Re: Gaps in the Fossil Record

[The Neo Nerd]

The gaps in the fossil record are used by many creationists to disprove the ToE.

I wish to address this.

There are three things required for a fossil to fill these gaps.

A. The particular animal.
B. A burial event.
C. The fossil to be found.

Now let's look at the burial event. If no burial event happens then no fossil will form. An animal dying and its bones left to rot on the ground will not create fossils.

Now to the finding of the fossil. There has only been a miniscule amount of the earths surface excavated for fossils. Not to mention the layers of rock underneath that haven't been excavated.

So without the right burial conditions and the right parts of the planet being excavated there will be no fossils of that particular animal.

One other point on the fossil record. You can't say if we haven't seen the fossil the animal didn't exist without the same being applied to your deities.

Questions? Thoughts?

-q

 

[Amill]

I haven't even seen a creationist try to explain where the gaps are, they seem to think they're everywhere yet can they really point to many voids since the Cambrian "explosion"? We have quite a lot of fossils, even on the ancestral path towards our species.

 

[Morse]

The gaps in the fossil record are used by many creationists to disprove the ToE.

I wish to address this.

There are three things required for a fossil to fill these gaps.

A. The particular animal.
B. A burial event.
C. The fossil to be found.

Now let's look at the burial event. If no burial event happens then no fossil will form. An animal dying and its bones left to rot on the ground will not create fossils.

Now to the finding of the fossil. There has only been a miniscule amount of the earths surface excavated for fossils. Not to mention the layers of rock underneath that haven't been excavated.

So without the right burial conditions and the right parts of the planet being excavated there will be no fossils of that particular animal.

One other point on the fossil record. You can't say if we haven't seen the fossil the animal didn't exist without the same being applied to your deities.

Questions? Thoughts?

-q

Oh wow, I saw a youtube video on this somewhere, if it wasn't so late I'd look it up.

In addition to what you have to say about the Burial Event, it also has to happen relatively soon after the death of the animal. Assuming the animal is left undisturbed by scavengers and predators (which it won't, so we can assume that some bones will be lost due to these) then environmental conditions (such as salt water) can erode bones quickly, if I am correct. I'd say anything over 100 years would prove to be too much degradation for a fossil to form.

Oh, and it cannot be unburied during the process. Burial must be permanent (until fossilization).

Of course, there are different types of fossilization that can occur under different circumstances, for example, its still possible to get a (probably blurred) mold even if the skeletal structure is very incomplete.

 

[Malleus_de_Philosophia]

This is one of the sources of the gaps in TOE, both for creationists to use and one that is scientifically relevant. One concern is that suppose the animal is buried and is fossilized and is then found. Some of the bones may be too damaged to figure out what they are and much of the anatomy (i.e. organs) aren't often preserved so what is extracted tends to be relatively little. Often fossils are found that after analysis are intermediate fossils illustrating how one character or species has changed to another. Given the evidence we have, we can provide theoretical explanations although getting the physical evidence is hard, as we have to see if the physical evidence adheres to the theoretical explanation, and if not, then we have to formulate alternative theoretical explanations.

One other concern is that for certain animals, such as some aquatic ones, they don't have bones but rather cartilage, which can be damaged easier. Take for example Meckel's cartilage, which is the carilaginous lower jaw of vertebrates. In humans this is lost and becomes the quadrate, maxillary, etc... .

Furthermore, when the evidence is found, we cannot always get the entire skeleton and so we may figure out that the bone is of something unknown but because of the scarcity, we don't know what animal it belongs to. After the entire skeleton is found, we have to figure out where it goes on the taxonomic classification. Some organisms undergo changes, such as turtles going from diapsid temporal fenestration to anapsid temporal fenestration. It looks noticably different yet is of the same organism.

The harder issues come with determining the physiology and anatomy of softer tissues and organs. Unless we catch a lucky break and they're nicely preserved, we have to try to figure out what they would be like by comparing the animal to other known animals, the ecology of the animals, etc... . For example, for the kidneys, the intermediate tubules will be much longer in terrestrial organisms than aquatic organisms. None of this is nicely preserved so it has to be figured out.

