What the poll indicates is that in spite of the theory being around for over a century and being taught in schools, the evidence for it is still so lacking that almost 90% still don't believe it.

A bit back someone was talking about the lack of evidence for macro-evolution in the fossil record and this just seems silly to me. The reason we don't always have examples of crystal clear transitional evolutionary stages is that animals do not make sure they are fossilized before they die. Also the transitional stages are the stages where the animals are not successful due to their adaptation yet (and therefore not plentiful in nature).

The fossil record is largely made up of SUCCESSFUL animals, not the inbetweeners. When a change that was formerly a mutation reaches the stage were natural selection has allowed for it to truly be beneficial, that is when the species will start to procreate and get an angle on its niche, thus guaranteeing its place in the fossil record. When a mutation first pops up it is unlikely that animals carrying it will be particularly successful. So their won't be too many in the fossil record. This conclusion is just plain common sense.

The fossil record only accounts for a very minute fraction of all life that has existed. Animals don't think to themselves, "Oh shit, I'm about to die. Well, I better make sure my remains are fossilized by jumping into this sediment at the delta of this river so the scientists have proof of transitional fossils!"

Nature doesn't give a s#it if it leaves proof of things. That is why we rely so heavily on gene mapping to establish connections between living organisms. Even so the fossil record still offers plenty of evidence in support of evolution, you just have to be realistic about where that evidence came from and what it really means.

absence of evidence does not mean evidence of absence

It is astonishing that you can continue to make the same logical fallacy after it has actually been pointed out to you in your last argument. Whether or not 90% of a given population believes a theory does not make that theory valid or invalid. Whether or not it is withstands scientific rigor on an objective basis does this.

Your question concerning transitional fossils and missing links have been thoroughly addressed in this thread several times....
As far as your problems with transitional fossils here is a post from way back on page 84 of this thread

I accept the fact that they are non-existant in any meaningful way.

That is because you are still continuing the same logical fallacy about the point I was making in regards to the poll.

Btw your reasoning for that absence in post 2087 is not logical on even a cursory glance.

"We are now about 120 years after Darwin, and knowledge of the fossil record has been greatly expanded. We now have a quarter of a million fossil species but the situation hasn’t changed much. The record of evolution is still surprisingly jerky and, ironically, we have even fewer examples of evolutionary transition than we had in Darwin’s time! By this I mean that some of the classic cases of Darwinian change in the fossil record, such as the evolution of the horse in North America, have had to be discarded or modified as a result of more detailed information."—*Dr. David Raup, in op. cit.

*Dr. Eldridge was asked by a reporter for evidence from the fossil record of transitional changes from one species to another. A report of his reply was printed shortly afterward in the Los Angeles Times:

"No one has found any such in-between creatures. This was long chalked up to ‘gaps’ in the fossil records, gaps that proponents of gradualism [gradual evolutionary change from species to species] confidently expected to fill in someday when rock strata of the proper antiquity were eventually located. But all the fossil evidence to date has failed to turn up any such missing links.

"There is a growing conviction among many scientists that these transitional forms never existed."—*Niles Eldredge, quoted in "Alternate Theory of Evolution Considered," in Los Angeles Times, November 19, 1978.

"Evidence from fossils now points overwhelmingly away from the classical Darwinism which most Americans learned in high school . . The missing link between man and the apes . . is merely the most glamorous of a whole hierarchy of phantom creatures. In the fossil record, missing links are the rule . . The more scientists have searched for the transitional forms between species, the more they have been frustrated."—*Newsweek, November 3, 1980.

MISSING STRATA—Surprising as it may seem, the only evidence for the geologic succession of life is found in the strata charts of the geologists and in their imagination.

Nowhere in geological formations can we find (1) all the strata in order, (2) all the strata—even out of order, (3) most of the strata, in order or out of it. Instead we only find little bits here and there, and frequently they are mixed up (out of their theoretical sequence).

Never are all the strata in the theoretical "geologic column" to be found in one complete sandwich—anywhere in the world! Most of the time only two to eight of the 21 theoretical strata can be found. Even that classic example of rock strata, Grand Canyon, only has about half of them. But the missing strata should be there!

