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Posted: Mon Apr 04, 2005 8:41 pm
by AttentionKMartShoppers
This sea of evidence for evolution you are imagining never existed...Darwin floated his boat on a sea of ignorance and a lack of understanding of genetics (Mendel was a contemporary, and his work hadn't been heard of...and the trend has continued when it comes to evolution....stories are substitutes for science.
This book you are reading seems to contain just the typical and unoriginal misconception and deceptions of the anti-evolutionist movement. No different from the moon landing conspiracy theorists who write books about how NASA didn't land on the moon and how all the experts are lying. Its just denial of amid a sea of evidence.
That's ironic, considering the fact he usually quotes the evolutionist.
The footprints are natural features in the rock that exist in that area. All someone has done is found ones that look more like footprints like finding shapes in clouds. Some of the indents have even been deliberately tampered with to look more foot like.
And these "fossils" are natural features in the rock doctored to look like bones, and JFK wasn't shot, he works in Russia now, and the sky is PURPLE! (Just so you can get a taste at what you're rambling on about me).

Posted: Mon Apr 04, 2005 9:06 pm
by August
Then I see various intermediates between them. I see no distinct barrier between the two groups - no gaps. So why is it that all these anti-evolutionist organistions claim there is a distinct barrier and gaps between ape and human with no intermediatery fossil forms?
Because the dates don't line up with the skull details....

WILLIAM A. DEMBSKI:
"The fossil record contains several extinct species within the genus Homo:
most recently Homo neanderthalensis (the Neanderthals); then Homo
erectus; and, going even further back, Homo habilis. Each of these had
many distinctly human characteristics (for instance, the ability to make
tools whose sophistication far exceeds any tools employed by apes). And
yet, there is no clear genealogical evidence demonstrating the evolution
from Homo Habilis to Homo erectus to Homo neanderthalensis to
ourselves, Homo sapiens. To be sure, there are similarities. Homo
neanderthalensis is, by any criterion (anatomical, physiological, cultural)
closer to Homo sapiens than Homo erectus, and the same goes for Homo
erectus in relation to Homo habilis. At best, this shows that if humans
evolved, then the common ancestor of Homo sapiens and Homo
neanderthalensis is more recent than the common ancestor of Homo
sapiens and Homo erectus. And this common ancestor, in turn, is more
recent than the common ancestor of Homo sapiens and Homo habilis. But
such an argument presupposes rather than establishes that humans
evolved.
The same problem recurs when we try to argue for human evolution at
the genus level. The usual date for the formation of our genus, Homo, is
about 2.5 million years (Homo habilis and Homo rudolfensis get the ball
rolling). Moreover, the usual date at which the line leading to our genus,
Homo, is said to have diverged from the line leading to our closest ape
cousins, the chimpanzees, is at least 5 million years. In the interim are the
Australopithecines, which constitute an extinct genus within the
Hominidae. There's Australopithecus anamensis (circa 4 million years
ago), Australopithecus afarensis (circa 3.5 million years ago), and
Australopithecus africanus (circa 2.5 million years ago). As before, one
can argue on the basis of structural similarity in the fossil record that our
common ancestor with Australopithecus africanus is more recent than our
common ancestor with Australopithecus afarensis, and that this common
ancestor, in turn, is more recent than our common ancestor with
Australopithecus anamensis. But, again, this reasoning is based on the
assumption that humans evolved in the first place. Structural similarity, as
exhibited in the fossil record, is by itself not enough to establish this."

Posted: Mon Apr 04, 2005 9:12 pm
by AttentionKMartShoppers
But, again, this reasoning is based on the
assumption that humans evolved in the first place. Structural similarity, as
exhibited in the fossil record, is by itself not enough to establish this."
YES! Finally-I've been trying to recall something like that off and on....needed that.

I like august, he's so verbose...so even if he were to be horribly wrong, he could drown you in words.

Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2005 7:36 am
by Felgar
AttentionKMartShoppers wrote: YES! Finally-I've been trying to recall something like that off and on....needed that.

