Seeing fossils without the Evolution goggles

[lifepsyop]

This argument challenges one of the foundations of the Evolutionary worldview, that the order fossil animal groups in the earth point to Evolution as an explanation.

The Evolution of different life on earth is a story that could be told in many highly contrasting ways. Evolution is really more of an open ended genre than a specific account of how life supposedly evolved.

You could essentially randomize the fossil orderings of major animal groups and afterwards still be able to construct continuous Evolutionary trees out of them to paint a picture of universal common descent.

A simple way to visualize this is to reverse a supposed transitional fossil sequence... For example, picture a bird losing its wings and feathers and gradually evolving into a therapod-like dinosaur. You could flip the sequence of bird and therapod fossils and still make up an Evolutionary narrative for it.

But that was just something basic for demonstration. You could shift all kinds of fossil sequences around and still be able to write up Evolutionary stories about how one thing evolved from the other. Mammals could co-evolve alongside amphibians. Birds could be placed closer to mammals than reptiles. The amount of different Evolution stories you could write up based on different fossil sequences would be nearly endless.

The only real constraint would be to probably have lots of small stuff at the bottom layers. (primordial creatures that generate a list of different animal phyla that the more advanced forms can be said to have descended from) ... but that isn't much of a test of anything because you always find those types of creatures in the deepest parts of the earth for purely physical reasons, regardless of models of earth-history.

If there were any problematic fossil gaps or anachronisms left over (i.e. some transitional fossils sequences seem out of order) they can more than likely be solved in the same manner they are now. Attributing them to "Ghost Lineages" would be a versatile solution. Fossilization is quite rare, after all. (Also hard to find much reliability with molecular clocks, because they often break.)

This demonstrates how Evolution is really a metaphysical idea that can be projected onto almost any kind of data set found in nature. It is not a theory formed by evidence.

A theoretical model of Evolutionary origins of a planet's biodiversity would practically always be possible, regardless of the data set. There aren't any real physical checks preventing Evolutionists from writing up a flexible narrative of how life evolved.



*edit: added visual aid*

In Darwin's time, while the overall image of the fossil record was blurry and lacked resolution, the basic pattern and structure was well established. (small marine creatures at the bottom, an "age of reptiles" in the middle, and bigger mammals on top) ... Since then there has been an increasing resolution of that image.

More fundamentally speaking, this is just a simple matter of logic. One cannot possibly predict *how* Evolution might have worked on the history of a planet... Whose to say that drastically varied environmental pressures might not have produced mammals before dinosaurs? It's impossible to predict.

So all that's really taken place is a fining-up of resolution of the pattern of fossils.

This is why the original low-resolution image of the fossil record could have been practically anything, and a corresponding evolutionary story could have been written to try and explain it.

 

[eleos1954]

This argument challenges one of the foundations of the Evolutionary worldview, that the order fossil animal groups in the earth point to Evolution as an explanation.

The Evolution of different life on earth is a story that could be told in many highly contrasting ways. Evolution is really more of an open ended genre than a specific account of how life supposedly evolved.

You could essentially randomize the fossil orderings of major animal groups and afterwards still be able to construct continuous Evolutionary trees out of them to paint a picture of universal common descent.

A simple way to visualize this is to reverse a supposed transitional fossil sequence... For example, picture a bird losing its wings and feathers and gradually evolving into a therapod-like dinosaur. You could flip the sequence of bird and therapod fossils and still make up an Evolutionary narrative for it.

But that was just something basic for demonstration. You could shift all kinds of fossil sequences around and still be able to write up Evolutionary stories about how one thing evolved from the other. Mammals could co-evolve alongside amphibians. Birds could be placed closer to mammals than reptiles. The amount of different Evolution stories you could write up based on different fossil sequences would be nearly endless.

The only real constraint would be to probably have lots of small stuff at the bottom layers. (primordial creatures that generate a list of different animal phyla that the more advanced forms can be said to have descended from) ... but that isn't much of a test of anything because you always find those types of creatures in the deepest parts of the earth for purely physical reasons, regardless of models of earth-history.

If there were any problematic fossil gaps or anachronisms left over (i.e. some transitional fossils sequences seem out of order) they can more than likely be solved in the same manner they are now. Attributing them to "Ghost Lineages" would be a versatile solution. Fossilization is quite rare, after all. (Also hard to find much reliability with molecular clocks, because they often break.)

This demonstrates how Evolution is really a metaphysical idea that can be projected onto almost any kind of data set found in nature. It is not a theory formed by evidence.

