Any practical use for Universal Common Ancestor?

What the evolutionary ancestors of a trilobite? Algae? Bacteria?

The "incomplete fossil record" excuse is running out of puff ...

... - Gunter Bechly considers the fossil record to be "saturated" - meaning, we have enough fossil evidence now to conclude that the record is complete in a general sense.

That is to say, the gaps and sudden appearances will always be gaps and sudden appearances.

He isn't a YEC, he believes in an old earth. Yes it matters.

Yeah, right ... and this is why Gould described the fossil record as an "embarrassment" to Darwinian gradualism!

Not even the reptile-jaw to mammalian-inner-ear fossil sequence demonstrates microevolutionary changes.

And apparently insects appearing out of nowhere demonstrates microevolutionary changes - hilarious!

If I'm wrong I hope he'll come by and explain his views better.

IIRC Dredge is an OEC

Always good to try to understand what you are arguing against.

I've run into old-Earth-young-life creationists before.

Poor edge; so easily confused - but God bless you for doing your best.

I accept the scientific evidence that suggests life on earth began billions of years ago as bacteria.

Then man was created instantaneuosly from dirt about 7,000-10,000 years ago.

This is my belief ... as opposed to my "aliens" theory, which is my scientific explanation for the history of life on earth (you understand of course that a belief and a scientific explanation can be mutually exclusive).

Over time, more complex life-forms appeared - giving an overall appearance of "evolution". I don't believe this " evolution" is the result of a natural process of biological evolution, but the result of miracles performed by a divine Creator.

As a self-described "scientifically trained person" ...

... you should know that a scientific theory has nothing to do with personal belief.

I did - weeks ago. Do try and pay attention.

No smokescreen. My best scientific explanation for the fossil record is my excellent "aliens" theory.

However, it is not my personal belief. You seem to think the "best scientific explanation" must also be a personal belief.

You're ignoring my point: You can dig up all the fossils you like, but they don't tell us HOW macroevolution occurred. Neo-Darwinism is found wanting when trying to explain the fossil record:

"As can be noted from the listed principles, current evolutionary theory is predominantly oriented towards a genetic explanation of variation, and, except for some minor semantic modifications, this has not changed over the past seven or eight decades. Whatever lip service is paid to taking into account other factors than those traditionally accepted, we find that the theory, as presented in extant writings, concentrates on a limited set of evolutionary explananda, excluding the majority of those mentioned among the explanatory goals above. The theory performs well with regard to the issues it concentrates on, providing testable and abundantly confirmed predictions on the dynamics of genetic variation in evolving populations, on the gradual variation and adaptation of phenotypic traits, and on certain genetic features of speciation. If the explanation would stop here, no controversy would exist. But it has become habitual in evolutionary biology to take population genetics as the privileged type of explanation of all evolutionary phenomena, thereby negating the fact that, on the one hand, not all of its predictions can be confirmed under all circumstances, and, on the other hand, a wealth of evolutionary phenomena remains excluded. For instance, the theory largely avoids the question of how the complex organizations of organismal structure, physiology, development or behavior ” whose variation it describes ” actually arise in evolution, and it also provides no adequate means for including factors that are not part of the population genetic framework, such as developmental, systems theoretical, ecological or cultural influences."Gerd Muller, “Why an extended evolutionary synthesis is necessary.”https://evolutionnews.org/...questions-of-biological-origins

It's got nothing to do with the CC selling out to theistic evolution, but everything to do with reinterpreting Scripture in light of scientific discoveries ... as opposed to denying reality and clinging to an unenlightened sixteenth-century exegesis.

Thanks for the reference.That's why I was unaware of him saying this, it was not in a published scientific paper, just his BS opinion at DI, no evidence to back it up.

But I do believe it’s valid (except for little matter of falsifiability) - I just don’t believe its true.

Since when did a scientific theory have to be believed to be a fact to be vaild?

Then how are you going to learn?

Translation: “I can’t bring myself to admit that there is no known fossil evidence of evolutionary links between the Ediacaran biota and the Cambrian trilobites.”

I interpreted Dredge's statement as saying the CC is indeed "reinterpreting Scripture in light of scientific discoveries".