How then do you account for the fact that, for a very long time now, the world's paleontologists have had the exact opposite view of what the fossil record shows? Are they part of a massive conspiracy? Really, really bad at ther jobs? Under a magic spell?
"Instead of finding the gradual unfolding of life, what geologists of Darwin's time, and geologists of the present day actually find is a highly uneven or jerky record; that is, species appear in the sequence very suddenly, show little or no change during their existence in the record, then abruptly go out of the record. and it is not always clear, in fact it's rarely clear, that the descendants were actually better adapted than their predecessors." (Raup, David M., "Conflicts Between Darwin and Paleontology," Bulletin, Field Museum of Natural History, vol. 50, 1979, p. 23)
"Instead of finding the gradual unfolding of life, what geologists of Darwin's time, and geologists of the present day actually find is a highly uneven or jerky record; that is, species appear in the sequence very suddenly, show little or no change during their existence in the record, then abruptly go out of the record. and it is not always clear, in fact it's rarely clear, that the descendants were actually better adapted than their predecessors." (Raup, David M., "Conflicts Between Darwin and Paleontology," Bulletin, Field Museum of Natural History, vol. 50, 1979, p. 23)
A quote mine is almost always disingenuous. He was showing where Darwin was wrong. This is not "breaking news". Darwin got quite a few things right but he also got many details wrong. David Raup's work was only one piece that led to the concept of punctuated equilibrium. The idea that there can be relative evolutionary stasis over long periods of time broken up by rapid evolution when there is a major environmental change. "Rapid" evolution is only rapid in a geological sense. It would be on the order of many thousands of years rather than millions of years. From your point of view even "rapid evolution" would be rather slow since it would take place over quite a few generations.
Here is a link to his paper so that you can read it more fully and see that he still fully supported the concept of evolution:
"Instead of finding the gradual unfolding of life, what geologists of Darwin's time, and geologists of the present day actually find is a highly uneven or jerky record; that is, species appear in the sequence very suddenly, show little or no change during their existence in the record, then abruptly go out of the record. and it is not always clear, in fact it's rarely clear, that the descendants were actually better adapted than their predecessors." (Raup, David M., "Conflicts Between Darwin and Paleontology," Bulletin, Field Museum of Natural History, vol. 50, 1979, p. 23)
You're dodging the issue. The quote reflects paleontologists debating/discussing what type of evolution is evidenced in the fossil record (Darwinian gradualism or punctuated equilibria, which really is about different modes of speciation) (CLICK HERE). Now, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and figure that you posted the out of context quote due to ignorance (i.e., you copied it from a source you mistakenly trusted) rather than deliberate deception.
However the fact remains, the world's paleontologists have all agreed that the fossil record supports evolutionary common descent for a very long time now. Again, how do you account for that? Conspiracy? Incompetence? Magic?
I read it long ago. I never once said he didn't support evolution. He was commenting on the fossil record being "highly uneven or jerky", as opposed to what some on here have implied.
When I asked you how you accounted for the long-standing agreement among paleontologists regarding the fossil record evidencing evolution, you posted the Raup quote and asked "You want to change your statement?"
You're dodging the issue. The quote reflects paleontologists debating/discussing what type of evolution is evidenced in the fossil record (Darwinian gradualism or punctuated equilibria, which really is about different modes of speciation) (CLICK HERE). Now, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and figure that you posted the out of context quote due to ignorance (i.e., you copied it from a source you mistakenly trusted) rather than deliberate deception.
However the fact remains, the world's paleontologists have all agreed that the fossil record supports evolutionary common descent for a very long time now. Again, how do you account for that? Conspiracy? Incompetence? Magic?
I'm not dodging anything...
Of course, the majority (who believe in CD) agree it supports it. But then again, they have to.
