The Roraima Pollen Evolutionary Paradox

When I tried to point out I actually didn't make a mistake, I ended up making a typo. “flowering plants are claimed to have evolved 135 million years ago” should say 120 million. Con helps my case by saying “evolutionary history of plants is not necessarily 100% correct.” Con quoted my paper saying 1 group of scientists argued pollen couldn't have survived the heating process, so the pollen must've been contamination. I showed Con a more recent paper that disproved this with an experiment. Con says the paper admitted the presence of oxygen during the heating can reduce the chance of pollen surviving, and now Con demands I prove there was no oxygen present when the pollen was fossilized in the Roraima rock. Specifically, he said “Please prove any access to oxygen and that the conditions the pollen underwent fit the experiment's specifications” but I think he meant “disprove any access to oxygen”. I'm going to decline. Con's point relied on an unsupported, sweeping assertion by an anonymous group of people unreferenced in the quoted paper. Because of the sweeping nature of the assertion, I only need to find one example to the contrary to void it, and I already have. I showed it's common for pollen to be found in the absence of other plant remains. Con says that this doesn't apply here because the Roraima rock came from a river, and “would thus likely have full plant fossils”. I'm convinced Con is making this up. I quoted an expert who was at the scene in 1966 saying contamination of rainwater pollen is “highly improbable” because the rock was compressed under so much weight and had such low permeability. Con replies, “an argument from improbability is fallacious” but this is ironic since Con is using the Appeal to Possibility: “When a conclusion is assumed not because it is probably true, but because it is possible that it is true, no matter how improbable.”(9) Con says “Pollen is rather small[...] It's not hard for it to get through effectively ANY cracks in the Roraima rock” but this contradicts my expert's opinion, so it's fair to dismiss Con's layman opinion. To support his claim pollen was absorbed by the Roraima rock, Con quotes geophysicist Morton saying the following: “There is a veritible rain of rain of pollen on everything.[...] it may not have been there from time immemorial [but] … a modern contaminant. .... […] A palynologist friend of mine has written that he finds modern pine pollen in his cretaceous preparations all the time.”Con's source shows Morton is discussing “Hakatai shale in Grand Canyon”, not the hornfel rock from Mount Roraima where the pollen was found. Shale is known to have extremely high permeability with porosity up to 70%!(10) This shale was never subject to extreme heating and cooling processes, like the Roraima hornfel was. The hornfel is made of “dense impermeable rocks[...]”.So, Morton's quote on shale is not applicable to hornfel.The last of Morton's quotes that I'll deal with is the following:“A palynologist friend of mine has written that he finds modern pine pollen in his cretaceous preparations all the time.”That's interesting, but if Con wanted to use this as evidence, he should have cited an accredited journal, not anecdotal evidence on a poorly-designed website. Also, using that quote as Con did is an exercise in circular logic, since Morton's “palynologist friend” must assume Evolutionary Theory is true to claim that the pollen is “modern” and that the rocks are indeed of “cretaceous” age.Con says that “My opponent must show conclusively that NO pollen could have gotten in.” This is absurd, considering all the evidence I've provided already; I provided relevant expert testimony describing the pollen rock as dense, impermeable, and compressed by hundreds of feet of of overlying rock. This rock the pollen is in was literally being sat on by a mountain.The pollen is not contamination.Con says Morton provides 3 criteria for distinguishing fossilized pollen from modern contamination, but if one reads his source it is actually Morton's anonymous “friend” of questionable credibility. Again, these quotes are not coming from a peer-reviewed journal.So, Morton's friend's criteria for distinguishing fossil pollen from contaminated pollen are:1. Color: If the pollen is clear or very light yellow then they are modern introduced forms.2. One must demonstrate that the [sample] ... is not so thermally mature (cooked) that nothing organic could have survived.3. The pollen grains should be flattened.Con saved me some trouble by conceding that criterion #2 is already met. So, let's take a look at a photo(1) of the pollen to see if satisfies criteria #1 and #3 by being dark and flattened (unfortunately, the photo is only availablein black-and-white but I don't think this really matters): You be the judge and decide if the pollen looks dark and flattened!Con says that “It is a responsibility and challenge to the creationists to develop a model of earth history which explains the absence [of evidence for flowering plants below the middle Cretaceous].” I think it's appropriate to call this challenge laughable. How can a Biblical Creationist, who doesn't subscribe to the Geologic Timescale, be expected to create a theory that relies on the Geologic Timescale? Con is effectively demanding that I formulate an alternate theory to Evolution but on the condition that I use the Evolutionary Geologic Timescale!This is just another red herring that I didn't have to address anyway.Another red herring of his which I will not address is “my opponent needs an alternate theory to explain the pollen in this location”.Con says that “the evolutionary history of plants is not vital to evolution[...] f the evolutionary history of angiosperms had to change to account for their existence [1.7 BILLION YEARS AGO], this would not prove that evolution does or did not occur.”Con is trying to say that, even if I'm correct in that the pollen is not a contamination, it doesn't matter because it doesn't undermine Evolution's credibility. This is silly. If Evolutionary Theory is allowed a get-out-of-jail-free card on such a massive issue...(adjusting the evolutionary history of flowers by several orders of magnitude, which has immense implications for the evolution of herbivorous animals and by extension, the evolution of the entire ecosystem) ...then one must conclude that Evolution is unfalsifiable, for no matter how wildly it's predictions contradict reality, it's credibility won't be considered undermined.Con says Evolution is supported by observations of the evolution of nylon-eating bacteria and citrate-eating bacteria, failing to realize that both nylon & citrate digestion were innate to the bacteria before their supposed “evolution.”In the nylon case, the ability was already innate but preserved as a cryptic gene. A cryptic gene is a gene in a non-functional state that can be rendered functional when the environment demands it. “After the cells accumulated the required genetic alteration to make a cryptic region active, cells grew in the nylon oligomer medium.”(11)(emphasis mine) Con misrepresents the citrate case by falsely claiming they evolved the ability to “eat citric acid.” The E. coli could already do that!(12)Con tells me “You have not proven that billions of years are necessary, but merely "enough" time for evolution to occur, which is unquantified.” According to Evolutionary Theory itself, evolution has been going on for ~4 billion years, so yes, it is quantified.Thanks for a fascinating debate. (9) http://www.logicallyfallacious.com... (10) http://petrowiki.org... (11) http://www.isnature.org... (12) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...