Could someone explain me evolution & Big Bang?

[Black Akuma]

Common sense and logic should be the basis for all things. Thats how things work in our day to day lives.

'Common sense' would tell you that heavy objects fall faster than light ones, that solid matter isn't mostly empty and that nothing could live hundreds of feet below the surface of the ocean. You'd be wrong in every case.

In science, experimentation comes before intuition.

What goes up must come down and we applied that to things in our physical world and made adjustments when sending rockets out into space.

We didn't get to space with 'what goes up must come down'.

The logic in evolution is that we come from apes because we look like them.

And ERV distribution, and the DNA analysis, and homology, and the presence of atavisms and vestigial features, et cetera...

But if an animal that doesn't look like it belongs and the DNA shows it does then you begin to say that doesn't add up to how the story goes.

Two animals can look very much alike and yet be very different, and vice versa. We don't just look an animal on the outside and assume that, there's way more study involved.

But sometimes i believe that even though this comes up a lot they still overlook it and find another way to rationalize it.

Okay, you make a lot of statements like this. You keep saying 'I think they do X' or 'I believe that they are X'. But you don't present any reasoning or evidence that this is going on to some great degree behind the scenes - it's just your feelings on the matter.

They will never understand it.

Unless you have some future-seeing powers, you have no idea what we will and will not understand, and it's a bit silly to presume that you do. You might be right, we might never understand these things, but that's not something you or anyone is qualified to state with any real certainty.

For all we know we could be breaking down Gods creation and will eventually come to a point where we will say this cannot be this is some sort of magic or something that has no answer and must have something behind it.

At what point should we do that? After how much time and effort should we give up on finding an answer for things and chalk it up to the supernatural? How long? How many years? How much research? How much time?

After all isnt the whole idea of science and evolution to put a meaning and answer to life and how it came into being.

NO.

The purpose of science is not to tell you the meaning of life. At all.

 

[46AND2]

You talk about logic as if you dont believe in a 3 in 1 god, who somehow makes a finite sacrifice, despite being infinite himself by making himself 100% man, while retaining 100% godhood, and lacking manly attributes like sin, but for some reason can still be tempted by satan, forsaken by himself...I mean his dad, who somehow has parenthood over himself...and who created the world exactly as he wanted to, yet somehow isnt responsible for sin...

I'm sorry to be so cynical, but if you want to talk about things that don't make sense...

To be clear, I'm not trying to poke fun at you for believing these things; I used to as well, despite the fact that they didn't make sense. My point is that you don't deny things about evolution because it is counterintuitive, you deny them because it conflicts with your dogma.

 

[stevevw]

You talk about logic as if you dont believe in a 3 in 1 god, who somehow makes a finite sacrifice, despite being infinite himself by making himself 100% man, while retaining 100% godhood, and lacking manly attributes like sin, but for some reason can still be tempted by satan, forsaken by himself...I mean his dad, who somehow has parenthood over himself...and who created the world exactly as he wanted to, yet somehow isnt responsible for sin...

I'm sorry to be so cynical, but if you want to talk about things that don't make sense...

Well i thought it was common knowledge that God doesn't make sense. Yet those who have faith despite not knowing the mind of god still believe with all their hearts that he is as real as if standing right before them. The bible even says that we cannot fully know the mind of god and that mans way of thinking when it comes to God is limited. We can begin to know it by a faith in him and putting our trust in him. God says that we only know in part now like a veil is over our eyes but when he comes we will know all that god is.

What you are talking about with the deities of god is beyond out understanding. When we put mans logic to things of god it starts to not make sense. It goes beyond the realms of this world. But that doesn't mean we have a blind faith and give up our human traits. We still need to acknowledge that we are human and limited and that god is all knowing and powerful.

 

[mzungu]

Well i thought it was common knowledge that God doesn't make sense. Yet those who have faith despite not knowing the mind of god still believe with all their hearts that he is as real as if standing right before them. The bible even says that we cannot fully know the mind of god and that mans way of thinking when it comes to God is limited. We can begin to know it by a faith in him and putting our trust in him. God says that we only know in part now like a veil is over our eyes but when he comes we will know all that god is.

What you are talking about with the deities of god is beyond out understanding. When we put mans logic to things of god it starts to not make sense. It goes beyond the realms of this world. But that doesn't mean we have a blind faith and give up our human traits. We still need to acknowledge that we are human and limited and that god is all knowing and powerful.

