Evolution

[Ronin]

Where are the fossil records of the animals that we see today? If all living things evolved to something different then how they started, where are their fossils? In museums today there are billions of dinasour bones that we have collected, yet there is not one transitional fossil. For example if we all evovled what did a lion look like before it became what it is today? There should be examples of all the animals that are alive today. And there should be several examples for every animal. Darwin himself admitted if we can't find transitional fossils,for they should be everywhere, then evolution is wrong!
So where are the fossils?

[Jacurutu]

The days of the dictatorship of your scientific method of attaining knowledge are long over.

Good God, I'm glad that we're finally doing away with reason. Maybe we can resurrect that whole public stoning thing -- that seemed like something we abandoned too quickly.

And clearly, the scientific method has "been on its heels" for a long time. Empirical research certainly doesn't continue to form the foundation of medicine, psychology, or any of the physical sciences.

Since science simply means knowledge, any system of attaining knowledge is as valid as any other system, and a scientific system which limits itself to some arbitrary and presupposed definition of science, is certainly no more scientific than any other scientific system or methodology.

No, you are simply wrong. The scientific method is set in place so that you do not overstep the confines of your knowledge. Everything builds upon itself and results in an inescapeable answer. The scientific method is self correcting. . . . Winston Churchill's quote seems fitting here: "Democracy is the worst form of government, except all the others that have been tried."

Yet he based his theories of man's descent from sub-human African apes on his observations of what he described in Descent as the "savage" state of the Feugians he encountered on his voyage around S.A.

As specifically documented in Descent of Man, Darwin theorized about human evolution from sub-human African "progenitors" strictly on the basis of racial observations since other "species" of humans had yet to be invented by imaginative "scientists" during Darwin's day.

The whole history of the evolution of Darwin's Delusion is tainted with racial and racist theories inherent in his theories, and the modern neo-Darwinist theory of human evolution out of Africa is just another form of racism in sheep's clothing.

You are acting as though Charles Darwin's entire theory guides modern thought. Many of Darwin's theories have been cast aside BECAUSE they were not based on sound scientific evidence -- read the current literature. Attacking Darwin for being wrong on some points is like attacking cavemen for not having written Shakespearean sonnets: while the advances made in that era were by no means entirely correct (that whole conceptualization of a God would be a good example), they did lay the groundwork for civilization.

[micatala]

Who makes the so-called "rules" of science, Christians, atheists, secularists, humanists, Jews, Muslims or Hindus, . . . . . ?

All of the above. Science has no religious test for who can participate.

. . . . and by what theory or system of knowledge do you propose to validate anything?

Scientists work according to scientific systems of knowledge. If you and other creationists don't with to participate, that is your and their choice.

Since science simply means knowledge, any system of attaining knowledge is as valid as any other system, and a scientific system which limits itself to some arbitrary and presupposed definition of science, is certainly no more scientific than any other scientific system or methodology.

jcrawford brings out the standard 'all knowledge is relative' tactic of creationists. I always find it ironic that creationists insist morals are absolute and must follow a particular interpretation of the Bible, but knowledge is entirely relative and their is no objective test for considering whether A is more likely to be true than B.

jcrawford would have us believe that astrology is as valid as astronomy, that spiritual mediums are as valid as statistical methodologies.

Face up to the scientific facts, my scientific friend. The days of the dictatorship of your scientific method of attaining knowledge are long over.

Bombastic hyperbole. In fact, it is creationism that is in its death throws. It would behoove creationists to get off the ship before it vanishes beneath the waves of its own intellectual bankruptcy.

[Cathar1950]

Since science simply means knowledge

Science does not simply mean knowledge.
Now knowledge could mean a lot of things.
It could mean having sex such as Adam had knowledge of Eve.
To know often in the OT meant experience.
The knowledge of good and evil was the ablity to experince good and evil.
Just like God or the gods.

[Jose]

The only "psychological" problem Christians have is with atheistic and secular psychologists who insist on imposing their own psychological problems on every one else.

Christians have spiritual problems with their souls, and don't suffer from the sick psychological problems which only atheistic and secular psychological types are prone to imagine in their depraved and sinful mental states.

It's amusing to juxtapose this alongside L. Ron Hubbard's teachings that Scientologists should avoid psychologists. I guess the basic idea here is that anyone who has problems with a belief system should resolve those problems within that belief system by someone who will force them to stay within that belief system. Heaven forbid they should learn from someone else.

