A few 'scientific' polls to compare OOT to the rest of the US

[Inso0]

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Link me to just one. Just ONE transitional fossil and I'll gladly shut up.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_the_horse

And

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...tional_fossils

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Anyone willing to lay 3:1 that he actually shuts up?

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The Evolution of the Horse is indeed a popular one to cite.

Here:

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A famous fossil-hunter and Professor of Vertebrate Paleontology, Othniel C. Marsh, during the 1870's, found bones and teeth in Wyoming and Nebraska which he put together into what he said were thirty different kinds of fossil horses. He assembled these into a series showing what he called the development of the modern horse; this was displayed at Yale University, and has been copied by numerous other museums. The series includes:


* Eohippus (or "dawn horse") -- Eocene epoch, 60 MY (million years old),
* Orohippus,
* Epihippus,
* Miohippus -- Oligocene epoch, 40 MY,
* Parahippus,
* Merychippus -- Miocene, 26 MY,
* Pliohippus -- Pliocene, 7 MY,
* Plesippus
* Equus (modern horse).


The earliest of this series, Eohippus, is properly called Hyracotherium. This is not horse-like; it has 4 toes and 18 pairs of ribs, and its feet are padded and dog-like. The next-oldest, Orohippus, had 15 pairs of ribs. Pliohippus had 19 pairs, and the modern Equus has 18 pairs. Does this sound like a genuine series of transitions? Especially not, when we consider that fossils of Eohippus and the modern Equus have been found side by side in surface rocks.


Francis Hitching is a well-known evolutionist, but he criticizes this "horse series." He wrote:. Francis Hitching, "The Neck of the Giraffe -- Where Darwin Went Wrong," (New York: Ticknor and Fields, 1982), pp. 28-30.


"A complete series of horse fossils is not found in any one place in the world arranged in rock strata in the proper evolutionary order from bottom to top. The sequence depends on arranging Old World and New World fossils side by side, and there is considerable dispute as to what order they should go in."


G. A. Kerkut is also an evolutionist who recognizes that the theory has some faults. His main problem with the horse series is that the original fossils are not available -- everything on display is a reproduction, and there's no way of knowing which bones were really found and which were added from imagination. He wrote:. G.A. Kerkut, "The Implications of Evolution," (New York: Pergamon Press, 1960), pp. 141-149.


"At present, however, it is a matter of faith that the textbook pictures are true or even that they are the best representations of the truth that are available to us at the present time. ... It makes quite a difference whether a name on a diagram represents a whole skeleton or just a tooth, ... "


Kerkut refers to the common practice of 'reconstructions' in textbooks and museum displays, where a full image of a presumed ancient creature is based on just a few actual fossil bones.


Ian Taylor sums up his discussion of horse evolution in this way:. Ian T. Taylor, "In The Minds of Men: Darwin and the New World Order," (Toronto: TFE Publishing, 1987), pp. 152-153.


"When all is said and done, however, a row of look-alike fossils cannot be proof that one species changed into another; we cannot be sure that the little rock badger of long ago changed into Orohippus, since it is just as likely that they have always been separate species, one still living, one extinct. ... To put the argument another way, if horses and donkeys were only known by their fossils, they might well be classified as variants within a single species, but the experience of breeders shows that, in fact, they are separate species. Acknowledging all the enormous amount of work that men such as Henry F. Osborn and G.G. Simpson have put into the horse series, the sad fact remains that what has actually been done is to select the fossil data to fit the theory, and this cannot be considered scientific proof."


(emphasis added)


Taylor goes on to quote David Raup, dean of the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago; this museum has one of the largest collections of fossils in the world. Raup wrote:


"Well, we are now about 120 years after Darwin, and the knowledge of the fossil record has been greatly expanded. We now have a quarter of a million fossil species, but the situation hasn't changed much. The record of evolution is still surprisingly jerky, and ironically, we have fewer examples of evolutionary transitions than we had in Darwin's time. By this I mean that some of the classic cases of Darwinian change in the fossil record, such as the evolution of the horse in North America, have had to be discarded or modified as a result of more detailed information ..." David M. Raup, "Conflicts Between Darwin and Paleontology," Field Museum of Natural History Bulletin, January 1979, pg. 25. (Emphasis added)


Paleontologist Niles Eldredge, curator at the American Museum of Natural History and co-author (with Stephen J. Gould) of the Theory of Punctuated Equilibrium, had this reaction when asked about the horse series:. in Harper's Magazine, February, 1985, page 60.


