I laugh at anyone who believes in cross species evolution.
Punctuated evolution is a recent construct to explain the lack of transitional forms in the fossil record. ID has been around since the beginning of record keeping. 
Posted on 03/14/2006 1:37:33 PM PST by joyspring777
Of the three intellectual pillars of modern liberalism -- Marx, Darwin, and Freud -- only one is still standing. Marx fell in 1989, along with the Berlin Wall. Freud's demise is more difficult to date; suffice it to say that, by the end of the century, no one, with the possible exception of Woody Allen, took him seriously any more. Darwin, I predict, will suffer a similar fate within the next ten to fifteen years.
That may seem counterintuitive in light of recent legal and public-relations setbacks suffered by critics of Darwinism -- notably a federal judge's decision forbidding the teaching of "Intelligent Design" (a term for one aspect of the anti-Darwin critique) in Dover, Pa., public schools. But it is a sign of weakness, not strength, when one side in an ostensibly scientific debate resorts to silencing the other. If the case for Darwin is such a slam-dunk, why not welcome the chance for its opponents to make fools of themselves?
No, Darwinists are running scared. Even their attempts to declare victory on scientific grounds betray more than a whiff of desperation. Case in point: the year-end edition of the journal Science hailing "evolution in action" as its "Breakthrough of the Year." Among the "dramatic discoveries" said by the magazine to make 2005 "a banner year for uncovering the intricacies of how evolution actually proceeds," none in itself demonstrates whether evolution proceeds, and they only shed light on how if you first assume that it does.
Here, for instance, is Science editor Donald Kennedy describing "one of my favorites" in this evidentiary explosion: "the European blackcap, a species of warbler that spends the winter in two separate places but then reunites to breed, with birds selecting mates from those who shared the same wintering ground. Assortative mating of this kind can produce a gradual differentiation of the two populations. Biologists have shown that new species can arise because of geographic barriers that separate subpopulations, but the divergent evolution shown in this case could result in new species arising within a single range."
If it seems that the bare facts adduced here don't quite amount to a clear instance of "evolution in action," that's because they don't. At best, they demonstrate what's known as "microevolution" -- modification within a species -- which no anti-Darwinist disputes. What is disputed is "macroevolution," the change of one species into another, which is the central claim of Darwinism. If macroevolution occurs, the "assortative mating" of the European blackcap might help to explain how it works, but it does nothing to prove that it does occur.
The fact is,nothing proves that macroevolution occurs, or ever has occurred. And, at a certain point, the absence of proof, especially where it ought to be abundant, constitutes, if not positive disproof, at least strong reasons for doubt. According to Darwin's theory of descent through gradual modification (by way of random mutation and natural selection), the fossil record should contain near-infinite numbers of ever-so-slightly-different "transitional" forms, and even greater numbers of evolutionary dead ends. Despite the best efforts of archaeologists, not even a hint of that has materialized in the fossil record. Instead, what we should not expect to find, according to Darwin's theory, is what we do find: the sudden appearance of innumerable distinct species, as we have in the so-called Cambrian Explosion.
Needless to say, a debate like this can't be settled in the space of a column. Neither, however, can it be settled by shutting out the other side. Darwinists, of course, would have us believe that there is no other side, only a bunch of anti-science religious fanatics who don't deserve to be heard. That approach can succeed, but not for long. As I say, I give them fifteen years, tops.
Oh wait, you mean something like this, eh?
I guess it's damned if you do, damned if you don't.
I laugh at anyone who believes in cross species evolution.
Punctuated evolution is a recent construct to explain the lack of transitional forms in the fossil record. ID has been around since the beginning of record keeping.
There are plenty of transitional forms in the fossil record, the ignorant rantings of the AIG crowd notwithstanding.
As a Catholic, I know that God created the universe from nothing, and that Original Sin was contracted from our first parents. Other than that, the origin of life remains a wide-open question. The scientific evidence is extremely ambiguous, as far as I can tell.
They routinely do so for faith that they will get 72 virgins. Thus, by joyspring logic, it is true that 72 virgins await each martyr for the faith.
You are the person vouching for the logic of Kent Hovind, if I recall.
The "literal" interpretation of Genesis that you endorse is rife with personal assumptions grafted on to a very brief and very vague outline. In short, you are filling in the yawning gaps of Genesis with non-Biblically based speculation, and then claiming that this speculation constitutes a "literal" reading.
Poking holes in any idea is easy. Note how smart lawyers convinced a jury to acquit OJ. Books like "Darwin in Trial" are transparently money making devices. You can find such books on any subject. The JFK assassination, the Bermuda triangle, many such issues where the public has some knowledge and interest, but not enough time to really study a subject in depth, giving profiteers a market.
But as I've said earlier, poking holes in evolution is irrelevant, unless there is another scientific explanation with evidence in hand. But there isn't.
Creationism may be an "answer" for some plurality of the human race. But that doesn't work for people of other faiths. Science operates outside of any faith, and evolution is it's conclusion based on the evidence in hand.
You force us to resort to the obvious.
The Theory of Evolution is like attributing the production of a sandcastle to the ocean because you observed the water creating the mote. Saying that the evidence only leads to the conclusion of Darwinian Evolution is like explaining the creation of a sandcastle by limiting oneself to natural phenomenon.
Two men become stranded on a remote island. As they explore the island they come upon a sandcastle with towers, buttresses and a drawbridge. The design of the castle is amazingly intricate.
One man comments, "It is amazing what time and the ocean can create. As you can see these small rocks and seashells on the shore must have got caught in eddies and swirled around and chiseled out that castle. There were a few palm leaves floating by that scribed out the little lines that look like bricks. We are alone here and there is no need to consider anything else.
