Living fossils expose evolution

List them. And since I changed my question above I want to know how long those morphing organisms had to hold their breath while changing from breathing water to breahing oxygen. One minute? One hour? One day? a year? Or millions of years?So far your explanations are totally unacceptable. I am an ex-evolutionist.

Theodoric,There is one possible way that C. doesn't look as bad as you suggest (just really really bad at reading which we know).He may have been involved or stumbled upon some discussion of dinosaurs and humans being contemporary today not 65+ Mya. This could be, if stewed along with other false ideas long enough be turned into what we see now.

Pretend. That's all you're doing. How convenient to claim evolutionary changes with some...even fantastic change like ape-like creatures to modern man, and yet no changes in so many other organisms. Neat. Maybe the name 'evolution' should be changed to 'flexilution'. So you are a 'flexilutionist'! You bet I will. And I am going to convert some people doing it too just like I have in many other places. But those people will be the ones who are not emotionally committed to evolutionary accidentalism.Edited by Calypsis4, : correction

Sorry, not accurate.There is a pretty decent progression in the fossil record from chimpanzees to Australopithecines to early Homo species and on to modern man.The fact that your religious beliefs prohibit you from seeing these fossils for what they are, and the changes that occurred, in no way diminishes the scientific data. Nor do your arguments.But just for fun, if you really want to define "kind" as being at the family level (in our case, Hominoidea), how can you explain away all of our close and recent relatives (see below)? Are they all the same "kind" or is there some exception for the family-level definition in the case of Hominoidea?

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

You are deliberately ignoring the weight of the evidence. There is nothing that can be done for the mind that is wedded to what cannot be verified scientifically and yet still believes it.Now, I will continue to reveal that there is no evolutionary changes in living organisms because evolution does not exist and never did. Even if it did exist then it would be in violation of natural law. That, I will touch on later. And then this: But the point was missed from the very first beat...post #1. I posted evidence that the bat has not evolved and that it appeared abruptly in the fossil record and what do my opponents do to 'overthrow' this point? They post pictures of bats!! (oh, excuse me; 'old world bats'). Boy, howdy, isn't that a gem for evidence to prove I am wrong?

The fossil record is buried in what is known as the geologic column. The geologic column consists of layers which we find are older as we descend the column. It so happens that in the oldest layers we find no dinosaur or mammal fossils. We only find a lot of fossils of strange species which are now extinct, the descendants of which are not readily recognizable as such. (Not by putting pictures of them side by side, anyway.) In more recent layers we do find fossils of dinosaurs and mammals, but no longer any fossils like the ones in the older layers. And in the most recent layers we don't even find fossils of dinosaurs any more.In short, we find a succession of different species in the fossil record. The fossils are not randomly distributed among the layers, as we would expect if no evolution had taken place and all species had been created at the same time. The succession of fossils points to a progression of some kind. We prefer to call it evolution.

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"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science." - Charles Darwin.

Calypsis, Leaving aside how "fantastic" one finds certain facts, this statement is not "convenient". It is however closer to reality than anything else you have said here.This is what the ToE says. Major changes for some lineages, almost negligible changes for others.Perhaps you would like to address the question I asked some one hundred messages ago; why do you think this contradicts the ToE?Where exactly do you think the ToE demands any particular rate of change?Mutate and Survive

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"A curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understands it." - Jacques Monod

Well not exactly. Even if we were to grant you your erroneous assumption that the photos demonstrate stasis, what would be revealed is that those particular organisms had not evolved. It would say nothing about the history of a different set of organisms.Since you seem to like automotive analogies, let me use one. When my parents were first married they had a Model A Ford. Their final vehicle was a Honda - significantly "evolved" from the Ford. Now, about the same time that they got the Model A, they got some forks. (They also got knives and spoons and so on, but no need to complicate metaphoric life, is there?)Oddly enough, I can go to a cutlery store and buy forks that are of exactly the same design as their pre-war set. So, does this demonstrate that cars haven't changed since that era? Of course not. It demonstrates that some products (ie. those that are sold in an environment where new design offers a competitive advantage - like cars) have to change or go extinct, and that other products (like traditional forks, which work as effectively with 2 tines or 4, fat handles or slim.) don't need to change since people still buy the old style.And that was the premise of your original post: that the existence of some organisms that had remained unevolved for long periods of time implied that no organisms had evolved. You still have not addressed the rebuttals to that point.Capt."If there's fibreglass, why is my boat still wood?"

