What Does the Fossil Record Show?

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

[js1138]

FR is very high on my hall of shame index. Number three in quote mining, I think, if I hadn't removed forums from the list.

[Donald Rumsfeld Fan]

Science doesn't lie. Its facts may need correction at times, and this correction is done by experiment or the discovery of new data. 'Lie' implies an intentional deception and a real scientist would not do that about scientific knowledge.

Some do lie. Many cherry pick data to support their pet theory. And some are delusional.

They are human and put their pant legs on one at a time.

[CarolinaGuitarman]

"Some do lie. Many cherry pick data to support their pet theory. And some are delusional."

True, but I think most creationists are just ignorant.

[Coyoteman]

Your quote mining from the article, suggesting that the lack of fossils in the late 1850s is a problem for evolution today, is a little out of date.

Here is a quiz for you. What major hominid fossils were known, say in 1859, when Darwin's work was published?

Can you give me an even approximate estimate?

[VadeRetro]

You have to wonder. There are creationists who think that by the artifice of posting Darwin's rhetorical questions to the reader they can convince people he didn't believe in his own theory.

What is the IQ of the target audience of such snares?

[VadeRetro]

Some do lie. Many cherry pick data to support their pet theory. And some are delusional.

Projection.

[js1138]

Some do lie. Many cherry pick data to support their pet theory. And some are delusional.

The difference between science and religion is that liars in science are eventually overtaken by events, revealed by further research.

There are major religions founded on prophecies that are way overdue. There's always some excuse.

[js1138]

What is the IQ of the target audience of such snares?

Probably higher than the person who posts the quotes.

[burroak]

HOw do you explain the discrepancy of overlaying the of taxinomic classifications with the genetic classifications?

When DNA is analyzed and plotted it doesn't support the diagrams that the evolutionists want us to take as truth.

[Captain Rhino]

Based on the definition given by the website that initiated this thread to begin with then isn't 'proven theory' an oxymorn?

Not exactly sure what you are referring to here (maybe some other portion of the article's hosting website?) As for the articles lead-in, I took it to be one of those annoyingly clever rhetorical questions that authors like to use these days. As a term of scientific inquiry, "proven theory" is certainly not an oxymoron. Theories exist to be proven or disproven (or, in the context of this article, to inhabit the "not yet proven" middle ground).

But presents nothing to support his own.

Absolutely true. As I acknowledged in my original post, the author simply makes the claim without presenting any evidence to support it.

We are supposed to accept that this is a binary argument. If Evolution is wrong then biblical creation must be right.

Yes, that's the proposition that is being presented by the author. But what if they both are wrong? In other words, can we imagine an instance where the current theory of evolution is in error and that the Genesis Chapter 1 account is not a factual account? For my part, I am absolutely convinced that Gensis is not a complete or even particularily accurate account. Does adherence the current theory of evolution similarily allow its supporters to acknowledge that it might be wrong, too?

Science doesn't work that way. Competeing theories should present their evidence and judgement based on that. There is a litereal mountain of evidence that evolution supporters use to argue their case.

All the author is pointing out is that some portion of the scientific community itself feels the evidence to support the theory of evolution as currently understood is lacking. Following that presentation, the author makes his illogical and unsupported jump to Biblical creation.

Where is the evidence of Biblical creation except in the Bible itself?

Actually, outside of Genesis Chapter 1, there are no references to the specific act of creation. To be honest, it doesn't appear that the creator God was very interested in explaining the act to a wandering Middle Eastern shepherd people or their descendants. The purpose of the Bible's author lies in other directions.

Would the Creation account be better if it started out with 900 volumes of absolutely undecipherable high order physics and chemical equations instead?

There are occasional references in the remainder of the Old and New Testaments to the natural order, usually contrasting it to humanity. Here's one that I like from Romans:

"1:20 For the invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even his everlasting power and divinity; that they may be without excuse:

1:21 because that, knowing God, they glorified him not as God, neither gave thanks; but became vain in their reasonings, and their senseless heart was darkened."

I do not cite these verses in criticism of anyone or any belief (including no belief at all) but to highlight that believers have just as much right as scientists to point to nature for examples as evidence to bolster their claims. So the evidence that you call for from the author is not going to be found in the Bible. Rather, it is going to be found in nature. And that, I believe, is the entire purpose of the website the original article was posted on.

I attach the following link (which I just came across this afternoon) as relevant to this discussion:

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20060721-102631-6908r.htm

[VadeRetro]

All the author is pointing out is that some portion of the scientific community itself feels the evidence to support the theory of evolution as currently understood is lacking.

If science were undergoing such a controversy, it wouldn't need creationist whack jobs setting quote-mine snares for idiots to tell it that this is going on.

[theFIRMbss]

>The difference between science and religion is that liars in science are eventually overtaken by events, revealed by further research

Everybody "knew"
Leibniz's calculus was
solid even though

it was built around
infinitesimals. But
that didn't prevent

Bishop Berkeley from
attacking it built around
religious problems.

