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
That’s a very hateful and bigoted position to take on the Catholic Church.
LOL...only your trouble is the other people thinking about it are coming to these conclusions:
Quote of the day:
“The essence of the theory of evolution is the hypothesis that historical diversity is the consequence of natural selection acting on variations. Regardless of the verity it holds for explaining biohistory, it offers no help to the experimenter—who is concerned, for example, with the goal of finding or synthesizing a new antibiotic, or how it can disable a disease-producing organism, what dosages are required and which individuals will not tolerate it. Studying biohistory is, at best, an entertaining distraction from the goals of a working biologist.”
—Dr. Phillip S. Skell, Member, National Academy of Sciences, “The Dangers of Overselling Evolution,” Forbes 2/23/2009.
Thanks G!
Demon? You really need help. This is a discussion board, not “The Omen”. Were it, I believe that Damien would be chosen from your ranks!
What does it predict? One parameter to test?
Sheesh, for one thing, I’m reminded of a certain chemist who has observed that in order to get life to form in a lab the experiment must be tweaked, with just the right amount of light, the right mix of chemicals, it all must be tweaked and doesn’t just up and happen on it’s own all by itself without some designer of the experiment intelligently adjusting these things and you can pick just about any of these paramters you want to: light, chemicals, heat, etc.
Quote of the day:
“The essence of the theory of evolution is the hypothesis that historical diversity is the consequence of natural selection acting on variations. Regardless of the verity it holds for explaining biohistory, it offers no help to the experimenter—who is concerned, for example, with the goal of finding or synthesizing a new antibiotic, or how it can disable a disease-producing organism, what dosages are required and which individuals will not tolerate it. Studying biohistory is, at best, an entertaining distraction from the goals of a working biologist.”
—Dr. Phillip S. Skell, Member, National Academy of Sciences, “The Dangers of Overselling Evolution,” Forbes 2/23/2009.
It's not so much as me killing you as me killing your arguments. ;)
Thanks again G!
Since you were being all anal about definitions earlier, such as it were, how do you get from "antagonistic" to "personal attacks"?
And how is it that when one merely observes another's habits, defending the NEA for instance, or endlessly projecting, this is construed as a personal attack?
Yes, a quote from a chemist--not a biologist--who's long lent his name to the ID movement. He was replying to another article by a biologist--that's right, a biologist--explaining why evolution is true. So it's certainly not the case that "the other people thinking about it" are coming to your conclusion; rather, the same few people who've been pushing that conclusion for years still are.
Ahhhh yes the tried and failed “chemists can’t understand” the utter nonsense that is darwinism tactic.
Another problem you have...the list grows and they’re not ALL chemists are they?
http://www.dissentfromdarwin.org
No. There are a bunch of engineers, computer scientists, and math people. People in those disciplines seem to be disproportionately represented among the evolution deniers, I'm not sure why. I suspect it's because they're most comfortable in very predictable, very controllable settings and find the messiness of biology disturbing.
But my favorite is still the Associate Professor of Dairy Science. If you can't look to him for expertise in evolution, who can you look to?
Now that you’ve finished setting your hair on fire, maybe you can address the question I raised in post 315.
Now that you’ve finished setting your hair on fire, maybe you can address the question I raised in post 315.
Sorry for the double post. I’m working with a blackberry at the airport. Strange things happen when you combine thumbs and a tiny keyboard.
Disregard my last. (I found ‘em)
Except there was three of them. (List updated)
And that was just in the Troll list, I didn’t even bother to check the Caution list. (Oh well for my *accurate and current* lists)
Js is now corrected. Soliton originally opused but is now banned.
Science has not yet actually disproved the Bible. There are some areas where there is dispute between what men interpret of the evidence around them with the default option being that science is correct and Scripture is wrong, which is merely a preference on the evos part with absolutely no solid basis.
While allegory may put things in terms that teach truths, there’s no way that one can say that allegory IS truth. If you take the Bible as allegorical, it’s subject to anyone’s interpretation as that anyone sees fit and that just doesn’t wash.
There are absolute truths in the Bible, that are fact. There are things that can be taken literally, as when declarative statements of fact are made.
By declaring the Bible, or anything for that matter, as allegory, the person making the declaration of the type of literary style of a work, is the one casting doubt on the truth of the Bible or that source. It just comes with the territory.
The truth is; Jesus is real, His death was real. Sin, redemption, heaven, and hell, are all real.
Science and Scripture do not vary as much as the evos and atheists would like to think....
Here are some of those *myths* that the Bible teaches....
Gen 1:1 In the beginning.....
There was a beginning supported by the Big Bang Theory and Einstein’s equations and Hubble’s observations.
Gen 1:2 The earth was formless and void,...
Supported by the solar nebula theory and the proto earth.
Gen 1:20 ”Let the waters teem with swarms of living creatures,
Scientists say that life arose in the seas.
Gen 1:24 ”Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind...
Gen 2:7 Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground,
“Shaped from clay [origin of life]” http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1515522/posts
Scientists have concluded that clay was necessary for the formation of life.
Eccles 1:6 Blowing toward the south,
Then turning toward the north,
The wind continues swirling along;
And on its circular courses the wind returns.
Scripture describes the circulating system of winds.
Eccles 1:7 All the rivers flow into the sea,
Yet the sea is not full.
To the place where the rivers flow,
There they flow again.
The Bible also describes the water cycle.
Lev 17:10 - 12 `And any man from the house of Israel, or from the aliens who sojourn among them, who eats any blood, I will set My face against that person who eats blood and will cut him off from among his people.
`For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood by reason of the life that makes atonement.’
“Therefore I said to the sons of Israel, `No person among you may eat blood, nor may any alien who sojourns among you eat blood.’
Blood is necessary for life. The life is in the blood.
Isa 40:22 It is He who sits above the circle of the earth, And its inhabitants are like grasshoppers, Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain And spreads them out like a tent to dwell in.
Earth is round. Could also refer to the orbit of the earth as seen from space.
Job 9 5, 8 ”It is God who removes the mountains, they know not how, When He overturns them in His anger; 8.Who alone stretches out the heavens And tramples down the waves of the sea;
The expansion of the universe.
Col 1: 15- 17 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.
All things are being held together; gravitation, strong and weak nuclear forces, magnetism.
Trivially true? Trivial?
Somehow I don't think that if some scientific theory (like the ToE for example) couldn't be falsified, that it would be considered a trivial matter to scientists or evos.
Matter of fact, the claim that the ToE hasn't been falsified is one of the main arguing points for it by evos.
Or is a theory not being falsified only trivial when it's a theory they don't like?
RE: “That’s a very hateful and bigoted position to take on the Catholic Church.”
1. I don’t hate people because they are Catholic, I hate the system that has so many trapped. That’s not bigotry, it’s compassion.
2. The Catholic churh, in the Council of Trent, took every one of the reformers’ positions (which are biblical), and said if anyone adheres to those positions, let “them be anathema.” (Let them be damned.) Do you remember how this conversation started? I asked “Did Rome finally renounce the Trent anathemas...?” (The answer is NO, by the way.) Until the Catholic church renounces Trent, you’re either a pot callingthe kettle black or you’re defending the pot calling the kettle black.
3. If you can defend the system, I’m all ears. If you beieve I’m in error, please set the record straight, and I’ll do my best immitation of the Bereans in Acts 17:11, “They received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so.”
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