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Gaps in the fossil record debunks evolution

OldWiseGuy

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So unless the police SEE THE CRIME, and even then they have to see the bullet at every single gradation of space from the gun to the victim, then we must assume that the alleged shooter is INNOCENT?

You see, in any science of a forensic nature you have to make the best hypothesis from the data at hand. So when you see:

archaeopteryx-missing-link_5113_600x450.jpg

you can infer quite a bit.

Or when you see this:

evolution-of-whales-4-349-319-13.jpg

You can draw some conclusions.


Common design, common designer.




One of which is basically that: if I wish to go across the street I must first travel halfway across the street. But to get to that point I must first travel halfway to that point, but in order to get to that point I must first travel halfway to that point which would, in the end, result in an infinite number of tasks making it impossible to achieve my goal.

This is how Creationists see evolution. Unless they can be shown the infinite number of points along the line then surely it must not be true.

This is why if a Creationist demands a transition fossil be shown between animal 1 and animal 2 then all you've done is provide the creationist with two more demands they will make for transitional fossils. And so on and so-forth.

But this is what must happen for evolution to proceed. Just the ability to open and close one's hand requires an uncountable number of evolutionary processes. Every cell of muscle, bone, and nerve must evolve to accomodate every minute movement. Even the movements themselves have to evolve from some need to do so. The need to grasp, feel, etc.

Walking across the street requires that each step, if only slightly different from the one before it requires that it evolve according to that need. Science admits that it would require a computer as large as a warehouse to enable robots even a rudimentary menu of hand movements that we use every hour. The example I read was that of randomly 'brushing away a fly', which would require so much computing power as to be unattainable.

The utter impossibility of it is staggeringly obvious.

The only way 'evolution' is remotely possible is to replace it with the theory of 'metamorphosis', where a species goes to sleep and wakes up an entirely different critter.
miracle.gif
 
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DrkSdBls

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So, at first the 2000lb glyptodons were being eaten by something, but the 1900lb glyptodons managed to escape. That pattern repeated, from 1900lb to 1800lb. Then from 1800lb to 1700lb. . . .then 300lb to 200lb. . . 100lb to 70lb. Also during that time the head went from 'round' to 'pointed', the spine went from fused to flexible, the armor became hinged, and many more skeletal features changed. Do you know if there are fossils of the progression of the glyptodon going from 2000lbs to 10lbs along with the associated skeletal changes?

It should also follow that before the glyptodon became 2,000lbs, there should too be a progression from a small glyptodon like creatuee (ie before the 2000lb glyptodon evolved). In other words, what was a glyptodon before it became a glyptodon?

Negative. You're trying to think too Limited, as though the arise of the Modern Armadillo as a Step ladder progression. That can be very misleading.

First, a few facts.

1. The Extinction of glyptodon was not such of a sudden, cataclysmic Event that all glyptodon died as soon as the Predators came into their Environment. It was a Gradual extinction that happened over many million years.

2. Not only were glyptodon preyed upon by Larger Predators but they were also out competed in resources by other species also moving into the Area. Smaller Food supply means that Larger Bodies could not be supported by the available resources leading to Bigger not being better.

3. As a result, Either as a response to the Environmental pressures or possibly pure happenstance, the Smallest of glyptodon's Litters were the one's most likely to survive in this new environment.

4. As glyptodon's descendants became smaller and their food source more scarce, they turned to burrowing for their food and Shelter, resulting in adaptations more suited to a Burrowing Animal.


Given all that, it is possible that neither glyptodon nor panocthus could be the Direct Living Ancestor to the Modern Armadillo but rather additional branches of the same Lineage and we never found the most direct ancestor.

I know that you'll read that however you wish but I believe in being Honest. The simple fact is, We may NEVER find more then a bare fraction of all the Life forms that once existed on this verdant planet. Most were never Fossilized. Many that were got "erased" by our ever changing world. And many still, all that we have of them is bits of bone or teeth that tells us very little. But despite all that, we take what we can get and what little we have Gleamed by a few brief glimpses into our past is more then enough of an ancient treasure; A Wealth of Knowledge that we take VERY seriously and we are more then willing to stake everything we know at the chance to learn a little bit more.
 
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USincognito

a post by Alan Smithee
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I know you're not Google, but I do appreciate the link. I'm still not clear, so hopefully if it's not too much trouble you can just put the answer. The link says that the glyptodon and the panocthus are ancient and looked similar to an armadillo, although they were the size of a car and heavily armored while a modern armadillo is small and lightly armored. Obviously a glyptodon didn't give birth to an armadillo. To me, the implication is that over millions of years the glyptodon got smaller and smaller and retained less and less armor as it evolved into an armadillo? Is that right?