A theoretical model of Evolutionary origins of a planet's biodiversity would practically always be possible, regardless of the data set. There aren't any real physical checks preventing Evolutionists from writing up a flexible narrative of how life evolved.

Many "missing links" in the theory(s).

 

[Caliban]

This argument challenges one of the foundations of the Evolutionary worldview, that the order fossil animal groups in the earth point to Evolution as an explanation.

The Evolution of different life on earth is a story that could be told in many highly contrasting ways. Evolution is really more of an open ended genre than a specific account of how life supposedly evolved.

You could essentially randomize the fossil orderings of major animal groups and afterwards still be able to construct continuous Evolutionary trees out of them to paint a picture of universal common descent.

A simple way to visualize this is to reverse a supposed transitional fossil sequence... For example, picture a bird losing its wings and feathers and gradually evolving into a therapod-like dinosaur. You could flip the sequence of bird and therapod fossils and still make up an Evolutionary narrative for it.

But that was just something basic for demonstration. You could shift all kinds of fossil sequences around and still be able to write up Evolutionary stories about how one thing evolved from the other. Mammals could co-evolve alongside amphibians. Birds could be placed closer to mammals than reptiles. The amount of different Evolution stories you could write up based on different fossil sequences would be nearly endless.

The only real constraint would be to probably have lots of small stuff at the bottom layers. (primordial creatures that generate a list of different animal phyla that the more advanced forms can be said to have descended from) ... but that isn't much of a test of anything because you always find those types of creatures in the deepest parts of the earth for purely physical reasons, regardless of models of earth-history.

If there were any problematic fossil gaps or anachronisms left over (i.e. some transitional fossils sequences seem out of order) they can more than likely be solved in the same manner they are now. Attributing them to "Ghost Lineages" would be a versatile solution. Fossilization is quite rare, after all. (Also hard to find much reliability with molecular clocks, because they often break.)

This demonstrates how Evolution is really a metaphysical idea that can be projected onto almost any kind of data set found in nature. It is not a theory formed by evidence.

A theoretical model of Evolutionary origins of a planet's biodiversity would practically always be possible, regardless of the data set. There aren't any real physical checks preventing Evolutionists from writing up a flexible narrative of how life evolved.

Evidence for phylogenesis is overwhelming and diverse. Your method does not consider the obvious fact of evolution as observed through genetic sequencing. This is by far the most damning of any pseudoscientific claim attempting to "debunk" the established fact of evolution.

Evolution is demonstrated by evidence from methodological naturalism. To even imply, much less state, that evolution is "metaphysical in some way, is highly inaccurate.

 

[Jonathan Walkerin]

It is not a theory formed by evidence.

Theory of evolution is just about the most tested scientific theory in existence.

If you can prove it invalid and/or propose something better with peer reviews and works you can go pick up your Nobel next time they are handing them out.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

This argument challenges one of the foundations of the Evolutionary worldview, that the order fossil animal groups in the earth point to Evolution as an explanation.

The Evolution of different life on earth is a story that could be told in many highly contrasting ways. Evolution is really more of an open ended genre than a specific account of how life supposedly evolved.

You could essentially randomize the fossil orderings of major animal groups and afterwards still be able to construct continuous Evolutionary trees out of them to paint a picture of universal common descent.

A simple way to visualize this is to reverse a supposed transitional fossil sequence... For example, picture a bird losing its wings and feathers and gradually evolving into a therapod-like dinosaur. You could flip the sequence of bird and therapod fossils and still make up an Evolutionary narrative for it.

But that was just something basic for demonstration. You could shift all kinds of fossil sequences around and still be able to write up Evolutionary stories about how one thing evolved from the other. Mammals could co-evolve alongside amphibians. Birds could be placed closer to mammals than reptiles. The amount of different Evolution stories you could write up based on different fossil sequences would be nearly endless.

The only real constraint would be to probably have lots of small stuff at the bottom layers. (primordial creatures that generate a list of different animal phyla that the more advanced forms can be said to have descended from) ... but that isn't much of a test of anything because you always find those types of creatures in the deepest parts of the earth for purely physical reasons, regardless of models of earth-history.

If there were any problematic fossil gaps or anachronisms left over (i.e. some transitional fossils sequences seem out of order) they can more than likely be solved in the same manner they are now. Attributing them to "Ghost Lineages" would be a versatile solution. Fossilization is quite rare, after all. (Also hard to find much reliability with molecular clocks, because they often break.)

