Where are all the missing links?

No, because there is no error. The fossil record is a "record" of dead organisms. It's not a videotape that we dig up out of the earth. Observations cannot be falsified. Your attempt at rebuttal is incoherent. If your argument is that I'm not actually seeing something I see with my very own eyes, how is that an argument that you expect me to take seriously? Look, buddy, maybe your dad didn't explain the facts of life to you, but when an infant organism emerges from its mother, there's absolutely no doubt as to the "relationship" between parent and offspring.

Species are species; in evolution or in any other position. There's nothing evolutionary about recognizing that one population is of a different species than another. We've been doing it long before Darwin thought of evolution.Since species can be recognized without recourse to evolutionary thought, there's nothing "interpretive" or evolutionary about recognizing that what was once one population of one species has become two populations of two species. Regardless of the scale of time one concludes is involved, the geologic column must be a record of time. Either millions of years or the 180 days of the flood. It has to be a record of time for very simple logic - you can't deposit a sedimentary layer underneath another one. The layers have to go from oldest at the bottom to newest at the top; it's physically impossible for the reverse to be true.There's no question that the geologic column is a relative record of time, creationist or evolutionist; how much absolute time that record represents is established by radiometric dating, to which no credible challenge has ever arisen. We know with certain that organisms reproduce and die. We know for certain that environments exert selective pressures on populations. We know for certain that organisms pass on traits via genetics. We know for certain that random mutations give organisms genetic traits that they didn't inherit from their parent(s).We know for certain that the bones of some ancient organisms are interred within the Earth. We know for certain that these organisms get progressively less similar to living organisms the deeper and older in the fossil record you go."Theories all the way down"? Not so. Like every scientific theory ToE is firmly grounded in a bedrock of evidence and observation, and the only assumption is the one that underpins all of science - empiricism leads to accurate conclusions about the universe. And you can't simply reject empiricism for evolution without rejecting all of science, which you're obviously not prepared to do.

They're linked by the fact that all three of these structures are composed of the same identical protein.

Given that species change is the observed rule and not the exception, what reason is there for concluding that any species is not intermediate or transitional? Non sequiter. Your remark is irrelevant to my point. The remark was an accurate characterization of your rebuttal, not a remark directed at your person. It's becoming increasingly obvious that you have no arguments, because now you're beginning to retreat behind a smokescreen of invented claims of "ad hominem." But that's nonsense. Worldviews can't invent observations that aren't there. At best you can claim that I'm failing to make certain observations, but so far you refuse to tell me what those would actually be, which makes me think that you don't know either.In other words you're promulgating a model that you don't have any evidence for. Argumentum ad populum is a fallacy as well.

There's no such thing as "common design." When designers go to new projects, they start from scratch. They don't reuse materials and structures from previous projects that were fundamentally different from the current one. If you're going to build a submarine you don't start with the chassis design from a '57 Chevy.Dean Kamen is the designer of both a model of kidney dialysis machine and the Segway electric scooter. Neither one of these items employs the features, materials, or elements of the other, and it would be ridiculous to suggest that they do. Why would a designer designing an electric scooter start by modifying his plans for a dialysis machine?Also it would be nice if you could address post 241 of mine.This message has been edited by crashfrog, 09-12-2005 07:26 AM

Nonsense. The differences are legion and fundamental. For instance, an airplane needs to maintain a pressurized environment against low pressures outside; the submarine needs to protect a low pressure interior, while still having its support members be internal.Not to mention that submarines have double-walled hulls for the boyancy tanks. Largely ireelevant to this discussion, as the "design methodology" is not only unavaliable to us, but ID proponents loudly resist any attempt to get into the "mind" of the designer - probably because otherwise they have no defense against evolutionary examples of really crappy design. Well, then maybe you can find someone who has. Tell me - was the first submarine designed by a flight engineer or a boat builder? Why would a designer unlimited by space or time care about efficiency of design? I mean, how long do you see the designer working on each design? Isn't the designer you propose the one designer for whom time constraints are not an issue? The one designer for whom designing each organism from scratch wouldn't be beyond feasability?