I don't think many creationists who point to the fact that many intermediate species and such haven't been found don't understand nor appreciate the difficulty and all the processes that occur for this to happen. It's useful to excavate new fossils but it's meaningless if we don't analyze it, and the analysis can be just as if not harder than finding the fossils. We may not know where to look for fossils of unknown, intermediate species and so it's more of randomized diggings, then hoping enough bones and details are excavated. For example, when the theories of birds evolving from pterodactyls was shot down and replaced with them evolving from theropods (or thermopods, however it's spelled), initially there wasn't substantial evidence until we were lucky and caught a break where the dinosaur was preserved in enough detail to show pretty much all the skeletal anatomy AND some of the feathers. But that's only one piece of the puzzle. The rest is theorizing how the excavated evidence can evolve from one species or trait to another, or for birds vs. theropods, what was the purposes of having feathers then and now? These questions have been answered but at the time, they weren't.

So when this big issue is pointed out, I don't think that the creationists understand that what they're criticizing isn't one simple process, it's many difficult processes that sometimes rely on luck in finding the properly preserved species. It's not as simple as grabbing two chemicals, mixing them and seeing an immediate reaction. Numerous intermediate fossils have been excavated so although we can somewhat map out the evolution both theoretically and practically, there still is much to be determined.

Just to show a recent example, Ardipithecus ramidus was recently found sometime around October 2009 and is the oldest human ancestor known to date. Oldest Skeleton of Human Ancestor Found

Previously, Darwinius masillae was believed to be the oldest and found around May 2009. "MISSING LINK" FOUND: New Fossil Links Humans, Lemurs?

 

[Man of Faith]

Is the OP Darwin? Because that is what Darwin said, he hoped one day to find evidence supporting his theory.

 

[Malleus_de_Philosophia]

Is the OP Darwin? Because that is what Darwin said, he hoped one day to find evidence supporting his theory.

Every scientist wants evidence to support a theory, especially one as big and controversial as TOE.

 

[The Neo Nerd]

Is the OP Darwin? Because that is what Darwin said, he hoped one day to find evidence supporting his theory.

No it's Nathan. I paid attention in high school science. (it was a christian high school as well)

Also more on the burial event (the OP was done on my iPhone, i couldn't have been assed going into too much detail) the burial event has to bury it in such a way that the is very little exposure to oxygen such as landslides where the body is covered in mud.

-Q

 

[Morse]

This is one of the sources of the gaps in TOE, both for creationists to use and one that is scientifically relevant. One concern is that suppose the animal is buried and is fossilized and is then found. Some of the bones may be too damaged to figure out what they are and much of the anatomy (i.e. organs) aren't often preserved so what is extracted tends to be relatively little. Often fossils are found that after analysis are intermediate fossils illustrating how one character or species has changed to another. Given the evidence we have, we can provide theoretical explanations although getting the physical evidence is hard, as we have to see if the physical evidence adheres to the theoretical explanation, and if not, then we have to formulate alternative theoretical explanations.

One other concern is that for certain animals, such as some aquatic ones, they don't have bones but rather cartilage, which can be damaged easier. Take for example Meckel's cartilage, which is the carilaginous lower jaw of vertebrates. In humans this is lost and becomes the quadrate, maxillary, etc... .

Furthermore, when the evidence is found, we cannot always get the entire skeleton and so we may figure out that the bone is of something unknown but because of the scarcity, we don't know what animal it belongs to. After the entire skeleton is found, we have to figure out where it goes on the taxonomic classification. Some organisms undergo changes, such as turtles going from diapsid temporal fenestration to anapsid temporal fenestration. It looks noticably different yet is of the same organism.

The harder issues come with determining the physiology and anatomy of softer tissues and organs. Unless we catch a lucky break and they're nicely preserved, we have to try to figure out what they would be like by comparing the animal to other known animals, the ecology of the animals, etc... . For example, for the kidneys, the intermediate tubules will be much longer in terrestrial organisms than aquatic organisms. None of this is nicely preserved so it has to be figured out.