How can strata be missing? Yet this is the way it is everywhere on earth. In the Southwest United States, in order to find Paleozoic strata, we would need to go to the Grand Canyon. To find Mesozoic requires a trip to eastern Arizona. To find Tertiary, off we would have to go to New Mexico. Nowhere—anywhere—is the entire geologic column of the evolutionists to be found, for it is an imaginary column.

"Practically nowhere on the earth can one find the so-called ‘geologic column.’ In fact, at most places on the continents, over half the ‘geologic periods’ are missing! Only 15-20 percent of the earth’s land surface has even one-third of these periods in the correct consecutive order. Even within the Grand Canyon, over 150 million years of this imaginary column are missing. Using the assumed geologic column to date fossils and rocks is fallacious."—Walter T. Brown, In the Beginning (1989), p. 15.

"Data from continents and ocean basins show that the ten [strata] systems are poorly represented on a global scale: approximately 77% of the earth’s surface area on land and under the sea has seven or more (70% or more) of the strata system missing beneath; 94% of the earth’s surface has three or more systems missing beneath; and an estimated 99.6% has at least one missing system. Only a few locations on earth (about 0.4% of its area) have been described with the succession of the ten systems beneath (west Nepal, west Bolivia, and central Poland) . . The entire geologic column, composed of complete strata systems, exists only in the diagrams drawn by geologists!"—S.A. Austin, Impact 137, November 1984, p. 2

SCIENTISTS ARE WAKING UP—Many scientists are becoming aware of the facts and are beginning to speak out more boldly,—but only among themselves or in their scientific journals. The general public continues to hear only the usual "the fossils prove evolution" claim.

Here is how a professor of zoology at Oxford University, puts it:

"In any case, no real evolutionist, whether gradualist or punctuationist, uses the fossil record as evidence in favor of the theory of evolution as opposed to special creation."—*Mark Ridley, "Who Doubts Evolution?" in New Scientist, June 25, 1981, p. 831.

*Colin Patterson spent a lifetime, first searching for fossils and later managing the fossil (paleontology) department of one of the largest fossil museums in the world, the British Museum of Natural History. Eventually, he admitted to himself that he had been self-deceived all his life. During a 1981 keynote address at a convention of fossil experts at the American Museum of Natural History, in New York City, he said this:

"One of the reasons I started taking this anti-evolutionary view, or let’s call it a non-evolutionary view, was last year I had a sudden realization for over twenty years I had thought I was working on evolution in some way. One morning I woke up and something had happened in the night, and it struck me that I had been working on this stuff for twenty years and there was not one thing I knew about it. That’s quite a shock to learn that one can be misled so long. Either there was something wrong with me or there was something wrong with evolutionary theory. Naturally, I knew there was nothing wrong with me, so for the last few years I’ve tried putting a simple question to various people and groups of people.

"Question is: Can you tell me anything you know about evolution, any one thing, any one thing that is true? I tried that question on the geology staff at the Field Museum of Natural History [in Chicago], and the only answer I got was silence. I tried it on the members of the Evolutionary Morphology seminar in the University of Chicago, a very prestigious body of evolutionists, and all I got there was silence for a long time; and eventually one person said, ‘I do know one thing—that it ought not to be taught in high school.’ "—*Colin Patterson, address at American Museum of Natural History, November 5, 1981.

Philip Johnson, a Berkeley professor, later wrote:

"I discussed evolution with Patterson for several hours in London in 1988. He did not retract any of the specific skeptical statements he has made."—Phillip E. Johnson, Darwin on Trial, 1991, p. 157.

I don't disagree. If someone has deliberately hidden evidence that debunks or doesn't fit, they've most likely got something to hide. Would you please provide some specifics on this?

It is a well-authenticated discovery which has been in the British Museum for over half a century. In 1812, on the coast of the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, a fully human skeleton was found, complete in every respect except for the feet and head. It belonged to a woman about 5 foot 2 inches [15.54 dm] tall.

