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Author Topic:   Evolution. We Have The Fossils. We Win.
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 31 of 2887 (767980)
09-04-2015 2:23 AM
Reply to: Message 30 by Dr Adequate
09-04-2015 2:01 AM


Re: And Now Some Ankylosaurs
Good grief, how is that evidence for evolution? With any such similar creatures we can be sure microevolution has occurred either from one to another, in what order is impossible to tell, since the level of the layer means absolutely nothing in relation to the time needed for such developments to occur, or from an ancestor to all that is not represented in the fossil record. They are the cousins I was talking about earlier, that are also seen in the trilobites that also are found collected together in different sedimentary layers. Not time periods, just layers of sediments. The evidence supports creationism just as well as it can be made to support evolution. It's all a matter of interpretation. In fact I see nothing about these creatures that makes them evidence for evolution, that evidence is all in your head.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 30 by Dr Adequate, posted 09-04-2015 2:01 AM Dr Adequate has replied

Replies to this message:
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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 32 of 2887 (767982)
09-04-2015 2:51 AM
Reply to: Message 31 by Faith
09-04-2015 2:23 AM


Re: And Now Some Ankylosaurs
Good grief, how is that evidence for evolution?
Because it's what we'd expect to see if evolution had taken place.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 31 by Faith, posted 09-04-2015 2:23 AM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 33 of 2887 (767983)
09-04-2015 3:09 AM
Reply to: Message 32 by Dr Adequate
09-04-2015 2:51 AM


Re: And Now Some Ankylosaurs
Because it's what we'd expect to see if evolution had taken place.
But it's nothing more than normal microevolution that occurs all the time, within years or even months sometimes, so that you have varieties living side by side. So it's also "what we'd expect to see" if evolution had NOT taken place and if the supposed enormously long time periods aren't time periods at all but just layers of sediment that happened to get deposited along with different breeds or races of whatever the creature is.
It's like Darwin's finches. They are assumed to have "evolved" over some long period of time to adapt to their different environments, but there's no reason at all to assume that. (MrHambre showed that historically there's been criticism of this idea of adaptationism from among evolutionists, although of course he wouldn't allow a creationist interpretation of that criticism). You don't need long periods of time to get such variations or breeds of creatures, and there is no reason to put one variation above another as more "evolved" either, they are simply variations that are possible in the creature's genome simply through sexual recombination.
There is also no reason to assume that an observable adaptation between a breed or race and something in the environment was the cause of the variation; it could easily be that the variation occurred and the adaptation followed. The kind of finch beak microevolved through the normal genetic processes of variation that make us all different from our parents and the finches with that kind of beak naturally gravitated to the kind of food that beak was most suited for.
One example of a dramatic change over a very short period of time showed up on a previous thread: the large-headed lizards on the Croatian island. They were ordinary small-headed lizards that had been introduced to that island by human beings, who went back thirty years later and found nothing but the large-headed variety. Since evolutionary theory told them this sort of change takes enormously long periods of time they were surprised, But they shouldn't have been. There is nothing more common than that dramatic changes should take place when a small number of any species is isolated from others of its kind and allowed to breed among themselves. The observed change to the large-headed kind was probably already effected within no more than ten years. There's no reason to think it needed more than that.
So we see similar things in the fossil record. Breeds or races of creatures that lived at the same time, that microevolved in their own isolated niches and got deposited in their own sedimentary layers in the Flood.
Now this is a reasoned argument for my position, with a lot more thought than you've put into your presentations so far, so don't try to dismiss it.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 34 of 2887 (767984)
09-04-2015 3:41 AM
Reply to: Message 33 by Faith
09-04-2015 3:09 AM


Re: And Now Some Ankylosaurs
Lame excuses won't cut it Faith. Apart from contradicting yourself in the first two sentences (how can it be both a result of microevolution and no evolution at all ?) you aren't addressing the point of the order of the fossils.
Are you really going to argue that mechanical sorting is going to produce the observed order, or are you just trying to sweep it under the carpet?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 33 by Faith, posted 09-04-2015 3:09 AM Faith has not replied

