Argument #1: Transitional Fossils

[Anomalocaris]

Thank you for your kindness. I can exclude you from being a part of the angry mob that wants me tarred and feathered and forced to listen to Richard Dawkins lectures.

We don't want you feathered. Birds would be insulted if unevolved wishthinking morons like you are made into effigies of those intelligent, evolved animals.

[Cyberman]

Jesus told us to go out to the world and make disciples.

Not round here, you don't. Not on my watch.

[Anomalocaris]

Lots. Absent soft tissue and/or DNA, it is often hard to tell whether two somewhat different fossil specimens really represent two species, or different sexes within the same species, or normal range of morphological variation within the same sex of the same species. Sometimes it is even hard to tell if two different specimens really represent two individual of same species, but died at different ages, or even different part of the year, resulting in differences in annual growths such as deer antlers.

Also, many species are recognized based on partial remains. If two sets of non-overlapping partial fossil remains are discovered, it is often impossible to tell whether they represent two different species, or are different parts of animals of the same species.

Sometimes mistakes happen in reverse, such as assigning two non-overlapping sets of partial remains to the same species, when in fact they came from different species, resulting in fanciful fossil reconstructions of a single species that really consist of parts of two different species.

That is why it is unrealistic and deceptive to draw a rendering of an "transitional" organism when all you have is a tooth and a part of a jawbone.

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Very good, you are capable of simulating a modicum of evidence evaluation, which means small as your powers of objective evaluation might be, it should still becapable of penetrating the howls of the parasites like your priests and pastors, and elaborate con of the frauds who wrote the bible, and the ramblings of cheap shabby low class hucksters at AIG (both the creationist website, and the so called investment bank, but that it a different story).

But mere simulation is not enough in any case, it is especially not enough when it is liberally debased and adulterated with your own personal dishonesty.

Your personal dishonesty is menifested by the fact that what you assert to be all that we have is NOT all that we have, and you surely know this because you surely have seen essentially complete recovered and mounted fossils that fits in known evolutionary lineage sometime in your life, and yet lied for your jesus without skipping a beat.

There are numerous cases where we have complete or essential complete skeletons that are still articulated in their original pre-mortum position. What is more, there are cases where we have even extracted DNA from the bone fragments to unambigiously identify the relationship of the original owner of the bones, with species that are related to it.

Now let us say, just to humor you, a jaw bone or some other fragmentary species ambigious remains is was really all that we have, it would only make particular species identification problematic, it would not hamper the observation of progressive changes through time of which the ambigiously identified species forms an unabigious part.

You see, it doesn't matter if there is doubt whether jawbone B belongs with the same species as Jawbone C. For there to be confusion species B and species C would already have to be pretty similar to the eyes of a trained paleontologist, in other words eyes infinitely better informed and better trained than yours, much less those of the blind idiots at AIG.

Therefore, it is overwhelmingly likely that, regardless whether jawbone B and jawbone C belong to the same species, or two closely related species, either jaw bone has enough characteristics to place them as transition between species A and species D.

It would be like if we discovered your bones, the bones of your mother, the bones of your mother's sister, and the bones of your grand mother.

It doesn't matter if we confused the bones of your mother with the bones of your mother's sister. It doesn't matter if we grafted your mother's skull onto the body of her sister. It doesn't matter if we might have though your mother's feet belonged to a different individual than your mother's hands.

We can tell, analytically, and quantitatively, the collection of bones containes both your mother's bones, and your mother's sister's bones, however grouped, contains a transitional form between you and your grand mother.

[Fidel_Castronaut]

What about what these scholars have said?

"transitional fossils have not been found because they don't exist" (Jeffrey H. Schwartz, University of Pittsburgh professor of anthropology).

A Google search of this quote only results in three Creationist blog posts.

Source?

"The absence of fossil evidence for intermediary stages between major transitions in organic design, indeed our inability, even in our imagination, to construct functional intermediates in many cases, has been a persistent and nagging problem for gradualistic accounts of evolution" (Stephen J. Gould, evolutionary paleontologist of Harvard University).

Hey look, you forgot the rest of the text your creationist blog post quote-mined that from:

"All paleontologists know that the fossil record contains precious little in the way of intermediate forms; transitions between major groups are characteristically abrupt. Gradualists usually extract themselves from this dilemma by invoking the extreme imperfection of the fossil record." (Gould, Stephen J., The Panda's Thumb, 1980, p. 189)

[Following right after]

"Although I reject this argument (for reasons discussed in ["The Episodic Nature of Evolutionary Change"]), let us grant the traditional escape and ask a different question. Even though we have no direct evidence for smooth transitions, can we invent a reasonable sequence of intermediate forms -- that is, viable, functioning organisms -- between ancestors and descendants in major structural transitions? Of what possible use are the imperfect incipient stages of useful structures? What good is half a jaw or half a wing? The concept of preadaptation provides the conventional answer by permitting us to argue that incipient stages performed different functions. The half jaw worked perfectly well as a series of gill-supporting bones; the half wing may have trapped prey or controlled body temperature. I regard preadaptation as an important, even an indispensable, concept. But a plausible story is not necessarily true. I do not doubt that preadaptation can save gradualism in some cases, but does it permit us to invent a tale of continuity in most or all cases? I submit, although it may only reflect my lack of imagination, that the answer is no, and I invoke two recently supported cases of discontinuous change in my defense.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/quotes/m...rt1-3.html

Gould isn't arguing against evolution, he's arguing against gradualism.

Rev, why do you not think "thou shall not steal" and "thou shall not lie" do not apply to you?

Answer this, Rev.

You have been caught cherry picking a quotation out of context.