Science does not use common sense and logic as the driving force behind it. The reason is simple; what one may consider something as being sensible, another may think it not sensible. Likewise with logic. There are no set rules for common sense and logic. Science has set rules by which it abides to in order to maintain its universality in its language and keep out the unfalsifiable.

You seem very intent on introducing the unfalsifiable into science and this is not acceptable. Science does not work that way.

People still believe that in a vacuum one experiences zero g. Or that heavier objects fall faster than lighter ones. Common sense is behind such false beliefs.

Perhaps you need to clarify why you ask to learn through science while introducing the supernatural?

Lastly; ToE does not make sense to you simply because you do not understand it. This is applicable to all fields of scientific knowledge. Take a primary school pupil and show him calculus and he will invariably tell you that it does not make sense to him. Does this mean that calculus is wrong?

 

[Wiccan_Child]

Common sense and logic should be the basis for all things. Thats how things work in our day to day lives. Up until the discovery of dark matter and energy we had a basic understanding how gravity worked. What goes up must come down and we applied that to things in our physical world and made adjustments when sending rockets out into space.

Einstein open the door to there being other factors at work but this is where we began to see that things were perhaps beyond the normal parameters. Now quantum mechanics has taken us into a world where things are not making sense according to those known laws of physics. But we still used logic in all our approaches and the way we planned the experiments and built our technology.

Logic yes, common sense, no. Common sense is terrible; at the very best it agrees with logic and reason, but most of the time it's just utterly wrong.

The logic in evolution is that we come from apes because we look like them.

Roughly right, but technically wrong (it says we are apes, and that the four ape species - humans, chimps, gorillas, and orang-outangs - are all descended from a common species). Homology is also only one of four major pillars of evidence, the other three being fossils, genetics, and geographical distribution.

If they say we came from pelicans i would say that doesn't make sense. The logic says our DNA should match the closest relative to us and animals that they say are closet should have similar DNA. But if an animal that doesn't look like it belongs and the DNA shows it does then you begin to say that doesn't add up to how the story goes. How can that be.

Well, it isn't. We had concluded that humans are closely related to chimps, and then we started analysing our genomes, and this new genetic evidence completely agreed with evolution.

Not because they are never 100% right and will always need to adjust things. But because it doesn't fit and doesn't make sense according to the story they have predicted. But sometimes i believe that even though this comes up a lot they still overlook it and find another way to rationalize it. It wont be till enough of these come up and it starts to look like there is no way it could happen the way they say will they give up the idea.

What are you referring to? You seem to be alluding to some grand series of unsuccessful predictions, but I know of no such incongruence. Can you be more specific, please?

I believe the very fact that quantum mechanics is bringing up unusual results that are going beyond what scientist predicted should be the case is because it is beyond what they can understand. They will never understand it. It was interesting that the commentator or the cartoon bloke said that it all seems to change the moment we look at it. Its like the particles know that we are looking at them.

No, it most certainly is not. This is a layman's understanding of a nuanced, complex, and highly counter-intuitive phenomenon in quantum mechanics.

To me this is a world where we will never understand as it goes beyond our understanding. For all we know we could be breaking down Gods creation and will eventually come to a point where we will say this cannot be this is some sort of magic or something that has no answer and must have something behind it. After all isnt the whole idea of science and evolution to put a meaning and answer to life and how it came into being.

Science is a method of discovering the truth about the universe, of why things are the way they are and not the way they're not. If the truth is that everything is actively maintained by God, so be it. But pontificating on the unusual nature of QM and concluding the universe is fundamentally unknowable, is flawed logic indeed.

And, of course, this has nothing to do with the veracity of evolution. The consilience of fossils, genetics, geography, and homology, are why we know evolution is true.

 

[stevevw]

Science does not use common sense and logic as the driving force behind it. The reason is simple; what one may consider something as being sensible, another may think it not sensible. Likewise with logic. There are no set rules for common sense and logic. Science has set rules by which it abides to in order to maintain its universality in its language and keep out the unfalsifiable.

You seem very intent on introducing the unfalsifiable into science and this is not acceptable. Science does not work that way.

People still believe that in a vacuum one experiences zero g. Or that heavier objects fall faster than lighter ones. Common sense is behind such false beliefs.

