New Evidence Found To Show Humans Came From Fish

[BilliardsBall]

If that's the case, then are you ok with humans being in the same "kind" as other members of the family Hominidae?


In my experience with creationists, "kind" usually seems to correspond to "whatever level of evolution I think you can't provide evidence for".


Let's proceed.

I think it makes COMPLETE sense to group humans in taxonomy/Linnean classification with apes. Apes are quite humanoid and human-like. Just bear in mind I can have a GREAT relationship with a dolphin or a dog, and that apes stand upright (often) and that God made a great many wonders including dogs and apes, which can emote and think on the level of four-year-old children.

It makes COMPLETE sense to group humans with apes. They are CERTAINLY in the same family. Live young, long gestation, community, social conversation, tools, intelligence, body hair.

I have a question for you. It's not an accusation or rhetorical. It's a genuine question that comes to mind at this time.

If we are 99% apes genetically and vice versa (not 97%, but 99%) and we are accumulated changes over time, and the 1% is several million genetic differences, would you expect to see two or three intermediate forms between people and apes (as in the fossil and etc. record), no intermediate forms or 1,000 intermediate forms, and why?

That is not an ANSWER, it is a QUESTION, and I genuinely seek your knowledge on this. It's a new question that popped in my mind before I was going to hit the Post Reply button. I am OPEN minded here (as open as I can be as a stuck-in-one-gear Christian).

Thanks.

 

[BilliardsBall]

Ok.


You've been presented with multiple, independent, documented examples of "small incremental changes in the fossil record". Do you understand how your response to that data is not the slightest bit compelling? I mean, it's basically on the same level as "Nuh uh".


You're not making any sense.

It's funny......when creationists are shown examples of observed evolution they reject it because "they're still bacteria/fruit flies/finches/etc." IOW, creationists argue they don't count because they don't show sufficient amounts of evolutionary change. But then when creationists are shown examples of large-scale change in the fossil record, suddenly the script flips and those examples are rejected because they don't show "small incremental change". IOW, heads you win, tails we lose.

So given that, let me ask you a question. Are you at all open to the possibility that evolutionary theory is an accurate description of the history of life on earth?

Yes, I'm open to the possibility that evolutionary theory is not just what we see now (we DO see evolution NOW) but ancient history also. Certainly there are many Christian theistic evolutionists, I was once one myself and could back again with some ease.

Yes, I've seen many examples (not just, like this week in this thread) of small changes in fossils and I find them fascinating, but not compelling. Can you think of why I might find similar organisms as skeletons not a smoking gun proving ancient history?

 

[Jose Fly]

I think it makes COMPLETE sense to group humans in taxonomy/Linnean classification with apes. Apes are quite humanoid and human-like. Just bear in mind I can have a GREAT relationship with a dolphin or a dog, and that apes stand upright (often) and that God made a great many wonders including dogs and apes, which can emote and think on the level of four-year-old children.

It makes COMPLETE sense to group humans with apes. They are CERTAINLY in the same family. Live young, long gestation, community, social conversation, tools, intelligence, body hair.

Are you OK with humans and other apes being in the same "kind"?

I have a question for you. It's not an accusation or rhetorical. It's a genuine question that comes to mind at this time.

If we are 99% apes genetically and vice versa (not 97%, but 99%) and we are accumulated changes over time, and the 1% is several million genetic differences, would you expect to see two or three intermediate forms between people and apes (as in the fossil and etc. record), no intermediate forms or 1,000 intermediate forms, and why?

That is not an ANSWER, it is a QUESTION, and I genuinely seek your knowledge on this. It's a new question that popped in my mind before I was going to hit the Post Reply button. I am OPEN minded here (as open as I can be as a stuck-in-one-gear Christian).

Thanks.

I'm not sure of the value of trying to predict the number of transitional fossils that would be in any lineage. A better way to go about it would be to predict (as Darwin did) what sort of specimens we would expect and where they should be found.

In this case, we would expect to find specimens that show a mixture of primitive traits and more modern "human-like" traits, and as we move forward in time we would expect to see a general trend towards more modern "human-like" traits. But trying to predict the number? Seems kinda meaningless to me.

