The Problem with Christians

[Esquilax]

The predictions of evolution are somewhat underwhelming. You could predict the evolution of fish to amphibious creatures that have legs, as a step in the evolutionary tree, but we still have creatures just like that today, eg the axolotl. If God actually created the axolotl, then your determination that it was part of an evolutionary step would be incorrect. I wouldn't regard that as much of a prediction.

Now, see, you fucked up again because you said a thing without fact checking yourself first. First of all, the significance of Tiktaalik goes way beyond merely predicting the evolution of fish into amphibians, because that's not even the big thing about Tiktaalik. This is kind of a big subject, but in simple terms, Tiktaalik is the link between fish and tetrapods, four limbed animals in general, not just amphibians. And it's not so much what was predicted that makes this a good fit for your argument, but why it happened to work: see, in the sort of fossil record that fits with evolution- but doesn't fit with design- what you'd expect to find is an ordering of life forms among the strata reflecting their evolutionary lineages: you might get an axolotl in modern times, but you'd never get a modern rabbit in the Precambrian strata, because they hadn't evolved yet. Given this, scientists are able to make predictions based on existing fossils and their geographical distribution to figure out where a specific transition should have happened, in what layer they should find examples of it, and so on. This successful prediction makes total sense in a world where evolution is a real thing and species diversified from increasingly smaller populations of common ancestors, but it should be totally impossible to predict in a world where every lineage is distinct from one another and designed without that naturalistic, evolutionary progression. Simply put, it would not be possible to predict where Tiktaalik would fit into the fossil record, at every level, unless evolution were a consistent historical phenomenon. The fact that we could predict that is evidence for evolution, and against design.

Moreover, you're being overly simplistic with your morphology if you think the big deal about Tiktaalik was that it had legs. I mean, it didn't have legs, it was a lobe-finned fish, a Sarcopterygian, but hey, let's not split hairs. No, Tiktaalik is important for a number of reasons, of which the fins- which are the first example in the fossil record of basic wrists and the beginning of hand bone structures, by the way- are only one example. Ignoring the limbs, we have the spiracles atop Tiktaalik's head, suggesting the existence of lungs as well as gills. It has a ribcage suited to supporting it outside of the water, which is a first. It has a neck, which is very rare in fish before this point. The head bears morphological similarities with crocodiles and other amphibious species too, in yet another transitional feature.

Now, in terms of salamanders, here's where you really screwed the pooch, because salamanders are a branch species of Sarcopterygians, originally: Tiktaalik is not a salamander, but salamanders are relatives of Tiktaalik, and the fact that you have trouble telling the difference is precisely the point. The two are not in the same order, but Tiktaalik's characteristics are passed down from the lobe-finned fish to the divergent group of amphibians that resulted in modern salamanders: it is the bridge between the one group and the other. You've literally pointed to an example which proves what I'm saying.

I would say that this is no better than the axolotl.

Only because you don't know anything about axolotls or Tiktaalik, but still opted to speak on them anyway. Actually understanding the morphology of the two groups would not lead you to make that equivalence.

Bible prophecies may seem vague to those who don't understand Biblical language. Isaiah 53 is hardly vague to me as it speaks quite clearly of the messiah 700 years before his arrival. Furthermore, there are codes embedded in this passage that authenticate its predictions.

How do you know you have the interpretation right? I ask this to every single bible prophecy nut, and the only answer I ever get back amounts to "it just is, okay?!"

I mean, there's also the fact, in this specific case, that a prophecy in one book that's fulfilled in the second book means nothing unless you can establish that the events of both books actually happened and aren't just fictional, and specifically that the events of the second book were not massaged into being by writers wanting to fulfill a prophecy from the first book, that they would have known about beforehand. I submit to you that you cannot adequately do any of this.

Weren't you one of those who were critical of my wife's dream predicting a future event with precision, along with her sister having the same dream on virtually the same night?

No, man, I didn't even know you were married until I read this post. That ain't me.

I would deem that to be far more impressive than retrospectively "predicting" a fossil type.

Yet more ignorance from you: nobody predicted Tiktaalik in retrospect. The fossil, the location, and the strata were all predicted before Tiktaalik was discovered, based on other, unrelated fossil finds. There's nothing retrospective about this.

I could also point out the fact that there are scant numbers of intermediates in the fossil record. Does their absence mean nothing?

Does the fact that you're wrong (again) mean nothing?

I read the article and it posits that we evolved from apes. What did apes evolve from? I would like to see the 5 steps from human,s working back along the evolutionary tree. Can you point me to an article that shows me what came before the apes and what was before that?

In reverse order: Homo Sapiens, Homo rhodesiensis, Homo antecessor, Homo ergaster, and then we're back into true primate forms. There was a graph literally in the article you say you read. Are you reduced to just attempting to find a gap in evolution to crow into, again?

Now, fair play: can you point me to a scientific resource that shows me what steps god took to create humans, with verifiable evidence as to how that happened? Or is one side supposed to present exhaustive evidence, while you just sit there and present nothing of your own?