The Deception of Evolution and the Fossil Sequence

[The Cadet]

@Justatruthseeker I feel like I'm repeating myself here, but using dog breeds as the model example is just not reasonable. Oh wait, I am repeating myself.

Let's make something clear here. Comparing dog breeds to anything found in nature is simply not a good example.

Ironically, even Answers In Genesis has you beat when it comes to understanding the science behind dog breeding (although their conclusions are asinine). See, what happened with the various breeds of dog is that we isolated mutations within populations of dogs, and explicitly bred for those mutations. Two differences here compared to what we see in nature:

1. Selection pressure. Most of these mutations are the kind that would be quickly bred out of the population. As AiG rightly points out, the mutation involved in Pugs, Pekingese, Bulldogs, and the like all lead to a significant drop in fitness. If these dogs were out in the wild, these sorts of mutations would have been a death sentence, and they almost certainly would not have found a mate, let alone dozens...
2. Number of breeding partners. (I'm going off what a friend who breeds dogs told me quite a while back here; I could be somewhat off base, and if I am, someone please correct me.) In an attempt to further the lineage of that mutation, these dogs will be explicitly bred with as many partners as possible, then incestuously with any further members of the lineage that share similar traits. In nature, this does not happen. As previously stated, many of these mutations are explicitly harmful for the organism. In the wild, a dog with dwarfism would almost certainly not survive. A dog with short, stumpy legs, a dog who couldn't breathe well, a dog who couldn't hunt or eat or even chew their food well, would have trouble finding one mate, let alone many.

And of course, throughout this, most of the genetic material was unchanged. Breeds of dogs were changed by humans. They do not mirror almost anything in nature, let alone most of the fossil record, and using them as an example is misleading at best and dishonest at worst.

Starting to move away from misleading and towards dishonest at this point. Look at any other species and you do not see anything resembling this kind of diversity. There's simply nothing else like it in nature without human intervention. It is not a reasonable basis for any kind of model. Find me one other currently extant species or breeding population with the same level of morphological diversity that dogs offer that wasn't explicitly bred for those qualities by humans. I don't think there is one.

 

[The Cadet]

This is actually a good example of imposing evolutionary assumptions onto the data. Apparently, the possibility that these triceratops may be ontological variations was not even considered as a possibility due to the belief that the strata represent millions of years of separation. So what we have here is a classification system that, instead of being based strictly on actual character traits of the animals, is also governed by metaphysical ideas about the history of earth.

Fun fact: if every scientific paper had to back up every clearly apparent scientific fact it was based on, we would not have scientific papers.

Fact: the earth is several billion years old.
Fact: you can date rock layers and the fossils found therein and use that as a legitimate method of separation.
Fact: morphology alone does not tell us everything we need to know.

None of this is in any way controversial within the scientific community. All of this is backed up by numerous methods, all of which merge together to form a cohesive model.

Of course it's not based strictly on actual character traits of the animals. We have tons of additional information to work from, and not recognizing that information could lead to patently false results.

This shows that if variations of dog breeds were stratigraphically separated, then there is zero doubt that the evolutionist would conclude that they are different species that had "evolved" new morphology.

Most likely we would, because it would be the only reasonable conclusion to make. But they aren't. You might as well say "This shows that if the balls had fallen at different speeds at Pisa, then Galileo would have concluded that mass effects fall speed." Well no kidding - if the experimental results were different, then the conclusions would be different. That's science. That's how it works.

But of course, the fact that these species are stratigraphically separated is, in fact, a strong indication that they are not different breeds, but rather that there is some sort of ancestral relationship.

So if paleontologists are concluding that stratigraphy represents an absolute signal dictating whether or not something is the same species... and if that assumption is wrong, then how much are they distorting the actual picture of life's diversity?

Paleontologists haven't used pure stratigraphy in ages. They date the layers not merely by comparing them to other layers, but also through radiometric dating.

 

[lifepsyop]

Fact: the earth is several billion years old.

I'm aware of your religious beliefs.

Fact: you can date rock layers and the fossils found therein and use that as a legitimate method of separation.

And you can also discard the "dates" that don't agree with a desired model. The ultimate arbiter in all "dating" methodology is "Does this agree with my billions-of-years-evolutionary beliefs or not?" Unwelcome data may be arbitrarily dismissed as contamination or as being caused by some other anomaly.

Fact: morphology alone does not tell us everything we need to know.

That's more of a vague contemplation than a fact.

 

[GrimKingGrim]

I'm aware of your religious beliefs.

How long does fossilization take?

And you can also discard the "dates" that don't agree with a desired model. The ultimate arbiter in all "dating" methodology is "Does this agree with my billions-of-years-evolutionary beliefs or not?" Unwelcome data may be arbitrarily dismissed as contamination or as being caused by some other anomaly.

Yes. Contamination is a thing and it breeds inaccurate data. If we got a date we would consider normal and were consistent for 500 fossils and one date was completely out of sync with those, it's more logical to conclude that something's wrong with that one fossil than the 500 that were consistent.

C'mon buddy.

 

[RickG]

I'm aware of your religious beliefs.

Would you care to elaborate (in your own words) as to why you view scientific dating methods as a religious belief. What god does it worship?

 

[AV1611VET]

How long does fossilization take?

A few hours.

Such as the fossilized teddy bears that were found.

 

[GrimKingGrim]

A few hours.

Such as the fossilized teddy bears that were found.

I don't even...

 

[AV1611VET]

I don't even...

Stalactites have been found on bridges.

 

[RickG]

Stalactites have been found on bridges.

And?

 

[AV1611VET]

And?

And deep time can take a hike.

 

[RickG]

And deep time can take a hike.

In what way? How does "Stalactites have been found on bridges" have anything to do with deep time?

 

[AV1611VET]

How does "Stalactites have been found on bridges" have anything to do with deep time?

Good question.

 

[RickG]

Good question.

Well? You made the accusation, please elaborate.

 

[AV1611VET]

Well? You made the accusation, please elaborate.

Using stalactites to demonstrate deep time is like using rubber bands to demonstrate long distance.

 

[MoreCoffee]

Using stalactites to demonstrate deep time is like using rubber bands to demonstrate long distance.

 

[RickG]

Using stalactites to demonstrate deep time is like using rubber bands to demonstrate long distance.

How do you arrive at that?

 

[GrimKingGrim]

Using stalactites to demonstrate deep time is like using rubber bands to demonstrate long distance.

I'm not sure this is information I can even process.

 

[AV1611VET]

I'm not sure this is information I can even process.

 

[RickG]

Well AV, are you not going to explain the claim you made? This is a discussion forum and posters are expected to support their claims.

 

[AV1611VET]

Well AV, are you not going to explain the claim you made? This is a discussion forum and posters are expected to support their claims.

In short, I don't believe using stalactites and fossils as examples of deep time are convincing.

Showing me a stalactite and telling me it took [deep time years] to form doesn't cut it.

Ditto for fossils.