The best evidence

Hey all,

Ok, so I was just thinking a while ago about what would be the best or most supportive evidence of evolution - a line of evidence that would be ultimately very difficult to disprove or handwave away. Then it hit me - traditionally, creationism is intrinsically bound to the 6,000 year figure, or 10,000 or whatever they've decided it is now. In any case, it cannot allow for 4.6 billion years of history. It is also fundamental that evolution (*sigh* macroevolution) requires the same long timescales - is cannot operate over the few thousand years allotted by creationism. Therefore the proof of that 4.6 billion years - geological evidence, including fossils, formations, everything - is the strongest line of evidence that cannot be refuted or ignored.

If creationists ever hope to have their hypotheses accepted, they must first knock away this particular cornerstone or turn it to their view - which is why the Flood comes up so often. It is the only explanation they have for the current geological record, no matter how flimsy it might be, so it must be defended as far as possible.

Here's my take on it - how, logically, you can arrive at the theory of evolution:

The geological record is arranged into many, many layers and formations. These formations logically are only formed by geological processes, which we observe today as taking a certain amount of time. We therefore assume that the layers represent long periods of time - an assumption borne out by the numerous changes in environment, and the sheer number of layers present.
In the layers, we find fossils. From our earlier assumption, we now say that these fossils are very old and must have existed at the same time as the sediment in which they were found, seeing as they could not have burrowed down from later sediments laid over them (this would leave traces which are not seen). Surprisingly enough, the fossils seem to be arranged in a pattern going from oldest to youngest - that of more complex species appearing (broadly speaking, of course). New species appear, old ones die out - sometimes gradually and sometimes immediately.
As we delve deeper into the relationship of the fossils to the environment, we see more patterns; species seem to appear and disappear depending on the state of the environment. What could this possibly mean? Well, we are aware that natural selection occurs - we see that creatures that are better adapted to the environment have a better chance of survival than those that are not. This is observed and documented; that those less suited to the environment (i.e. not as tolerant of the temperature, more susceptible to predation) are weeded out by environmental pressures, leaving the better suited to breed.
So what does this mean? We know that due to NS, species are capable of changing in response to their environment. We ask ourselves - is there a limit to how much change can occur? By examining the phenomenally long geological record, we logically deduce that there is not - as long as the environment puts pressure on a species, it will induce change in that species, even up to creating a new species that is rather different from the original. It seems to explain the fossils in the geological record very well. So we take this idea and test it against our evidence by examining the order of the fossils; this is a huge and fragile idea, and even a single fossil out of place will render it useless - a dinosaur in the Pre-Cambrian, a trilobite in the Quaternary, even a few spores in the wrong layer and all our work will have been for nothing. But lo and behold - it all seems to fit! Every new discovery just adds another piece to help solve the puzzle, and we end up marvelling at how well this one small idea connects so many diverse areas of science.
And we decided to call it evolution.

If anyone feels that there's some stronger line of evidence out there, let's hear it! Also, if anyone feels that the logic and assumptions are flawed in some way, please post your opinion - like I said, this is only my take on it.

The Rock Hound

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If I were to pick a nit, I would say be careful with saying "more complex"... I think "more derived" is better to be honest, since even early fossils have fairly complex features. more derived also points out that modern features are based on versions of earlier features.

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How sweet life would be for the evolutionist if this were simply a debate of YEC vs the theory of evolution. That is not the case. The theory of evolution is under attack from more than just YEC supporters. In fact, the theory of evolution is underattach from not only the outside all around, but also from the inside, from their own ranks. It has always been a controversal theory.

No John, once again you spew opinions and call them facts. Evolution is under attack from an ignorant minority who can't reconcile the world with their scripture. It has only been controversial to those who cannot comprehend more than "goddidit." There are no "ranks" no matter how much you wish there were, there is no scientific debate about whether life evolves. The only debate is HOW it evolves. The biblical explanation has been falsified for going on 200 years now.

Again, your statements are unsupported by evidence.

There's a line of evidence for the age of the earth that I don't think has been brought up here, that I think I should mention because I find it quite convincing.

Unless God deliberately made the earth look older than it really is, South America and Africa were together at some point in the past--the two continents' shapes fit together like two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. And in the time since then, something must have moved them apart.

South America and Africa are moving apart right now, at a rate of about 1 inch per year--this can be measured with satellites. Because the continents are about 4,000 miles apart, this rate of motion would have the two continents being together about 250 million years ago.

Of course, the YEC answer to this is that there was something that moved them apart more quickly than this, but they have not yet suggested something that could do this. If the earth is only 6,000 years old, they would have had to be moving apart more than half a mile per year. Plate tectonics cannot act quickly enough to cause this sort of motion.

The other possibility is a flood, but that could not do this either. Although floods are able to deposit sedimentary rocks in new places, South America and Africa are both made up of a lot more than sedimentary rock, and this sort of erosion and re-deposition would not have preserved the shape of the continents' coastlines. A flood could not have pushed them apart either; the weight of the water in any sort of flood pushes only down.

