The fossil record is sketchy on our ancestors as soft tissue tends to preserve imperfectly in all but ideal conditions, like those of the shale.

In its heyday, the average Pikaia would have grown to the length of a human thumb. It was a flat creature, with a head the size of a period. Two tentacles sprung from the front.

"Those are enigmatic," Caron said. "Perhaps they were used for feeding, but their role is not very clear.

Darwin produced embarrassingly little concrete evidence to back up some of his most important claims. This includes the change of one species into another in succeeding geological strata, or the production of new structures and taxonomic types by natural selection. ~ Ernst Mayr

One might suppose that Darwin, like his modern intellectual descendants, saw in the fossil record a confirmation of his theory -- the literal documentation of life's evolution from the Cambrian to the present day. In fact, the two chapters devoted to geology in The Origin of Species are anything but celebratory. On the contrary, they constitute a carefully worded apology in which Darwin argues that evolution by natural selection is correct despite an evident lack of support from fossils. ~ Andrew Knoll

Darwin invoked his standard argument to resolve this uncomfortable problem: the fossil record is so imperfect that we do not have evidence for most events of life's history. But even Darwin acknowledged that his favorite ploy was wearing a bit thin in this case. His argument could easily account for a missing stage in a single linage, but could the agencies of imperfection really obliterate absolutely all evidence for positively every creature during most of life's history? Darwin admitted: "The case as present must remain inexplicable; and may be truly urged as a valid argument against the views here entertained." (1859, p.308)

Darwin has been vindicated by a rich Precambrian record, all discovered in the past thirty years. Yet the peculiar character of this evidence has not matched Darwin's prediction of a continuous rise in complexity toward Cambrian life, and the problem of the Cambrian explosion has remained as stubborn as ever -- if not more so, since our confusion now rests on knowledge, rather than ignorance about the nature of Precambrian life. ~ Stephen Jay Gould

The intervals of time that separate fossils are so huge that we cannot say anything definite about their possible connection through ancestry and descent. ~ Henry Gee

Fossils may tell us many things, but one thing they can never disclose is whether they were ancestors of anything else. ~ Colin Patterson

In b4 Bev... nevermind

Bevets, do you ever have an original thought that isn't a quote? It really looks like you protest too much, like you're trying to convince yourself more than anyone,

Stop feeding him, people.

Just stop it.

Bevets, I encourage you to look up a little something called Nylonaise. Google it. Anyway, to save you some time, I'll explain. It's a little bacterium in a drainage pond that was found. A drainage pond to a nylon factory. Interesting thing, these bacterium evolved to eat a byproduct of nylon manufacture. A byproduct that does not exist in nature. And this new species and the bacterium it evolved from are found in the same pond. The DNA to both was sequenced, and the mutation in the DNA that allowed it such a neat trick was discovered.

Evolution is scientific fact. The universe does not alter itself to accommodate yours or anyone else's whims. Evolution doesn't become wrong if you wish it were hard enough. The universe is definitive; There are right answers out there. Your religion has failed to find those answers. And where religion fails, science succeeds. Over and over again. I'll note you use a tool produced thanks to advances to science to post, rather than prayer which does nothing.

And not just ANY worm! They're pretty sure his name was, "Eddie."

lyndsayj: You might as well talk to a brick wall, for all the good it'll do in trying to change Bevets's mind. Just saying :)

Oh, I'm familiar with Bevets. If nothing else, he's a handy indicator of what levels of cognitive dissonance the super-religious community has. That he uses arguments that would only work to someone already ignorant of science, critical thinking, and reality in general, just shows us how far said community has regressed. It's like watching something evolution in reverse.

Arkanaut: Do they contain fragments of the God-Emperor's memory?

How will you meet your end? As no more than a secret society?

If thats the case, why are theyre still worms? If evolution is real, then surely humans are the pinnacle of it, if thats the case, then it begs the question, why are their lower life forms left at all besides the ones we consider delicious?

It's really depressing that in the year 2012 so many adults still believe in ancient fairy tales.

Sheldon: "Why are you crying?"

Penny: "Because I'm stupid."

Sheldon: "Well, that's no reason to cry. People cry when they are sad.
For instance, I cry because other people are stupid, and that makes me sad."

Cyno01: If thats the case, why are theyre still worms? If evolution is real, then surely humans are the pinnacle of it, if thats the case, then it begs the question, why are their lower life forms left at all besides the ones we consider delicious?

I am 97.2% sure that you're trolling, but just in case...

Cyno01: If thats the case, why are theyre still worms? If evolution is real, then surely humans are the pinnacle of it, if thats the case, then it begs the question, why are their lower life forms left at all besides the ones we consider delicious?

No, it doesn't. You're just an ignorant tool who substitutes glib talking-points for actual science.

Millennium: I always wonder why creationists get into such a tizzy about this. The Bible shows the creation story from a God-centric perspective: he reaches over and hits the Spacetime button, then the Planet button, then the Land button, and so on. But the Bible never goes into the ground-level perspective: what a person on the scene would actually have seen as all of this was going on. Is it not possible that science fills in that gap?

Creationists get into a tizzy about evolution for two main reasons. First, because evolution challenges the Biblical story as it's written. Second, and perhaps more importantly, because evolution eliminates the greatest argument for a god: the need for a designer.

You're right that some people have tried to reconcile their religion with evolution, but let's be honest about what they're really doing. These people have decided they can't ignore the fact of evolution, but they want to hold on to whatever religion they identify with. This causes, of course, cognitive dissonance. And, they go through mental gymnastics to relieve that dissonance by claiming that the Bible is just metaphor or shouldn't be taken literally or something along those lines.

I find it dishonest...but, it's really not my business what other people choose to believe.

Cyno01: If thats the case, why are theyre still worms? If evolution is real, then surely humans are the pinnacle of it, if thats the case, then it begs the question, why are their lower life forms left at all besides the ones we consider delicious?

Is this meant to be ironic?