Does evidence of transitional forms exist ? (Hominid and other)

As I said, I didn't answer your other questions because they were and are off-topic.I did point you to places where you could easily learn the answers to your questions. Sorry, you have it backwards. No proposition is assumed true. Only propositions for which evidence is found (and no falsifying evidence is found) are conditionally accepted as true. If a proposition has not been proven false, but no evidence exists for it, it is set aside.By your standards we should assume that it is true that the universe was created last Thursday by an invisible pink unicorn. After all, it hasn't been proven false ... Irrelevant. Name some, and discuss them in your own words. I love creationist "logic". We look for evidence that might confirm a hypothesis, we find that evidence, and therefore the hypothesis is suspect. Very amusing. You got it backwards agian. The fact that there is disagreement (there isn't much) about whether Archy is a bird or a reptile clearly demonstrates that it's hard to decide ... which in turn means that Archy is a xclassic transitional.

"I did point you to places where you could easily learn the answers to your questions."And I can point you to places that refute those answers. Woopee."By your standards we should assume that it is true that the universe was created last Thursday by an invisible pink unicorn. After all, it hasn't been proven false ..."Okay, your hypothesis is that "the universe was created last Thursday by an invisible pink unicorn". lets test it.I have in my possession a reciept dated to April 6, 2004 which shows the universe existed before last Thursday. Now, about the unicorn,here's your delimma:Is the question Do unicorns exist? or Are their pink unicorns, or Are unicorns able to create?, or Are unicorns invisible? We can ask many questions about this hypothetical unicorn but what is the central question which makes all the other questions unnecessary? The question: Do unicorns exist? is the cntral question. Now, we are in the same perdicament that creationists and evolutionists contend with; trying to prove something that can not be proven. I, you, no one was present at the begining. When I look at nature, I see an all powerful God as its creator. When you look at nature you see a naturalistic process as its creator. Niether view-point can be PROVEN per-se. So when it comes down to it, we are both operating on faith. This is all we creationists want you to admit. That your belief in evolution is as faith based as our religion. Don't say "but, we have imperical evidence" one, that is highly subjective. Two, I can claim the bible is imperical evidence as a true history as NONE of it has been disproven. Again you still have not answered my questions and you can say they are off topic all you want, but I disagree. And, what makes you think your opinion is more valid than mine? Are you one of the superior race?

I think the difference, though, is that when we look at it our way - where natural events are best explained by natural processes - it leads to useful predictions and technologies.On the other hand, there was a period of time where your view held sway - where every natural event was explained by recourse to Almighty God. For about a thousand years that was the dominant paradigm.Nowadays, we refer to that time as "The Dark Ages", and life was nasty, brutish, and short.These viewpoints have consequences, and the consequence of your viewpoint was a thousand years of darkness, ignorance, and strife.

"These viewpoints have consequences, and the consequence of your viewpoint was a thousand years of darkness, ignorance, and strife."And the evolutionary view-points led to Stalin Russia and Nazism. Both Stalin and Hitler were great fans of Darwin. In fact, Stalin required his military officers to read Origin of Species. Furthermore, it is a affermation for all the Hitlers of the world to do as they wish regardless of the consequences because no one is watching. So, get off your high horse and take responsibility for what is going on now. The Dark ages were not a result of religion but rather social, economical, and territorial issues, so don't talk out of your a... You people sleigh me. All of histories problems are because of religion. Yet, if you took the time to look around you, you may notice that since the time when this country began to be stripped of its religious heritage and the secular view becomes predominant, we have more crime, more disease, more murders committed by younger and younger people, mor rapes, more pornography, more divorces, more single mothers, more homeless, and the list goes on. Can you blame this on religion? No, it is the only thing that will quell it.

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When I look at nature, I see an all powerful God as its creator. When you look at nature you see a naturalistic process as its creator. Niether view-point can be PROVEN per-se. So when it comes down to it, we are both operating on faith.

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Neither view is claimed to have been PROVEN, but one has been supported by the evidence while the other has been falsified by it. Evolution can be tested, which is all we want creationists to understand. The Theory of Evolution (ToE) has never been taken on faith, only on evidenciary support. ToE predicts transitional forms in the fossil record. What do we find? Transitional forms. ToE also predicts that these fossils should fall into a nested hierarchie (branching tree) and they do. ToE predicts that the genetic makeup of living species should reflect what we find in the fossil record, and it does. It is corroboration between independent tests and methodologies that adds reliability to the theory. ToE is not taken on blind faith, but rather as a consequence of the evidence. Creationism is taken on blind faith, and the evidence is either accepted or IGNORED, depending on how it fits the presupposition (based on blind faith) of the observer.An interesting article that you might want to read is Glenn Morton's Demon which is the story about a creationist who realized the vast amount of information he had to block out in order to keep his creationist view-point. It is this type of behavior that evolutionists show creationists time after time, the overwhelming evidence that supports evolution and FALSIFIES a young earth and special creation. It is not a matter of two different interpretations of the data, but of two different sets of data, one complete (evolution) and one incomplete (creationism). Just for one example, Archaeopteryx is considered a valid transitional form between reptiles and birds. Creationists scream at the top of their lungs that there are no transitionals, but yet when they are shown one they dismiss it. We (evos) are given one of two explanations. First, that Archie was simply a different kind of bird, a taxon unto its own. Or, that Archie is just a bird, no matter the number of reptile-only characteristics he has. What they have done is turn their argument of "no transitionals" to "we will never accept any fossil as transitional". Ignoring data is the last bastion of creationist hope.