Better that they BELIEVE highly restricted religious views than go out into the world and look around.

After all, if you actually look at the world, and examine the observations without bias, danged if you don't come up with a pretty coherent set of conclusions.

Science has no religious test for who can participate...Scientists work according to scientific systems of knowledge. If you and other creationists don't wish to participate, that is your and their choice.

As micatala says, science has no religious test. Scientists of all religions have contributed, and will continue to contribute, and science will gain. It is only the fanatical few who 'don't wish to participate' and instead stick to their religious law (christian or sharia) who don't get it.


Uhhh...this may be off-topic for this current discussion, but isn't this current discussion pretty far off-topic for this thread? Let's get back to the issues raised in the OP.

[micatala]

Good idea Jose.

I ran across this lab exercise from Georgia Perimeter College.

It notes the following about fossil preservation, the number of species in our fossil record, etc.

Most organisms that lived in the past left no record of their existence. Fossil preservation is a rare occurrence. To become preserved as a fossil, an organism must:


Have preservable parts. Hard parts (bones, shells, teeth, wood) have a much better chance at being preserved than do soft parts (muscle, skin, internal organs).


Be buried by sediment. Burial protects the organism from decay.


Escape physical, chemical, and biological destruction after burial. The remains of organisms could be destroyed by burrowing (bioturbation), dissolution, metamorphism, or erosion.

It goes on to describe various mechanisms by which recently deceased creatures eventually become fossils. Because very few organisms ever undergo these processes, we have the following data.

There are about 1.5 million known species of living plants and animals. In all, there may be as many as 4.5 million living species. In contrast, there are only about 250,000 known fossil species. The fossil record covers many hundreds of millions of years, and the living flora and fauna represent only one "instant" in geologic time. Thus, you might expect the number of fossil species to far outnumber the number of living species, if fossil preservation were a relatively common event. The fact that the number of fossil species is so small suggests that the preservation of organisms as fossils is extremely rare. It has been estimated that fewer than 10% of the animal species living today are likely to be preserved as fossils.

250,000 out of 4.5 million total species existing today would mean a fossilization probability of around 6% for any species, even assuming there were not more species that existed in the past that do not exist today. In other words, it seems we could expect 90% or more of all species that existed in the past but do not exist today to leave no fossil record at all.

The lab also points out that some species are more likely than others to be fossilized, and that a large percentage of species are insects, and these latter are among the less likely to be fossilized.

What this implies is that if there was a chain say of 26 species, A descended from B descended from C . . . Z, we would probably be lucky to find even half of these 26 in the fossil record, and could easily fine 1 or 2 or even NONE!

With respect to humans or earlier ancestors, hominids do have hard parts which would help. On the other hand, hominids do not necessarily leave in areas of high sedimentation, which would lessen the likelihood of fossilization. Hominids have also not been around for very long.

I have not yet found information on the distribution of these 250,000 species through time. It is probably not reasonable to assume they are uniformly distributed through time, but if we did a straight average and take even a conservative estimate of 500 million years ago as the date of life's first appearance, we get an average of 1 species every 2000 years. I have seen an estimate that species typically last a few million years, some of course shorter and some species have existed in pretty much their current form for many many millions of years. However, if you take, say even 10 million years as the geological window in which the average species will be found, this gives a very rough estimate of around 5000 species which might be found at any particular point in time in the geological layer.

These are, of course very very rough numbers with a lot of assumptions built in, but it gives us at least a rough idea of the paucity the is inherent in the fossil record, compared to the actual number of species that now exist and that probably existed in the past.

Now, under the "all species were created at once" creationist scenario, there should be fewer species today than there were in the past. Also, if we postulate a global flood, ALL species alive at that time were killed in one gigantic flood and so huge numbers of them should have at least been buried in sediment, although this of course would not guarantee fossilization. It should, however, increase its frequency. It seems to me under the YEC creationist scenario, or even any instantaneous creation of all life combined with a global flood scenario, we should have MANY more fossil species then we do.

On the other hand, under evolution, the number of species would tend to increase over time, as two populations of the same species diverge. We would very rarely have any combining of two species into one. Thus, we would expect few species towards the beginning of life on earth, more later, and the most today, with corresponding implications for the fossil record.


So, the next step seems to be to determine the distribution of fossils through time.