"There have been an awful lot of stories, some more imaginative than others, about what the nature of that history [of life] really is. The most famous example, still on exhibit downstairs, is the exhibit on horse evolution prepared perhaps fifty years ago. That has been presented as the literal truth in textbook after textbook. Now I think that that is lamentable, particularly when the people who propose those kinds of stories may themselves be aware of the speculative nature of some of that stuff." (emphasis added)


And Yet - - -


Now, in spite of the above, we agree that there have been changes in horses since ancient times. These are rather like the differences we see today in domestic dogs -- they go all the way from the tiny Chihuahuas up to Great Danes and beyond. These have been carefully bred for special characteristics, by breeders who understood the workings of genetics. Breeders used 'human selection,' not natural selection. Those various dogs are interfertile, showing that they came from the original created kind. God, the Master Creator, provided an amazing degree of variability in those first 'dog kinds.'


The same thing is true of horses -- we have fossils of several different species of horse. Today we have horses of various sizes -- from the mighty Clydesdale down to miniature horses that people bring into their living rooms. Some of them have even had three toes. Some of these 'odd size' horses have probably been in existence for many centuries, and are very similar to some of the 'ancient' fossil types. Breeders have used intelligent, not natural, selection.


But none of this shows the workings of macro-evolution. In fact, the earliest 'dawn horse,' Eohippus, more properly Hyracotherium, was almost certainly not a horse at all. It was an animal resembling the rock badger. And some of these fossils were found in the same strata as some of the others -- they were contemporaneous species. They must have developed in the same way as the dogs mentioned above. Speciation is an effect provided for by God, the original Creator -- not by naturalistic macro-evolution. And the principle of natural selection is a real effect -- Darwin spoke of this, but it's not a part of evolution.


Despite its many appearances in elementary textbooks, the infamous 'horse series' shows the active imagination of paleontologists more clearly than it shows any sort of evolutionary development of the modern horse.

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As far as your transitional fossils go, I looked at every single entry it listed.

There were 50 listed and out of those 50, only FIVE had even bone fragments. 90% of the "fossils" listed contained nothing more than an artists depiction of what they wanted it to look like.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ichthyornis This appears to be an extinct bird. So what?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiktaalik_roseae And here we have the snout of something. From this snout, and 4 other supposed fin fragments that may or may not belong to the owner of the snout, they drew an entire animal. Don't you see the idiocy in this?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilosaurus This appears to be some sort of whale/barracuda. Now here if you do some further research you can find more complete skeletons. But they lose me when they use a partial skeleton from one of these nasty whales to create 6 skeletons of things it likely evolved into. They found a dead whale with nasty teeth. This does not prove evolution.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archeopteryx Ahh, the famous Archeopteryx.
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“Paleontologists have tried to turn Archaeopteryx into an earth-bound, feathered dinosaur. But it’s not. It is a bird, a perching bird. And no amount of ‘paleobabble’ is going to change that.”

Feduccia, A.; in: V. Morell, Archaeopteryx: Early Bird Catches a Can of Worms, Science 259(5096):764–65, 5 February 1993

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Next?



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_erectus Don't any of you have a very old relative with pronounced eyebrow ridges? I do. That's because that bone in your face never stops growing, and in some rare cases can get a bit ridiculous. If you believe the bible, then some people lived to be 900+ years old. Your eyebrow ridges are going to get pretty ginormous after 900 years or so. Now I realize you're going to focus only on the fact that I just used the bible to make a case for something. But aren't you at all curious as to why so few have ever been found that look like [censored] Erectus? We were supposedly like that for millions of years!



Why won't you just admit that evolution is just as faith-based as creationism? You have shown me nothing but a few bone fragments of extinct animals, and then more links that use those bone fragments to create entirely new animals based on what they feel evolution would have done. This is no better than the whole Nebraska Man fiasco where some overzealous paleontologists found a TOOTH and built an entire man out of it. Then built his WIFE. Then after the fanfare died down, they realized the tooth belonged to a pig. Yeah, good times.