What makes it of great significance is that fact that this skeleton was found inside extremely hard, very old limestone, which was part of a formation more than a mile [1.609 km] in length! Modern geological dating places this formation at 28 million years old—which is 25 million years before modern man is supposed to have first appeared on earth!

Since such a date for a regular person does not fit evolutionary theory, you will not find "Guadeloupe Woman" mentioned in the Hominid textbooks. To do so would be to disprove evolutionary dating of rock formations.

When the two-ton limestone block, containing Guadeloupe Woman, was first put on exhibit in the British Museum in 1812, it was displayed as a proof of the Genesis Flood. But that was 20 years before Lyell and nearly 50 years before Darwin. In 1881, the exhibit was quietly taken down to the basement and hidden there.

OTHER GIANT PEOPLE—Similar giant human footprints have been found in Arizona, near Mount Whitney in California, near White Sands, New Mexico, and other placesSimilar giant human footprints have been found in Arizona, near Mount Whitney in California, near White Sands, New Mexico, and other places.

But, in addition, several other giant human footprints—and even skeletal remains—have been found.

At White Sands, New Mexico, a prehistoric giant walked across a drying lakebed, leaving sandaled feet tracks, with each track approximately 22 inches [55.8 cm] in length.

"The remains of giants were found in Java, twice the size of gorillas, and later the petrified remains of a giant were found in South Africa and reported by the world-renowned anthropologist, Robert Broom. [Based on those finds] Dr. Franz Weidenreich (1946) propounded a new theory to the effect that man’s ancestors were actually giants. Dr. [Clifford] Burdick also tells about one of the unsolved mysteries of the Great White Sands National Monument near Alamogordo, New Mexico. Here is an area of about 175 acres consisting of alabaster, white as snow. It is believed that this gypsum was precipitated as arid winds dried up an inland sea. As this muddy sediment was beginning to harden, some prehistoric giant apparently walked across the drying lakebed, leaving a series of tracks made by sandaled feet. There are 13 human tracks, each track approximately 22 inches [55.8] long and from 8 to 10 inches [20.32-25.4 cm] wide. The stride is from four to five feet [121.9-152.4 cm]."—H.R. Siegler Evolution or Degeneration: Which? (1972), p. 83.

THE ARIZONA TRACKS—Ancient track marks are technically known as ‘ichnofossils." Recently two new clusters of them have been located in Arizona.

In the late 1960s, a private plane flown by Eryl Cummings made an emergency landing on a dirt road along the Moenkopi Wash, near the Little Colorado River of northern Arizona. While there, Cummings discovered in sandstone some fossil tracks which appeared to be that of a barefoot human child. Near it were some dinosaur tracks. Cummings recognized the strata as belonging to the Kayenta, which evolutionists date to about 190 million years in the past. He wanted to return to the location, but never had the time or funds for an expedition. Years passed.

In 1984, Lorraine Austin found similar tracks not far from Cumming’s site and told Paul Rosnau about them. That same year, Rosnau visited the area (later designated as site-1). Here he located many human tracks, dinosaur tracks, and a hand-print of a child that had slipped and put his hand down to catch himself.

Learning about Cumming’s discovery, Rosnau received directions to his site, which turned out to be about 3 km [1.86 mi] from site-1. In 1986 he searched for the Cummings site but was unable to locate the trackways, apparently because the dirt road had been widened and they had been eradicated. But about 100 mi [160.93 km] west of the road, he found dozens of man tracks. This location was named site-2.

Thirty full pages of information on this discovery will be found in a two-part article by Paul Rosnau, Jeremy Auldaney, George Howe, and William Waisgerber, in the September and December 1989 issues of Creation Research Society Quarterly. A number of photographs are included.

The Arizona tracks are located in the Glen Canyon Group, which is part of late Triassic to early Jurassic strata and supposedly date to 175 to 100 million years in the past.

At least 300 tridactyl dinosaur tracks have been found there, a cloven-footed hoof print of a mammal, bivalves (clams of the Unlo complanatus, a freshwater bivalve which still lives in American lakes), large amphibians, lungfish, and 3 ungulate-like tracks (domestic sheep or wild big horn sheep).

