Creationist's Problem: Fossil Layers and Humans

THIS WILL BE MY LAST ENTRY TODAY SO PLEASE DO NOT REPLY AS IF YOU WERE EXPECTING ME TO CONTINUING DEBATING. Look I'm getting tired of always arguing and never agreeing. Now for what I meant about "iffy". Just about every one of the links that you claim to be indisputable proof, are easily arguable. They are what I said they are, and that is iffy. Have you done the research? I have gone to about fifty evolutionist web sites and have no one has given me a concrete intermediate link. If you would "defile" yourself by going to a creationist webpage with an open mind, then you would see that we are able to disprove just about every "link" they have come up with. If you would check it out, then you would know where I am coming from. I am not angry at all, in fact this is pretty fun! I know that if you read this with an angry spirit, it will probably sound mad, so I wanted to let you know that I am a little offended that you don't even pay any attention to my proofs, but I am not angry. Anyway, the reason there should be way more "intermediate links" is that there should be more transitional fossils than individual species, because to get from one species to another, there are many steps. So there would have to be way more intermediate fossils.Grace, mercy and peace be yours in abundance through Jesus Christ our Lord,Proboscis

The problem with your logic, though, is that every one of those transitional fossils is itself an individual species. How could it be otherwise?There are plenty of transitional fossils, like Acritoparamys atavus. Every one of them, at the same time, is an individual species.You need to rethink your logic, because you're asking for something that can't possibly exist - organisms that belong to no species. How could that be?

Well, it's not anything against you. It's just that a lot of people have dropped in here made similar claims and then left when it turned out that it wasn't that easy. I think it is fair that I might be very skeptical.You might note that some of us have read a lot of the creationist material (I wouldn't say I know it nearly as well as some). I have some background in the sciences. Not enough to directly judge all of the material but enough to know that some of it is dishonest. When someone lies to me once I'm very inclinded to suspect them the next time.Besides as a place to start the dating issue seems to me to be the right one. If the earth is actually 6,000 years old then I would pretty much toss out the ToE.This message has been edited by NosyNed, 05-07-2004 05:03 PM

I admit no such thing.Darwin stated no such thing.

I think it depends on how you take the paraphrase. As worded it is incorrect and you are right. However, I think, IIRC that Darwin did express a need for more evidence from the fossil record. It was, aftr all, very, very sparse at his time of writing.To say that he was talking about what we should find "now" (today) is absurd of course. I'm sure Probocis didn't mean anything so foolish.

Howdy, Ned.I interpreted P's statement as saying that Darwin said that we should see more transitionals in the fossil record than we do or than we did in Darwin's time. If I misinterpreted him/her, I will accept his/her correction. Obviously, if evolution is true, lots and lots of transitional species should have existed in the past; however, it was known in Darwin's time that fossilization is a rare occurrence, and the geologic processes that destroy fossils are many, and so I remember (perhaps incorrectly) that Darwin felt that we may not necessarily be able to ever find very many fossils. It would be nice if they were there, but probably they are not (in Darwin's view).That said, Darwin (or my caricature of him) is wrong. It turns out that there are lots of fossils after all, and that there are lots of transitional fossils. Darwin, I suspect, is leaping in joy in his agnostic heaven.At any rate, we still have the topic of the thread; why are there no human fossils in lower strata? According to the "evolutionist" framework, that is easy; lower strata are older strata, and humans did not yet exist when they were formed. But according to the Genesis view point, humans and other animals were all contemporaneous (thank god for Merriam Webster), and so there is no reason why dead humans shouldn't be found in strata that contain dead other animals.

the question of the age of the earth is off-topic here, but if you want to address it a place you can start is on this thread:http://EvC Forum: Age Correlations and an Old EarthNote in particular the issue of correlations in the data.Another issue that does pertain to this topic is that K-T boundary that was mentioned, for the 65 million year old date -- that involves a layer with an unusually high amount of iridium (rare earth metal) that has been linked to a major meteor impact near the yucatan penninsula.There are mammals below the iridium layer, but no modern mammals, no apes or humans or any bipedal mammal. And that represents less than 1% of the age of the earth.Enjoy.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

Ned,Our fossil record is still incomplete. We have more material than Charles Darwin had at he’s time, but there are numerous howls in the evolutionary successions of past organisms.
A desirable perspective fore Evo-devo researchers is the taphonomy. Taking account of the fact that hard shelled, teeth or bones are more susceptible to be fossilised rather than soft tissue, two general thought arise. There are other taphonomic biases, but these two ones are highly significant of our problems. As long as we have not clearly established the accuracy of the original circumstances that filter the information while migrating biologic units from the biosphere to the lithosphere, evolutionary investigations will be affected by non negligible uncertainty.I have download many PDF concerning this discipline.
Three are fine for a solid overview:BEHRENSMEYER, A. K., KIDWELL, S. M. and GASTALDO, R. A. 2000. Taphonomy and paleobiology. The Paleontological Society, See Erwin & Wing, 2000, pp. 103-147.KIDWEL, S. M. and HOLLAND, S. M. 2002. The quality of the fossil record: Implication for evolutionary analysies. Annual Reviews of the Ecological System, 33, pp. 561-588.OLSZEWSKI, T. 1999. Taking advantage of time-averaging. Paleobiology, 25 (2), pp. 226-238.Denesha

