It's a Sad Day For the Future Of American Children.

You haven't explained how the Miller/Urey experiment is wrong. Unless that information is in the AIG link you provided (which I cannot access for some reason). I don't think anyone is disputing the fact that oxygen has always been present on earth, but it was in the form of CO, CO2, H2O, etc, not as free oxygen.The early atmosphere itself was possibly composed of NH3, CH4, and H2, whereas only a tiny fraction of the early atmosphere was composed of free exygen. This free oxygen was likely due to photochemical reactions. Most, if not all, of the free oxygen was immediately taken up by oxidation reactions to produce CO2, H2O.Evidence for lack of abundant free oxygen is in the rocks. Anything on the surface of this planet is subjected to oxidation, especially those rich in Fe: soils, rocks, sediments, etc. And it wasn't until about 2.5 billion years ago that there is any record of oxidation of rocks, soils, sediments.As for archaeopteryx, I think you are still missing the point. You aren't grasping what a transitional fossil represents. Every living thing you see around you is a transitional form, as are all the fossils in the rock record. These fossils do not represent one single line of descent, but many hundreds of thousands.Archaeopteryx is simply one of thousands of forms that developed from the same ancestors (note the plural!) as dinosaurs that MAY have been an ancestor of birds - but not necessarily. It has characteristics that make it bird-like and some that are dinosaur-like. You can't deny that. And those very simple reasons make it transitional.

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keith63:

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If creation was right we should find a perfect recycling earth, which we do.

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Equilibration is found all through nature.

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We should find no transitional fossils, which we don’t.

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You are wrong. We do. Hundreds and thousands of them. Every fossil is in fact a transitional fossil. Your lack of vision here is an artifact of not understanding the classification nuances involved in pigeon-holing life. [quote]And since the bible said we could eat anything on earth, we should be able to take any living thing, eat it, and turn it into our bodies. Since we are all made of the same material it is possible for us to do this.[\quote]
What does this have to do with evolution? Is this part of your "perfect earth" scenario?

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You see the same evidence when looked at with an open mind can actually be used to support creation better than evolution. Were are your missing links?

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keith, the only way you can use any science to support creationism is to ignore 99% of it.Evolution is overwhelmingly supported by all the natural sciences. Creationism must pick and choose what it is supported by.[This message has been edited by roxrkool, 11-18-2003]

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That's it?? Isn't the fact that you can't produce amino acids in any appreciable amount enough to show that abiogenesis is impossible.

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Haven't amino acids have been found in meteorites, specifically the Murchison meteorite? I'm not sure they are the correct amino acids, but it appears the earth is not the only place amino acids occur.Along with studying fossils, have you also been studying the geologic record? If you know anything about rocks and geology and how the fossils are distributed, you will see how much time has passed. Different organism appear and die off at different points within the geologic column. Life starts off as a simpler form and gradually, through time, becomes more variable, complex, etc. The most plausible explanation is evolution.The fact that a cell appears "too complex" to you is evidence of your lack of understanding, not of creation.As for the flood (I guess you don't know your geology!), there is absolutely no evidence for it at all. Nowhere. It did not occur.And seeing as rivers all over the world are cutting canyons, what evidence points to an alternative process of formation for the Grand Canyon? Please post your geology citations.

keith63, no one here is denying that free oxygen existed in the early atmosphere, we are simply saying there was very little of it. The earliest fossils (cyanobacteria) date back to approx. 3.5 billion years (though this is still controversial!), so oxygen was most likely being produced. However, it appears that the oxygen was most likely being taken up almost immediately by the Fe-rich oceans, or the bacteria themselves, resulting in the banded iron formations quetzal mentioned. The atmosphere itself does not show any appreciable amounts of O2 until after the Archean.Your idea of a transitional fossil is completely misguided, unfortunately. What you are describing is a deformed mutant that would not be able to reproduce. You are thinking in terms of a freak of nature. The fossil of a mammal that can't quite live in the ocean nor on land would never exist long enough to reproduce. It would die immediately.What you do see are mammals that live in the ocean but are air-breathing. The can exist in both worlds. You see turtles that live in water and others than live on land. Given time those turtles will go their own separate ways and possibly become unrecognizable as turtles some day. That doesn't mean all the other turtles also have to change. Just the ones who are pressured to do so by their environment.The process of fossilization is difficult enough and now you expect us to find freaks of nature? Organisms that have a one in a million chance of ever being produced in the first place? You need to learn more about the true nature and form of transitional fossils.

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As far as Archaeopteryx is concerned I have read and provided the citation showing it is just a bird.

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What about the non-bird-like traits that it exhibits? Where's the beak? It has ventral ribs that are present in reptiles but not birds? You showed why it's a bird, but it also has characteristics not found in birds but in reptiles. Sure sounds a lot like a transitional organism.