evidence?

Thank you Gemster. I am astonished! This is the first time I can recall a creationist getting that point. You ability to do so and, especially, your willingness to acknowledge the point is impressive compared to some of your "collegues".I will nominate this for a post of the month. And I am *not* being facetious. I really am impressed.

and all you have demonstrated is the ability to dismiss opposing evidence by sticking a happy face on it.where are the ancestors of all of this fully-formed, precambrian life? Where is the phylogeny matches stratigraphy baloney you keep parroting?[insert appeals to future discovery here]

Precambrian evolution? The earliest found bacteria are 3.5 billion years old. The ediacaran lifeforms include various multicellular (and sometimes sizable) organisms.The first Cambrian explosion was simply the wide diversification of close relatives to these, and are clearly represented in the earlier strata. Two paths were taken at this point: those which relied on oxygen diffusion through the skin could grow large, but had to remain quite thin; they were structurally more similar to jellyfish. The other route utilized oxygenated liquids to transfer oxygen, and were able to become dense. This split is visible during the early neoproterozoic. Since the first evidence of mobility steadily begins to occur later in this time period, it is likely that colagen developed during this period. No apparent hard parts are found in any organisms organisms at this point. At the end of the neoproterozoic, the first burrowing organisms and first gills are found. Finally, some also begin creating calcified deposits in their tunnels and on parts of their bodies. Suddenly, the big, thin organisms largely dissapear (leaving the small organisms only). It seems reasonable - if your prey has learned to burrow, only prey that can dig or burrow (kind of hard for a thin-walled animal) can survive. With the big predators gone, there is a second explosion. The small creatures rapidly diversify, but clearly radiating from their earlier ancestory. You then begin to get the first annelid jaws and simple fossil shells. This quickly lead to the first true arthropods, since it gives them mobile defense. You then get your trilobytes. ------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

lawdog, Black pot, meet the very dark kettle. You have pretty much admitted you never read the paper I cited to you, whereas I am eager to read the scientific paper that lead you to conclude there were Precambrian fish & crustacea.As yet you have provided no falsifying evidence of evolution. Interestingly the Precamrian life we do see is fully formed to! Did you mean Cambrian life? But anyway, here's another fact for you to ignore, the Precambrian shows an increase in complexity; single celled prokaryotes to single celled eukaryotes, to multicellular eukaryotes. Why would that be?I don't know where they are. But lack of evidence isn't evidence, & claiming it is so is an argument from ignorance, which is why you haven't falsified evolution, & the only reason anyone is wearing a happy face is for that reason.The phylogeny matching stratigraphy paper, plus the papers that the phylogenies were tested from were cited to you when I brought the subject up. You mean you completely ignored it & rejected it? An open mind is a wonderful thing, but not so open your brain falls out.Mark

Gee, Mark, methinks you're incompetent to proceed to qualify yourself as an expert on "evidence":"lack of evidence isn't evidence, & claiming it is so is an argument from ignorance"The only argument from ignorance is claiming that anyone who argues against a theory based on a "lack of evidence" is ignorant. You see, lack of "evidence" constitutes reasonable doubt and IS evidence your theory is bunk; it gives EVIDENCE for reasonable doubt. Get with the program already!Seriously, Mark, precisely when and where did you receive all of your extensive experience and training with "evidence"? We'll need to know this to take you seriously since, by all indication, your above comment is simply to be construed as an argument from ignorance. Oops. Perhaps you could tell us all what was the highest level of education you reached? My guess is not even a college degree. Am I close? One thing is very clear, you are certainly not an authority on evidence like you want people to believe. Convince us otherwise.An argument from ignorance would be more acurately attributed to the various stories you tell about how you speculate life evolved. My personal favorite is your story about "abiogenesis"! Talk about an argument from ignorance!Silly boy!

Jurortensaitoastapplezephan,Welcome back lawboy!If you read what was written in context, it was lawdogs argument that the lack of "fully formed" (whatever that means) Precambrian intermediates contradicted evolution.If an argument from ignorance is "an argument may assume that since something has not been proven true, it is therefore false." Then lawdogs argument invokes that fallacy.Mark------------------
"I can't prove creationism, but they can't prove evolution. It is [also] a religion, so it should not be taught....Christians took over the school board and voted in creationism. That can be done in any school district anywhere, and it ought to be done." Says Kent "consistent" Hovind in "Unmasking the False Religion of Evolution Chapter 6."

This isn't the courtroom, dude. This is science. But even in the courtroom "reasonable doubt" doesn't mean you didn't do it. It just means that it couldn't be proved that you did it.But "reasonable doubt" has no relevance to the scientific context. You're basically equivocating on the word "evidence." Probably as part of a science education. "Evidence" as part of a legal context would be irrelevant to science, after all.