[Anomalocaris]

Because they're conning you and many others, perhaps? They're misrepresenting what science actually claims to people like you - and not so coincidentally, raking I'm some dough while they're at it. Have you seen what they charge for admission to their sham of a "museum"?

So if a museum charges for admission so they can pay their bills, and staff, it is a sham? Come on now.

If a museum makes up stuff and present it as real, it is sham.

That bullshit museum would be a sham even if it paid people to go visit.

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God's Word is true,

If it were not, how do you find out?

however, if that were flawed, which it is not,

What did you do to ascertain this?

then I stand on sand. ,

And you pretend you are not because?

I have found it to be true and consistent in my life and in the lives of many.,

In science, whenever something is claimed to have been found true, The claim remains a mere hypothesis. For the hypothesis to be taken seriously, it is required that for the claimant to produce a rigornous analyze of the mathematical probability that if that thing was in fact false, it could still have produced the very same evidences which led the claimant to interpret it as being true. This is called the null hypothesis. The probability of the null hypothesis must be demonstrated, not merely asserted, to be very small, for the original hypothesis to be taken seriously.

If the claim refuse to do this, or is unable to do this, then "finding something to be true" is considered bullshit, because claimant failed to demonstrate the same evidence that had led him to believe something to be true could not have been produced even when that thing is in fact false.

The null hypothesis to your original hypothesis of "I have found it to be true and consistent in my life and in the lives of many" would be "Revs would have found it to be true and consistent even when it is not true, and/or not consistent." Analyze the probability of this null hypothesis, and demonstrate the possibility that the mathematical probability of this hull hypothesis is very small indeed, small enough to exclude the null hypothesis.

Do this, or else your hypothesis is indistinguihsalbe from bullshit, for the same reason as any claim made in science would be dismissed if its null hypothesis can not be excluded through probability calculation.

If you can't conform to basic standards of scientific integrity, what business do you have making claims before those who respects scientific integrity as the basis of truth finding?

[Confused Ape]

You are aware that the overwhelming majority of mainstream Christian congregations have long since made their peace with modern biology, aren't you? You do know that there are Christians who work in the biological sciences and who don't have a problem with accepting the evidence for evolution and common descent, right?

For Revelation777

Crossless1 is right.

Francis Collins, who led the Human Genome Project, is a Christian while Richard Dawkins is an atheist. I've found the transcript of a debate they had - they disagree when it comes to whether or not God exists but they don't disagree about evolution itself.

God vs. Science - A debate between Richard Dawkins and Francis Collins

DAWKINS: The question of whether there exists a supernatural creator, a God, is one of the most important that we have to answer. I think that it is a scientific question. My answer is no.

TIME: Dr. Collins, you believe that science is compatible with Christian faith.

COLLINS: Yes. God's existence is either true or not. But calling it a scientific question implies that the tools of science can provide the answer. From my perspective, God cannot be completely contained within nature, and therefore God's existence is outside of science's ability to really weigh in.

Atheists, who lack a belief in deities, aren't going to be persuaded that God exists by your posting misinformation from Answers In Genesis. Science, including evolution, cannot provide concrete proof that God doesn't exist so you don't have to reject evolution in order to stay a believer. How can people stay believers? The following quotes are from an interview with Francis Collins where he explains it.

Collins - Why This Scientist Believes In God

So, some have asked, doesn't your brain explode? Can you both pursue an understanding of how life works using the tools of genetics and molecular biology, and worship a creator God? Aren't evolution and faith in God incompatible? Can a scientist believe in miracles like the resurrection?

Actually, I find no conflict here, and neither apparently do the 40 percent of working scientists who claim to be believers. Yes, evolution by descent from a common ancestor is clearly true. If there was any lingering doubt about the evidence from the fossil record, the study of DNA provides the strongest possible proof of our relatedness to all other living things.

But why couldn't this be God's plan for creation? True, this is incompatible with an ultra-literal interpretation of Genesis, but long before Darwin, there were many thoughtful interpreters like St. Augustine, who found it impossible to be exactly sure what the meaning of that amazing creation story was supposed to be. So attaching oneself to such literal interpretations in the face of compelling scientific evidence pointing to the ancient age of Earth and the relatedness of living things by evolution seems neither wise nor necessary for the believer.

I have found there is a wonderful harmony in the complementary truths of science and faith. The God of the Bible is also the God of the genome. God can be found in the cathedral or in the laboratory. By investigating God's majestic and awesome creation, science can actually be a means of worship.

[truthBtold]

REV... u post threads with all your unsupported nonsense and then when someone sincerely responds you dont answer their questions. You just start blabbing about your fucking ridiculous god that you still cant let go from childhood.. grow up! Its time to take the onezees off and put on big boy pants.. Its time for me to treat you like the rest of the people who are banned from the forum.. like your not here.. when I see that you have started a thread, I will just move along to the next.. by the way... find some salt and pound it... thank you..

[Tonus]

That is why it is unrealistic and deceptive to draw a rendering of an "transitional" organism when all you have is a tooth and a part of a jawbone.

But you're asking us to accept a rendering (the Bible) when you don't even have a tooth or part of a jawbone.

[Cato]

Jesus told us to go out to the world and make disciples.

If the goal is making disciples, you better stick to the tried and true method of mind fucking young impressionable children that have yet to develop reasoning capability. Not only are they your intellectual peers, but you are less likely to run into the foul language that distresses you.

[Simon Moon]

It must be obvious to everyone (except Rev777) by now, that he will never accept the mountains demonstrable, testable evidence for the fact of evolution.

Which is kind of strange, since even if evolution were to be proven wrong tomorrow, that in no way would offer a shred of evidence that a god exists.


I think rev777 should post his Argument #2: Proof from Fallacious Argument.

Come on, Rev777, time for you to unload your number 2.