What Does the Fossil Record Show?

Creation or Evolution: Does it Really Matter What You Believe? ^ | 1998 | Various

[Between the Lines]

Astronomy is a myth since the Bible tells us that the sun revolves around the earth.

The Bible does not say whether the earth revolves around the sun or the sun revolves around the earth. The Bible does talk about the sun rising and setting. The weather channel also gives the times of sunrise and of sunset. The literary term for this is phenomenological language; phenomenological language is language that refers to how an event looks to the people that observe it. When I watch the sun, I see it moving in the sky. The earth is actually moving, but from what I see, the sun is moving. I am using phenomenological language, describing an event as I see it. Phenomenological language is not the same as scientific statements.

Even today we use phenomenological language to describe celestial events -- rise, set, moves across the sky. Surely not everyone who uses such language believes that it is not the earths rotation which causes this illusion. Zenith apex, altitude , azimuth, rise, set, are just a few of the many words used in modern astronomy that are from the point of view of the person doing the observation, or phenomenological language. Or do the astronomers really believe that it is the heavens that are moving while they remain stationary?

[RS]

"I don't know how parentage could be proven - perhaps more strongly if parent and mutated child were found together."

Perhaps ?

Doesn't your statement DEFINE the parent and child ?

[ToryHeartland]

Cute. But I was hoping for something a little more specific, such as fossilized or living transitional species.

Indeed? Then how should one characterise your assumed air of naivte here--you've never seen the dozens of such examples on these threads? Never before had it pointed out to you that every fossil is, to some degree, a transitional? Never heard that before, at all? Well, that is...'cute.'

Irrelevant to you, but for the sake of anyone reading the thread who has a genuine interest, here's a very basic place to start:

Some transitional fossils

And a genuine discussion of the issue is here. The paragraph on 'Misconceptions' is particularly illuminating.

[ToryHeartland]

Whether they are related or not is not proven. The facts on the ground would be the same either way. I don't know how parentage could be proven - perhaps more strongly if parent and mutated child were found together. So, I think it is a problem with many, if not all, claimed transitional species. Your response?

Please see my post 163 for links on this issue, if you are interested.

With respect, your proposed scenario suggests you have some rather large misunderstandings about the theory of evolution. Only in the kinds of articles, such as head up this thread, does one get a suggestion of one creature giving rise to a new species (or an intermediate form) in one generation: this is an utter strawman. If you could line up all of your ancestors by generation over, say, 500,000 generations, you would not find a 'major' change between a father and his son. It's like watching the hour hand on an analogue clock. Watch it for an hour, you won't see it move--but it's pointing at a different number at the end of that span.

I know some reject evolution on the grounds it conflicts with their understanding of the Bible. I don't have a quarrel with that, choice of faith is an absolute and sacred right. I have my own Christian faith; I do not feel obliged to demand of Biblical literalists that they produce birth certificates for every one of their ancestors back to Adam and Eve in order to 'prove' their version of faith!

[Between the Lines]

I've spent years arguing with young-Earth creationists. It's a waste of time and effort.

Yet here you are again.

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein

[tomzz]

Are you saying god experimented? If god is omniscient/omnipotent then why would that be the case?

Good question. Here's the best answer I can come up with. There is no way RNA/DNA could just sort of happen. As Walter Remine notes, RNA/DNA is the basis of all life on Earth and logically has to be the work of a single pair of hands.

Nonetheless, logically, there is no way to picture an omnipotent and well-meaning God creating biting flies, mosquitos, ticks, fleas, chiggers, disease vectors, and the myriad cratures of Pandora's Box. Our present living world is clearly the work of more than one set of hands, and some of those hands were evilly motivated. We should shortly acquire the power to eliminate the creatures of Pandora's box on this planet, and we should not waste five seconds in doing so when we do.

A single pair of hands created RNA/DNA but, after that happened, others got into it. The evidence we have is that the engineering and re-engineering of complex life forms used to be some sort of a cottage industry on our planet, that more than a single pair of hands was involved, and that somewhere in the recent past all such activity stopped for some reason we have not yet understood, and that nothing which could create new kinds of animals is going on any more.

[CarolinaGuitarman]

"There is no way RNA/DNA could just sort of happen."

Nobody said it does, Medved.

