© Cedarville University International Conference on Creationism. The views expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent those of Cedarville University. McGuire, K., S. Southerden, K. Beebe, N. Doran, T.C. Wood, and P.A. Garner. 2023. Testing the order of the fossil record: Preliminary observations on stratigraphic-clade congruence and its implications for models of evolution and creation. In J.H. Whitmore (editor), Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Creationism, pp. 478-486. Cedarville, Ohio: Cedarville University International Conference on Creationism. TESTING THE ORDER OF THE FOSSIL RECORD: PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS ON STRATIGRAPHIC-CLADE CONGRUENCE AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR MODELS OF EVOLUTION AND CREATION Kathryn McGuire, Core Academy of Science, P.O. Box 1076, Dayton, TN 37321. KMeyer.pi@gmail.com Sophie Southerden, The Master’s University, 21726 Placerita Canyon Road, Santa Clarita, CA 91321. sophiesoutherden@yahoo. co.uk Katherine Beebe, The Master’s University, 21726 Placerita Canyon Road, Santa Clarita, CA 91321. beebekr@masters.edu Neal Doran, Bryan College, 721 Bryan Drive, Dayton, TN 37321. ndoran5857@bryan.edu Matthew McLain, The Master’s University, 21726 Placerita Canyon Road, Santa Clarita, CA 91321. mmclain@masters.edu Todd Charles Wood, Core Academy of Science, P.O. Box 1076, Dayton, TN 37321. tcw@coresci.org Paul A. Garner, Biblical Creation Trust, P.O. Box 325, Ely, CB7 5YH, United Kingdom. paul@biblicalcreationtrust.org ABSTRACT One important category of fossil evidence for evolution is the congruence between the order in which groups appear in the fossil record and the order predicted from evolutionary phylogenies based on morphology. However, creationists have only rarely scrutinized the order of the fossil record. We therefore compiled a dataset of 2,721 published phylogenies and assembled first appearance data for all the taxa in the phylogenies. After assigning clade and age ranks we used Spearman’s Rank Correlation to measure the fit between the clade and age ranks. Almost three-quarters of our phylogenies (1,989 or 73.1%) showed statistically significant correlation (p < 0.05). However, only 684 (25.1%) showed high correlation (p < 0.05 and Spearman rho > 0.75). Stratigraphically, correlations seem to be higher in the Mesozoic (37.8% high correlation) than in either the Paleozoic (25.1% high correlation) or Cenozoic (12.3% high correlation). More specific comparisons are difficult because the t-statistic from which the significance of the Spearman rho is calculated is correlated with the number of taxa, leading to potentially spurious significance for phylogenies with large taxon samples. In addition, our dataset suffers from considerable redundancy (for example, each dinosaur species is represented on average at least 20.4 times). Here, we devise a simulation-based method to overcome the taxon sample size problem, but dealing with redundancy will require additional manual curation. Still, the dataset we have compiled is the largest set of phylogenies ever evaluated for stratigraphic congruence and will provide an excellent basis for future research. KEYWORDS stratigraphy, phylogenetic trees, ecological zonation, paleontology, cladistics, congruence, fossil record I. INTRODUCTION The fossil record is widely regarded as primary evidence for macroevolutionary theory (e.g. Cuffey 1984; Prothero 2007; Coyne 2009). One important category of fossil evidence for evolution is the congruence between the order in which groups appear in the fossil record and the order predicted from evolutionary phylogenies based on morphology (e.g. Ridley 2004, pp.65-66). Over the past few decades, paleontologists have increasingly studied the stratigraphic congruence of phylogenetic hypotheses (e.g. Benton and Storrs 1994; Benton and Hitchin 1997; Wagner 1998; O’Connor et al. 2011; O’Connor and Wills 2016), but only rarely have creationists carefully scrutinized the order of the fossil record. We therefore set out to conduct a large-sample study of congruence between first fossil appearances and the order of branching in evolutionary phylogenies. About thirty years ago, some preliminary work in this area was carried out by Wise (n.d.a.), who constructed cladograms for 7 kingdoms, 101 phyla, and 266 classes using a taxonomic scheme modified from Margulis and Schwartz (1988). From the cladograms, 144 predicted evolutionary series were derived: 3 series of kingdoms, 1 series of divisions, 62 series of phyla, 6 series of subphyla, and 72 series of classes. Spearman’s Rank Correlation (SRC) was used to compare the order of first appearances in the fossil record with the order of first appearances in the cladograms for all 144 series. Only 5 out of the 144 series showed a significant correlation at the 95% confidence level between the predicted and observed order of first appearances. The remainder were basically random with respect to the predicted evolutionary order. The 5 series that showed significant correlation were 4 series of plant phyla and 1 series of arthropod classes. In all 5 cases, the order of appearance in the fossil record correlates with an 9th 2023
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