And mainstream science
(well, mathematics) bought
into the attacks.

Hundreds of years on
we are still stuck with limits
although Robinson

clear up the loose ends
of infinitesimals
back in '66.

It's not always clear
science is "self-correcting"
or that "corrections"

make a difference
once the damage has been done.
Some things don't clean up.

[Coyoteman]

HOw do you explain the discrepancy of overlaying the of taxinomic classifications with the genetic classifications?

When DNA is analyzed and plotted it doesn't support the diagrams that the evolutionists want us to take as truth.

I am not aware that there were huge discrepancies between DNA and other classifications. I am aware of small discrepancies; DNA is a better method of identifying descent than morphology, so that is not surprising.

Could you please supply a reference (and please don't bother with the creationist websites; they are doing apologetics, not science).

Oh, and evolutionists are not in the truth business. Try a church for that. Evolutionists and all other scientists deal with facts and theories, with theories being the best current explanations for facts.

Take a look at this chart, and read the caption. See anything about "truth" there?

Source: http://wwwrses.anu.edu.au/environment/eePages/eeDating/HumanEvol_info.html

[burroak]

"God is omniscient/omnipresent....."

Your understanding of God is that he is a chess player, playing both sides of the board. That I can assure is not the case. You have studied your scriptures of evolution and think you know what it means. Take the time to study the Bible and you will find that God is not the chess player on both sides of the board. He is a risk taker; willing to let mankind have free will and leave evil unbridled.

[CarolinaGuitarman]

Math isn't science.

[js1138]

Mathematics is not widely regarded as an experimental science, or one in which new ideas are suggested by new data. Mathematics, like philosophy, is axiomatic and deductive rather than empirical and inductive.

[PhilipFreneau]

>>>Some transitional fossils [link to Wikipedia]<<<

You use Wikipedia for a reference, and you expect me to take you seriously? Seriously, "scientist", there should be countless transitional fossils and living 'creatures' identified by now, to the point there could be no ambiguity.

[Right Wing Assault]

My point is that if they are lying, they aren't doing science. If they are lying about a scientific point, they aren't a real scientist in my opinion. No matter what great things they may have accomplished, they can't be considered reliable sources if they are lying. An intentionally unreliable scientist is not a real scientist because he is muddying the water.

There was a scientist a few years back who was producing a certain chemical he used in research and was selling this to others doing similar research. Since the stuff was hard to synthesize, he made something that was easier, but which wasn't the same stuff. A bit later, someone anylyzed the stuff and found out. Many hours and many dollars of research were lost. This kind of thing is becoming more and more common.

[theFIRMbss]

>Mathematics is not widely regarded as an experimental science, or one in which new ideas are suggested by new data

"The general idea of finding mathematical results by doing computational experiments has a distinguished, if not widely discussed, history. The method was extensively used, for example, by Carl Friedrich Gauss in the 1800s in his studies of number theory, and presumably by Srinivasa Ramanujan in the early 1900s in coming up with many algebraic identities. The Gibbs phenomenon in Fourier analysis was noticed in 1898 on a mechanical computer constructed by Albert Michelson. Solitons were rediscovered in experiments done around 1954 on an early electronic computer by Enrico Fermi and collaborators. (They had been seen in physical systems by John Scott Russell in 1834, but had not been widely investigated.) The chaos phenomenon was noted in a computer experiment by Edward Lorenz in 1962 (see page 971). Universal behavior in iterated maps (see page 921) was discovered by Mitchell Feigenbaum in 1975 by looking at examples from an electronic calculator. [!!] Many aspects of fractals were found by Benoit Mandelbrot in the 1970s using computer graphics. In the 1960s and 1970s a variety of algebraic identities were found using computer algebra, notably by William Gosper. (Starting in the mid-1970s I routinely did computer algebra experiments to find formulas in theoretical physics--though I did not mention this when presenting the formulas.) The idea that as a matter of principle there should be truths in mathematics that can only be reached by some form of inductive reasoning--like in natural science--was discussed by Kurt Gödel in the 1940s and by Gregory Chaitin in the 1970s. But it received little attention. With the release of Mathematica in 1988, mathematical experiments began to emerge as a standard element of practical mathematical pedagogy, and gradually also as an approach to be tried in at least some types of mathematical research, especially ones close to number theory. But even now, [sighs] unlike essentially all other branches of science, mainstream mathematics continues to be entirely dominated by theoretical rather than experimental methods. And even when experiments are done, their purpose is essentially always just to provide another way to look at traditional questions in traditional mathematical systems."

History of experimental mathematics, Stephen Wolfram

[rottndog]

Mankind has at least a 9000 year "history", and it begins with petroglyphs dating back to 7000 BC (or more) in Finland. There are, of course, even older paintings/drawings in caves, but we're not quite sure what those stories are about.

I believe there are petroglyphs in Australia dating back more than 75,000 years.