(November 16, 2011 at 10:08 pm)Statler Waldorf Wrote: Burden of proof fallacy, it is up to you to prove they are the remnants of animals that died millions of years ago. Since you don’t have any empirical data proving fossilization even occurs you have a bit of an uphill road my friend.
"Empirical" can mean observation as well as experimentation. We've observed it, although I will admit that without experiments a result is not worth nearly as much; on the other hand, since we don't have millions of years to hand, we can hardly recreate fossilization conditions then watch and wait.
That said, we don't necessarily need to. If we can show that all the mechanisms require for fossilization to work do work, we've indirectly shown that fossilization happens. I don't know if we have or can, though.
I haven't read the thread, where do you stand on the whole dinosaurs existing thing?