Creationist Error #1: One can not believe Evolution and still remain devout in their faith.

[Monk Of Reason]

As above, the farmers starved under Stalin had no official qualifications to argue against state academics, Lemaitre's work was originally rejected because his catholic school education didn't qualify for serious peer review. Canals on Mars were observed and recorded by those most qualified to do so... And neither of us are qualified to comment on the existence of ghosts because we are not paranormal investigators, right?

These are not conspiracy theories, these people thought they were right, largely because they were qualified to be right- who could argue with them?

a conspiracy theory sounds something more like this:

Are you attempting to use a regime that was bent on trying to oppress and control its people without regard for their life as the best possible example of having experts on a subject? Do you see how this doesn't follow logically?

FYI I was raised a staunch atheist, studied computer science, first began to be skeptical of certain aspects of evolution in my late 30s while working on simulations to demonstrate evolutions power to 'silly creationists' .

I don't think you are brainwashed or silly or incapable of critical thought, name calling only betrays that you can never change your mind no matter the evidence, because you would then become everything you called others, exactly why Hoyle could never change his mind after calling the Big Bang 'religious pseudoscience'

I still have a hard time believing this. Perhaps you really were an atheist but you can't have had an accurate education on evolution as you have shown several times so far in debates here to have seriously flawed understanding of evolution. And I question how you could have created a computer program back how ever many years ago that could have accurately portrayed evolution if you yourself still don't have an accurate understanding of it.

 

[NewGuyOnTheBlock]

It convinced most (academics, not people) and formed the basis of man's evolution for decades.

It did not convince most academics. Obviously, you have done very little research on Piltdown Man.

Consensus and science are not the same, Galileo, Einstein, Planck, Lemaitre would all strongly advise you against that assumption, since they represented the .023%

That's exactly what I'm trying to tell you. I don't care if 90+% of the people believe in divinely guided evolution, God, or that this divine being created the universe. I believe evidence; of which there is none.

Conspiracy implies deceit- before I became skeptical of evolution I was convinced of it's truth, and I think everybody who believes it is also. Similarly with creationism, we all want to know the truth, we all believe in something, we have no proof either way.

If you believe that evolution is a "belief" and if you became unconvinced of its truth, that leads me to conclude that you do not understand evolution and never did. You have fallen prey to pesudoscience and master manipulators like AIG.

So I think it's OK, very healthy in fact for people to believe different things, as long as we acknowledge belief, the element of faith in our convictions, then we are open to changing them based on evidence, scientific method,- not academic consensus or perceptions of dishonesty or intellectual superiority.

Classical physics was unanimously believed to account for the physical world. The laws were considered so water-tight they were 'immutable'! This false belief persisted longer than evolution and was supported with far more direct evidence.

Denying reality is never healthy. Believing without evidence is never healthy.

Only the 'ignorant masses' believed the world operated on far deeper more mysterious and unpredictable forces.

Likewise today, the vast majority of humanity are skeptical of evolution, while accepting far more complex principles involved in subatomic physics, because the latter is simply better supported by actual evidence rather than academic consensus and state education.

If you do not believe that "science is not consensus", then why do you continue to use "consensus" as some kind of evidence towards your "scientific claim" regarding how we came to be? In fact, if you have nothing more to say regarding evolution other than "most people don't believe it, so I don't believe it either", then you have a very (very) weak position.

This may be true in religions without doctrine, or where one does not believe in a Divine origin to his religious doctrine. However, there are religions out there including mine, where this is not the case. Therefore, in Orthodox Judaism, one cannot remain devout in faith and believe in evolution without doctrinal proof.

Because religions without Divinely inspired doctrine are not bound to any specific beliefs. If they don't believe that their god specifically told them X, they are free to believe Y or Z. If they believe their G-d did tell them X, then they are bound to believe X.

The major flaw in this, is that this makes you god a liar. If there was a god of creation, then that god left us the fossils to find; the genetic code to decipher; the myriads of evidence confirming evolution. It is written in your genetics, it is buried in the earth, it is observable in nature, it is abundantly clear to those who are not indoctrinated into doctrines. Tell me: Does your doctrine tell you that the earth is flat? If so, do you believe that the earth is flat? Does your doctrine tell you that the universe revolves around the earth? If so, do you believe in geocyntricity? I do not understand how one can deny evidence and knowledge, then consider themselves knowledgeable.

