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
...Christian Bale...
and nope...in fact I think Bucky will be the only one NOT seeing the pattern emerging.
So why aren't they called "trees with fruit" in Genesis?
He who controls the past, controls your decisions and behavior in the present. That is the reason for historical revisionism.
The first time this happened:
Genesis 3:1,4
1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”
4 “You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman.
Interesting. In your response to me you said that all you wanted was students to be told there was a book in the library that talked about Incompetent Design.
Now you unabashedly say you want creationism taught in science class.
Which is it?
Well allmendream, think about it, evolution is a process, so is ID.
That is the process of understanding it won’t happen over night any more than the ga-jillions of years it’ll apparently take to understand evolution, let alone witness evolution “unfold”.
And “incomptent design” is another of your endless strawmen projections that merely re-enforces to everyone but you the grip your cult has on you.
Who says the earth is the exact center of the universe, and how would one scientifically determine the center of something with no edges?
No, almost all scientist are in agreement about what constitutes science.
Ummmm nope, you yourself go on and on about religious apologetics when I refer to the chemist, so no they don’t.
Then there’s the whole Expelled” problem you have.
Hell, they can’t even agree on what to call Pluto, is it a planet, is it not...and so on.
Then there’s the whole issue about multiverse, string and membrane theory...and science can’t be science unless it’s strictly about natural science, which would squash any kind of scientific investigation into the effectiveness of prayer...
then there’s algore’s “the debate is over” and global warming in general...what the NEA teaches as science these days...
frankly you’re flailing about again today allmendream.
You can repeat and parrot but you’re still at square one.
How curious, I've yet to see any.
Because that's the starting point of the inquiry. It's called the theory of evolution.
I ask because microevolution has proved testable;
I agree. And, according to you, accretion of microevolutionary changes halts somewhere short of macroevolutionary change. I'm just asking you to explain why (and in doing so, maybe throw in some definitions of microevolution and macroevolution).
So logically this implies that the properties and processes of known quantities (i.e., those obtained by direct observation, which is pretty much confined to microevolutionary observation and testing) cannot be extrapolated to unknown quantities (which cannot be obtained by direct observation — that is to say, macroevolution and its suppositional properties).
Since you categorically reject inductive and deductive reasoning (not to mention forensics and all forms of circumstantial evidence), I take it that you also categorically reject, for example, plate tectonics.
Since we are speaking of two distinct epistemological or categorical orders here, on what basis do you rely to defend your allegation that they have a "common mechanism" between them in the first place?
See above.
atlaw: And, according to you, accretion of microevolutionary changes halts somewhere short of macroevolutionary change. I'm just asking you to explain why
The "burden of proof" falls to those making the claim that it does.
As betty boop has pointed out, they are distinct epistemological orders.
The eminent young-earth creationist scientist Dr. Russell Humphreys for one (here, too):
The idea that earth is at or near the center of the universe out of billions of galaxies is obviously unpalatable for anyone who denies purpose and design.It was also brought up, I believe, in the thread that you and I were on yesterday. Apparently a lot of young-earth creationists believe it.
As for how someone would scientifically determine such a thing, it beats me. But I keep getting told that Dr. Humphreys is a genius ahead of his time and that other scientists ignore him because they fear that he would expose them as hucksters.
If you continue to ask questions like this, you're going to end up in the doghouse, too. :-)
"That it does" is the inquiry of evolutionary biology. That inquiry has led, by way of small example, to the more than 112,000 articles available in this free archive.
In turn, Ms. Boop has posited "that it doesn't." Some explanation beyond taking-the-fifth seems in order.
Oops. See above.
A certain person described me as a "Christian" (with the quotes) about 5,000 times last night. I assume that means that I'm heading straight to hell. I've been told a number of times on FR that I'm not a real Christian.
While some creationists will acknowledge microevolution, they still want to cram it into an earth of only a few thousand years old, despite all the evidence to the contrary.
This creates massive cognitive dissonance, because even those who accept evolution do not put macroevolution into such a short timeframe.
Their only logical escape is to say that evolution is occuring, but at a very slow pace (true) and it doesn’t really mean anything since not much has changed in the past 6000-10000 years (also true).
It’s possible to have perfectly acceptable logic using faulty premises. The logic isn’t the problem. The starting point is.
meanwhile I guess this is the ONLY theory that requires it?
Why the heck do I need to "learn up" on them? They have nothing in the world to do with biology and quite frankly, they are far from my area of expertise. I see why you're upset though; I admitted I don't know something which is quite foreign to you.
Ahhhhhhh....so some more endless goal post moving...now that the argument has been destroyed we move onto "that's not science" to "that's not biology"?
I hardly think you're being undermined.
Undermining encompasses much more than crevo debates, now and then a liberal let's their slip show when it comes to their PC disease. Just because liberals are outnumbered doesn't mean they're somehow incapable of undermining.
I do find it funny that on the one hand you admit you don't know something but you demand everyone conform to your versions of "that's not science...errrr...that's not biology" nonsense just the same.
Not because it's true, but because we wouldn't want to go around having you all offended and so forth?
Some seem to judge your Christianity on a sliding scale of how out of whack with reality your cosmological model is.
And liberals seem to think Christianity in the first place is that with which agrees with your sensibilites in scripture and you just get to reject the rest, as you see fit.
(It’s not that hard to say the Pledge of Allegiance and skip the “under god” part if that’s what one chooses to do.)
But it’s too hard for children to properly hear or read that evolution is theory, not fact, or hear about ID at all, in any way shape or form.
Jeepers could it have anything to do with endless goal-post moving, strawmen, projections and intellectually dishonest liberal tripe on these threads day in and day out we see from evolutionists?
Ya think?
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