Is evolution a fact or theory?

[The Barbarian]

Please provide references for those claims about Gould. I believe it is important to read exactly what he said, don't you?

Dan

Since we proposed punctuated equilibria to explain trends, it is infuriating to be quoted again and again by creationists—whether through design or stupidity, I do not know—as admitting that the fossil record includes no transitional forms. Transitional forms are generally lacking at the species level, but they are abundant between larger groups.
Stephen Gould Evolution as Fact and Theory p. 260

 

[Bible Research Tools]

Young earthers think rodhocetus is "some form of alligator or crocodile"? Facepalm*

(Be careful you don't hurt yourself. )

Old earthers believe slight morphological changes -- even imagined ones from fragmented fossils -- are crystal-clear examples of transitional fossils, and therefore macroevolution.

Young earthers believe macroevolution is a cruel, ugly myth forced upon our children as fact.

Dan

 

[Bible Research Tools]

Generally, YE creationists aren't very knowledgeable about biology, although there are significant exceptions. Most bright middle school students know the difference between mammals and alligators.

The truth is, evolutionists are not very knowledgeable about biology, or they would reject the myth of macroevolution.

Dan

 

[The Barbarian]

So? Gould realized the fossil record does not support gradualism;

No, that's wrong, too. Gould says that gradual evolution is rare, not nonexistent.

The history of most fossil species includes two features particularly inconsistent with gradualism: 1. Stasis. Most species exhibit no directional change during their tenure on earth. They appear in the fossil record looking much the same as when they disappear; morphological change is usually limited and directionless.
Stephen Gould The Episodic Nature of Evolutionary Change p. 182 (my emphasis)

Gould pointed out ammonites and horses as cases of gradual evolution.

and he and Eldredge attempted to explain away that enormous failure with an entirely new theory

It's not an entirely new theory, in either sense of the word. First, it's a modification of Darwinian theory, by a scientist who regarded himself as an "orthodox Darwinian." Second, the idea of stasis punctuated by rapid change goes all the way back to Darwin's associate, Thomas Huxley.

that states the obvious: species appear abruptly and fully formed, and then stasis.

Darwin explained why in his book. When a population of organisms is well-adapted to a relatively unchanging environment, natural selection will prevent evolution from occurring. Later, if the environment changes, the stasis is interrupted by a period of adaptation.

 

[Bible Research Tools]

You know whats interesting...you have hundreds of these mammalian proto whale like animals, but they are also...sort of like pakicetus looking whales.

Pakicetus fossils, shown below, looks nothing like those of a whale:

But don't expect evolutionists to give up the silly whale evolution icons without a fight. Evolutionism icons are extremely hard to find (or, invent), and therefore they Die Hard!

Dan

 

[The Barbarian]

The truth is, evolutionists are not very knowledgeable about biology, or they would reject the myth of macroevolution.

So your claim is that the great majority of biologists aren't very knowledgeable about biology. I think that pretty well sums up your position.

On the other hand, As noted above, you don't seem to have any idea at all about how "information" is determined in a population genome, so there is that...

 

[The Barbarian]

Pakicetus fossils, shown below, looks nothing like those of a whale:

The skull is so remarkably whale like, that when the first one was found (without the postcranial skeletion) paleontologists assumed it had a body adapted to the water.

It turned out to be one of the several predicted ungulate/whale transitionals.

It had a long whale-like skull with whale teeth. It had the auditory bullae found only in whales. Its bones were osteosclerotic, providing ballast for living in water, and the eyes were high on the skull, allowing it to be mostly submerged, but still able to see above water.

Pretty much the predicted transitional that creationists claimed could not exist.

 

[The Barbarian]

KomatiiteBIF said: ↑
Young earthers think rodhocetus is "some form of alligator or crocodile"? Facepalm*

(Be careful you don't hurt yourself. )

It's sometimes hard for most people to imagine how creationists could mistake a mammal for an alligator. But they often do. It's just one of those things that creationism does to people.