Over 60 human tracks were mapped and photographed. A number of the human tracks were in stride areas, some were standing still with left and right foot near each other, all the rest were walking and going somewhere. In some instances, a shoe or something similar seemed to be on the feet. Here are some interesting comments by the authors:

"[Describing one of the tracks:] The other was an almost perfect barefoot track, typical of tracks made in soft mud. It has a deep heel, an arch almost level with the surface, a deep ball, and toe angle."—Op. cit., part 2, p. 81.

"Similarly, a lone, indistinct, eroded dinosaur track would not be considered authentic, but in an area of distinct tracks it would be accepted as one of many genuine tracks. The trails of man-tracks we have located together with the details of the human toot—toes, ball of foot, arch, heel and taper of toes—rule out chance formations of nature in a great many of our discoveries."—Op. cit., p. 91.

"[Here are] two characteristics of authentic human footprints: (1) on hard surfaces they will assume an hourglass shape; (2) on wet surfaces the heel and ball of the foot will make prominent impressions while the arch will not be prominent. I submit that at site-2 at Tuba City there are tracks that meet both these qualifications."—Ibid.

"Among the impressions there are 30 that are better than the accepted human tracks displayed in the San Bernardino County Museum in Redlands, California."—Ibid.

"There is a predominance of fossil bones and tracks of flesh-eating animals such as the phytosaurs, dinosaurs Dilophosurus, and Coelophysis. In normal ecological systems, there are always more plant -eaters. Does this indicate that these carnivorous animals had come down to the area to eat the dead killed in a cataclysm?"—Op. cit., p. 93.

A remarkable number of the tracks had sandals or something shoe-shaped on them.

"(1) There are trackways with repeated barefoot tracks while others have shoe prints which are always headed in the same direction and in reasonable stride with each other. (2) Some are almost identical, existing side by side with the right distance and angles to each other. (3) There are impressions with sharp, shoe-shaped outlines. (4) There is an unusually high percentage (22 percent) of foot and shoe-like impressions in groups . . (8) There are other print pairs with strikingly identical features, always near each other."—Op. cit., p. 92.

It's simple, [,,,]

When human technology gets supreme we move to another planet and genetically make our own on a planet starting at the begining with cave men, and thats what we humans are just genetically transfored from our god who is us at a supreme technology.
human time is in a magnetic sphere around earth, rotation, revolution records and this is why are time is not as gods and is how we are made in his image.

Would not laboratory-achieved abiogenesis pose a potential evidence for Intelligent Design as the origin of life on Earth?

What the poll indicates is that in spite of the theory being around for over a century and being taught in schools, the evidence for it is still so lacking that almost 90% still don't believe it.

Please could you give me just one. You have made this self same asertation time and again and I have asked for any evidence each time but not been provided with such.

All archaeological and palentological finds are classified when they are investigated and added to the evolutionary tree after carefull examination and re-examintaion. It may take time to actualy get round to doing the actualy examintaion, but that is because there is such a great wealth of artefacts to classify and so very little funding to support it. The Natural History Museum in London is still classifying finds from 50 to 60 years ago, it never disposes of anything no mater hw insignificant. But due to the wealth of finds it has, the no: finds is overwhelming and new finds are made every minute, but all finds are looked at in order. If more funding was made avaliable to the Museum to hire more staff, then perhaps in time all finds could be examined as they are recived, but that is not going to happen in my lifetime i'm sure.




How many times must I say... YOU DO NOT GET LINKS IN A TREE! Evolution is a tree, not a chain, this is why we do not look for links.

As for transitional forms, there are thousands, i have previously provided examples. Why will you not listen to those with experiance in the field? People who have dedicated thier lives to the study of Archaeology and Palentology and who try to educate others in the practices and principles of the field of study by citing examples of such transitonal forms where necicery?

Lobe fish.
Lung fish.
Mudskipers.
Walking catfish.

these are just a very few of the examples of transitional species. Hw many more do you want, there are millions to select from.