I don't think many creationists who point to the fact that many intermediate species and such haven't been found don't understand nor appreciate the difficulty and all the processes that occur for this to happen. It's useful to excavate new fossils but it's meaningless if we don't analyze it, and the analysis can be just as if not harder than finding the fossils. We may not know where to look for fossils of unknown, intermediate species and so it's more of randomized diggings, then hoping enough bones and details are excavated. For example, when the theories of birds evolving from pterodactyls was shot down and replaced with them evolving from theropods (or thermopods, however it's spelled), initially there wasn't substantial evidence until we were lucky and caught a break where the dinosaur was preserved in enough detail to show pretty much all the skeletal anatomy AND some of the feathers. But that's only one piece of the puzzle. The rest is theorizing how the excavated evidence can evolve from one species or trait to another, or for birds vs. theropods, what was the purposes of having feathers then and now? These questions have been answered but at the time, they weren't.

So when this big issue is pointed out, I don't think that the creationists understand that what they're criticizing isn't one simple process, it's many difficult processes that sometimes rely on luck in finding the properly preserved species. It's not as simple as grabbing two chemicals, mixing them and seeing an immediate reaction. Numerous intermediate fossils have been excavated so although we can somewhat map out the evolution both theoretically and practically, there still is much to be determined.

Just to show a recent example, Ardipithecus ramidus was recently found sometime around October 2009 and is the oldest human ancestor known to date. Oldest Skeleton of Human Ancestor Found

Previously, Darwinius masillae was believed to be the oldest and found around May 2009. "MISSING LINK" FOUND: New Fossil Links Humans, Lemurs?

Way to blow my post out of the water, very nice. Frubals.

I'd say more about it but I completely agree so i'm not really going to debate..

No it's Nathan. I paid attention in high school science. (it was a christian high school as well)

Also more on the burial event (the OP was done on my iPhone, i couldn't have been assed going into too much detail) the burial event has to bury it in such a way that the is very little exposure to oxygen such as landslides where the body is covered in mud.

-Q

Bingo. But it doesn't have to be immediate, the fossil could have been exposed for say 50 years (assuming predators didn't take all the bones) and then be buried by a mudslide and fossilization would still occur. Its just a constant exposure to oxygen over the much longer period of time that ruins the show.

 

[Gunfingers]

The gaps in the fossil record are used by many creationists to disprove the ToE.

Something to bear in mind is that while we do not have record of every organism or even every species that ever existed, we do have an incredibly large and detailed fossil record. As MoF mentioned, Darwin hoped to find evidence of his ideas in the fossil record, what he fails to mention is that we did. There are thousands upon thousands of fossils, some of long extinct species (were there trilobites and dinosaurs on the Ark?), some of basal forms of existing species, or having basal forms of existing structures. All of it clearly evidences common descent and descent with modification.

So yeah, creationists will claim that lacunas (new vocabulary word!) in the fossil record disprove evolutionary theory but they are, as usual, lying through their teeth.

 

[Man of Faith]

Something to bear in mind is that while we do not have record of every organism or even every species that ever existed, we do have an incredibly large and detailed fossil record. As MoF mentioned, Darwin hoped to find evidence of his ideas in the fossil record, what he fails to mention is that we did. There are thousands upon thousands of fossils, some of long extinct species (were there trilobites and dinosaurs on the Ark?), some of basal forms of existing species, or having basal forms of existing structures. All of it clearly evidences common descent and descent with modification.

So yeah, creationists will claim that lacunas (new vocabulary word!) in the fossil record disprove evolutionary theory but they are, as usual, lying through their teeth.

How are two fossils placed side by side proof that they came from a common ancestor? Placing an apes fossil beside a human fossil doesn't really do anything. Where are all the morphological changes in the fossil record to show random mutations, some that survied and some that didn't, to produce all life forms?