"Evolutionary scientists acknowledge that they cannot explain this rapid appearance of diverse animal body plans by classical Darwinian processes, or other known material mechanisms. Robert Carroll, a paleontologist at McGill University, argues in Trends in Ecology and Evolution that “The extreme speed of anatomical change and adaptive radiation during this brief time period requires explanations that go beyond those proposed for the evolution of species within the modern biota.” 1 Another paper likewise maintains that “microevolution does not provide a satisfactory explanation for the extraordinary burst of novelty during the Cambrian Explosion” and concludes “the major evolutionary transitions in animal evolution still remain to be causally explained.”2 Likewise a 2009 paper in BioEssays concedes that “elucidating the materialistic basis of the Cambrian explosion has become more elusive, not less, the more we know about the event itself.”3
References: [1] Robert L. Carroll, “Towards a new evolutionary synthesis,” Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 15(1):27-32 (2000). [2] Jaume Baguña and Jordi Garcia-Fernández, “Evo-Devo: the Long and Winding Road,” International Journal of Developmental Biology, 47:705-713 (2003) (internal citations removed). [3] Kevin J. Peterson, Michael R. Dietrich and Mark A. McPeek, “MicroRNAs and metazoan macroevolution: insights into canalization, complexity, and the Cambrian explosion,” BioEssays, 31 (7):736-747 (2009).
When I asked you how you accounted for the long-standing agreement among paleontologists regarding the fossil record evidencing evolution, you posted the Raup quote and asked "You want to change your statement?"
You're dodging again. I asked how you account for the long-standing agreement among paleontologists about the fossil record supporting evolutionary common descent, you responded with the Raup quote, and asked "You want to change your statement?"
You sent me a link on beneficial mutations. Did you make a mistake?
I said evolution as referred to as large scale, has not been observed, demonstrated, nor verified to be true.
No Creationist I know, argues that beneficial mutations do not occur. They argue that their occurrences are quite rare. Mutations are random and not directed.
So the argument is, that for you to get from one organism to another, thousands perhaps hundreds of thousands, even million of those beneficial mutations must occur. What are the chances of that happening with random mutations?
That said, This response is... I'll be nice useless to me.
I mentioned before how specific the circumstances have to be for a fossil to form, how relatively they're extremely rare, and the guesstimate that we may be lucky to find one fossil for every ten thousand species that have previously existed. What the fossil record nonetheless shows is the development of life from proto-prokaryotes to the present. (>Here's a timeline<.) On the one hand it's true that the earliest part has the least information hence the most hypothesizing. On the other hand, some evidence is indeed available, and the hypotheses must fit both with that and with what we know of what evolved later. In other words, if you want to argue they got it wrong, the place to start is an understanding of how they've concluded what they have. That will allow you to argue specifically against anything you consider is an error or a leap-too-far (as distinct from trying to assert them away, which is your present procedure).
When we get out the early stuff, the evidence is more abundant. So although the details remain a work in progress, we can show that humans evolved along this track:
from the most basic form of life (protobionts, presently undefined)
to ...
You don't think the list above shows a spectrum?
You think each of those steps was separately poofed into being by magic?
Yes, I already know about the guesswork that went into creating this mythological story.
Of course I did a post on this already where, the evolutionary tree - mind you, a hypothesis - is used to determine which slot each specimen gets placed.
Switching around is done occasionally, or the branches on the tree are moved, but that's how the story goes.
Besides that, I have many times mentioned how they arrive at their conclusion, and showed them to be flawed. I even challenged someone to show me that they do not arrive at these conclusions by suppositions and assumptions, and I haven't heard from the person since.
You think such a magician has to screw around with intermediate steps instead of cutting to the chase?
So? You've never heard of punctuated equilibrium, part of the modern theory of evolution? It doesn't strike you that according to common sense and the theory of evolution, a critter that survives and breeds well in all environments (the cockroach is a much-cited example) has little need to change much?
punctuated equilibrium? That's another sister to inflation, right? The one some label "evolution by jerks". I remember long time ago, when I first heard of this plaster, I remember smiling to myself, and thinking, "What sores don't evolutionist find a plaster for? These theories have their purposes, don't they?