Did they? I was under the impression from their writings - and the tacit approval of the Catholic church - that they purported to be doing the Lord's work. You know, almost every one of you Christians say that, but when I look at the statistics, it's Christians who are overrepresented in the prision population, and who have the highest rate of divorce. On the other hand, it's atheists who are underrepresented in prisions, and tend to have the most successful marriages. It's atheists who tend to oppose wars, while it's our Christian president who starts them. Funny, though, that when I look at the stats, all those things are on the decline. I wonder why that is? If I follow your logic, I can only conclude it's because atheists and secular humanists generally take more responsibility for their own actions than people like you.You might want to look the the Scandanavian countries for an example of how secularizing a country tends to increase the standard of living. Moreover you might want to ponder why the real hellholes on this world - you know, most of the ones we're shipping troops to - are the ones most characterized by strict religionism. Why don't you pop over to Saudi Arabia and ask a woman how well she's doing under Wahhabism?This message has been edited by crashfrog, 05-29-2004 01:55 AM

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"What gets me is all the mean things people say about Secular Humanism without even taking the time to read some of our basic scriptures, such as the Bill of Rights or Omni magazine." - Barbara Ehrenreich

Er, no you can't; the best you can do is to point me to places that don't like those answers and refuse to accept them, and throw up a cloud of double-talk around that fact.You still haven't learned anything, even when given the opportunity. If you want people to answer your questions, start discussing the answers you've gotten already instead of just regurgitating what you've read on websites that support your preconceptions. {Sigh} I grow weary of people who haven't thought about the issues claiming to have a valid viewpoint ...Your receipt shows nothing other than the fact that a receipt exists with that date on it. My hypothesis is that the invisible pink unicorn created that receipt last Thursday, along with everything else in the Universe and all our memories. You cannot disprove that hypothesis, therefore by your criteria you should accept it as true. By my criteria, of course, we don't do that. But you're the one that proposed that "If it can not be proven false, it is reasonable to assume it true". Absolutely false. Most creationists want their particular religous views taught as science in U.S. public high schools, and that's far from just "admitting we are both operating on faith".If you want to get all philosophical about it, "evolutionists" and all scientists are operating on the premises of methodological naturalism (that there is a world, that our senses give us a reasonably accurate picuture of the world, ...) and indeed those premises might be false .... but assuming that they are true has given us our current civilization, including the computer you're typing on, and in spite of the many flaws of our civilization it's better than anything we've had before. So, whether or not methodological naturalism is "true" (whatever that means), it works, and we're going to continue to use it. That doesn't necessarily mean that science and methodological naturalism are all there is, or that there are not other valid and useful ways of looking at the world. Again off topic ... I believe that much of the Bible is true and important, but some of it is outright false. You can claim anything you want, but establishing that claim is another kettle of fish.Of course, the peculiar interpretations of the Bible by many creationists are trivially false. Life is old, the Earth is older, the Universe is older still, and there was never any global deluge. No, but I'm certinaly much more knowledgable and familiar with both sides of the controversy than you are.

Please present your data to support these assertions.You might want to note that several Scandinavian countries with very low church attendance rates also have incredibly low crime rates. You might also want to note that the percentage of atheists in the U.S. prison population is significantly lower than the percentage in the country at large. Think on what those facts might mean. Indeed? Where's your data to support that? And how do you propose to enforce your religious beliefs on others? You're beginning to sound like one of those that the Founding Fathers wisely protected us against.

And I am quite certain that The Invisible Pink Unicorn (PBUHHH!) exists - I looked up at the blue sky last night and failed to see Her Horniness. That alone proves her Invisible Pinkness. When She created all the universe last Thursday, she created it with the appearance of age - receipts, old newspapers and phone books, "memories" of previous events, the proper quantities of daughter isotopes of uranium-238 and potassium-40 and the like......Prove me wrong.

for Her Invisible Pink Horniness that for any of the crap Creationists spout. My daughter had an image of her (visible of course. I was the only one with truly invisible tokens. Used to herd invisible baby ducks as a child. Did so both walking and from the back of my firey steed Blackie) and when Her Horniness was around, she would slip right off into sleep.There can be little doubt of the reality of Her Horiness and I attribute much of the fall in moral standards to the fact that Her Horniness has been removed from school and SCOTUS.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

I'm going to step in and remind ex libres of the topic of this thread. Others have tried to contain the topic only to be shot down.This thread is "Does evidence of transitional forms exist? (Hominid and other)"We have other threads for abiogenisis, the big bang, is it science, is it a religion, does the belief in evolution create moral decline...yada yada yadaWe have a very precisely named thread here..let's stick to the topic.

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AdminAsgara
Queen of the Universe

There arent any undisputed hominid tran-forms out there. If there was evolution would of been fact a long long time ago. The missing link is missing simply because he does not exist. Could anyone answer if humans have evolved. Should there by now after 4 billion yrs be at least one undisputed link?.BibleGateway.com: A searchable online Bible in over 150 versions and 50 languages.: Cgi-binBibleGateway.com: A searchable online Bible in over 150 versions and 50 languages.: Cgi-binThis message has been edited by almeyda, 05-29-2004 01:14 AM

Actually, here is a perfect example of a trans-form hominid. You can distinctly see both the ape and human features of this organism. This message has been edited by custard, 05-29-2004 03:44 AMThis message has been edited by custard, 05-29-2004 03:45 AM

The only people disputing hominid transformations are cranks and kooks.It's interesting that creationists can't agree which fossils are apes and which are humans, precisely because they are transitional and there's no hard-and-fast line between Man and apes. See Comparison of all skulls. It was recognized as fact a long time ago. The denial of a few religious nuts does not change that.

almeyda Could you tell us what a missing link between any 2 species would look like?This message has been edited by sidelined, 05-29-2004 10:49 AM