[CrazyEyez]

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that look like [censored] Erectus

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lol science filters

[mason55]

I don't know enough to refute your post, in fact I just found what I found because I was curious about transitional fossils and decided to post it.

One thing I do want to say is that you shouldn't include a quote like

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When all is said and done, however, a row of look-alike fossils cannot be proof that one species changed into another; we cannot be sure that the little rock badger of long ago changed into Orohippus, since it is just as likely that they have always been separate species, one still living, one extinct.

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If you claim that you're willing to accept evidence contrary to your viewpoint if only it were to be presented.

[guids]

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ID is the proposition that certain features of the universe and of living things can be better explained by an intelligent cause rather than natural processes such as natural selection.[1]

Discovery Institute, Center for Science and Culture

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I don't think this is the commonly accepted understanding of ID. I realize it is linguistically possible to reconcile the two, but it seems like quite a reach to say you accept evolution/natural selection and ID. I think religion/belief in god and evolution/natural selection are quite compatible, but ID is essentially (in any instance of it) an attempt to offer an account for a biological organ or process contrary to the currently held scientific view.

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That does not reconcile the two. The quoted definition is directly in opposition to the theory of evolution, and you most certainly cannot believe that that definition is correct AND the ToE is correct. Guids is very wrong here.

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I still fail to see how Im very wrong here. explain in more depth how ID and evolution are mutually exclusive, because Id be interested to hear how much [censored] you can make up.

[guids]

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ID and evolution are not mutually exclusive. Most Christians believe in both.

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really?

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Christians believe in micro-evolution, they dont believe that Man came from monkey.

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Where do you come up with this [censored]? or am I being leveled?

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i thought this was true?

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I was never taught this, and Ive been through about 13 years of catholic school. What was taught to us is that the bible was written by man, and not to be taken literally. There are FUNDAMENTALIST christians that believe it, but thats a fairly small group of people. We I got out of my schooling is that, we evolved, teh science as far as that goes is undeniable, but at some point where science fails to explain where everything came from, there is something higher that created it (ie the begining of the universe or whatever), and thats where faith comes in.


edit: I am under the imression that most christians do not actually believe that we were made from adam and eve

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This is interesting to me. I can't tell what's really being said here, and think that it's one of 2 options.

1. There are holes in the current understanding, and you should have faith that God did it.

2. There are holes in the current understanding, and to avoid making your brain explode just accept that it happened somehow and have faith that it's not some magic.

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This is basically the what im saying duke, and those are your two options. Im personally never giong to be doing any research to find how "everything was made". Im not smart enough, no one on this forum is, so, just in case there is a god, Im going to believe in one, no harm done. I mean, basically all these "atheists" are worshipping a god themselves, they just act condescending about it. There at some point has to be faith that either science can explain the orgins, or faith that there is a god, to me, having faith in god is WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY smarter, I mean look at the consequences, if it turns out the atheists are right, what do you get out of it? You get to whip out your e-penis on a stupid forum and say "look we were right, all you god believers are stupid", and then we have to eat some crow. Big [censored] deal, right?

[mason55]

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so, just in case there is a god, Im going to believe in one, no harm done.

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look up pascal's wager

edit: i'm not commenting on God one way or the other. just saying that that's a silly reason to believe in God. It "does not account for the possibility that there is a God (or gods) who, rather than behaving as stated in certain parts of the Bible, instead rewards skepticism and punishes blind faith, or rewards honest reasoning and punishes feigned faith."

there's a bunch of other flaws in the argument listed in the wiki.

[Inso0]

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How about you try this site instead of 'the first hit when you googled proof for evolution.' What is the first site you get when you google 'ridiculous strawman?'

Really quickly: what exactly separates macroevolution from microevolution, in your mind? I'm curious, because the answer is 'nothing' in my mind, and usually 'vague misconception' in the mind of creationists, but if you could give me a hard and fast description of this barrier to macroevolution up front it would make the argument easier for me. Don't worry, you are still allowed to shift goalposts later on...this is the internet after all. I'm just looking for a starting point. Please refrain from calling them 'kinds.'

