Lines of Evidence

[Loudmouth]

Just for comparison, here is the skull of a modern human. Notice the lack of prominent brow ridges, the high forehead, and the lack of a forward jutting jaw. Also, the bottom of the chin has a process that sticks forward. This is one of the diagnostic features of an anatomically modern human.

 

[Doveaman]

Then you believe it is God-energy that is causing the expansion of the universe to speed up?

Nope. There is no speeding up, only expansion as new stars are added. I believe it is God-energy that is causing the expansion:

*I am the LORD, who has made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens...My own hands stretched out the heavens; I marshaled their starry hosts.* -- (Isa 44:24, 45:12).

 

[Doveaman]

You think science has the power to alter reality?

Nope. I think scientific theories have the power to alter our perception of reality.

That's why we need the Bible to keep it real.

 

[Loudmouth]

Nope. I think scientific theories have the power to alter our perception of reality.

That's why we need the Bible to keep it real.

Does the theory of evolution make us think that H. erectus has a sloping forehead like other apes when in fact it has a high forehead like modern humans?

Does the theory of evolution make DNA sequencers spit out the wrong DNA sequences, wrong in such a way that they match up with the predictions made by the theory of evolution?

 

[RickG]

Nope. I think scientific theories have the power to alter our perception of reality.

That's why we need the Bible to keep it real.

Why do we not find all life forms that ever existed mixed throughout the geologic column?

 

[lewiscalledhimmaster]

Does good science contradict the biblical record of history?

*The LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground...From one man He made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and He determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.* -- (Gen 2:7, Acts 17:26).

If the science contradicts history, the science is bad. It's that simple.

Don't see it as a contradiction, for the Scriptures themselves are not a precise image but more like a mirror reflection, a glass darkly, where we know in part and we prophecy in part - at best good science helps us clean that mirror or window - the more important vision is the one people read most -- ask a child?

 

[MissRowy]

Im agreeing with you there. Im actually seeing different perspectives about this now as a Christian and its interesting

 

[FredVB]

How is it evidence of God? Why are transitional fossils evidence of God?
How does "God did it" explain why we can find fossils with a mixture of reptile and mammal features, but not bird and mammal features? How does "God did it" explain why humans and mice are genetically equidistant from lizards. Explain how this is evidence for God.
There are transitionals for all of the ones you have mentioned.
Why would "God's own orderliness" just happen to exactly mimic the orderliness that evolution would produce?
Show me a placental mammal that lays leathery eggs like a reptile does. Show me a rodent that has a cloaca like reptiles do.

The fossils are not the evidence of creation from the Creator, but are evidence of earlier living forms. All living forms show design. The amazing design is evidence of creation from the Creator. The fossils show evidence of great catastrophe that explains fossilization.

It is still your own opinion with which you go on about mixtures of features regarding individual creatures with the features of their own kind. Any of the mammals are not with any reptile part.

Humans and other creatures equally distant from lizards is evidence of organized grouping.

No, there are not transitional forms showing biological evolution.

The orderliness was showing before evolution was conjectured. Evolution did not first come up with seeing things that way.

You are being shifty. You were talking about mammals. Here you change to say you are talking about placental mammals. Of course monotremes are not placental mammals. There are other mammals that are truly mammals, and not placental mammals, you know.

Here is Turkana Boy, a nearly complete H. erectus specimen. This is the skull.

Notice the lack of a forehead, as in other apes. Notice the big brow ridges, again like other apes. Notice the forward jutting lower jaw. Again, like other apes. How is this not transitional?

We have already been over this.

Which are in the human category? Just F and onward. The gap shows in the very sequence you showed, no clear transition.

 

[Gracchus]

The fossils are not the evidence of creation from the Creator, but are evidence of earlier living forms. All living forms show design.

What are your criteria for that determination? Good design is characterized by simplicity, durability, ease of construction, and ease of repair.

The amazing design is evidence of creation from the Creator.

Close scrutiny of living things shows that the "designer" does not "go back to the drawing board" for new forms, but tinkers with the related forms. The recurrent laryngeal nerve, for instance travels from the brain down into the chest where it loops around the aortic arch leaving the heart and then turns back into the neck where it envervates the larynx. Any engineer submitting such a ridiculous design would be fired, but it makes perfect sense in the context of evolutionary theory.

The fossils show evidence of great catastrophe that explains fossilization.

No! The fossils show evidence of deposition of extremely long periods of time, and so does geology. For instance the Capitan Reef formation in the Guadalupe Mountains could not have been formed in a catastrophe but must have take considerable time to grow from coral deposits, be buried, and then uplifted and eroded. The Karoo formation is of such size that the number of organisms in this one single deposit would have been impossible for the Earth to support simultaneously and so must have been deposited over an extremely long time.

