What does the fossil record really teach concerning the theory of evolution? Do the fossils demonstrate the progression from simple structures to complex organisms? The following facts need to be considered:

§ Abrupt appearance of animals. All the different, basic kinds of animals appear abruptly and fully functional in the strata - with no proof of ancestors. "Evolution requires intermediate forms between species and paleontology does not provide them." (David Kitts, paleontologist and Evolutionist) Darwin was embarrassed by the fossil record. It contains no proof for macroevolution of animals.

§ Plants appear abruptly, too. Evolutionist Edred J.H. Corner: "... I still think that to the unprejudiced, the fossil record of plants is in favor of special creation." (Evolution in Contemporary Thought, 1961, p.97) Scientists have been unable to find an Evolutionary history (beginning to end) for even one group of modern plants.

§ Animals unchanged. Contrary to common belief, most fossils are not of extinct types of animals. Most fossils are very similar (and often totally identical) to creatures living today. It is said there are many more living species of animals than there are types known only as fossils. If Evolution is true, one may wonder why the case is not just the reverse! Evolutionary history is supposed to be filled with temporary, intermediate stages of Evolution, from amoeba to man.

§ Sufficient fossils. There is a continuing lack of evidence for Evolution despite an enormous number of fossils. Although scientists will continue to discover new varieties of fossil animals and plants, it is generally agreed that the millions of fossils already discovered (and the sediments already explored) provide a reliable indication of which way the evidence is going. That is, there will continue to be little or no fossil evidence found to support Evolutionism.

§ Fast strata formation. There is increasing evidence that many sedimentary rocks, which some thought took thousands or millions of years to accumulate, almost certainly were deposited in only months, days, hours, or minutes.

§ Rapid coal formation. The old Evolutionary theory about coal forming in swamps is wrong. There is increasing evidence that massive coal deposits were formed in deep flood waters. Various coal layers in the U.S. consist mainly of sheets of tree bark abraded from huge masses of uprooted trees. The bark layers were buried in mud and carbonized into coal. Coal formation is relatively quick when heat is applied.

§ Fossilization requires very special conditions. Dinosaur and other fossils could not have formed in the way suggested by most Evolutionary books. Animals almost never fossilize unless they are buried quickly and deeply - before scavengers, bacteria and erosion reduce them to dust. Such conditions are highly unusual. In almost all cases, the very existence of the fossils, in the types and numbers discovered, strongly indicates catastrophic conditions were involved in their burial and preservation. Without such conditions, there seems to be no plausible way to explain their existence. Huge dinosaurs, huge schools of fish, and many diverse animals are found entombed by massive muddy sediments which hardened into rock. Almost all fossils are found in water-laid sediments.

§ Wrong order for evolution. It has been reported that "80 to 85% of Earth's land surface does not have even 3 geologic periods appearing in 'correct' consecutive order" for Evolution.
The fossil record does not provide evidence in support for Evolution.

"Fossils are a great embarrassment to Evolutionary theory and offer strong support for the concept of Creation." (Dr. Gary Parker, Ph.D., Biologist/paleontologist and former Evolutionist)

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The Shoveller: CDP

And I know you're a troll, but you're the only entertainment that's keeping me away from all the work I have to do, so maybe you can dredge up some fun responses.

He's not a troll, he's the most consistently effectively loki troll I have ever seen. I've seen him hook the same people 3-4 times, in subsequent threads, before those people remember what the game is.

Heck, he caught me a couple of times before I figured it out.

CDP is awesome. That is all.

/not impressed

The Shoveller: CDP: (lots of writing)

That was actually pretty well written, nice job!

So, would you also like to summarize what has happened in the last 15 years since the Randolph paper? The bird evolution groups have been very busy. You'll note that Archaeopteryx is now suggested to have been an evolutionary dead end; a small branch in a very diverse phylogeny of fossil birds and bird-like dinosaurs. If you're going to argue about feathers, you should probably tell me what defines a 'bird'. Is it feathers? Is it flight? Is it powered flight? What morphological features are you going to choose? Once we draw that nice little line in the cladogram that separates all the 'non-avian dinosaurs' on one side of the continuum from all the 'birds' on the other side of the continuum, we should be able to have a really fun discussion!