In some places it's true that evidence is scanty and that gaps are bridged by careful hypothesis. Note however that the hypothesis must be the one that best fits facts. And then in other places there's a great deal more evidence. You've seen the abundance of fossils from, in particular, china, showing the transition from dinosaurs to feathered dinosaurs to protobirds to birds, I take it?
Note that the change is consistent along a time line. Although nothing stops evolution from simplifying if simplifying works best for survival and breeding, the more eye-catching (and personal) tendency towards elaboration is what we find along those paths. You probably recall Haldane's reply when asked what evidence would refute evolution? Well, we don't find such evidence. [Though if we did, it wouldn't in fact refute evolution, just cause a chunky modification to it].
I understand how they arrive at their inference of transitional. How many times I have mentioned that, I can't count.
It's right here though. A transitional fossil is any fossilized remains of a life form that exhibits traits common to both an ancestral group and its derived descendant group. This is especially important where the descendant group is sharply differentiated by gross anatomy and mode of living from the ancestral group. These fossils serve as a reminder that taxonomic divisions are human constructs that have been imposed in hindsight on a continuum of variation. Because of the incompleteness of the fossil record, there is usually no way to know exactly how close a transitional fossil is to the point of divergence. Therefore, it cannot be assumed that transitional fossils are direct ancestors of more recent groups, though they are frequently used as models for such ancestors.
So, taking fossils of diverse creatures, using a created hypothesized "graph" presupposed by an idea - another hypothesis - of common descent from a UCA, and determining what is an ancestral group a descendant group - another hypothesis, and what appears to be what they are looking for, and voilà... transitional.
You really want to talk about magic? There yah go. By a series of hypotheses, miracles are accepted.
Consider please, a comparative analysis.
This would look so with an animation, but those do take time, and energy... which I'm not about to waste.
True Story (A).
So a guy sees a variety of birds (fossils) he thought were a mixture of different birds, only to be told they were all one bird type, finches.
Trying to make sense of what he was finding, he speculated that "one species does change into another". Fast forwarding...
The idea arose that all life diverged from one universal common ancestor (UCA).
So he created an artificial tree (evolutionary tree) from which he built branches. These branches show how each new organism (new branches and leaves) would "grow". Digging...
Through various methods the quest to find evidence (its root - for no tree can stand without its roots, and branch nodes) to support the tree.
Digging up bones (fossils), examining characteristics, and features, studying traits and making comparisons; Studying genes and making comparisons, and coming up with suggestions... The tree was getting support - with a tweak here and a tweak there, shift here and shift there... the tree was constantly being transformed. Some of its supports were getting entangled - being choked to death, and having to be removed, but who cares, "our tree looked like a tree. It had support, branches, leaves.
Our tree.
[GALLERY=media, 8721]Evidence by nPeace posted Nov 12, 2018 at 1:20 PM[/GALLERY]
There seems to be something missing from this tree. Ah. It has no roots. The UCA is missing.
Skeptics Imaginary Story (B)
A guy went to tend to his stock during a rainstorm, when suddenly, KABOOM! POW! BRAGADAKS!. Seeing lightning for the first time, and hearing the loud Boom of thunder, the terrified man ran into the house where his startled family members asked him, "What was that?"
His lips quivering, the man thought for a moment, and then said, "It was God. He spoke, and he seemed angry." His family responded, all at once, "God?" Then the wife with a puzzled look on her face said, "What is God? What does God want? Why is he angry?"
Thinking for a moment, the man said, "Kaboom Pow Bragadaks. Kaboom Pow Bragadaks. Come on, now bow, Um... to me?"
So the man and his family got on their knees, and started talking to God.
Thus was born God and prayer
.
A Mixed Up Story (C)
People have for centuries been seeking answers to life's most complex questions, "Where did life come from? Why are we here - What is the purpose? Why is there suffering and death? They long for a satisfying life, and believe the answers can be found, somewhere.
Meanwhile, they witness phenomenon that they can't explain, and so they create ideas in their heads, that there must be higher intelligent beings that put life here. Fast forwarding...
