Summations Only

The fossil record shows both long stasis and gradual change neither of which is any problem for the modern theory of evolution.Stasis is not forever and all populations change. That is what is shown in the fossil record. If you had bothered to read Gould and Eldredge instead of just parroting some anti-science religious websites and cherry picking quotes and misrepresenting them you would also know that what they said is that the "Punctuated" part of Punctuated Equilibrium took place over thousands of generations. There are thousands of identified predecessors and this "sudden appearance" is only sudden in geologic terms spanning many millennia.I have been watching you in the more religiously oriented threads. My not knowing all that much about the details of the subjects I though you were making some good points and taking persuasive positions. After reading your stuff here and your displays of the most piss poor reading comprehension and your lack of research ethics and logic, I have to revise these views.Edited by AZPaul3, : subtitle

Evolution and SocietyAn historical perspective on the development of the science of evolution ... and how ideas changed as information became available, including how Christian thinking was involved ... Lecture 9 PDF

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Wallace throws down the gauntlet

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The Sarawak Law

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Each species has come into existence coincident in both space and time with a closely allied, pre-existing species

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Alfred Russel Wallace, On the law which has regulated the introduction of new species, Annals and Magazine of Natural History, September 1853

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The problem with fossils and creationist thinking is that this law holds for all fossils found to date, regardless of whether or not precise "smoking gun" intermediates are found for new species, ... and creationism just does not explain why this should be so.Evolution explains it. Wallace’s line"

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Biogeography

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Understanding of the biogeography of the region centers on the relationship of ancient sea levels to the continental shelves. Wallace's Line is visible geographically when the continental shelf contours are examined; it can be seen as a deep-water channel that marks the southeastern edge of the Sunda Shelf linking Borneo, Bali, Java, and Sumatra underwater to the mainland of southeastern Asia. Australia is likewise connected via the shallow ocean over the Sahul Shelf to New Guinea; and the related biogeographic boundary known as Lydekker's Line, which separates the eastern edge of Wallacea and the Australian region, has a similar origin.

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During ice age glacial advances, when the ocean levels were up to 120 metres (390 ft) lower, both Asia and Australia were united with what are now islands on their respective continental shelves as continuous land masses, but the deep water between those two large continental shelf areas was, for over 50 million years, a barrier that kept the flora and fauna of Australia separated from those of Asia. Wallacea consists of islands that were not recently connected by dry land to either of the continental land masses, and thus were populated by organisms capable of crossing the straits between islands. "Weber's Line" runs through this transitional area (to the east of centre), at the tipping point between dominance by species of Asian against those of Australian origin.[2]

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The problem with biogeography and creationist thinking is that this geographic distribution applies to living species as well as all fossils found to date ... and creationism just does not explain why this should be so.Evolution explains it.Edited by RAZD, : added wallacea

"Evolution is both a scientific fact and a scientific theory. Evolution is a fact in the sense that life has changed through time. In nature today, the characteristics of species are changing, and new species are arising. The fossil record is the primary factual evidence for evolution in times past, and evolution is well documented by further evidence from other scientific disciplines, including comparative anatomy, biogeography, genetics, molecular biology, and studies of viral and bacterial diseases." --- The Paleontological Society"The fossil record of vertebrates unequivocally supports the hypothesis that vertebrates have evolved through time, from their first records in the early Paleozoic Era about 500 million years ago to the great diversity we see in the world today. The hypothesis has been strengthened by so many independent observations of fossil sequences that it has come to be regarded as a confirmed fact, as certain as the drift of continents through time or the lawful operation of gravity." --- Society of Vertebrate Paleontology"The crowning achievement of paleontology has been the demonstration, from the history of life, of the validity of the evolutionary theory [...] The fossil record contains many well-documented examples of the transition from one species into another, as well as the origin of new physical features." --- American Geological Institute.Hmm, who to believe about the fossil record, you or them? Given that they've looked at it and you haven't, I'm gonna go with them.

