Posted on 06/17/2007 6:54:37 PM PDT by Rodney King
Did Protoceratops just wake up one day and become a Diarthrognathus? Did Protoceratops develop in tiny thousands of stages until one day he became Diarthrognathus? Did two Protoceratops conceive a Diarthrognathus, and if so, how was another Diarthrognathus able to find an opposite sex mate to breed with?
I think evolution is a totally plausible theory, but I don't see its reflection in the fossil record. These are the kinds of questions that those of us with non-religious problems with evolution have.
Okay... So Archaeopteryx is a bird with teeth. Where are all the transitional fossils between dinosaurs and Archaeopteryx? There should be countless fossils with incremental changes, yet there are none.
The list he gave isn't a progression from the start to the finish. It's a list of individual transitional (allegedly) fossils not necessarily directly related to each other.
Point taken, made a mistake. I thought he was building a progression, but you stated my point my more clearly then I did.
Well, if it isn't the old "show me a transitional and I'll show you two new gaps" trick. Have you already used the "if you don't know everything, you don't know anything" ploy? How about the "hurricane in a junk yard" gambit?
Can you point to fossils of every intermediate between wolf and teacup poodle? This is a transition that has occurred within the time of written human history.
Is there a point at which a wolf gives birth to a teacup poodle, or does the transition take hundreds or thousands of generations? Is there a point at which individuals in transition cannot find a mate?
The physical differences between wolves and poodles is greater than nearly any "gap" in the fossil record. The reason we call some populations species and some varieties has less to do with absolute criteria than it does with assumptions about reproductive isolation.
Reproductive isolation can occur for any of a number of reasons, many of which have nothing to do with the physical ability of individuals to mate and have healthy offspring. Isolation can occur because of geological changes, climate changes, transportation by wind or water to new locations, and so forth. Once two populations, for whatever reason, no longer interbreed, they will diverge, eventually to the point where they can no longer mate successfully.
I see your point and understand it. But you can point at a man and an elephant and say "See, they both have legs, eyes and hair - they must be related." Give me something more than a single transitional fossil between two other species. I want to see a linear progression from one to the other. With the current fossil collection containing hundreds of millions of specimens, this must be possible, right?
No doubt about it — stiuck in the mud evolutionists are feeling the critical eye of all those who question them.
I see them scurrying about trying so hard to prove that God’s creations appeared out of nowhere.
It would be tragic if it weren’t so silly.
And there are apparently sane people who believe Worlt Net Daily is credible.
(Boggle)
We'd have to be extraordinarily lucky to get what you want. The fossil record is inherently spotty. Fossils are preserved only in special circunstances. They may exist but be inaccessible or existed but were destroyed by geological processes.
All of which is why I consider the fossil record weak evidence for specific claims. But it is strong evidence for some general claims. For example that life on Earth is billions of years old and that the kind of living organisms has varied dramatically over the years.
It is fortunate the fossil record isn't the only evidence supporting the theory of evolution.
Evolution never addresses how life got here...all it does is address life once it began...evolution is one subject, abiogenesis is a different subject completely...
self-ping to this gibberish for later
Aren't they the same species of animal, with physical differences that akin to the physical differences between me and Tiger Woods? Tiger looks different than I do, but he is the same species and his appearance is the result of mixed race parents, not evolution.
The wolf is not evolving into a poodle in a sense that Dawinian evolution has a lower species of ape evolving into a homo-sapien.
So for instance, if Tiger stayed on Earth and I traveled to a far away moon and started a new society, would our DNA change to the point where if a descendant of mine came back to Earth 1,000,000 years later, he would not be able to mate with an descendant of his?
Personally, I don't believe that. I believe we were created. That being said, I also don't believe that T-rex's were alive at the same time as humans.
#1 is an issue of faith. Were we created, or did we just appear out of nothing?
#2 is an issue of whether or not you let faith get in the way of logic, reason, and the higher level intelligence functions that God gave us.
abiogenesis is a different subject completely
But even more guilty of bunksterism. I think I sense more Alchemy lurking aobut...
Does variety mean the same thing as subspecies?
Cite something to back up the allegory charge.
No way, I couldn't possibly be wrong, I never lie!
Excuse me - curiously, I think my zipper is down.
Believe as you wish, if it makes you happy...you are wrong, of course, but it is your right to believe anything you wish, no matter how wrong it may be...
Archaeopteryx has more features of dinos than of birds.
For us to show that the ToE is correct all we need is one transitional.
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