The Fossil Record: Darwin's Disaster

While we're at it, why don't we quote the whole book?

__________________
Alea iacta est.

- Gaius Iulius Caesar

Agite, Buckeyei!

Mark Ridley is hardly dismissing or debunking evolutionary theory in "the problems with evolution." as can be clearly seen in the more extensive quote:

"The fossil record of evolutionary change within single evolutionary lineages is very poor. If evolution is true, species originate through changes of ancestral species: one might expect to be able to see this in the fossil record. In fact it can rarely be seen. In 1859 Darwin could not cite a single example. He attributed the absence of examples to the incompleteness of the fossil record (cf. Mendelejeff's account on the elements' table). Thus the chapter of the Origin of Species in which he considers this first geological argument is entitled 'On the Imperfections of the Geological Record'. There are now some cases in which evolutionary change can be seen in the fossil record. A few dozen could be listed. But the most striking thing about them is their rarity. This being so, the first geological argument cannot provide a strong plea for evolution. With the accumulation of evidence it may become a powerful argument; but at present it is not. Nor, of course, is the rarity of observable evolution in the fossil record an argument against evolution. That rarity is exactly what an evolutionist would expect if the fosssil record contained many gaps: and it is known that the fossil record is very incomplete."

__________________
"We’ve been attacked by the intelligent, educated segment of the culture," Pastor Ray Mummert speaking out against teaching evolution in Pennsylvania schools
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.


The flood becomes harder and harder to support when you get more information.
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

THis one aint exaclty a refutation of evolutionary theory either

"We all know that many apparent evolutionary bursts are nothing more than brainstorms on the part of particular paleontologists. One splitter in a library can do more than millions of years of mutation. The point emerges that, if we examine the fossil record in detail, whether at the level of orders or of species, we fin-over and over again-not gradual evolution, but the sudden explosion of one group at the expense of another
' Derek Ager, "The Nature of the Fossil Record", Proceedings of the Geological Association, (1976)

__________________
"We’ve been attacked by the intelligent, educated segment of the culture," Pastor Ray Mummert speaking out against teaching evolution in Pennsylvania schools
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.


The flood becomes harder and harder to support when you get more information.
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

I will tell you what soldier. If I were your commanding officer, I would have you court martialed .

"A major problem in proving the theory has been the fossil record; the imprints of vanished species preserved in the Earth's geologic formations. This record has never revealed traces of Darwin's hypothetical intermediate variants-instead species appear and disappear abruptly, and this anomaly has fueled the creationist argument that each species was created by God as described in the Bible…On the other hand, (creationists) fervently pursue scientific studies legitimizing their own beliefs. Their Harvard is San Diego's Institute for Creation Research, which employs eight doctorate equipped scientists full time to demonstrate the feasibility of creationism." Mark Czarnecki, "The Revival of the Creationist Crusade", MacLean's (January 19, 1981)

__________________
"We’ve been attacked by the intelligent, educated segment of the culture," Pastor Ray Mummert speaking out against teaching evolution in Pennsylvania schools
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.


The flood becomes harder and harder to support when you get more information.
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

It would be great to quote the whole book social. Then at least they would get read. Just having a book on a bookself is not necessarily enough.

__________________
"We’ve been attacked by the intelligent, educated segment of the culture," Pastor Ray Mummert speaking out against teaching evolution in Pennsylvania schools
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.


The flood becomes harder and harder to support when you get more information.
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

"Although the comparative study of living animals and plants may give very convincing circumstantial evidence, fossil provide the only historical, documentary evidence that life has evolved from simpler forms to more and more complex forms." Carl Dunbar "Historical Geology," 2nd Ed., 1960, p. 47.


…."..the evidence is now mounting that most of the major fossil groups of the Cambrian arose by rapid evolution…In the first place, fossil assemblages consisting of the imprints of soft-bodies creatures…have been found in many areas of the world, but are never older than latest Precambrian." Steven M Stanley"Macroevolution: Pattern and Process, 1979, pp. 36.