 

[Jose Fly]

Yes, I'm open to the possibility that evolutionary theory is not just what we see now (we DO see evolution NOW) but ancient history also. Certainly there are many Christian theistic evolutionists, I was once one myself and could back again with some ease.

Ok, good to know.

Yes, I've seen many examples (not just, like this week in this thread) of small changes in fossils and I find them fascinating, but not compelling.

Why not?

Can you think of why I might find similar organisms as skeletons not a smoking gun proving ancient history?

With pretty much all the creationists I've interacted with over the years, it boils down to one thing.....loyalty to religious doctrine. If that's not the case with you, then I honestly have no idea why you would not see the examples that Sayak and I presented as compelling evidence of evolutionary change over time.

 

[sayak83]

You made a smiley face, so I'm unsure if you are joking. There are paternity tests for genetics on my father's side and an in-depth look at mother's genetics can be done.

It only shows that your genes have some similarity with two other humans. Does not prove you were born from them. You could have been created by God 10 minutes ago with those genes. Similarity proves nothing, right?

My point is that we have the fossilized remains of presumed species. We don't even know if fossils are the sculptures of the ancient Atlanteans.

As I said, since similarity proves nothing, I firmly believe that some aliens made you in a factory with some genetic similarities with two other persons to fool you into thinking they were your mom and dad. Prove that this was not so.

Paleontologists, however, know this. They fully realize that we find three or four bones and reconstruct a skeleton in the lab from those bones, and even make colors of skin or feathers and put these presumed creatures in museums--you know--to indoctrinate the youth.

Again false. Bones articulate with each other in very specific ways (anybody who had a fracture or a dislocated shoulder can attest to this.) making a few bones sufficiently informative to infer a lot other pieces of the skeleton. Similarly bones contain specific form to allow for muscle attachments, and hence the bones provide good evidence on the type and mass of muscles that were on them. Pigment colors for birds and some other fossils have actually been extracted. In other cases they are clearly mentioned as "artists impressions" usually put in musueums and kid-friendly exhibits since understandably children are scared of seeing skeletons or skinless only bone and muscle exhibits which are scientifically accurate.

No scientists ever uses such pictures in their scientific analysis at all.

1) They show the very mass extinctions (yes, more than one catastrophe) that the Bible indicates, and the science matches the pre- and post-Flood record well.

No it does not. Geology has firmly and decisively refuted every idea of Biblical flood based idea of history of earth. There is enormous amount of evidence to show that
a) Earth is over 4 billion years old (zircon dates in Australia and Canada)
b) Earth had stable continent and oceanic regions from 3.5 billion years
c) Plate-Tectonics was an active force from at least 3 billion years and continents moved around the globe coalescing and splitting, forming mountains and oceanic basins again and again
d) While sea levels have advanced and retreated due to presence or absence of ice, there was never any global flood. In every period from 3 billion years onwards there was always dry land and always oceans.

2) They show only fully formed species, and match the presumed lifespans well (people lived longer per the Bible, so reptiles would grow to astonishing sizes. The atmosphere was likely different, thus we have creatures flying and gliding that scientists struggle to make airborne as uniformitarians regarding the atmosphere and its composition and density).

This paragraph shows you are very ignorant of the science. Once again fully formed species is the only thing that is predicted by the science of evolution. It does not predict half-formed species, it never ever did. The evolutionary process creates features that are adaptive to the organism and helps it survive, thus features evolve while maintaining functionality for the creature in the environment it is. Every species is fully formed and adapted to its environment, always. But if a new modification makes the next generation even more efficient at survival, that feature will gain dominance. That does not mean that the earlier feature was dysfunctional, simply not as good as the newer modification.


