the point. Exactly what I am saying.
So I say that you misunderstood what Lizzie said. To say you misrepresented what she said would involve a value judgement on my part which is outside the rules of this forum.
Mike Elzinga:
Great. Feel free to not participate in the discussion. Mock Elizabeth. She wrote the OP.
Poop posts in guano.
The sandbox is available for wider ranging topics such as coprophagia.
What discussion? I see no discussion. Perhaps you could point me to where you actually talk about the content of the book at all?
No, Mung. I’m really not sure how I can be clearer about this.
Two different phyla never converge into one. My point is extremely simple: when a single population bifurcates into two separate populations that henceforth evolve independently, we describe this as a speciation event, and if it happened fairly recently, we describe the resulting pair of lineages (together with and subsequent further bifurcations) as two “species”. However, if it happened less recently, we might describe, from today’s perspective, the resulting pair of lineages as two “genera”, and the subsequent bifurcations as “species”. If it happened even earlier, we describe, from today’s perspective, the two lineages as two “families”, or “orders” or “classes” or “phyla”, or “kingdom”. The names are simply terms of convenience that tell us approximately when the bifurcation occurred, and the depth of branching that has occurred subsequently.
I’m afraid in this case the problem is simply a misunderstanding on your (and Meyer’s) part about the relationship between phylogenetics and taxonomy, which is not very “plastic” at all, and indeed, would return extremely shallow nestings, if common descent (or a generative process consistent with common descent) were not true. The fact that it returns such deep nestings that so many terms for the different layers are required is itself the very evidence for common descent that Darwin noted, and developed his theory to account for.
If it were, he is making exactly the same mistake as you and Meyer.
To see the mistake very clearly, click on the last figure I posted. I have drawn, in colour, a line round what would be (if the illustrations were not fictional) called, respectively, phyla and classes. I’ve included the same populations that Meyer has labeled, but whereas Meyer only applies the label to the last few generations, I have applied, as biologists do, each label to the entire lineage down which they descended.
And you can therefore see that at the point at which Meyer’s two “phyla” diverged, we have a simple speciation event, ditto with the points at which his “classes” diverge. It is only in retrospect that we call the pair of lineages that resulted from the phylum-divergence event as “phyla” and from the class-divergence event as “classes”.
The fact that Meyer can let this figure go out in a book in which he discusses taxonomy and phylogenetics is extraordinary, and I would think it an editing error if it were not for the fact that the error is propagated in the text as well.
Meyer simply has not understood the basic principle that he is claiming to critique and find “puzzles” in. There is no puzzle, there is only his mistake.
I haven’t read the book, but from what Liz quoted and wrote above, the mistake in understanding is obviously Liz’s, not Meyers. If we substitute “morphological distance” for “phyla”, then what Meyer’s is saying is that we would expect to find a timeline of fossils from a common ancestor, through minor morphological variances, becoming morphologically more distant from its predecessors, ending up with a large enough morphological variation to be called phyla X, while another line of variation comes to be called phyla Y. The original ancestor might be called phyla A, but it is the predecessor to both following morphologial lines.
It appears that Meyers is saying that this is not what we find in the strata; he seems to be saying (from the excerpts I’ve read) that we do not find morphological fossil pathways leading towards (forwards in time) divergence great enough to be called two different phylas from any common ancestor; what we find are phylas (a distinct morphological set of features) that produce variations from those morphological standards, and nothing prior leading up to those morphological standards (phyla).
IOW, it seems to me that Liz is doing nothing more than claiming Meyer is wrong definitionally (as the definitions of those terms all assume Darwinian common descent), as she seems (so often) to do, apparently incapable of dealing with the concept Meyer is apparently arguing and instead jumping on some definitional technicality as if that represents a problem with Meyer’s conceptual argument.
I ran into a similar problem with Liz when arguing morality; she was unable to conceptualize morality outside of her particular, socialistic definition of it, or engage in a conceptual argument outside of her definitional structure. I’ve also seen it many times in many of these ID/Darwinist debates; Darwinists are often incapable of understanding the concepts being argued by IDists, and instead focus on definitions of terms.
It’s not a “definitional technicality”, William, for goodness’ sake!
Meyer’s argument rests entirely on the taxonomic categories assigned to various fossilised organisms, and he doesn’t get to change the definition of those categories just because it suits his argument to do so.
Phyla are not called phyla because by a certain point in the geological column a group of organisms form a morphologically distinct group, but because there is an entire series of organisms that can be shown to nest within that group, going right back towards the base of the column.
Of the groups of organisms within a phylum, at any given time, will be morphologically closer than organisms from different phyla, and that distance will increase with time. That is what is what we should see if common descent is true, and it is precisely because it is what we see that common descent is a supported hypothesis.
Take the superphylum, deuterostome. This consists of organisms in which the first opening, embryologically, becomes the anus.
All organisms with this characteristic are deuterostomes. But deuterostomes comprise several phyla, including chordata (to which we belong) and echinodermata (to which starfish belong).
chordata have bilateral symmetry and a single linear spinal chord. Echinodermata have five-fold radial symmetry and a radial nervous system.