 

[Tumah]

The major flaw in this, is that this makes you god a liar. If there was a god of creation, then that god left us the fossils to find; the genetic code to decipher; the myriads of evidence confirming evolution. It is written in your genetics, it is buried in the earth, it is observable in nature, it is abundantly clear to those who are not indoctrinated into doctrines. Tell me: Does your doctrine tell you that the earth is flat? If so, do you believe that the earth is flat? Does your doctrine tell you that the universe revolves around the earth? If so, do you believe in geocyntricity? I do not understand how one can deny evidence and knowledge, then consider themselves knowledgeable.

No it doesn't. It means that you aren't reading the evidence correctly for whatever reason. I suppose if your entire life all you saw was a magnification of my thumbprint you would also assume that I am a thumb. Sometimes, lack of available evidence leads to a wrong conclusion. Its human to err and that's ok.
My doctrine doesn't tell me that the earth is flat.
My doctrine does tell me that the universe revolved around the earth. And this is true: as humanity is on Earth and the entire universe was created for the purpose of humanity, the entire universe revolves around the earth.

Have I made the claim of being knowledgeable somewhere?

 

[Sapiens]

Do you have to cloud the issue with facts and accurate information?

It's a bad habit but I just can't help it.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

It did not convince most academics. Obviously, you have done very little research on Piltdown Man.



That's exactly what I'm trying to tell you. I don't care if 90+% of the people believe in divinely guided evolution, God, or that this divine being created the universe. I believe evidence; of which there is none.



If you believe that evolution is a "belief" and if you became unconvinced of its truth, that leads me to conclude that you do not understand evolution and never did. You have fallen prey to pesudoscience and master manipulators like AIG.



Denying reality is never healthy. Believing without evidence is never healthy.



If you do not believe that "science is not consensus", then why do you continue to use "consensus" as some kind of evidence towards your "scientific claim" regarding how we came to be? In fact, if you have nothing more to say regarding evolution other than "most people don't believe it, so I don't believe it either", then you have a very (very) weak position.





The major flaw in this, is that this makes you god a liar. If there was a god of creation, then that god left us the fossils to find; the genetic code to decipher; the myriads of evidence confirming evolution. It is written in your genetics, it is buried in the earth, it is observable in nature, it is abundantly clear to those who are not indoctrinated into doctrines. Tell me: Does your doctrine tell you that the earth is flat? If so, do you believe that the earth is flat? Does your doctrine tell you that the universe revolves around the earth? If so, do you believe in geocyntricity? I do not understand how one can deny evidence and knowledge, then consider themselves knowledgeable.

my point wasn't so much about consensus of the masses being truth- but that consensus of academic/scientific institutions can and often has been fundamentally false

So I think we agree on the principle here- it doesn't matter if 90% of a scientific institution or 90% of the masses agree- both can be entirely wrong- what matters is the evidence-

If nothing else- the substance of the arguments themselves make for a far more interesting debate than 'who's consensus is worth more' right?

But we disagree that there is a clear distinction between belief and science. By it's nature, science addresses the unknown. Acknowledging faith- that our beliefs are unproven- leaves the door open to changing our minds on evidence.

In contrast - scientific institutions calling Newton's Laws 'immutable' or Hoyle calling Lemaitre's primeval atom by the same name you call creationism 'Pseudoscience' - closes that door,

Blind faith is faith which does not recognize itself

 

[Sapiens]

my point wasn't so much about consensus of the masses being truth- but that consensus of academic/scientific institutions can and often has been fundamentally false

So I think we agree on the principle here- it doesn't matter if 90% of a scientific institution or 90% of the masses agree- both can be entirely wrong- what matters is the evidence-

If nothing else- the substance of the arguments themselves make for a far more interesting debate than 'who's consensus is worth more' right?

But we disagree that there is a clear distinction between belief and science. By it's nature, science addresses the unknown. Acknowledging faith- that our beliefs are unproven- leaves the door open to changing our minds on evidence.

In contrast - scientific institutions calling Newton's Laws 'immutable' or Hoyle calling Lemaitre's primeval atom by the same name you call creationism 'Pseudoscience' - closes that door,

Blind faith is faith which does not recognize itself

Clearly any scientific institution that called Newton's Laws "immutable" was wrong and the self-correcting nature of science fixed the problem without any outside intercession. So the door was not closed and, in the end, truth won out and early science learned an important lesson, that faith is anathema to truth. As Richard Dawkins observed: "Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence."

