Bill Nye vs. Ken Ham

OK, maybe I can fill in.I've done well over 100 archaeological excavations (NOT digs) and have never found any fauna that were transitional between ancient and modern forms. And I've worked on both mammoth and mastodon, but the evidence from those doesn't help you either.I have obtained a lot of radiocarbon dates that go past 4,350 years ago as well, all in an area that shows continuity of fauna, flora, depositional environment, and human genetics back past 10,000 years.You might try to deny that evidence, but the posts RAZD made supporting the radiocarbon method sent poor Mindspawn running for the tall grass a couple of months ago.Also, I have a lot of colleagues around the world. They aren't finding those transitional forms at the dates you claim either.Face it -- Your claims are just not supported by real-world evidence.

From what you claim, we should have transitional forms between the ark critters and the modern critters. They may have only been around for a few hundred years while undergoing a vastly speeded up evolution, such as from the primordial feline into all the modern genera and species.We do not see those forms in the relatively recent past, which is where modern humans are found. With the exception of a few late Pleistocene critters on their way to extinction (mammoths, mastodons, sloth, dire wolf, etc.) we see modern forms in archaeological excavations during the past 12,000+ years.But we do see transitional forms between ancient and modern species. We see good evidence for evolution of the horse, for example. And the whale. And decent evidence for all the other critters.The problem for your beliefs is these critters evolved at dates wholly incompatible with a young earth time frame, and with a radiation from the Middle East some 4,350 years ago. And, while you may not accept it, the dating evidence from a wide variety of different methods is in very close agreement.So, we don't have evidence of superevolution immediately after 4,350 years ago. We do have good evidence of normal evolution over the past few million or tens of millions of years for the modern forms. And the dating seems quite solid, being based on a large number of different methods which are all in quite remarkable agreement.

Let's look at your claims.First, you claim there were basic forms on the ark, with subsequent evolution into modern species and radiation outwards from the Middle East. This had to take place in 4,350 years since the flood.Actually, this evolution would have to take place very shortly after the ark landed, as historical records do not show the intermediate forms. You would think somebody would have noticed critters changing that rapidly.Also, archaeological excavations show only modern forms. I have found all the modern critters you would ever want, in sites dating back thousands of years, but no intermediate forms. Deer, elk, bears, mountain lions and all the rest are fully modern.But we do see evidence in the fossil record of those earlier forms you need to have. They go back millions to tens of millions of years.You say you don't want to deal with dating but you need to. You can't just keep denying what is supported by massive amounts of evidence for many different dating methods.Your needed scenario of transitional critters after the ark doesn't work, but those same critters are found in the fossil record long before humans show up.So, your suggestion that critters evolved after the ark landed is partially correct in that they did evolve, but not nearly as fast as you would need and not radiating out from the Middle East.So, I'm glad that you are beginning to accept evolution. Now we just have to work on the dating issue.

For Faith, the bible trumps any and all evidence no matter what.I wonder where in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders that would fall...This is not a snark. I just can't understand how someone can totally dismiss evidence of that nature, as often and as well as it has been explained, and be considered rational.

Why are you creationists so eager to trash Darwin? He wrote over 150 years ago, and science has progressed significantly since then.It doesn't matter if some of his ideas were incomplete, or even wrong. These things get worked out by subsequent generations of researchers.Trashing Darwin does nothing to harm his theory as it currently exists, 150 years later. He is not a prophet whose words must be taken literally then and forever. Creationists would be better served by learning the theory as it is now and discussing that.

I am denying that. In terms of racism, Darwin was exceptionally free of that for his age.And if we are going to judge people of that age by current standards, we would have to include a lot of preachers whose views were less than exemplary.But each lived within his own environment, so each would be more fairly judged in those terms. Doing that, Darwin was ahead of his time. I would very much doubt that Darwin was focusing on creationists' ideas when he wrote On the Origin of Species. I would think he was focusing on natural history, which was based on some very detailed investigations he had made prior to that. The fact that the evidence he found countered various creationist ideas was just a by-product of examining the evidence. (And that has continued to this day. Some of the evidence I have produced does that as well.)And how other than the theory of evolution would Darwin have explained what he saw? Remember, Wallace was well advanced on the same research and if Darwin had not published, he would have. And if neither had done so, someone else would certainly have within a short time. When the time is right for a new idea, it will crop up from one source or another.Science is a collaborative effort, with each scientist standing on the shoulders of the researchers who went before them. That's why trying to denigrate Darwin's efforts or memory is futile. He was just a part of a much larger process.You might just as well trash all of the sciences and scientists engaged in all of those related fields. (Oh, right. Never mind. ;-) )

I pointed this out once before."Savage" denotes a cultural condition, not a biological one.

The terms "civilized" and "savage" refer to cultural levels, not evolutionary ones. A third term in that series would be "barbarian."Sorry to disappoint you.

The terms savage, barbarian, and civilized were in common usage in the 19th century and described cultural conditions.