Dinosaurs were extinct 65 million years ago and humans came onto the scene only 2 million years ago. There is no overlap between them, and all those internet pictures are photoshopped fakes like Yeti and Loch Ness.
I have also shown earlier that oxygen concentration was higher in the middle period (30%) because land animals were still not as doiminant and trees covered the globe (Carboniferous era). I have shown the evidence of the fact that
a) Oxygen was completely absent in early earth
b) It began to grow in concentration as photosynthesis in planktons evolved till it reached a point where there was enough oxygen to fuel marine animals (Cambrian)
c) Oxygen continued to increase as plants colonized and covered the globe and reached 30% by Carboniferous
d) Animals later became dominant on land as well, creating equilibrium with land plants. Hence oxygen consumption increased and level began to drop from Permian era.
e) More recently, extensive glaciation has decreased plant cover in high latitudes and has further decreased oxygen production. Hence current levels have dropped to 21%

Thus throughout the history of life oxygen concentration has varied a lot, from 0% at 4 billion years ago to 1-2% at 2 billion years ago to 10-15% at 650 million years ago to 30% at 200 million years ago to 21% now. All this can be ascertained by direct evidence of ancient rocks and completely explainable by biological and geological processes. I provided extensive links earlier, have you forgotten.

I'm not a biologist or paleontologists, but neither am I a complete ignoramus.

No, you have simply decided that you are no longer willing to learn about the things that may conflict with your faith and hence are choosing to turn a blind eye to them and believe in the false caricatures that your religious group have created to shield themselves from the truth.

 

[Sapiens]

Evolution does not refute the argument of irreducible complexity.

You have it backwards. The hypothesis of irreducible complexity was introduced by Michael Behe as an argument against evolution. His initial go at it used a mousetrap as an example:

A mousetrap consists of five interacting pieces: the base, the catch, the spring, the hammer, and the hold-down bar. All of these must be in place for the mousetrap to work, as the removal of any one piece destroys the function of the mousetrap. Likewise, Behe asserts that biological systems require multiple parts working together in order to function. Intelligent design advocates claim that natural selection could not create from scratch those systems for which science is currently unable to find a viable evolutionary pathway of successive, slight modifications, because the selectable function is only present when all parts are assembled.

In his 2008 book Only A Theory, biologist Kenneth R. Miller destroyed Behe's claim that the mousetrap is irreducibly complex. Miller observes that various subsets of the five components can be devised to form cooperative units, ones that have different functions from the mousetrap and so, in biological terms, could form functional spandrels before being adapted to the new function of catching mice. In an example taken from his high school experience, Miller recalls that one of his classmates struck upon the brilliant idea of using an old, broken mousetrap as a spitball catapult, and it worked brilliantly. It had worked perfectly as something other than a mousetrap. His friend had pulled a couple of parts --probably the hold-down bar and catch-- off the trap to make it easier to conceal and more effective as a catapult ... leaving the base, the spring, and the hammer. Not much of a mousetrap, but a helluva spitball launcher ... Miller realized why Behe's mousetrap analogy had bothered him. It was wrong. The mousetrap is not irreducibly complex after all.

Other systems identified by Miller that include mousetrap components include the following:

• use the spitball launcher as a tie clip (same three-part system with different function)
• remove the spring from the spitball launcher/tie clip to create a two-part key chain (base + hammer)
• glue the spitball launcher/tie clip to a sheet of wood to create a clipboard (launcher + glue + wood)
• remove the hold-down bar for use as a toothpick (single element system)

The point of the reduction is that - in biology - most or all of the components were already at hand, by the time it became necessary to build a mousetrap. As such, it required far fewer steps to develop a mousetrap than to design all the components from scratch.

Thus, the development of the mousetrap, said to consist of five different parts which had no function on their own, has been reduced to one step: the assembly from parts that are already present, performing other functions.

The Intelligent Design argument focuses on the functionality to catch mice. It skips over the case that many, if not all, parts are already available in their own right, at the time that the need for a mousetrap arises.
(thanks to wiki)

This is actually a strawman.

So no, it is no a strawman, but IC is a fallacy.

Irreducible complexity does not say that that simple systems cannot evolve into complex systems, it only says that simple systems and complex systems are both irreducibly complex.

Easy to say since IC has not been shown to exist in biological systems and many of the attempts to advance mechanical analogies have been falsified to boot.

Take this, an early vacuum tube computer

Today, a single mobile phone is millions and millions of times more complex, sophisticated and powerful.