It is still your own opinion with which you go on about mixtures of features regarding individual creatures with the features of their own kind.

But I can point out evidence supporting geological and biological theory. Your opinion is supported only by wishful think... er ... faith.

Any of the mammals are not with any reptile part.

Reptiles and mammals share many traits.

Humans and other creatures equally distant from lizards is evidence of organized grouping.

And those groupings are evidence of lines of descent, forming as they do, nested hierarchies that are not found in human design, architecture and engineering.

No, there are not transitional forms showing biological evolution.

That is a monstrous untruth, indicating abysmal ignorance, serious dementia, or egregious perversity.

The orderliness was showing before evolution was conjectured. Evolution did not first come up with seeing things that way.

Theories explain observation. The observation comes first, at least in science. In religion the explanation precedes the observation and any observation that the religious explanation cannot account for is simply ignored.

You are being shifty. You were talking about mammals. Here you change to say you are talking about placental mammals. Of course monotremes are not placental mammals. There are other mammals that are truly mammals, and not placental mammals, you know.

So some mammals lay eggs, like reptiles, and in some mammals the eggs develop internally and the undeveloped embryos with no placental support are forced into the world to be protected by the marsupial pouch. It is almost as if we had a snapshot of an egg-laying reptile changing by degrees into a placental mammal.

Which are in the human category? Just F and onward. The gap shows in the very sequence you showed, no clear transition.

And "no clear transition" is just what any reasonable person would expect from evolution.

 

[stevevw]

The so called transitions from ape to human are no more than variations in apes and humans. There has always been disputes about what makes a ape like creature have some human like features and therefore be a transitional for ape to human. Most of the time it is evolutionists trying to elevate apes into humans and downgrade humans down to apes. Recent discoveries have shown that there is a lot of variation withing the humanoid species and many different species that have been classed as transitionals are actually just variation with the one species that is humans. This is the same for apes which also accounts for the lack of fossils that have never been attributed to ancient apes of our more modern ones rather that them being attributed to ape man ancestors.

A lot of it comes down to the interpretation of a couple of features. Often the minor human feature on an ape is elevated but the many ape like features are ignored so that a transitional can be made. It can also come down to reconstruction and modern techniques are showing that some were over enthusiastic to make transitional features than what was really there. At the end of the day more and more evidence is coming out that there was just one human species with great variation and one ape line with great variation.

 

[[serious]]

The fossils are not the evidence of creation from the Creator, but are evidence of earlier living forms. All living forms show design. The amazing design is evidence of creation from the Creator. The fossils show evidence of great catastrophe that explains fossilization.

It is still your own opinion with which you go on about mixtures of features regarding individual creatures with the features of their own kind. Any of the mammals are not with any reptile part.

Humans and other creatures equally distant from lizards is evidence of organized grouping.

No, there are not transitional forms showing biological evolution.

The orderliness was showing before evolution was conjectured. Evolution did not first come up with seeing things that way.

You are being shifty. You were talking about mammals. Here you change to say you are talking about placental mammals. Of course monotremes are not placental mammals. There are other mammals that are truly mammals, and not placental mammals, you know.



We have already been over this.



Which are in the human category? Just F and onward. The gap shows in the very sequence you showed, no clear transition.

What makes F and onward human? F certainly looks more like D and E than it looks like L.

What should a transitional look like according to you?

 

[stevevw]

As I say its all a matter of personal opinion and interpretation.

 

[Loudmouth]

The fossils are not the evidence of creation from the Creator, but are evidence of earlier living forms. All living forms show design. The amazing design is evidence of creation from the Creator. The fossils show evidence of great catastrophe that explains fossilization.

Why don't these fossils evidence the theory of evolution? What features would these fossils need in order to evidence evolution?

It is still your own opinion with which you go on about mixtures of features regarding individual creatures with the features of their own kind. Any of the mammals are not with any reptile part.

Then why does the platypus have a cloaca like a reptile, and not separate reproductive and digestive tracts as seen in other mammals? I am going to need more than flat denial.

Humans and other creatures equally distant from lizards is evidence of organized grouping.

That is why it is evidence for evolution since evolution predicts that we should see organized grouping.

Why would a creator make his designs fit into the same type of organized groups that evolution would produce? What is your explanation for that?

No, there are not transitional forms showing biological evolution.

Again, we are going to need more than flat denial. Why aren't they transitional forms? What features would a real transitional form have that these fossils are missing?

