Darwinists: Persisting despite the evidence

@farmerman,

Quote:

He wishes to deny "intermediate fossils" , yet their very tructure tells us more than his denials....

Real experts on the subject:

Quote:

"Despite the bright promise that paleontology provides a means of 'seeing'
evolution, it has presented some nasty difficulties for evolutionists, the
most notorious of which is the presence of 'gaps' in the fossil record.
Evolution requires intermediate forms between species and paleontology does
not provide them ..."

David B. Kitts, PhD (Zoology)
Head Curator, Dept of Geology, Stoval Museum
Evolution, vol 28, Sep 1974, p 467

"The curious thing is that there is a consistency about the fossil gaps;
the fossils are missing in all the important places."

Francis Hitching
The Neck of the Giraffe or Where Darwin Went Wrong
Penguin Books, 1982, p.19

"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 Jay Gould, Prof of Geology and
Paleontology, Harvard University
"Is a new general theory of evolution emerging?"
Paleobiology, vol 6, January 1980, p. 127

"...Yet Gould and the American Museum people are hard to contradict when
they say there are no transitional fossils ... I will lay it on the line,
there is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight
argument."

Dr. Colin Patterson, Senior Paleontologist,
British Museum of Natural History, London
As quoted by: L. D. Sunderland
Darwin's Enigma: Fossils and Other Problems
4th edition, Master Books, 1988, p. 89

"We do not have any available fossil group which can categorically be
claimed to be the ancestor of any other group. We do not have in the fossil
record any specific point of divergence of one life form for another, and
generally each of the major life groups has retained its fundamental
structural and physiological characteristics throughout its life history
and has been conservative in habitat."

G. S. Carter, Professor & author
Fellow of Corpus Christi College
Cambridge, England
Structure and Habit in Vertebrate Evolution
University of Washington Press, 1967

"The history of most fossil species includes two features inconsistent with
gradualism: 1. Stasis. Most species exhibit no directional change during
their tenure on earth. They appear in the fossil record looking much the
same as when they disappear ... 2. Sudden Appearance. In any local area, a
species does not arise gradually by the steady transformation of its
ancestors; it appears all at once and 'fully formed'."

Stephen Jay Gould, Prof of Geology and
Paleontology, Harvard University
Natural History, 86(5):13, 1977

"But, as by this theory innumerable transitional forms must have existed,
why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the
earth?" (p. 206)

"Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such
intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely
graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps is the most obvious and gravest
objection which can be urged against my theory (of evolution)." (p. 292)

Charles Robert Darwin
The Origin of Species, 1st edition reprint
Avenel Books, 1979

"Darwin... was embarrassed by the fossil record... we are now about
120-years after Darwin and the knowledge of the fossil record has been
greatly expanded. We now have a quarter of a million fossil species but the
situation hasn't changed much. The record of evolution is still
surprisingly jerky and, ironically, ... some of the classic cases of
Darwinian change in the fossil record, such as the evolution of the horse
in North America, have had to be discarded or modified as a result of more
detailed information."

David M. Raup, Curator of Geology
Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago
"Conflicts Between Darwin and Paleontology"
Field Museum of Natural History
Vol. 50, No. 1, (Jan, 1979), p. 25

"Now, after over 120 years of the most extensive and painstaking geological
exploration of every continent and ocean bottom, the picture is infinitely
more vivid and complete than it was in 1859. Formations have been
discovered containing hundreds of billions of fossils and our museums are
filled with over 100-million fossils of 250,000 different species. The
availability of this profusion of hard scientific data should permit
objective investigators to determine if Darwin was on the right track. What
is the picture which the fossils have given us? ... The gaps between major
groups of organisms have been growing even wide and more undeniable. They
can no longer be ignored or rationalized away with appeals to imperfection
of the fossil record."

Luther D. Sunderland (Creationist)
Darwin's Enigma: Fossils and Other Problems,
4th edition, Master Books, 1988, p. 9

"My attempts to demonstrate evolution by an experiment carried on for more
than 40 years have completely failed. ... The fossil material is now so
complete that it has been possible to construct new classes, and the lack
of transitional series cannot be explained as being due to the scarcity of
material. The deficiencies are real, they will never be filled."