But both systems are irreducibly complex. If you remove a single vacuum tube from the the above computer, or if a single component in the mobile phone chip is missing, the system will not function.

Wrong. In the case of early computers like UNIVAC a bad tube could result in an incorrect numerical answer, but would not prevent function and there are many parts of a cell phone that can be removed/broken and not prevent the cell phone functioning.

This is what meant by irreducibly complex.

... and that is why IC is foolish.

A human eye is like a more complex, sophisticated and powerful version of the first primitive eye, but both are irreducibly complex. It means that part are arranged in such a manner that every part interconnects as a system so that it can function.

No, this has been falsified many times, as has the blood clotting cascade and flagella.

You made a smiley face, so I'm unsure if you are joking. There are paternity tests for genetics on my father's side and an in-depth look at mother's genetics can be done.

My point is that we have the fossilized remains of presumed species. We don't even know if fossils are the sculptures of the ancient Atlanteans.

Of course we can tell the difference between real fossils and hoaxes, dishonest people have forced us to learn how.

Paleontologists, however, know this. They fully realize that we find three or four bones and reconstruct a skeleton in the lab from those bones, and even make colors of skin or feathers and put these presumed creatures in museums--you know--to indoctrinate the youth.

Much more than you (or any other nonspecialist) realize can be learned from just a few bone scraps.

In a court of law, showing pictures of me and dad at my current age are far less persuasive than a paternity test. I find fossils rather compelling,

Fossils are, today, rather irrelevant.

as do you, but for different reasons:

1) They show the very mass extinctions (yes, more than one catastrophe) that the Bible indicates, and the science matches the pre- and post-Flood record well.

Patently false,

2) They show only fully formed species, and match the presumed lifespans well (people lived longer per the Bible, so reptiles would grow to astonishing sizes.

Ditto.

The atmosphere was likely different, thus we have creatures flying and gliding that scientists struggle to make airborne as uniformitarians regarding the atmosphere and its composition and density).

I know of no scientist who is not aware of the changes in the Earth's atmosphere over time.

I'm not a biologist or paleontologists, but neither am I a complete ignoramus.

But you are ignorant of the facts and demonstrate that repeatedly.

I was an evolutionist when I got saved by Jesus Christ, afterward I reviewed the Bible texts, the sciences, and what people on BOTH sides had to say about BOTH. I find some things about Evolution innocuous and some rather concerning.

I am concerned that you are drawing conclusions based on clear misapprehensions of the science involved.

I think it makes COMPLETE sense to group humans in taxonomy/Linnean classification with apes. Apes are quite humanoid and human-like. Just bear in mind I can have a GREAT relationship with a dolphin or a dog, and that apes stand upright (often) and that God made a great many wonders including dogs and apes, which can emote and think on the level of four-year-old children.

It makes COMPLETE sense to group humans with apes. They are CERTAINLY in the same family. Live young, long gestation, community, social conversation, tools, intelligence, body hair.

I have a question for you. It's not an accusation or rhetorical. It's a genuine question that comes to mind at this time.

If we are 99% apes genetically and vice versa (not 97%, but 99%) and we are accumulated changes over time, and the 1% is several million genetic differences, would you expect to see two or three intermediate forms between people and apes (as in the fossil and etc. record), no intermediate forms or 1,000 intermediate forms, and why?

That is not an ANSWER, it is a QUESTION, and I genuinely seek your knowledge on this. It's a new question that popped in my mind before I was going to hit the Post Reply button. I am OPEN minded here (as open as I can be as a stuck-in-one-gear Christian).

Thanks.

Every individual primate in the chain can be viewed as an intermediate form.

Yes, I'm open to the possibility that evolutionary theory is not just what we see now (we DO see evolution NOW) but ancient history also. Certainly there are many Christian theistic evolutionists, I was once one myself and could back again with some ease.

Ken Miller (video above) who destroyed Behe's testimony concerning IC at the Dover trial is a devout Christian.

Yes, I've seen many examples (not just, like this week in this thread) of small changes in fossils and I find them fascinating, but not compelling. Can you think of why I might find similar organisms as skeletons not a smoking gun proving ancient history?

