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To: Junior

Please!

This is hogwash.

'Gaps of 20,000 to 80,000 years' with no resultant fossil record?

What did they do? Turn to dust.

Even the species sited are not consistant in the 'theoretical evolutionary cyle'.

The socalled 'proof' is nothing more than a hyposthesis of what they 'think' has happened between specie manisfestations and they even admit that:

"Species-to-species transitions are even harder to document. To demonstrate anything about how a species arose, whether it arose gradually or suddenly, you need exceptionally complete strata, with many dead animals buried under constant, rapid sedimentation. This is rare for terrestrial animals."

And even the ones discovered can not be considered 'conclusive' based on the 'gaps' in the fossil records.


31 posted on 01/18/2005 10:20:43 AM PST by Bigh4u2
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To: Bigh4u2
Here's a simple thought experiment showing that the fossil record MUST be massively incomplete, simply because there can't possibly be enough rock to contain a complete fossil record, even for a relatively short portion of earth history. (There's a severe limit to how deep fossil bearing strata can be because lower strata would metamorphose or melt destroying the fossils they contain). This is from a series of critiques -- "An Evolutionist Goes to the Creationist Movies" -- that a zoologist named Frank J. Sonleitner did of a creationist film series called "Origins" back in the mid 80's. I don't know if it's available on line, I just had it on an old floppy. This is from his text file on movie 6, The Fossil Record:
Millions of transitional forms
     If the evolution view is correct then millions of
transitional forms once existed for each lineage, but should
we expect to find them in the fossil record as Dr. Gish and
Gary Parker claim?  Consider the evolution of the modern
horse from eohippus, which is thought to have taken about 60
million years.  If we assume a generation time of 3 years,
that's 20 million generations.  Let us further assume that
it takes 1 foot of sediment to bury a horse (probably not
enough for the larger more recent horses, but more than
enough for the dog-sized early ancestors, so 1 foot is a
reasonable average).  For a really complete series of
transitional forms, we would require at least 1 specimen
from each generation.  But, if every three years, a river
flood buries one horse or horse ancestor under 1 foot of
sediment, that's 20 million feet of sediment!  Which
translates into 3,788 miles of sediments, a figure almost
equal to the radius of the earth!  Even if erosion and
mountain building went on at such a rapid pace, we would
rapidly exhaust the supply of rock; and we've only
considered the Tertiary Period!
     One could endlessly modify the above simpleminded
assumptions to make the calculations more realistic and
perhaps reduce somewhat the amount of sediments required,
but the fundamental point remains.  To bury and fossilize
millions of different transitional forms (from millions of
different time horizons) requires millions of feet of
sediments.  The total thickness of the Tertiary sediments in
western North America that contain the fossil equids is a
bit under 10,000 feet.  Coincidently, G. G. Simpson reports
that there are about 10,000 or more equid fossils, but most
are fragments, especially teeth; there are less than 100
complete skeletons.  And these are not from equidistant time
horizons, nor from the entire spacial range of the horses in
North America, South America and Eurasia.  For example there
are no Eocene deposits from the Great Plains area, and those
from the other periods present a much smaller total
thickness (about 2000 feet.)  Yet, as fossil records go,
this is an amazingly good one and Simpson considers that
these specimens provide a sufficiently complete record with
only one or two small gaps.
     Similar arguments would apply to any other lineage and
geological time period.  There's no way we could expect
anywhere near a complete fossil record of any lineage.  At
best it can only be fragmentary.  Although many millions of
transitional forms existed, we cannot expect any but a tiny
fraction to have been preserved.  Contrary to Dr. Gish's
assertion, many in that tiny fraction have been found and
are documented in the paleontological literature.  (See
references listed under movie 4).

90 posted on 01/18/2005 11:09:51 AM PST by Stultis
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To: Bigh4u2

Ah, quote mining. The last refuge of those without real arguments.


103 posted on 01/18/2005 11:18:49 AM PST by Junior (FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC)
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