A bone to pick: Missing link is evolutionists' weakest

Houston Chronical via WorldNetDaily ^ | July 26 | Jeff Farmer

[Tribune7]

Printer-friendly format July 26, 2002, 6:11PM

A bone to pick: Missing link is evolutionists' weakest By JEFF FARMER

It has been said that if anyone wants to see something badly enough, they can see anything, in anything. Such was the case recently, but unlike some ghostly visage of the Madonna in a coffee stain, this was a vision of our ancestral past in the form of one recently discovered prehistoric skull, dubbed Sahelanthropus tchadensis.

Papers across the globe heralded the news with great fanfare. With words like "scientists hailed" and "startling find" sprinkled into the news coverage, who couldn't help but think evolutionists had finally found their holy grail of missing links?

For those of us with more than a passing interest in such topics as, "Where did we come from? And how did we get here?," this recent discovery and its subsequent coverage fall far short of its lofty claims. A healthy criticism is in order.

Practically before the fossil's discoverer, the French paleoanthropologist Michel Brunet, could come out of the heat of a Chadian desert, a number of his evolutionary colleagues had questioned his conclusions.

In spite of the obvious national pride, Brigitte Senut of the Natural History of Paris sees Brunet's skull as probably that of an ancient female gorilla and not the head of man's earliest ancestor. While looking at the same evidence, such as the skull's flattened face and shorter canine teeth, she draws a completely different conclusion.

Of course, one might be inclined to ask why such critiques never seem to get the same front-page coverage? It's also important to point out that throughout history, various species, such as cats, have had varying lengths of canine teeth. That does not make them any closer to evolving into another species.

A Washington Post article goes on to describe this latest fossil as having human-like traits, such as tooth enamel thicker than a chimpanzee's. This apparently indicates that it did not dine exclusively on the fruit diet common to apes. But apes don't dine exclusively on fruit; rather, their diet is supplemented with insects, birds, lizards and even the flesh of monkeys. The article attempted to further link this fossil to humans by stating that it probably walked upright. Never mind the fact that no bones were found below the head! For all we know, it could have had the body of a centaur, but that would hardly stop an overzealous scientist (or reporter) from trying to add a little meat to these skimpy bones. Could it not simply be a primate similar to today's Bonobo? For those not keeping track of their primates, Bonobos (sp. Pan paniscus) are chimpanzee-like creatures found only in the rain forests of Zaire. Their frame is slighter than that of a chimpanzee's and their face does not protrude as much. They also walked upright about 5 percent of the time. Sound familiar?

Whether it is tooth enamel, length of canines or the ability to walk upright, none of these factors makes this recent discovery any more our ancestral candidate than it does a modern-day Bonobo.

So why does every new fossil discovery seem to get crammed into some evolutionary scenario? Isn't it possible to simply find new, yet extinct, species? The answer, of course, is yes; but there is great pressure to prove evolution.

That leads us to perhaps the most troubling and perplexing aspect of this latest evolutionary hoopla. While on one hand sighting the evolutionary importance of this latest discovery, a preponderance of these articles leave the notion that somehow missing links are not all that important any more.

According to Harvard anthropologist Dan Lieberman, missing links are pretty much myths. That might be a convenient conclusion for those who have been unable to prove evolution via the fossil record. Unfortunately for them, links are absolutely essential to evolution. It is impossible for anything to evolve into another without a linear progression of these such links.

The prevailing evolutionary view of minute changes, over millions of years, is wholly inadequate for the explanation of such a critical piece of basic locomotion as the ball-and-socket joint. Until such questions can be resolved, superficial similarities between various species are not going to prove anything. No matter how bad someone wants to see it.

Farmer is a professional artist living in Houston. He can can be contacted via his Web site, www.theglobalzoo.com

[Heartlander]

Gore3000 is all right by me. In fact, I Email him from time to time.

Hey, why don’t you stick that in your placemarker… or just find a funny picture to post… better yet, get a freakin’ life man!

I don’t mean it as in insult, just constructive criticism. Do you really think that lurkers read posts from you, a supposed man who lived through WWII, and spends his day hanging out on evolution threads sticking out occasional placemarkers, pictures, attacks, etc…
They look and say, “Wow, look how we have evolved!”