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Admin
Director
Posts: 12998
From: EvC Forum
Joined: 06-14-2002
Member Rating: 2.3


Message 35 of 2887 (767992)
09-04-2015 8:36 AM
Reply to: Message 34 by PaulK
09-04-2015 3:41 AM


Re: And Now Some Ankylosaurs
PaulK writes:
Lame excuses won't cut it Faith. Apart from contradicting yourself in the first two sentences (how can it be both a result of microevolution and no evolution at all ?) you aren't addressing the point of the order of the fossils.
I concede the contradiction in the interpretation you've drawn, but I think Faith really meant something like, "Yes, there is microevolution within kinds recorded in the fossil record, but no actual evolution between kinds."
Faith provided two concrete examples for her objection that evolutionary changes can occur in very short time periods: Darwin's finches, and the lizards of a Mediterranean island (she's not specific and provided no link, but that's my recollection from another thread - perhaps someone can supply the correct details and a link). The evolution side should explain how small but rapid evolutionary change is consistent with the fossil record (fossils should be the central focus of this thread) should be explained, and the creation side should explain how its consistent with the Flood scenario.
I found Faith's third paragraph interesting in that it comes so close to describing actual evolution where she has change preceding adaptation. All that's missing is selection.

--Percy
EvC Forum Director

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(1)
Message 36 of 2887 (767993)
09-04-2015 9:00 AM
Reply to: Message 33 by Faith
09-04-2015 3:09 AM


Re: And Now Some Ankylosaurs
But it's nothing more than normal microevolution that occurs all the time ...
From a flexible tail without a club on it, to one with rigid interlocking vertebrae with a 100 lb club on the end of it? And this, according to you, is just something that happens all the time, like the minute variations in beak shape among the Galapagos finches, and is nothing remarkable. I'd have thought the production of a totally new anatomical feature which can be seen from a mile's distance would be one of those things creationists would call "macro" and deny, but instead you call it "micro" and embrace it. (I remember once a creationist finally being persuaded that whales had evolved from land mammals, and at the same moment deciding that this was "just microevolution" and didn't prove anything.)
Well, you must decide for yourself whether the evolution of ankylosaurs is "microevolution". It still happened, though. By the way, you might now like to turn your attention to the trivial anatomical differences between a human and an ape ...
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

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Coragyps
Member (Idle past 734 days)
Posts: 5553
From: Snyder, Texas, USA
Joined: 11-12-2002


(2)
Message 37 of 2887 (767994)
09-04-2015 9:22 AM
Reply to: Message 31 by Faith
09-04-2015 2:23 AM


Re: And Now Some Ankylosaurs
They are the cousins I was talking about earlier, that are also seen in the trilobites that also are found collected together in different sedimentary layers.
And collected there without even one crab. And, for that matter, not a single teleost fish - not one bass, perch, herring, smelt, salmon, carp, seahorse, catfish, or tarpon. No lobsters.
And conversly, there are no trilobite fossils in any of the rocks that have crab, teleost, or lobster fossils. None. Nada. Keine. They ain't there. Your Flood CANNOT EXPLAIN THESE FACTS, Faith. The very magickest of water can't prevent every dead herring from washing or falling into a trilobite bed and getting buried with them, all over the world.
And trilobites are just one of hundreds of examples like this. Eurypterids. Everything in the Burgess Shale. Conodonts. Anaspids. Ostracoderms. On and on..... We have the fossils, Faith, and THEY ARE SORTED!!

