An article posted over at TheConsecrated's forums.

Note also the tendency to rant about the 'evolutionist' witholding information and such.

It seems to be that he is saying "sure! there are vertebrate transitions, but that's it! nothing else evolved!"

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Jesus said, "If a blind person leads a blind person, both of them will fall into a hole." Thomas 34

"On blind faith they place reliance, what they need more of is science"- MC Hawking

Anyone have reference links? Where's lucaspa with his magic bottle o' links?

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Bushido216

Ask a person to name an animal and you will probably get a mammal, or possible a bird or reptile. (Case in point, ask me and you will get either a llama or a duck). Vertebrates are usually used as transitional because the bone structures are well known. Everyone knows what a bird or mammal skeleton looks like, so the gradual changes are easy to see. Invertebrate fossils look wierd and alien, so the changes are harder to see to a layperson. It is for this reason that the vertebrate fossils are chosen as the 'standard' fossils.

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Greatest Hovind quote of all time, as voted for by members of CF:
"Teaching the pagan religion of evolutionism is a waste of valuable class time and textbook space. It is also one of the reasons American kids don't test as well in science as kids in other parts of the world."

One to start you off: http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CC/CC211.html

The ICC is a very useful resource, incidentally. One of the few sites I have bookmarked.

Well, I stopped reading when he typed all in CAPS, but anyway, seems like standard BS.

The standard argument that if evolution were true we should see thousands of fossils everywhere. He conviently ignores the fact that fossilization is a rare occurance and thus the lack of tons of fossils (all though we have many) is evidence that fossilization events were rare.

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Wei wu wei

Green faeries

Wow, that indexcc thing is... excellent.

Wow.

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Bushido216

Well, the Subphylum Vertebrata is not among the most poplulated, and will probably make up a correspondingly smaller portion of the fossil record. I find 99.9% a little hard to believe, however.

A nitpick, in any case - I believe the better defining characteristic of Vertebrata is the presence of a cranial case. Some members, e.g. lampreys, hagfish, have only rudimentary cartilaginous support structures, hence the presence of a well-developed notochord.

In english?

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Bushido216

The overwhelming majority of vertebrates have backbone-structures made of cartilage or bone. A few, however, do not. They all do have a cranial case, cartilage or bone, which is why I consider that a better defining characteristic. Thus, the name "vertebrate" is a slight misnomer, but not enough to raise heck about.

FYI, those that don't have true backbones have a notochord, which is a rod, similar in structure to cartilage, that runs parallel to the spinal cord. All members of Phylum Chordata have a notochord at some point during development. Humans have one in early embryonic stages. Eventually, it forms parts of what you probably know as the intervertebral discs.