Scientists hope to eventually "see" big bang as we develop more powerful telescopes (the further you see, the further back in time you see since light would have needed more time to travel the greater distance).
I respect your right to hold this as your truth, but when I see remarks like this, it doesn't surprise me that we are falling behind the rest of the world in science because what you believe in is anti-science you reject what the scientific method has produced over the past couple hundred of years - there is no other way you can believe in a literal Genesis - there was a time when the world did reject science and followed the Bible as its only text - the Dark Ages, when human suffering was great and we made next to zero progress to ease that suffering
If you had said gravity theory and origins theory I'm with you. Gravity is 100% fact, gravitational theory tries to explain why and how. Origins is 100% fact not evolution.
Please list just fifty of the billions of transitional species that can be observed in evolution. The ones that are evolving over millions of years, gradually. I don't know of even ONE species that has any evidence of evolutionary transition. There are like species (the Bible calls them kinds) but just connect the dots of say birds or mammals or man. If you take a snapshot in time, like today, and evolution is not falsifiable then you will observe billions, maybe trillions of species evolving in transition. To expect otherwise falsifies the theory. So start listing those species that are missing links- their must be millions you can list if evolution of species is observable. I can't even think of one in the fossil record.
rhester, you're killing me. I want to stop posting on this stinkin' topic but your posts are so wrong and your arguments are tantamount to a strawman.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section1.html#morphological_intermediates That link shows 5 different cases of transitional species, including two of one 'kind' to another. (Reptile -> Bird, Reptile -> Mammal) I'm not sure what you are saying with:
An ex-girlfriend once wondered aloud if I was an example of the missing links between humans and badgers. I'm not sure what she meant by that, but nonetheless, I would like to submit myself as proof of evolution.
Claim CC200: There are no transitional fossils. Evolution predicts a continuum between each fossil organism and its ancestors. Instead, we see systematic gaps in the fossil record. Source: Morris, Henry M., 1974. Scientific Creationism, Green Forest, AR: Master Books, pp. 78-90. Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, 1985. Life--How Did It Get Here? Brooklyn, NY, pp. 57-59. Response: 1. There are many transitional fossils. The only way that the claim of their absence may be remotely justified, aside from ignoring the evidence completely, is to redefine "transitional" as referring to a fossil that is a direct ancestor of one organism and a direct descendant of another. However, direct lineages are not required; they could not be verified even if found. What a transitional fossil is, in keeping with what the theory of evolution predicts, is a fossil that shows a mosaic of features from an older and more recent organism. 2. Transitional fossils may coexist with gaps. We do not expect to find finely detailed sequences of fossils lasting for millions of years. Nevertheless, we do find several fine gradations of fossils between species and genera, and we find many other sequences between higher taxa that are still very well filled out. The following are fossil transitions between species and genera: 1. Human ancestry. There are many fossils of human ancestors, and the differences between species are so gradual that it is not always clear where to draw the lines between them. 2. The horns of titanotheres (extinct Cenozoic mammals) appear in progressively larger sizes, from nothing to prominence. Other head and neck features also evolved. These features are adaptations for head-on ramming analogous to sheep behavior (Stanley 1974). 3. A gradual transitional fossil sequence connects the foraminifera Globigerinoides trilobus and Orbulina universa (Pearson et al. 1997). O. universa, the later fossil, features a spherical test surrounding a "Globigerinoides-like" shell, showing that a feature was added, not lost. The evidence is seen in all major tropical ocean basins. Several intermediate morphospecies connect the two species, as may be seen in the figure included in Lindsay (1997). 4. The fossil record shows transitions between species of Phacops (a trilobite; Phacops rana is the Pennsylvania state fossil; Eldredge 1972; 1974; Strapple 1978). 5. Planktonic forminifera (Malmgren et al. 1984). This is an example of punctuated gradualism. A ten-million-year foraminifera fossil record shows long periods of stasis and other periods of relatively rapid but still gradual morphologic change. 