What transitional form will we have this week?

reply to post by Bigwhammy

No. As a matter of fact, the Cambrian explosion only strengthens puncuated equilibrium hypothesis. Here we have a world filled with nothing but blind drifting jellies and static filter feeders, then suddenly a mass extinction of some sort (such as the "snowball Earth") removes them, and leaves many niches free. Thus, animals evolve to fill those. Regardless, the Cambrian period's diversity is nothing compared to the Holocene's.

Furthermore, I can see that my proof that man couldn't have walked among all the creatures that are now only fossils has been "overlooked".

reply to post by SlyCM (work)


I'm not a YEC, so forget the man walking with thing. The Bible doesn't give an age for the earth.

But there's is no evidence for slow evolution to complex life from simpler life. The Cambrian explosion disproves that...

The Phylum Chordata is the most complex animal group of all and includes fish and mammals. So the chordates were present at the beginning of multicellular life and did not appear later as is predicted by evolutionary theory.

personal.georgiasouthern.edu...

[edit on 4/27/2008 by Bigwhammy]

Except that "back then" chordates were not as complex as they are today, and the first chordates most certainly were not the most complex animals of their time.

Furthermore, I wouldn't be so quick to put chordates on a pedestal they may or may not belong on.

reply to post by RuneSpider

Just a brief reply. I don't claim to have all the answers - there are plenty of issues to keep us all thinking, discussing and debating for a very long time to come. I just felt the need to comment on this in particular:

Checking google briefly, I searched for human tails, and found a few links that all lead to the same creationist website that admitted yes, humans are born occasionally with tails that have bones, but this is no proof because scientists say we evolved from apes, not monkeys.

I regard the 'human tails' myth as a complete howler. The line of argument you quote from the creationist website is unbelievably weak. Could you give the link so I can look at it shamefully through a slit between my fingers?

The appendage that appears from time to time is a tumour. Here is some photographic evidence that I think clarifies the issue:


The tumour is a protrusion that can occur all along the spinal column. Granted those that are lower down can look like a tail, and if they occur at the base of the spine they can incorporate extra vertebrae, but you are still looking at a spinal anomaly resulting from a genetic mistake, i.e. an aberration, not something that is normally found in the human genetic makeup!

Any extrapolation regarding the appearance of our forbears is simply false. Using this defect as evidence of human descent from apes is downright preposterous.

I used to believe such 'vestigial features' were proof of evolution. When I found out so much of the 'evidence' is actually of this quality I was frankly dumbfounded, and sickened to think all my life I had swallowed the whole theory of evolution hook, line and sinker.

reply to post by RuneSpider

Erratum

I accepted in good faith the information you quoted about extra bone tissue in the appendages under discussion, as I don't really have time to look everything up. As an afterthought I thought I'd better make sure, and I'm glad I did. The following is a thorough discussion of 'human tails':

creationontheweb.com...

It explains, for example, that an extra long coccyx can occur, but is a different issue to one of these caudal appendages.

Incidentally the same site includes a discussion of the ostensible 'transitional form' which forms the basis of this thread:

creationontheweb.com...

Might be time to rethink your paradigm shift then. If you were even convinced in the first place.

www.livescience.com...

it's funny that out of the top tenuseless things. Only 3 of them were actually useless. I'd also bet that under the right circumstances they might not be. Of course I'm talking about the pancreas, the blinde fish, and the dandelions sexual organs.

[edit on 4/29/2008 by JPhish]

reply to post by SlyCM (work)

Hi.

Might be time to rethink your paradigm shift then. If you were even convinced in the first place.

I was as sure as a man can be. I was a fossil boffin and had a serious ambition to become a paleontoligist. I had been told from earliest childhood that we evolved from apes and all living creatures had come from primitive forbears. My books, education and the mass media left me in no doubt whatsoever.

We had a family of JWs living next door to us who believed in creation. As far I as was concerned they were living in Cloud-Cuckoo-Land. I sometimes had to travel with them in their car and it gave me the creeps; I just thought they were weirdos. How could these poor people be so deluded?!

On the whole my beliefs are still very different to those of JWs, but my perspective on origins now probably largely accords with theirs. My world-view could not have undergone a more complete turn-around.

Personally I don't think I would ever have listened seriously to scientific creationist arguments before I came to believe that Christ was the Son of God and that he could control the natural world with a word, not to mention that he had the power to bring people back from the dead.

I have related elsewhere how it was rational scientific evidence that opened my mind to the flimsy foundations of the theory of evolution and to how the seemingly infinite intricacies of living organisms point unnervingly to deliberate, purposeful design.

Having said all the above I actually regard the whole evolution/creation debate as overhyped. Christ's essential message of reconciliation between man and his Maker are immeasurably more important to me, and I warmly embrace those who share my faith in Christ but still accept the theory of evolution.

Thanks for the link. I agree with JPhish that even these 'vestigial organs/limbs' always turn out to serve a useful purpose. Flightless birds can seem like a strong argument while you remain convinced that evolution actually happened, but once you open your mind to the possibility that the theory is wrong flightless birds prove nothing. They are well adapted to their environment, and their wings are still used for cooling, display, etc., etc.

The question that sometimes bugs people is why would a creator give most birds the ability to fly while passing others by, so to speak. This is more a philosophical/theological question, but one simple answer is that it shows his limitless ingenuity with respect to the ability to take a basic template and flesh it out to serve a wide variety of purposes in the overall scheme of things.

