The failure of Intelligent Design

[rusra02]

See above, emphasis mine:



That is categorically NOT what Dr. Raup is saying in those quotations you made of him. He DOES believe that the fossil record supports evolution, he just holds the view of punctuated equilibrium rather than the classical gradualistic view of evolution. Both views hold that all life evolved from a common ancestor.

You are now lying about lying. Well done.


And when you can't admit to lying, you just act as if it is the people accusing you who are in the wrong.

Rusra, you have been caught lying. Dr. Raup does not hold the position that the fossil record doesn't support evolution - AS YOU HAVE STATED - and his quotations do not even remotely suggest that he does -AS YOU HAVE STATED. These are lies, and I will not back down until you admit to the falsehoods you have committed and show some intellectual honesty. Or, are you not even capable of that?

I would suggest that anyone interested can read the posts in this thread for themselves and draw their own conclusions. Personal attacks will not change the facts, but it may shift attention away from the facts evolutionists do not want revealed. Attack the messenger if you cannot refute the message, eh?

 

[ImmortalFlame]

I would suggest that anyone interested can read the posts in this thread for themselves and draw their own conclusions.

In other words: ignore the fact that you lied and pretend it was just a matter of interpretation rather than you being dishonest about the opinions of an expert.

Nope, sorry, won't work.

Personal attacks will not change the facts, but it may shift attention away from the facts evolutionists do not want revealed. Attack the messenger if you cannot refute the message, eh?

You mean, the message that you lied about? If your message is a lie, then of course I'm going to accuse you of lying. That's not a personal attack - it's a statement of fact. Somebody who knowingly misrepresents the truth is a liar.

Can you just admit it, already?

 

[Ouroboros]

I think any interested person can read the posts for themselves and decide what was said and by whom.

Again, Dr Raup says in your quote, and it's verbatim: "This record of change pretty clearly demonstrates that evolution has occurred".

So perhaps the problem here isn't what Raup says, but how you decide to interpret him based on your bias against what he believes?

He clearly says that the fossil record demonstrates change and evidence for evolution.

Just read what that sentence says.

 

[Agnostic75]

Nor did I "try and present him a supporter" of my beliefs. I simply quoted him to show that evolutionists dishonestly, even fraudulently claim the fossil record supports evolution, and as Dr. Raup pointed out, it does no such thing, at least not macro-evolution.

But the fossil record does support evolution, it just doesn't support common descent with natural selection as its primary mechanism. Contrary to your claim of dishonesty, today, many if not most evolutionists believe that the fossil record is not nearly as complete as was previously believed, but they also believe that there is overwhelming support for common descent, and that at least some fossil evidence supports common descent.

An article at http://recoveringfundamentalists.com/no-transitional-fossils.html has lots of evidence about transitional fossils.

Regarding Raup, consider the following:

David Raup - RationalWiki

Religious creationists are known for quote mining the work of Raup. Creationists usually quote mine Raup's paper titled Conflicts between Darwin and Paleontology ((1979). The quote the creationists take out of context is:

”We now have a quarter of a million fossil species, but the situation hasn't changed much.......We have even fewer examples of evolutionary transition than we had in Darwin's time."

What Raup really said in context was:

”Well, we are now about 120 years after Darwin and the knowledge of the fossil record has been greatly expanded. We now have a quarter of a million fossil species but the situation hasn't changed much. The record of evolution is still surprisingly jerky and, ironically, we have even fewer examples of evolutionary transitions than we had in Darwin's time. By this I mean that some of the classic cases of darwinian change in the fossil record, such as the evolution of the horse in North America, have had to be discarded or modified as a result of more detailed information -- what appeared to be a nice simple progression when relatively few data were available now appear to be much more complex and much less gradualistic. So Darwin's problem has not been alleviated in the last 120 years and we still have a record which does show change but one that can hardly be looked upon as the most reasonable consequence of natural selection."

The paper is a discussion about Darwin's mechanism of natural selection and whether this mechanism is reflected in pattern of the fossil record, not whether there is a lack of evidence for common descent. From the beginning of the article:

”Part of our conventional wisdom about evolution is that the fossil record of past life is an important cornerstone of evolutionary theory. In some ways, this is true -- but the situation is much more complicated. I will explore here a few of the complex interrelationships between fossils and darwinian theory.......Darwin's theory of natural selection has always been closely linked to evidence form 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. We must distinguish between the fact of evolution -- defined as change in organisms over time -- and the explanation of this change. Darwin's contribution, through his theory of natural selection, was to suggest how the evolutionary change took place. The evidence we find in the geologic record is not nearly as compatible with darwinian natural selection as we would like it to be."

Raup later expanded on the ideas in his paper and published a book Extinction. Bad Genes or Bad Luck? (1991) which does not deny that some species go extinct by natural selection but has written that the majority of extinctions especially mass extinctions are caused by physical factors such as comets, climatic changes and catastrophes. Raup is not challenging natural selection as a cause of modification of species he just claimed that gradual change by natural selection is not the only mechanism of evolution as non-gradual extinction events also have a role. Creationists however usually misrepresent Raup to make out he is denying common descent or natural selection.

So Raup does not at all claim that there are not any transitional fossils. He merely claims that some mechanisms other than just natural selection cause common descent.

The main issue is whether or not there is reasonable evidence that evolution is probably true, and most experts, including Raup, say that it is probably true. Charles Darwin wrote "On the Origin of Species" over 150 years ago, so it is understandable that he made some mistakes about the mechanisms for common descent, but most experts say that he was right that common descent is true.

You mentioned paleontology, but there are also other fields of science that support macroevolution. Wikipedia says:

Paleontology, evolutionary developmental biology, comparative genomics and genomic phylostratigraphy contribute most of the evidence for the patterns and processes that can be classified as macroevolution. An example of macroevolution is the appearance of feathers during the evolution of birds from theropod dinosaurs.

The evolutionary course of Equidae (wide family including all horses and related animals) is often viewed as a typical example of macroevolution. The earliest known genus, Hyracotherium (now reclassified as a palaeothere), was a herbivore animal resembling a dog that lived in the early Cenozoic. As its habitat transformed into an open arid grassland, selective pressure required that the animal become a fast grazer. Thus elongation of legs and head as well as reduction of toes gradually occurred, producing the only extant genus of Equidae, Equus.

How much do you know about evolutionary developmental biology, comparative genomics and genomic phylostratigraphy?

How much do know about the flagellum, intelligent design, and irreducible complexity?

You have claimed that a global flood occurred. How much do you know about global flood geology?

Over a year ago, you said that people should study the evidence about evolution, but you are not capable of conducting proper research yourself, so you should not claim that other people should study evolution.

How can illiterate people who live in remote jungle regions of the world study evolution?