Posted on 08/02/2004 3:58:04 PM PDT by Renfield
If you'd like, we can go with the smaller dinos. Some were the size of chickens (~5 kg); many were smaller. The big guys (T. Rex @~6 tonnes, Triceratops @~5 tonnes, the sauropods @ 20-150 tonnes) always get the top billing because they are so impressive. Most of these critters, however, were less than 100 kgs in size.
Let's take it a step further. The largest land mammal that ever existed was the Indricotherium at about 20 tonnes -- or the size of four African elephants. That's the size of the smaller sauropods, and larger than just about every other dinosaur that existed, and yet it wasn't "buoyancy sorted" with them, but with later mammals. We could go on with mammals such as the megatherium (7 tonnes), the titanothere (6 tonnes), the Columbian Mammoth (7 tonnes) -- all comparable to dinosaurs in size, but never found mixed with the latters' bones.
Oh, and then we have the lovely terror birds that cropped up shortly after the demise of the dinosaurs, with some species actually hanging on until a couple of million years ago. These flightless birds ranged up to 4-meters in height and between 50 and 300 kgs (birds are built a bit lighter) -- and yet they are not found mixed with dinos or with more recent remains, regardless of size.
And, let's not even get started on the fish, aquatic reptiles (they weren't dinosaurs) or aquatic mammals, that magically sort themselves out in the fossil record in a manner reminiscent of vast scales of time and not "buoyancy sorting."
Methinks you are not really researching any of your arguments and are simply parroting what someone wrote on a creationist web page. Next time you do a web search, ditch the creationist sites. They are notoriously light on science. Go for things with .edu extensions. It's there that you will find most of the actual research being done in any given field (creationist "researchers" typically skim these sites for the odd out-of-context quote they can mine to bolster their untenable positions. Eliminate the middleman and go there yourself). I also find the science and nature sections of any good bookstore to be a wealth of information, expecially for a megafauna fanatic such as myself.
Don't be dense. Regardless of what a critter's ancestors or its descendents look like, it is "fully developed" for its particular ecological niche at its particular time. All organisms, lest they go extinct, are "transitionals" because the demands of the environment change. That you cannot wrap your mind around these simple concepts does not bode well for your taking anything new out of these discussions.
Bouyancy sorting is observable. What's more, it states that critters with the same level of tendancy to be bouyant will sort to the same level. This is observable with test objects in a lab. Cope's Law, on the other hand, is not observable and actually derives from theory based on theory.. And to the assumption that science has a clue what it's talking about with regard to said theory to the exclusion of all other possibility. For a theory that is yet unproven to produce laws based on assumption which you then inject here as a matter of dispute is begging the question. Where did you learn logic - or did you ever? Because what you just did is beg your argument to support your argument and that violates the first law of logic.
Right. This is where I dismiss what you've said out of hand. I'm sure you expected it. Bouyancy far and away better solves the issue of how animals appear in strata and the extremely good sort of said strata all things considered. I don't tend to dismiss things that tend to tell the story better - especially when the theory explains more than it causes need to theorize about. Sorry, the fewer elements needing explained by a theory, the more likely the theory is to hold up. How many theories and subtheories is evolution up to now?..
Most people who believe that the theory of evolution is an attack on the Bible are those who don't understand the theory. There is nothing in the theory of evolution that contradicts the Bible. Evolution only contradicts a literal interpretation of the Bible. A literal interpretation has its own problems, however. Just read the differing geneologies of Jesus in the first chapters of two of the Gospels, for example. (Sorry, I can't remember which two these were in)
Who says evolution "relegates man to an accident of nature". Evolution is silent as to whether there is meaning to the creation of humans. Evolution doesn't deal with "why are there all these different forms of life?" Evolution deals only with "how did there come to be all these forms of life?" Evolution is contradictory only to a literal interpretation of the Bible, not to religion in general. Evolution is a scientific theory, not a philosophical position. It seems that it is creationists who seek to make evolution what it is not.
logical error. No one said "Darwin was not an atheist." The claim was that Darwin did not advocate atheism. There is a difference. For example, I am overweight, but I do not advocate obesity.
Sounds like argument from antiquity to me. Yet another logical fallacy. Just because the Bible predates evolution and big bang theories, it doesn't hold that the Biblical account is true and the modern theories false. The Bible was written for the people of that time and subsequent times to use as a guide to life. It would have made little sense for God to include theories which the people reading the Bible wouldn't understand for several thousand years. The Bible had to be written in terms that would be understood by people living in all ages. For example, the Bible says that God created all of the different animal species. If you built a machine that made widgets, would you say that you built widgets or that the machine built the widgets. Similarly, it's possible that God built the "machine" of evolution to create all of the animal species. But several thousand years ago, when man didn't have machines to create other items, people may not have understood this idea. If God had written "I have created a cell and this cell will mutate and those mutations that are conducive to the reproductive success of the organism shall survive" would people four thousand years ago have understood? Similarly, when God said "let there be light" could this not have been the event that started the big bang? Would readers of the bible three thousand years ago have understood, "let the space-time continuum begin to expand"? The point is that science and religion are not contradictory. There is one truth, and anything that leads toward that truth cannot be contradictory. If it seem contradictory to us, it is because of our limited understanding.
