Intermediate fossils

[RedAndy]

what evidence proves this?

To summarise (very briefly):

EVIDENCE AGAINST A GLOBAL FLOOD:

1. Ice sheets date back to long before the alleged flood, when they would have melted or been floated off.
2. The geologic column contains evidence of surface features (raindrops, footprints etc.) that could not have been deposited had the column been laid down quickly.
3. Freshwater and saltwater organisms both survived the flood, despite the fact that the flood would have radically changed the salinity of the oceans.
4. There is no evidence that two of each "kind" could have repopulated the Earth to the extent we see today in 4000 years.
5. Archaeological remnants dating back before the flood, such as the earliest Egyptian pyramids, show no signs of flooding.
6. Fossil fuel deposits are today found without reference to a flood, but to traditionally accepted theories (involving gradual deposition, not catastrophism).
7. Fossils are arranged according to date, not to ecological niche as would be expected of a sudden laying down of the geologic column.
8. There is no evidence of a flood in tree-ring methods that go back 10,000 years.

Read this article and others like it on the website for more information and - surprise, surprise - yet more evidence against a global flood.

Let's summarise the other side:

EVIDENCE FOR A GLOBAL FLOOD:

1. The Bible says it happened.
2. Um .... that's it.

Unless anyone can come up with any more?

 

[FoeHammer]

no, a particular interpretation of the Scriptures, to wit modern AiG type of YECism proposes that there was no death before the fall. It consistently confuses the ethical significance of human spiritual death and the death of animals so that the problem for this special interpretation becomes why Adam and Eve didn't really die when they ate of the forbidden fruit. if death is death is death then why didn't they die as God promised?

Romans 5:12
12Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:

Not AiG but scripture..

Genesis 2:16,17

16And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: 17But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

In the day not on the day

Genesis 5:5
5And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died.

Not a problem for me.

FoeHammer.

 

[FoeHammer]

Physical death, or Spiritual death?

Spiritual death?

FoeHammer.

 

[FoeHammer]

So when the Bible says:

Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:

how do you gloss over the bolded words?

I don't.

FoeHammer.

 

[FoeHammer]

There are lots of transitional fossils............

No there aren't, there may be lot's of claimed transitional fossils but that is not the same thing. You find two or more fossils with structural similarities that proves that they have structural similarities and nothing more.

FoeHammer.

 

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

No there aren't, there may be lot's of claimed transitional fossils but that is not the same thing. You find two or more fossils with structural similarities that proves that they have structural similarities and nothing more.

FoeHammer.

So these fossil sequences, such as from reptile to mammal just happen to look transitional from one form to another and the magical global flood just happened to deposit them in an order that makes it look like there was a transition occuring and this happened over and over to create various "apparent transitions". Right. What a coincidence!

 

[Edx]

No there aren't, there may be lot's of claimed transitional fossils but that is not the same thing. You find two or more fossils with structural similarities that proves that they have structural similarities and nothing more.

FoeHammer.

What do you expect a transitional fossil to look like?

 

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

What do you expect a transitional fossil to look like?

One would certainly think that a fossil with characterists intermediate between two other fossils would classify as an intermediate fossil, the topic of the OP.

F.B.

 

[FoeHammer]

One would certainly think that a fossil with characterists intermediate between two other fossils would classify as an intermediate fossil, the topic of the OP.

F.B.

According to whose/what classification?

FoeHammer.

 

[USincognito]

No there aren't, there may be lot's of claimed transitional fossils but that is not the same thing. You find two or more fossils with structural similarities that proves that they have structural similarities and nothing more.

And Turkana Boy?

Evasive waffling in 3... 2...

 

[USincognito]

One would certainly think that a fossil with characterists intermediate between two other fossils would classify as an intermediate fossil, the topic of the OP.

Oh but that's nothing more than a fully formed:
- Fish with shoulders and fingers.
- Dinosaur with feathers.
- Bear with a very long tail.
- Platypus with a cloaca.
- Reptile with earbones.
- Homo sapiens with the smallest brain case ever and a jaw the size of a Mack truck.
etc...

 

[pyro214]

how do they know they belong to eachother.
For onethe whole body structure looks human, only the head is differnt....doubt they go together.

Heres my answer:
-yes christianity and evolution "could" of co-existed yet im still not fully convinced that macroevolution ever happened. All evidence will ever prove is mircroevolution, unless you get a whale fossil with a human head etc....and its not like something this noticable should never be found, macroevolution is a result of mutations

and i think the flood is a topic in itself, ill open a seperate thread for it.

 

[MrGoodBytes]

how do they know they belong to eachother.
For onethe whole body structure looks human, only the head is differnt....doubt they go together.

What do you think happened - a rare specimen of headless ape decapitated a Neanderthal, ate the body and died on the spot?

Heres my answer:
-yes christianity and evolution "could" of co-existed yet im still not fully convinced that macroevolution ever happened. All evidence will ever prove is mircroevolution, unless you get a whale fossil with a human head etc....and its not like something this noticable should never be found, macroevolution is a result of mutations

A whale fossil with a human head. Now that's something new. Cats giving birth to dogs just doesn't cut it anymore, eh?

and i think the flood is a topic in itself, ill open a seperate thread for it.

