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To: narby

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Well, at least you get the point, even if you think the entire set of evolutionary fossil evidence consists of three specimens.

You really think many people are going to believe that?
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The point is that the fossil record does not demonstrate the granularity your analogy calls for. To use some physics terminology, the quanta represented in the fossil record is too large to support the speciation declared by evoultion.

Evolution is currently divided into two camps: gradual change and punctuated equilibrium. The fossil record does not support gradual change; the fossils are too discrete. This is why punctuated equilibrium was proposed in the first place. However, punctuated equilibrium has even more serious problems (a satisfactory mechanism to accomplish it).

There are other problems as well. The effects of genetic drag from negative mutations predict that evolution of the current biosphere would take 40 to 400 billion years.

If evolution is a constant gradual process, we should be able to observe various speciations occurring by taking a statistical sampling of the current biosphere.

Irreducibly complex systems cannot be explained by gradual minute changes in an organism, and several biological systems for which we have developed a very good understanding (human blood clotting for example) appear to be irreducibly complex.

Evolution cannot explain the origins of life and therefore is, at best, an incomplete theory.

I'm not a creationist in the sense that is normally attacked on these threads, but I am extremely discouraged by the evolutionary community refusing to even acknowledge that these obvious problems with the theory exist. That's an indication of a dogma at work, not a science.


146 posted on 12/13/2004 7:29:33 PM PST by frgoff
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To: frgoff
The point is that the fossil record does not demonstrate the granularity your analogy calls for.

Your opinion. Many others disagree. For a fact it is always easy to say "there isn't enough evidence" and refuse to be satisfied.

The images of the running horse that show that it was moving have an infinite amount of evidence missing. Take two adjacent frames and demand we acquire the missing frame in the middle, then demand the two missing frames between those three, etc. etc. forever.

You will never be satisfied.

I don't know enough details about the various sub-theories regarding evolution. Punctuated equilibrium, etc. But I have hiked the Grand Canyon and was amazed at the hundreds of feet of nearly identical rock that suddenly changed character completly, signalling a significant change in climatic conditions. The idea that such major changes would open huge holes in eco-systems allowing new niches for species is rather obvious.

Science isn't perfect, and new ideas about evolution are entertained every day. But rolling into school boards and demanding they teach about a supernatural being is just outside bounds of the realistic.

But you do have a point about believing that irreducably complex systems could just come into being on their own. How you plan on explaining where such an irreducably complex being such as God came into existence is beyond me.

155 posted on 12/13/2004 8:04:16 PM PST by narby
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