I like august, he's so verbose...so even if he were to be horribly wrong, he could drown you in words.
LOL... Hey, all good debaters have that characteristic. :D

Great post btw, August.

Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2005 10:25 am
by BobSmith
This sea of evidence for evolution you are imagining never existed...Darwin floated his boat on a sea of ignorance and a lack of understanding of genetics
So that's your response to the evidence I presented? You claimed Australopithecus was just a "pigmy chimpanzee". I showed that to be far from the truth. Obviously you must realise that claim was wrong so you have decided to just hand-wave it away and move on to your next claim.
And these "fossils" are natural features in the rock doctored to look like bones, and JFK wasn't shot, he works in Russia now, and the sky is PURPLE! (Just so you can get a taste at what you're rambling on about me).
You are the one denying the fossil record not me. As for the man prints:
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/ ... paluxy.htm
Paleontologists who examined the Paluxy "man prints" have without exception declared them to be nothing more than partially-registered dinosaur tracks, natural depressions, or, in some instances, deliberate forgeries carved by local residents to sell to tourists. These were also the conclusions reached by biologist Glen Kuban in 1980, as well as another group of scientists in 1984, which included physicist Ronnie Hastings, geologist Steven Schaferman, anthropologist John Cole and physical anthropologist Laurie Godfrey

Descriptions of the Paluxy prints indicate that they range in size from around 11 inches to over 20 inches, and average about 15 inches.

The length of a human foot is equal to approximately 1/6.6 of the height, so if we have the length of the footprint, we can calculate the height of the person by multiplying this by 6.6 . (People who doubt this can easily get a ruler and try it on themselves.) A human being with 15 inch feet, therefore, would be approximately eight foot three inches tall. A human being with 11-inch feet would be a bit over six feet tall, and a human with 20 inch footprints would be about eleven feet tall. If these footprints are human, they are damn awful BIG humans.
If you want to believe they are genuine then come up with some evidence that they are. Because everything I look at online leads me to believe they are not actual footprints.

But, again, this reasoning is based on the
assumption that humans evolved in the first place. Structural similarity, as
exhibited in the fossil record, is by itself not enough to establish this."
here is a review:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/blog.html#dembski
According to the abstract: "This paper reviews the main lines of evidence used to confirm such a materialist view of human evolution and finds them inadequate." One might think that the main evidence is the fossil evidence, but Dembski handwaves that away in little more than a page.
Dembski even admits that the fossils show a sequence of species which become more and more different from modern humans the further back in time we go. One might think that this is pretty convincing, but no, according to Dembski "this reasoning is based on the assumption that humans evolved in the first place". Uhh? All right, let's not assume evolution. How else does one explain such a pattern? If Intelligent Design can make any sense of it, Dembski certainly isn't letting on.
This is entirely true. Dembski on one hand is admitting that there is the linear change over time from ape to human characteristics that evolution expects, and then he claims that this isn't evidence for evolution.

Sorry but unless he can come up with a better explaination for why the fossils are in that order, its too much of a coincidence that fossils would be in that order by chance.

Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2005 12:12 pm
by Felgar
BobSmith wrote:Sorry but unless he can come up with a better explaination for why the fossils are in that order, its too much of a coincidence that fossils would be in that order by chance.
Too much of a coincidence? This is hillarious coming from someone who can accept that a living thing, complete with DNA and the means to replicate must have spontaneously formed in a brew of amino acids.

Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2005 12:15 pm
by bizzt
Felgar wrote:
BobSmith wrote:Sorry but unless he can come up with a better explaination for why the fossils are in that order, its too much of a coincidence that fossils would be in that order by chance.
Too much of a coincidence? This is hillarious coming from someone who can accept that a living thing, complete with DNA and the means to replicate must have spontaneously formed in a brew of amino acids.
I was not going to jump into this debate but that Is so True!!!

Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2005 4:33 pm
by BobSmith
Felgar wrote:
BobSmith wrote:Sorry but unless he can come up with a better explaination for why the fossils are in that order, its too much of a coincidence that fossils would be in that order by chance.
Too much of a coincidence? This is hillarious coming from someone who can accept that a living thing, complete with DNA and the means to replicate must have spontaneously formed in a brew of amino acids.
No I don't accept that actually. Do you have another crazy analogy you would like to accuse me of believing?

Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2005 5:15 pm
by August
This is entirely true. Dembski on one hand is admitting that there is the linear change over time from ape to human characteristics that evolution expects, and then he claims that this isn't evidence for evolution.

Sorry but unless he can come up with a better explaination for why the fossils are in that order, its too much of a coincidence that fossils would be in that order by chance.
The point is that there is no proof that any of those fossils evolved from the previous, unless you have the presupposition that it did. And even if it did, the dating of those fossils does not correspond with the order required for it to satisfy the supposed evolutionary path, so they are not in "that order".

Why don't you tell us what will be sufficient proof to you that evolution is untrue?

Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2005 5:32 pm
by AttentionKMartShoppers
So that's your response to the evidence I presented? You claimed Australopithecus was just a "pigmy chimpanzee". I showed that to be far from the truth. Obviously you must realise that claim was wrong so you have decided to just hand-wave it away and move on to your next claim.
Sorry for not agreeing with your talkorgins.fullofcrap.org. And that's not a "sea of evidence" unless you're a really really small person :wink:
You are the one denying the fossil record not me.
I don't deny the fossil record-I just think it's obvious proof of a global flood, not evolution.
If you want to believe they are genuine then come up with some evidence that they are. Because everything I look at online leads me to believe they are not actual footprints.
Yes, but if you're good at typing in your search well....you'll only find stuff backing you up.
This is entirely true. Dembski on one hand is admitting that there is the linear change over time from ape to human characteristics that evolution expects, and then he claims that this isn't evidence for evolution.
Good for his error. I really like being reminded of those drawings of apes hunched over, eventually walking normal...especially when all of them (unless you wish to hold to your australopithicus) are not transitions.

Sorry but unless he can come up with a better explaination for why the fossils are in that order, its too much of a coincidence that fossils would be in that order by chance.
In the entire world, the geological column exists fully in only, I recall, .04% of the world (India, US, Northern Europe)....most areas lack several, and in many places, layers are in the wrong order....and mountains are upside down!

And more stuff, since I remembered this place. Your fossil record is not clear cut like the textbooks say....they leave out the problems... 8)

Feet- http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebo ... #wp1434426
http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebo ... #wp1260319
http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebo ... #wp1060129
26. Ape-Men?
For over a century, studies of skulls and teeth have produced unreliable conclusions about man's origin.a Also, fossil evidence alleged to demonstrate human evolution is fragmentary and open to various interpretations. Fossil evidence showing the evolution of chimpanzees, supposedly the closest living relative to humans, is nonexistent.b
...
<snip>

http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebo ... #wp1013067
26. Ape-Men?
a
. “... existing phylogenetic hypotheses about human evolution [based on skulls and teeth] are unlikely to be reliable.” Mark Collard and Bernard Wood, “How Reliable Are Human Phylogenetic Hypotheses?” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 97, No. 9, 25 April 2000, p. 5003.
...
<snip>
http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebo ... #wp1013067

http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebo ... #wp1012858
23. Fossil Gaps
a
. “But, as by this theory innumerable transitional forms must have existed, why do we not find them imbedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth?” Darwin, The Origin of Species, p. 163.
...
<snip>
I know I used this site for other stuff, but mastermind, don't bash me...

Have fun Smith? :wink:

Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2005 8:21 pm
by BobSmith
August wrote:The point is that there is no proof that any of those fossils evolved from the previous, unless you have the presupposition that it did. And even if it did, the dating of those fossils does not correspond with the order required for it to satisfy the supposed evolutionary path, so they are not in "that order".
The dating does correspond with the order required for it to satisfy the supposed evolutionary path. That is the entire point and that is the evidence.

