Care to tell me what each of these skulls is, without googling for the answer?
Posted on 03/04/2009 7:16:11 PM PST by GodGunsGuts
“Creationists claim there are no transitional fossils, aka missing links. Biologists and paleontologists, among others, know this claim is false,” according to a recent LiveScience article that then describes what it claims are 12 specific transitional form fossils.1 But do these examples really confirm Darwinism?
Charles Darwin raised a lack of transitional fossils as a possible objection to his own theory: “Why, if species have descended from other species by fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms?”2 Later in this chapter of his landmark book, he expressed hope that future discoveries would be made of transitional forms, or of creatures that showed some transitional structure—perhaps a half-scale/half-feather.
Although some creationists do say that “there are no transitional fossils,” it would be more accurate to state that there are no undisputed transitional forms. Although the article asserts that the fossil record “is full of them,” the reality is that it does not contain a single universally accepted transitional form. Every transitional fossil candidate has both proponents and doubters even among evolutionary “biologists and paleontologists.”
The first supposed transitional form offered in the report is Sahelanthropus. This 2001 discovery was first hailed as a transitional form in the ape-to-human line, but controversy over its transitional status immediately ensued. Brigitte Senut of the Natural History Museum in Paris was skeptical, saying that its skull features, “especially the [canine teeth],”3 were characteristic of female gorillas, not human-like gorillas. Senut and her colleagues also disputed that Sahelanthropus was even in the ancestry of humans at all: “To represent a valid clade, hominids must share unique defining features, and Sahelanthropus does not appear to have been an obligate biped [creature that walked on two feet].”4 In other words, Sahelanthropus is at best a highly disputed fossil of an extinct ape, having no clear transitional features.
LiveScience also listed a medium-neck-length fossil giraffe named Bohlinia and the “walking manatee” as transitional forms. However, Bohlinia is just variation within what is still clearly the giraffe kind and doesn’t answer the question, “Where did the giraffe kind come from?” Such variations within kinds do not refute the creation concept, but rather are predicted by it.5 And the “walking manatee” walked because it had fully formed, ready-to-walk legs, hips, nerves, and musculature. The article does not mention that this particular fossil is shown elsewhere to be a dead-end species, “transitioning” to nothing, according to evolutionists.6
The LiveScience article, borrowing from geologist Donald Prothero, also claimed that Moeritherium is “the ultimate transitional fossil,” the ancestor of elephants. This was an amphibious mammal, shaped like a hippo, with a mobile, muscular lip fused with its nostril. But it had none of the real characteristics of an elephant—not the trunk, size, tusks, nor the specialized weight-bearing knee joint structure.7
The “classic fossil of Archaeopteryx” is not a transitional form either, but was fully bird. Its “reptile-like” teeth and wing claws are found in some birds today.8 Many reptiles have no teeth, but nobody claims that they evolved from birds. And the discovery of a “frog-amander” has yet to be agreed upon as transitional by evolutionists. John Bolt, a curator at the Field Museum in Chicago, told National Geographic that “it is difficult to say for sure whether this creature was itself a common ancestor of the two modern groups, given that there is only one known specimen of Gerobatrachus, and an incomplete one at that.”9
Other extinct creatures had “shared features,” physical structures that are found in different kinds of living organisms. However, “shared features” are not transitional features, which is what Darwin needed. There is no scientific evidence to refute the idea that shared features were designed into creatures by a Creator who wisely formed them with the equipment to live in various shared habitats.
Fossils do reveal some truth about Darwin’s theory—they reveal that the same inconsistencies he noted between his theory and the fossil data persist, even after 150 years of frantic searches for elusive transitions.10 Not only is there no single, undisputed transition, but real fossils reveal that animals were fully formed from the beginning.
References
Exposing liberalism is healthy, for all.
Dejau-vu.
Care to tell me what each of these skulls is, without googling for the answer?
Dozens of crevo threads that ended in bitter flame wars.
What does it matter. The Evos keep putting forward transitionals and then taking them back. To be quite frank, so-called human evolution is a subjective mess, as many Evos admit.
You are looking at it backwards. The antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria were already there with the other strains, when those other strains are killed off by the antibiotic, the resistant strains become visible.
Taken in the context of post it references, does that mean you disagree with the personal attacks?
God can't lie and God can't change. Of course there's things God is not capable of doing.
That whole argument is a logical fallacy started by atheists in an attempt to try to disprove God. It makes them feel good to think they pulled a fast one over on Christians.
You really need to get a grip on your thinking if you've fallen for that one.
You don't see a steady, gradual increase in brain size and a steady, gradual decrease in brow ridge in those skulls?
What’s your problem with talking serpents? (not snakes BTW-get your story straight)
God is an awesome God who cares for each one of us personally, down to the tiniest details of your life. If you care about something, he cares about it.Please Freepmail me if you want to talk privately.
With of course the exception of science class, because consistently, we’ve seen in these argumnents “God has no place in science class”.
Another memo you apparently didn’t get DM.
That's one scenario, but there are other scenarios as well. Note that the first penicillin-resistant bacteria was not observed until four years after the mass production of penicillin began. If penicillin-resistant microbes have always been present, they would have been found much earlier.
I’d like to see these “personal attacks”.
I take every person, and every reply, on a case by case basis. I was merely giving you an example of the type of person I try to avoid and (if they become a nuisance) EXPOSE.
Like I said, it doesn’t matter what those sculls look like to the untrained eye. Human evolution is a subjective mess, even the Evos admit it.
Liberals tickle me when they think they’re actually fooling someone on FR of all places.
Actually, they fool themselves an awful lot, fool themselves into thinking it’s the conservative position to silence Christians, the Christian position to silence Christians, the conservative position to defend the indefensable NEA, etc.
Same difference.
I'm sure snakes had the lung capacity to perform human speech.
Really.
You've said my arguments are irrelvant, and that your responses are simply because it's me. Isn't that the essence of a personal attack?
That's only an intellectually dishonest representation of creationists put forth by evos and atheists in a rather blatant attempt to discredit creationists or Christians.
In this case, the person came after me.
tpanther: With of course the exception of science class, because consistently, we’ve seen in these argumnents “God has no place in science class”.
Another memo you apparently didn’t get DM.
I'm witnessing God's glory and the saving power of Jesus Christ to a non-believer and you choose at as an opportunity to insult me? Your insult might make the difference in that person's eternal salvation. Are personal attacks worth a person's soul to you?
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