If you believe this, fine, but don’t pity Gore3000.

[Tribune7]

Vade,

You have closed your mind. You are treating common descent and "macro-evolution" -- by which I do not mean speciation but the change into a new (at least ) family classification -- as an axiom. That's what I object to.

Common descent may not have happened. In fact, I can not see how it could have happened. A few weeks back I was reading about an abiogenesist who is now claiming life sprang from three seperate abiogenetically formed organisms. So much for the common-descent united front among naturalists.

As far as macro-evolution goes, I wouldn't be surprised if it -- in its broadest meaning -- wasn't a factor in Earth's biodiversity. But, here's the difference, I wouldn't be surprised if if wasn't either. As Max noted, macro-evolution has never been observed. Now the reason could be simply that it has never been observed. Or the reason could be that it can't happen.

Go back and read posts 928 and 930. They are dang near rants.

[Tribune7]

Max struck me as being an basically honest fellow and a good scientist -- although the only knowledge I have of him was from yesterday's readings. He seems to have some issues with Gish but Spetner and he had a fairly polite discussion.

[PatrickHenry]

Do you really think that lurkers read posts from you, a supposed man who lived through WWII ...

I'm confident that the creationists don't read my posts; but I don't know about the lurkers. No one knows about them. And for whatever it's worth, I haven't been through WWII. Oh, I don't hang out here all day either. I have a compouter at work, and I like to take breaks. I suppose that's true of most freepers. You like g3k? You've got him.

[general_re]

Hey, I personally liked that "Who the hell is this PatrickHenry person?" thread that someone (medved?) linked to a while back. Never knew you were a tax expert, too. Norma Jean faked her own death to go into tax law...who woulda guessed? ;)

[Tribune7]

By Noon today this thread will be turned into another butt slappin', juvinile, off-the-subject playground-like gathering of dissolusioned evolutionists.

Wow. It's like you are some kind of visionary. But will I reach my thousand posts?

[Tribune7]

I'm confident that the creationists don't read my posts.

I read your posts, Patrick. Sometimes, anyway. :-)

[Doctor Stochastic]

Once again you try to change the subject. The point is that are duplicate genes. That's what I addressed. You denied that duplicates existed.

[PatrickHenry]

Medved, having established our Saturnian origins, is now on a mission to discredit me. HERE. There's something delightfully ironic in that. I mean, medved saying that someone's weird.

[PatrickHenry]

I read your posts, Patrick. Sometimes, anyway.

That's a comfort to me. And I read yours.

[Heartlander]

I haven't been through WWII.

I usually have a pretty good memory – I thought I read a post from you when you were talking about the year you graduated High School and it implied you were alive during WWII.

If I am wrong, I apologize… Leave that part out.

[general_re]

I mean, medved saying that someone's weird.

Yeesh - you must be really "out there".

[Tribune7]

But no prize for hitting 950! Until manana.

[Michael_Michaelangelo]

I think you just might! This is good stuff. I have learned a lot the last few weeks. As long as you can sift through the BS, you can extrapolate lots of good information.

Since things seem to have lulled for the time being, let me resurrect the intent of the original post: to discuss the lack of transitional fossils and how evolutionists tend to jump to conclusions and creatively apply any significant 'find' by the paleos and archeologists as 'proof' for their theory.

Darwin wrote that in order for his theory to be true, the number of transitional links "must have been inconceivably great"(21). A century and a half later, the tons of fossils we have since unearthed have not produced even the slightest inkling of what must exist if evolution occurred on earth. When we examine the most intact and thorough portion of the fossil record, a portion that represents more than 99.99% of the entire fossil record, we do not find a single one of Darwin’s necessary links, not even one that evolutionists can agree on. None. Nada. Zippo. Creationist Dr Duane Gish summed it up very well:

“All of the complex invertebrates appear fully-formed without a trace of ancestors or transitional forms linking one to the other.... If evolution is true, the rocks should contain billions times billions of fossils of the ancestors of the complex invertebrates. Yet, not one has ever been found! Even more convincing, if that can be said, is the total absence of intermediates between invertebrates and fishes, and the total absence of ancestors and transitional forms for each major class of fishes... It is physically impossible for millions of years of evolution to take place, producing a great variety of major types of fish, without leaving a trace…The evidence from the fossil record ... has established beyond any reasonable doubt that evolution has not taken place on the earth.(22)" [emphasis in original]