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I don't have time right now, but I will definitely read that link. I only browsed the outline and noticed right away some things that are simply false. Most glaring were the "vestiges" such as the pelvic bone in whales and the tailbone in humans.

I can tell you right away that both of those things are FAR from vestigial.

Whales without those bones would find producing baby whales an impossibility. Vestigial? I think not.

And the human coccyx (The tail bone) is anything but useless. Nine very important muscles attach to your coccyx. Muscles without which would make certain bodily functions very, very unpleasant.

But I will definitely read that later this afternoon.


As for your second question: The difference between macro and micro evolution. The difference is monumental.

Micro evolution = dogs, wolves, cyotes, etc evolving from a single ancestor. It was a dog. Micro evolution is simply variation withing the same type of plant or animal. Micro Evolution happens in all things that can mate with each other.

You cannot breed chickens and hamsters. You certainly can breed a golden retriever with a great dane.



Macro evolution = zebras and tarantulas having a common ancestor. According to the theory, it was a fish. Macro Evolution is science fiction, Micro Evolution is reality.

That's how I define the two.

[Subfallen]

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There are very few self-respecting scientists who still believe in the Big Bang.

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Whhaaattt?? In Penrose's chapter on the big bang in Road to Reality, he doesn't mention any other cosmology as even having a noteworthy following. And Penrose is a pretty off-the-beaten-trail sort of physicist.

So what are you basing this on? Also, you need to come to SMP and get your head checked re: evolution. You're way out of touch with reality on this one buddy.

[Inso0]

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I don't know enough to refute your post, in fact I just found what I found because I was curious about transitional fossils and decided to post it.

One thing I do want to say is that you shouldn't include a quote like

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When all is said and done, however, a row of look-alike fossils cannot be proof that one species changed into another; we cannot be sure that the little rock badger of long ago changed into Orohippus, since it is just as likely that they have always been separate species, one still living, one extinct.

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If you claim that you're willing to accept evidence contrary to your viewpoint if only it were to be presented.

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You need to understand the difference between similar creatures, and transitional creatures. All of these "line-ups" are simply creatures that look alike put in some order that was determined by a predisposed hypothesis looking for justification.

That's like saying forks evolved from knives and showing you a picture like this:



Clearly you can see that we started with the knife, but millions of years of evolution turned it into a rounded spoon-like creature that was better adapted at gathering food. But spoons were no good at stabbing. So, by lucky roll of the dice, the SPORK was born! A few sporks developed a 4th tine due to random genetic mutations and these were found to be superior so all the 3 tined sporks died out due to starvation. More mutations and our spork tines grew longer, and more able to stab and hold struggling prey. Millions of years later after much refinement, we finally had the fork! A perfect food stabbing machine.

[JussiUt]

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This is basically the what im saying duke, and those are your two options. Im personally never giong to be doing any research to find how "everything was made". Im not smart enough, no one on this forum is, so, just in case there is a god, Im going to believe in one, no harm done. I mean, basically all these "atheists" are worshipping a god themselves, they just act condescending about it. There at some point has to be faith that either science can explain the orgins, or faith that there is a god, to me, having faith in god is WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY smarter, I mean look at the consequences, if it turns out the atheists are right, what do you get out of it? You get to whip out your e-penis on a stupid forum and say "look we were right, all you god believers are stupid", and then we have to eat some crow. Big [censored] deal, right?

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This is dangerously sliding into a thread belonging to 'Science, Math & Philosophy'. But I still have to say that you must be leveling me, right? Nobody can believe in God just because it's "safer"? And how are all "atheists" worshipping God itself? I can't understand why it is so hard for people to admit that there are million things that we don't know about this world and why do they have to fill that hole with a bunch of speculation/nonsense/belief/religion whatever you wanna call it. Nobody knows how the universe/time began. Basically it's the same as telling the exact ending point of infinity.

This has to be an American thing because I have never ever bumped into people in Europe in so vast numbers who a) debate whether Evolution is real at all b) have so many misconceptions about atheism.