Prof N. Heribert Nilsson
Lund University, Sweden
Famous botanist and evolutionist
As quoted in: The Earth Before Man, p. 51

The basic problem is that the theory of evolution requires that the vast bulk of all fossils should be clear intermediate forms and, to date, all which has ever been proferred is a tiny handful of highly problematic and questionable examples. As the one author above states, there is not a single one for which any sort of a solid case could be made.

Not that people like our resident blowhard here see that as problematical of course.....

http://www.webwhispers.org/newspics/mar04/LaryBlowhard.jpg

1 Reply

Quote:

"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."

What Steve Gould leaves out in that one is that when you start talking about an entirely new kind of animal arising non-gradually (which is what he is doing), then you are no longer talking about "evolution"; that would be like describing some sort of a sex orgy or gang bang as an exercise in chastity.

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@gungasnake,

So gungasnake it is your scientific theory that when a new animal had come to be without a clear fossil record of it past ancestors it is due to a supernaturial god waving a magic wand?

That what you would like to see taught in science classrooms?

Hmm I can not understand why judges will not allow that and call it a religion belief instead of science! After all what is unscientific about a magic wand?

Harry Potter stories had shown us that magic wands does work.

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@BillRM,

BILLRM-Gunga continually employs a technique called "Quote mining" in which he wants us to believe that his quotes are honestly lifted and represent the actual writings of the persons ascribed. THEY DO NOT. Instead, the Creationists "REsearch" Outfits, (the only research they do is this fraudulent mining of quotes while saying nothing themselves), spend huge piles of their time and donations to find, cut up, slice and dice, and re assemble scientidtd quotes in an effort to make quotes that state just the opposite of what the authgor was saying.

The folks over at "TAlk Origins" (a site that for years has been manned by grad students) have compiled a listing of these quote mining exercises. So, not to give GUNGA any more space than he deserves, you can visit this site and see for yourself how the Creationists aplly fraud, deception, lack of ethics, and downright ceriminal intent, to "Create" these many quotes so that idiots like GUNGASNAKE can post them unawares.

GUNGASNALE does this quote mining **** about 2 or 3 times a year (usually as an en passant reply to another poster, thus making it appear that theres a welath of this crap in the written record.)

SO ENJOY and , if you like that one , I have more quote mine efforts that have been done from more recent works . Its fun to do. WHenever GUNGASNAKE posts one of his quotes in some twisted effort to try to fool the readers into believeing that the stuff he is posting is true, when as yousee, its ALL a pack of scum-bag lies.

(IM ALWAYS AMAZED AT HOW THESE DOUCHE BAG CREATIONISTS WANT US TO ACCEPT CHRISTIANITY IN ALL ITS NAIVE PURITY< YET THEY THEMSELVES ARE MORE LIKE GANGSTERS IN THEIR EFFORTS TO OBTAIN CREDIBILITY)

PS, this quote mine exercise goes on for many pages so theres plenty of ammo to shove back on gunga, but after a few moments with the reference list youll say, "WHATS the USE?". Guys like GunGASNAKE, who use fraud and deception instead of real science are in a very small minority and are slowly slipping away as science compiles new evidence almost daily.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/quotes/mine/part1-1.html

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@gungasnake,

Quote:

The basic problem is that the theory of evolution requires that the vast bulk of all fossils should be clear intermediate forms and, to date, all which has ever been proferred is a tiny handful of highly problematic and questionable examples.

What I find is that, after you get done using fraud and deception to booger up peoples quotes to meake em sound other trhan what they REALLY say, you then admit tht we do have a "few" linneages that show gradualistic chnge and intermediate forms. WELL , THERE IS SOME HOPE FOR YOU< YOU are probably at a point where you can no longer deny the vast piles of evidence that are rolling over you.

NOONE has ever said that we have solid lines of evolution for the vast majority of life, we really dont need em. WE do have several very trong lines like birds, tetropods, mammals, whales, trilobites, brachiopods, insects, and bony fish,(AND ALL PLANTS) that we can, no doubt infer a common mechanism that is working for other groups.
FOR example, ratite birds have always been looked on a an example of evolution that paralleled continental drift. However, genetic data now shows that there were several episodes of evolution of groups that suggest that several early ratite groups actually could fly and somehow migrated among island arcs to populate these small land masses already populated by other ratites. The phenomena arent incorrect, only the mechanism needs to be re defined.

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@farmerman,

Farmerman the far right religions nuts does the same kind of things in dealing with history concerning quotes taken out of contest.

I call it lying for Jesus.