This demonstrates how Evolution is really a metaphysical idea that can be projected onto almost any kind of data set found in nature. It is not a theory formed by evidence.

A theoretical model of Evolutionary origins of a planet's biodiversity would practically always be possible, regardless of the data set. There aren't any real physical checks preventing Evolutionists from writing up a flexible narrative of how life evolved.

Darwin developed his theory based on living creatures, as Paleontology was in its infancy and there was too little fossil evidence to confirm or refute it at the time. His evidence was sufficient to persuade most of the members of the Royal Society, many of whom had accepted special creation until then.

 

[lifepsyop]

Darwin developed his theory based on living creatures, as Paleontology was in its infancy and there was too little fossil evidence to confirm or refute it at the time.

Actually there was a wealth of paleontological data by the time Darwin wrote his story. In a logical sense, there would have to be. Evolution is an ad-hoc theory trying to answer the question of why fossils are where they are.

In the OP I've demonstrated the flaws in assuming Evolution as an explanation.

 

[Caliban]

Actually there was a wealth of paleontological data by the time Darwin wrote his story. In a logical sense, there would have to be. Evolution is an ad-hoc theory trying to answer the question of why fossils are where they are.

In the OP I've demonstrated the flaws in assuming Evolution as an explanation.

Nobody is assuming evolution--that's not how the scientific method works. Evolution is the theory explaining the facts. And, just to preempt any misunderstanding--a theory is not another work for hypothesis. Much like the Germ Theory or the Theory of Gravity, the Theory of Evolution is as established a fact as you will find in science.

 

[Gene2memE]

Actually there was a wealth of paleontological data by the time Darwin wrote his story.

Oh, so that's why Darwin wrote a whole chapter in The Origin of Species [Ch. 9 ' On the Imperfection of the Geological Record] on how poor the fossil record was.

"Now turn to our richest geological museums, and what a paltry display we behold!"​

Evolution is an ad-hoc theory trying to answer the question of why fossils are where they are.

This just shows that you a) don't understand what evolution is, and b) haven't read much about the history of evolutionary thought.

If you can't even get the basics right, why should anyone take anything you say seriously?

 

[lifepsyop]

Nobody is assuming evolution--that's not how the scientific method works. Evolution is the theory explaining the facts... the Theory of Evolution is as established a fact as you will find in science.

Mmmhmmm.... I'm familiar with that mantra... but this is a discussion forum. You have to do a little more than just make assertions. Reading and responding to arguments in the OP is a good starting place.

 

[lifepsyop]

Oh, so that's why Darwin wrote a whole chapter in The Origin of Species [Ch. 9 ' On the Imperfection of the Geological Record] on how poor the fossil record was.

"Now turn to our richest geological museums, and what a paltry display we behold!"​

I think you just unknowingly strengthened my argument. For how would Darwin have any idea of how much of the picture he was missing unless he already had a general picture to begin with? One must logically follow the other.

Darwin already had the general order of fossils in the rock layers. For example, the idea of a great "Age of Reptiles" in lower rock layers was already established by Darwin's time, contrasting with more "modern" big mammals found in upper layers.

History of paleontology - Wikipedia

This is only logical because Evolution is an ad-hoc theory trying to answer the question of why fossils are where they are.

So, we are back to the argument in the OP.

 

[MIDutch]

It is not a theory formed by evidence.

This is what people who are ignorant of, or refuse to examine, or willingly tell falsehoods about the evidence say.

Evidence already existed before Charles Darwin ever broke onto the scene. Heck, it was even apparent to the ancient Greeks and Romans. The evidence had already convinced Anaximander of Miletus to form his own evolutionary hypothesis around 600 BC. It's been accumulating ever since.

 

[MIDutch]

I think you just unknowingly strengthened my argument. For how would Darwin have any idea of how much of the picture he was missing unless he already had a general picture to begin with? One must logically follow the other.

Darwin already had the general order of fossils in the rock layers. For example, the idea of a great "Age of Reptiles" in lower rock layers was already established by Darwin's time, contrasting with more "modern" big mammals found in upper layers.

History of paleontology - Wikipedia

This is only logical because Evolution is an ad-hoc theory trying to answer the question of why fossils are where they are.

So, we are back to the argument in the OP.

You really think that fossils is the only line of evidence that evolution has?