So people created the concept of God - that there is some all powerful being somewhere in the sky... Let's say outside the universe to be more precise, that is responsible for life existing, and holds the key to all our questions. Testing the concept - Digging...
Through various means persons explore the possibility of their concept.
Examining an ancient text, with a history of people who worshiped a divine being.
Examining the evidence found in the earth that corroborates the text.
Examining the facts of design found in nature,
Examining the facts observed in everyday life.
I hope I have been fair with these stories... I tried to be, at least.
If I did a fair analysis, what do you see as different between A and C as to how conclusions are reached.
I'm really interested in an honest answer, so I hope you will give one, and say why you so answer. Thanks.
The bible says that the earth existed before the sun moon and stars did, that plants existed before the sun did, that birds existed before land animals did, that the earth is flat and fixed in place and the heavenly bodies go round it, that the sky is a hard dome to which the stars are affixed and if they come loose they'll fall to earth, that pi=3, that within the history of H sap sap at a time when wood technology was capable of building a giant box that could remain watertight for a year, Mt Everest was 15 feet under water, that at a time when humans were capable of brick or stonework, they only spoke a single language until God, out of fear, cursed them to many languages, and buckets more of such nonsense. If you think that's right, then don't get on planes ─ they'll fly you off the edge of the earth.
You can call evolution a 'designer' if you wish, but evolution is simply a natural process, without sentience or purposes. It has at least one large advantage over your imagined sentient, purposeful designer, though, in that evolution is real.
Out of all that nonsense, only two things you said were even close to being true.
The last comment is also false. You need to get your facts right about what a designer is.
But your understanding of what that means, is very, very highly probable that it did not look anything like what Einstein was saying, or even remotely meant or considered valid to him. He would look at your understanding and probably just chuckle amusingly, like he might upon hearing children's fairy tale. But even in a fairy tale, there can be some truth buried deep within the metaphors of the man who wrote it in that day. But that truth, is not about science, but something beyond that.
I read it long ago. I never once said he didn't support evolution. He was commenting on the fossil record being "highly uneven or jerky", as opposed to what some on here have implied.
I have not seen anyone imply otherwise. Perhaps you have misread those posts. And that still does not explain your quote mine. In an online debate it is not proper to quote without a link to the source and if necessary where it was found in the source. For example I could honestly state:
The Bible says twelve different times "There is no God" and provide a link to the Bible. That would be improper since I would be implying something that the Bible does not say if read in context. In that case one would have to provide a link to each verse. Your latest quote would not help you at all if you had properly quoted your source.
You sent me a link on beneficial mutations. Did you make a mistake?
I said evolution as referred to as large scale, has not been observed, demonstrated, nor verified to be true.
I linked you an example of the evolution of a new species. You said that didn't happen. It does. It satisfies science so I'm not clear why you're arguing.
If you want examples of other kinds of evolution, the Galapagos is much studied. One such study (in the 1990s?) followed the charge in finches' bills through some years of drought, noting how they became heavier ie how the birds with the bills most able to crack tougher, drier seeds than usual were the ones who most survived to breed. When the drought broke, the bills in due course returned to their former proportions. However, that's a taste of natural selection for you.
Some are random, as with the nylon bug, and must be of a fairly usual kind to have evolved so quickly. By contrast, the natural selection of the finches' bills wasn't random in that sense.
Yes, your claim of magic is the key to this ─ the alteration of reality independently of the rules of physics, with eg magic words (à la 'let there be light') or just by wishing ('wandless magic' such as attributed to Dumbledore). I don't think magic exists outside of imagination. You disagree: you say it's the actual origin of species.
So persuade me. What's an example of it, authenticated to scientific standards? How does it work? What impartial studies have been carried out on it? Where can I read them?
I linked you an example of the evolution of a new species. You said that didn't happen. It does. It satisfies science so I'm not clear why you're arguing.