 

[Bible Research Tools]

Its as if the global flood knew the shapes of the cetaceans teeth and skulls, and decided to sort these fossils based on the shape of their teeth and skulls. Without a single whale like cetacean falling before the terrestrial cetaceans.

If one believes in the myth of the classification system known as the "geological column" -- another evolutionism icon that will die, but Die Hard -- there are actual empirical experiments that demonstrate otherwise. Experiments performed at the Colorado State University Engineering Research Center has shown that, through the mechanics of sedimentary layering, fossils in lower layers can be younger (buried before) fossils in the layers above:

The segment on fossilization begins at the 11:13 mark.

Evolutionary "geologists" argue that these experiments, initiated by French geologist Guy Berthault, do not invalidate the "time-honored" principle of superposition. But they do invalidate it, except in the case of fine particles settling in calm water, which is not much of a case at all.

Dan

 

[Bible Research Tools]

If creationism were right, either transitional forms would not exist at all, or would exist for all forms, even those not connected in evolutionary theory.

Then creationists are right, because transitional forms exist only in the minds of evolutionists.

This is generally because they aren't biologists, and therefore can write in their own particular discipline without the cognitive dissonance that would occur if they had to write about biology. Hence engineers, physicists, mathematicians, etc. make up the bulk of creationists who have degrees in science.

Baloney. There are many creationists with PhD's in Biology, Genetics, and Biochemistry. One in particular, Dr. David Berlinski, has caused the evolutionism orthodoxy to be up in arms for decades. He was a post-doctoral fellow at Columbia University in both mathematics and molecular biology, and he rightly believes that macroevolution is pure nonsense. This is a short segment by him on whale evolution:

Dan

 

[Bible Research Tools]

[The Tiktaalik] is just one of many transitional forms between lobed-fin fish, and tetrapods.

There are no transitional forms; just vivid imaginations.

All transitional forms are mosaics.

The Platypus is a transitional form?

Do you understand what the word means in paleontology?

In evolutionary paleontology? Of course I know what it means. It means, "We can imagine anything we like, and get away with it, as long as we are able to suppress the truth of a common designer."

Dan

 

[Bible Research Tools]

You've been misled on that. First, the halos were only found where other radioactive material was also present, which explains the halos. Second, Gentry argued that these halos represented primordial granite at the beginning of creation, and so explained the halos. He apparently didn't realize that the granite was intrusive, having flowed as magma into fissures in pre-existing sedimentary rock. Which means the sedimentary rock had to be much older than the granite. Oops.

Do you have a source for your last two sentences?

Dan

 

[Bible Research Tools]

And the point of this, is that the aig website is clearly stating false information.

Which is why you can't rightfully use it as a source. They blatently state false information. And the aig states false information relatively often.

A more accurate statement would be, "AIG routinely contradicts the pseudo-science of evolutionism and therefore cannot be used as a source, under penalty of law".

Dan

 

[Bible Research Tools]

@NobleMouse
I've actually asked for the same as above. But again, if all fossil life really lived just a few thousand years ago, it would be blatently obvious. Fossils wouldn't be fossils, and DNA would be everywhere we looked.

I thought fossilization had to occur rather quickly in order to preserve details?

Dan

 

[Bible Research Tools]

Yes, there is that. Humans found in bogs in Northern Europe have retained DNA to the point that we can sequence much of their genomes. And those are over 10,000 years old.

Humans were created no more than about 7,500 years ago.

Dan

 

[Bible Research Tools]

They lost all credibility with me, after they blatantly edited the words of two astronomers in an attempt to make it appear that they believed something they did not.

Jonathan Sarfati, another frequent contributor to your creationist perspective website, is no better. In his article “Exploding Stars Point to a Young Universe: Where Are All The Supernova Remnants?” first published in Creation Ex Nihilo 19:46-48 and later online at Astronomy, Sarfati tries to claim that the absence of Type III supernovas suggests that the universe is young, perhaps a few thousand years old, not billions of years as evolutionary scientists claim. He offers the following quote from Clark and Caswell in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 1976, 174:267:

"As the evolutionist astronomers Clark and Caswell say, ‘Why have the large number of expected remnants not been detected?’ and these authors refer to ‘The mystery of the missing remnants’."