The problem is the fossil record is quite inadequate to explain common ancestry of all life forms, it is just not there. It is so inadequate that a new theory was developed on 1972 called punctuated equilibrium. And we also see how people try to explain away the lack of fossils. This thread by Nathan is evidence of that.

 

[Gunfingers]

Geographic proximity is not how we determine ancestry. In the case of fossils morphological (and sometimes genetic) similarities are used. Hell, one of the common ancestor that we share with gorillas and chimps was found in Greece. This isn't based one one or two fossils, it's based on dozens if not hundreds of fossils spread amongst all these different species.

Common descent is clearly evident over common design because of nested hierarchies, and doesn't even need fossil evidence because it's so obvious in existing organisms. For example chordates and mollusks developed circulatory systems separately. The function is identical, but the form is not. Chordates have red blood. This is true of every chordate, without exception. Anything with a skull and spinal cord also has red blood. Mollusks have blue blood. Without exception, everything in that phyla has blue blood. This is just one particularly obvious example of common descent. Here's a bunch more.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Is the OP Darwin? Because that is what Darwin said, he hoped one day to find evidence supporting his theory.

He had evidence supporting his theory. Lots of it. That's what led him to come up with the theory in the first place. And in the century and a half since then, a mountain of evidence for the theory has built up.

How are two fossils placed side by side proof that they came from a common ancestor? Placing an apes fossil beside a human fossil doesn't really do anything.

You're right - if you strip down taxonomy to this straw man you've invented, it wouldn't work very well. Thankfully, there's more to interpreting the fossil record than just "placing an apes fossil beside a human fossil".

Where are all the morphological changes in the fossil record to show random mutations, some that survied and some that didn't, to produce all life forms?

All through the fossil record.

The problem is the fossil record is quite inadequate to explain common ancestry of all life forms, it is just not there.

Really? What are these inadequacies as you see them? Please be specific.

It is so inadequate that a new theory was developed on 1972 called punctuated equilibrium. And we also see how people try to explain away the lack of fossils. This thread by Nathan is evidence of that.

I think you misunderstand what punctuated equilibrium is. It's not an alternative theory to evolution.

 

[Malleus_de_Philosophia]

How are two fossils placed side by side proof that they came from a common ancestor? Placing an apes fossil beside a human fossil doesn't really do anything. Where are all the morphological changes in the fossil record to show random mutations, some that survied and some that didn't, to produce all life forms?

Did you read a single word of the post I made in this thread? If you did, then you'd have the answer to your questions and more already but I'll re-iterate. Evolutionary biology is not just putting two fossils together and seeing how similar they look. There's very detailed analysis of pretty much every feature of the individual fossil, then seeing how it relates to other fossils but also where the fossil was found, the ecology of the fossil, etc... . For example, the dentition (i.e. teeth) can reveal some function and ecology of the fossil. If the teeth are those of a carnivorous animal then that tells us the diet, how it likely interacted with other animals and so forth. But on top of that is more detailed analysis, such as whether the teeth are thecondontal (i.e. human teeth), acrodontal or pleurodontal, whether the molars are tribosphenic or quadropshenic (i.e. human molars), whether they're "self-sharpening" such as those of horses, etc... . This and more is what reveals clues about how the organism interacted with others, what it ate, how it ate (i.e. jaw articulation), how it functioned by itself, etc... . None of this is obtained from aimlessly staring at how it looks compared to another fossilized species.

Where are these changes? Well, let's see, there's the fossil record, there's comparative anatomy and physiology of current animals, there's DNA evidence of the changes and so forth. One example of such live examples on DNA is lizards and snakes regarding the specific Hox genes. For comparative anatomical evidence of fossil records and live animals there's the evolution of the turtle shells, such as the plasteron and how the ribs of turtles differ from those of humans and other mammals, both in superficial appearance and in development.

The problem is the fossil record is quite inadequate to explain common ancestry of all life forms, it is just not there.

First rational thing you've mentioned so far in your post.

It is so inadequate that a new theory was developed on 1972 called punctuated equilibrium.