I've been coming here for a few days now and this is my state of the nation address for the debate.
basically whenever someone who doesn't believe in evolution makes a case against it based on logic, the natives complain about lack of evidence, or prove that a spider can't evolve or that is an argument from incredulity. It would seem that only the creationists or those who believe there was some intervention by an intelligent being can appeal to logic because the theory of evolution doesn't have any. So what can the evolutionists appeal to, only evidence which would be fine if they had any.
So the use of common sense is inadmissable according to evo's cos they want evidence. The reason that the evolutionists must make a case for having evidence is, as I have already said they can't use common sense analogies.
If the evolutionists were honest enough to say that there is no real evidence only blind faith in a paradigm, they would lose support because faith in a creator is more rational, unless the rediculous notion of evolution can be proved. I have quoted a few statements made by the secular scientific community that would indicate that the evidence is in very short supply, then I was instructed to go to a website that explained to me why appealing to authority is fallacious. There I found a big diatribe against misquotes, old quotes, out of context quotes etc. I can see right through this method of damage control to the root of the problem. Where evolutionists have expressed doubt about the credibility and strength of evidence, creationists have quickly claimed that the evo's science is not empirical but faith based, which I agree with. The trouble is while I can admit my faith in God is just that, as I have already said the evolutionists position would be seriously weakened by making that admission because the theory is illogical and can find no laws of physics that support it. So the likes of gould etc are desperate to stop people quoting them in there moments of doubt, because they can't afford to have people think that their science is really religion by another name.
Can someone please enlighten me as to why I am wrong?

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they can't use common sense analogies.

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Well, first off, this isn't true. In irreducable conplexity arguments, since they usually go down to levels where there isn't any fossil preservation (i.e., inner workings of ancient cells), the only thing we can do is demonstrate possible paths for a mechanism to take. Of course, then we get jumped all over by the creationists who say things to the effect of, "but you can't prove that was what happened!". Of course not, that was the reason why the IC argument was being made in the first place In other cases where there is evidence, "possibly" isn't good enough. Things have to match with the evidence. That is where we jump down your throat. You need to make your model fit with the evidence, instead of trying to pretend the evidence doesn't exist.

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If the evolutionists were honest enough to say that there is no real evidence

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Yes, no real evidence. Only several dozen different-functioning radioisotope dating methods (some of which can be used as isochron dating), varves, tree rings, ice cores, coral clocks and other things that all confirm each other - and that's just for dating. There's linear genetic paths, there's linear fossil paths (the very reason why evolution was initially proposed - in fact, when people first tried to explain what they saw, the only thing that they could come up with at first was that there were "multiple creations", and that God destroyed all creatures in between each one. As they kept having to increase the estimated number of "creations" and started seing more and more that the creatures between the "creations" were just variants on earlier versions, eventually they were forced to accept evolution). There's the precise ordering, the lack of modern fossils with ancient fossils in every last case (it's actually far more intricate than that even). There's the lack of short-lived radioisotopes that aren't a decay product of a long-lived radioisotope (or special method). There's artificial life simulations, there's the occurance of natural selection in other systems in real time (immune, neural, etc). There's lab studies on creatures with fast breeding rates (things like the doubling of the lifespan of flies, making populations of them unable to interbreed, etc). Even pigeon breeders have had their share, with their inducing artificial selection factors on their birds, creating a most bizarre menagerie of creatures!Oh, what are we thinking! We've got no evidence! (whoops, forgot the sarcasm tag... ).

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faith in a creator is more rational

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Yes. Which is more likely: That we're in a world based on simple physical laws, where complexity can easily be shown to happen from noncomplexity (plot a mandelbrot set - it's only Z=Z^2 + C!; watch natural fractals occur from simple physical laws, the complexity of weather reactions, the complexity of the internals of the sun, the ridiculously hard to calculate complex reactions that lead to earth's dynamo, etc), and that those simple laws were just there - or, that these simple laws were created by a near infinitely more complex sentient being which just happened to be there.

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the evolutionists position would be seriously weaked by making the admission because the theory is illogical and can find no laws of physics that support it

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Yep. No laws (like oh, say, those that govern physical chemistry) affect evolution. And it's illogical to expect complexity from noncomplexity in iterative processes. I mean, it never happens anywhere else in the world, or in mathematics! (whoops, forgot that sarcasm tag again...)

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so the people like gould etc are desparate to stop people quoting them in there moments of doubt

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I would be ticked off too if someone made an out of context quote from something I wrote. Point me to a place where Gould actually concludes anything with any sort of doubt in the accuracy of evolution itself (as opposed to, say, a particular genus or species-level phylogeny), and I'll bake you a dozen cookies. *In context* - that means actually look at the publication yourself, since, as you saw yourself if you actually read anything about the pages and pages of misquotes, the level of transcription and context (and making-things-up) accuracy is atrocious. If you look at it yourself and see one, and I can confirm it - I'll send the cookies on over right away.BTW, I've never lost a cookie bet ------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

At the higher level of evolutionary transition between basic morphological designs, gradualism has always been in trouble, though it remains the official position of most Western evolutionists. Smooth intermediates between Bauplne are almost impossible to construct, even in thought experiments; there is certainly no evidence for them in the fossil record (curious mosaics like Archaeopteryx do not count). [S.J. Gould & Niles Eldredge (evolutionists); Paleobiology 3:147, 1977]Looks like your pal had to come up with his hopeful monster theory in leiu of better evidence.