6. Fossils of the diatom Rhizosolenia are very common (they are mined as diatomaceous earth), and they show a continuous record of almost two million years which includes a record of a speciation event (Miller 1999, 44-45). 7. Lake Turkana mollusc species (Lewin 1981). 8. Cenozoic marine ostracodes (Cronin 1985). 9. The Eocene primate genus Cantius (Gingerich 1976, 1980, 1983). 10. Scallops of the genus Chesapecten show gradual change in one "ear" of their hinge over about 13 million years. The ribs also change (Pojeta and Springer 2001; Ward and Blackwelder 1975). 11. Gryphaea (coiled oysters) become larger and broader but thinner and flatter during the Early Jurassic (Hallam 1968). The following are fossil transitionals between families, orders, and classes: 1. Human ancestry. Australopithecus, though its leg and pelvis bones show it walked upright, had a bony ridge on the forearm, probably vestigial, indicative of knuckle walking (Richmond and Strait 2000). 2. Dinosaur-bird transitions. 3. Haasiophis terrasanctus is a primitive marine snake with well-developed hind limbs. Although other limbless snakes might be more ancestral, this fossil shows a relationship of snakes with limbed ancestors (Tchernov et al. 2000). Pachyrhachis is another snake with legs that is related to Haasiophis (Caldwell and Lee 1997). 4. The jaws of mososaurs are also intermediate between snakes and lizards. Like the snake's stretchable jaws, they have highly flexible lower jaws, but unlike snakes, they do not have highly flexible upper jaws. Some other skull features of mososaurs are intermediate between snakes and primitive lizards (Caldwell and Lee 1997; Lee et al. 1999; Tchernov et al. 2000). 5. Transitions between mesonychids and whales. 6. Transitions between fish and tetrapods. 7. Transitions from condylarths (a kind of land mammal) to fully aquatic modern manatees. In particular, Pezosiren portelli is clearly a sirenian, but its hind limbs and pelvis are unreduced (Domning 2001a, 2001b). The following are fossil transitionals between kingdoms and phyla: 1. The Cambrian fossils Halkiera and Wiwaxia have features that connect them with each other and with the modern phyla of Mollusca, Brachiopoda, and Annelida. In particular, one species of halkieriid has brachiopod-like shells on the dorsal side at each end. This is seen also in an immature stage of the living brachiopod species Neocrania. It has setae identical in structure to polychaetes, a group of annelids. Wiwaxia and Halkiera have the same basic arrangement of hollow sclerites, an arrangement that is similar to the chaetae arrangement of polychaetes. The undersurface of Wiwaxia has a soft sole like a mollusk's foot, and its jaw looks like a mollusk's mouth. Aplacophorans, which are a group of primitive mollusks, have a soft body covered with spicules similar to the sclerites of Wiwaxia (Conway Morris 1998, 185-195). 2. Cambrian and Precambrain fossils Anomalocaris and Opabinia are transitional between arthropods and lobopods. 3. An ancestral echinoderm has been found that is intermediate between modern echinoderms and other deuterostomes (Shu et al. 2004). Links: Hunt, Kathleen. 1994-1997. Transitional vertebrate fossils FAQ. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html Miller, Keith B. n.d. Taxonomy, transitional forms, and the fossil record. http://www.asa3.org/ASA/resources/Miller.html Patterson, Bob. 2002. Transitional fossil species and modes of speciation. http://www.origins.tv/darwin/transitionals.htm Thompson, Tim. 1999. On creation science and transitional fossils. http://www.tim-thompson.com/trans-fossils.html References: 1. Caldwell, M. W. and M. S. Y. Lee, 1997. A snake with legs from the marine Cretaceous of the Middle East. Nature 386: 705-709. 2. Conway Morris, Simon, 1998. The Crucible of Creation, Oxford University Press. 3. Cronin, T. M., 1985. Speciation and stasis in marine ostracoda: climatic modulation of evolution. Science 227: 60-63. 4. Domning, Daryl P., 2001a. The earliest known fully quadupedal sirenian. Nature 413: 625-627. 5. Domning, Daryl P., 2001b. New "intermediate form" ties seacows firmly to land. Reports of the National Center for Science Education 21(5-6): 38-42. 6. Eldredge, Niles, 1972. Systematics and evolution of Phacops rana (Green, 1832) and Phacops iowensis Delo, 1935 (Trilobita) from the Middle Devonian of North America. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 147(2): 45-114. 7. Eldredge, Niles, 1974. Stability, diversity, and speciation in Paleozoic epeiric seas. Journal of Paleontology 48(3): 540-548. 8. Gingerich, P. D., 1976. Paleontology and phylogeny: Patterns of evolution of the species level in early Tertiary mammals. American Journal of Science 276(1): 1-28. 9. Gingerich, P. D., 1980. Evolutionary patterns in early Cenozoic mammals. Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences 8: 407-424. 10. Gingerich, P. D., 1983. Evidence for evolution from the vertebrate fossil record. Journal of Geological Education 31: 140-144. 11. Hallam, A., 1968. Morphology, palaeoecology and evolution of the genus Gryphaea in the British Lias. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B 254: 91-128. 12. Lee, Michael S. Y., Gorden L. Bell Jr. and Michael W. Caldwell, 1999. The origin of snake feeding. Nature 400: 655-659. 13. Lewin, R., 1981. No gap here in the fossil record. Science 214: 645-646. 14. Lindsay, Don, 1997. A smooth fossil transition: Orbulina, a foram. http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/creation/orbulina.html 15. Malmgren, B. A., W. A. Berggren and G. P. Lohmann, 1984. Species formation through punctuated gradualism in planktonic foraminifera. Science 225: 317-319. 16. Miller, Kenneth R., 1999. Finding Darwin's God. New York: HarperCollins. 17. Pearson, P. N., N. J. Shackleton and M. A. Hall. 1997. Stable isotopic evidence for the sympatric divergence of Globigerinoides trilobus and Orbulina universa (planktonic foraminifera). Journal of the Geological Society, London 154: 295-302. 18. Richmond B. G. and D. S. Strait, 2000. Evidence that humans evolved from a knuckle-walking ancestor. Nature 404: 382-385. See also Collard, M. and L. C. Aiello, 2000. From forelimbs to two legs. Nature 404: 339-340. 19. Shu, D.-G. et al., 2004. Ancestral echinoderms from the Chengjiang deposits of China. Nature 430: 422-428. 20. Stanley, Steven M., 1974. Relative growth of the titanothere horn: A new approach to an old problem. Evolution 28: 447-457. 21. Strapple, R. R., 1978. Tracing three trilobites. Earth Science 31(4): 149-152. 22. Tchernov, E. et al., 2000. A fossil snake with limbs. Science 287: 2010-2012. See also Greene, H. W. and D. Cundall, 2000. Limbless tetrapods and snakes with legs. Science 287: 1939-1941. 23. Ward, L. W. and B. W. Blackwelder, 1975. Chesapecten, A new genus of Pectinidae (Mollusca: Bivalvia) from the Miocene and Pliocene of eastern North America. U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 861. Further Reading: Cohn, Martin J. and Cheryll Tickle. 1999. Developmental basis of limblessness and axial patterning in snakes. Nature 399: 474-479. (technical) Cuffey, Clifford A. 2001. The fossil record: Evolution or "scientific creation". http://www.gcssepm.org/special/cuffey_00.htm or http://www.nogs.org/cuffeyart.html Elsberry, Wesley R. 1995. Transitional fossil challenge. http://www.rtis.com/nat/user/elsberry/evobio/evc/argresp/tranform.html Godfrey, L. R. 1983. Creationism and gaps in the fossil record. In: Godfrey, L. R. (ed.), Scientists Confront Creationism, New York: W. W. Norton, pp. 193-218. Morton, Glenn R. 2000. Phylum level evolution. http://home.entouch.net/dmd/cambevol.htm Pojeta, John Jr. and Dale A. Springer. 2001. Evolution and the Fossil Record, Alexandria, VA: American Geological Institute, http://www.agiweb.org/news/spot_06apr01_evolutionbk.htm , http://www.agiweb.org/news/evolution.pdf , pg. 2. Strahler, Arthur N. 1987. Science and Earth History, Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, pp. 398-400. Zimmer, Carl. 2000. In search of vertebrate origins: Beyond brain and bone. Science 287: 1576-1579. Claim CC201: If evolution proceeds via the accumulation of small steps, we should see a smooth continuum of creatures across the fossil record. Instead, we see long periods where species do not change, and there are gaps between the changes. Source: Morris, Henry M., 1974. Scientific Creationism, Green Forest, AR: Master Books, pg. 78. Johnson, Phillip E., 1990. Evolution as dogma: The establishment of naturalism. First Things no. 6, p. 15-22, http://www.arn.org/docs/johnson/pjdogma1.htm Response: 1. The idea that gradual change should appear throughout the fossil record is called phyletic gradualism. It is based on the following tenets: 1. New species arise by the transformation of an ancestral population into its modified descendants. 2. The transformation is even and slow. 3. The transformation involves most or all of the ancestral population. 4. The transformation occurs over most or all of the ancestral species' geographic range. However, all but the first of these is false far more often that not. Studies of modern populations and incipient species show that new species arise mostly from the splitting of a small part of the original species into a new geographical area. The population genetics of small populations allow this new species to evolve relatively quickly. Its evolution may allow it to spread into new geographical areas. Since the actual transitions occur relatively quickly and in a relatively small area, the transitions do not often show up in the fossil record. Sudden appearance in the fossil record often simply reflects that an existing species moved into a new region. Once species are well adapted to an environment, selective pressures tend to keep them that way. A change in the environment that alters the selective pressure would then end the "stasis" (or lead to extinction). It should be noted that even Darwin did not expect the rate of evolutionary change to be constant. [N]atural selection will generally act very slowly, only at long