[tomzz]

Chuck Darwin never said that because nobody knew about RNA/DNA at the time. If Chuck had known about DNA/RNA, being halfway honest unlike today's evos, he'd never have published the first word about evolutionism.

As one commentator puts it:

"At that moment, when the DNA/RNA system became understood, the debate between Evolutionists and Creationists should have come to a screeching halt

I.L. Cohen, Researcher and Mathematician
Member NY Academy of Sciences
Officer of the Archaeological Inst. of America
Darwin Was Wrong - A Study in Probabilities
New Research Publications, 1984, p. 4

[CarolinaGuitarman]

"Chuck Darwin never said that because nobody knew about RNA/DNA at the time. If Chuck had known about DNA/RNA, being halfway honest unlike today's evos, he'd never have published the first word about evolutionism."

Sure he would have, Mr. Holden, because the DNA evidence is a huge support for evolution. And my point, Ted, is correct: Nobody says that DNA/RNA just *happened*.

[TN4Liberty]

Okay, you identified a mammal that lived a long time ago. That does not demonstrate, provide evidence of, or prove it is the first mammal, the parent of all mammals as you stated. I will give you that it is consistent with the theory. In fact, it is required by that theory. But it does not demonstrate that it was the first mammal, or indicate how that "firstness" was determined. Therefore it is not proof and does not validate your original theory. It is not proof. It is at best a corollary. That is my issue.

If you didn't mean your "of course you're not" comment in a condescending fashion, I apologize for my reaction. But since you said that "one of us is exhibiting arrested development here," I assume you mean me, and I assume you intended your comments to be as I had first assumed. I don't deserve that for simply asking a question of the data and its interpretation. Yet that seems to be the general tone of these threads. I don't understand why that is necessary.

All I am asking is to meet the standard of proof that you require of others. I'm not saying you are wrong. I am saying that if you are going to require proof from others, you need to require proof of your own point of view on this item, and you haven't.

[VadeRetro]

If macroevolution were possible (hint, it isn't), you would not have to look at fossils to find it, it would be happening all the time. Take fish for instance. Amongst the tens of millions of fish we pull out of the water every year, there would be some developing legs.

Not to mention one great authority who used to post here has it that "By every precept of Darwinism, the skies should be full of feral chickens."

Or maybe the skies should be full of snails evolving flight and fish ponds should be full of feral chickens evolving swimming. Something like that.

[tomzz]

C.S. Lewis said it best, i.e. "Above all else, the devil cannot tolerate being mocked." Granted you guys are immune to logic, you are not immune to ridicule, and the world is starting to learn to laugh at you.

[VadeRetro]

C.S. Lewis said it best, i.e. "Above all else, the devil cannot tolerate being mocked."

I think the Bible says that about the other guy, but maybe Lewis is the ultimate authority.

[Between the Lines]

I've spent years arguing with young-Earth creationists. It's a waste of time and effort. They're immune to evidence, too lazy to learn more than superficially about the science they criticize,

I'm also an evangelical Christian

Some "Christians" are also too lazy to learn more than superficially about their own religion.

In the Mark:10 Christ (root word for Christian) says that God created man. Yes, Jesus was a young-earth creationist. Later in Revelations 3:14 Jesus Himself says He was there at the beginning of Creation, an eyewitness to it all.

Some Christians through out the Old Testament as useless. Leaving them with only the New Testament to go by. Some even throw out Revelations, but a Christian cannot disregard the Gospel itself.

[SirLinksalot]

Time to recap some of the famous quotes made by researchers lionized by secularists everywhere...

---

Robert Barnes:

“The fossil record tells us almost nothing about the evolutionary origin of phyla and classes. Intermediate forms are non-existent, undiscovered, or not recognized.” Robert Barnes, “Invertebrate Beginnings,” Paleobiology 6 1980): 365-70.

---

Stephen Jay Gould:

“All paleontologists know that the fossil record contains precious little in the way of intermediate forms; transitions between major groups are characteristically abrupt.” Stephen Jay Gould, “The Return of Hopeful Monsters,” Natural History 86 (June/July 1977): 24, 22-30.

