DARWIN'S MACROEVOLUTION: Why Unscientific?

[Anomalocaris]

[If there's no challenge anymore, why is the word "evolution" permanentLy locked to the word "theory"?

And here we have a perfect example of the logical fallacy known as an Argument of Equivocation.

My Logic 101 professor just failed you.

Well, even amongst christians, and they set as high a standard as ever achieved in these sort of things, more strident and self-confident ignorance than hers would be hard to find.

[downbeatplumb]

It is incredibly rare in nature for fossilisation to happen, it may be that only 1 in 1000 species has ever had any member fossilized and then someone has to find it just when it erodes out of the rock. The record is also overwhelmingly comprised of marine species beacuse of the requirements for fossilisation.

Given the above, the fact that the fossil record is as complete as it is amazing.

And yet some buffoons want the record to be completely unbroken with transitional fossils coming labeled in the deposits with the parts that are relevant.

They demand impossible levels of proof for evolution and old earth while giving not one jot of evidence for their own childish beliefs.

[Anomalocaris]

It is incredibly rare in nature for fossilisation to happen, it may be that only 1 in 1000 species has ever had any member fossilized and then someone has to find it just when it erodes out of the rock. The record is also overwhelmingly comprised of marine species beacuse of the requirements for fossilisation.

Given the above, the fact that the fossil record is as complete as it is amazing.

And yet some buffoons want the record to be completely unbroken with transitional fossils coming labeled in the deposits with the parts that are relevant.

They demand impossible levels of proof for evolution and old earth while giving not one jot of evidence for their own childish beliefs.

When we understand the chemistry of water well enough to make virtually iron clad predictions about how it evaporates, how it condenses, and how it interacts with the content of the atmosphere and the surface of the earth. When we understand the physics of falling body and fluid dynamics of a droplet well enough to make virtually iron clad predictions about how condensed water will fall through the air, the creationists would say "rain fall is a theory because you have not actually physically captured on film the entire falling process of every rain drop that ever existed".

But when they claim god created rain according to the bible, there is never a hint of even the vaguest allusion to how god created even a single drop of water, much less how it dropped, what is the testable properties of the water, the sky, the earth, and the god tha suggest this is even to be taken as anything more than a joke of a fart.

BTW, rainfall is also a theory, just like evolution. Rainfall, like evolution, happen to be theories that conform to real facts.

Bible may be "truth", but it is the sort of utterly worthless truth that has not a hint of the awareness that there exists such a thing as fact in which it ought to ground itself.

[Autumnlicious]

Bible may be "truth", but it is the sort of utterly worthless truth that has not a hint of the awareness that there exists such a thing as fact in which it ought to ground itself.

It is the same "truth" as that of a political ideology being "true". I've often compared fundamentalist religion and zealous communists to be the same -- so intent on the purity of their political "truth" that nothing else may exist side by side.

[Mister Agenda]

That's the loophole some try to use, now that they realize they cannot explain how life started from non-life. So tell me, where did this "common ancestor" come from? Who gave it life, in order for all other living things in existence to have then evolved from it? Let me know.

We have a variety of possible explanations for how life came from non-life. The only problem we're having is pinning down exactly which one (or which group) was actually the case. Abiogenesis is a hypothesis, it doesn't rise to the level of a theory yet, and it simply is not part of the theory of evolution but a separate field. If there is a God, it could have 'poofed' the first microbe into existence, and evolution would have applied thereafter. If you prefer to believe that, at least it requires a lesser level of science denial than defending creationism in the sense of all taxonomic families currently in existence being specially created.

But that's just it. I have educated myself, and all I keep finding are admissions from paleontologists that the fossils record is full of nothing but gaps. The existence of gaps is another way of saying: "There are no bones linking one type of animal/species/family to an entirely different type."

Getting all your information about evolution from creationist sites is not educating yourself, it's mis-educating yourself. And it shows in your lack of comprehension of basic evolutionary concepts.

Below are a couple examples of what the paleontologists have been saying for the past 30 years.

Quote-mining is a form of lying. Your creationist sites have deliberately (you didn't know any better...but they did) lied to you, you being their target audience. They deliberately took a portion of what these people said out of context to make it seem they meant something very different from their actual positions. It's a morally bankrupt tactic of dishonest propaganda. I would hope you will have a problem with that now that you're aware of it.

I will respond to the remainder of your rebuttal in another post.

Looking forward to it.

