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Author Topic:   Which view makes sense of the fossil record ?
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 285 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 20 of 48 (734715)
08-01-2014 1:15 PM
Reply to: Message 11 by mike the wiz
08-01-2014 11:15 AM


Fair enough, but at least hear me out please. The blog-entry shows why the request to find a human in the Cambrian is a Red-Herring because the fossil record have never belonged to Charles Darwin. Because certain animals are found in certain places, it's a rigged game, you already know that I don't have the ability.
This appears to translate as "It's unfair of you to invite me to prove that you're wrong when you know perfectly well that all the evidence proves you right." Yes, so it does. But if we were wrong, it needn't.
Consider the following dialog:
A: John is dead.
B: No he isn't.
A: Prove me wrong, then. Show that his heart is beating.
B: This is a rigged game, we've already taken his pulse and know that he doesn't have one. You already know that I don't have the ability.
But taking John's pulse is a perfectly fair test of whether he's alive or dead. The fact that B won't find a pulse --- and knows that he won't find a pulse --- is not a sign that it's an unfair test, it's a sign that A is right and B is wrong.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 11 by mike the wiz, posted 08-01-2014 11:15 AM mike the wiz has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 22 by mike the wiz, posted 08-01-2014 1:49 PM Dr Adequate has replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 285 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 28 of 48 (734734)
08-01-2014 6:02 PM
Reply to: Message 22 by mike the wiz
08-01-2014 1:49 PM


Why do you do this to yourself? You know what's coming next Dr A because I always get checkmate. Are you masochistic?
Your analogy isn't accurate, because it only would represent the fossil record and I am not saying there isn't a fossil record, I am saying there isn't an evolutionary-order, except the one assigned to match it by Darwin et al.
A. There is a fossil record.
B. No there isn't
A. Prove me wrong, show there isn't.
B. This is a rigged game, we already have seen there is a fossil record, you know I don't have the ability to change that.
Here I have highlighted your sleight-of-hand. You haven't understood the coloured-balls diagram in my blog-entry.
Think about it. You are arguing two things, not one.
1. There is a fossil record.
2. There is an evolution-history that matches it.
I would ask: "why does it match it?"
The answer you would have to give is; "Because Darwin wrote that it did."
Well, that was incoherent nonsense.
THINK! if the fossils were reversed ...
You think if the fossils were reversed. Then the species living now --- humans and wombats and giraffes and so forth --- would appear in the oldest rocks, and not in more recent rocks, which would show only extinct species of vertebrates etc. How would scientists explain that? It cannot be that all modern mammals went extinct before the rise of (e.g.) the dinosaurs, because they are manifestly not extinct.
What we see in the fossil record is that in more recent strata modern groups are better represented, consistent with the idea that these strata represent a history, and that this history includes new groups arising. The following observations would not be consistent with this idea:
* The reverse being the case, with modern groups being best represented at the bottom of the column.
* Species being evenly distributed through the column, so that modern critters are present in the oldest rocks.
* Species being arranged in order of size, with the largest at the top and the smallest at the bottom, or vice versa.
* Species being arranged according to how many legs they have, with fish and snakes and worms at the bottom, then all the humans and birds, then all the quadrupeds, then all the insects, then the crabs and spiders, then the lobsters, and the millipedes at the top ...
* Etc, etc.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 22 by mike the wiz, posted 08-01-2014 1:49 PM mike the wiz has not replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 285 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 29 of 48 (734735)
08-01-2014 6:57 PM
Reply to: Message 24 by mike the wiz
08-01-2014 2:09 PM


Your dumb Gish Gallop is as off-topic as it is stupid, i.e. very. If there's any point in it you feel confident enough to argue for, you could start a new thread. Otherwise, you should stick to denying obvious facts about the fossil record, which is also stupid but is at least relevant to the O.P.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 24 by mike the wiz, posted 08-01-2014 2:09 PM mike the wiz has not replied

  
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