__________________
"We’ve been attacked by the intelligent, educated segment of the culture," Pastor Ray Mummert speaking out against teaching evolution in Pennsylvania schools
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.


The flood becomes harder and harder to support when you get more information.
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

In most (if not all) cases, the opinions ARE being represented correctly. That is certainly the case in the quotes above, since there is no added commentary and the quotes have not been doctored.

What most evolutionists object to is the fact that these quotes are used at all, because they are revealing and embarrassing. There really isn't any way to defend them, so evolutionists tend to offer these lame objections:

1. They are taken out of context.

Of course they're out of context. Nobody is going to print the whole book, article, etc. The question is, did the author mean something other than what is represented by the quote? And the answer is almost always a resounding NO. In the cases where the answer is not "NO" it is a resounding "contradiction." SJ Gould, for example, can't seem to make up his mind whether or not the fossil record is wonderful or stinks, since he says in one place that transitionals are absent, "rare" in another, and plentiful in yet another.

2. The author is not refuting evolution.

Of course they're not refuting evolution. That's the point. We use these quotes to demonstrate that people who believe in evolution believe in it in SPITE of the lack of and contradictory fossil evidence. If they didn't believe in evolution, the quotes wouldn't be as striking.

The simple fact is that the fossil evidence remains a huge problem for evolution no matter what other quotes you evolutionists can "mine." I find it admirable that you can find scientists who admit it. I find it hilarious that evolutionists still believe in evolution in spite of it.

__________________
If you lived here you'd be home by now.

Context doesn't mean simply "additional text". It means information that bears on the meaning of the words in the quote. It may, or may not, appear directly in the text from which the quote is excised. It may be, in the case of the Patterson quote, that the context is the acknowledgement that his remarks are directed entirely to the impact of evolution on systematics, and nothing else. Reading the Patterson quotes without that context, and without one's attention being drawn to the real meaning of what is being said, it would appear that Patterson stupidly accepts evolution in contradiction to or in absence of the evidence. Given the context, that he is discussing the application of taxinomic names to fossil species whose precise evolutionary lineage cannot be proven, (and given the broader context - his familiarity with the numerous independent lines of evidence that prove evolution), his remarks can be correctly interpreted, and it no longer seems stupid for him to accept evolution in spite of the difficulty of precisely identifying direct ancestry of fossil species.

More aptly, he says in one context that transitionals are absent, "rare" in another context, and plentiful in yet another context. Something that everyone who participates on this board should understand quite well, having seen gobs of examples of transitionals at higher taxonomical levels than species, having seen transitional series in the vertebrate record, but only rare series in the invertebrate record, having seen very few transitional forms at the species level, etc... The dissonance between Gould's various remarks becomes bleedingly obvious when the context of his statements comes into focus. 


If you mean "huge problem" as "large gaps in specific knowledge about evolutionary history", then you are both fairly representing the scientists "admissions", and able to see why it is possible for people to be convinced in spite of those "problems" that evolution is well established by the mountains of evidence in support of it.

If you mean "huge problem" to say that there is something in the fossil record that is incompatible with evolution, then you are mistaking the meaning of the scientists who are quoted, and you are mistaken in thinking this problem exists. If you think otherwise, then you should be able to demonstrate what those problems are, and how they are incompatible with evolution. I'll wait.

__________________
Man should no more get tired of using his brain--if he is using it properly--than a fish should get tired of water.

- Colin Wilson

Wow, with that spin it's a wonder Nick isn't involved in politics (then again, maybe he is). Anybody care to post some Bible verses out of context and see what sort of spin we'll get from of that?

- Joe

__________________
"It is often easier to fight for one's principles than live up to them."
- Adlai Stevenson

Research tells us fourteen out of any ten individuals likes chocolate.
Sandra Boynton

__________________

O'siyo Oginalii Tsilugi !!! I will draw thorns from your feet. We will walk the White Path of Life together. Like a brother of my own blood, I will love you. I will wipe tears from your eyes. When you are sad, I will put your aching heart to rest. May you walk in peace and harmony