[Cyberman]

STIMBO -to- ALTER2EGO -- ARE YOU RECEIVING

The links didn't go to "entire articles" and if you'd bothered to get off your arse and "do" them you'd have spotted that. They went (or were intended to go) to individual sections specifically addressing the mined quotes you so gleefully dumped all over the carpet like an incontinent and excitable puppy. Since you are too lazy or too scared (either option is on the table at the moment) to take the trouble of clicking your mouse, I shall spoonfeed you. Apologies to everyone else for taking up space in this way.

All emphasis as per original. Quotes have been highlighted in colour for clarity - mined quotes from the Life article; correct context.

According to the Bulletin of Chicago: Charles Darwin "was embarrassed by the fossil record because it didn't look the way he predicted it would.... the geologic record did not then and still does not yield a finely graduated chain of slow and progressive evolution." (Source: Field Museum of Natural History Bulletin, Chicago, "Conflicts Between Darwin and Paleontology," by David M. Raup, January 1979, pages 22, 23, 25)

Raup on the importance of fossils to Darwin's theory

The quote in context in the original source reads:

The evidence we find in the geologic record is not nearly as compatible with darwinian natural selection as we would like it to be. Darwin was completely aware of this. He was embarrassed by the fossil record because it didn't look the way he predicted it would and, as a result, he devoted a long section of his Origin of Species to an attempt to explain and rationalize the differences. There were several problems, but the principal one was that the geologic record did not then and still does not yield a finely graduated chain of slow and progressive evolution. In other words, there are not enough intermediates. There are very few cases where one can find a gradual transition from one species to another and very few cases where one can look at a part of the fossil record and actually see that organisms were improving in the sense of becoming better adapted.

Thus Raup does not concede that there are no fossil transitions, as implied by Life, but that they are rare.

Scientist Steven Stanley spoke of "the general failure of the record to display gradual transitions from one major group to another." He went on further to say: "The known fossil record is not, and never has been, in accord with [slow evolution.]" (Source: The New Evolutionary Timetable, by Steven M. Stanley, 1981, pages 71 and 77)

Evolutionist Steven Stanley on no gradual transitions in the fossil record

In an effort to advance its claim that the fossil record provides evidence against evolution, the Jehovah's Witnesses' publication Life--How did it get here? By evolution or by creation?, hereinafter referred to as Life, notes:

The failure of the fossil evidence to support gradual evolution has disturbed many evolutionists. In The New Evolutionary Timetable, Steven Stanley spoke of "the general failure of the record to display gradual transitions from one major group to another." (p. 21)

In fact Stanley is explaining Ernest Mayr's modern punctuational view of evolution. The quote in context in the original source reads:

The point here is that if the transition was typically rapid and the population small and localized, fossil evidence of the event would never be found. The other aspect of this argument is that the general failure of the record to display gradual transitions from one major group to another did not reflect a poor record for large, well-established species, but the slow evolution of such species: full-fledged species are not the entities that undergo the majority of major evolutionary changes.

Although Stanley does speak of inadequacies of the fossil record, he offers an explanation as well as noting its strong points. This is not mentioned by Life.

Life continues quoting Stanley:

He said: "The known fossil record is not, and never has been, in accord with [slow evolution]."

Life substituted "slow evolution" for "gradualism" as it appeared originally, thereby changing the sentence to appear to be a criticism of all evolution.

Yet another scientist, Niles Eldredge, also admitted: "The pattern that we were told to find for the last 120 years does not exist." (Source: The Enterprise, November 14, 1980, page E9)

Eldredge on the pattern in the fossil record

To further support the claim that the fossil record does not support evolution, Life notes:

Niles Eldredge also admitted: "The pattern that we were told to find for the last 120 years does not exist." (p. 21)

This quote also comes from the Rensberger article. Despite the implication by Life, the article later explains that Eldredge (and Gould) did in fact see a pattern left in the fossil record:

As they see it, species remain largely stable for long periods and then suddenly change dramatically. The transition happens so fast, they suggest, that the chance of intermediate forms being fossilized and found is nil.

The full page can be found here.

To sum up: it is indeed perfectly laudable to quote your sources and provide proper references where available. However, when your sources are lying to you, or manipluating the truth to suit their own ends which is at least as bad as lying, then you ought to be asking yourself why they feel it necessary to do that. Especially when the lies are so easily exposed at the click of a mouse.

Are you so scared of the truth that you'd rather get false information from (at best) second-hand sources, instead of going directly to the actual source? What does that say about you?

-OVER-

[Alter2Ego]

It is incredibly rare in nature for fossilisation to happen, it may be that only 1 in 1000 species has ever had any member fossilized and then someone has to find it just when it erodes out of the rock. The record is also overwhelmingly comprised of marine species beacuse of the requirements for fossilisation.