The theory of evolution is a model of how life changed over time. That model predicts that humans had ape-like ancestors and we should see human features appearing over time. Then they find old fossils that have both ape and human features. Furthermore the fossils get more human as the date gets more recent. This is data that is very specific to what evolution expects. It simply cannot be much better than that.

You say "there is no proof that any of those fossils evolved from the previous". True there isn't - you can't get proof without a time machine. But without that you can get evidence that is beyond reasonable doubt.

Evolution is a model that explains the pattern of the fossil record. I don't mean it explains the existance of the fossil record - I mean it explains the *pattern* of the fossil record. Like why certain forms are found in certain orders. There is no other theory that does that and the evolution model continues to make correct predictions about finding intermediatery forms in certain areas before they are found.

I don't understand what you are demanding of the fossil record to be evidence for evolution. What you seem to be suggesting is that no matter what the fossil record looked like it would never be evidence for evolution ever.
Why don't you tell us what will be sufficient proof to you that evolution is untrue?
A rabbit fossil in the cambrian.
Or any modern creature in the cambrian in fact.

Now you tell me what fossil find you would accept as evidence of evolution. What would it look like?

Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2005 8:36 pm
by Mastermind
Typical YEC tactic: when not knowing much about the issue, carped bomb your opponent with "facts"

Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2005 9:06 pm
by BobSmith
AttentionKMartShoppers wrote:I don't deny the fossil record-I just think it's obvious proof of a global flood, not evolution.
What exactly does this flood hypothesis predict about the order of fossils in the fossil record then? Can it be used to predict what future fossil finds will look like?

So far there have been no modern mammal fossils found in the cambrian. What mechanism does the flood hypothesis present for explaining this? Would finding a rabbit fossil in the cambrian disprove the flood hypothesis?

If not what fossil find would disprove the flood hypothesis?

(If the flood hypothesis isn't science then I appologise and retract the questions)
I really like being reminded of those drawings of apes hunched over, eventually walking normal...especially when all of them (unless you wish to hold to your australopithicus) are not transitions.
That is a popular image, not a scientific image. It's like the phrase "missing link". That is a popular phrase that became popular with the media. It is not a scientific phrase and is meaningless scientifically.
In the entire world, the geological column exists fully in only, I recall, .04% of the world (India, US, Northern Europe)....most areas lack several, and in many places, layers are in the wrong order....and mountains are upside down!
That isn't a problem. In some areas a layer or two may be missing due to erosion and plate distortion, but this can be seen by comparing it to neighbouring layers. I know very little about geology but have heard geologists explaining the geological column. I believe it was figured out before evolution was even proposed (before you claim that layers are an evil product of evolution or something).

I am not going to wade through that entire copy-paste argument. But I will point out some parts that I think you will recognise from earlier:
Likewise, their [australopitheceus] pattern of dental development corresponds to chimpanzees, not humans.
This has to be a joke surely. Please go and look at the skull photos I linked to on the last page. Please try and make any coherent argument that australopithecine teeth look more chimpanzee like than human. What you have here is a source of information you are using that is just spewing out unsubstantiated claims that are demonstratably wrong (talkorigins you might have noticed actually sources scientific papers - the site you are uses sources nothing so how exactly do you know their reasoning is correct on anything they say?). They hope that by churning out information ever-so-quickly noone will notice the lack of support.
One australopithecine fossil—a 31/2-foot-tall, long-armed, 60-pound adult called “Lucy”—was initially presented as evidence that all australopithecines walked upright in a human manner. However, studies of Lucy's entire anatomy, not just a knee joint, now show this is very unlikely. She probably swung from the treesp and was similar to pygmy chimpanzees.
This is so totally and utterly wrong its bizzare. First of all notice they don't tell you the names of the people who did the studies or anything about the "studies" at all. How can you believe this un-sourced mess? They might as well be saying "however studies of the world have shown it is very flat and not round at all". Would you buy that too?

