Nicki wrote:Audie wrote:
A reseracer seldom speaks of "facts" in the sense people usually do.
"It is a fact that this is my data" is about all one could get from any of them.
A great quantity of data may sometimes provide enough information to bring forth
a theory that explains it all in a coherent way, and allows for predictions based on
the data so presented. Theories are terrifically useful.
Of course, if an exception is found, the theory may be expanded and improved, or it may have to
be discarded altogether. Disproved. Like in court; they can show all the "facts" they
like, but if you can prove you were having tea with the Queen in England while
the murder was taking place in Capetown, well, the prosecution theory is disproved.
Earlier I pointed out that nobody has ever discovered any exception to ToE.
Nothing anywhere to show it false.
Let that sink in a bit. Do you see any significance to it?
Sorry to rewind but - the trouble is that evolution is often presented as established fact - a lot of people would get the impression that scientists know that a particular species appeared however many million years ago, for example, having evolved from something else.
Evolution is an established fact. Even creationists realize that, tho they timidly will only
allow for "micro" evolution.
If you mean the THEORY of evolution, presting a theory as a fact is bonkers. Who does that?
Such impressions as people get, from a shallow and disinterested viewpoint has nothing whatever to do with the validity of the science.
Speaking of appear, that's a funny word to use - how can a species just appear?
I'd not suggest getting too hung up on equivocation. The bible speaks of "kinds', and endless nonsense results.
Organisms dont just "appear". That is of course a creationist belief, but ..well, never mind that.
Certainly a paleontologist would never state nor imply that any organism simply appeared, poof.
There is in the USA a certain odd antelope, Syndyocerous, known from a single specimen found on a hillside in western Nebraska. Should one then feel it is the only one that ever existed? Many a dinosaur or other creature is known from a single bone. Should we then conclude that only that one bone ever existed, and simply appeared there? The Romans actually held to such a view.
You might like to sally forth, and look for a male and female Syndyocerous, some juveniles of every age. Nobody has ever found a juvenile. Should we infer there were none?
I will hazard a guess that you could could spend the rest of your life walking about looking at the ground, and never find a Syndyocerous, not a bone or a piece of one.
Paleontology is not richly funded. There are not swarms of people out there scouring the earth. For every fossil recovered, innumerable others weather out of the ground, disintegrate and are lost forever. Vastly more are simply buried. Do you know where to look?
You might think of it something like finding here and there single images from a movie film.
If evolution was true there should be many, many transitional creatures between the distinct species.
It would be helpful if you said what you mean by "distinct species'. For example, the coyote and the wolf are distinct species, are they? Did one evolve from the other, should there be intermediate forms?
There are in fact a great many fossils of plants and animals that show steps transitional between, say, purely aquatic fish, ones that are capable of breathing air and moving out of the water, and creatures that are very clunky by today's standards, but were the big tough predators on land, of their day.
Do you want every single frame of the movie in order to see a pattern?
Any species could be just a dot along the evolutionary line, although some would stick around longer than others, I suppose.
Not sure what you mean, but some sorts of plants or animals have remained largely unchanged for many many millions of years. Yes, I used the word 'sorts".
I went looking online for transitional forms - there were two ancestors of modern whales illustrated, one with nostrils at the end of its nose and the other with them halfway up, then the whale with its nostrils at the top
.
Ok three data points. How many is enough?
"Online" is a blessing and a curse. Many people evidently feel that is all there is.
Vertebrate anatomy is a deep and difficult field, my one semester foray into
it, a 400 level pre med course sure taught me that. You wont get much of it by surfing.
Whales by their nature are seldom fossilized, and a good history of their development is improbable.
Still, one has a couple of data points on them. What do you suppose these creatures
adapted to an aquatic if not fully pelagic lifestyle actually were? No chance at all that, despite the present lack of fossils, data points to work with, they could have been whale ancestors? They just appeared, disappeared, and meant nothing?
Did the nostrils jump suddenly from one position to another (perhaps a mutation with one creature luckily meeting and mating with another with the same mutation) or should there be many transitional forms with the nostrils at various positions in between
No, there is no "jumping'. I dont know why creationists are so determined to use that word.
You are asking too much of the currently underfunded and effort, and the few data points that it has been possible to go out and collect.
(funding-wise, a single dinosaur bone from field to museum can easily cost a thousand dollars, sometimes far far more)
You have two or three data points with nostrils found in different situations.
(Actually, not so different; the same bones are involved, the change is in the relative size and shape of the bones.)
A far better creature to look at is the horse. There is an abundance of fossil material, and
the succession of changes in the teeth, feet etc is very well documented. Sure, there are still gaps; fewer and fewer as years go by but a complete history will never exist.
You could reject the Theory of WW2 on the same basis, of course. No complete history; gaps and mysteries abound.
What you will not find in ToE, unlike the history of WW2, is contradictions.
You also will not find any proof that either of them is false.
You spoke of "if evolution were true" and then imposed conditions of your own design.
Lets turn it around. If evolution is false, then surely it is massively false, completely wrong.
Any theory that is massively wrong should not be so immune to disproof.
Why has nobody ever found datum pint one that is contrary to ToE?