_______________________________________________________________________




If ths were true, (which it is not) why would it be a problem for evolution at all? There are theories that can explain a lack of evidence in the fosil record easily, but nne of them are neaded as new transitional forms are found every year.

(Zhang F, Zhou Z (2004) Leg feathers in an Early Cretaceous bird. Nature 431:925.)
(www.dinosaur.net.cn/museum/Microraptor_gui.htm)




FOR THE LAST TIME< THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A MISSING LINK! EVOLUTION IS A TREE, NOT A CHAIN!




To belive that there should be any spot where all strata are in order than you must clearly belive that the ENTIRE planet is subject to the EXACT same weather and erosion and deposition sequences at all times and in every point of the globe, is siply ludicous.

Strata are layed down by deposition events, such as flooding, river wash and volcano to name just a few. But not all areas are subject to deposition events at all times. Are you living in an area that is presently flooded, at the botom of a river or under a basaltic flow?

Of course not, that would be imposible. You are living in area where deposition is far less frequent than erosion. Every point on the globe is being eroded, as such many of the layers of strat are eroded away before a new layer can be deposited on top of them, if they were not then where would new material come from to be deposited?

(http://anthro.palomar.edu/time/time_3.htm)




Thats kind of obvious realy, you are not going to find any strata out of order, that would be imposible.

(http://anthro.palomar.edu/time/time_3.htm)




As I said, there is no way you could get strata out of order, and there is no reason that you should find all even most strata in one spot, to belive that is posible shows a complete lack of understanding of geology.

As such the rest of that article is pointless rhetoric. It is based on a falacious idea and so has no substance to it.

(http://anthro.palomar.edu/time/time_3.htm)




Naturaly, of course. I belive all those imotent men and people who sudely discover they have cancer new the same thing right up until they found out they were ill.

I am not sugesting he is ill, just laughing at his lovely and ridiculous statement, he can't be wrong so all of the evidence must be. Talk about being self asured eh!




Evolution happens over the couse of generations, not a single liftime.

Evolution happens as a result of genetic variation.

Evolution is not a chain!!!

Can't realy be a***d going on with more, you get the point anyway, either he was talking bollocks or his pupils were extramly poorly educated (and whos fault would that be?).

_____________________________________________________________________




Cooper has not produced an independant opinion that his dating (to the Miocene) is correct.
The skeleton has never been carbon-dated, although the Museum offered to do so for a fee (as they do not have the funding to date many samples, or even many of the contseted samples in thier archives.) or to alow any other body to do so at thier own expense if they wished, but no one has taken up thier offer. Odd that isnt it?

(http://www.nhm.ac.uk/)




The Natural History Museum curators did not move the fosil down to the basement until 1967.

(http://www.nhm.ac.uk/)




This has been disproven earlier.
There is no evidence that those footprints are human, some of them have been altered and show signs of bing reworked, but most of the "Human" footprints are in fact those of therapods. We were not the only speies to have ever had 12 inch long feet.

The Paluxy River tracks, a smattering of ostensibly human footprints among dinosaur tracks, intended to prove that man and dinosaurs were contemporaneous. All of the "human" tracks can be show to be one of three things: parts of dinosaur tracks, erosion holes, or contemporary human carvings (Scott n.d.)

(E. C. Scott. n.d. 'Scientific Creationism,' Evolution and Race. Berkeley: National Center for Science Education.)




I don't suppose that you noticed that one of the supposed human footprints on the site (http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=articles&action=view&ID=81) has only three toes, making it consistent with a therapod track instead. Or that another one (supposedly the best preserved) had no diferantiation between toes sizes. How many people with 5 identicall sized toes on each foot do you know?




Most of these fosils have been shown to be nothing more than freak chance and missidentification, the rest have not been properly eximaned yet. Personaly I would have no problem with someone resenting this idea, if it was put forwards with good supporting evidence. There is no reason that we could not have had 10 foot tall ancestors at some point in our history, nothing in evolution prevens it.




Many dinosaur types produce two toed footprints, for example Rhynchosauroides (a lepidosaur), other dinosaurs can produce extreamly human looking 5 toed and even five FINGERED prints, such as Apatopus (a phytosaur).

