Fossil embryos deep in the fossil record (40 mya before Cambrian Explosion, yet still look "modern")

CMI ^ | Michael J. Oard

[cookcounty]

"If the history of life were compressed to one day, the fossil record would begin about 8:30 pm."

So life is older than the planet?

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[TheThirdRuffian]

Strangely, I am a “dogmatic religious conservative.”

I just happen to know how to read the Bible literally, but not stupidly, so as not to come to silly conclusions like some of the folks here.

[TheThirdRuffian]

“Do you understand conservatism is not limited to politics?”

I just think you guys are silly and don’t know how to read Genesis. (And, yes, I am a fundamentalist Christian.)

[tpanther]

Don’t “know how to read Genesis”?

Is there a secret decoder ring?

[CharlesWayneCT]

It helps if you read entire sentences together, because a lot of us use sentences with periods to indicate complete thoughts, and quoting from the 2nd half of one often leads you to misleading or downright false interpretations.

The important part of the sentence fragment you "repeat" is: Because if it were,

So when you ask "I wanted some support for the idea that evolution made such a negative prediction", that question can't be answered, because no such idea was proferred -- in fact, my point was precisely that the actual theory of evolution does NOT do so, only the story that people make up and pretend is part of the theory.

[TheThirdRuffian]

I would not so mock the Holy Spirit, but it does not suprise me that you do.

[Ha Ha Thats Very Logical]

You’re right, I read too hastily and overlooked your use of the subjunctive. (Nice work—you obviously got some education in grammar.) I’m not sure I understand your point (the date of old fossils is not part of the theory of evolution?), but I do now understand your sentence.

[CharlesWayneCT]

My “thing” in the evolution/creation debates is to try to separate out the theory of evolution from the historical story of origins.

My thought is that if we could confine high biology courses to discussing current biology and biological processes, and teach origins in history class, we’d have a lot less fighting over teaching evolution in the science classes.

And our children would better understand what science really means.

[Ha Ha Thats Very Logical]

Fair enough, I guess. I’m not sure how you can separate the fossil record from the theory of evolution. And wouldn’t your idea just shift the argument into history class, depending on what you taught about fossils and geologic time? (I’m avoiding the word “origins” because it suggests the origin of life debate, and it doesn’t sound like that’s what you mean.)

[CharlesWayneCT]

The fossils found are just fossils found, and exist independent of any theory of origins or speciation. The dating of fossils by various means is a way to improve speculation about what organisms came when in history, but that is a matter of history, not science.

History is replete with stories that are told by the victors, that may have little to do with the truth. At least when the history is changed every couple of years nobody will be able to confuse it with “bad science”.