Replies

"Macroevolution = the 'compounded interest' of the above described changes which, over an unspecified yet outrageously long amount of time,"

Tens of thousands of years is outrageously long?

"Ex: When subspecies of the species canine (type mammal)"

There is no such thing as the species *canine*.

"However, one will never get closer to breeding the dog outside of it's species into, say, a horse."

*Dog* is not a species.

"Not in a million years, no matter the what traits you try to breed out of the dog. Thus, empirically, a dog can never become a horse. Good, observable science."

Very unlikely to become a horse, but quote likely to become something different than a domestic dog.

"To say that a rat-like creature, over a matter of many million years evolved into a deer like creature with three toes, which in turn over many million years evolved into the modern horse is bad science."

No it isn't.

"Also, as eveyone knows, the gaps in the fossil record, the inaccuarcy of dating fossil to stone without using preconcieved notions of the age of the strata (i.e. archaeoteryx lived during such and such a time because we found this fossil [which we KNOW is so old] in the same strata), and the constant change of scientific ability makes the fossil record hard to use empirically, anyhow."

Absolute cod-swaddle.

"The vast amount of evidence, as it is in any court case, can be interpreted in at least two different ways."

I hope you never get onto a jury.

"So, keep on beleiving it if it makes you feel better."

I accept it because the evidence overwhelmingly points to that conclusion.

As far as the 'dog' and 'canine' thing, I could have used the scientific classification of a dog from the kingdom to the sub-species, and even used a high speed Latin trinomial name for a specific breed. I chose not to, I was in a hurry to fishing and decided that my point would be made without doing so much. However, if you would like, in order to make you feel better about reading my side, I'll go ahead and use as many scientific names as possible. On second thought, I won't, simply because I don't like anything I write being called "Absolute cod-swaddle."

Sorry.

I was using the breeding of dogs as an example and being just a bit outrageous using the horse as the end result of the breeding. Still, one could breed and breed and breed domestic dogs and the end result would still be a member of the family Canidae. Change it's environment and still a member of the family Canidae...A dog.

Now let's ask some evolutionary scientists about my 'absolute cod-swaddle.'

"The fossil record pertaining to man is still so sparsely known that those who insist on positive declarations can do nothing more than jump from one hazardous surmise to another and hope that the next dramatic discovery does not make them utter fools... Clearly, some people refuse to learn from this. As we have seen, there are numerous scientists and popularizers today who have the temerity to tell us that there is 'no doubt' how man originated. If only they had the evidence..."
· Fix, William R. (1984)
The Bone Peddlers
New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, p.150

"Moreover, within the slowly evolving series, like the famous horse series, the decisive steps are abrupt and without transition."
· Goldschmidt, Richard B. (1952)
"Evolution, As Viewed By One Geneticist"
American Scientist, Vol. 40, No. 1, pp. 84-94

The history of most fossil species include two features particularly inconsistent with gradualism:

1) Stasis - most species exhibit no directional change during their tenure on earth. They appear in the fossil record looking much the same as when they disappear; morphological change is usually limited and directionless;

2) Sudden appearance - in any local area, a species does not arise gradually by the steady transformation of its ancestors; it appears all at once and 'fully formed'.
· Gould, S.J. (1977)
"Evolution's Erratic Pace"
Natural History, vol. 86, May

The evidence CAN, in fact, be interpreted in at least two different ways. That is why we have court system that allows both a defense and prosecution.

What happens with juries is that are charged to make the best educated decision that they can according to the evidence before them. Often times, evidence is incomplete, sometimes it's not accurate, sometimes it's tainted and yet a decision must be made. Sometimes a jury is wrong.

I say the evidence is incomplete:

"The oldest human fossils are less than 4 million years old, and we do not know which branch on the copious bush of apes budded off the twig that led to our lineage. (In fact, except for the link of Asian Sivapithecus to the modern orangutan, we cannot trace any fossil ape to any living species. Paleontologists have abandoned the once popular notion that Ramapithecus might be a source of human ancestry.) Thus, sediments between 4 and 10 million years in age are potential guardians of the Holy Grail of human evolution—the period when our lineage began its separate end run to later domination, and a time for which no fossil evidence exists at all."
Gould, Stephen Jay, "Empire of the Apes,"
Natural History, vol. 96 (May 1987), pp. 20-25.

I don't trust carbon, argon, or uranium dating in an open system as there are too many variables over 10,000 years that could taint the evidence. The evidence has been wrong in the past, and proved false, (see http://www.bartleby.com/65/e-/E-Ramapith.html), and the present evidence can be misinterpreted according to preconcieved notions:

"..All of which suggests that it is easier to recognize bias in others than to admit it in oneself. It also probably means that some questions in paleoanthropology may well be impossible to answer with any degree of certainty—and human beings dislike uncertainty, especially when it concerns themselves. Combine these two truths and you get an inevitable result, as noted by Johanson: ‘Anthropologists who deal with human fossils tend to get very emotionally involved with their bones.’
Lewin, Roger, Bones of Contention (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987) pg.300

Go on believing in an interpretation of the evidence presented you, I'll continue to believe that which I find true in my life. We can both, in the end, live happy with what we believe, then both agree that Americans are over taxed.