Fossils are all but irrelevant today ... they have been reduced to mere curiosities by immunological and genetic techniques.

 

[Shad]

I'm starting to believe you aren't open to proof but are arguing for the sake of argument. I hope I'm wrong.

When you say there are all these "proofs" yet can not provide one even when requested twice you comment is just bluster.

 

[BilliardsBall]

In much the same way as there are genetic tests that can show how species are related to each other and confirm the theory of evolution.

Similar genetics proves neither a Creator nor mechanistic means, in the same way that two architects might use the same beam structures to independently craft buildings.

 

[BilliardsBall]

Are you OK with humans and other apes being in the same "kind"?


I'm not sure of the value of trying to predict the number of transitional fossils that would be in any lineage. A better way to go about it would be to predict (as Darwin did) what sort of specimens we would expect and where they should be found.

In this case, we would expect to find specimens that show a mixture of primitive traits and more modern "human-like" traits, and as we move forward in time we would expect to see a general trend towards more modern "human-like" traits. But trying to predict the number? Seems kinda meaningless to me.

I'm okay with saying apes and humans are the same kind or even all mammals that bear live young.

My gedanken regarding number of fossils isn't meaningless at all. For one, taxonomy and lines of descent are based on the number and abundance of available fossils.

 

[BilliardsBall]

Ok, good to know.


Why not?


With pretty much all the creationists I've interacted with over the years, it boils down to one thing.....loyalty to religious doctrine. If that's not the case with you, then I honestly have no idea why you would not see the examples that Sayak and I presented as compelling evidence of evolutionary change over time.

Good questions. I find the fossil record is lacking explanatory power for many questions we who are scientific-minded should ponder, like the nature and extent of catastrophisms in Earth's past.

I don't think loyalty to religious doctrine is the sole issue for me. My struggle is I spent a lot of time trying to make Evolution work, not break, to explain the past, but I encounter roadblocks in the logic. After all, the hypothesis method says assume something is true, then test it. If Evolution is true, a myriad of intense questions are raised, which helps explain:

1. Why Evolution is constantly . . . evolving among scientists.

2. Why about 50% of Americans believe Evolution in Earth's distant past is untrue--despite Evolution's dominance in schools, among scientists, entertainment and culture.

 

[BilliardsBall]

It only shows that your genes have some similarity with two other humans. Does not prove you were born from them. You could have been created by God 10 minutes ago with those genes. Similarity proves nothing, right?


As I said, since similarity proves nothing, I firmly believe that some aliens made you in a factory with some genetic similarities with two other persons to fool you into thinking they were your mom and dad. Prove that this was not so.


Again false. Bones articulate with each other in very specific ways (anybody who had a fracture or a dislocated shoulder can attest to this.) making a few bones sufficiently informative to infer a lot other pieces of the skeleton. Similarly bones contain specific form to allow for muscle attachments, and hence the bones provide good evidence on the type and mass of muscles that were on them. Pigment colors for birds and some other fossils have actually been extracted. In other cases they are clearly mentioned as "artists impressions" usually put in musueums and kid-friendly exhibits since understandably children are scared of seeing skeletons or skinless only bone and muscle exhibits which are scientifically accurate.

No scientists ever uses such pictures in their scientific analysis at all.



No it does not. Geology has firmly and decisively refuted every idea of Biblical flood based idea of history of earth. There is enormous amount of evidence to show that
a) Earth is over 4 billion years old (zircon dates in Australia and Canada)
b) Earth had stable continent and oceanic regions from 3.5 billion years
c) Plate-Tectonics was an active force from at least 3 billion years and continents moved around the globe coalescing and splitting, forming mountains and oceanic basins again and again
d) While sea levels have advanced and retreated due to presence or absence of ice, there was never any global flood. In every period from 3 billion years onwards there was always dry land and always oceans.


This paragraph shows you are very ignorant of the science. Once again fully formed species is the only thing that is predicted by the science of evolution. It does not predict half-formed species, it never ever did. The evolutionary process creates features that are adaptive to the organism and helps it survive, thus features evolve while maintaining functionality for the creature in the environment it is. Every species is fully formed and adapted to its environment, always. But if a new modification makes the next generation even more efficient at survival, that feature will gain dominance. That does not mean that the earlier feature was dysfunctional, simply not as good as the newer modification.


