Why Darwinism is wrong

Another example I use in this regard is the lottery. We know that someone is going to win the lottery -- that much is fairly certain. Yet, if we look at last month's winner, the odds against her winning was astronomical. Yet that doesn't prove that the lottery doesn't happen.

Hello, Mr. Creationist.Since people have given you some links, allow me to give you a link to my favorite website on evolution, Douglas Theobald's 29 Evidences for Evolution. It will give you a good understanding of what we expect to see if evolution were true (the only way to test a scientific theory), and the confirmatory evidence. It lists evidence for evolution in several different fields that rely on a variety of different methodologies.It also has a link to a site at TrueOrigins that tries to debunk Theobald's evidence, as well as a refutation of the TrueOrigins claims.

Actually, the existence of transitional fossils have become incredible support in favor of evolution. Check out the link; look especially at the transition between reptile and mammal, since it describes the jaw joint evolving into the mammalian inner ear, which is related to embryonic evidence that you also insist doesn't exist.

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The fact that reptiles and mammals have jaws, and thus a similar pattern, is not the strong evidence for evolution you guys claim.

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This is interesting. I'm trying to figure out whether you are deliberately misrepresenting what is written (which would make you a liar) or whether you have a serious problem with reading comprehension (which would make you illiterate). Perhaps you are simply too delusional to really understand anything that goes against your faith.Let me try to explain this to you. I'll type slowly so you can keep up. Trace out the words with your finger if it helps you.It is known that the jaw bone of a reptile consists of four bones, while that of the mammal is a single bone. The inner ear of the reptile has but a single bone, while the inner ear of the mammal has three. It was known that three of the bones in a mammal embryo that correspond to three bones that in a reptile embryo develop into the jaw instead migrate into the ear and (after two of the bones fuse) develop into inner ear bones.I know that you don't like developmental biology, and that you don't like how developmental biologists see correspondences, but nonetheless biologists claim to see these correspondences. How do we check whether they are correct? Well, base on this claim, and base on common descent, these biologists make a prediction:Two of the inner ear bones in mammal ears evolved from jaw bones in reptiles.There. That is the prediction. If developmental biologists are simply making up the claim that they see obvious correspondences, or if common descent were not true, then there would be no reason whatsoever for this prediction to be fullfilled. So, do we see any other evidence that these two bones in the inner ear of mammals evolved from the jaws of reptiles?A remarkable fossil sequence is found showing the transitions that you claim cannot be seen. We have pre-mammals with ears and jaws like reptiles. We have primitive mammals that have ears and jaws like mammals. And we have fossils that show the bones in intermediate states. What is more, these fossil occur in the right stratigraphic order: lower down, the bones are more jaw-like and less ear-like; higher up the bones are less jaw-like and more ear-like.These in-between fossils did not have to exist. God did not have to create creatures that have bones that are in between looking like pre-mammal jaws and mammal ears. The flood did not have to deposit them so that more jaw-like boned animals are found lower than more ear-like boned animals. Yet your god has quite the sense of humor.Now, in all of this, where am I saying that reptile and mammals have jaws, and this is evidence of evolution? Where in the web page does it say that the evidence for evolution is that reptiles and mammals have jaws? Are you really so illiterate that you cannot understand what is written, or are you merely dishonest that you are going to misrepresent what I have written?

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Uh huh? Sorry, but all that is just one big rant with no substance.

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In other words you cannot really explain this, huh?-

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The issue is how the data is interpreted.

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Yes, and I even suggested another way to interpret it: "But...but... but that's how god decided to make those animals!". It would be interesting to see another interpretation.-

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You are making claims that similarities discovered are the result of common ancestry, no?

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No.-

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If that is correct, one falsification would be to find even more detailed similarities that arose without being passed on by common ancestry.

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Wrong.-

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I have shown you an example with the 3 mammal ear bones.

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If you are referring to what I think you are, that paper is fairly recent, and the conclusions still need to be scrutinized.-

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Since they arose independently, the idea that lesser similarities indicate a developmental pathway is highly dubious.

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If this is so damaging to evolution, and if there is such a conspiracy to silence embarrassing facts, how did this get through peer review?

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You are making claims that similarities discovered are the result of common ancestry, no?

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No.

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You are making that claim. You are claiming that reptile jaws evolved into mammal jaws, are you not?

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The two statements are different. If you want, I will explain to you the difference, although that should be obvious.-

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It really does not matter since the assumption that it is possible is not in question.

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You are claiming that the results in the paper as evidence, so it's accuracy is definitely relevant. But it doesn't really matter, since even if the paper is accurate it isn't a blow against evolution.-

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It may be congruent with that....

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Which is all science ever deals with -- evidence that is congruent to a theory. No theory has ever been proven -- all we can ever say is that the majority of the data is consistent with the theory. And I do mean majority of data -- for any theory in any field of science, there is always data that contradicts the theory. A large part of scientific work in any scientific field consists of figuring out how to explain anomalies. That's science for you.-

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So assuming that because 2 species share a similar trait, that they inherited that trait from a common ancestor is a wrong assumption in this discussion.