Perhaps you need to clarify why you ask to learn through science while introducing the supernatural?

Lastly; ToE does not make sense to you simply because you do not understand it. This is applicable to all fields of scientific knowledge. Take a primary school pupil and show him calculus and he will invariably tell you that it does not make sense to him. Does this mean that calculus is wrong?

I dont think i try to introduce the supernatural into science. I realize the two are incomparable. I just enjoy discussing the subjects. I also learn as i go with research so its all good. At the end of the day i cant make anyone do or believe in anything and neither can you or anyone on this site. Most of my posts and comments are along the lines of challenging the science or rather some of the things evolutionist claim. I rarely bring god into it and if i do its normally only a sentence in amongst a lot of my views and others on the theory.

But i think you and others have come into a christian site to give your side of the debate so you should expect religious people to challenge and give their point of view.

I would say that you need to spend some time learning the theory and now that genetics have come along this makes it even harder. Because genetics can give more accurate results to prove or disprove things then you need to have a pretty good understanding of genetics. I would say the majority on this site wont, most of my friends dont and the average person doesn't either. So it comes down to a minority of people who will have good knowledge and an even smaller amount who have a level of knowledge that would be sufficient to comment on it with credibility.

Now that will either leave the debate to a smaller number or most people have to be included and accommodated. So there will be people of varying levels who may give answers that are not credible. But i think there are certain aspects of evolution that you can talk about which more people know or have a reasonable understanding to comment. I think i have a good basic understanding of the Darwinian theory of evolution. The genetics is what i cant get and thats frustrating as i think this is where the true answers can be found. Maybe i need to go away and learn the genetics and come back with better knowledge. But i think it is OK to use experts as long as you can verify them and get some understanding of what they are saying.

 

[EternalDragon]

And, of course, this has nothing to do with the veracity of evolution. The consilience of fossils, genetics, geography, and homology, are why we know evolution is true.

You are choosing to believe the cherry picking scientists do. All of those things you mentioned speaks against evolution of the "everything has a common ancestor" type and actually is evidence of design. It just depends how you interpret the evidence.

Evolution, as far as a species being able to produce variety through natural selection, is true.

 

[JamesKurtovich]

You are choosing to believe the cherry picking scientists do. All of those things you mentioned speaks against evolution of the "everything has a common ancestor" type and actually is evidence of design. It just depends how you interpret the evidence.

Evolution, as far as a species being able to produce variety through natural selection, is true.

Interpreting the evidence while suffering from cognitive dissonance will effect your conclusions.

The designer is biological evolution through selection pressures.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

You are choosing to believe the cherry picking scientists do.

Please don't be so arrogant as to tell me what I'm doing. I have reviewed the evidence for myself, and I've yet to see any cherry picking. If you think such exists, by all means show us.

All of those things you mentioned speaks against evolution of the "everything has a common ancestor" type and actually is evidence of design. It just depends how you interpret the evidence.

Nonsense. Evidence isn't so flimsy it can be 'interpreted' to support whatever you like. The evidence against classical mechanics cannot be spun to support classical mechanics. The evidence against the vaccine/autism link cannot be spun to support the link. And the evidence for evolution cannot be spun to magically contradict it as well.

The theory of common descents demands a variety of specific things. It demands fossils in the right strata in the right order - which we have. It demands genetic similarity/dissimilarity congruent with twin-nested hierarchies - which it is. It demands physiological homology congruent with said hierarchies - which we have. It demands geographical distribution of species (and, indeed, fossils) that matches natural migration and speciation - which we see.

We see species in west Africa and east America that match this predicted geographical distribution. We don't see species radiating out of Turkey, as YEC predicts. We predicted the existence of a fusion site on one of our larger chromosomes - and we found it on chromosome #2. We don't see fish with feathers or mammals with gills, as we might expect if animals were constructed piecemeal by a designer - instead, features fit into explicit hierarchies, as demanded by evolution.

Weaving ad hoc just-so stories for why the pillars of evolution are compatible with ID misses the point. Evolution predicted these pillars before they were found - that's why they're such tremendous supporting evidence for the theory. However, ID has made NO such predictions, so they do NOT constitute evidence for the theory.