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Clearly any scientific institution that called Newton's Laws "immutable" was wrong and the self-correcting nature of science fixed the problem without any outside intercession. So the door was not closed and, in the end, truth won out and early science learned an important lesson, that faith is anathema to truth. As Richard Dawkins observed: "Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence."

eventually science hopefully progresses, not necessarily scientists

“Science advances one funeral at a time.”
― Max Planck

Just like Lemaitre, Planck bemoaned the headwinds scientific truth faced from academic institutions- especially where ideological implications are involved

It's no coincidence both were skeptics of atheism. For many the 'immutable' laws of classical physics represented a full explanation of the physical world which made God redundant-

just as a specific creation event was considered 'repugnant pseudoscience', the idea of known physics being a mere illusion resting on deeper mysterious unpredictable forces, and directed finely tuned constants- had some unsettling implications.

For evolution of course, this problem is far greater, the ideology, implications far more permeated - while the evidence far less direct and empirical than that supporting classical physics.

'It's as if they were planted there with no evolutionary history" as Dawkins said- his belief that there was an evolutionary history, in spite of the lack of evidence, is called faith-
refusing to acknowledge this, insisting on unquestionable truth without evidence, is called blind faith.

 

[metis]

"Blind faith" is a product of religion, not science.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

"Blind faith" is a product of religion, not science.

It can exist in religion also of course

Most people of faith acknowledge their faith, they do not claim it provable- but some religious practices like some scientists- deny faith- they claim inherent unquestionable truth regardless of evidence- this is blind faith and this is where the problems always begin is it not? be it Stalin's atheist/scientific farming techniques or theist's terrorism

because denying faith claims inherent unquestionable superiority, authority, justifing forcing those beliefs on others, it closes the door to opposing ideas- people with differing beliefs are called 'deniers' and worse in both cases.

This is exactly where Dawkins' overt hatred and intolerance stems from

 

[Sapiens]

eventually science hopefully progresses, not necessarily scientists

“Science advances one funeral at a time.”
― Max Planck

Just like Lemaitre, Planck bemoaned the headwinds scientific truth faced from academic institutions- especially where ideological implications are involved

It's no coincidence both were skeptics of atheism. For many the 'immutable' laws of classical physics represented a full explanation of the physical world which made God redundant-

From long experience I have developed a healthy skepticism when it comes to mathematicians and physicists holding forth outside of their narrow specialties. They often seem a bit nuts.

just as a specific creation event was considered 'repugnant pseudoscience', the idea of known physics being a mere illusion resting on deeper mysterious unpredictable forces, and directed finely tuned constants- had some unsettling implications.

Not really, it just exposes a lack of knowledge concerning prospective and retrospective statistics.

For evolution of course, this problem is far greater, the ideology, implications far more permeated - while the evidence far less direct and empirical than that supporting classical physics.

Sure, the original evidence for evolution was inferential, but the many, many threads that now support it have made that a thing of the past that no longer applies.

'It's as if they were planted there with no evolutionary history" as Dawkins said- his belief that there was an evolutionary history, in spite of the lack of evidence, is called faith-
refusing to acknowledge this, insisting on unquestionable truth without evidence, is called blind faith.

Get out of the quote mine, it's dishonest (see quote #40, here: Quote Mine Project: "Large Gaps" ).

 

[Guy Threepwood]

From long experience I have developed a healthy skepticism when it comes to mathematicians and physicists holding forth outside of their narrow specialties. They often seem a bit nuts.
Not really, it just exposes a lack of knowledge concerning prospective and retrospective statistics.
Sure, the original evidence for evolution was inferential, but the many, many threads that now support it have made that a thing of the past that no longer applies.
Get out of the quote mine, it's dishonest (see quote #40, here: Quote Mine Project: "Large Gaps" ).

I appreciate the link to the added quotes after 'It's as if they were planted there with no evolutionary history"

like
" both [schools of evolution] agree that the major gaps are real"

and
"Evolutionists of all stripes believe, however, that this really does represent a very large gap in the fossil record, "

These confirm that the original quote is not a one-off out of context gaff- but that the gaps are real, very large-


Of course this is followed up with speculative excuses 'might be' 'strongly suspect' etc- but this doesn't change the observation we all agree on- that it's as if they were planted there with no evolutionary history-
and there is no confusion over which side of the argument this supports. Again the academic speculation points in the opposite direction from the direct evidence, the implication of which Dawkins and his colleagues 'despise' in fact he directly states that he despises the people themselves!