Dinosaurs were extinct 65 million years ago and humans came onto the scene only 2 million years ago. There is no overlap between them, and all those internet pictures are photoshopped fakes like Yeti and Loch Ness.
I have also shown earlier that oxygen concentration was higher in the middle period (30%) because land animals were still not as doiminant and trees covered the globe (Carboniferous era). I have shown the evidence of the fact that
a) Oxygen was completely absent in early earth
b) It began to grow in concentration as photosynthesis in planktons evolved till it reached a point where there was enough oxygen to fuel marine animals (Cambrian)
c) Oxygen continued to increase as plants colonized and covered the globe and reached 30% by Carboniferous
d) Animals later became dominant on land as well, creating equilibrium with land plants. Hence oxygen consumption increased and level began to drop from Permian era.
e) More recently, extensive glaciation has decreased plant cover in high latitudes and has further decreased oxygen production. Hence current levels have dropped to 21%

Thus throughout the history of life oxygen concentration has varied a lot, from 0% at 4 billion years ago to 1-2% at 2 billion years ago to 10-15% at 650 million years ago to 30% at 200 million years ago to 21% now. All this can be ascertained by direct evidence of ancient rocks and completely explainable by biological and geological processes. I provided extensive links earlier, have you forgotten.


No, you have simply decided that you are no longer willing to learn about the things that may conflict with your faith and hence are choosing to turn a blind eye to them and believe in the false caricatures that your religious group have created to shield themselves from the truth.

Similarity in the case under discussion has much in common with circumstantial evidence in the courts. You and I can draw inferences but it is not forensic (pun intended) evidence.

Similarity between two skyscrapers doesn't even imply the same architect designed both structures.

Now, let's not get sidetracked to discuss wide fluctuations in the Earth's atmosphere--because geochronology would of necessity also widely fluctuates the dates we rely on to make assumptions regarding Evolution.

No, you have simply decided that you are no longer willing to learn about the things that may conflict with your faith and hence are choosing to turn a blind eye to them and believe in the false caricatures that your religious group have created to shield themselves from the truth.

I don't consider myself to be so close-minded, and I personally find much of religious doctrine repugnant, including nonsense a lot of Christians claim to believe. Why is your assumption that I am close-minded and you are open-minded different than my assumption, that we are both open-minded?

 

[BilliardsBall]

You have it backwards. The hypothesis of irreducible complexity was introduced by Michael Behe as an argument against evolution. His initial go at it used a mousetrap as an example:

A mousetrap consists of five interacting pieces: the base, the catch, the spring, the hammer, and the hold-down bar. All of these must be in place for the mousetrap to work, as the removal of any one piece destroys the function of the mousetrap. Likewise, Behe asserts that biological systems require multiple parts working together in order to function. Intelligent design advocates claim that natural selection could not create from scratch those systems for which science is currently unable to find a viable evolutionary pathway of successive, slight modifications, because the selectable function is only present when all parts are assembled.

In his 2008 book Only A Theory, biologist Kenneth R. Miller destroyed Behe's claim that the mousetrap is irreducibly complex. Miller observes that various subsets of the five components can be devised to form cooperative units, ones that have different functions from the mousetrap and so, in biological terms, could form functional spandrels before being adapted to the new function of catching mice. In an example taken from his high school experience, Miller recalls that one of his classmates struck upon the brilliant idea of using an old, broken mousetrap as a spitball catapult, and it worked brilliantly. It had worked perfectly as something other than a mousetrap. His friend had pulled a couple of parts --probably the hold-down bar and catch-- off the trap to make it easier to conceal and more effective as a catapult ... leaving the base, the spring, and the hammer. Not much of a mousetrap, but a helluva spitball launcher ... Miller realized why Behe's mousetrap analogy had bothered him. It was wrong. The mousetrap is not irreducibly complex after all.