No, it's not.

Glyptodonts are another family of armadillo-like beings that evolved from an Urarmadillo species that was the basal Cingulata.

Cingulata evolved from an UrXenarthan species that was probably shrew like - this is a very ancient placental mammalian lineage - and over time developed into armodillos, anteaters and sloths.
Xenarthra - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Of course there are insect eating and armored mammals that share characteristics with armodillos (and for anteaters), but Aardvarks and Pangolins actually share more characteristics with Africotheres and Laurasiatheres respectively.
 
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DrkSdBls

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No, it's not.

Glyptodonts are another family of armadillo-like beings that evolved from an Urarmadillo species that was the basal Cingulata.

Cingulata evolved from an UrXenarthan species that was probably shrew like - this is a very ancient placental mammalian lineage - and over time developed into armodillos, anteaters and sloths.
Xenarthra - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Of course there are insect eating and armored mammals that share characteristics with armodillos (and for anteaters), but Aardvarks and Pangolins actually share more characteristics with Africotheres and Laurasiatheres respectively.

Alright. There's a Better Answer.

Next, I'll leave it to A Real Paleontologist (or at least someone with a College degree.)
 
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T

TeddyReceptus

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Common design, common designer.

Or no designer (since we have a perfectly workable system that can function without a designer.) We have all the parts in place to get from an ambulocetus to a whale:

1. Mutation
2. Selective filtering against maladaptive factors

If there was a "Designer" involved why did that designer deem there should be remnants of the rear legs preserved in the body for an animal that has no rear legs? Was the Designer lazy?

No, if the designer wished to use EVOLUTION to get form Ambulocetus to Whale he or she did just fine, but then there was no real need for the designer to get from ambulocetus to whale if evolution was available as a system. Unless of course your contend that the designer reaches in and designs every living being that is born. At which point we may as well toss all of biology out the window since we apparently don't really know how babies are made.

But this is what must happen for evolution to proceed. Just the ability to open and close one's hand requires an uncountable number of evolutionary processes. Every cell of muscle, bone, and nerve must evolve to accomodate every minute movement. Even the movements themselves have to evolve from some need to do so. The need to grasp, feel, etc.

The argument from irreducible complexity has been quite soundly debunked as a necessary aspect. My dog has a paw built much on the same structure as my hand. There are many aspects in common between us. However his paw functions quite handily for his needs but would fail for my needs.

Indeed a fish's fin can be thought of as a starting point for "hands" in later land animals, but bears no resemblance to modern hands in functionality or operation. So "less adaptive features" can exist and have existed in the steps that lead to more complex features.

Science admits that it would require a computer as large as a warehouse to enable robots even a rudimentary menu of hand movements that we use every hour.

So? The human brain is an amazingly complex type of computer. But it is hardly magical simply because we don't yet understand how everything in there works. There are plenty of much simpler brains and neural systems out there to show us how it developed.

The example I read was that of randomly 'brushing away a fly', which would require so much computing power as to be unattainable.

The utter impossibility of it is staggeringly obvious.

If you were to design a human being as a human being yourself you would of course run into problems. This is a flawed method of understanding the living systems. If you start off with the presupposition that in order to understand life we would have to be able to synthesize everything about life as it has developed after billions of years then of course it will be quite difficult. It is extraordinarily complex.

But the beauty of geologic history is we have a LOT of time to work with, we have self-replicating life forms, and we have external filters to weed out maladaptive features.

If the best one has is "I can't imagine it ergo it must be due to God." then one is partaking of the "God of the Gaps" and that is not even a theology that theologians like. I limits God and when new things are discovered suddenly God gets smaller and smaller and smaller.

The only way 'evolution' is remotely possible is to replace it with the theory of 'metamorphosis', where a species goes to sleep and wakes up an entirely different critter.

Which would be good if we didn't have plenty of evidence of evolution already happening all around us.

29+ Evidences of Macroevolution
 
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Viren

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Common design, common designer.






But this is what must happen for evolution to proceed. Just the ability to open and close one's hand requires an uncountable number of evolutionary processes. Every cell of muscle, bone, and nerve must evolve to accomodate every minute movement. Even the movements themselves have to evolve from some need to do so. The need to grasp, feel, etc.

Walking across the street requires that each step, if only slightly different from the one before it requires that it evolve according to that need. Science admits that it would require a computer as large as a warehouse to enable robots even a rudimentary menu of hand movements that we use every hour. The example I read was that of randomly 'brushing away a fly', which would require so much computing power as to be unattainable.