Do you even know what punctuated equilibrium is, say, in comparison to phyletic gradualism? Punctuated equilibrium is not an alternative to evolution but rather a support of evolution. Specifically it concerns how there is relatively little change and when there are changes, cladogenesis occurs and forms a phylogenetic tree that is both vertical and has distinct clades rather than minor changes. It's part of evolutionary biology as an alternative to taxonomic classification. Sterelny (2007) provided a nice, simple explanation for punctuated equilibrium in that its creators (for lack of a better word) theorized how there is little accumulation of changes within generations, causing the fossil record to appear somewhat static, and so if a change happens, it's a large change.

Read up on punctuated equilibrium before you begin asserting how it is an oppostion: Punctuated equilibrium - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And we also see how people try to explain away the lack of fossils. This thread by Nathan is evidence of that.

Yes, people explain the lack of fossils for the very reason to prevent misunderstood and uneducated views from trying to critcize it only to end up with false notions that spawn false perception about it. It's not to explain away the lack of fossils to support TOE, it's to prevent misunderstandings, such as the ones you're giving.

 

[The Neo Nerd]

Yes, people explain the lack of fossils for the very reason to prevent misunderstood and uneducated views from trying to critcize it only to end up with false notions that spawn false perception about it. It's not to explain away the lack of fossils to support TOE, it's to prevent misunderstandings, such as the ones you're giving.

Well said.

-Q

 

[rusra02]

Carl Sagan, in his book Cosmos, candidly acknowledged: “The fossil evidence could be consistent with the idea of a Great Designer.”—(New York, 1980), p. 29.

Be that as it may, we don't want to allow ourselves to accept what the scientific evidence points to. So although the evidence for evolution is lacking, we know it is there... somewhere?

Smithsonian Institution scientist Porter Kier says: “There are a hundred million fossils, all catalogued and identified, in museums around the world.” (New Scientist, January 15, 1981, p. 129)
The Bulletin of Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History pointed out: “Darwin’s theory of [evolution] has always been closely linked to evidence from fossils, and probably most people assume that fossils provide a very important part of the general argument that is made in favor of darwinian interpretations of the history of life. Unfortunately, this is not strictly true. . . . the geologic record did not then and still does not yield a finely graduated chain of slow and progressive evolution.”—January 1979, Vol. 50, No. 1, pp. 22, 23.
But we can safely ignore that scientific evidence because....we want to....not believe....
Evidence for an intelligent Creator is overwhelming and many honest scientists know it and express this view.

 

[tumbleweed41]

Carl Sagan, in his book Cosmos, candidly acknowledged: “The fossil evidence could be consistent with the idea of a Great Designer.”—(New York, 1980), p. 29.

Be that as it may, we don't want to allow ourselves to accept what the scientific evidence points to. So although the evidence for evolution is lacking, we know it is there... somewhere?

Smithsonian Institution scientist Porter Kier says: “There are a hundred million fossils, all catalogued and identified, in museums around the world.” (New Scientist, January 15, 1981, p. 129)
The Bulletin of Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History pointed out: “Darwin’s theory of [evolution] has always been closely linked to evidence from fossils, and probably most people assume that fossils provide a very important part of the general argument that is made in favor of darwinian interpretations of the history of life. Unfortunately, this is not strictly true. . . . the geologic record did not then and still does not yield a finely graduated chain of slow and progressive evolution.”—January 1979, Vol. 50, No. 1, pp. 22, 23.
But we can safely ignore that scientific evidence because....we want to....not believe....
Evidence for an intelligent Creator is overwhelming and many honest scientists know it and express this view.

Congratulations,
Through your quote mining and ignoring the OP you have successfully brought biology to it's knees.

Not to mention your excellent source, (which you conveniently forgot to mention).

 

[tumbleweed41]

1. There are many transitional fossils. The only way that the claim of their absence may be remotely justified, aside from ignoring the evidence completely, is to redefine "transitional" as referring to a fossil that is a direct ancestor of one organism and a direct descendant of another. However, direct lineages are not required; they could not be verified even if found. What a transitional fossil is, in keeping with what the theory of evolution predicts, is a fossil that shows a mosaic of features from an older and more recent organism.
2. Transitional fossils may coexist with gaps. We do not expect to find finely detailed sequences of fossils lasting for millions of years. Nevertheless, we do find several fine gradations of fossils between species and genera, and we find many other sequences between higher taxa that are still very well filled out.
   
