quote:
Originally posted by quicksink:
primitive species are found lower in the strata, and more modern and "advanced" are found further up.
The fossil record
shows nothing. You make an assumption and seek to understand the fossil record in light of that assumption. Suppose you were on a dig 2000 years from now, and you discovered, in different strata, a Shetland pony, a quarterhorse, a thorough-bred, and a Clydesdale. Being completely honest, wouldn't you try to arrange them in some sort of evolutionary fashion - as though the big horse evolved from the smaller one? Now, given the assumption of evolution, that arrangement would come easy. The fossil record has not
showed it to be true, it is merely consistent with your assumption. I mean, after all, the fossils
could be related. But the fossils themselves do not teach us the relation. Would you admit that the assumption has to be made?