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I wrote this earlier-

Quote:

It's so sad don't you think. Look at Ida. Broken leg. Obviously hadn't been eaten otherwise it would be brown and sausage shaped with a point on each end. Must have been left behind by its mates because it couldn't keep up and died of a broken heart. All alone. Its pitiful squeaks getting fainter and fainter. That's how a kid with a clean head might well see it not having a good grasp on 47 million years. And how many more must there be waiting for scientists to uncover them. It really is sad. Not really suitable for the formative years is it now? At least I don't think so. Morbid. Necro stuff. You could get a nation of Allen Ginsbergs.

Do you really think there is nothing to be said for such an argument?

By "clean head" I meant one not receiving information refracted through a prism of self interest either material or emotional.

I may be a big soft-hearted old romantic but I think kids should have a childhood and not be sprung into the forensic department too early just so a bunch of grown ups can push a Marxist agenda and have a competitive parenting battle with school boards changing their voting patterns in line with how well the government is thought to be handling economic matters.

Look what happened to Gustave Flaubert after that sort of thing.

If you stare at the picture of Ida for ten minutes meditating you might get the idea. Stop seeing it as a trophy. See the pathos. And ten minutes isn't much to ask when the mental well being of 50 million kids is in the frame.

You'll be taking them to exhumations next so that they can see the evidence of biological processes. Dust to dust is a bit too arty-farty for science classes don't you think?

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@spendius,

Yes, spendi, we wouldn't want our kids to learn about death when they are kids.

Of course, that means we have to take religion away from them since it describes life after that which can not be talked about.

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@parados,

There are no easy answers mate. Beware of those offering them.

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@spendius,

Quote:

There are no easy answers mate. Beware of those offering them

Now theres two easy answers if I ever heard them. Short, but as trite as they can get.

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@parados,

parados wrote:

Quote:

Yes, spendi, we wouldn't want our kids to learn about death when they are kids.

Yeah ?
Y not ?

Quote:

Of course, that means we have to take religion away from them
since it describes life after that which can not be talked about.

That is false.
There are a lot of people who have died
at less than a year old, and who remember it very clearly.
Thay have no particular problem with religion
(except the bombastic hellfire threats, which were not borne out).

People who have had out-of-body experiences (such as me)
have no particular problem with religion, as a general rule.

Additionally, it is impossible to take anyone 's belief system
away from him; he will believe what he chooses, regardless.

David

1 Reply

@OmSigDAVID,

Dave, perhaps your years at MENSA have robbed you of a sense of humor. Parados response should be re read with an appreciation of the irony and sarcasm that I think he was going for.

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@farmerman,

Quote:

There are no easy answers mate. Beware of those offering them

Now theres two easy answers if I ever heard them. Short, but as trite as they can get.

Neither are answers.

Quote:

Dave, perhaps your years at MENSA have robbed you of a sense of humor.

The reverse invidious comparison rears its old hoary head again. It implies effemm has a sense of humour.

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@spendius,

Quote:

The reverse invidious comparison rears its old hoary head again. It implies effemm has a sense of humour.

DAVE doesnt need any assistance from you. Im sure he gets the point without some drunken Brit always butting in.

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My first encounter with a person who denied evolution
and claimed that the Earth was only a few 1000 years old
was the lady next door, whom I liked. Pretty, slender red head; looked Irish.
Friendly personality; my best friend's mother.
She was no deep intellect. Anyway, I was taken aback
to learn that she disputed this.

I wonder whether those who deny evolution
and who claim that the Earth is only a few 1000 years old
also deny the heliocentric concept of the solar system ?

Some of the early opponents of the heliocentric concept
burned alive some of its early proponents, alleging a moral duty
to believe in the earlier geocentric concept.

`

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@farmerman,

The site is posited on the notion that we all need assistance.

And Dave doesn't need help from you about what he needs. It is quite obvious that many Americans are not aware of the purpose of the reverse invidious comparison because otherwise it wouldn't be a constant habit of your's. You would have had it explained to you in school as I had.

And we all may be accused of butting in. Your ploy is merely another of your jejeune habits designed for you, or your kissebreeches, to monopolise the megaphone. You must be a very slow learner to have failed to realise that it has no chance of working.

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@OmSigDAVID,

Quote:

Some of the early opponents of the heliocentric concept
burned alive some of its early proponents, alleging a moral duty
to believe in the earlier geocentric concept.