Which takes us right back to the hatred inherent to denial of faith. Nothing is further from the scientific method than rejecting certain conclusions because you personally despise them, Hoyle did likewise- not a great strategy for discerning truth.

I don't despise evolution at all, nor the minority of people who believe in it, I know and love many. Despising the majority of humanity for any reason is a major red flag in my book

I think evolution a very intuitive, elegant pleasing, tempting theory - just like classical physics was, and similarly with holes you can drive a Mack truck through..

 

[Sapiens]

I appreciate the link to the added quotes after 'It's as if they were planted there with no evolutionary history"

like
" both [schools of evolution] agree that the major gaps are real"

and
"Evolutionists of all stripes believe, however, that this really does represent a very large gap in the fossil record, "

These confirm that the original quote is not a one-off out of context gaff- but that the gaps are real, very large-

No, you continue to quote mine, pretending the discussion was on a topic that it was not. The question on the table was not EVOLUTION, something all concerned agreed with, it was a discussion of Dawkins' disagreements with Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge over Punctuated Equilibrium. Dawkins is there discussing the fact that Gould and Eldredge would agree with him that the "sudden appearance" of animals in the Cambrian Explosion is really the result of the imperfections of the fossil record. Was that the point that you were trying to make? Of course it was not. You are exposed as a quote miner which is a form of liar.

Of course this is followed up with speculative excuses 'might be' 'strongly suspect' etc- but this doesn't change the observation we all agree on- that it's as if they were planted there with no evolutionary history-

Those are the "polite" words that are always used in science, one always writes in the third person, the passive voice and never states things emphatically or confrontationally.

and there is no confusion over which side of the argument this supports. Again the academic speculation points in the opposite direction from the direct evidence, the implication of which Dawkins and his colleagues 'despise' in fact he directly states that he despises the people themselves!

er ... are you arguing in favor or against Punctuated Equilibrium or are you trying to make some other point that is not part of the conversation?

Which takes us right back to the hatred inherent to denial of faith. Nothing is further from the scientific method than rejecting certain conclusions because you personally despise them, Hoyle did likewise- not a great strategy for discerning truth.

How do you go from a rather esoteric discussion of Punctuated Equilibrium to "hatred inherent to denial of faith?" Seems to me your out of line here, at best confused and at worst du[duplicitous.

I don't despise evolution at all, nor the minority of people who believe in it, I know and love many. Despising the majority of humanity for any reason is a major red flag in my book

Again, how does this relate to Punctuated Equilibrium?

I think evolution a very intuitive, elegant pleasing, tempting theory - just like classical physics was, and similarly with holes you can drive a Mack truck through..

Then let's see you identify those holes rather than quote mine.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

No, you continue to quote mine, pretending the discussion was on a topic that it was not. The question on the table was not EVOLUTION, something all concerned agreed with, it was a discussion of Dawkins' disagreements with Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge over Punctuated Equilibrium. Dawkins is there discussing the fact that Gould and Eldredge would agree with him that the "sudden appearance" of animals in the Cambrian Explosion is really the result of the imperfections of the fossil record. Was that the point that you were trying to make? Of course it was not. You are exposed as a quote miner which is a form of liar.
Those are the "polite" words that are always used in science, one always writes in the third person, the passive voice and never states things emphatically or confrontationally.
er ... are you arguing in favor or against Punctuated Equilibrium or are you trying to make some other point that is not part of the conversation?
How do you go from a rather esoteric discussion of Punctuated Equilibrium to "hatred inherent to denial of faith?" Seems to me your out of line here, at best confused and at worst du[duplicitous.
Again, how does this relate to Punctuated Equilibrium?

Then let's see you identify those holes rather than quote mine.

When he says 'it's as if they were just planted there with no evolutionary history' He was referring to fossils, yes or no?


Yes, and everybody agrees with the observation- whether or not this was part of a larger argument for enforcing leash laws or freeing Nelson Mandela is entirely beside the point. We can label the missing evidence as punctuated equilibrium, or divine intervention, but we both know that a record without conspicuous gaping holes would better fit the belief systems of evolution.