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The argument is whether evolutionary change occurred at all. The hypothesis (evolutionary change) is made, observations are made (embryonic of reptile jaws vs. mammal ears). A prediction is made: there used to exist animals with these bones in intermediary states. The prediction does not have to be confirmed, and yet it was.Let me tell you a true falsification of evolution: intermediaries between bats and bird. Direct intermediaries between whales and fish. Surely an god that can create reptile and mammal intermediaries could also create whale and fish intermediaries? Why would god create intermediaries between whales and artiodactyls and whales but leave out intermediaries between whales and fish? Why are all the intermediaries that have been found consistent with evolution?At any rate, it is possible that the inner ear bones of mammals are an example of parallel evolution. However, this is reasonable in only a small number of lines -- without some sort of verifiable mechanism, it seems unreasonable to assume convergent evolution of inner ear bones in each mammal species separately.Monotremes, marsupials, and therians share too many traits for them all to have evolved in separate lineages that have no relation to one another -- not unless one can propose some verifiable mechanism to account for this. These groups are included in the same class after all -- the assumption is that the nested hierarchical pattern in species classification must be indicative of some underlying order. Common descent is the current explanation for this. So far, no other verifiable explanation can do so.

Actually, if you read what the scientists are saying about this, they are indicating surprise but I don't sense any great panic over it. More like, "Wow! This is totally surprising and unexpected! Hey, let's study it some more!"

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If there were theorized intemediaries between whales and fish, all evolutionists would do is claim whales evolved from fish and then land mammals from whales or some such, and you would insist that if intermediaries showed otherwise it would falsify evolution, but that's be another bogus claim.

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Now you are making a bogus claim. Basically, you are arguing in a circle. You claim that evolution cannot be falsified because you claim that any data can be made to fit evolution. Why do you claim that any data can be made to fit into evolution? Because you claim it cannot be falsified.I explained one way to falsify evolution. That you cannot accept it tells more about you than the theory of evolution.-

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Let's say, we discover how to materialize things, to bring a design into direct creation, poof.

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Would that falsify and prove creation?

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Why would it prove creation? No one is saying that it is impossible that an omniscient, transcendent being created the universe only 6000 years ago. What scientists are saying is that the actual data at hand indicates that the earth is several billion years old, and that life has had an interesting history during that time. This is about data, not possibilities.-

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All of the theorized intermediaries are not consistent with evolution actually because they don't appear in the fossil record in the manner that evolution predicted.

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Oh? What inconsistencies are these? Please describe what the theory of evolution predicts, show how evolution does make those predictions, and then what evidence falsifies those predictions.-

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You cannot verify common descent from a sinle ancestor.

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Common descent is attested to in the hierarchical organization in species classification.-

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It could well be a Common Designer...

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A common designer could have designed in any pattern whatsoever -- why a nested hierarchy?

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...a Common Designer and some evolution at work...

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Why postulate an extra entity like a common designer if it doesn't explain anything than evolution by itself would?

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...convergent evolution, common environment, DNA programmed to mutate according to certain predispositions...

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Are you saying that it is possible that every one of the millions of species known has an independent, separate lineage, and that somehow "convergent evolution" has worked on these millions of lineages over millions of years to produce a hierarchical classification? All these lineages shared the same initial genome, and that over millions of years, say, the lineages which led to chimps and humans had exactly the same mutations leading to a less than 5% difference in their genomes? I'm sorry, I don't feel that I understand what you are saying here.-

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There is no evidence that proves common descent should be the only commonality considered since there is significant evidence, namely the fossil record, that questions the exclusive role of common descent since there is a great lack of uniform changes, geologically speaking, exhibited, assuming evolutionist models of geology.

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You keep saying this, but you haven't yet provided evidence.

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Convergent evolution was not thought to be able to produce something like this functional change that was non-surface....

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That wasn't in the blurb to which I linked. Was it in the original research paper?

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All that would change is the proposed path of evolution, and that sort of thing has happened a lot.

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You say that as if it would be such a simple thing to do. But I guess it might really seem simple when you don't really understand the nature of hierarchical classification.

I don't understand your question.Whales are definitely mammals. There is no way that whales can reasonably be classified as anything other than mammals. The number of characteristics that whales share with other mammals (including genetic evidence) is too great to allow whales to be anything other than mammals. What is more, cetaceans and artiodactyls can be grouped together. This is part of the hierarchical classification.So it is no surprise that artiodactyl/whale intermediates were discovered.It would be very problematic if fish/whale intermediates were discovered.

That is exactly what they would not say.Many creationists seem to think that evolution is just a bunch of random facts that are interpreted in a certain way. Well, the evidence for evolution is actually a whole lot of evidence, no single piece of which can be arbitrarily re-interpreted without creating problems for the rest.In the fossil record, there are definite intermediaries that show the evolution of fish into amphibians into synapsids into therapsids into mammals. These have been reliably dated, and the order is consistent with what we expect. Then, dated much later, we see transitionals linking land-bound artiodactyls to modern whales, again reliably dated as much later than the evolution of mammals from land based non-mammals.The genetic evidence is pretty conclusive, as well. The split between lungfish and terrestrial vertebrates occurred much earlier than the split between reptiles and mammals, which occurred much earlier than the split between marsupials and placentals, which occurred earlier than the split between cetaceans from the other mammal groups.This is what makes the theory of evolution so powerful -- the data itself, in different fields, using different analytic tools, gives a very consistent picture of the history of life. One cannot simply overturn all of this by stating suddenly stating that whales evolved directly from fish, and the other mammals from whales. It would completely contradict the entire picture that we have developed showing the evolution of whales from distant lung-fish ancestors via a terrestrial mammal route.