Given the above, the fact that the fossil record is as complete as it is amazing.

And yet some buffoons want the record to be completely unbroken with transitional fossils coming labeled in the deposits with the parts that are relevant.

They demand impossible levels of proof for evolution and old earth while giving not one jot of evidence for their own childish beliefs.

ALTER2EGO -to- DOWN BEAT PLUMB:
In other words, you don't mind believing something occurred (in this instance, macroevolution) despite the fact there is no evidence proving it in the fossils. The pro-evolution paleontologists write multi-page reports in which they speculate, present their long-winded opinions, and make every attempt to talk around the fact that there are nothing but gaps in the fossils.

Keep in mind that all animals, birds, humans, etc. supposedly evolved from a single ancestor. In other words, this had to have been a common-place occurrence since it's how all life forms that have ever existed reached their present stage. Yet, from this seemingly routine occurrence, not one single bone can to found to connect one family or species of animal to something that is entirely different. And that doesn't raise any red flags for you!

According to you, macroevolution must have happened—regardless of what the paleontologist have had to admit. If that's not an act of blind faith, I don't know what is. Meanwhile, you and your pals have the nerve to refer to creationists as being unrealistiic in believing in a fairytale God they cannot see. Now, is this double-standards or what?

Truth be told, there is evidence for the existence of an intelligent Designer/God. The evidence is found in the precision we see around us in the natural world. Precision indicates deliberation, and deliberation indicates someone did it. So you see, theists are not driven by blind faith at all. Rather, logic plays a large part in the belief system of theists. Meanwhile, what logic are you using in believing macroevolution happened when the fossils record says it did not?

Carry on.

[Zen Badger]

It is incredibly rare in nature for fossilisation to happen, it may be that only 1 in 1000 species has ever had any member fossilized and then someone has to find it just when it erodes out of the rock. The record is also overwhelmingly comprised of marine species beacuse of the requirements for fossilisation.

Given the above, the fact that the fossil record is as complete as it is amazing.

And yet some buffoons want the record to be completely unbroken with transitional fossils coming labeled in the deposits with the parts that are relevant.

They demand impossible levels of proof for evolution and old earth while giving not one jot of evidence for their own childish beliefs.

ALTER2EGO -to- DOWN BEAT PLUMB:
In other words, you don't mind believing something occurred (in this instance, macroevolution) despite the fact there is no evidence proving it in the fossils. The pro-evolution paleontologists write multi-page reports in which they speculate, present their long-winded opinions, and make every attempt to talk around the fact that there are nothing but gaps in the fossils.

Keep in mind that all animals, birds, humans, etc. supposedly evolved from a single ancestor. In other words, this had to have been a common-place occurrence since it's how all life forms that have ever existed reached their present stage. Yet, from this seemingly routine occurrence, not one single bone can to found to connect one family or species of animal to something that is entirely different. And that doesn't raise any red flags for you!

According to you, macroevolution must have happened—regardless of what the paleontologist have had to admit. If that's not an act of blind faith, I don't know what is. Meanwhile, you and your pals have the nerve to refer to creationists as being unrealistiic in believing in a fairytale God they cannot see. Now, is this double-standards or what?

Truth be told, there is evidence for the existence of an intelligent Designer/God. The evidence is found in the precision we see around us in the natural world. Precision indicates deliberation, and deliberation indicates someone did it. So you see, theists are not driven by blind faith at all. Rather, logic plays a large part in the belief system of theists. Meanwhile, what logic are you using in believing macroevolution happened when the fossils record says it did not?

Carry on.

Really? then explain how the laryngal nerve of the giraffe counts as "intelligent" design.

[Jovian]

Alter2Ego, the vast majority of scientists agree that the evidence is overwhelming. It is only the Creationist disinformation campaign that has been propagating the idea there is no evidence. You really need to take a look at fossils like Ambulocetus and Acanthostega and say to yourself, are all these scientists really wrong about these fossils?

Microevolution is a part of macroevolution, and both are a part of evolution, and Charles Darwin was the first to consolidate all those ideas with natural selection into the scientific theory of evolution. You shouldn't listen to the disinformation campaign that has caricatured macroevolution. Macroevolution does not happen overnight. It's taken about 3.5 billion years of evolution for life to get where it is today, and a lot of that time was dominated by single celled organisms. Humans have only been around for a tiny amount of that time.

[The Grand Nudger]

Truth be told, there is evidence for the existence of an intelligent Designer/God.

Fantastic, I've heard so much about it I've been waiting for someone familiar enough with this evidence to present it. Will we be seeing it anytime soon?