 

[lifepsyop]

Evidence already existed before Charles Darwin ever broke onto the scene. Heck, it was even apparent to the ancient Greeks and Romans. The evidence had already convinced Anaximander of Miletus to form his own evolutionary hypothesis around 600 BC. It's been accumulating ever since.

Yes, Evolution is an ancient ideology. But is there an argument here relevant to anything?

You really think that fossils is the only line of evidence that evolution has?

Are you trying to change the subject?

 

[Gene2memE]

I think you just unknowingly strengthened my argument. For how would Darwin have any idea of how much of the picture he was missing unless he already had a general picture to begin with? One must logically follow the other.

If you'd read Origin of Species, you'd know how Darwin knew just how much of the picture from the past was missing.

He lays it out in rather extensive detail. Most of Chapter 9 is devoted to the topic of the 'known unkowns' (to use a neologism) of the interplay of geology and fossilisation.

Darwin already had the general order of fossils in the rock layers. For example, the idea of a great "Age of Reptiles" in lower rock layers was already established by Darwin's time, contrasting with more "modern" big mammals found in upper layers.

Darwin was writing at a time when palentology was really only in its infancy.

Mantell's 'The Geological Age of Reptiles' paper was published in 1831, but it wasn't "established" when Darwin was writing Origin of Species (which commenced around 1836 or 1837).

This is only logical because Evolution is an ad-hoc theory trying to answer the question of why fossils are where they are.

So, we are back to the argument in the OP.

On the Origin of Species devotes two of its 14 chapters to fossil evidence. There are 12 other chapters devoted to entirely differing lines of evidence.

Evolution explains the diversity of life and the mechanism that achieves that diversity.

 

[The IbanezerScrooge]

Flatly, no.

You could not randomize the order of the fossils and then apply the ToE as it exists today and have it work. It wouldn't. It would be falsified in its current form.

But that's the rub, and your "evolution is an ad-hoc theory" shows that you have no understanding of what you criticize. OF COURSE evolution is an ad-hoc theory. ALL THEORIES are. Theories are built on observation to explain those observations. Change the observations and the theory must change in order to continue to explain them. If it doesn't the theory remains more incomplete and/or must be scrapped completely and replaced with a new theory that does explain them.

But the fossil record doesn't exist in a vacuum. Do you mean to only randomize the therapod to bird fossil series? Or everything? Because just turning one series "upside down" would present a problem for which a reasonable explanation could be that the series is, in fact, upside down. I mean, you'd be talking about all other fossil series showing a continuously diversifying, branching tree of life and then over here are birds with feathers and an incredible amount of diversity shrinking down to a handful of therapod species that no longer exist, but all these birds still exist. That wouldn't make any sense. We would have to be living in a much different world than we currently observe and the theory would reflect that.

So, yeah, the theory has to explain what we observe. If the observations were different then the theory would be different.

Curiously, how would creationism explain your OP?

 

[Subduction Zone]

This argument challenges one of the foundations of the Evolutionary worldview, that the order fossil animal groups in the earth point to Evolution as an explanation.

The Evolution of different life on earth is a story that could be told in many highly contrasting ways. Evolution is really more of an open ended genre than a specific account of how life supposedly evolved.

You could essentially randomize the fossil orderings of major animal groups and afterwards still be able to construct continuous Evolutionary trees out of them to paint a picture of universal common descent.

A simple way to visualize this is to reverse a supposed transitional fossil sequence... For example, picture a bird losing its wings and feathers and gradually evolving into a therapod-like dinosaur. You could flip the sequence of bird and therapod fossils and still make up an Evolutionary narrative for it.

But that was just something basic for demonstration. You could shift all kinds of fossil sequences around and still be able to write up Evolutionary stories about how one thing evolved from the other. Mammals could co-evolve alongside amphibians. Birds could be placed closer to mammals than reptiles. The amount of different Evolution stories you could write up based on different fossil sequences would be nearly endless.

The only real constraint would be to probably have lots of small stuff at the bottom layers. (primordial creatures that generate a list of different animal phyla that the more advanced forms can be said to have descended from) ... but that isn't much of a test of anything because you always find those types of creatures in the deepest parts of the earth for purely physical reasons, regardless of models of earth-history.

If there were any problematic fossil gaps or anachronisms left over (i.e. some transitional fossils sequences seem out of order) they can more than likely be solved in the same manner they are now. Attributing them to "Ghost Lineages" would be a versatile solution. Fossilization is quite rare, after all. (Also hard to find much reliability with molecular clocks, because they often break.)