The problem was that epicycles were viewed as a proof of the existence of God prior to Kepler and Copernicus and the heliocentric system appeared to be in conflict with that proof. The heliocentric theory of course offered a simple explanation for epicycles.

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@OmSigDAVID,

Quote:

Some of the early opponents of the heliocentric concept
burned alive some of its early proponents, alleging a moral duty
to believe in the earlier geocentric concept.

Dave- I think you are doing yourself a disservice in thinking of matters of that nature in such extremely simplistic terms. It is a very complex matter ranging over hundreds of years and out of which developed our modern world. And the best minds that world could find were engaged in the process. Their artistic tastes alone are sufficient proof of their excellence and the evidence of those refined tastes draws millions today to see it.

Do you imagine that your best friend's mother would be a proponent, as opposed to privately thinking, for a thesis for which she risked being immolated.

That their methods of dissuasion were less humane than our's is merely due to their proximity to the barbaric ages.

It is a macrocosmic matter.

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@OmSigDAVID,

The pitiful thing is that there are some very smart highly educated people with careers in the physical and natural sciences who "compartmentalize" their disbeliefs and separate their worldview from the governing field equations like grav attraction or isotopic decay. They even , astonishingly, will ignore entire sequences of a genome where its clearly visible that certain "fossil codons and exons" have been supplanted by others with the same function (just expressed differently). They can stare at that all day and stubbornly deny that evolution has happened.
Ive worked with several , and , while the IDers arent quite as bad, they too establish their intellectual "beachheads" and can go no further in objective data analyses.

Ive reccommended that folks herein read Jerry Coynes WHY EVOLUTION IS TRUE. That, together with Sean Carrolls book MAKING OF THE FITTEST clearly establish the bulk of our present knowledge and the process by which evolution has been deduced from the gathered evidence.

The main differences in the theory of evolution by natural selection and CREATIONISM, is that evolution was only developed after the evidence was of sufficient quality and quantity. CREATIONISM starts with the conclusion and then "makes believe" that the ICR is actually out there doing research.

They never ask the question whether NOAHS ARK even exists, they just blindly mount expeditions to go find it. Or they build museums with Triceratops dinosaurs bearing saddles and , from this evidence, suggest that dinosaurs were actually domesticated.
Imagine living in a world dominated by that idiocy in science.

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@farmerman,

Quote:

The pitiful thing is that there are some very smart highly educated people with careers in the physical and natural sciences who "compartmentalize" their disbeliefs and separate their worldview from the governing field equations like grav attraction or isotopic decay. They even , astonishingly, will ignore entire sequences of a genome where its clearly visible that certain "fossil codons and exons" have been supplanted by others with the same function (just expressed differently). They can stare at that all day and stubbornly deny that evolution has happened.

Another reverse invidious comparison. I'm going to start using RIC for it. (Short for 'rictus' if you prefer.)

The "very smart highly educated" is by way of saying that effemm, because he asserts that he doesn't "compartmentalize", which proves he doesn't even know his Ezra Pound, who's views can be dismissed for a whole host of trivial reasons, is much smarter and more highly educated as a result of his capacity to separate his worldview, which can easily be represented plastically with a pot bust of a venerable looking figure with its mouth open and a finger pointing into its throat, from the governing field equations like grav attraction or isotopic decay.

I trust you can see how easily the RIC can get you by the balls and render you nuts.

Obviously, and you can take it as a fact, that effemm has never l ignored entire sequences of a genome where it is clearly visible that certain "fossil codons and exons" have been supplanted by others with the same function (or just expressed differently).

I can take the silly sod to pieces. He imagines we are not all idiots. Can you think of anything more idiotic, delusional and unrealistic as that?

What the real problem is Dave is preventing the burnings at the stake happening all over again as a choice between that or the destruction of our way of life.

What effemm, and his claque, are doing is playing with a Christmas present chemistry set in a fireworks factory and because the whole place hasn't yet gone up in sparklers are claiming that they are carrying out necessary and fundamental research for which they should all be suitably rewarded with fame and fortune. They flatter themselves that they have been better advised than the Pope from a once through skim of Jerry Coynes' WHY EVOLUTION IS TRUE in serial conjunction with Sean Carroll's book MAKING OF THE FITTEST. (Who?? one might reasonable ask.)

Arrogance does not come in any more attenuated form than that.

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Darwinists: Persisting despite the evidence

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