The fact is that the consensus of paeleontologists around the world who have studied lucy (and I challenge you to find one who doesn't agree) is that lucy walked upright. The femur, the knee joint and the spine-skull intersection show this. You can find the scientific reasoning for this conclusion quite easily online.
For about 100 years the world was led to believe Neanderthal man was stooped and apelike. This erroneous belief was based upon some Neanderthals with bone diseases such as arthritis and rickets
Nope this is not true either. It is the mainstream media who get it wrong (as they usually do with evolution) by portraying neandertal as a hairy stooped ape. Scientists knew full well that Neandertal had a more robust frame than even we have (they had the actual fossils to study). The media and most of the public has a cartoon view of evolution that is quite wrongsuch as the false idea of a "ladder of evolution".
Neanderthal man, Heidelberg man, and Cro-Magnon man are now considered completely human.
Cro-magnon man is an ancient homo-sapien - our recent ancestors, so is Heidelberg man. They were *never* said to be old ape-like ancestors. They are very slightly different to man today - very slightly. The only real difference is that they were found in old rock (a few hundred thousand years ago perhaps). Neandertal is comparitively very different. Neandertal is not an anceestor - it is a cousin. It might have even lived alongside cro-magnon man I can't remember. Neandertal man as I have already covered, is a sub-species of homo-sapien. The distortion in this article sure is thick.
Artists depictions of them, especially of their fleshy portions, are often quite imaginative and are not supported by the evidence
Artists depictions have nothing to do with science.


Sigh and here comes the quote-mining. The thing about evolutonist quotes is that anti-evolutionist sources tend to fabricate many of them, take them out of context, or modify them for their own ends. So I cannot trust any quote in this fashion without a reference to the original source so I can check none of the above has taken place.

If you don't believe me check this out: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/quotes/ ... tents.html

Considering that millions of papers on evolution are published every year and that entire libraries could be filled with all the papers written in the last 150, it is not suprising that anyone who looks hard enough can find paragraphs that support their position. As you said earlier:

if you're good at typing in your search well....you'll only find stuff backing you up.

here is an example quote of a well known scientist venting his fustration at being on the recieving end of this tactic:
since we proposed punctuated equilibrium to explain trends, it is infuriating to be quoted again and again by creationists - whether through design or stupidity, I do not know - as admitting that the fossil record includes no transitional forms. Transitional forms are generally lacking at the species level but are abundant between larger groups."Gould, S.J. (1983)

Posted: Wed Apr 06, 2005 12:01 am
by Felgar
BobSmith wrote:
Felgar wrote:Too much of a coincidence? This is hillarious coming from someone who can accept that a living thing, complete with DNA and the means to replicate must have spontaneously formed in a brew of amino acids.
No I don't accept that actually. Do you have another crazy analogy you would like to accuse me of believing?
Ok then; I assumed you adhere to what I perceive to be the standard evolutionist theory about how the first life began - my mistake.

The point is that at some time in the past, something that was inert matter must necessarily have started living. Living entails reproduction (no mechanism for evolution to work if there is no reproduction) and it also entails functional DNA (most likely) because every living thing we know of has DNA. So then, what is you own personal belief about how that inert matter became alive for the very first time?

Posted: Wed Apr 06, 2005 6:19 am
by Anonymous
Felgar wrote:
BobSmith wrote:
Felgar wrote:Too much of a coincidence? This is hillarious coming from someone who can accept that a living thing, complete with DNA and the means to replicate must have spontaneously formed in a brew of amino acids.
No I don't accept that actually. Do you have another crazy analogy you would like to accuse me of believing?
Ok then; I assumed you adhere to what I perceive to be the standard evolutionist theory about how the first life began - my mistake.

And just what is the 'standard' evolutionisty theory about how the first life began?

You do realize, do you not, that how the first life began is not even part of the Theory of Evolution?