   The following are fossil transitions between species and genera:
   1. Human ancestry. There are many fossils of human ancestors, and the differences between species are so gradual that it is not always clear where to draw the lines between them.
   2. The horns of titanotheres (extinct Cenozoic mammals) appear in progressively larger sizes, from nothing to prominence. Other head and neck features also evolved. These features are adaptations for head-on ramming analogous to sheep behavior (Stanley 1974).
   3. A gradual transitional fossil sequence connects the foraminifera Globigerinoides trilobus and Orbulina universa (Pearson et al. 1997). O. universa, the later fossil, features a spherical test surrounding a "Globigerinoides-like" shell, showing that a feature was added, not lost. The evidence is seen in all major tropical ocean basins. Several intermediate morphospecies connect the two species, as may be seen in the figure included in Lindsay (1997).
   4. The fossil record shows transitions between species of Phacops (a trilobite; Phacops rana is the Pennsylvania state fossil; Eldredge 1972; 1974; Strapple 1978).
   5. Planktonic forminifera (Malmgren et al. 1984). This is an example of punctuated gradualism. A ten-million-year foraminifera fossil record shows long periods of stasis and other periods of relatively rapid but still gradual morphologic change.
   6. Fossils of the diatom Rhizosolenia are very common (they are mined as diatomaceous earth), and they show a continuous record of almost two million years which includes a record of a speciation event (Miller 1999, 44-45).
   7. Lake Turkana mollusc species (Lewin 1981).
   8. Cenozoic marine ostracodes (Cronin 1985).
   9. The Eocene primate genus Cantius (Gingerich 1976, 1980, 1983).
   10. Scallops of the genus Chesapecten show gradual change in one "ear" of their hinge over about 13 million years. The ribs also change (Pojeta and Springer 2001; Ward and Blackwelder 1975).
   11. Gryphaea (coiled oysters) become larger and broader but thinner and flatter during the Early Jurassic (Hallam 1968).
   
   The following are fossil transitionals between families, orders, and classes:
   
   
   1. Human ancestry. Australopithecus, though its leg and pelvis bones show it walked upright, had a bony ridge on the forearm, probably vestigial, indicative of knuckle walking (Richmond and Strait 2000).
   2. Dinosaur-bird transitions.
   3. Haasiophis terrasanctus is a primitive marine snake with well-developed hind limbs. Although other limbless snakes might be more ancestral, this fossil shows a relationship of snakes with limbed ancestors (Tchernov et al. 2000). Pachyrhachis is another snake with legs that is related to Haasiophis (Caldwell and Lee 1997).
   4. The jaws of mososaurs are also intermediate between snakes and lizards. Like the snake's stretchable jaws, they have highly flexible lower jaws, but unlike snakes, they do not have highly flexible upper jaws. Some other skull features of mososaurs are intermediate between snakes and primitive lizards (Caldwell and Lee 1997; Lee et al. 1999; Tchernov et al. 2000).
   5. Transitions between mesonychids and whales.
   6. Transitions between fish and tetrapods.
   7. Transitions from condylarths (a kind of land mammal) to fully aquatic modern manatees. In particular, Pezosiren portelli is clearly a sirenian, but its hind limbs and pelvis are unreduced (Domning 2001a, 2001b).
   8. Runcaria, a Middle Devonian plant, was a precursor to seed plants. It had all the qualities of seeds except a solid seed coat and a system to guide pollen to the seed (Gerrienne et al. 2004).
   9. A bee, Melittosphex burmensis, from Early Cretaceous amber, has primitive characteristics expected from a transition between crabronid wasps and extant bees (Poinar and Danforth 2006).
   