Please do.

 

[pyro214]

What do you think happened - a rare specimen of headless ape decapitated a Neanderthal, ate the body and died on the spot?

Though it would be common sense to most but i guess ill have to explain. If you look at the picture youll notice the head isnt attached to the rest of the body..... so yes it is headless. The human head could of been seperated, or even right beside the body. Once the organs of the body decayed, animals could of displaced the head (either while eating the dead carcus or after it was only bones). As you can see theres many answers that can be given to why that isnt the actual head....

A whale fossil with a human head. Now that's something new. Cats giving birth to dogs just doesn't cut it anymore, eh?

Maybe thats an overexagerated example, but a distinct "intermediate" stage would be preferable. We already know macroevoltion takes place on a daily bases even today....macroevolution is a topic in itself.

Please do.

http://www.christianforums.com/t4585675-noahs-flood.html#post30730600
will get intresting, i already know that 2 of the eight are not true.

 

[RedAndy]

http://www.christianforums.com/t4585675-noahs-flood.html#post30730600
will get intresting, i already know that 2 of the eight are not true.

Which two?

(Noted that you've placed the discussion in the Christians Only section so I can't respond).

 

[pyro214]

Which two?

(Noted that you've placed the discussion in the Christians Only section so I can't respond).

getting linkhttp://www.christianforums.com/t4585744-noahs-flood.html#post30731144

-the trees ive already discussed before,

-There is no evidence that two of each "kind" could have repopulated the Earth to the extent we see today in 4000 years.

-Freshwater and saltwater organisms both survived the flood, despite the fact that the flood would have radically changed the salinity of the oceans.

i wont be able to prove them 100% wrong but i surley can show that they are far from right...will see what the public has to say first.

 

[Ryal Kane]

Maybe thats an overexagerated example, but a distinct "intermediate" stage would be preferable. We already know macroevoltion takes place on a daily bases even today....macroevolution is a topic in itself.

I'm guessing you meant microevolution here right?
Forgivable typo.

The thing about macroevolution is that it's just an accumulation of those small changes. And the changes include all small changes. It's not as if reptiles all grew hair but were still exactly like repitles underneath it, then changed their reproduction, then their organs. Everything probably changed in a small way over a very long time.

Imagin a man in the middle a a flat, open plain. He can walk a step in any direction. Given time he can travel a long way, one step at a time. Unless htere is some kind of obstruction (metaphorically a cliff or a river) there is nothing to stop each next step. Creationism suggests that macroevolution is impossible, that there is some barrier that prevents it from occurring but there is no evidence of this barrier (this cliff or river as it were) ever appearing.
So long as microevolution can occur, macro eventually will.

 

[RedAndy]

It's an often used Creationist tactic. Construct a straw-man fallacy of evolution claiming that evolution expects dinosaurs to lay bird eggs and Australopithecus to give birth to Kent Hovind (is that such a leap?), when actually such an occurrence would be a compelling argument against evolution.

The point is that evolution is not saltation, no matter how much the Creationists wish it to be.

 

[FishFace]

how do they know they belong to eachother.
For onethe whole body structure looks human, only the head is differnt....doubt they go together.

If you dig up a skeleton, do you assume the head came from somewhere else, or that the head and body belong together? Unless there are a load of bones from multiple bodies all munged together, that would be a bizarre thing to think.

Heres my answer:
-yes christianity and evolution "could" of co-existed yet im still not fully convinced that macroevolution ever happened. All evidence will ever prove is mircroevolution, unless you get a whale fossil with a human head etc....and its not like something this noticable should never be found, macroevolution is a result of mutations

I read in the guidelines we're not supposed to use talk.origins too much, but... 29+ pieces of evidence for macroevolution.

It could be very good for you to read as much of the information there as possible. Obviously, it's for evolution, not creationism, but, technically it should be impartial in that the writers should be looking at the evidence, and interpreting it neutrally. Anyways, make of it what you will.

Particularly relevant are the several examples of transitions. These are a large part of the evidence for macroevolution, since the fossils date progressively.

But it is important to note that once you have microevolution and a long time period, you have to show that there is some barrier to macroevolution, because they are not different processes. Macroevolution is simply lots of little changes, but considered altogether.

You should also be aware that the scientific definition of macroevolution is probably not how you understand it - it technically means, "evolution at or above the species level," which is observed today in ring species and so on.

 

[Flame]

Specificly the Bible says God created everything. What it does NOT do is tell exactly how he did it. I don't see a debate here. How do we know that God didn't create original forms that evolved as part of his creation. I for one could care less how he did it. Again, nothing to debate here. On the evolution side which attempts to take God out of the game all togather, answer me this, Where did the first molecule come from that evolved into all this that we know around us? Who or what provided the first Atom?? It had to start somewhere. I submit it started from God.