Dawkins explicitly states that he despises the people who hold opposing beliefs. I think most would agree this weakens anybody's 'academic' stance on anything- it betrays that the beliefs are largely founded on emotion, and that the believer is practically forbidden from ever changing his mind no matter the evidence, or he becomes what he despises, a liar, and any other name he has called those people.

I don't think you or he are liars, I think you believe what you believe and you are welcome to that, my original point was that denying this belief is where this disdain for other beliefs comes from.

 

[metis]

If one actually reads Dawkins' works rather thoroughly, he states that it is at least hypothetically possible that there could be a theistic cause to our universe, but not only does he strongly doubt it, he also believes that today's religions are merely human fabrications.

I would suggest that Dawkins is at correct about the fact that none of us were here at "creation" to actually witness what happened, plus there really isn't any objective evidence for a theistic causation. If such evidence was readily available, it logically would be ballyhooed throughout the planet daily. If one believes in God(s), they do so on faith and not objective evidence, but faith is not part of the scientific method.

 

[Sapiens]

When he says 'it's as if they were just planted there with no evolutionary history' He was referring to fossils, yes or no?

Yes he was referring to fossils. He was making a point concerning rates of evolution. He would not agree with the meaning you are trying to twist out of the quote. What you are doing is called "quote mining" and it is dishonest.

Yes, and everybody agrees with the observation- whether or not this was part of a larger argument for enforcing leash laws or freeing Nelson Mandela is entirely beside the point.

No, it is not beside the point.

We can label the missing evidence as punctuated equilibrium, or divine intervention, but we both know that a record without conspicuous gaping holes would better fit the belief systems of evolution.

Evolution is not a belief system and the fossil record is, at this stage, entirely irreverent to demonstrating evolution. As Dawkins wrote:

Creationists are deeply enamored of the fossil record, because they have been taught (by each other) to repeat, over and over, the mantra that it is full of "gaps": "Show me your 'intermediates!' " They fondly (very fondly) imagine that these "gaps" are an embarrassment to evolutionists. Actually, we are lucky to have any fossils at all, let alone the massive numbers that we now do have to document evolutionary history—large numbers of which, by any standards, constitute beautiful "intermediates." We don't need fossils in order to demonstrate that evolution is a fact. The evidence for evolution would be entirely secure even if not a single corpse had ever fossilized. It is a bonus that we do actually have rich seams of fossils to mine, and more are discovered every day. The fossil evidence for evolution in many major animal groups is wonderfully strong. Nevertheless there are, of course, gaps, and creationists love them obsessively.

Let's use the analogy of a detective coming to the scene of a crime where there were no eyewitnesses. The baronet has been shot. Fingerprints, footprints, DNA from a sweat stain on the pistol, and a strong motive, all point toward the butler. It's pretty much an open-and-shut case, and the jury and everybody in the court is convinced that the butler did it. But a last-minute piece of evidence is discovered, in the nick of time before the jury retires to consider what had seemed to be their inevitable verdict of guilty: somebody remembers that the baronet had installed spy cameras against burglars. With bated breath, the court watches the films. One of them shows the butler in the act of opening the drawer in his pantry, taking out a pistol, loading it, and creeping stealthily out of the room with a malevolent gleam in his eye. You might think that this solidifies the case against the butler even further. Mark the sequel, however. The butler's defense lawyer astutely points out that there was no spy camera in the library where the murder took place, and no spy camera in the corridor leading from the butler's pantry. "There's a gap in the video record! We don't know what happened after the butler left the pantry. There is clearly insufficient evidence to convict my client."

In vain, the prosecution lawyer points out that there was a second camera in the billiard room, and this shows, through the open door, the butler, gun at the ready, creeping on tiptoe along the passage toward the library. Surely this plugs the gap in the video record? But no. Triumphantly the defense lawyer plays his ace. "We don't know what happened before or after the butler passed the open door of the billiard room. There are now two gaps in the video record. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, my case rests. There is now even less evidence against my client than there was before."

The fossil record, like the spy camera in the murder story, is a bonus, something that we had no right to expect as a matter of entitlement. There is already more than enough evidence to convict the butler without the spy camera, and the jury was about to deliver a guilty verdict before the spy camera was discovered. Similarly, there is more than enough evidence for the fact of evolution in the comparative study of modern species and their geographical distribution. We don't need fossils. The case for evolution is watertight without them, so it is paradoxical to use gaps in the fossil record as though they were evidence against evolution. We are lucky to have fossils at all.

