@gungasnake,
Now, the actual cheap fraud shots employed by the Creationist crowd is what is so nicely demonstrated by gungas clip. In 1993 a writer attempted to look into the very quote that Colin Patterson is supposed to have stated (and was included as "proof by gungas clip.
Quote: "I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included them. . .I will lay it on the line, There is not one such fossil for which one might make a watertight argument."
-- Dr. Colin Patterson, senior paleontologist at the British Museum of Natural History.
I decided to get to the bottom of the matter. The quote is from a personal letter dated 10th April 1979 from Dr. Patterson to creationist Luther D. Sunderland and is referring to Dr. Patterson's book "Evolution" (1978, Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd.). My first step was to read the book. (I believe it is now out of print, but most university libraries should have a copy.) Anyone who has actually read the book can hardly say that Patterson believed in the absence of transitional forms. For example (p131-133):
"In several animal and plant groups, enough fossils are known to bridge the wide gaps between existing types. In mammals, for example, the gap between horses, asses and zebras (genus Equus) and their closest living relatives, the rhinoceroses and tapirs, is filled by an extensive series of fossils extending back sixty-million years to a small animal, Hyracotherium, which can only be distinguished from the rhinoceros-tapir group by one or two horse-like details of the skull. There are many other examples of fossil 'missing links', such as Archaeopteryx, the Jurassic bird which links birds with dinosaurs (Fig. 45), and Ichthyostega, the late Devonian amphibian which links land vertebrates and the extinct choanate (having internal nostrils) fishes. . ."
Patterson goes on to acknowledge that there are gaps in the fossil record, but points out that this is possibly due to the limitations of what fossils can tell us. He finishes the paragraph with:
". . .Fossils may tell us many things, but one thing they can never disclose is whether they were ancestors of anything else."
It is actually this statement which is the key to interpreting the Sunderland quote correctly; it is not possible to say for certain whether a fossil is in the direct ancestral line of a species group. Archaeopteryx, for example, is not necessarily directly ancestral to birds. It may have been a species on a side-branch. However, that in no way disqualifies it as a transitional form, or as evidence for evolution. Evolution predicts that such fossils will exist, and if there was no link between reptiles and birds then Archaeopteryx would not exist, whether it is directly ancestral or not. What Patterson was saying to Sunderland was that, of the transitional forms that are known, he could not make a watertight argument for any being directly ancestral to living species groups.
(The above is from a monograph by Lionel Theunissen from 1993 when he did an exhaustive search of Australian "Quote mining" literature---Most of Theunissen's references exist in TALK ORIGINS ARCHIVES from where the above was clipped)
Nevertheless,by being brutally honest about "Individual species" fossils the CSF (Creation Science Foundation of Australia) decided to "mine' (OUT of context) what Patterson actually said.
By eiting and otherwise cutting segments out, it appears that the CSF's ) was employing old fashioned "Godlike" fraud and deception . Pretty neat for a group that attempts to portray itself as all full of Christian modi.
By the way, the CFS compiles and sells a book for use by its cult followers. Its called the "Revised Quote Manual for Christians"
In which many top scientists are falsely quoted and have their quotes modified by the "true believers" just for use by guys like gunga. I understand the book is in e-book fashion where quote clips are downloadable into Page Editor or Power Point.(For use by the "missions" I suppose)
Guys like gunga are easy to pin, because they actually believe their dinners of crap and never doubt for a moment that the **** quotes are actually that, ****. (Its the problem with having just enough technical knowledge)
Folks like Herald are much more difficult because HERALD doesn't even understand the limits of his own silly logic and the knowledge that exists. In otherwords, its much more difficult trying to debate with those most clueless.
