Summations Only

What if you've misunderstood what they are saying? What if the authors of the quotes were just wrong?There's plenty of doubt to be had. How about you say something about the actual fossils that we have? The fossile record clearly show the evolution of many species along with intermediate stages throughout: We know, without a doubt, that species emerge by evolving. We know, without a doubt, that the fossil record shows that species emerge by evolving.

Absolutely it does. Those authors were not saying that evolution doesn't happen at all, they were just saying that it isn't as gradual as we thought it was.But this has already been explained to you and you'd rather just ignore it.

Heaven won't help you with the spreading of lies. Says the guy who's entire argument relies on other people talking So then, you agree that the possibility of you misunderstanding what they have said leaves room for doubt in your conclusion. I guess that's a start. Phyletic gradualism was corrected in the 1970s, we have a better understanding now: You are 40 years behind the rest of us. Do catch up. In the case of horses, whales, birds, and hominids, the pictures I showed you explain how the fossil record shows us how those animals evolved. Nope, that's plenty. You obviously have little to no understanding of what fossils we have and what they show.Too, you don't understand how the process of evolution actually works in the real world.Like I said, gradualism has been long replaced and you're still clinging to this outdated idea.Added by edit: Holy shit, as Percy exposed, all of that stuff in my quote box above comes from stuff you copied off the internet. Oh. My. God. Really? You really just stole quotes off the internet and passed them off as your own!? Have you any honesty whatsoever?I can't believe you would go to such lengths for such dishonesty. That is really pathetic. You should be ashamed from yourself.And to throw, "with the help of heaven" on top of that! Absolutely shameful. Pitiful. You have no honor and no respect from me. That's why I've looked at the actual fossils, themselves, instead of relying on cheap talk.You've utterly failed to provide a good argument. All you've shown us is that you don't know what you're talking about.Edited by Catholic Scientist, : No reason given.

And the deception that those quote mines employ is outline here:Quote Mine Project: "Lack of Identifiable Phylogeny"

Eliyahu's dishonesty in this thread alone is enough for Martin Luther to write a whole 'nother book:

This would: A rabbit in the precambrian.There's so many things that could disprove evolution that we even have clichs for them.The problem is that everything actually does confirm the idea. You know, 'cause its right. The problem is that nothing has ever disproved it, but not that nothing can ever. There's plenty of things that could like, literally, a rabbit in the precambrian.

Talk is cheap. Talking about talking is cheaper.I've shown you the fossils, stop being afraid and look at them. They show that the animals evolved. They directly refute your argument.Discussing quotes is just a distraction. That's so stupid it's retarded. Please try harder.

Regardless, it would still disprove evolution.

He went further and even insinuated that they were his own words:

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I'll say something about them:

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The fossil record flatly fails to substantiate this expectation of finely graded change.

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In fact, the fossil record does not convincingly document a single transition from one species to another.

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The record jumps, and all the evidence shows that the record is real: the gaps we see reflect real events in life’s history - not the artifact of a poor fossil record.

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The fossil record itself provided no documentation of continuity - of gradual transition from one animal or plant to another of quite different form.

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Gaps between higher taxonomic levels are general and large.

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The lack of ancestral or intermediate forms between fossil species is not a bizarre peculiarity of early metazoan history. Gaps are general and prevalent throughout the fossil record.

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The known fossil record is not, and never has been, in accord with gradualism. What is remarkable is that, through a variety of historical circumstances, even the history of opposition has been obscured . . . ‘The majority of paleontologists felt their evidence simply contradicted Darwin’s stress on minute, slow, and cumulative changes leading to species transformation.’ . . . their story has been suppressed.

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Instead of finding the gradual unfolding of life, what geologists of Darwin’s time, and geologists of the present day actually find is a highly uneven or jerky record; that is, species appear in the sequence very suddenly, show little or no change during their existence in the record, then abruptly go out of the record. and it is not always clear, in fact it’s rarely clear, that the descendants were actually better adapted than their predecessors. In other words, biological improvement is hard to find.

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If you want me to say more about the fossiles, just let me know. Glad to oblige.

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It doesn't get much more bald-faced than that.

From Message 137: False, they do not say that the fossil record does not show any evolution, they are talking about a specific evolutionary idea: gradualism.They are talking about gradualism in particular, and not evolution in general.They are saying that the fossil record does not show gradualism (evolution), but instead shows punctuated equilibrium (also evolution).Again, this was settled 40 years ago. Why is this so hard for you to understand?Basically, you're saying that because someone prefers chocolate ice cream over vanilla ice cream, then that means that they do not like ice cream at all. That's stupid. Who cares? If someone said that grass is purple, and I show you a picture that shows that grass is green, then why does it matter if someone said that grass is purple?Why would you keep clinging to what that other person said when you can see the grass for yourself?We all know why: You're so desperate to find a chink in the evolutionary armor, that you'd rather focus on old outdated quotations, than actually look at the evidence yourself, because you know that the evidence proves evolution. What? How is ignoring something a distraction? Ya dingus! Are you fucking retarded? How could context not alter the meaning of quotes?

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Psalm 14:1

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..."There is no god"...

