Good design is characterized by simplicity, durability, ease of construction, and ease of repair.
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.
This is nonsense, there is greater design to human beings than any design that humans can come up with.
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.
Remains require rapid burial any way for fossilization, and there are many fossils, but great catastrophe would explain all this.
But I can point out evidence supporting geological and biological theory. Your opinion is supported only by wishful think... er ... faith.
Reptiles and mammals share many traits.
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.
I can't explain the Creator as I cannot say what limits there should be to creation and design. God is greater than us and will know more, that we can't second guess.
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.
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.
And "no clear transition" is just what any reasonable person would expect from evolution.
All this just disregards that there are more kinds of mammals, when you would think that to be properly considered a mammal it must be a placental mammal, that is just an opinion.
[serious];67000090 said:
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?
No, F has a human appearing skull. Like L, there is a human forehead, and no muzzle, with this distinct from D and E. I can see it, it is seen with an honest look. Transition, which doesn't exist, might have gradations of a diminishing muzzle toward being absent, along with a forehead forming in gradations to correspond to those of humans.
Why don't these fossils evidence the theory of evolution? What features would these fossils need in order to evidence evolution?
Then why does the platypus have a cloaca like a reptile, and not separate reproductive and digestive tracts as seen in other mammals?
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?
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?
What features would a fossil need in order to be transitional?
Fossils will only be evidence of previous life forms that were existing, they can't be evidence of more than that. Platypuses have characteristics of monotremes, still mammalian and not reptile. And these are characteristic of echidnas too. Argue with Linnaeus about organization not being expected without evolution, he didn't see need of it and expected it in design from the Creator. The Creator that is beyond our small understanding has reasons beyond us too.
Monotremes are still one distinct group of mammals. Therapsids were fully distinct from mammals, being their own group of reptiles. One fossil would not do a job of showing transition effectively. It would take a good sequence of fossils with all gradations between a definite reptile and a definite mammal, in that case.
I demonstrated that H. erectus is intermediate. You ignored it. I met your criteria, and you simply looked the other way.
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.
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.
I did not ignore any such thing. I don't have so much time to spend in arguing points in this section of the forums with all the atheists here. I knew it would be an erectus skull I excluded, I myself never make any case that erectus skulls were from humans like we are, regardless if they are not to be thought of as apes and if they are grouped with us. I don't say it is intermediate and the muzzle and lack of a proper human forehead show the case for that. Erectus skulls are not human and not transitional in what I say, I don't have any need to run, just don't have so much time for you. Too bad for that.
The design is there, but what is the evidence that it is from "the Creator?" The design is by natural selection.
Most fossils are fragmentary. This means they were chewed up and scattered before they were fossilized. This is inconsistent with a catastrophic event quickly burying them.
Ever seen a platypus? It is a mammal with reptilian features (such as leathery eggs). There are also a whole slew of "mammal-like reptiles" in the fossil record.
Can you give us a list of these "organized groupings?" We impose grouping on nature, but nature does not create groupings.
If there is no clear transition, then that is what we expect for a transitional.
What evidence from design? The design goes far beyond what I see can be thought as credible from natural processes without guidance, including natural selection. That you think you can know truth is such a design. I made the point already that fossilization requires rapid burial remains, anyway. Yes, we have been talking about platypuses. And? This was dealt with already. And again, argue then with Linnaeus that there shouldn't be organized groupings found apart from evolution.
This indeed was expected from logical design from the Creator.
You are disregarding the observation that there are living species with a mixture of reptile and placental mammal features. More importantly, there are fossils with a mixture of mammal and reptile features, and they are transitional fossils.
I can disregard that when understanding the kinds of monotremes are mammal creatures in their own right. There are mammals with leathery eggs, this is of use to more than one group of animal kinds, they just aren't placental mammals. There aren't sequences of fossils showing gradations of change from a definite reptile to a definite mammal.