Maybe just step back for a while and experience the novelty of dropping the framework of evolutionary theory - as a purely philosophical exercise. It might just bring a smile to your face to see how creation really does make sense in terms of a logical proposition, once you entertain the possibility of an Almighty being of limitless knowledge and understanding.

Becoming convinced it explains the world as we see it requires an admittedly less novelty-based paradigm shift!

reply to post by pause4thought


So you ignore scientific evidence and substitute baseless assertion in its place? If evolution isn't true, why is there so much evidence for it? If it's not true, where's the evidence for whatever you think is driving changes in animals?

It seems Christ did a right number on your head. You have my deepest condolences for your objectivity.

(also people didn't evolve from apes - we ARE apes).

reply to post by dave420

we ARE apes

You said it...

No really, based on skulls, brains, and almost every other piece of anatomy, we are apes. Considering how awful humanity as a species seems to be, I tend to take it as a compliment.

For the 1,000th time. I see nothing wrong with the co-existence of evolution, ID, and creationism.

If they co-exist simultaneously it just shows how intelligently designed all these systems are put in place by and Intelligent designer.

You have to admit, if evolution is a true unrefutable fact, it sure is a design with tons of intelligence in it.

Ahhhhhhh....the paradox that those stuck in logic/reason faculties get themselves into.

"Infinite entertainment for those who know God"

reply to post by dominicus


I always figured that ID could be as simple as God knowing the right time to push the start button, so that things would occur at the right times to get the intended result, though what the heck that could be is anyones guess.
www.users.bigpond.com...
To the above, this is the link i read it at i think... there were a few others I read but this one is the first in about two pages that said the general lines i was looking for. don't remember my exact search either to be honest. Rereading the writing, i notice he's mixing scientists with evolutionists, people like myself who have read thigns about tails and such here and there and make a misinformed opinion based on it, both from the reading and our own general thoughts.

And This Week's Transitional Form Is...

...a 'perfect little frogamander'.

What’s halfway between a frog and a salamander? According to Canadian researcher Jason Anderson, it’s Gerobatrachus hottoni, which walked the Earth almost 300 million years ago.

“It’s a perfect little frogamander,” says Anderson, a researcher at the University of Calgary.

Science marches on. Creationism staggers round in circles.

reply to post by Astyanax


wow cool! G*d created an animal that was a mix between a frog and a salamander! Radical!~



[edit on 5/24/2008 by JPhish]

looks like this snake with legs confirms the book of Genesis where God cursed the serpent to crawl on its belly and eat dust.

reply to post by Anonymous ATS


Then God is awfully lazy, as it took him millions of years to get the job done. That, to me, sounds more impotent than omnipotent.

This weeks transitional is the :

Pithecanthropus Dawkinus

reply to post by Bigwhammy


Glad you remain so eloquent BigWhammy, and continue to set forth the patience and kindness Jesus emphasized. Good example of the golden rule there to, treating others as they want to be treated.
I would also like to say, well done! Repeatedly ignoring the people who say that evolution doesn't disprove God, or are Christian and believe evolution takes hard work!

Originally posted by Astyanax
And This Week's Transitional Form Is...

...a 'perfect little frogamander'.

What’s halfway between a frog and a salamander? According to Canadian researcher Jason Anderson, it’s Gerobatrachus hottoni, which walked the Earth almost 300 million years ago.

“It’s a perfect little frogamander,” says Anderson, a researcher at the University of Calgary.

Science marches on. Creationism staggers round in circles.

Sorry asty just because someone finds a fossil for some extinct dead toad and some artists rendition of it painted like a salamander proves absolutley squat. The British Museum of Natural History has the largest collection of fossils in the world. Colin Patterson, who is the Senior Paleontologist at the British Museum and also editor of scientific journal, He is a world renown expert of the fossil record. He was not able to give a single example of a transitional form, none, no not one, zero, zilch.

When asked if he could find anything, anything at all he said:

I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included them. You suggest that an artist should be used to visualize such transformations, but where would he get the information from? I could not, honestly, provide it, and if I were to leave it to artistic license, would that not mislead the reader? I wrote the text of my book four years ago. If I were to write it now, I think the book would be rather different. Gradualism is a concept I believe in, not just because of Darwin's authority, but because my understanding of genetics seems to demand it. Yet Gould and the American Museum people are hard to contradict when they say there are no transitional fossils. As a paleontologist myself, I am much occupied with the philosophical problems of identifying ancestral forms in the fossil record. You say that I should at least "show a photo of the fossil from which each type of organism was derived."

I will lay it on the line - there is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument

So give it up, macro-evolution doesn't happen never happened and never will happen because it simply doesn't work. Nothing man has tried to make it happen has worked. The mountain of evidence Dave keeps spouting off about is all speculation that one must take a giant leap of faith to believe it happened that way. There would be literally millions of examples of it and we wouldn't have to swallow such far fetched excuses for it never being seen like that baloney called punctuated equilibrium.

Furthermore the Scientific Method so exhalted as the be all end all cornerstone of your argument is just as much a mythical construct of Science as Darwininian macro evolution.

No one standing on the outside can predict what the individual scientist will do or what method he will follow. In short, science is what scientists do, and there are as many scientific methods as there are individual scientists. www.lhup.edu...

Maybe you should study the Science you guys think you know so much because the more I do, the more ignorant posts like Daves and yours looks about this subject.




- Con

[edit on 3-6-2008 by Conspiriology]