You have gravely misunderstood how theories gain their support. Relativity is universally accepted because it a) explains hitherto inexplicable phenomena (e.g., the precession of the perihelion of Mercury), and b) predicted hitherto unpredictable phenomena (e.g., bent stars near the Sun).

Evolution, as far as a species being able to produce variety through natural selection, is true.

And it necessarily follows that species will speciate. The interrelationship of extant species implies that not only are some species connected by a common ancestor, but all species are.

 

[46AND2]

You are choosing to believe the cherry picking scientists do. All of those things you mentioned speaks against evolution of the "everything has a common ancestor" type and actually is evidence of design. It just depends how you interpret the evidence.

Evolution, as far as a species being able to produce variety through natural selection, is true.

You don't have a "different" interpretation of the evidence for evolution, you have a wrong one, because your interpretation contradicts FACTS.

Funny how you don't give credence to people who interpret the Bible to allow for evolution and deep time.

 

[46AND2]

Well i thought it was common knowledge that God doesn't make sense. Yet those who have faith despite not knowing the mind of god still believe with all their hearts that he is as real as if standing right before them. The bible even says that we cannot fully know the mind of god and that mans way of thinking when it comes to God is limited. We can begin to know it by a faith in him and putting our trust in him. God says that we only know in part now like a veil is over our eyes but when he comes we will know all that god is.

What you are talking about with the deities of god is beyond out understanding. When we put mans logic to things of god it starts to not make sense. It goes beyond the realms of this world. But that doesn't mean we have a blind faith and give up our human traits. We still need to acknowledge that we are human and limited and that god is all knowing and powerful.

Some people can't just ignore the logical contradictions. It's more than just not making sense, btw. The attributes you say god has are literally contradictory in many cases. Belief is a conviction, based on what you have learned about about the subject. So how does one become convinced that a being exists which defies everything learned about reality?

 

[EternalDragon]

You don't have a "different" interpretation of the evidence for evolution, you have a wrong one, because your interpretation contradicts FACTS.

Funny how you don't give credence to people who interpret the Bible to allow for evolution and deep time.

No, it just contradicts certain conclusions. You are confusing conclusions to evidence as facts when it is not.

There really is no way to interpret the bible to allow for evolution and deep time. It just isn't there. Jesus, the disciples and Hebrew scholars know this as well.

 

[stevevw]

stevevw, you are wondering a bit in your last post.

The fact is that we may not be able to answer exactly what the line of descent of all creatures is. We find evidence in the fossil record and in DNA and work from that.

That of course is not evidence against evolution. There are not supposed to be millions of transitional fossils. That is a lie that certain creationist sites spread claiming that Darwin made that claim. He never did. His words are taken out of context because the one time he mentions "millions of transitional fossils" in the next paragraph he explains why we don't see them.

The important fact is that all fossils fit only the evolutionary paradigm. Creationists have no fossil paradigm. They cannot explain how the fossils that we see today were formed and why we see them in the way that we do. There various claims have all been shown to be terribly wrong.

Now there may be some discussion from what animals snakes descended from. That is why we test to eliminate certain possibilities. For example one article you linked eliminates the Moasaur via DNA studies. Scientists are always proposing new ideas and testing them. Sometimes ideas are shot down. That is still success for science since it eliminates wrong possibilities. By eliminating incorrect answers we get closer and closer to the right answer.

Lastly why would a lizard species lose its legs? Sometimes, especially for a lizard, its legs can get in the way when it is trying to get into and out of very tight places. If a species spent most of its time in very tight places a loss of legs could be beneficial. If that is the case you would see the legs wither away over succeeding generations.

Thats why i say it doesn't make sense. They say the creature will lose its legs to adapt to the environment or a niche. Yet when i picture that happening i can imagine a lizard with gradually have disappearing legs. Somehow a mutation came along that happened to start taking his legs away that fitted with the need for him to have no legs and adapt. They say that there is no intelligence in the process so a chance mutation happened. But then that only starts the process. He may start to lose his legs but still he has some form of legs while trying to get in the holes. So another chance mutation has to come along and repeat the same over and over again.

So then we have a situation where the process has started because of the need to adapt but its still not benficial as the legs still get in the way. So along the way to losing their legs wouldnt there be a time where its not beneficial. As its a long gradulal process then maybe the process may reverse or give up as there would be a long period where nothing is beneficial. If its random then how is it determined that the process kept going in the direction of losing the legs when there was no benefit for such a long time. Why didn't the creature just give up and keep its legs. How can the exact mutations happen over and over again despite there being no advantage. Its like somehow the lizard knew that it needed to lose its legs so the process kept repeating despite all this.