Of course the fossil record is incomplete! It always will be. So what? What conclusion can you draw from this?What has occured in the last 150 years is 10,000's of fossils have been uncovered. These have filled in the nearly complete void that existed in Darwin's time. They may fill it in rather sparsely but they range across around 3,0000,000,000 years of time, the whole earth and all the major groups of life forms.Certainly there are holes. As you note we have learned a lot about taphonomy. This gives us some idea of just how few organisms will leave remains.I don't get your point. Could you explain what you've learned from the listed references and what relavance that has to the discussion?

Sorry Ned,Accept my apologies. I wanted to reply to Proboscis.
Mixed posts.He's speech seems pointing in a wrong non realistic conception of the fossil record. Searching more intermediate forms when what we have is mostly exceptional dotted lines history is nothing more than a dead end reasoning.Have a nice day,Denesha

that was the funniest post ever. i can't believe someone actually responded with "bit this guy says there aren't any!" after you showed people.and seriously, they are not lacking. the fact that we have any fossils at all is amazing, actually. fossil formation is not a regular occurence, but has to happen under specific conditions. what that is is a classic argument from ignorance. "i don't know, so there must not be!"for no hominid fossils to be found prior to 4 million years ago, and a lot to be found after that period just looks funny to creationist claim that dinosaurs walked with man.when i was in high school, i went to county science fair with a psychology project. there was a home schooled girl there with a project on hydrologic sorting in flood geology. the proposition was funny at first, because it went like this: the bigger animals sink, smaller animals float. she did a number of tests to verify this of course, and then concluded that the flood must be the reason, since all the dinosaurs are at the bottom of geologic column, and man etc at the top.had i been a mean child, i would have gone over and asked "well, what about trilobytes? they're small, and ALL OVER well before the dinosaurs in the geologic record"This message has been edited by Arachnophilia, 05-22-2004 05:10 AM

Arachnophilia,I just thought I'd mention that just because you have certain "discriminations" against both Christians and homeschooled children, doesn't mean you have to give the impression that they are stupid. At least the homeschooled kids are smart enough to stay away from getting drunk, high and every other stupid thing a LOT of other kids are into.
As for her theory, I don't know exactly how accurate it is, but it was obvious, (to me at least), that she was talking about density, NOT ACTUAL SIZE. You believe that the different layers of Rock Strata represent layers of time. That's what you believe I respect that. I believe that they do not reprsent only layers of time, but that a LOT of it was laid down by the flood in Genesis. Either way, neither of us were there to observe it, so we can't ever know for sure until I can ask God himself.

And you actually think this makes any difference to the obvious holes in her suggestion? Did you type without a moments thougt at all? Amazing.Now think about that a bit and then come back to discuss it.

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You believe that the different layers of Rock Strata represent layers of time. That's what you believe I respect that. I believe that they do not reprsent only layers of time, but that a LOT of it was laid down by the flood in Genesis.

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Look at the opening post in this thread. If a global flood created those layers then why don't we find human artifacts in layers below dinosaurs? Why don't we find human remains below dinosaurs? If this were a violent, catastrophic flood there should be many inconsistencies, such as hominid fossils that are older than 65 million years old.

i am a christian. no, just the kind who are only homeschooled because their parents are afraid they'll learn about "evilution" in the public school system. i think it's incredibly stupid to forbid your child from learning about ANYTHING just because you don't agree with it. anything. it's the very definition of promoting ignorance.if you want to homeschool your child for a better education, that's one thing. having known a few children in repressive christian households, my opinion of the matter is that that's simply not true. they are the first to rebel.and i went to public school. i don't drink, smoke, or do drugs. i don't have any tattoos or venerial diseases. actually, this was the flaw with her project. how did she know the density of a tyrannosaurus rex? things do sort according to density, yes. everyone knows this.however, the geologic record does not demonstrate a sorting pattern. it would be awful for this argument if it did; but it doesn't. we have dragonflies in every layer from the dinosaurs on up. they vary in size a little, but in order for her argument to hold true they'd have to be getting exponentially less dense. does that make any sense? we can be reasonably certain. sorting arguments don't work: there is no pattern in the fossil record according to anything but developement. creatures and plants of different sizes, weights, and densities are strewn throughout the record.we can reasonably certain that the fossil record was not caused by a flood: we know what flood plains look like, and how they preserve fossils. it's quite obvious what happens with violent cataclismic floods. not only do animals die, but it tends to jumble up their bones, as it washes the organisms down stream. no flood magically preserves things intact.look up something called the law of superposition. it's a geological law, soundly proven by things called angular unconformities. how does the flood model address angular unconformities?