What would be evidence against evolution, and very strong evidence at that, would be the discovery of even a single fossil in the wrong geological stratum. As J.B.S. Haldane famously retorted when asked to name an observation that would disprove the theory of evolution, "Fossil rabbits in the Precambrian!" No such rabbits, no authentically anachronistic fossils of any kind, have ever been found. All the fossils that we have, and there are very very many indeed, occur, without a single authenticated exception, in the right temporal sequence. Yes, there are gaps where there are no fossils at all, and that is only to be expected. But not a single solitary fossil has ever been found before it could have evolved. That is a very telling fact. A good theory is one that is vulnerable to disproof, yet is not disproved. Evolution could so easily be disproved if just a single fossil turned up in the wrong date order. Evolution has passed this test with flying colors. Skeptics of evolution who wish to prove their case should be diligently scrabbling around in the rocks, desperately trying to find anachronistic fossils. Maybe they'll find one. Want a bet?

The biggest gap, and the one the creationists like best of all, is the one that preceded the so-called Cambrian Explosion. A little more than half a billion years ago, in the Cambrian era, most of the great animal phyla "suddenly" appear in the fossil record. Suddenly, that is, in the sense that no fossils of these animal groups are known in rocks older than the Cambrian, not suddenly in the sense of instantaneously; the period we are talking about covers about 20 million years. Anyway, it is still quite sudden, and, as I wrote in a previous book, the Cambrian shows us a substantial number of major animal phyla "already in an advanced state of evolution, the very first time they appear. It is as though they were just planted there, without any evolutionary history. Needless to say, this appearance of sudden planting has delighted creationists."

The last sentence shows that I was savvy enough to realize that creationists would like the Cambrian Explosion. I was not (back in 1986) savvy enough to realize that they'd gleefully quote my lines back at me in their own favor, carefully omitting my careful words of explanation. On a whim, I just searched the World Wide Web for "It is as though they were just planted there, without any evolutionary history" and obtained no fewer than 1,250 hits. As a crude control test of the hypothesis that the majority of these hits represent creationist quote—minings, I tried searching, as a comparison, the clause that immediately follows the above quotation: "Evolutionists of all stripes believe, however, that this really does represent a very large gap in the fossil record." I obtained a grand total of 63 hits, compared to the 1,250 hits for the previous sentence.

I have dealt with the Cambrian Explosion at length before. Here I'll add just one new point, illustrated by the flatworms, Platyhelminthes. This great phylum of worms includes the parasitic flukes and tapeworms, which are of great medical importance. My favorites, however, are the free-living turbellarian worms, of which there are more than 4,000 species: that's about as numerous as all the mammal species put together. They are common, both in water and on land, and presumably have been common for a very long time. You'd expect, therefore, to see a rich fossil history. Unfortunately, there is almost nothing. Apart from a handful of ambiguous trace fossils, not a single fossil flatworm has ever been found. The Platyhelminthes, to a worm, are "already in an advanced state of evolution, the very first time they appear. It is as though they were just planted there, without any evolutionary history." But in this case, "the very first time they appear" is not the Cambrian but today. Do you see what this means, or at least ought to mean for creationists? Creationists believe that flatworms were created in the same week as all other creatures. They have therefore had exactly the same time in which to fossilize as all other animals. During all the centuries when all those bony or shelly animals were depositing their fossils by the millions, the flatworms must have been living happily alongside them, but without leaving the slightest trace of their presence in the rocks. What, then, is so special about gaps in the record of those animals that do fossilize, given that the past history of the flatworms is one big gap: even though the flatworms, by the creationists' own account, have been living for the same length of time? If the gap before the Cambrian Explosion is used as evidence that most animals suddenly sprang into existence in the Cambrian, exactly the same "logic" should be used to prove that the flatworms sprang into existence yesterday. Yet this contradicts the creationist's belief that flatworms were created during the same creative week as everything else. You cannot have it both ways. This argument, at a stroke, completely and finally destroys the creationist case that the Precambrian gap in the fossil record can be taken as evidence against evolution.

Why, on the evolutionary view, are there so few fossils before the Cambrian era? Well, presumably, whatever factors applied to the flatworms throughout geological time to this day, those same factors applied to the rest of the animal kingdom before the Cambrian. Probably, most animals before the Cambrian were soft-bodied like modern flatworms, probably rather small like modern turbellarians—just not good fossil material. Then something happened half a billion years ago to allow animals to fossilize freely—the arising of hard, mineralized skeletons, for example.

