What does the fossil record say?

[wilsoncole]

That Recurrent Variation is a law of nature. Duh!

Which part of his claim says so?

All of which would be considered evidence to the contrary, wouldn't it?

No! Those only emphasizes possibilities, not evidence. Enough to establish reasonable doubt.

If there were no evidence of any other people who could have drugged the suspect or murdered the victim, then the fact that the suspect was holding the knife and covered with the victims blood would be adequate to prove guilt, even without eyewitnesses, confessions or the like.

Until it happens to you. Wake up and smell the truth!

falsely convicted of murder - Yahoo! Search Results
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/14/world/asia/14japan.html

No, the only thing proven here is that you are selective as to what evidence you base your conclusions on.

That's a 2-headed arrow that points both ways.
Are you saying you are not?



(\__/)
( ‘ .‘ )
>(^)<

Wilson

 

[camanintx]

The bearing lies on the fact that evolution cannot commence nor proceed without life.
It will always come back to this.
Nobody can climb a ladder from halfway up. NOBODY!

Of course evolution cannot proceed without life, but it doesn't matter how that life comes to be. How I climb a ladder is in no way affected by how I got on the ladder in the first place.

Which part of his claim says so?

The part where he put "Law of" in front of "Recurrent Variation" of course.

 

[tumbleweed41]

But your escape hatch is tightly closed!

Speaking of escape hatches....



Does the fossil record provide empirical evidence that humanity, life and the Earth are the creation of a supernatural being?

 

[Dirty Penguin]

"To bridge the gap between fish and amphibian, the sense of hearing would have had to undergo a radical change. In general, fish receive sound through their bodies, but most toads and frogs have eardrums. Tongues would also have to change. No fish has an extendable tongue, but amphibians such as toads do. Amphibian eyes have the added ability to blink, since they have a membrane they pass over their eyeballs, keeping them clean.

Strenuous efforts have been made to link the amphibians to some fish ancestor, but without success. The lungfish had been a favorite candidate, since, in addition to gills, it has a swim bladder, which can be used for breathing when it is temporarily out of the water.
Says the book The Fishes:
“It is tempting to think they might have some direct connection with the amphibians which led to the land-living vertebrates. But they do not; they are a separate group entirely.”

David Attenborough disqualifies both the lungfish and the coelacanth “because the bones of their skulls are so different from those of the first fossil amphibians that the one cannot be derived from the other.” (Creation p. 72, 73 published by JWs)

So shall we begin with the alleged fish-amphibian transition?

I'm waiting to see where he goes with this one as well...Quote mining the Awake magazine is not going to be of much help if he goes down this biological road.....

opcorn:

 

[wilsoncole]

Argon

This is ridiculous!
How can this be termed "absolute dating" when there is an "area of acceptable error?"

Stromatolite - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is even more ridiculous!
There is a mess of speculation; “thought to be,” “implying,” “can be,” “can accrete,” “presumed to be,” “maybe,” “suggestive of” etc, etc.
We're supposed to be talking about "absolute dating" here. There is nothing absolute, nor even certain, about it!

by all means...

OK!
"Geology’s Hypothetical Structure
When confronted with the chart, students of geology may assume the rock strata actually follow, one after the other, in that exact order. But is that the case?"

The investigation begins with an assumption.

"Note what American geologist T. C. Chamberlain has to say about this:
“It is not possible to proceed directly downward through the whole succession of bedded rocks. . . . The full series of strata is made out only by putting together this data gathered throughout all lands; and even when this is done, an absolutely complete series cannot yet be made out, or at least has not been.”

This tells me that no complete record of the rocks exist.

"Byron C. Nelson, in his book The Deluge Story in Stone, refers to an area comprising part of Montana, Alberta and British Columbia, fully 7,000 square miles, where Precambrian rock (said to be formed over a thousand million years ago) lies above “Cretaceous” strata (which are supposed to be less than two hundred and fifty thousand years old).

What? Rocks found in reverse order? This testifies to catastrophism, not uniformatarianism.

"Further observing that there is no actual “record of the rocks” in their assumed order is the following admission from the work Introduction to Geology (1958 p. 11) by H. E. Brown, V. E. Monnett and J. W. Stovall:
“Whatever his method of approach, the geologist must take cognizance of the following facts. . . . There is no place on the earth where a complete record of the rocks is present. Some areas have been the sites of deposition of sediment for millions of years, whereas other regions have been subjected to the wearing action of natural agencies for equal periods of time. To reconstruct the history of the earth, scattered bits of information from thousands of locations all over the world must be pieced together. The results will be at best only a very incomplete record.

If the complete story of the earth is compared to an encyclopedia of thirty volumes, then we can seldom hope to find even one complete volume in a given area. Sometimes only a few chapters, perhaps only a paragraph or two, will be the total geological contribution of a region; indeed, we are often reduced to studying scattered bits of information more nearly comparable to a few words or letters.”
How does the geological time scale provide clues about the fossil record and organic evolution?

You have shown me your latest finds are (above) and they amount to "ridiculous!"