As with the example of the snake i can see many similar cases where evolutionist have painted a picture of how the species evolved with pictures and write ups in books and it was shown to be wrong. They justify this by saying it still happened but the details are wrong. But when it is proven wrong normally the evidence like the snake is contradictory to evolution happening in the first place. If the snake was suppose to look like it came from the Moasaur because of the features and then the DNA shows it didn't it shows the detailed story they made was built out of a vivid imagination. In some cases it points to a completely different animal with completely different features. Then they say they dont know but time will tell. But that different animal doesn't fit the type of story they were trying to say in the first place.

The fossils they found in the middle east suggests that snakes may have lost their legs at sea so that negates the burrowing theory. But because they were so old it also puts a big hole in the fact they said that snakes come from lizards. It makes them older and it shows there were still snake around many millions of years before lizards. To me these are big differences not minor details that needs adjusting. Yet here we have a snake who has similar feature to a lizard and they show the similarities once again and it may also be wrong. So what came first the snake or the lizard.

So we will have to see but to me its to all over the place and any explanation scientist have put forward just dont add up to fit a picture on evolution. I would have thought after showing that there must have been many stages to get from a lizard to a snake then there would be more fossils of stages then of a complete lizard with legs and a complete snake without legs. That is 2 fossils of complete creatures. There had to be a least maybe 5 or 10 or more stages for a lizard to turn into a snake. That to me means many more transitional fossils than to complete ones.

 

[Black Akuma]

So we will have to see but to me its to all over the place and any explanation scientist have put forward just dont add up to fit a picture on evolution. I would have thought after showing that there must have been many stages to get from a lizard to a snake then there would be more fossils of stages then of a complete lizard with legs and a complete snake without legs. That is 2 fossils of complete creatures. There had to be a least maybe 5 or 10 or more stages for a lizard to turn into a snake.

Okay, first off, no one said anything about snakes coming from lizards.

Question - did you actually read the link I provided you? The one with the article that details this find?

 

[46AND2]

No, it just contradicts certain conclusions. You are confusing conclusions to evidence as facts when it is not.

There really is no way to interpret the bible to allow for evolution and deep time. It just isn't there. Jesus, the disciples and Hebrew scholars know this as well.

Lol. Funny that you think you have Hebrew scholars on your side. Your pastors really keep you in the dark, don't they.

 

[Black Akuma]

Yeah, ED - you ever noticed that there's a dearth of Jewish creationists? A few, mind you, but nowhere near as many as the Muslim and Christian ones?

There's a reason for that.

The movement for intelligent design claims that an intelligent creator is responsible for the origin of life and of humankind, and rejects evolution. Jewish theologians, organizations, and activists have maintained that intelligent design is not valid science but that it is a religious concept. Although some have expressed support for a theistic interpretation of evolution, they have generally rejected the tenets of the intelligent design movement. To Rabbi Brad Hirschfield, President of the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, intelligent design is "their attempt to confirm what they already believe." Jewish organizations in the United States have been steadfast in their opposition to the teaching of intelligent design in public schools, charging that to do so would violate the separation of church and state.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_views_on_evolution

 

[stevevw]

Okay, first off, no one said anything about snakes coming from lizards.

Yes they did. They believed for a long time snakes came from a aquatic lizard.

"The big question has been, why would a four-legged animal lose its limbs and develop an elongated body?" said evolutionary biologist S. Blair Hedges of Pennsylvania State University. Hedges is co-author of the first reptile DNA study to include all living families of lizards and many snakes. That new analysis adds to mounting evidence that snakes are not descended from giant extinct marine reptiles.
"The jury is definitely still out on whether living snakes had a terrestrial or marine origin," commented Rick Shine, a snake expert at the University of Sydney in Australia. "But this new study is exactly the kind of research we need to clarify the evidence."
Sink or Swim?
One long-held theory is that snakes are closely related to some group of terrestrial lizards and lost their limbs on land. Many burrowing animals, from weasels to worm lizards, have smaller limbs today. "For animals wiggling around in small holes and crevices, it makes sense that limbs would get in the way," Today many primitive snakes live in soil or leaf litter.