The utter impossibility of it is staggeringly obvious.

The only way 'evolution' is remotely possible is to replace it with the theory of 'metamorphosis', where a species goes to sleep and wakes up an entirely different critter.
miracle.gif

I agree that evolution lacks evidence, but metamorphosis lacks even more. We've seen animals change over time, but give me one example of a lifeform completely changing instantly.
 
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DrkSdBls

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I agree that evolution lacks evidence, but metamorphosis lacks even more. We've seen animals change over time, but give me one example of a lifeform completely changing instantly.

Define "Instantly" as you are using it. Because no living creature can go through a Literally "Instant" transformation. That would defy a number of Physical and Biological boundaries. That is something only possible in Magic and SciFi tv.

But as for a Metamorphosis (a gradual but severe change in a single Individual over time), there are number of Lifeforms that do demonstrate that property: The most famous being the Caterpillar to Butterfly.
 
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toLiJC

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Interesting Hypothesis. What Evidence do you have for any instance of Satan Falsely aging matter in this way?

the main evidence is the fact how the "darkness" induces unfavorable aging to the: humans, animals, plants, and many materials, you know how the purchased fruits and vegetables decay, how many materials decompose, for example, how the paper becomes yellow and after hundreds of years brown, etc., in the Bible this phenomenon is called "death"

Blessings
 
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OldWiseGuy

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But the beauty of geologic history is we have a LOT of time to work with, we have self-replicating life forms, and we have external filters to weed out maladaptive features.

Interesting that you would say this.

Just today (on PBS) Dawkins revealed that two notable things are still a mystery to science; how life began, and , how self-replicating cells work. He went on to say that these two unknowns are the foundation of all evolutionary biology.

Does the TOE have 'feet of clay'? :confused:
 
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Bungle_Bear

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Just today (on PBS) Dawkins revealed that two notable things are still a mystery to science; how life began, and , how self-replicating cells work. He went on to say that these two unknowns are the foundation of all evolutionary biology.
If he did he got it wrong. ToE has nothing to say about either.
 
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DrkSdBls

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the main evidence is the fact how the "darkness" induces unfavorable aging to the: humans, animals, plants, and many materials, you know how the purchased fruits and vegetables decay, how many materials decompose, for example, how the paper becomes yellow and after hundreds of years brown, etc., in the Bible this phenomenon is called "death"

Blessings

You failed to answer the question. How is this evidence of Satan Falsely aging matter?

Define "darkness" and how it induces unfavorable aging and how it is an action attributed to the hand of Satan.

Then Explain how Natural Bio-decay causes an the inability to properly date matter.
 
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Naraoia

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Where is SplitRock's quote mine?

Since cyanobacteria-to-man evolution cannot be daisy-chained, then I'm not interested in cyanobacteria-to-man evolution.
No one else is, seeing as cyanobacteria didn't evolve into humans :p

Not that I expect you to care about the fine points of phylogeny, but I couldn't resist pointing it out.
 
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rush1169

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So science has no idea what evolved into a glyptodon, what a glyptodon evolved into, or what evolved into an armadillo? Fair enough, at least it was worth exploring since an evolutionist posted a link that implied that a glyptodon evolved into an armadillo.

Are there any modern animals that science knows with certainty what it was before it evolved into what it is? Are there any extinct animals that science knows with certainty what it evolved from before it became the extinct animal? How about a giraffe?
 
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Naraoia

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So science has no idea what evolved into a glyptodon, what a glyptodon evolved into, or what evolved into an armadillo? Fair enough, at least it was worth exploring since an evolutionist posted a link that implied that a glyptodon evolved into an armadillo.

Are there any modern animals that science knows with certainty what it was before it evolved into what it is? Are there any extinct animals that science knows with certainty what it evolved from before it became the extinct animal? How about a giraffe?
Not particularly well-versed in giraffe phylogeny, but Wikipedia seems to have a decent summary here.

"Certainty" is a difficult word, though. How much certainty do you have in mind? Absolute certainty we'll always be unable to provide by the nature of science. The best we can say that something is beyond reasonable doubt (e.g. birds come from dinosaurs, anomalocaridids are related to arthropods). Unless you're looking at exceptionally detailed and complete records, the "certain" claims will usually be at a higher level than species, because direct ancestor-descendant relationships are incredibly difficult to establish based on a patchy fossil record. E.g. we can say with a fair amount of certainty that humans descended from some sort of australopithecine, but it's much more difficult to tell exactly which of the many australopith species begat whom.

ETA: although we're pretty sure Canis lupus had something to do with dogs and aurochs gave rise to cows ;)
 
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