(\__/)
( ‘ .‘ )
>(^)<

Wilson

 

[wilsoncole]

Of course evolution cannot proceed without life, but it doesn't matter how that life comes to be. How I climb a ladder is in no way affected by how I got on the ladder in the first place.

Nobody asked you how you got on the ladder. Read carefully:
Nobody can CLIMB a ladder from halfway up. Put another way; Nobody can build a tower from the second floor up.
Apart from direct creation, only abiogenesis could account for the origin of life. Since you reject the first, do you have any evidence for the second?
Note is importance: If abiogenesis did not happen, neither can evolution.

The part where he put "Law of" in front of "Recurrent Variation" of course.

I am thoroughly convinced that you know absolutely nothing about the law of recurring variation, yet, just like the Bible, you glibly condemn it.


(\__/)
( ‘ .‘ )
>(^)<

Wilson

 

[Jose Fly]

So Wilson...are we going to do this, or what?

 

[wilsoncole]

I'm waiting to see where he goes with this one as well...Quote mining the Awake magazine is not going to be of much help if he goes down this biological road.....

You and he can wait all you want.
I gave you my answer already.
Now I will add:
Apart from direct creation, only abiogenesis could account for the origin of life. Since you reject the first, do you have any evidence for the second?
Note its importance: If abiogenesis did not happen, neither can evolution.
So - your question is moot.
You will see just that - every time you ask the question.


(\__/)
( ‘ .‘ )
>(^)<

Wilson

 

[waitasec]

This is ridiculous!
How can this be termed "absolute dating" when there is an "area of acceptable error?"

you forgot to mention...
Each step produces argon with a certain 40Ar:39Ar ratio, and only when 80% or more of these steps are within acceptable error is the crystal's age known. Dating via 40Ar/39Ar geochronology is generally accurate to within 1-2% for properly collected and irradiated and treated samples.

This is even more ridiculous!
There is a mess of speculation; &#8220;thought to be,&#8221; &#8220;implying,&#8221; &#8220;can be,&#8221; &#8220;can accrete,&#8221; &#8220;presumed to be,&#8221; &#8220;maybe,&#8221; &#8220;suggestive of&#8221; etc, etc.
We're supposed to be talking about "absolute dating" here. There is nothing absolute, nor even certain, about it!

what can be presumed is your acute sense of absolute assumption...
that is all you have
so it's not surprising that you have a knack for cherry picking...
wonder why you didn't quote the context
Stromatolites were much more abundant on the planet in Precambrian times. While older, Archean fossil remains are presumed to be colonies of single-celled blue-green bacteria, younger (that is, Proterozoic) fossils may be primordial forms of the eukaryote chlorophytes (that is, green algae). One genus of stromatolite very common in the geologic record is Collenia. The earliest stromatolite of confirmed microbial origin dates to 2.724 billion years ago.[3] A recent discovery provides strong evidence of microbial stromatolites extending as far back as 3,450 million years ago.[4] [5]
Stromatolites are a major constituent of the fossil record for about the first 3.5 billion years of life on earth,[6] with their abundance[verification needed] peaking about 1.25 billion years ago. They subsequently declined in abundance and diversity, which by the start of the Cambrian had fallen to 20% of their peak. The most widely-supported explanation is that stromatolite builders fell victims to grazing creatures (the Cambrian substrate revolution), implying that sufficiently complex organisms were common over 1 billion years ago.[7][8][9]
The connection between grazer and stromatolite abundance is well documented in the younger Ordovician evolutionary radiation; stromatolite abundance also increased after the end-Ordovician and end-Permian extinctions decimated marine animals, falling back to earlier levels as marine animals recovered.[10]

OK!
"Geology&#8217;s Hypothetical Structure
When confronted with the chart, students of geology may assume the rock strata actually follow, one after the other, in that exact order. But is that the case?"

The investigation begins with an assumption.

"Note what American geologist T. C. Chamberlain has to say about this:
&#8220;It is not possible to proceed directly downward through the whole succession of bedded rocks. . . . The full series of strata is made out only by putting together this data gathered throughout all lands; and even when this is done, an absolutely complete series cannot yet be made out, or at least has not been.&#8221;

what you failed to mention is that mr chamberlin was born in 1843...

In 1876 Chamberlin became chief geologist for the Wisconsin geological survey, supervising the completion of the survey and the publication of the four-volume report, for which he authored sections on glacial deposits, Paleozoic and Precambrian bedrock geology, lead-zinc ore deposits, artesian wells, and soils. The project brought him national attention and led to his appointment as head of the glacial division of the US Geological Survey in 1881. He later was president of the University of Wisconsin (1887 - 1892).

Byron C. Nelson book was written in 1968...and is a creationist.

You have shown me your latest finds are (above) and they amount to dishonesty.
:beach:

 

[Jose Fly]

So Wilson, since you clearly have no desire to subject your empty assertion about fossils to any sort of scrutiny, perhaps you can explain something for me. You've claimed that evolutionary transitions are totally lacking in the fossil record. How exactly do you know? Have you studied fossil specimens? Do you regularly peruse the relevant scientific journals? Do you attend conferences and symposiums and discuss the fossil record with professionals? Have you taken relevant undergraduate or graduate level courses?

