I don’t have much time today, but I’ll tackle a few and hope to get to more later. Comments to Moose, Larry, Edge, & Gene.
quote:
Moose: There has been a progression as time has passed.
Moose, this is a myth that informed evolutionists no longer accept. Note my comment to RetroCrono in another forum here, and Percipient’s follow-up.
"The old Darwinian view of evolution as a ladder of more and more efficient forms leading up to the present is not borne out by the evidence. - N.D. Newell, Why Scientists believe in Evolution, 1984, p 10, American Geological Institute pamphlet
I believe that our failure to find any clear vector of fitfully accumulating progressrepresents our greatest dilemma for a study of pattern in life’s history — S.J. Gould, ‘The paradox of the first tier: an agenda for paleobiology’, Paleobiology, Vol 11, No 1, 1985, p 3
Percipient: Your point about the fossil record is worth emphasizing again. The Newell and Gould quotes warn against the mistake of interpreting the fossil history in the geologic column as a record of progress, but it is an easy trap to fall into, more so for laypeople I expect than scientists.
Larry, I find Morton’s paragraph on what a transition is very revealing as to the problem. If he can’t know for sure what is in a direct line of decent, how can he then know for sure its *near* a line of decent? The problem is that there are no clear-cut lineages despite the fact we have unearthed billion upon billions of these organisms, over a million species in all. It would seem there would be some solid evidence somewhere of their ancestors. If there were evidence in this vast cache of data, you would think my evolution biology textbooks would mention them. They don’t.
quote:
Edge: And, Fred, do you have any idea how difficult it would be to perpetrate a conspiracy among geologists?
I do not think it’s a conspiracy. I don’t think evolutionists got together and said, hey, let’s not tell them about that 99.99% of the fossil record where we find little or no evidence. I think they do it on an individual basis, and I happen to believe many are willful about suppressing this information. The public is led to believe the fossil record supports evolution, and are invariably given examples out of that tiny sliver of the record my article talks about. The public is not told about the portion that yields a big blank.
quote:
Edge: Perhaps you could explain how the 3 million year figure is calculated. And you don't tell us where the 50 million year change came from either.
In addition to the National Geographic cited, also see this from the Boston Globe article I reference: And, because his [Chen] years of examining rocks from before the Cambrian period has not turned up viable ancestors for the Cambrian animal groups, he concludes that their evolution must have happened quickly, within a mere 2 or 3 million years.
Regarding the 50 million year gap, see
http://tidepool.st.usm.edu/crswr/111vertebrates.html
I actually had another reference, and forgot to include it in my article. Where the heck is it? I’ll try to track it down.
BTW, the gap used to be believed to be 100 million years (Romer ’66). 100 mil is still the gap between jawless and jawed:
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/vertebrates/vertintro.html
quote:
Gene: ‘If Fred's claim is true, why is it that universities otherwise not known for turning out paleontologists frequently send their geology undergrads through invertebrate paleo courses?
This is a non-sequitur. Just because there are many courses on invertebrate paleontology does not mean there are many examples of evolution of the invertebrates from the fossil record.
™ Version 4.2