There is also another discovery is also able to measure how recently these continents were together:

A lot of volcanic rocks contain filaments of iron that align themselves along Earth's magnetic field lines as long as the rock is molten. Once the rock is no longer molten, they are frozen in place and can no longer do this. As you might expect, in rock that has been molten recently these filaments are angled the same way that they currently are, but there are some rocks where they point different directions.

To someone looking at the rocks on only one continent, a potential explanation for this is that magnetic north used to be at a position different from where it currently is. It is rather likely that magnetic north has moved around over time, but this cannot explain the changes in the orientation of magnetic filaments. When comparing these filaments on different continents, each of the filaments that point somewhere other than our current magnetic north agree with one another about where Magnetic north used to be; each of them points towards a completely different spot. In order for there to be this much variation in them, there would have had to be hundreds of eruptions on one continent where magnitic north was in a particular place, while other continents had NO erutions during this time, since if they did they would also have rocks with filaments pointing towards this place.

However, the principle of continental drift is able to explain this line of evidence in a way that no other theory can. If the continents' poistions have moved over time, it is possible to come up with a path through which they moved that is consistent both with the various orientations held by the magnetic filaments in their volcanic rocks, the way the continents apear to fit together, and their current motion.

So how long ago were Africa and South America together? All of the magnetic filaments in volcanic rocks from eruptions that took place in recorder human history point the toward our current magnetic north. The angle between the two continents is slightly different, but only enough to complensate that the direction towards magnetic north will be slightly different in two continents that are 4,000 miles apart. For some of the older rocks, however, this is not the case.

If these two continents used to fit together, the angles of the filaments from their respective volcanic rocks would have to be the same in certain rocks. This is not true when measured by the continents' current positions. However, that is not the thing to look for, because the two continents would have to be rotated slightly in order for them to fit together. And there are volcanic rocks with filaments whose angle is the same between the two continents if the two continents were rotated in such a way to fit together.

How old these rocks are can be determined by Potassium-Argon dating, which I've mentioned here before. Volcanic rocks contain a radiactive form of potassium that gradually decays into Argon, which is a gas and can thus escape from the rock as long as the rock is molten. Once the rock has become solid, the Argon gas begins to accumulate. The higher the ratio of Argon to potassium in a rock, the longer it has been since the rock was molten.

So, the obvious question is, how old are the volcanic rocks whose magnetic filaments show were formed when the two continents were together? The answer is that this dating mechanism determines that they were last molten--and had their magnetic filaments aligned to point towards magnitc north--about 270 million years ago.

In other words, both paleomagnetism and an extrapolation of the continents' current motion produce the same result. Do you think God made these two lines of evidence agree with one another in this manner just to fool us?

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Maybe that should have been a new thread--I didn't realize that this was going to end up being a debate about evolution between people who agree about the age of the earth.

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Endogenous retroviral insertions already do that, and they're pertinent to biology (evolution) instead of geology (the age of the earth). I've yet to see a creationist even handwave them away. Most creationists who don't immediately have a crisis of belief after learning of their existence put on a blindfold and run for the hills, never to be heard from in the same topic again.

I really like how you say that his statements are unsupported by evidence and but you happen to spew off as many 'facts' as he does.

edit: So that I actually attempt to contribute to the actual topic

I don't really know all that much about evolution/creation (i know the basics but I haven't made a study out of it), but it appears that there are few to none transition (missing links, whatever you want to call them) fossils. If it takes some billions of years shouldn't there be just about as many transition fossils as regular fossils. There seems to be so much pressure to find these missing 'links' that people fake them quite frequently.

Well, technically speaking, all fossils are transitionals.

What is your idea of a transitional fossil?

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If we are going to teach 'creation science' as an alternative to evolution, then we should also teach the stork theory as an alternative to biological reproduction. ~Judith Hayes, In God We Trust: But Which One?

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Just remember, you are unique, just like everybody else.

The only reason one would suppose a huge number of transitional things as blatantly obvious as, say, Archaeopteryx are the dubious assumptions that (1) evolution proceeds at constant rates (2) all species in the sequence have an equal chance of being fossilized and (3) we've dug up enough fossils to make a definitive conclusion.

But in actuality, this is far too simplistic. Species don't evolve at constant rates--if one is well-adapted it can remain stable for fairly long periods of time, changing only as circumstances require in spurts of less than 5 million years. Some species, most notably those living in tropical rain forests (acidic soil, which doesn't preserve well) and having easily degradable bodies, don't fossilize readily. And we keep digging up new transitionals literally every month, so we probably haven't gotten even half of them yet.

The number of transitional fossils we do have is quite impressive given those considerations. Moreso when you consider how they were predicted to exist in advance of their discovery, such as the numerous legged whales and human/ape intermediates. And amazingly so when you realize how well the fossil record matches up to predictions taken from analysis of modern species alone, which shouldn't be possible if the two are historically unrelated.