(http://digsfossils.com/fossils/footprints_nj_passaic.html)

two characteristics of authentic human footprints: (1) on hard surfaces they will assume an hourglass shape

There are impressions with sharp, shoe-shaped outlines.

HUMAN REMAINS IN COAL——The remains of people and their productions have been found in coal, although it is supposed to date back to very early prehistoric times—millions upon millions of years in the past (300 million years ago is the date generally given). Evolutionists are very quiet about these astonishing facts.

Juvenile Jaw. The jawbone of a child of about six years of age was found in coal in Tuscany in 1958. It had been flattened like a piece of sheet iron. In this instance, it was found by an expert: Johannes Hurzeler of the Museum of Natural History in Basel

Gold Chain. In 1891, a lady in Morrisville, Illinois, accidentally dropped a shovelful of coal onto the floor while carrying it to her stove. A large chunk of coal broke open, exposing an intricately structured gold chain "neatly coiled and embedded.

It is nothing more than an urbane myth just like the "Marking 'Jedi' as your religion on census forms will force your government to grant it official status" myth!

Which says to me that our education system is in a mess. No one understands what they are teaching or being taught.
It really is sad.

Please could you give me just one. You have made this self same asertation time and again and I have asked for any evidence each time but not been provided with such.

How many times must I say... YOU DO NOT GET LINKS IN A TREE! Evolution is a tree, not a chain, this is why we do not look for links.

To belive that there should be any spot where all strata are in order than you must clearly belive that the ENTIRE planet is subject to the EXACT same weather and erosion and deposition sequences at all times and in every point of the globe, is siply ludicous.

Naturaly, of course. I belive all those imotent men and people who sudely discover they have cancer new the same thing right up until they found out they were ill.

I am not sugesting he is ill, just laughing at his lovely and ridiculous statement, he can't be wrong so all of the evidence must be. Talk about being self asured eh!

Can't realy be a***d going on with more, you get the point anyway, either he was talking bollocks or his pupils were extramly poorly educated (and whos fault would that be?).

Cooper has not produced an independant opinion that his dating (to the Miocene) is correct.
The skeleton has never been carbon-dated, although the Museum offered to do so for a fee (as they do not have the funding to date many samples, or even many of the contseted samples in thier archives.) or to alow any other body to do so at thier own expense if they wished, but no one has taken up thier offer. Odd that isnt it?

(http://www.nhm.ac.uk/)

I don't suppose that you noticed that one of the supposed human footprints on the site (http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=articles&action=view&ID=81) has only three toes, making it consistent with a therapod track instead. Or that another one (supposedly the best preserved) had no diferantiation between toes sizes. How many people with 5 identicall sized toes on each foot do you know?

Yes the reason that evolutionists are so quiet about it, is because its not true. I will send you £20 via paypal or some other means, if you can back this up with real evidence.

Now the problem with this one, is that again it simply is not true. Many jaw bones have been found in coal, but none have ever been found to be human. The simple fact that anything burried in coal is compressed and deformed, makes it dificult to dicern what family bones are from, let alone what species. Added to that the fact that it is only single bones that found, makes it almsot imposiblt to tell what ORDER bones are from in coal seems.

Again another urban legend. Stories of thie type pop up both in support and against creation from time to time, but they have no substance to them at all.

If you come up with any more spurious arguments and urbane legends, send them my way. I love reading them.

It would be my pleasure most assuredly. Your ability to reduce my arguments by your masterful use of opinion, assumption and conjecture has left me in breathless awe.

Lol, only 12% believe that there was no God involved in the process and yet those would have you believe they are the majority.

Just goes to show how unbelievable evolution really is in spite of the "massive evidence"

Did you know that the ones who mostly didn't believe a round Earth were scientists? I could name a slew of other facts which the originator was universally condemned for by the scientific community, however it would be quite lost on you I'm sure.

Lack of objective verification of missing links or transitional species has not prevented evolutionists from trying to maintain that the theory is true…

I accept the fact that they are non-existant in any meaningful way.

Sorry, one more question. How exactly is this factual?