Other systems identified by Miller that include mousetrap components include the following:

• use the spitball launcher as a tie clip (same three-part system with different function)
• remove the spring from the spitball launcher/tie clip to create a two-part key chain (base + hammer)
• glue the spitball launcher/tie clip to a sheet of wood to create a clipboard (launcher + glue + wood)
• remove the hold-down bar for use as a toothpick (single element system)

The point of the reduction is that - in biology - most or all of the components were already at hand, by the time it became necessary to build a mousetrap. As such, it required far fewer steps to develop a mousetrap than to design all the components from scratch.

Thus, the development of the mousetrap, said to consist of five different parts which had no function on their own, has been reduced to one step: the assembly from parts that are already present, performing other functions.

The Intelligent Design argument focuses on the functionality to catch mice. It skips over the case that many, if not all, parts are already available in their own right, at the time that the need for a mousetrap arises.
(thanks to wiki)
So no, it is no a strawman, but IC is a fallacy.
Easy to say since IC has not been shown to exist in biological systems and many of the attempts to advance mechanical analogies have been falsified to boot.
Wrong. In the case of early computers like UNIVAC a bad tube could result in an incorrect numerical answer, but would not prevent function and there are many parts of a cell phone that can be removed/broken and not prevent the cell phone functioning.
... and that is why IC is foolish.

No, this has been falsified many times, as has the blood clotting cascade and flagella.

Of course we can tell the difference between real fossils and hoaxes, dishonest people have forced us to learn how.
Much more than you (or any other nonspecialist) realize can be learned from just a few bone scraps.
Fossils are, today, rather irrelevant.
Patently false,
Ditto.
I know of no scientist who is not aware of the changes in the Earth's atmosphere over time.
But you are ignorant of the facts and demonstrate that repeatedly.
I am concerned that you are drawing conclusions based on clear misapprehensions of the science involved.

Every individual primate in the chain can be viewed as an intermediate form.
Ken Miller (video above) who destroyed Behe's testimony concerning IC at the Dover trial is a devout Christian.
Fossils are all but irrelevant today ... they have been reduced to mere curiosities by immunological and genetic techniques.

**

Fossils are all but irrelevant today ... they have been reduced to mere curiosities by immunological and genetic techniques.

Which immunological and genetic techniques inform us about the fossil record? Only a few fossils on Earth have DNA inside for retrieval.

 

[BilliardsBall]

When you say there are all these "proofs" yet can not provide one even when requested twice you comment is just bluster.

I'm still hoping you are open to proof.

Which proof would you like from me (to the best of my ability)?

* Proof God exists

* Proof Jesus is God

* Proof atheism breaks natural law and is illogical

* Proof the Bible is divine in origin

* Etc.

??

 

[sayak83]

Similarity in the case under discussion has much in common with circumstantial evidence in the courts. You and I can draw inferences but it is not forensic (pun intended) evidence.

Similarity between two skyscrapers doesn't even imply the same architect designed both structures.

Now, let's not get sidetracked to discuss wide fluctuations in the Earth's atmosphere--because geochronology would of necessity also widely fluctuates the dates we rely on to make assumptions regarding Evolution.



I don't consider myself to be so close-minded, and I personally find much of religious doctrine repugnant, including nonsense a lot of Christians claim to believe. Why is your assumption that I am close-minded and you are open-minded different than my assumption, that we are both open-minded?

Let us assume then we are both open minded.
What do you wish to discuss? I prefer sticking to a specific topic and coming to a definitive conclusion as to where the balance of scientific evidence lies than to idly jump from one topic to the next.
Geochronology? Plate Tectonics and geological changes? Evolutionary mechanisms? Fossil evidence for speciation? Abiogenesis? evolution in lab?

You choose.

 

[Jose Fly]

I'm okay with saying apes and humans are the same kind or even all mammals that bear live young.

So you're OK with humans sharing a common ancestry with all mammals?

My gedanken regarding number of fossils isn't meaningless at all. For one, taxonomy and lines of descent are based on the number and abundance of available fossils.

It is? I'm not a paleontologist, but I've never heard of that sort of thing. Do you have a citation?