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JonF
Member (Idle past 168 days)
Posts: 6174
Joined: 06-23-2003


Message 38 of 2887 (767995)
09-04-2015 9:27 AM


My personal favorite is icthyosaurs and dolphins.

  
dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 39 of 2887 (767996)
09-04-2015 10:20 AM
Reply to: Message 33 by Faith
09-04-2015 3:09 AM


Re: And Now Some Ankylosaurs
What I remember in another thread is the absolutely stellar job Faith did in arguing for and demonstrating that the accumulation of microevolution results in macroevolution (AKA speciation). Until we pointed out what she had done at which point she started redefining the world.
It is what it is.

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dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


(1)
Message 40 of 2887 (767997)
09-04-2015 10:35 AM
Reply to: Message 35 by Admin
09-04-2015 8:36 AM


Re: And Now Some Ankylosaurs
Unfortunately, Faith did not actually say that. I would be very curious about what a creationist would expect by "actual evolution between kinds." Dogs giving birth to kittens? We did recently have a creationist here making exactly that kind of argument.
I recently pointed out to a local creationist that that old argument he had taught his young daughter to throw at Dr. Ayala, "but they're STILL MOTHS!!!!", rates right next to "evolution is just a theory" and "why are there still monkeys?" as the surest way to state that you have absolutely no clue what you are talking about.

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(2)
Message 41 of 2887 (768004)
09-04-2015 12:05 PM
Reply to: Message 23 by Faith
09-03-2015 10:09 PM


Creationist Epistemology
Of course not. Because once the paradigm was established and accepted there was nothing to do but build upon it and within it. It has become an entrenched assumption or presupposition. There is enough seeming evidence, or at least plausibility, to keep the system going, as long as tge few best bits of evidence are emphasized over and over and the difficult areas are sidestepped, which is very easy to do with a theory that is unprovable in the direct ways the hard sciences are provable.
Unprovable because the whole thing is an edifice of interpretation upon interpretation, none of it can be replicated, it can only be interpreted. You can't replicate the burial of dinosaurs, all you can do is interpret what you think must have happened, and in that enterprise you are limited by what has already been accepted, so you fit your bit of understanding into the already-constructed edifice. You add your interpretive plausible bit to the whole edifice and just keep building, although it has no foundation in actual fact, it's all mental conjurings. The whole thing is a gravity-defying reality-defying multiplication of interpretations floating some distance above planet earth. You have the illusion of science, the illusion of evidence, you mentally manipulate mental figments as if they were realities. It's all very convincing if you are entrenched in the system yourself.
You have no motive to see through it but it's pretty transparent to one who does.
Well, there are a couple of striking things about this.
The first is that if it works, it always works. That is, Faith, this would be just as good or bad an argument whether evolution was true or false, and whether it was supported or unsupported by the fossil evidence. It's an argument that whatever the evidence, it's not really evidence; that however consistent the fossil record is with evolution, it has no tendency to confirm it. This is why your argument never refers to the quality of the evidence, nor its quantity, nor a single fossil or bone.
Now, Faith, don't you see that there has to be something wrong with such an argument?
To help you see that, imagine this. Suppose I had an argument against there being an elephant in the room that would work just as well whether there was or wasn't an elephant. Now, an argument for no elephant that works just as well even when there's an elephant is not a good argument. There's a certain sense in which it's not an argument at all.
The second thing, and I've said this before, is that your extreme skepticism is not sincere or consistent. You just do it for evolution. You are, as we've seen, quite happy to admit as a fact that real live ceratopsians once roamed the Earth. When asked whether all the evidence supports that, you cheerfully say "yes", you don't say "You can't replicate the burial of dinosaurs, all you can do is interpret what you think must have happened."
So your vague epistemological arguments are neither apt nor sincere. What you need to do is formulate an argument that depends on the evidence in some way, an argument which relies on something outside your head --- a fossil, a bone, a DNA sequence, for God's sake something. But what you've presented is an argument which is indifferent to any observations whatsoever.

