Does believing Genesis is wrong make me a bad Christian?

aschnyder26 said:

Essentially...Yes. Just because "Lucy" was found which is a new species or extinct species still does not prove that it was the evolution of the human race. Dozens of new species of animals are found every year. Does that mean that because we didn't know about a previously undiscovered species that we evolved from it? Of course it doesn't. The only evidence you can provide is that there are many similar species. And so there are. And here we are back where we began.

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The key is asking the question of what best explains the succession.

KomatiiteBIF said:

What does this even mean? You're asking someone to show you a fossil having offspring of another species of fossil?

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HAHA no I'm asking to show a fossil of an intermediate evolution from one species to a new one. Like a half and half point before the one species became a whole new one. Where the old species popped out a new arm or something that undeniably shows the direct link. Obviously I'm exaggerating a bit.

KomatiiteBIF said:

What does this even mean? You're asking someone to show you a fossil having offspring of another species of fossil?

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Yes because your ridiculous theory says this happens with living organisms when it doesn't, so How can dead organisms can do this? How do you take dead bones, and say oh look it looks like part of my leg, it must be my grandpa.

KomatiiteBIF said:

The key is asking the question of what best explains the succession.

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Nice images with lines drawn between them, doesn't make it more true lol. Show me the evidence of an animal doing this live not on a piece of paper.

aschnyder26 said:

HAHA no I'm asking to show a fossil of an intermediate evolution from one species to a new one. Like a half and half point before the one species became a whole new one. Where the old species popped out a new arm or something that undeniably shows the direct link. Obviously I'm exaggerating a bit.

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There isn't really such a thing as a fossil that is in-between species. There are fossils between genus if that's what you mean.

Andre_b said:

Nice images with lines drawn between them, doesn't make it more true lol. Show me the evidence of an animal doing this live not on a piece of paper.

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Doing what live?

KomatiiteBIF said:

There isn't really such a thing as a fossil that is in-between species. There are fossils between genus if that's what you mean.

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KomatiiteBIF said:

The key is asking the question of what best explains the succession.

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The chart you present is actually really interesting to me because it shows kind of the order of created things and where we find them. For instance in Genesis we find that on the 3rd day God made vegetation, on the fifth day God said, “Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures...". We see also that the first or the oldest things on the chart are the sea creatures. On the sixth day God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds—livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.” and also "God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." This narrative from genesis almost exactly mirrors the chart you provided in order of creation.

As we all know, tiktaalik is a popular transitional fossil. Its traits are significant as they're some of the earliest of their kind. It has a flat head with eyes on top, much like amphibians of the late devonian. It has wrist bones. It has spiracles for breathing air. It has robust pectoral girdles and a robust rib cage for lifting itself against the forces of gravity above water, much like amphibians of the late devonian. It also has an unfused skull and a neck for turning it's head while it's body remains stationary, which is something found in amphibians but not fish.

It is very much a tetrapodomorph with many traits of amphibians.

But it also has fins, gills and scales like a fish.

Which means that it was basically a hybrid between fish and tetrapods.

All the above aside, what makes tiktaalik more significant isn't simply its traits, but how, where and even "when" it was found.

In the fossil record, no land animals are found anywhere in precambrian, Cambrian, ordovician or silurian rock, nor anywhere in between. By the mid to late devonian, we find tetrapods/amphibians like salamander like species that walked on land.

So if evolution were true, of tetrapods evolved from fish, a species like tiktaalik ought to exist between the earliest formations of the devonian or by the end of the silurian at the latest, and the late devonian.

Before tiktaalik was found, Neil Shubin and his team knew this. So the scoured geologic maps for rocks of roughly the mid devonian to find rocks between fish and tetrapods where tiktaalik might hypothetically be found.

So they rented a helicopter trip to the Canadian Arctic where these middle aged rocks could be examined.

They originally started out searching marine devonian strata and realized that they needed to move inland (prehistoric inland) to the west, and they had to make their way to geology of a river bed/lacustrine origin. And it was there that some 10-15 tiktaalik specimen were found.

The reason that this serves as evidence for evolution is that it confirms the succession of fossils in accordance with genetic analyses of modern day life. Fish are genetically more similar to tetrapods than to any other animal of higher derivation, which means that it ought to follow, based on genetics, that tiktaalik ought to be present in the location in which it was later found. This is a prediction made with the understanding of descent with modification and common descent, and tiktaalik holds the feature that we might expect to be found in a particular place at a given time.