All creatures with bilateral symmetry and a single linear spinal chord are in the phylum chordata, from the simplest brainless tunicates to us. All creatures with five-fold radial symmetry are in the phylum echinodermata.
Early in the geological column, chordata and echinodermata are quite similar – neither have brains, both have anuses that form first, and the difference is simply whether the nervous system has two ends or five. Later, some members of the phylum chordata developed brains and vertebrae; none of the members of the phylum echnodermata did.
So as time went on, the average morphological distance between members of the to phyla increased, just as expected under common descent.
Meyer is either deliberately, or ignorantly, equivocating with the word “phylum”. If it means what he wants it to mean, a contemporaneous group of organisms, then his point is moot – because nobody is claiming that two contemporaneous groups of organisms belonging to to different phyla won’t be more morphologically distant than organisms within each of those groups.
So that his argument simply fails.
Whereas, if it means what it does in biology, then his argument doesn’t even get off the ground.
So when you gratuitously throw in this:
it may behoove you to consider that possibly the mistake is yours, not mine, in that instance as well. Definitions of terms are absolutely critical to any communication of any scientific ideas, which is why we even have a special term: “operational definition”.
Equivocating with definitions within a single scientific argument renders it not scientific. This is what Meyer does.
Where is the “base of the column”, in terms of fossils, when it comes to they phyla Meyer refers to? Isn’t it in the strata that represents what is usually called the Cambrian Explosion? Isn’t Meyer making the case that before that strata, there are no significant precursors leading up to the various phyla that appear after the Cambrian explosion?
Definitional fiats and obfuscations, however, are only used to avoid the points made in conceptual arguments. That is what you are doing here – avoiding the conceptual point Meyer makes by obsessing over terminology and definitions. The point Meyer is making is obvious; if the standard neo-Darwinistic theory is true, we should see fossil evidence of transitionals leading from some ancestral form towards major body-plan sets, but that is not what we find. What we find are major body-plans abruptly set at the Cambrian Explosion and variations ensuing from that standard.
Your quibble over his wording and attack on how he used terms in order to strut around claiming Meyer made some fundamental conceptual error is, unfortunately, typical of Darwinistic “debate” tactics.
Lizzie on September 2, 2013 at 12:17 pm said:
I think the fundamental science fact that that needs to be taught in science education is that there are no facts , there are data and models, and that all models are provisional and incomplete.
Once you have that in place, you can teach which models have huge support and which have less.
You can even tell people that the former are regarded as “facts” .
He might be. But that’s a different argument. Donald Prothero’s review might be of interest.
The Cambrian “explosion” covers a period of at least 80 million years. It must have had an extremely long fuse You should read Prothero’s review.
And that’s exactly what Meyer is doing. He’s using his own idiosyncratic definition of phylum and then saying that there’s a problem with the prediction arising from common descent despite that fact that that prediction is made using the standard definition.
Meyer’s claim is that common descent predicts that diversity should precede disparity.
He then tries to claim that
which doesn’t contradict the first thing at all. Of course “representatives of different phyla” precede “lower level diversification on those basic themes”. What Meyer forgets, or doesn’t know, is that those first “representatives of different phyla” are morphologically much closer than the later representatives.
He gets away with it because he equivocates with his definition of “phylum” – he is happy to regard early “representatives of different phyla” as representatives of those phyla when noting that they come first, but then when he wants them to be “morphologically distant” from each other defines them in terms of the representatives that come after the phyla have diversified.
Take your blinkers off, William. Meyer made a mistake. It’s hard to believe it wasn’t deliberate.
That do not solve the problem of lack of ancestors.
Seems to me that Meyer is saying that the cambrian fossils supposed to be the first rappresentatives of the phyla are already “morphologically distant ” as it was the representatives that come “after”.
Take your blinkers off. Meyer and you are given different explanations at the same observations. You accuse him to made a mistake.It’s hard to believe it wasn’t deliberate.
Not in the argument that I am quoting.
For a start, obviously phyla that appear after the Cambrian explosion have precursors, otherwise we wouldn’t be able to say that they appeared after the Cambrian explosion.
And in any case he’d be dead wrong.
I’m not giving a “different explanation”. I’m pointing out that Meyer has fundamentally misunderstood what a phylum is. Then he makes an argument based on that fundamentally erroneous understanding.
Phyla precede genera, contrary to Meyer’s claim. Meyer’s claim only makes sense using Meyer’s idiosyncratic redefinition of “phylum”. And using that definition his argument fails, because nobody claims that common descent predicts that phylum come first, if we define phylum Meyer’s way.
It predicts that phyla come first if we define it the way it is defined throughout biology. And defined that way, that’s exactly what they do do.
The “puzzle” arises entirely from Meyer’s redefinition of a standard term in biology.
You don’t get to redefine a spade as a teaspoon, then argue that Darwinists are wrong for claiming that you cannot dig a ditch with a spade.
I’m simply calling a spade a spade.