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edge
Member (Idle past 1706 days)
Posts: 4696
From: Colorado, USA
Joined: 01-09-2002


(1)
Message 42 of 2887 (768006)
09-04-2015 12:11 PM
Reply to: Message 23 by Faith
09-03-2015 10:09 PM


Of course not. Because once the paradigm was established and accepted there was nothing to do but build upon it and within it.
Nonsense. There is the alternative of disproving it.
It has become an entrenched assumption or presupposition.
So is germ theory.
Did it ever occur to you that a theory becomes 'entrenched' because is is robust?
There is enough seeming evidence, or at least plausibility, to keep the system going, as long as tge few best bits of evidence are emphasized over and over and the difficult areas are sidestepped, which is very easy to do with a theory that is unprovable in the direct ways the hard sciences are provable.
very well, go ahead and start a discussion of the unprovable points.
By the way, it should be emphasized that proof in science means a preponderance of evidence and it proof only to reasonable people. There are fringe elements of society in all arenas that practice hyperskepticism.
Unprovable because the whole thing is an edifice of interpretation upon interpretation, none of it can be replicated, it can only be interpreted.
As I said, 'provable' means to the reasonable person.
You can't replicate the burial of dinosaurs, all you can do is interpret what you think must have happened, and in that enterprise you are limited by what has already been accepted, so you fit your bit of understanding into the already-constructed edifice.
And the problem is?
My point is, what do you have that's better? Let's hear it.
You add your interpretive plausible bit to the whole edifice and just keep building, although it has no foundation in actual fact, it's all mental conjurings.
The show where they are wrong.
It should be a simple task.
The whole thing is a gravity-defying reality-defying multiplication of interpretations floating some distance above planet earth.
Well, the more complex a theory becomes, the more likely is should fail, not? I mean, predictions should be impossible an observations should refute parts of the theory.
You have the illusion of science, the illusion of evidence, you mentally manipulate mental figments as if they were realities. It's all very convincing if you are entrenched in the system yourself.
So you say. But, as near as I can see that is what science does. It creates explanations.
You have no motive to see through it but it's pretty transparent to one who does.
And 'one' is the approximate number who see it that way.

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 Message 23 by Faith, posted 09-03-2015 10:09 PM Faith has not replied

  
jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 43 of 2887 (768009)
09-04-2015 12:27 PM
Reply to: Message 37 by Coragyps
09-04-2015 9:22 AM


Re: And Now Some Ankylosaurs
As well as the flood killing all them fishies from too much water I guess and also excluding all the humans that god character set out to get rid of.
Sorry but the Biblical Floods are just too funny.

Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

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Coyote
Member (Idle past 2106 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


(1)
Message 44 of 2887 (768010)
09-04-2015 1:24 PM


Its not just the fossils...
Its not just the fossils.
We also have a robust theory that explains all of the evidence and makes successful predictions.

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.
Belief gets in the way of learning--Robert A. Heinlein
How can I possibly put a new idea into your heads, if I do not first remove your delusions?--Robert A. Heinlein
It's not what we don't know that hurts, it's what we know that ain't so--Will Rogers
If I am entitled to something, someone else is obliged to pay--Jerry Pournelle
If a religion's teachings are true, then it should have nothing to fear from science...--dwise1
"Multiculturalism" demands that the US be tolerant of everything except its own past, culture, traditions, and identity.

  
Tanypteryx
Member
Posts: 4344
From: Oregon, USA
Joined: 08-27-2006
Member Rating: 5.9


(1)
Message 45 of 2887 (768011)
09-04-2015 2:29 PM


New Dolphin Fossil
New dolphin fossil makes a splash
New fossils keep being discovered all the time. The picture gets more and more complex and at the same time sharper and sharper.
What a wonderful time for science and scientists!

What if Eleanor Roosevelt had wings? -- Monty Python
One important characteristic of a theory is that is has survived repeated attempts to falsify it. Contrary to your understanding, all available evidence confirms it. --Subbie
If evolution is shown to be false, it will be at the hands of things that are true, not made up. --percy

  
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