intervals of time, and only on a few of the inhabitants of the same region. I further believe that these slow, intermittent results accord well with what geology tells us of the rate and manner at which the inhabitants of the world have changed (Darwin 1872, 140-141, chap. 4). "But I must here remark that I do not suppose that the process ever goes on so regularly as is represented in the diagram, though in itself made somewhat irregular, nor that it goes on continuously; it is far more probable that each form remains for long periods unaltered, and then again undergoes modification (Darwin 1872, 152). It is a more important consideration . . . that the period during which each species underwent modification, though long as measured by years, was probably short in comparison with that during which it remained without undergoing any change (Darwin 1872, 428, chap. 10). "it might require a long succession of ages to adapt an organism to some new and peculiar line of life, for instance, to fly through the air; and consequently that the transitional forms would often long remain confined to some one region; but that, when this adaptation had once been effected, and a few species had thus acquired a great advantage over other organisms, a comparatively short time would be necessary to produce many divergent forms, which would spread rapidly and widely throughout the world (Darwin 1872, 433). 2. The imperfection of the fossil record (due to erosion and periods unfavorable to fossil preservation) also causes gaps, although it probably cannot account for all of them. 3. Some transitional sequences exist, which, despite an uneven rate of change, still show a gradual continuum of forms. 4. The fossil record still shows a great deal of change over time. The creationists who make note of the many gaps almost never admit the logical conclusion: If they are due to creation, then there have been hundreds, perhaps even millions, of separate creation events scattered through time. Links: Elsberry, Wesley R. 1996. Punctuated equilibria. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/punc-eq.html References: 1. Darwin, C. 1872. The Origin of Species, 6th Edition. Senate, London. http://www.literature.org/authors/darwin-charles/the-origin-of-species-6th-edition/index.html
Do people still classify dinosaurs as reptiles? I thought the common view now was that at least many of the dinosaurs were warm blooded with bird hips and possibly feathers. It doesn't make much sense to show a transition from those dinos to birds as Reptile -> Bird, more like Bird -> different Bird. /derail
Yes, dinosaurs are considered reptiles. From looking up dinosaurs on wikipedia, birds are technically dinosaurs. But this would not match what a lay person would understand as to what a dinosaur or bird is. The point is that there is a well established line of transition between modern birds and prehistoric avian dinosaurs and that these two groups are of a great morphological difference.
I wish I had time to post the creationists views I have read. I am not trying to change anyone's mind. I already stated that I believe in creation because of my faith. I don't believe in evolution, I think it is falsifiable. If I was still an atheist I would be in a pickle. My understanding of evolution as a extremely large population of gradual transitions over millions of millions of years by random chance may be inaccurate. If I posted some creationist analysis of Australopithecus as a primitive ape and not human, someone would post a rebuttal. If I said that transitional fossils within kind are expected and observed everywhere in nature it would mean little to anyone who believes in evolution. I like the creation/evolution debate and I enjoy it, but origins are something that takes a premise for all of us. If a scientist believes that his research proves what happened 1 billion years ago, well if he is right I would say he is one very very smart scientist. If creation happened like Genesis says, well then there are new explanations for scientists to discover. Now that man has evolved to such a high state maybe lying, stealing, murder, rape, abuse, greed, hypocrisy, tyranny, prejudice, anger, bitterness, poverty, racism, war, hate, selfishness and arrogance will disappear. I am not a scientist. I am a believer. I would like to say though that I do love science and scientists. It is a great benefit to us all.
There have been thousands and thousands of evolutionists before and after Darwin. They dig evidence and interpret them from various scientific perspectives rigorously. By no means they are 100% correct but have millions of times more credibility than the so-called ID. yes. They are much much smarter than the average Joes here.
Agreed. But I don't think they dig without bias or premise, sorry. I am biased. But I believe in God. In fact I was biased when I didn't believe in God. I guess I have been biased on both sides in my life. The man who cannot see his bias isn't looking hard enough.