On a side note regarding the counter argument related to zachelmie polish trackways:

It should also be noted that polish zachelmie trackways have been reinterpreted as fish feeding traces. For those who like playing that card. Regardless, even if tetrapod trackways did pre exist tiktaalik, they'd still post date fish and pre exist all known tetrapod fossils, which would still fit in with the theory of evolution anyway. It has also been suggested that tiktaalik itself might even be responsible for such trackways even if they hypothetically were actually trackways and not feeding traces. And ultimately there are no zachelmie fossils discovered to date of any tetrapods, and so pointing them out is a weak counter argument to begin with as literally no bones even exist to make the counter arguments case.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10420940.2015.1063491

aschnyder26 said:

The chart you present is actually really interesting to me because it shows kind of the order of created things and where we find them. For instance in Genesis we find that on the 3rd day God made vegetation, on the fifth day God said, “Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures...". We see also that the first or the oldest things on the chart are the sea creatures. On the sixth day God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds—livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.” and also "God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." This narrative from genesis almost exactly mirrors the chart you provided in order of creation.

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You've left out key details of scripture, such as the appearance of birds, and you should also know that fruit bearing plants did not appear as early as you might think. See below, there is even a fossil succession of plants:


Birds actually appeared well after land animals and did not appear alongside fish as in Genesis 1:20 (when taken literally).

Timeline of plant evolution - Wikipedia.

Cooksonia - Wikipedia.

ChristianForCats said:

They look like us in many ways because of their similar DNA.

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similar DNA indeed. Did the honda evolve from a toyota or was it the other way around? They got similar part so who was built before the other?

KomatiiteBIF said:

You've left out key details of scripture, such as the appearance of birds, and you should also know that fruit bearing plants did not appear as early as you might think. See below, there is even a fossil succession of plants:
View attachment 278229

Birds actually appeared well after land animals and did not appear alongside fish as in Genesis 1:20 (when taken literally).

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Ok let me pose some questions then. I don't really expect a definitive answer to these but let's explore some possibilities or even probabilities. Now some of these may seem obvious to you as clearly you are much more learned in the sciences. However I have these inquiries:

1) Concerning the fossil record of birds is it possible that we don't find bird bones as far back as we think we should because of the small size and low density of the bone structure doesn't allow it to last as long as thicker bones from mammals or shell structures which are far more dense. In other words could they have turned to dust before fossilizing considering the small size and density of their structure. However unlikely is that possible?

2) Is it possible that tiktaalik is just an extinct species of its very own kind even if it has the similarities to other creatures that we observe? Is that possible?

I have a not watched the video yet that you posted but I will in a little bit. So if any of these are answered in that video I would not yet know.

ChristianForCats said:

Vegetables do not grow on trees.

We are not talking about things breeding completely different species in their own seeds humans planted.

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Yes you are talking about this. The HUMAN came from an APE. Completely different kind somehow magically became a human from an ape. similar attributes is NOT proof that they came from each other. Did the Honda accord come from the Toyota Camry?

ChristianForCats said:

That is nothing like having similar DNA. You are still talking about similar appearances.

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LOL and similar parts and functioning. Just like you are saying with Apes or Chimps or whatever. Similar bones, and look. yet the DNA is as much as 30% different. DNA is the most complex structure ever even a small fraction of a difference can actually be massive difference.

Comprehensive Analysis of Chimpanzee and Human Chromosomes

aschnyder26 said:

Ok let me pose some questions then. I don't really expect a definitive answer to these but let's explore some possibilities or even probabilities. Now some of these may seem obvious to you as clearly you are much more learned in the sciences. However I have these inquiries:

1) Concerning the fossil record of birds is it possible that we don't find bird bones as far back as we think we should because of the small size and low density of the bone structure doesn't allow it to last as long as thicker bones from mammals or shell structures which are far more dense. In other words could they have turned to dust by now considering the small size and density of their structure. However unlikely is that possible?

2) Is it possible that tiktaalik is just an extinct species of its very own kind even if it has the similarities to other creatures that we observe? Is that possible?

I have a not watched the video yet that you posted but I will in a little bit. So if any of these are answered in that video I would not yet know.

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I don't want to short you on a sincere response, so I'll just return tomorrow to respond (it's late here). But I appreciate discussions that involve sincere inquiry, rather than shouting matches, so thank you.

But the video, while long, really is a good video that I recommend everyone watch (if they're interested in fossils at least).

It's basically paleontology 101 in a nutshell (leaving out all the boring stuff and getting straight to the bread and butter).