For a theory that is yet unproven to produce laws based on assumption which you then inject here as a matter of dispute is begging the question. Where did you learn logic - or did you ever? Because what you just did is beg your argument to support your argument and that violates the first law of logic.
As I see the word "theory" used quite a bit by Havoc, some reference material on theories, opinions, etc.
See http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1037248/posts?page=70#70
where Havoc writes:
"Note: a theory is still an opinion."
to which a response comes:
"Incorrect. A theory is "An entire body of knowledge associated with a particular area of study, including the basic postulates, predictions based on these postulates, observations and experimental data, and their interpretation. [Cal Poly Physics Colloquium, 9/23/99]. Theories are well described, repeatedly observed, and verified statements. When they have repeatedly confirmed over a long period of time, the theory for all practical purposes is used as true or fact, (sometime referred to as superb theory such as quantum mechanics).
Theory does not imply uncertainty or opinion - not in science."
Apparently, you and only you know what goes on inside the mind of God? To answer your question of "why would God create the big bang and evolution?" the answer is I don't have the first idea, and neither do you. The evidence is in favor of both of these ideas, though. I am a scientist so I will NOT claim that both of these are true, they may not be. But as of now, to the best of our ability to understand these questions, these seem to be the best answers. If new evidence is found, I will change this belief.
So the mutation was an artificial one instead of a naturally occurring one. This doesn't change the conclusion that mutations can lead to the creation of a new species. Natural selection doesn't lead to the creation of a new species; it determines which new species will survive to produce offspring.
Adaptation is not evolution. That's first and foremost. And there are two things happening here - one is the request to fulfill an expectation you can't fulfill. And two is your attempt to fulfill that expectation with something not asked for and get everyone to believe that you've done what was asked. A fully developed animal is a fully developed animal. It don't matter what it looks like.
I think we all understand language here. A car moving down an assembly line is in transition from incomplete to being complete. But the kind of transition we're talking about here would be the morphing of a camaro into a transam, for instance. And the transition stages would, in this case, only show up in the workshop where it was designed. We would not traditionally expect to find examples of the clay mockups of the car being driven around on the street. They are generally destroyed after the mockup no longer serves a purpose.
You contend as would I, that nature doesn't have a mockup period. I would say God just up and made every creature as our scriptures state. You would say that things transition into new things. Not observable; but, ok. So, we ask you to show the transition. Show the reptile sprouting wings over time. You can't. You want to show us the Transam and say, this is a transition fossil. No, it's a seperate product that in this case really was designed. We're asking you for the animal's "mockups" for the transitional stages that brought it to the "trans am" state. You are aware of this as are the initiators of the evolution arguments. And this is why they have you handing off completed items because in the entire history of fossil finding not one transitional beast has ever been found. Not one.
And no, we aren't going to let you get by with word games on what makes a transitional animal. It has been very well defined and you know precisely what we speak of. You have nothing. So you're trying to sell something else in place of what's been asked for to create the appearance of fullfillment. This would be called fraud. And that is why I call all of you collectively "snake oil salesmen". Though, it would probably save space to just call you Liars.
All the quotes that you've provided deal with the origin of life not evolution. Evolution simply states that once life is in place, variations in that life will be selected and will reproduce preferentially. This is the explanation for all of the varied forms of life that exist today.
See above. You guys sit and point to snakes with supposed hips and leg bones dangling off them. We read the bloody books and see where you guys say that these changes take millions of years because you can't figure out how to explain it in light of the absence of any proof for your theory otherwise. And there is no proof. That is the whole point. You're a bunch of bs con artists.
No. Because there are plenty of birds that live in wet environments and raise their young perfectly well with feathered wings.
And if efficiency of design is such a no brainer and Lamborghinis are the best car on the road.. why aren't semi trucks shaped like Lamborghinis. Oh, that isn't fair is it. screwing with the design of something obviously meant to serve a different purpose and operate differently.
Your analogy fails. Birds and Bats aren't like trucks and lamborghinis. They're more like ferraris and lamborghinis: they occupy very similar niches and do very similar things. If you were designing a sports car, would you ditch all of the things we know about lamborghinis, ferraris and corvettes and start from scratch? That is, to a large extent, what has happened with bats when compared to birds.
The design makes sense for the purpose of the critter.
I didn't say bats don't make sense, I'm just pointing out that it doesn't make sense to take everything that works on birds and then try to re-invent it.
Give us a break. We understand your handwringing on this point. Evolution stands to attempt to tell people they came from monkeys and it does so with the pretense of using science to prove it's theory. It hasn't panned out and you guys have been changing your story to respond to the problems you've encountered since Darwin. You're a moving target. BS artists usually are slippery.
No. No one from Darwin on ever said that a transitional is some kind of malformed freak. You can't use the "fully formed" nature of a thing to show that it's not an intermediate stage between one form and another. The population changes precisely because it is staying well adapted even as the environment changes. That IS the theory.
Did he get the idea ["It is absolutely safe to say that, if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid, or insane...."] from reading these threads or somewhere else?
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