No, this is observed in the wild, as well.And remember that species is not defined as an inability to mate but as a cessation of significant gene flow. Hybridization is often possible between members of different species; but it generally only occurs when forced by humans. Members of different species do not, for the most part, recognize each other as mates, even if they have a genetic compatibility that would make hybridization possible. An example is lions and tigers - different species that do not hybridize in the wile, but can be made to hybridize. Not even a global flood is going to allow you to violate the laws of gravity and insert one sedimentary layer beneath another. It's just not physically possible, flood or not. Nonsense. If you accept that these things occur then you accept the fundamental accuracy of evolution, since you've just accepted natural selection: random mutation: and the corroborating evidence of the fossil record: I'm not trying to trick you, Iano, but it's pretty obvious that you don't know what you're talking about if you weren't able to recognize the fundamental processes of evolution from my simple descriptions of them.

Once again you come to the exactly opposite conclusions supported by the evidence. The truly stupefying thing is that people like you can observe a universe ruled by randomness at every level, from the randomness that governs the very fundamental levels of matter to the senseless tragedies that inflect our lives, to the scattering of stars across the sky - and come to the conclusion of order.Everywhere we look we find chance and randomness governing our lives. And we're supposed to believe an orderly designer is able to employ intelligence to do something that intelligence has never been able to do - design living things? Why would anyone accept such a ludicrous conclusion aside from being too scared and arrogant to accept a universe devoid of a nosey, legalistic keeper of order?

A sphere. Well, apparently your intelligence couldn't figure it out... Why build a whale with useless hind limbs and a pelvis? Why modify a terrestrial mammal skeleton when the fish or shark skeleton was already present? And you didn't even come close to addressing my question, so I'll repeat it - why would the creator who can create with but a word, invent with but a thought, and bring into being in an instant, need to cut corners?Already we see that your "intelligent" designer is kind of an idiot - cutting unneeded corners, modifying the wrong "wheels", etc - and you only defense of his creativity is the tired old 'The Lord works in mysterious ways"?How do you expect to be taken seriously with this stuff?

No, it doesn't. Species is defined as a reproductive community. "Species" as a term of art in biology only goes back about 500 years (to Linnean classification), so it's not clear to me which definition you refer to, here. Not even the flood people dispute the law of superposition. They dispute the time frame, of course, but that's irrelevant to the point I'm making here. Regardless of whether the geologic column is a record of a million years or 180 days, the sediments on top are younger than the ones on the bottom. How much younger? That's not what I'm talking about right now. I'm talking about a pattern of relative age, not absolute age.Your position that the flood can somehow violate the law of superposition, and tuck younger sediment underneath older ones, is held only by you. It's patently absurd on the face of it. Sigh... It's like you're not even making an effort, Iano. Are you telling me that you don't know the difference between selection and mutation? Because you have not only a random assortment of half of their individual chromosomes each, but between 50 and 500 genetic elements that neither of them have. I can't tell you which ones, of course, because it's random.We know that random mutation occurs from studies of monocultures - populations of asexual organisms that reproduce clonally from one single individual. After even a few generations we find genes in individuals that the founder did not possess, and we find them randomly distributed.Not even the YEC people dispute random mutations. The scietific evidence is legion and unreproachable. Since it's not at all clear to me how we might measure "complexity" I'm not sure how your condition could be satisified. Moreover, the idea that evolution predicts an increase in complexity is mythical. Evolution predicts an increase over time of diversity, which includes diverse levels of complexity. There's no particular drive towards complexity; if there were bacteria would not still exist.In the fossil record, we do find a pattern of increase in diversity, and also indications of massive environmental events that have wiped out many diverse forms. The fossil record is a record of extinction, largely, and that's totally in line with evolution. The evidence is sound; the problem is that it's not at all clear that you've bothered to examine it nor bothered with the education that would allow you to see it in it's context. You confused selection with mutation in this very post. I'm not trying to make this about you, but it's going to be very frustrating to debate science with someone who substitutes arrogant presumption and sophistry for scientific inquiry.

I don't particularly agree. No matter how the environment changes there will always be niches avaliable only to metazoan life. Fair enough. I was simply trying to get across the point that diversity, which is easily measured and recognized, is a far better metric of evolution's trend than fuzzy, ill-formed ideas about "complexity".