The fossil data has clearly produced a nightmare scenario for the evolutionist. There is no way one can examine the fossil data and come away with the conclusion that the fossil record supports evolution. Yet this is what virtually every evolutionist continues to do. They find themselves pushed into a very tight corner by the fossils, but make their escape with a sleight-of-hand, erecting an illusion by scraping bits & pieces together from this tight corner of the fossil record and molding them to make it appear they tell the story of the entire fossil record. Once out of the corner, the evolutionist storyteller is free to spread the illusion to a mostly unsuspecting public. We should be ready to quickly expose this fallacy and tear down the illusion erected by the evolutionist storyteller. It’s time to hold the evolutionists accountable for this deception.(1)

Enjoy!

MM

(1)Fred Williams, Exposing the Evolutionist’s Sleight-of-Hand With the Fossil Record

(21)Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, Chapter 10 - On The Imperfection Of The Geological Record

(22)Duane Gish, Evolution: the Fossils STILL say NO!, 1995, p. 81

[gore3000]

Max struck me as being an basically honest fellow and a good scientist -- although the only knowledge I have of him was from yesterday's readings. He seems to have some issues with Gish but Spetner and he had a fairly polite discussion.

Yes, it was a polite discussion and surprisingly honest. My mention of his retreating into a discussion of religion was meant to show that this is a classical retreat of evolutionists and shows their true reason for adhering to it. It's a belief, an atheistic belief which they cannot give up.

[gore3000]

You denied that duplicates existed.

You really need to follow the thread before you make such statements. What I have been saying is that a new duplicated gene does not get expressed. There are many genes that appear to be duplicates but perform different functions, produce different proteins. That does not mean that these are a result of mutations.

No one has seen a new duplicate gene being expressed (meaning making proteins). The reason for this is the diagrams I posted in Post# 766 which show how much is needed, what coordination from different parts of the genome is required to produce a single protein. Clearly this involved process does not occur by 'magic', clearly it does not happen that a mutation creating a gene also creates this whole entire system at the same time. Clearly the entire organism is not apprised of the function of such a new gene if such a mutation occurs and the rest of the organism does not miraculously build a whole system at the same time to make use of it. It would be a miracle is such a thing happened at once, and evolutionists do not believe in miracles - or do they?

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Good job! You're really hanging in there.

[gore3000]

The fossil data has clearly produced a nightmare scenario for the evolutionist. There is no way one can examine the fossil data and come away with the conclusion that the fossil record supports evolution.

Of course there is plenty of reason for this. A bird is not just a reptile with wings. Such a transformation takes much more changes than just transforming the front legs to wings (an awesome task in itself since each gradual change must be beneficial enough to compensate for the loss of the hands):

In addtion to the feather and the avian lung [quite unique and made for flight because the whole system works by absorbing air in a single direction - unique amongst all vertebrates] there are many other unique features in the biology of the birds, in the design of the heart and cardiovascular system, in the gastrointestinal system and in the possession of a variety of other relatively minor adaptations such as for example, the unique sound producing organ, the syrinx, which similarly defy plausible explanation in graudalistic terms. Altogether it adds up to an enormous conceptual difficulty in envisaging how a reptile could have been gradually converted into a bird.
From: Michael Denton, Evolution a Theory in Crisis, page 213.

[PatrickHenry]

I thought I read a post from you when you were talking about the year you graduated High School and it implied you were alive during WWII.

Alive, yes. But you had said "a supposed man who lived through WWII" and I assumed you were implying that I had participated in the war. When the war ended, I had not yet participated in kindergarten.

I did not comment on your use of the word "supposed," nor do I do so now.

[gore3000]

We all answered his stinking platypus arguments over a year ago

Answering and refuting are two totally different things. When one answers the point made and gives solid evidence against it, that is refuting. When one answers and deliberately avoids the point that is no refutation. The point of the platypus is that it has traits nowadays found only in widely different species and some traits which are not found in any species at all such as the electro-receptor. To say that a couple of bones have been found which perhaps belonged to ancestors of the platypus, does not answer the point as to where such traits came from, especially since practically none of the unique traits or the platypus can be determined from bones.