   The following are fossil transitionals between kingdoms and phyla:
   
   
   1. The Cambrian fossils Halkiera and Wiwaxia have features that connect them with each other and with the modern phyla of Mollusca, Brachiopoda, and Annelida. In particular, one species of halkieriid has brachiopod-like shells on the dorsal side at each end. This is seen also in an immature stage of the living brachiopod species Neocrania. It has setae identical in structure to polychaetes, a group of annelids. Wiwaxia and Halkiera have the same basic arrangement of hollow sclerites, an arrangement that is similar to the chaetae arrangement of polychaetes. The undersurface of Wiwaxia has a soft sole like a mollusk's foot, and its jaw looks like a mollusk's mouth. Aplacophorans, which are a group of primitive mollusks, have a soft body covered with spicules similar to the sclerites of Wiwaxia (Conway Morris 1998, 185-195).
   2. Cambrian and Precambrain fossils Anomalocaris and Opabinia are transitional between arthropods and lobopods.
   3. An ancestral echinoderm has been found that is intermediate between modern echinoderms and other deuterostomes (Shu et al. 2004).

From Talk Origins, Transitional Fossils

 

[Malleus_de_Philosophia]

Carl Sagan, in his book Cosmos, candidly acknowledged: “The fossil evidence could be consistent with the idea of a Great Designer.”—(New York, 1980), p. 29.

Note that he said it COULD, not that it is, implying that creationism or TOE may be correct. Doesn't help your argument in any way.

Be that as it may, we don't want to allow ourselves to accept what the scientific evidence points to. So although the evidence for evolution is lacking, we know it is there... somewhere?

We cannot gather evidence for TOE overnight, it takes time not only to find fossils that are properly preserved but then to analyze it and figure out just what it is we're looking at. We then have to hope that we get more than a few bones, such as a femur and radius. Think about it, you're trying to find things hundreds of thousands to millions of years old. Don't you think it's at all likely that they may have been destroyed or damaged by then?

The Bulletin of Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History pointed out: “Darwin’s theory of [evolution] has always been closely linked to evidence from fossils, and probably most people assume that fossils provide a very important part of the general argument that is made in favor of darwinian interpretations of the history of life. Unfortunately, this is not strictly true. . . . the geologic record did not then and still does not yield a finely graduated chain of slow and progressive evolution.”—January 1979, Vol. 50, No. 1, pp. 22, 23.

This isn't saying that TOE is wrong, it's saying that there is evidence of it, just that there are some gaps in the evidence that's needed although there is still theoretical explanations.

Evidence for an intelligent Creator is overwhelming and many honest scientists know it and express this view.

Overwhelming? All you've done is show that TOE is not perfect and that there are flaws with it. There's nothing in what you presented that remotely suggests that creationism is correct beyond a reasonable doubt. It's not "proven" by disproving TOE so right now you've shown TOE may not be correct but said nothing to show creationism is certainly correct. Care to provide the argument?

 

[Thief]

The gaps in the fossil record are used by many creationists to disprove the ToE.

I wish to address this.

There are three things required for a fossil to fill these gaps.

A. The particular animal.
B. A burial event.
C. The fossil to be found.

Now let's look at the burial event. If no burial event happens then no fossil will form. An animal dying and its bones left to rot on the ground will not create fossils.

Now to the finding of the fossil. There has only been a miniscule amount of the earths surface excavated for fossils. Not to mention the layers of rock underneath that haven't been excavated.

So without the right burial conditions and the right parts of the planet being excavated there will be no fossils of that particular animal.

One other point on the fossil record. You can't say if we haven't seen the fossil the animal didn't exist without the same being applied to your deities.

Questions? Thoughts?

-q

(just a note)
There's a fresh thread....'Darwin help me'.

 

[jnm66]

I haven't even seen a creationist try to explain where the gaps are, they seem to think they're everywhere yet can they really point to many voids since the Cambrian "explosion"? We have quite a lot of fossils, even on the ancestral path towards our species.

But no divergent one-your missing link is a myth.....many fossils-yes,and many conditions need to be "just right" for their(DARE I SAY CREATION)