How do you know God isn't dead?

[pocaracas]

And they determine different species through different fossils, which I assume to be a very tricky business... because you have to account for age, deformations during the fossilization process, incomplete fossils, no DNA....

It always seems to come back to the fossils. :-P So would you concede that if the fossil “record” is not truly a record of death and burial over long periods of time then the whole Evolutionary paradigm dies?

uhu? "when the Evolutionary paradigm dies"?
"The fossil record is not a record of death and burial"?
Then what is it? God sprinkling dino bones just to mess with us?

It's never just one thing, is it?
The idea is that, at some point, there is sufficient genetic change that these individuals are incompatible with the original ones.

That should involve other selective pressures though, and there really are not many different selective pressures from one island to the next, those ecosystems are very similar. This just seems like storytelling to me, I totally agree that you can get different beak sizes and shapes, but I do not see how that gives you anything other than a Finch with a different beak. Bulldogs and Great Danes are still both dogs you know.

And yet, they are not wolves.
Most dog breeds have been selectively bred to be what they are.
They are mere hundreds of years away from each other... far little time to produce a different species.

Perhaps you're right... but that's how I see the process going.
Perhaps I'm wrong... as I've stated, I'm no biologist, so my view is based on high-school science class and a few documentaries... not exactly an expert, am I?

No, I think you’re explaining it right, I just have never thought the explanation quite added up.

Maybe you need to look up more detail than we'd be able to provide you in the forum.
More perspective...

Weren't we stretching the definition of species?

I've looked at this list:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_hum...on_fossils
and I see neandertals at about 250 thousand years ago, so it roughly matches with homo sapiens, so it makes sense that they would be compatible.
It would also make sense that homo sapiens be compatible with homo erectus, but not with homo habilis, while homo erectus would be compatible with homo habilis.
Of course, they are all extinct, so we can't really check. Only guess... unless anyone here knows about some DNA from these extinct species.

Well they are always finding new DNA in these ancient fossils, so probably someday soon. I have never seen one of these examples that didn’t seem to actually be just a Human or a large Ape, I think Evolutionists overplay their hand a bit with all of these supposed primate linkages (they are often merely artistic interpretations of how the animal ought to have looked based on merely a handful of bones).

Indeed, what they show to the world is often just the artist's depiction.
But the bones uncovered are different from present-day apes and humans... that means that the apes at that time were different.

Snapshots may not exist... all groups kept evolving to the changing environment....
Although, all humans (not at the same time) have adapted the environment to themselves, so I'd accept that for the past few hundreds of years we stopped evolving.

Well physically that may be true, but why would Aboriginals continue to progress mentally if they are still using Stone Age tools and essentially still possess a Stone Age understanding of their Environment? Mentally they should be a snap shot no?

A snapshot of some features.... a different path on other features.


Why don't we try to make a small exercise.
Let's say, for the sake of argument, that both evolution and creationism are two competing models... not really for the same event, but they have some overlaps.
If the evolutionary model is correct, what can we expect to find?
- If there was some way of finding out how animals looked like in the past and dating them, we'd expect that, some time ago, there were animals that resemble present day animals, but are somewhat cruder versions of them.... we'd expect that, these version would get cruder and cruder as time goes back.... we'd expect to find some animals that failed to continue their lineage and became extinct.
- If the creation model is correct, we'd expect to find only the already existing animals... always the same... and, beyond some point, nothing.

Oh, and, of course, all this applies to plants as well!

There's a whole science field called paleontology... thousands of people dedicate them selves to it. Which of the two models support their findings?