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The real meaning of those quotes, and how your isolation from context changes them, has been explained to you ad nauseam. That impossible, because what I said was true.And this is coming from the guy who is cherry picking 40 year old quote mines. The same guy who blatantly plagarized in Message 67:

quote:

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I'll say something about them:

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The fossil record flatly fails to substantiate this expectation of finely graded change.

​

In fact, the fossil record does not convincingly document a single transition from one species to another.

​

The record jumps, and all the evidence shows that the record is real: the gaps we see reflect real events in life’s history - not the artifact of a poor fossil record.

​

The fossil record itself provided no documentation of continuity - of gradual transition from one animal or plant to another of quite different form.

​

Gaps between higher taxonomic levels are general and large.

​

The lack of ancestral or intermediate forms between fossil species is not a bizarre peculiarity of early metazoan history. Gaps are general and prevalent throughout the fossil record.

​

The known fossil record is not, and never has been, in accord with gradualism. What is remarkable is that, through a variety of historical circumstances, even the history of opposition has been obscured . . . ‘The majority of paleontologists felt their evidence simply contradicted Darwin’s stress on minute, slow, and cumulative changes leading to species transformation.’ . . . their story has been suppressed.

​

Instead of finding the gradual unfolding of life, what geologists of Darwin’s time, and geologists of the present day actually find is a highly uneven or jerky record; that is, species appear in the sequence very suddenly, show little or no change during their existence in the record, then abruptly go out of the record. and it is not always clear, in fact it’s rarely clear, that the descendants were actually better adapted than their predecessors. In other words, biological improvement is hard to find.

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If you want me to say more about the fossiles, just let me know. Glad to oblige.

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Pathetic.

You don't even have the most basic and slightest clue as to what Punctuated Equilibrium is, do you?

Here's the evolutionary timeline from wiki:

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In its 4.6 billion years circling the sun, the Earth has harbored an increasing diversity of life forms:

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for the last 3.6 billion years, simple cells (prokaryotes);
for the last 3.4 billion years, cyanobacteria performing photosynthesis;
for the last 2 billion years, complex cells (eukaryotes);
for the last 1 billion years, multicellular life;
for the last 600 million years, simple animals;
for the last 550 million years, bilaterians, animals with a front and a back;
for the last 500 million years, fish and proto-amphibians;
for the last 475 million years, land plants;
for the last 400 million years, insects and seeds;
for the last 360 million years, amphibians;
for the last 300 million years, reptiles;
for the last 200 million years, mammals;
for the last 150 million years, birds;
for the last 130 million years, flowers;
for the last 60 million years, the primates,
for the last 20 million years, the family Hominidae (great apes);
for the last 2.5 million years, the genus Homo (human predecessors);
for the last 200,000 years, anatomically modern humans.

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No, that took hundreds of millions of years. "With a bang" doesn't describe that at all. But this claim of yours has already been refuted. Now you're just repeating it.We can't make any progress if you don't deal with the refutations. Simply repeating yourself doesn't do anything.

No, it doesn't say anything about the places where evolution took place as being far away.And how does that even make sense, that it was far away? Far away from what?Regarding isolation, that is referring to genetic isolation and that does not require it to be isolation by distance, they're just has to be some barrier to reproduction. Like, a river between the populations could be enough.And the relatively fast, is based upon geological timescales. That is, multi-millions of years. As compared to the lifetimes of organisms, the speed isn't actually all that fast.Anyways here's what it actually is:

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Punctuated equilibrium (also called punctuated equilibria) is a theory in evolutionary biology which proposes that most species will exhibit little net evolutionary change for most of their geological history, remaining in an extended state called stasis. When significant evolutionary change occurs, the theory proposes that it is generally restricted to rare and rapid (on a geologic time scale) events of branching speciation called cladogenesis. Cladogenesis is the process by which a species splits into two distinct species, rather than one species gradually transforming into another.From wiki

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As you see, it is still evolution. Its just a different way of going about it.Here's some illustrations on how it can occur: And your quote from an expert is from almost 40 years ago. We've come along way sense then.You really need to find some more up-to-date experts. No, its an explanation that evolution didn't happen extrememly gradually like we used to think it did.But its still evolution happening nonetheless. But we can find evolution in the fossil record, its just not exactly like we originally thought it to be.And that's a good thing, science doesn't progress when we stick with old outdated ideas instead of upgrading our theories as more evidence comes to light.

No, that's not true. The reason for the theory was because the evidence of evolution that the fossil record did actually show was that evolution is not a continuous and gradual change like people used to think it was.What we see are relatively long periods (that is a geological timescale) of equilibrium (what you're calling stasis) that are punctuated by spurts of change (still on a geological timescale). On a biological timescale, the rate of change looks much slower.Here is the picture again: Can't you see that those shapes are fairly similar? They're both describing evolution. We've learned that its not nearly as smooth in transition as we used to think it was. You're misunderstanding what is meant by 'evolution' by assuming it requires gradualism. Nobody thinks the fossil record is perfect.

We've held the fossils with our own hands and seen with our own eyes that they show evolution.That's way more powerful than misunderstood cherry-picked quote-mines.