An earlier name for "gap in the fossil record" was "missing link." The phrase enjoyed a vogue in late Victorian England, and on into the 20th century. Inspired by a misunderstanding of Darwin's theory, it was used as an insult, in roughly the same way as "Neanderthal" is colloquially (and unjustly) used today.

The original meaning, a confused one, implied that the Darwinian theory lacked a vital link between humans and other primates. History-deniers, to this day, are very fond of saying, in what they imagine is a taunting tone of voice: "But you still haven't found the missing link," and they often throw in a gibe about Piltdown man, for good measure. Nobody knows who perpetrated the Piltdown hoax, but he has a lot to answer for. The fact that one of the first candidates for a man-ape fossil to be discovered turned out to be a hoax provided an excuse for history-deniers to ignore the very numerous fossils that are not hoaxes; and they still haven't stopped crowing about it. If only they would look at the facts, they'd soon discover that we now have a rich supply of intermediate fossils linking modern humans to the common ancestor that we share with chimpanzees. On the human side of the divide, that is. Interestingly, there are as yet no fossils linking that ancestor (which was neither chimpanzee nor human) to modern chimpanzees. Perhaps this is because chimpanzees live in forests, which don't provide good fossilizing conditions. If anything, it is chimpanzees, not humans, who today have a right to complain of missing links!

Another meaning concerns the alleged paucity of so-called "transitional forms" between major groups like reptiles and birds, or fish and amphibians. "Produce your intermediates!" Evolutionists often respond to this challenge from history-deniers by throwing them the bones of Archaeopteryx, the famous "intermediate" between "reptiles" and birds. This is a mistake. Archaeopteryx is not the answer to a challenge, because there is no challenge worth answering. To put up a single famous fossil like Archaeopteryx panders to a fallacy. In fact, for a large number of fossils, a good case can be made that every one of them is an intermediate between something and something else.

The silliest of all these "missing link" challenges are the following two (or variants of them, of which there are many). First, "If people came from monkeys via frogs and fish, then why does the fossil record not contain a 'fronkey'?" And, second, "I'll believe in evolution when I see a monkey give birth to a human baby." This last one makes the same mistake as all the others, plus the additional one of thinking that major evolutionary change happens overnight.

Well, of course, monkeys are not descended from frogs. No sane evolu-tionist ever said they were, or that ducks are descended from crocodiles or vice versa. Monkeys and frogs share an ancestor, which certainly looked nothing like a frog and nothing like a monkey. Maybe it looked a bit like a salamander, and we do indeed have salamander-like fossils dating from the right time. But that is not the point. Every one of the millions of species of animals shares an ancestor with every other one. If your understanding of evolution is so warped that you think we should expect to see a fronkey and a crocoduck, you should also wax sarcastic about the absence of a doggypotamos and an elephanzee. Indeed, why limit yourself to mammals? Why not a kangaroach (intermediate between kangaroo and cockroach) or an octopard (intermediate between octopus and leopard)? There's an infinite number of animal names you can string together in that way. Of course hippopotamuses are not descended from dogs, or vice versa. Chimpanzees are not descended from elephants or vice versa, just as monkeys are not descended from frogs. No modern species is descended from any other modern species (if we leave out very recent splits). Just as you can find fossils that approximate to the common ancestor of a frog and a monkey, so you can find fossils that approximate to the common ancestor of elephants and chimpanzees.

As for the second challenge, once again, humans are not descended from monkeys. We share a common ancestor with monkeys. As it happens, the common ancestor would have looked a lot more like a monkey than a man, and we would indeed probably have called it a monkey if we had met it, some 25 million years ago. But even though humans evolved from an ancestor that we could sensibly call a monkey, no animal gives birth to an instant new species, or at least not one as different from itself as a man is from a monkey, or even from a chimpanzee. That isn't what evolution is about. Evolution not only is a gradual process as a matter of fact; it has to be gradual if it is to do any explanatory work. Huge leaps in a single generation—which is what a monkey giving birth to a human would be—are almost as unlikely as divine creation, and are ruled out for the same reason: too statistically improbable. It would be so nice if those who oppose evolution would take a tiny bit of trouble to learn the merest rudiments of what it is that they are opposing.

Dawkins explicitly states that he despises the people who hold opposing beliefs.

