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To: VadeRetro
If the issue is really errors in textbooks, why does the disclaimer single out evolution?

What's with the pictures in these supposed children's science books showing at one end a monkey and at the other a man? And in the sequence one can clearly see a neanderthal, supposedly already shewn to not be related to homo sapiens. And let's not mention the pictures of "missing links" never ever unearthed. Fact or fiction?

524 posted on 12/15/2002 10:03:00 PM PST by Rightwing Conspiratr1
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To: Rightwing Conspiratr1
What's with the pictures in these supposed children's science books showing at one end a monkey and at the other a man? And in the sequence one can clearly see a neanderthal, supposedly already shewn to not be related to homo sapiens.

"Not related to homo sapiens?" If Neanderthals were still around as a separate group (but their DNA may still be around in us), they'd be our closest relatives on the planet, far, far more related than those 98-percent similar chimpanzees touted as our closest relatives now. Not related? Spouting such misinformation in Goebellian propaganda blast terms does not help your credibility. I don't want you writing materials for science class. You shouldn't be allowed near the place.

Above is a series something along the lines you're crying about. (Source.) I can feel your discomfort. This kind of presentation kills you. These are the dots creationists will not will not connect. Connecting dots, you see, is inductive logic, which is exactly what Dr. Frank and others intend to deny by stamping every microscopic interpolation or induction "only a theory."

The skull on the upper left is a modern chimpanzee. The rest are australopithecines and hominids including Neanderthals (basically your great-uncle) in chronological/sedimentary order left to right and top to bottom.

It means something to most scientists that you can make a fossil series like that for apes-to-humans or birds-to-dinosaurs or fish-to-amphibians but not birds-to-mammals (there being no bird-mammal intermediates other than basal reptiles far older than either birds or mammals). You can pretend (and I've seen every manner of silly strawman argument already) that whales and porpoises are some kind of mammal-fish intermediates. You probably will anyway but I'm trying to anticipate you here and save thread space.

My answer is that we have a clear picture from several sources (fossil record, molecular studies, comparative anatomy ...) that basal mammals came from reptiles (which came from amphibians which came from fish) and fully mammalian cetaceans later rediscovered marine adaptation. There's this tree of life, and some things obviously sprout from others on the tree and some (despite some superficial similarities) obviously do not. There's some noise and ambiguity out in the finer detailed branches but the arguments are not about whether evolution is happening at all, only about what exactly evolved from what.

And let's not mention the pictures of "missing links" never ever unearthed. Fact or fiction?

Can't tell if you're referring to fact or fiction until you make your mention more clear, but there really aren't that many links missing for people who have less problem connecting dots than does the typical creationist. You're trying to tell science that no matter how many dots they get and no matter how obvious a pattern the dots may make, science is not allowed to notice. That's the very opposite of what science actually does.

675 posted on 12/17/2002 6:24:55 AM PST by VadeRetro
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