Matzke got a lot of flak for allegedly not reading the book (although having read the book, and Matzke’s review, I am perfectly satisfied that Matzke read it).
How odd, then, to find Meyer defended by people who haven’t read it, in face of a critique, accompanied by actual figures from the book that show the mistake.
Is anyone seriously prepared to argue that Meyer didn’t really mean to argue that phyla come later than genera, and that his drawings showing they do, in which he erroneously circles groups of twigs, not the branch from which they grow, as “phyla” were merely a “definitional technicality”?
If Meyer argued that carts precede horses, and that therefore horses do not pull carts, and I pointed out that horses in fact precede carts, would William argue that this is merely a “definitional technicality” and that obviously, when Meyer says “cart” he means horse?
And therefore carts really do pull horses, despite the efforts of Darwinists to claim otherwise?
Typical darwinism you talk about words, Meyer talk about fossils without ancestors.
Speaking of people who engage in word games, how much of the technical details of any area of science can YOU discuss intelligently?
He talks about phyla and says that they follow genera, rather than precede them.
This is simply wrong.
It’s easy to talk about stuff that you just make up.
“that they” 😉
Thanks, fixed!
Lizzie, I think the key conceptual mistake is in thinking that phyla originated in the Cambrian. What originated were species, the process being no different from the origin of any species.
Calling the sum of the descendants of one of these species a phylum is a retrospective label. The label is magical only for those who believe in magic.
It’s interesting that Blas seems to believe that these ancestors came into being in order to make modern species possible, and that contemporary species are the goal of evolution.
If you were more focused on the data instead of the words you would realize that you are wrong. But probably you wouldn`t be darwinist.
Take for example the supposed common ancestor of sponges and bilaterians, how darwinism explains the origine of both “kind” of animals? This common ancestor a homogeneus populations reproduce with variations that get fixed and produces two different populations (two diffeent species) this two different populations reproduce with variations an get fixed producing other diffferent species, A group of this different species we can call a genera? Maybe. It is not the point, the point is that the first common ancestor before become the common ancestor of all sponges and the first common ancestor of all the bilaterians according to darwinism needed to change step by step modify his morpholgy. To get the first anphybian fishes diverged in many species, genera and families, then we got titaalik and then we got the anphybians. That is the story according darwinism if it do not fits the data, change the data.
Wait a minute, are you saying that someone changed data – that is, committed fraud – about the transition between “fish” and “amphibian”?
If not, what did your sentence mean? I think we may be having language difficulties again …
Yes. I would like to see some documentation of fraud. I’d like to see Blas cite the paper where fraud is committed, or the book, title and page number.
The only way this makes sense is if you are using a semantic quibble about what “after” means, and are again refusing to address the conceptual point. It’s like you are just absolutely refusing – using any means necessary, even semantic dodges – to understand the point.
William, are you asserting the Cambrian organisms were specially created and have no parents?
I would suggest that you are making a semantic quibble about semantic quibbles.
What do you mean by “the only way”? And do you know what “means” means?
It should, in the actual sequence of things. That’s the whole point. You’re arguing from definition of terms; Meyer is arguing a concept about the actual sequence of evolution of life on earth. In the actual proposed darwinistic real-life sequence, you start with one life form. It necessarily diversifies until it reaches disparity. Diversity must precede disparity, according to current evolutionary theory.
At that point where there is disparity, at the Cambrian explosion mark, we would have many different phyla. One would think that from the CE mark going forward, we would see even more distinct body-plan sets evolve into existence – but again, that is not what we find. What we find is pretty much the full line-up of phyla appear at the CE point, with no transitionals leading up to them before, and no transitionals leading to new sets of body-plans since. All we get is diversity, not any further disparity.
IOW, in real time, supposedly accumulations of diversity lead to disparity, but that is not what we see. We find disparate body plans all originating at about the same time (without transitional precursors) and then producing diversity (but not accumulating to further disparity) afterward.
What possible meaning can this even have?
Do you understand anything whatsoever about evolution, William? Have you ever tried to grasp a scientific concept and really understand it?
You are starting another argument over the meaning of the meanings of the meanings of meanings again.
Elizabeth got it. Why can’t you? It’s not hard.
Quibble? Sheesh, William, it’s Meyer who doesn’t know what “after” means!
Are you following this at all?
He’s talking about the evolution of an ancestral organism, diversifying into other species, then into other genera, etc., becoming more and more morphologically distant until it is considered a different phylum. IOW, how does evolution get to the point of there being disparity (different phyla) in the first place?
Under current evolutionary theory, you have to get TO the point where you have taxonomic disparity to the point of various phyla. How can this gradually happen from a universal common ancestor unless it diversifies – producing different species, genus, family, etc. … all of which, up to a certain point, would be of whatever phylum the universal common ancestor was, until it diversified to the point of phylum disparity.
To get TO different phyla FROM a prior universal common ancestor, the taxonomic rankings have to be climbed via diversity to disparity. We don’t find significant fossil evidence of this.
I can follow his arguments quite easily. It is you that are taking every semantic and definitional opportunity to **not understand** the point he is obviously making in the quote in your O.P.