Another idea, first formally suggested by Victorian fossil hunter and evolutionary biologist Edward Drinker Cope (1849-1897), argues that snakes lost their limbs at sea and are closely related to the extinct marine lizards called mosasaurs.

For many decades the burrowing-ancestor theory had held sway. But in 1997, researchers described several marine snake fossils with tiny hind limbs. The discovery re-invigorated the marine theory. Paleontologists behind some of these fossils believed they were the oldest snakes yet discovered and a missing link with mosasaurs.

Because all lizards, apart from mosasaurs, are thought to have been land-dwelling when snakes evolved around 150 million years ago, "our study provides strong evidence that snakes evolved on land, not in the ocean," Hedges said. He noted, however, that further analysis is required to confirm which lizard group is most closely related to snakes.

Snake Ancestors Lost Limbs on Land, Study Says

Question - did you actually read the link I provided you? The one with the article that details this find?

Yes i did if you would have read my original reply. As i said i also posted another couple of links that i also read and my views on it which subduction zone replied to.

To me all this shows is they found some fossils with robust hind legs attached outside the rib cage. So we have fossils of snakes with hind legs that are not robust discovered at about the same time. We also have snakes found around the same period of about 150,000 years ago. Some in the sea and one on land which contradicts each other. There is also a 300,000 year old snake like creature from the sea that is suppose to not be related but has snake features.

As i have said in my previous statements which i dont want to have to repeat. But basically there is a lot of contradictory evidences and also a lot that doesn't make sense. For example where are all the transitions showing the front legs and showing the front legs disappearing or traced of having front legs. If a snake first evolves to have a long slender body like a snake why lose the front legs and not the back. In the process of losing the legs wouldn't it be a disadvantage somewhere along the way as they would have had stumpy legs which would have been a hassle. Then the chance mutations would not have recognized this as advantageous at some stage.

At the very least nothing can be made out of this and more evidence needs to be found. But certainly the DNA tests that showed that snakes werent related to the mosasaurs shows how they got the story wrong after describing how they were similar. But it is a major problem as they connected it to other animals as part of the chain. So even the evolutionists are saying the evidence is patchy and confusing and no conclusions can be made.

How do we know that the snake fossils that were found were just of early snakes that had legs and they lost some genetic ability. They were always snakes and just lost a feature. This to me makes more sense that anything.

 

[Black Akuma]

To me all this shows is they found some fossils with robust hind legs attached outside the rib cage. So we have fossils of snakes with hind legs that are not robust discovered at about the same time. We also have snakes found around the same period of about 150,000 years ago. Some in the sea and one on land which contradicts each other. There is also a 300,000 year old snake like creature from the sea that is suppose to not be related but has snake features.

The fossil of najash dates back way further than any of these things, so I don't see your point. How does this erase my original point - that evolution can be used to make testable predictions?

How do we know that the snake fossils that were found were just of early snakes that had legs and they lost some genetic ability

Such as...what? And how? And why?

For example where are all the transitions showing the front legs and showing the front legs disappearing or traced of having front legs

Who said anything about front legs?

 

[Subduction Zone]

Yes i did if you would have read my original reply. As i said i also posted another couple of links that i also read and my views on it which subduction zone replied to.

To me all this shows is they found some fossils with robust hind legs attached outside the rib cage. So we have fossils of snakes with hind legs that are not robust discovered at about the same time. We also have snakes found around the same period of about 150,000 years ago. Some in the sea and one on land which contradicts each other. There is also a 300,000 year old snake like creature from the sea that is suppose to not be related but has snake features.

As i have said in my previous statements which i dont want to have to repeat. But basically there is a lot of contradictory evidences and also a lot that doesn't make sense. For example where are all the transitions showing the front legs and showing the front legs disappearing or traced of having front legs. If a snake first evolves to have a long slender body like a snake why lose the front legs and not the back. In the process of losing the legs wouldn't it be a disadvantage somewhere along the way as they would have had stumpy legs which would have been a hassle. Then the chance mutations would not have recognized this as advantageous at some stage.

At the very least nothing can be made out of this and more evidence needs to be found. But certainly the DNA tests that showed that snakes werent related to the mosasaurs shows how they got the story wrong after describing how they were similar. But it is a major problem as they connected it to other animals as part of the chain. So even the evolutionists are saying the evidence is patchy and confusing and no conclusions can be made.