Sarfati conveniently forgot to finish the last sentence, which actually appears on page 301. In its entirety, it reads

"…and the mystery of the missing remnants is also solved."
Answers in Genesis BUSTED!: The Deception of True.Origin

Eventually, aig was shamed into removing the attempted deception, but they never did apologize.

This is the article by Sarfati:

Exploding stars point to a young universe - creation.com​

There was no attempt to misquote Davies, but rather to demonstrate that the evolutionary model is at odds with observation:

"There are actually only 200 second stage SNRs observed in our galaxy! This is in the right ball park for Biblical creation, but is totally different from evolutionary predictions. Evolutionists at present have no answer to the problem of the missing supernova remnants." [Jonathan Sarfati, "Exploding stars point to a young universe: Where are all the supernova remnants?". Journal of Creation, 1997] ​

If anyone can scientifically explain how the first stars were formed, you will have my undivided attention.

I would be careful of anything found in TalkOrigins.org.

Dan

 

[The Barbarian]

This is the article by Sarfati:

There was no attempt to misquote Davies,

No, that's wrong. They were eventually shamed into removing the misquote, but they edited the words of these astronomers:

Jonathan Sarfati, another frequent contributor to your creationist perspective website, is no better. In his article “Exploding Stars Point to a Young Universe: Where Are All The Supernova Remnants?” first published in Creation Ex Nihilo 19:46-48 and later online at Astronomy, Sarfati tries to claim that the absence of Type III supernovas suggests that the universe is young, perhaps a few thousand years old, not billions of years as evolutionary scientists claim. He offers the following quote from Clark and Caswell in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 1976, 174:267:

"As the evolutionist astronomers Clark and Caswell say, ‘Why have the large number of expected remnants not been detected?’ and these authors refer to ‘The mystery of the missing remnants’."

Sarfati conveniently forgot to finish the last sentence, which actually appears on page 301. In its entirety, it reads

"…and the mystery of the missing remnants is also solved."
Answers in Genesis BUSTED!: The Deception of True.Origin

 

[Bible Research Tools]

We have other young earthers on this forum, suggesting that earthquakes made the meanders of the grand canyon.

I have never heard that one before. Only two models make sense: erosion from the rapid retreat of flood waters; or, a future catastrophic flood involving a large lake (or two) left over from the great flood and/or the following ice age.

How do you explain the presence of the Grand Canyon?

And you have guys who think they understand flaws of geologic dating, who simultaneously cant read a geologic map. facepalm*

(Be careful you do not hurt yourself).

The evolutionary model of the geological column is based on unsound hydraulic and sedimentary principles.

Dan

 

[The Barbarian]

Barbarian observes
Yes, there is that. Humans found in bogs in Northern Europe have retained DNA to the point that we can sequence much of their genomes. And those are over 10,000 years old.

Humans were created no more than about 7,500 years ago.

Dan

I understand you want to believe that. But the evidence is quite clear. The dating, using several independent sources of evidence, shows this particular specimen to be about 10,000 years old. There are much older examples.

 

[The Barbarian]

I have never heard that one before. Only two models make sense: erosion from the rapid retreat of flood waters;

Nope. Sudden erosion can't explain entrenched meanders. More to the point, we have examples of sudden catastrophic floods (Washington scablands, for example) and they don't dig out meandering canyons.

How do you explain the presence of the Grand Canyon?

It's an example of a rejuvenated river. First, you have an old, slow, meandering river with lots of bends and loops. If you're unclear as to why old rivers are like that, we can talk about it.

Then there is an uplift of the area, which makes the river run faster. It then cease to meander, and cuts deeper and deeper into the existing channel. Would you like to learn the evidence for this?

The evolutionary model of the geological column is based on unsound hydraulic and sedimentary principles.

Since there are places in the world where the entire geologic column exists, it appears that your hypothesis is in serious trouble.