Evolutionists suggest that there are a number of species of fish that may qualify as a link between fish and amphibians. The mudskipper, climbing perch, and lungfish all feature characteristics that allow them to spend some time out of water. But can we make the logical leap to believe that all biochemical information from molecules to man passed through a genetic bridge spanning water to land?

The fact that there are a few creatures that possess features that allows them to survive in both environments does not refute the creationist contention that they were created with these features in the first place. Evolutionists point out these species that exist today as examples of an evolutionary transition that happened millions of years ago in the past. Do they expect, then, that the mudskipper or lungfish will continue evolving into people given enough time? Perhaps such creatures might give an evolutionist some comfort on a superficial level, but the argument is as fallacious as lining up your silverware to prove that forks evolved from spoons. A similar problem is the origin of flight: it would have had to evolve at least four times, in birds, bats, insects and flying reptiles. It makes more sense that our creator solved this problem once and incorporated flight four times in unrelated species.

One of our objectives is to show that a creationist position is reasonable, and easy to believe given the scientific facts. There is nothing illogical about believing in a creator who built all animals different, but with similar master plans. How could life survive unless an abundant supply of life-sustaining proteins with the same biochemical components was available as food? But evolutionists ask us to believe that the genetic information that codes for all land dwelling living systems passed through a conduit such as the mudskipper, or somehow materialized afterward.
I write computer applications for a living. Computer code does not materialize without a programmer. Living systems contain a three-dimensional computer code that tells your fingers to grow to a certain length, and then stop. Your eyeballs do not grow to two inches in diameter, nor does your tongue grow to two feet in length. We observe that this marvelous dance of DNA, RNA and proteins provide for tremendous variety within a species, but is self-regulating, self-repairing and copies itself with tremendous accuracy. There is no reason to believe that this amazing system was different and simpler in the beginning. It is at this level that the logical argument for Darwinism fails.

Creationists believe that all life on earth started from various created kinds, and the diversity of life was built within the "wild-type" genetic information that coded for the construction and replication of this life. Speciation takes place when various populations of these creatures are isolated and through mutations or genetics, some information is lost. Evolutionists have the impossible task of demonstrating to us that gain in information is probable and likely over millions of years. But like the system that never was backed up, genetic information is much easier to destroy than it is to create. If you examine the biochemistry behind it, it is much easier to believe that a creator designed this amazing system of life.

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If you want him, you'll need to summon him.

Gavino: CDP Abrupt appearance of animals. All the different, basic kinds of animals appear abruptly and fully functional in the strata - with no proof of ancestors. "Evolution requires intermediate forms between species and paleontology does not provide them." (David Kitts, paleontologist and Evolutionist) Darwin was embarrassed by the fossil record. It contains no proof for macroevolution of animals.

Or it would if there were no pre-cambrian fossils. Which there are.
.

Fish scales in the Cambrian

First published:
TJ 10(3):297
December 1996
by Carl Wieland

Virtually all of the major divisions of life (the phyla) are found in the Cambrian, the rock system which evolutionists maintain is more than 500 million years old. Until recently, it was thought that no vertebrates were found in the Cambrian.

However, in 1995 the enigmatic tooth-like objects known as conodonts, common in upper Cambrian rocks, were shown to be from eel-like creatures. These were identified as true vertebrates on the basis of distinctive eye muscles not found in invertebrates.

Now small fossils found in 1976 appear to be adding more weight to the idea that the Cambrian is not, as once thought, free of vertebrates (these were believed not to have evolved yet). They are fish-like scales known as Anatolepis.1 Some have argued that the scales could belong to the arthropod phylum, which includes insects and crustaceans.

However, microscopic studies reveal that the scales contain dentine, which is only known in vertebrates. The researchers feel this is conclusive evidence that these are fish scales.