Tell me Wilson, how did you come to be such an expert in paleontology that you feel qualified to speak as an authority about it?

 

[waitasec]

So Wilson, since you clearly have no desire to subject your empty assertion about fossils to any sort of scrutiny, perhaps you can explain something for me. You've claimed that evolutionary transitions are totally lacking in the fossil record. How exactly do you know? Have you studied fossil specimens? Do you regularly peruse the relevant scientific journals? Do you attend conferences and symposiums and discuss the fossil record with professionals? Have you taken relevant undergraduate or graduate level courses?

Tell me Wilson, how did you come to be such an expert in paleontology that you feel qualified to speak as an authority about it?

because gawd gave him the authority...
:sarcastic

 

[Dirty Penguin]

You and he can wait all you want.
I gave you my answer already.

You said;

http://www.religiousforums.com/forum/2411902-post2312.html

"There are no "evolutionary lineages!"

"Unbridgeable gaps indeed!"

"No real link has been found between amphibian and fish. "

Instead of empty assertions I figured you would give examples. You didn't. You're rather content on quote mining from your online Awake journal.

Apart from direct creation, only abiogenesis could account for the origin of life. Since you reject the first, do you have any evidence for the second?

Nope and neither do you which is why I, personally, am not raising any sort of case for or against Abiogenesis. I am specifically talking about the fossil record and the origin and diversity of species on the planet.

Note its importance: If abiogenesis did not happen, neither can evolution.
So - your question is moot.
You will see just that - every time you ask the question.

The question wasn't moot. You simply refuse to backup your assertions in regards to intermediate fossils. Do YOU accept the hypothesis of Abiogenesis? No trick question here and I'm not going to ask you to present evidence for it. It requires a simple YES or NO. Which one is it?

 

[wilsoncole]

So Wilson...are we going to do this, or what?

What you fail to realize, Mr. Fly, is that this a forum. You can write whatever you like as can I.
Use your prerogative.

(\__/)
( ‘ .‘ )
>(^)<

Wilson

 

[Amill]

Note is importance: If abiogenesis did not happen, neither can evolution.

So a god would be completely incapable of producing life forms whose descendants evolved and diversified into what we can see today? Because many people(not myself) believe in just that, and it's not any less plausible than a god creating each species....is it? I find it far more plausible actually, especially with the evidence in the fossil record showing organisms that fit models and predictions made about common ancestry.

 

[Jose Fly]

What you fail to realize, Mr. Fly, is that this a forum. You can write whatever you like as can I.
Use your prerogative.

Again:

So Wilson, since you clearly have no desire to subject your empty assertion about fossils to any sort of scrutiny, perhaps you can explain something for me. You've claimed that evolutionary transitions are totally lacking in the fossil record. How exactly do you know? Have you studied fossil specimens? Do you regularly peruse the relevant scientific journals? Do you attend conferences and symposiums and discuss the fossil record with professionals? Have you taken relevant undergraduate or graduate level courses?

Tell me Wilson, how did you come to be such an expert in paleontology that you feel qualified to speak as an authority about it?

 

[tumbleweed41]

Still I wonder...

Does the fossil record provide empirical evidence that humanity, life and the Earth are the creation of a supernatural being?

 

[jarofthoughts]

Still I wonder...

Does the fossil record provide empirical evidence that humanity, life and the Earth are the creation of a supernatural being?

Only if that being was severely incompetent...

 

[wilsoncole]

Again, I'm perfectly willing to examine specimens found, described, and published by creationists.

We are not materialists.

But if you're going to automatically exclude any specimens described in the scientific journals without even considering them, aren't you guilty of "loading the dice in your favor"?

Nope!

Also, I'm specifically referring to "alleged evolutionary lineages", so there's no need to keep saying "there are no lineages" over and over.

You're operating from a presupposition that evolution is true.
There are no evolutionary lineages.

So shall we begin with the alleged fish-amphibian transition?

I told you - you are free to write whatever you like.

(\__/)
( ‘ .‘ )
>(^)<

Wilson

 

[ImmortalFlame]

Again, I'm perfectly willing to examine specimens found, described, and published by creationists.

We are not materialists.

In other words, you don't any scientific support whatsoever?

You lose by default.

 

[Amill]

You're operating from a presupposition that evolution is true.
There are no evolutionary lineages.

No, in that claim he was operating under the assumption that there are in fact proposed evolutionary lineages. He was only presupposing that the idea existed, not the lineages themselves. But you obviously don't want to discuss them.

In other words, you don't any scientific support whatsoever?

You lose by default.

He's already informed us that he doesn't need to provide anything whatsoever because creation is already a fact lol...

"Creation is not a doctrine, nor is it an "ism." It is a fact! As such, it does not need scientific or any other form of investigation for authentication.