I read these forums regularly and contribute rarely as I lag serioulsy behind the crest of any debates.However I must point out that Eliyahu has been extraordinarily tolerated in this thread.His points have been addressed and his assertions disproved countless times with evidence only to be brushed aside by Eliyahu's personal incredulity and, I must say, demonstrated ignorance of the subjects in question.Eliyahu continues to post the same material ad nauseam without any attempt to seriously debate the topic.Am I the only one that thinks this behaviour counter-productive to real discussion??What say the Admins?

No, because the discussion goes on without him. His lack of response shows how empty his argument is, while the plethora of responses on so many levels demonstrates the depth of information, evidence and facts that support the theory of evolution in so many different ways.The main audience here is the lurkers, particularly anyone with any lingering doubts about the power of evolution to explain the evidence at every turn.

Well Razd, I concur that unconvinced lurkers benefit from the discussion. However I still think that the mods / admins should pull Eliyahu up on his pedantry and repetitiveness.Anyhow, at least this thread has consistently demolished the creationist rhetoric so triumphantly and repetitively stated here.

I've been a participant in this thread rather than a moderator, so I'll just respond as Percy.When I first started this discussion site there existed a serious and concerted creationist effort on the national level to reduce the teaching of evolution in public schools and to give more attention to creation science. It now exists more at a grassroots level. There used to be huge numbers of creationist crusaders joining EvC Forum, but this has dwindled to a trickle. So we take this into account.I also thought, when this site first began, that moderated debate would focus discussion on the relevant points and bring discussions to meaningful conclusions. While this sometimes happened, it was rare. Anyone knowledgeable wouldn't hold a YEC position (the OEC position is less common and extremely diverse, so I'll leave that aside), so that means that only the ignorant come here and advocate for YEC. Discussions here are not so much about different interpretations of data but more about remediation of ignorance, except that YEC's don't want to be relieved of their ignorance.And so Faith wants to believe that when she looks out across the layers at the Grand Canyon that she's seeing the result of a massive flood, and Eliyahu wants to believe that the scientists behind evolution actually reject it, and since there's nothing factual to support either belief they have to engage in some pretty fancy mental machinations and rhetorical footwork.These machinations look fairly ridiculous from a scientific perspective, and when the creationist is out of ammunition he's forced to just repeat the same arguments over and over again, making them appear more ridiculous, even farcical, and those on the science side quickly come to feel that their time is being wasted and that the creationist side isn't taking the discussion seriously. They ask for moderator help.I've discovered that the moderators ability to influence discussion in a positive manner is minimal at best. When throngs of creationists flooded ashore at websites like this we could simply suspend the most ridiculous or outrageous (after a few rounds of alerts and warnings), but if we did that today, if we pressured creationists to debate using real science and genuine logic, there'd be no one left to debate. Even the past few days there's been no creationist to debate any science topic, and I don't think a moderator has taken a serious action against a creationist in months.So yes, I agree with you about Eliyahu and many other creationists, but I thought the participants said all the same things that moderators would have said (I said some of them), and with just as great effect.I *would* like to give a shout out to Faith. I thought her performance in the Why the Flood Never Happened thread was outstanding. She gave her position far more of a ride than I would ever have thought possible.Would anyone object if I dropped this thread into summation mode?--Percy

I'm dropping this thread into summation mode.

To summarize: gaps in a record can not "conclusively prove" that there is nothing in the gaps.Edited by ringo, : @#$%ing Shift key.

Quote mining to make paleontologists say something they did not say does nothing to change either what they did say--over a long career--or the evidence.Creationists who use this kind of an argument demonstrate just how bankrupt their case really is.