How do we know that the snake fossils that were found were just of early snakes that had legs and they lost some genetic ability. They were always snakes and just lost a feature. This to me makes more sense that anything.

Early snake evolution may never be solved as this article implies:


Developmental basis of limblessness and axial patterning in snakes : Abstract : Nature

Why the fixation on snakes? There are many creatures whose evolutionary development was not fully recorded. That does not really matter. What matters is that every fossil found to date fits the evolutionary paradigm and creationists have no explanation for fossils that has not been debunked.

In other words to date fossils support the theory of evolution and only the theory of evolution.

 

[stevevw]

The fossil of najash dates back way further than any of these things, so I don't see your point. How does this erase my original point - that evolution can be used to make testable predictions?

No it doesn't. The snake fossils found in the middle east are said to be at least 100 million years old.

So they predate najash by about 10 million years. Najash is about 90 million years old.
The fossil was found in a deposit from the late Cretaceous period and Zaher says the snake is at least 90 million years old.
Oldest snake fossil shows a bit of leg - life - 19 April 2006 - New Scientist

The snakes from the middle east were found in an ancient sea bed and dated around 90 to 100 million years old. So either the same time as Najash or even earlier.

They had vestigial legs which were not attached by a sacrum. So we have one with and a few without around the same period which is contradictory. We also have evidence that suggests some were in the sea with legs and yet one was on the land with legs around the same time. We also have a large snake like creature with small legs in the sea 300 million years ago. so this suggests they came from the sea with no legs or hind legs. But others say there is no reason why they can see any advantage of losing legs or having two tiny legs in the sea. All other creatures developed webs or paddles which is the logical connection they use for evolution into the sea.

Oldest snake fossil shows a bit of leg - life - 19 April 2006 - New Scientist

Paleontologists have discovered putative snake fossils dating as far back as 150 million years, to the late Jurassic period, but the traces are so evanescent as to be practically useless. (Further complicating matters, snake-like amphibians called "aistopods" appear in the fossil record over 300 million years ago, the most notable genus being Ophiderpeton; these were completely unrelated to modern snakes.)

Eupodophis is one of the snakes found in the middle east and is said to be also 90 million years old. So its about the same age as Najash but doesn't have a sacrum. The others are more or less the same all around the same period with tiny legs and no sacrum or attachments outside the ribs.
Eupodophis - About.com Prehistoric Reptiles

The Pachyrhachis is said to be 120 to 130 million years old. They build a detailed story around this one as to why snakes evolved from the sea. They say it had many snake like features like the detachment of the jaw.
This marine reptile possessed an unmistakably snake-like body, complete with scales, as well as a python-like head, the only giveaway being the pair of nearly vestigial hind limbs a few inches from the end of its tail. The early Cretaceous Pachyrhachis seems to have led an exclusively marine lifestyle; unusually, its fossil remains were discovered in the Ramallah region of modern-day Israel.
http://dinosaurs.about.com/od/aquaticdinosaurs/p/Pachyrhachis.htm

Such as...what? And how? And why?

Snake Evolution - The Story of Prehistoric Snakes

Because all the evidence is contradictory and they dont know who the snakes ancestor is. There are no transitions showing front legs disappearing or any stages in between front or back legs disappearing. It is easier to believe that a snake just had legs rather that it came from another completely separate and different species. There is just as much evidence to support this maybe even more. Like i say they like to jump to conclusions.

Who said anything about front legs?

The very evolutionist who are pro porting your story.
At the top of that list is the question of what lizard group is most closely related to snakes. "We do not have an undisputed hypothesis on that question," he admits.
Oldest snake fossil shows a bit of leg - life - 19 April 2006 - New Scientist

Thats assuming that lizards have 4 legs.

Thats what i mean its all over the place and even you cant get it straight. No wonder people get confused. But to me this is what i am talking about. How something comes along and they build a story out of a fragment of something and then its later proved wrong. But they say its true and put it in books with pictures of creatures with snake like features to show connections. Its not that they get the detail wrong they make that small detail out to be true and build other connections into it and then it all comes undone again.

Just a personal view. Its funny how most of the snake fossils are found around the middle east. Near to where the garden of Eden was and where the snake was suppose to have lost its legs according to the bible story.