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To: donh
Fossil finding is a sparce sampling process--we're lucky to find any examples at all of most species. In many cases, we only have one example of a thing.

And that, my friend, is where the entire theory of evolution breaks down, because you can't have it both ways. On one hand you claim that a tiny, limited sample of fossils is sufficient basis to "support" the theory of evolution, but when I or someone else uses the lack of fossil evidence as an argument against evolution, you simply claim that the sample size is too small to use as evidence!

493 posted on 06/10/2002 6:15:17 PM PDT by Alberta's Child
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To: Alberta's Child
And that, my friend, is where the entire theory of evolution breaks down, because you can't have it both ways. On one hand you claim that a tiny, limited sample of fossils is sufficient basis to "support" the theory of evolution, but when I or someone else uses the lack of fossil evidence as an argument against evolution, you simply claim that the sample size is too small to use as evidence!

That's perfectly logical. Unfortunately, evolutionists are pretty much immune to logic at this point; logic basically just bounces off them sort of like water off a duck. This thing is ultimately going to have to be settled in courtrooms and at ballot boxes. It's a pure political issue; science has nothing to do with it.

499 posted on 06/10/2002 8:57:32 PM PDT by medved
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To: Alberta's Child
So, what is your theory as to the apparent progression as evidenced in the fossils discovered so far? Does God pop in every so often and zap new, more complex species into existence? You see, this is where most creationists stutter and blubber; they are perfectly happy to try to poke holes in the only theory that accounts for the evidence, but they refuse to give a hypothesis that does a better job at explaining the evidence than the theory of evolution (creationists are a bit like anarchists in this manner -- they want to tear down the existing order, but they have nothing with which to replace it).

Once in awhile we get a hit-and-run post by a creationist that says basically, "God did it like it says in the Bible and the fossil record is the result of the Flood." These folks never stick around for the resulting barrage of posts showing the untenableness (?) of such a position. However, one must hand it to them -- they do state straight up what they believe.

On the other end of the spectrum, we have medved, bless his heart. Medved believes we are the result of a genetic experiment by the inhabitants of the mysterious 12 planet at a time when the Earth orbited Saturn. He also believes the Sun is a big ball of electricity and that gravity is an electrical phenomenon. Any really way-out-there theories on biology or cosmology might make their way into ol' Ted's theory-of-everything except that Ted hasn't updated his thoughts in at least seven years. One thing you can say about Ted, though, he puts his ideas out there for the whole world to laugh at -- a coward he ain't.

The Blues Brothers, on the other hand, make a habit of hiding their true beliefs; it took close to a year to pin Little Boy Blue down on a definition of evolution and even now he adds new clauses to the theory that can't be found in the scientific literature, then calling everyone who disagrees with him "liars" or "slime." Big Blue spends his time making cryptic remarks, parsing his opposition's wording and arguing the meaning of those words. Neither has offered a Blue's Clue as to what he believes to be the truth, probably because each knows that his ideas have as much chance of being accepted by rational human beings as that of a snowball surviving the Netherworld.

Truthfully, the evolution/creation debate has devolved from a war of ideas to being a last-ditch guerrilla rear-guard action by a fanatical creationist resistance who do not know what they are fighting for, but do know what they are fighting against.

502 posted on 06/11/2002 2:54:15 AM PDT by Junior
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To: Alberta's Child
And that, my friend, is where the entire theory of evolution breaks down, because you can't have it both ways. On one hand you claim that a tiny, limited sample of fossils is sufficient basis to "support" the theory of evolution, but when I or someone else uses the lack of fossil evidence as an argument against evolution, you simply claim that the sample size is too small to use as evidence!

A tiny, limited sample, as compared to the available sample space, (combined with inspired attempts to locate counter-examples that disprove the thesis) is all that supports ANY scientific argument in the natural sciences.

What is the size of the sample space of our galaxy and the andromdeda galazy compared to the gap in between? I'll give you a hint--it dwarfs, by several orders of magnetude, the gaps between families on the Tree of Life.

For creationism or ID to get off the ground, you need counter-examples, not missing evidence. Counter-examples are how you provide a genuine disproof. Missing information is just missing--it dis-proves nothing.

537 posted on 06/11/2002 2:40:14 PM PDT by donh
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