 

[Jose Fly]

Good questions. I find the fossil record is lacking explanatory power for many questions we who are scientific-minded should ponder, like the nature and extent of catastrophisms in Earth's past.

Such as?

I don't think loyalty to religious doctrine is the sole issue for me. My struggle is I spent a lot of time trying to make Evolution work, not break, to explain the past, but I encounter roadblocks in the logic. After all, the hypothesis method says assume something is true, then test it. If Evolution is true, a myriad of intense questions are raised, which helps explain:

1. Why Evolution is constantly . . . evolving among scientists.

Are you surprised that scientists haven't figured out the entire 4+ billion year history for all life that's ever existed on earth? Did you figure that by now, they'd have figured it all out and the field of evolutionary biology would mostly be finished?

2. Why about 50% of Americans believe Evolution in Earth's distant past is untrue--despite Evolution's dominance in schools, among scientists, entertainment and culture.

If you look at the Miller et al. paper I linked to in THIS POST, you'll see that the US is an outlier on this for two main reasons......religious fundamentalism and conservative politics. A third, distant factor is post-secondary education in genetics.

It's not like the US public is looking at different data than the rest of the developed world, rather it's that we have a uniquely fundamentalist brand of Christianity that is strongly anti-science, and a mainstream political party that regularly makes evolution denial a plank in their party platform.

 

[Sapiens]

So you're OK with humans sharing a common ancestry with all mammals?


It is? I'm not a paleontologist, but I've never heard of that sort of thing. Do you have a citation?

I think he means in an ultimate sense, e.g., if an organism leaves no fossils then it does not get on the chart.

 

[BilliardsBall]

Let us assume then we are both open minded.
What do you wish to discuss? I prefer sticking to a specific topic and coming to a definitive conclusion as to where the balance of scientific evidence lies than to idly jump from one topic to the next.
Geochronology? Plate Tectonics and geological changes? Evolutionary mechanisms? Fossil evidence for speciation? Abiogenesis? evolution in lab?

You choose.

Evidence that puts in doubt uniformitarian assumptions about a very old Earth. Such evidence is available across a variety of scientific disciplines.

 

[BilliardsBall]

So you're OK with humans sharing a common ancestry with all mammals?


It is? I'm not a paleontologist, but I've never heard of that sort of thing. Do you have a citation?

I don't believe different mammals evolved from a common ancestry. I'm okay with a taxonomy system that says mammals are of a kind. This alone would prevent Evolutionary theory from saying mammals evolved from another kind of animal.

What kind of citation will state, do you think, "Scientists compare similar fossils and then draw dotted lines between them to show lines of descent"?

 

[BilliardsBall]

Such as?


Are you surprised that scientists haven't figured out the entire 4+ billion year history for all life that's ever existed on earth? Did you figure that by now, they'd have figured it all out and the field of evolutionary biology would mostly be finished?


If you look at the Miller et al. paper I linked to in THIS POST, you'll see that the US is an outlier on this for two main reasons......religious fundamentalism and conservative politics. A third, distant factor is post-secondary education in genetics.

It's not like the US public is looking at different data than the rest of the developed world, rather it's that we have a uniquely fundamentalist brand of Christianity that is strongly anti-science, and a mainstream political party that regularly makes evolution denial a plank in their party platform.

1. The fossil record has much to tell us. Scientists and Creationists have alternative explanations, for example, for the fact that 99% of extant fossils are marine life. Ss and Cs have alternative explanations for finding more advanced species at higher layers of fossil deposits, etc. I'm aware that fossils require unique situations to be formed--every dead animal I've discovered has failed to fossilize. I think catastrophism like Noah's flood and subsequent layer shifts in geology can help explain the presence of fossils, where we find them, the fossil layers and more.

2. I understand that you are speaking of a complete 4B-year record. I'm thinking more so of the fact that multiple times in my own lifetime, scientists have made adjustments to commonly held beliefs. For example, the discovery of the coelacanth turned an assumption about millions of years of time into an embarrassing canard.

3. I'm aware that the US is an outlier. I'm aware that Europe is going to Hell in a handbasket, also, which hasn't escaped my notice.