I head this a number of times, but I've never seen the quote referenced. Would you be so kind?

I think most would agree this weakens anybody's 'academic' stance on anything- it betrays that the beliefs are largely founded on emotion, and that the believer is practically forbidden from ever changing his mind no matter the evidence, or he becomes what he despises, a liar, and any other name he has called those people.

I would not agree. I despise liars, I do not use that term lightly and without clear delineation and support. Does that disqualify me from pointing out your lies?

I don't think you or he are liars, I think you believe what you believe and you are welcome to that, my original point was that denying this belief is where this disdain for other beliefs comes from.

That's nice, but I fear I can not return the favor. Quote mining is a form of lying, especially after your error has been made clear to you. Your attempt to salvage a draw by pretending the evolution is "just a belief" and that "all beliefs are inherently equal" falls on it's face.

 

[Ouroboros]

I head this a number of times, but I've never seen the quote referenced. Would you be so kind?

Maybe he's referring to this quote "I don't despise religious people. I despise what they stand for." (atheist rally 2012).

Oh, here's one even better.

"I am often accused of expressing contempt and despising religious people. I don’t despise religious people, I despise what they stand for. I like, I like to quote the British journalist Johann Hari [?], who said, ‘I have no contempt for you,’ sorry, ‘I have so much respect for you, that I cannot respect your ridiculous ideas."

I actually kind'a like that view.

 

[Sapiens]

Maybe he's referring to this quote "I don't despise religious people. I despise what they stand for." (atheist rally 2012).

Oh, here's one even better.

"I am often accused of expressing contempt and despising religious people. I don’t despise religious people, I despise what they stand for. I like, I like to quote the British journalist Johann Hari [?], who said, ‘I have no contempt for you,’ sorry, ‘I have so much respect for you, that I cannot respect your ridiculous ideas."

I actually kind'a like that view.

Ah ... so the "Mighty Pirate" is a quote miner, misquoter, and a slanderer?

 

[Ouroboros]

Ah ... so the "Mighty Pirate" is a quote miner, misquoter, and a slanderer?

Well. Just read the first two paragraphs from Wiki about the character Guybrush from Monkey Island:
Guybrush Threepwood - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Bunyip]

Because religions without Divinely inspired doctrine are not bound to any specific beliefs. If they don't believe that their god specifically told them X, they are free to believe Y or Z. If they believe their G-d did tell them X, then they are bound to believe X.

How does that connect to accepting the fact of evolution?

 

[NewGuyOnTheBlock]

I didn't read all the new posts, but Guy, you could not be more wrong if you tried to be wrong.

Science reaches its conclusions based on evidence; not faith. Evidence once lead to the conclusion that the universe was static and that atoms were blobs in something like a protoplasm. This was based on the knowledge and the power of observation we had at the time. However, as our knowledge progresses, so too does our power to investigate; as technology and knowledge increases, that technology and knowledge can be used to look closer or more deeply at the evidence. (Think of the advent of the telescope and how it has tremendously increased in power over the years). When that new knowledge emerged, the new tools and evidence was used to further investigate what we once held to be true: and found an entirely new and different model of that atom and discovered that the universe is expanding. As a result, science adjusted their view of reality with this new evidence and information.

Faith, on the other hand, works exactly opposite. Faith says, "God created the heavens and the earth in 6 days and the world is 6,000 years old". New evidence emerges as we learn about genetics, embryology, comparative morphology, radiometric dating, geology, paleontology, astronomy, cellular biology, microbiology, an a myriad of other fields of science that clearly points to evolution and a planet over 4 billion years old. Faith says, "No, it's not; it's not because the Bible says it's not and I have faith".

We once thought light traveled on a substance called "aether". New evidence emerges as we are able to look more closely at light and find the excitement subatomic particles. Were "faith" an issue in science, the "faithful" scientist would have said, "Well, no I don't care what this new knowledge says. Yesterday, science said that light travels on aether, and I have faith in science, thus aether is the conductor of light; end of discussion".

What science can do that religion can't do is say, "I don't know"; and to say, "We were wrong".

Evolution is not fundamentally wrong. You, in your own way, are supporting that evolution is not fundamentally wrong because your arguments don't even address evolution. Your arguments are attacks on science in its entirety; as if science working as it is supposed to work (researching, investigating and experimenting to further understand our universe; in the process proving old conclusions wrong or refining old conclusions) is somehow supposed to disprove science.