The other man looked at him incredulously and said, "No, obviously that castle was created by another intelligent being with a clear intent of design, we are not alone. The engineering required to create the castle is far to sophisticated to have originated by purely natural means."
"Even though you have theorized that the available mechanisms could have contributed to some of the sandcastles features, when one views the integration required to create the complexity of the features, natural mechanisms fall short. Knowing what it takes to engineer features with the levels of integration evident in the sandcastles design, leads intelligent people who attempt such designs to admire the creator's success."
And life is many levels of complexity beyond a sandcastle. Self-correcting, self-healing, -- multiple inter-working systems like respiration, circulatory, musculature, waste management, fuel storage and retrieval, a veritable chemistry lab for dealing with unlocking energy from food, management of enzymes for unlocking the cell walls to allow passage of energy for use by the factories we call cells -- growth and the limits which keep replacement of dieing tissue from destroying the life form...
An attempt at denying God is making fools of our scientists. Science is entertaining and occasionally helpful, whereas the supernatural resurrection of Jesus Christ is documented fact that has changed the coarse of mankind for the better. Ask the Founding Fathers.
Mankind is coarse.
Yes, "belief" is the word. No intelligent person, one not convinced one way or the other, would be convinced by examination of the evidence only.
No, "branches" are not well documented. Otherwise there would be no controversy, especially among scientists, and there is plenty.
Those who make evolution their life's work have a vested interest that evolution (trans-species) be true.
There are any number of instances of people who have convinced large numbers of followers that they were some kind of deity. If you are Christian, you can point to Mohammed, and if you are Islamic, you can point to Jesus. Both were historical figures, although there may be more independent corroboration for Mohammad than Jesus. The fact that large religions grew up based on Jesus and Mohammad is an indication that it doesn't take a real "god" to generate such religions.
About Jesus' death and resurrection. You might look into the Zombification that's been practiced in Haiti for centuries based on a toxin from the puffer fish. The puffer is also found in the Red Sea. Jesus hung out around fishermen, and we don't have any idea what skills he learned between age 12 and 33.
It's a stretch to think that he could have used this toxin to perform his resurection miracles on others, and then on himself. But it's not out of the question either. You will note that he was taken from the cross earlier than the two thieves, after being pierced with a spear and having no reaction. That is exactly the symptom of puffer fish Tetrodotoxin poisoning. Removing him from the cross early kept him from dying of those effects.
This is all speculation. And it's way off the subject of evolution. But the bottom line is there really is no bullet proof evidence that anything in the Bible is true. And noting the growth in beliefs of any number of other mutually exclusive religions, common sense says that Christianity is just another one of those.
This discussion about whether God is real and the Bible is true is always where discussions of evolution lead. Except with Catholics who have followed the lead of the Vatican and separated their faith from any possible conflict with science. That is the intelligent policy, and someday perhaps American fundamentalist Christians will follow it.
Sorry, please try again. Heard that one before. And to show that I'm a nice guy, I'll give you the obvious retort.
1) Your nice little story is about abiogensis, not evolution. Evolution does not care how the first lifeforms came to be.
2) Sand castles do not self-replicate.
A fact is something that has actually existance, something that can be observed. The archeoptorix may have been a unique species, it may have be a one of a kind hybrid, it may actually be a lizard and a bird fossilized at the same place.
However, until you can reproduce lizards turning into birds or any other creature, you don't have facts to support the TOE.
If you followed that standard uniformly, you would have to throw out nearly all of science. No one has ever seen an atom, much less the protons, neutrons and electrons that supposedly make up atoms, or the quarks which allegedly make up those particles. No one has seen continents slide across the ocean floor and bang into each other.
I could go on, but the point should be obvious. Science-- all science-- does more than observe what can be observed in a lab. It draws inferences from those observations, formulates hypotheses, makes predictions, and tests if those predictions come true. If they do, we have a high degree of confidence in our theories.
We cannot absolutely prove anything in science. After all, maybe we are all strapped into chairs in the Matrix and the entire observed universe is a hallucination. But we can make very reasonable assumptions about the universe, which we hold with a high degree of certainty. We all do. You turn on the electric light in the morning without wondering whether the polarity of electrons has changed from negative to positive overnight.
People who object to the Theory of Evolution-- one of the best-supported of all scientific theories-- demand of it a degree of certainty they demand of no other branch of science (or, indeed, of any branch of human knowledge).
It is understandable why you do so. It threatens certain religious beliefs. Some of the popularizers of science (Dawkins is a particularly bad example), and some of my fellow FR evos, make this worse by trumpeting how Darwin supports their atheism. But there are many of us who accept the overwhelming evidence of the common descent of all life on earth, and do not lose our faith that evolution is a part of God's creation just as gravity and relativity are. Evolution is how God created us in His image.
Let me start with a little prediction of what's going to happen from here. The standard template for the "no transitional fossils" dialogue.
To work then:
Ichneumon's "fish-to-elephant-in-50-steps-of-microevolution" post.
That in turn is distilled from Kathleen Hunt's Vertebrate Transitional Fossils FAQ.
A post I made once: What lack of transitionals? A few links have gone broken but I doubt you'll get far enough to find them.
Smooth Change in the Fossil Record.
Also, I hope your reply reply will not follow the frequently repeated tactic of (Ahem!) misstating what Darwin said concerning what is truly to be expected from the fossil record. The works of Darwin are available on the web and are frequently cited in these discussions.
BTW, your screenie looks familiar. Have you forgotten some previous instance of being corrected on the matter of transitional fossils? That's always so dissappointing.
Whether creationism or evolutionism is ontologically true, it does not follow that correct classification will be epistemologically easy. http://www.palaeos.com/Systematics/Cladistics/cladistics.htm
For example, can you classify these and date them?
Cordially,
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