And *where* did you get a copy of Paleobiology from 1977 in 30 minutes notice??? In short, you're quoting from one of the many the horridly inaccurate creationist quotes lists. I told you not to do that. If you read the links that you were sent, you would understand why I trust them about as far as I can throw Jerry Falwell.Do you want to know why I hate these creationists quotes? Because the article that this is from is about punctuated equilibrium, and how the fossil evidence doesn't support gradualism in most cases, it supports PE. Eldridge and Gould in this paragraph in context talk about how different elements exhibit morphological characteristics that change at different rates. Eldridge and Gould were following up on de Beer's work of 1954. Now the mix of PE and gradualism is accurately accepted as fact amongst evolutionists, ever since genetic studies on bacteria developing resistance have been conducted (which offered confirmation). A "mosaic" is an animal which exhibits this strongly, where certain parts change little while others change much. A mosaic is most definitely expected in things like transition from jumpers to fliers, since there will be heavy selection factors on the skin flaps/wings, but relatively little on things like the skull shape, etc.You do know what punctuated equilibrium is, right??If you had read the reference as you were told to do before quoting, you would have realized all of this. But no, you've done the exact same thing creationists do in almost every debate, put in some ridiculous out of context quote from a book that they've never read. Be thankful that you didn't put in a doctored one like is so common.------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

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The only argument from ignorance is claiming that anyone who argues against a theory based on a "lack of evidence" is ignorant. You see, lack of "evidence" constitutes reasonable doubt and IS evidence your theory is bunk; it gives EVIDENCE for reasonable doubt. Get with the program already!

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Wow Ten-sai, Appletoast, lawdog, changer-of-name-to-avoid-association-with-previous-stupidity-postedWhat a wonderful use of logic....ok, by this logic since not every gene involved in Alzheimer's has been mapped and cloned Alzheimerr's can have no genetic basis because there is a reasonable doubt about the amount that is genetic and the amount that is environmentally responsible...so we can all just give up on our research now and "pray" that these poor bastards get better...oh yeah, using the legal system to do science is just so so productive...no wonder scientists have been convinced to use t for so long

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Oops. Perhaps you could tell us all what was the highest level of education you reached? My guess is not even a college degree.

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Oh, arguing from authority now are we? I guess you would have to since mark24 has shown he is more intelligent than you in every single one of his posts so you have to appeal to something to save face. And what exactly are YOUR scientific credentials there ambulance chaser boy?

Looks like you are relying on creationist misrepresentations.Gould explicitly refers to SMOOTH transitions. What he means is that the major transtitons do not represent a smooth morphing of one form to another - different traits appear at different points in the process and evolve at different rates. And that is what archaeopteryx *is* an example of.So no "hopeful monster" theory - just Punctuated Equilibria against Phyletic Gradialism again.(And Gould was dead wrong about phyletic gradualism being the "ofifical line" of evolutionists - even at the time he wrote.)

1) In general your porblem is that you are resortign to propaganda tactics, making false accusatiosn and hiding your own faults which have played a major part in the course fo the discussion.2) The main problem is that you refuse to accept that you can be wrong despite knowign very little of the relevant infprmation.3) You have not presnted truly logical arguments. You have presented intuitive arguments based on VERY limited information - and refused to even consider or discuss alternaive explanations.
Common sense has its limits. That is why we have sicecne. But you don;t mention that you dismiss a scientific answer without giving any rasons, do you ?4) Honesty does not require discarding facts and accepting your opinion as the final word. The evidence for evolution exists. If you were honest you would admit that there was evidence even if you refused to accept the conclusion.5) Creationists are not entriely reliable sources. Answers in Genesis even went to the lengths of suggesting that some of the false or dubious arguments agains evolution should not be used - and were attacked by Kent Hovind even for that.6) Assuming that you know what out of context quotes mean - even when you have not READ them in context is bad enough. Ignorign the correctiosn - again refusing to discuss the matter is even worse. Insisting that Gould must have meant what you WANT him to mean is not an honest argument.Or to sum it up.You aren't God. You are a fallible human. At present you know far less about the subjects you are discussing than many here. So don't get so upset just because we won't accept your opinions as facts.

Not only is legal evidence and a trial by jury irrelevant to science it would be fully counter productive.This reasonable doubt crap especially. A trial reaches a conclusion whereby (if it is a jury trial) opinions are rendered and a decision made and that is it (often with some chance of appeal)....but a decision is made by a selected group of people and then a final decision is made.the "trial" of hypotheses or theories NEVER ends! All scientific theories are tentative and must be so. Science constantly gathers data and tests hypothesis and theories in the context of new experimental evidence that has been gathered. No select group of people have to be scientists...anybody can learn and become a scientist and test whatever they want to....there is no final sentence for a hypothesis or theory...even hypotheses that fall out of favor can be shown to be supported by scientific evidence in some cases and make a comeback...Or is Juror going to show us how one can demonstrate genomic imprinting more accurately using the legal system as opposed to the scientific method?Let's see, predicted response...insults, evasion of every point made, claim to be leaving the forum, then coming back under yet another name