The orderliness was showing before evolution was conjectured. Evolution did not first come up with seeing things that way.

That is false. No one had seen the transitional fossils we have now, and yet they were able to predict that new fossils would fall into a predicted nested hierarchy. Also, it was predicted that DNA would fall into the same predicted pattern before genomes were sequenced.

You are being shifty. You were talking about mammals. Here you change to say you are talking about placental mammals. Of course monotremes are not placental mammals. There are other mammals that are truly mammals, and not placental mammals, you know.

Evolution predicts that placental mammals share a common ancestor with other reptiles. Therefore, evolution predicts that there should have been a transitional stage in the past that had a mixture of placental mammal and reptile characteristics. There is a chance that a side branch of that transitional group of species has preserved that transitional morphology. That is exactly what we have in the monotremes, a mixture of placental mammal and reptile features. How is this not evidence for evolution?

Which are in the human category? Just F and onward. The gap shows in the very sequence you showed, no clear transition.

What features would a fossil need in order to be transitional?

 

[Loudmouth]

As I say its all a matter of personal opinion and interpretation.

In your opinion and interpretation, what features would a fossil need in order to be transitional between modern humans and a common ancestor shared with chimps?

It is my contention that no matter what features a fossil has, you will not accept it as being transitional. Am I right?

 

[Loudmouth]

The so called transitions from ape to human are no more than variations in apes and humans.

That is exactly what a transitional should be, a variation of apes and humans.

There has always been disputes about what makes a ape like creature have some human like features and therefore be a transitional for ape to human. Most of the time it is evolutionists trying to elevate apes into humans and downgrade humans down to apes.

You reject evolution based on emotion rather than evidence?

Recent discoveries have shown that there is a lot of variation withing the humanoid species and many different species that have been classed as transitionals are actually just variation with the one species that is humans.

I have already shown you that this isn't true. None of the H. erectus variations were classified as modern humans. Why do you continue with this falsehood?

This is the same for apes which also accounts for the lack of fossils that have never been attributed to ancient apes of our more modern ones rather that them being attributed to ape man ancestors.

Again . . .

What features would a fossil need in order to be transitional between modern humans and a common ancestor shared with chimps?

A lot of it comes down to the interpretation of a couple of features. Often the minor human feature on an ape is elevated but the many ape like features are ignored so that a transitional can be made.

What features are we ignoring that you think should be included?

It can also come down to reconstruction and modern techniques are showing that some were over enthusiastic to make transitional features than what was really there. At the end of the day more and more evidence is coming out that there was just one human species with great variation and one ape line with great variation.

Again, a transitional will be a variation of apes and humans. That's the whole point.

 

[Loudmouth]

Let's review what you said before.

But to speak of just the skulls as was asked, notice apes all have muzzles, humans do not.

I demonstrated that H. erectus is intermediate. You ignored it. I met your criteria, and you simply looked the other way.

Apes do not have foreheads or the shape of their skulls anywhere in the range of human skulls. The various human skulls have foreheads, even if with some sloping more than others, the skull shapes are close to be grouped within a common range, to be considered human.

Here you admit that H. erectus is intermediate because it has a sloped forehead like apes. Even you know that these fossils meet the criteria of being intermediate.

 

[lewiscalledhimmaster]

I commend you for hour patience,Loudmouth.
Surely if these blokes studied the subject, they'd not make such beginners errors?

 

[bhsmte]

I commend you for hour patience,Loudmouth.
Surely if these blokes studied the subject, they'd not make such beginners errors?

IMO, in most cases they are not beginners errors. More like, a requirement to deny evidence, which contradicts their beliefs. And, most are not beginners at denial.

 

[Loudmouth]

I commend you for hour patience,Loudmouth.
Surely if these blokes studied the subject, they'd not make such beginners errors?

I think they need to think through their own arguments.

For example, claiming that fossils are variations but not transitionals. That makes no sense. They are not mutually exclusive terms.

Let's take wolves and chihuahuas as our examples. Most would agree that the distant ancestor of the chihuahua most resembled what we would call a wolf. In between that wolf ancestor and modern chihuahuas there would have been intermediate generations that were neither fully wolf or fully chihuahua. How would stevew have described them? He would have described them as a variation of dog, and yet they would also be transitional.

Fred V B did what we have waited for every creationist to do, which is describe what a transitional would look like. He ended up perfectly described H. erectus, and then had to run away from those previous comments.

 

[bhsmte]

I think they need to think through their own arguments.

Here is the problem.

When some respond out of fear and a need to protect a tightly held belief, that will be the priority and not much rational thinking will take place.