---

David Raup :

Raup:

“Darwin predicted that the fossil record should show a reasonably smooth continuum of ancestor-descendant pairs with a satisfactory number of intermediates between major groups Darwin even went so far as to say that if this were not found in the fossil record, his general theory of evolution would be in serious jeopardy. Such smooth transitions were not found in Darwin’s time, and he explained this in part on the basis of an incomplete geologic record and in part on the lack of study of that record. We are now more than a hundred years after Darwin and the situation is little changed. Since Darwin a tremendous expansion of paleontological knowledge has taken place, and we know much more about the fossil record than was known in his time, but the basic situation is not much different.”

David M. Raup, “Geological and Paleontological Arguments,” in Scientists Confront Creationism, ed. Laurie R. Godfrey, 156 (New York: W.W. Norton, 1983).

---

Jeffrey Schwartz:

“[We] are still in the dark about the origin of most major groups of organisms. They appear in the fossil record as Athena did from the head of Zeus – full-blown and raring to go, in contradiction to Darwin’s depiction of evolution as resulting from the gradual accumulation of countless infinitesimally minute variations, which, in turn, demands that the fossil record preserve an unbroken chain of transitional forms.” Jeffrey H. Schwartz, Sudden Origins: Fossils, Genes, and the Emergence of Species (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1999)

---

George Gaylord Simpson:

“This regular absence of transitional forms is not confined to mammals, but is an almost universal phenomenon, as has long been noted by paleontologists.” George Gaylord Simpson, Tempo and Mode in Evolution (New York: Columbia University Press, 1944), 105, 107.

---

Things haven't changed much regarding the Fossil Records since the great Charles Darwin himself observed ....


“Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain . . .”
Origin of Species, chapter 6.

[Donald Rumsfeld Fan]

Darwin's original "theory" was a hypothesis. Latter disproved. See excerpts from article below.

Hypothesis: a tentative theory about the natural world; a concept that is not yet verified but that if true would explain certain facts or phenomena; "a scientific hypothesis that survives experimental testing becomes a scientific theory"; "he proposed a fresh theory of alkalis that later was accepted in chemical practices."

Key excerpts from from article:

However, even Darwin himself struggled with the fact that the fossil record failed to support his conclusions. ". . . Why, if species have descended from other species by fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms? . . . Why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth?" (Origin of Species, 1958 Masterpieces of Science edition, pp. 136-137).

". . . The number of intermediate varieties, which have formerly existed, [must] be truly enormous," he wrote. "Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and serious objection which can be urged against the theory [of evolution]" (Darwin, pp. 260-261).

Darwin acknowledged that the fossil record failed to support his conclusions. But, since he thought his theory obviously was the correct explanation for earth's many and varied forms of life, he and others thought it only a matter of time before fossilized missing links would be found to fill in the many gaps. His answer for the lack of fossil evidence to support his theory was that scientists hadn't looked long enough and hadn't looked in the right places. Eventually they would find the predicted fossil remains that would prove his view. "The explanation lies, I believe, in the extreme imperfection of the geological record," he wrote (p. 261).

He was convinced that later explorations and discoveries would fill in the abundant gaps where the transitional species on which his theory was based were missing. But now, a century and a half later, after literally hundreds of thousands of fossil plants and animals have been discovered and cataloged and with few corners of the globe unexplored, what does the fossil record show?

Niles Eldredge, curator in the department of invertebrates at the American Museum of Natural History and adjunct professor at the City University of New York, is another vigorous supporter of evolution. But he finds himself forced to admit that the fossil record fails to support the traditional evolutionary view.

When the word "evolution" is invoked it's meaning is ambiguous to many people. It has multiple definitions. Darwin's being just one.

So depending on how you personally use and understand the word (evolution) and it's meanings it could be fact, theory, hypothesis, conjecture or none of the above.

[Coyoteman]

Is this the same mathematician who proved bumblebees can't fly?

[VadeRetro]

Lessons in creationist "scholarship:"

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/quotes/mine/contents.html

Quotations and Misquotations: Why What Antievolutionists Quote is Not Valid Evidence Against Evolution

Google Search Trends Show Danes, Australians, Canada Interested in Intelligent Design

[CarolinaGuitarman]

"Darwin's original "theory" was a hypothesis. Latter disproved."

That's a creationist fantasy. Evolution has one of the best track records in the history of science.

[Tax-chick]

LOL!