Reference
1. Monastersky, R., 1996. Vertebrate origins: the fossils speak up. Science News, 149(5):75.

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TheMysteriousStranger: CDP: Evolutionists have the impossible task of demonstrating to us that gain in information is probable and likely over millions of years. But like the system that never was backed up, genetic information is much easier to destroy than it is to create.

Care to define how you (or who you copied from) define information. Because pretty much every reasonable definition, it is easy to show how it increased. This is especially true for the ways information people via computer science and communications define it.

If you examine the biochemistry behind it, it is much easier to believe that a creator designed this amazing system of life.


Funny how pretty much every biochemist working today believes in common descent and oppose ID? Maybe they know something that you don't?

"If we evolved from apes, apes shouldn't exist today."

In response to this statement, some evolutionists point out that they don't believe that we descended from apes, but that apes and humans share a common ancestor. However, the evolutionary paleontologist G.G. Simpson had no time for this "pussyfooting," as he called it. He said, "In fact, that earlier ancestor would certainly be called an ape or monkey in popular speech by anyone who saw it. Since the terms ape and monkey are defined by popular usage, man's ancestors were apes or monkeys (or successively both). It is pusillanimous [mean-spirited] if not dishonest for an informed investigator to say otherwise."

However, the main point against this statement is that many evolutionists believe that a small group of creatures split off from the main group and became reproductively isolated from the main large population, and that most change happened in the small group which can lead to allopatric speciation (a geographically isolated population forming a new species). So there's nothing in evolutionary theory that requires the main group to become extinct.

It's important to note that allopatric speciation is not the sole property of evolutionists-creationists believe that most human variation occurred after small groups became isolated (but not speciated) at Babel, while Adam and Eve probably had mid-brown skin color. The quoted erroneous statement is analogous to saying "If all people groups came from Adam and Eve, then why are mid-brown people still alive today?"

So what's the difference between the creationist explanation of people groups ("races") and the evolutionist explanation of people origins? Answer: the former involves separation of already-existing information and loss of information through mutations; the latter requires the generation of tens of millions of "letters" of new information.

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CDP: Most evolutionists

No point in reading any further.

You're a moron. Everyone that uses the word "evolutionist" is a moron.

/I'm a gravationist, Newtonist, Einsteinist, and a numeralist.

CDP: In response to this statement, some evolutionists point out that they don't believe that we descended from apes, but that apes and humans share a common ancestor.

Wrong moron.

WE ARE APES, along with chimps and gorillas.

KiltedBastich:

CDP is awesome. That is all.

I don't understand why people think people who waste all their time on trying to get others to waste their time is a good thing.

I personally don't go, "I wish there was more people on fark filling up comments with crap to help drown out people who want to have serious conversations".

But I guess many here do.

TheMysteriousStranger: CDP: In response to this statement, some evolutionists point out that they don't believe that we descended from apes, but that apes and humans share a common ancestor. However, the evolutionary paleontologist G.G. Simpson had no time for this "pussyfooting," as he called it. He said, "In fact, that earlier ancestor would certainly be called an ape or monkey in popular speech by anyone who saw it. Since the terms ape and monkey are defined by popular usage, man's ancestors were apes or monkeys (or successively both). It is pusillanimous [mean-spirited] if not dishonest for an informed investigator to say otherwise."

Actual biologists generally point out that we ARE apes.
The common ancestor of humans and chimp was an ape.
Well since Simpson wrote in a time when paraphyletic taxa were still kosher, I will have to agree with him.

And oh yes, anyone who asks "Why are there still apes?" simply knows NOTHING about evolution. Indeed has not put in much to the question either. It is like asking "why are there still Europeans?" when an American claims to be descended from Europeans. Yet this is common creationist claim. And indeed even the creationists who claim not to use it turn around and use to same faulty logic by pointing out that some feathered dinosaurs existed after the first birds. It is the same fallacy. When birds evolved, the feathered dinosaurs that did not evolve into birds (the vast majority of them) did not say "well birds have evolved so it is time to become extinct."