Eliyahu arguing that his quotes are from people who reject evolution makes as much sense as arguing that the New Testament was written by people who reject Christ.Evolutionists could pull the same silly stunt on the Bible but will likely never do so for the simple reason that they understand how fallacious it would be. But creationists apparently think it's a meaningful exercise and are willing to expend days, nay, weeks and years, combing through the technical literature looking for quotes they can pull out of context.--Percy

The "thesis" presented by Eliyahu was essentially three fold: first that major players in the field of evolution and paleontology said that the fossil record showed stasis, second that species appeared suddenly in a manner consistent with creation, and third that the quotes used disproved evolution.None of these claims are true representations of what the fossil record shows.First: stasis.Stasis is a stage in evolution that occurs when there is no selection pressure to change, and the selection pressure then acts to keep the population phenotypes at their average positions. This occurs often when ecologies are stable, but even then evolution is not stalled. One can look at any breeding population and see evolution in process in the mix of variations around those median positions: the population is not monoclonal.Nor is stasis necessarily a result - there is evidence of gradual evolution over 65 million years in the foraminifera fossil record, and almost complete record showing variation over time and speciation events.Second: sudden appearance\creation.Whenever there is a complete record there is no sudden appearance of new species, rather the existing species are seen to branch into new species. When we see the appearance of a new species, there are two factors to note:

1. there is a gap in the fossil record at the beginning of the new species, and
2. there is always a closely related species nearby in both time and geographical location.

We can see how this gap can give the appearance of sudden creation when we look at the fossil record of the Pelycodus:http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/creation/pelycodus.html

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If the fossils at the point of divergence were missing the you would have the sudden appearance of N.Nuniensis beside the existing Pelycodus populations.This second point was made by Wallace:

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The Sarawak Law

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Each species has come into existence coincident in both space and time with a closely allied, pre-existing species

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Alfred Russel Wallace, On the law which has regulated the introduction of new species, Annals and Magazine of Natural History, September 1853

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If such sudden appearance were consistent with creation, then we must needs conclude that the creator was incompetent or dissatisfied with the results and had to keep tinkering and tinkering and tinkering: not a conclusion that most creationists would be comfortable with, imho.Third, quote mines and proof.When each of the quotes used are evaluated in detail by reference to the original papers, it is clear that the authors do not consider stasis to be evidence that evolution does not occur, just that it occurs at different rates at different times. This is especially true when one looks at other articles than the ones used for quote mines:

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Paleobiology, 31(2), 2005, pp. 133—145
The dynamics of evolutionary stasis
Niles Eldredge, John N. Thompson, Paul M. Brakefield, Sergey Gavrilets, David Jablonski, Jeremy B. C. Jackson, Richard E. Lenski, Bruce S. Lieberman, Mark A. McPeek, and William Miller III

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Abstract.The fossil record displays remarkable stasis in many species over long time periods, yet studies of extant populations often reveal rapid phenotypic evolution and genetic differentiation among populations. Recent advances in our understanding of the fossil record and in population genetics and evolutionary ecology point to the complex geographic structure of species being fundamental to resolution of how taxa can commonly exhibit both short-term evolutionary dynamics and long-term stasis.

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And there is a whole "quote mine project" that discusses the misuse of quoted statements like those used by Eliyahu here, many of which are listed, and several showing that the copied "quotes" included typos from creationist sites, demonstrating that these quotes are not original with Eliyahu.The evidence we have shows that fossils do support evolution (see Message 5 for more on foraminifera and pelycodus examples), nor does a gap show lack of evolution (see Message 329 and the large gap in the coelacanth record but evolution still occurred).This alone invalidates the thesis, however there is a final element involved here:The Theory of Evolution is not based on the fossil record, it is based on the observation of the diversity of life in the world as we know it, the observation that the process of evolution and the process of speciation occur, they have been observed, and they are facts: Because such phyletic change in breeding populations is a continuous process, determining when the changes are "sufficient" to be a new species is a subjective observation, and this is frequently called arbitrary speciation. The fossil record is a test of this theory, and thus to use it to disprove the theory one needs to show that fossils contradict the theory, that the fossils cannot be explained by the above processes. Gaps in the fossil record do not do this. New species arising next to existing closely related species, in both time and location, do not do this.The genetic record is another test of this theory, and the fact remains that it is consilient with the fossil record with the formation of nested hierarchies demonstrating how species are related.The argument made by Eliyahu was not supported by any evidence other than blind assertions and copious quote mines that failed to demonstrate his thesis when looked at in detail.The thesis made by Eliyahu is disproven both by copious fossil evidence and by the authors of the quotes when the details of their articles are reviewed.Edited by RAZD, : ..