If you want examples of other kinds of evolution, the Galapagos is much studied. One such study (in the 1990s?) followed the charge in finches' bills through some years of drought, noting how they became heavier ie how the birds with the bills most able to crack tougher, drier seeds than usual were the ones who most survived to breed. When the drought broke, the bills in due course returned to their former proportions. However, that's a taste of natural selection for you.
Could you clip out a paragraph or two of the part with the evolution of a new species. Read through the article, but maybe I missed it. Why are you giving me information on new species though? What does that have to do with large scale evolution?
Then they've come a long way since I first met them around 2003. You say there's hope for them yet?
That can be true. It's not true of the finches, however.
You seem to have lost me. Are we talking about the same thing?
Adaptation of finch species is not evolution on a large scale. There seems to be some misunderstanding here.
Some are random, as with the nylon bug, and must be of a fairly usual kind to have evolved so quickly. By contrast, the natural selection of the finches' bills wasn't random in that sense.
I assume you're read >this article< on transitional fossils and studied the examples?
Yes, your claim of magic is the key to this ─ the alteration of reality independently of the rules of physics, with eg magic words (à la 'let there be light') or just by wishing ('wandless magic' such as attributed to Dumbledore). I don't think magic exists outside of imagination. You disagree: you say it's the actual origin of species.
So persuade me. What's an example of it, authenticated to scientific standards? How does it work? What impartial studies have been carried out on it? Where can I read them?
It's a simple example of natural selection in action, You've heard of natural selection?
Now back to the essential difference in our views.
I'm all for science. Science proceeds by examinable evidence, falsifiable statements, repeatable experiments, honest and transparent argument, peer review, scrutiny and re-scrutiny of conclusions. I can further explain to you how science works, should you wish.
You're all for magic. The unnamed magician poofs species into existence for no obvious reason, (and yet by the weirdest of repeated coincidences they line up with the observed sequences of evolution). For my part I have no idea how magic works, and so, since it's at the center of your thesis, I turn to you to explain it to me.
Please do so. Then we won't be just nibbling around the edges, we'll be talking about what matters.
It's a simple example of natural selection in action, You've heard of natural selection?
Now back to the essential difference in our views.
I'm all for science. Science proceeds by examinable evidence, falsifiable statements, repeatable experiments, honest and transparent argument, peer review, scrutiny and re-scrutiny of conclusions. I can further explain to you how science works, should you wish.
You're all for magic. The unnamed magician poofs species into existence for no obvious reason, (and yet by the weirdest of repeated coincidences they line up with the observed sequences of evolution). For my part I have no idea how magic works, and so, since it's at the center of your thesis, I turn to you to explain it to me.
Please do so. Then we won't be just nibbling around the edges, we'll be talking about what matters.
Evolution on a large scale is "proven" by the fossil record. There is no other explanation that has not been refuted or else it is found to be not supported by any reliable evidence at all.
You are asking for scientific styled evidence for the Biblical accounts.
How does that work? Which scientific method are you going to use?
The evidence that God is, comes from applying methods based on observation, experimentation, and applying reason and logic.
As regard the Bible, it is already being rigorously scrutinized by those in that field... I forgot what you call them. Right Historical criticism, and Biblical criticism.
I hope my answers were satisfactorily. If not, feel free to press.
Looks like you have been pretty busy with this thread... I haven't had time to reply or review other posts in this thread.. hoping to study further all that has been said with others so I don't duplicate questions or our time...
I'm a little confused on your view here.. a couple of quick questions.
1. So I take it you don't believe in the common biblical view of a 6 day creation but a "designed" creation over billions of years... i.e. the designer sparked the big bang to the the formation of earth?
2. And you believe life was designed and created on earth 3.5b years ago not 6 or 7 thousand years ago? And you view the designer using evolution, thus the designer programmed and deployed the mutations needed for new species? And possibly designing extinctions to make changes in the formation of life, i.e. the Permian and KT events?
3. And also you believe that death was natural on earth and not the common biblical view it was brought on earth by the fall of Adam?
I know a lot of the ID people like Steven Meyers and Hugh Ross that have this view.
These views are contradictory to common biblical views by most denominations.
useless to me.