The fossils provide much more discouragement than support for Darwinism when they are examined objectively, but objective examination has rarely been the object of Darwinist paleontology. The Darwinist approach has consistently been to find some supporting fossil evidence, claim it as proof for 'evolution,' and then ignore all the difficulties.
--Phillip Johnson, "Darwin on Trial" (2nd edition 1993, p. 86.)

INTRODUCTION

While all Darwinists believe in avian evolution, not all Darwinists believe birds evolved from dinosaurs. The article "In quest of the origin of birds" in the September '97 issue of BioScience highlights the two competing schools of thought among Darwinists: 1) birds evolved from jumping dinosaurs, or 2) birds evolved from gliding reptiles.

Apparently, Archaeopteryx doesn't appear to be much help to either view:

"Although called the Rosetta Stones of avian evolution because they provide so many clues to bird origins, the seven Archaeopteryx fossils that have accumulated on museum shelves during the past 130 or so years represent a creature quite removed from the dawn of birds. Archaeopteryx is widely accepted as the earliest bird in the fossil record."

The theropod-to-bird school believe birds evolved from theropod dinosaurs which developed feathers for insulation, and later developed flight.

The thecodont-to-bird school find this ridiculuous. They say it's "biophysically impossible" to evolve flight from the "ground up" involving theropods, and propose instead some thecodonts glided through trees, and later developed flight.
However, if one were to look at the empirical evidence alone (eg. The fossil record) there doesn't seem to be good reason to accept either Darwinist explanation....
*
One of the hottest debates in paleontology is whether birds evolved from dinosaurs.

The recent article "The Origin of Birds and Their Flight" by Kevin Padian and Luis M. Chiappe (Scientific American, February 1998, pp. 38-47) features an illustration of the fossil bird Confuciusornis; the caption above the illustration declares as fact:"Both a bird and a dinosaur"

On page 5 of the same issue, under the heading, "About the Cover", Confuciusornis is described as "a primitive bird".

Padian and Chiappe conclude: "In fact, living birds are nothing less than small, feathered, short-tailed theropod dinosaurs." (p. 47)

Really?

Padian and Chiappe base their claim for the dinosaurian origins of birds on 1) so-called fossil transitions and 2) cladistics. However, the entire basis for cladism is evolutionary assumption.
The following quotes are taken from "Vertebrate Life" (Third Edition) by F.H. Pough, J.B. Heiser, and W.N. MacFarland (1989)

Macmillan, New York:

"The reason for the change [from traditional to cladistic classification] is an increased emphasis on the proposition that groups of animals can be identified only if they share a common evolutionary lineage." (p. 4)

"Acceptance of the fact of evolution in the nineteenth century made a classification system that provided an individual pigeonhole for each species inadequate -- now it was necessary to express evolutionary relationships among species by incorporating phylogenetic information in the system of classification." (p. 38)

"A cladistic classification to represent the phylogeny of vertebrates, therefore, arranges animals on the basis of their historical divergences from a common ancestral species. Because the transitional fossils that would normally identify a common ancestral species are usually missing, cladistic classification is based on comparisons of character states of the animals that are available for study." (p. 49)

"Phylogenetic systematics, usually called cladistics, classifies animals on the basis of shared derived character states." (p. 52)

"Each phylogenetic lineage is called a clade." (p. 243)

"One of the strengths of the cladistic approach to classification is the emphasis it places on shared derived characteristics of related organisms. Usually, these are morphological characters, and they are employed to draw inferences about phylogenetic relationships, but the process can be used in other ways. For example, if a phylogeny can be established by using morphological charcters, other characteristics -- ecology, behavior, or physiology -- can be superimposed on the phylogeny and their evolution can be interpreted in a phylogenetic context." (p. 482)

FROM THEROPOD LUNGS TO BIRD LUNGS?

