Wouldn't those who believe in a "higher power", and want to use this argument have to accept that:
1) life existed before
2) fossil record and radiometric dating is legit
3) evolution happened before, since the argument is not wheter evolution happened, but is why was it so fast during that period
4) life became more diverse after, but still drastically different from todays?
from number 3)
5) life "changed" to the life we know as todays?
So "higher power" intervined once between pre-camb and cambrian? ... But didn't feel like
creating humans, until way later?
"Charles Darwin saw it as one of the main objections that could be made against his theory of evolution by natural selection.[7]"
In his time there were no radiometric dating.
In his time"In 1862, the physicist William Thomson (who later became Lord Kelvin) of Glasgow published calculations that fixed the age of Earth at between 20 million and 400 million years.[20][21] He assumed that Earth had formed as a completely molten object, and determined the amount of time it would take for the near-surface to cool to its present temperature. His calculations did not account for convection inside the Earth, which allows more heat to escape from the interior to warm rocks near the surface.[20]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_the_Earth
So darwin actually had massively overestimated the pace of evolution. And that was that.
"Over the following 70 or 80 million years the rate of evolution accelerated by an order of magnitude (as defined in terms of the extinction and origination rate of species[4])"
As for explanations, on the wiki page there were many explanations. As with must complex systems, many different changes occur. I am inclined to think that the explosion was not attributed to one factor, but rather all or most of the explained factors working together.
Looking at them:
End-Ediacaran mass extinction, Increase in oxygen levels, Snowball Earths provided the empty and good oppurtunities for the life that remained after the mass extinction to conquer. The surviving species probably reclaimed and spread out into the "now suitable" lands. As for all life after an extinction events, the food chain is reorganized, and the predator/prey relationship is reorganized. The prey spreads to a new land far away from its original location, out of the original families gene pool range. It meets new predator, evolve, now comparing to the species that theyre from, they are drastically different.
Biology is beyond me but i looked at the time line events in the cambrian explosion, the emergence of animals certainly had different properties.... But it wasn't like there was a worm, then suddenly you find a horse in the fossil records...
Meh!
you said "Really only one thing/event keeps me from truly believing in evolution, Darwinism, and pure atheism. "
Why does believing in evolution means atheism? Granted i do not see the religions today as "compatible" with evolution, but why does that mean there was no higher power, one not described by religion? Unless you meant atheism as in not believing in "earthly high powers".