This demonstrates how Evolution is really a metaphysical idea that can be projected onto almost any kind of data set found in nature. It is not a theory formed by evidence.

A theoretical model of Evolutionary origins of a planet's biodiversity would practically always be possible, regardless of the data set. There aren't any real physical checks preventing Evolutionists from writing up a flexible narrative of how life evolved.

There is reason this fails right from the start. We have numerous ways to date the fossils so we cannot see birds evolve into therapods.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I think you just unknowingly strengthened my argument. For how would Darwin have any idea of how much of the picture he was missing unless he already had a general picture to begin with? One must logically follow the other.

Darwin already had the general order of fossils in the rock layers. For example, the idea of a great "Age of Reptiles" in lower rock layers was already established by Darwin's time, contrasting with more "modern" big mammals found in upper layers.

History of paleontology - Wikipedia

This is only logical because Evolution is an ad-hoc theory trying to answer the question of why fossils are where they are.

So, we are back to the argument in the OP.

No, hypotheses, the forerunners of theories may start out as an ad hoc explanation, but scientific hypotheses have one crucial trait. They are all testable and falsifiable. Creationism does not meet that standard. Once a concept has been tested and confirmed one has a working scientific hypothesis. And when it has been tested and confirmed countless times it becomes a well accepted theory. Like evolution.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

dp.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Actually there was a wealth of paleontological data by the time Darwin wrote his story. In a logical sense, there would have to be. Evolution is an ad-hoc theory trying to answer the question of why fossils are where they are.

There were plenty of bones of big beasts, but little or no understanding of what they were, their relationships, or their temporal distribution.

In the OP I've demonstrated the flaws in assuming Evolution as an explanation.

Not only is the OP itself flawed, but evolution is inferred from the consistent and coherent patterns of multiple independent lines of evidence, not assumed. It has explanatory power, makes fruitful predictons, has been extensively tested for over 100 years, unifies disparate fields of knowledge, has practical and commercial applications - even outside biology - and its application the epidemiology of bacterial & viral diseases has saved millions of lives. Wishful thinking isn't going to change all that.

 

[Shemjaza]

This argument challenges one of the foundations of the Evolutionary worldview, that the order fossil animal groups in the earth point to Evolution as an explanation.

The Evolution of different life on earth is a story that could be told in many highly contrasting ways. Evolution is really more of an open ended genre than a specific account of how life supposedly evolved.

You could essentially randomize the fossil orderings of major animal groups and afterwards still be able to construct continuous Evolutionary trees out of them to paint a picture of universal common descent.

A simple way to visualize this is to reverse a supposed transitional fossil sequence... For example, picture a bird losing its wings and feathers and gradually evolving into a therapod-like dinosaur. You could flip the sequence of bird and therapod fossils and still make up an Evolutionary narrative for it.

But that was just something basic for demonstration. You could shift all kinds of fossil sequences around and still be able to write up Evolutionary stories about how one thing evolved from the other. Mammals could co-evolve alongside amphibians. Birds could be placed closer to mammals than reptiles. The amount of different Evolution stories you could write up based on different fossil sequences would be nearly endless.

The only real constraint would be to probably have lots of small stuff at the bottom layers. (primordial creatures that generate a list of different animal phyla that the more advanced forms can be said to have descended from) ... but that isn't much of a test of anything because you always find those types of creatures in the deepest parts of the earth for purely physical reasons, regardless of models of earth-history.

If there were any problematic fossil gaps or anachronisms left over (i.e. some transitional fossils sequences seem out of order) they can more than likely be solved in the same manner they are now. Attributing them to "Ghost Lineages" would be a versatile solution. Fossilization is quite rare, after all. (Also hard to find much reliability with molecular clocks, because they often break.)

This demonstrates how Evolution is really a metaphysical idea that can be projected onto almost any kind of data set found in nature. It is not a theory formed by evidence.

A theoretical model of Evolutionary origins of a planet's biodiversity would practically always be possible, regardless of the data set. There aren't any real physical checks preventing Evolutionists from writing up a flexible narrative of how life evolved.

...and cars could be made in giant magical potatoes by gnomes. If you don't know the details of where and how cars are made then you can't express why this isn't supported by evidence.


One particularly silly idea of yours is the concept of flipping the order of a lineage and it still being convincing. Of course that works... this may come as a shock to you, but you have things in common with your great grandfather.

However, in particular, it's clear from actually studying the evidence that wings are clearly modified hands, rather then dinosaur hands changing from a custom designed wing.