In response to the criticism of their theropod-to-bird theory that "The complex lungs of birds could not have evolved from theropod lungs," Padian and Chiappe write:

"This assertion cannot be supported or falsified at the moment, because no fossil lungs are preserved in the paleontological record. Also, the proponents of this argument offer no animal whose lungs could have given rise to those in birds, which are extremely complex and are unlike the lungs of any living animal." (p. 43)

In his book "Evolution: A Theory in Crisis" (1986) molecular biologist Michael Denton describes how in all vertebrates except birds, air is drawn inward through various tubes to air sacs (alveoli) in the lungs, and the "bad air" is expelled through the same tubes.

Birds, however, draw in the "good air" through parabronchi and force it through a complex tubular structure involving several portions of its anatomy. The air is expelled from the body through different tubes and orifices than those through which it entered. Denton reports this is true for all known birds, even those as diverse as hawks, ostriches, and hummingbirds.

FROM SCALES TO FEATHERS?

Well-known creationist Duane Gish, who spent 18 years in biochemical research (Cornell University Medical College; Virus Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley; The Upjohn Company, Kalamazoo, Michigan) says no evolutionist can come even close to providing an evolutionary explanation of how feathers could have evolved from scales:

"Scales are flat horny plates; feathers are very complex in structure, consisting of a central shaft from which radiate barbs and barbules. Barbules are equipped with tiny hooks which lock onto the barbs and bind the feather surface into a flat, strong, flexible vane. Feathers and scales arise from different layers of the skin. Futhermore, the development of the feather is extremely complex, and fundamentally different from that of a scale. Feathers, as do hairs but unlike scales, develop from follicles. A hair, however, is a much simpler structure than a feather. The developing feather is protected by a horny sheath and forms around a bloody, conical, inductive dermal core. Not only is the developing feather sandwiched between the sheath and dermal core, it is complex in structure. Development of the cells that will become the mature feather involves complex processes. Cells migrate and split apart in highly specific patterns to form the complex arrangement of barbs and barbules." ("Evolution: The Fossils Still Say No!", pp. 135-136)

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ohmikey: CDP

Sorry, I'm lame and don't know how to post the picture from your Boobies. It features Adam, Eve and their sons. The wives for Cain and Seth are from some unknown origin. According to the Biblical account they would have married their sisters. The prohibition against marrying close relatives was not expressed untill about 3500 BCE.

Question: "Who was Cain's wife? Was Cain's wife his sister?"

Answer: The Bible does not specifically say who Cain's wife was. The only possible answer was that Cain's wife was his sister or niece or great-niece, etc. The Bible does not say how old Cain was when he killed Abel (Genesis 4:8). Since they were both farmers, they were likely both full-grown adults, possibly with families of their own. Adam and Eve had surely had more children than just Cain and Abel at the time Abel was killed - they definitely had many more children later (Genesis 5:4). The fact that Cain was scared for his own life after he killed Abel (Genesis 4:14) indicates that there were likely many other children and perhaps even grandchildren or great-grandchildren of Adam and Eve at that time. Cain's wife (Genesis 4:17) was a daughter or granddaughter of Adam and Eve.

Since Adam and Eve were the first (and only) human beings, their children would have no other choice than to intermarry. God did not forbid inter-family marriage until much later when there was enough people that intermarriage was not necessary (Leviticus 18:6-18). The reason that incest often results in genetic abnormalities in children is that when two people of similar genetics (i.e. a brother and sister) have children - genetic defects are far more likely to result because both parents had the same defects themselves. When people from different families have children - it is highly unlikely that both parents will have the same genetic defects. The human genetic code has become increasingly "polluted" over the centuries as genetic defects are multiplied, amplified, and passed down from generation to generation. Adam and Eve did not have any genetic defects, so that enabled them and the first few generations of their descendants to have a far greater quality of health than we do now. Adam and Eve's children had few, if any, genetic defects. As a result, it was safe for them to intermarry. It may seem strange or even disgusting to think of Cain's wife being his sister. In the beginning, since God started with one man and one woman, the second generation would have no choice but to intermarry amongst themselves.

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