So if I list a weasel, a lion, a killer whale, and a little brown bat and call them "predatory mammals" am I saying that they are then all the same kind or closely related? Herpetologists who study lizards and know the precise morphological characters that define squamatids from other lepidosaurans. By your same definition then pterosaurs and plesiosaurs are also lizards. Hey now! I did not overlook that. However, a different genus is not the same as different orders. If I had to guess why he pointed out the genus names was to imply that we are somehow trying to call these things something different when anyone can see they are the same. But without the ref I cannot tell what he was getting at. And by the way, I get the point of your thread. It is not that complex. I question whether you get the point of this thread. Because that would be off topic and NOT the point of this thread.

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Doctor Bashir: "Of all the stories you told me, which were true and which weren't?"
Elim Garak: "My dear Doctor, they're all true"
Doctor Bashir: "Even the lies?"
Elim Garak: "Especially the lies"

Calypsis, I'm not pretending, when good body plans & adaptations are hit upon stabilising selection ensures change doen't happen. But this is immaterial because the ToE simply doesn't state change must happen, therefore change not happening doesn't challenge the ToE.You have commited a logical fallacy & your argument is rendered moot. Deal with it. A science teacher? "Convert"? Did you let slip your real motivation?Go ahead, I like pretty pictures, really, I do, but that's not going to convince anyone that your logically fallacious argument is actually a valid argument.Your argument meets the standard met by the logical fallacy; straw man, it's just, well, true. All you seem to be interested in is "converting" people to your position rather than providing a logically sound argument for doing so. This suspiciously sounds like it is you who are emotionally wedded to you position, not I.Tell me, why so strident in your position that logic can be left by the wayside. Again I note you allege to be a science teacher. Sounds awfully suspiciously like religious motivation rather than scientific enquiry through a logically sound framework, you have to concede.Mark

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There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't

Oh, but it is. Not only so but the so called evolution of man from a common ancestor with the ape is not legitimate. My study of the issue is just one of the reasons I tossed out that ridiculous theory. You need to do the same.For instance: concerning Australopithecus, Dr. Charles Oxnard, professor of anatomy at the University of Chicago did what was perhaps the most thorough job of examining australopithecus and stated clearly that the specimen was not related to anything living today. Nature, Vol. 258, pp. 389-395. He was not the only well known scientist who ruled thumbs down on australopithecus. Sir Solly Zuckerman also disagreed with those who claimed a transitional form.It takes so much time and effort to go through the whole ridiculous line of so-called evolution of man that I won't do it here unless I am pressed to do so. These things have been written on for decades and I don't think I can add anything to this that you probably haven't read yourself before.By the way: which one is the REAL Zinjanthropus man? The imagination of the average 'flexilutionist' seems to have no bounds.The whole thing is a huge joke and I have been laughing at it for about 40 yrs.

Retired."Let slip"? Gosh, you're catching on slowly. And what are your motivations for being here? It couldn't possibly be to convert poor, ignorant, fundamentalist beleivers in an intellegent Creator God now could it? (wink).

I'm certainly not. Anyone's personal beliefs are of no interest to me. I'm here to learn, and to educate.

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I hunt for the truthI am the one Orgasmatron, the outstretched grasping hand
My image is of agony, my servants rape the land
Obsequious and arrogant, clandestine and vain
Two thousand years of misery, of torture in my name
Hypocrisy made paramount, paranoia the law
My name is called religion, sadistic, sacred whore.
-Lyrics by Lemmy Kilmister of Motorhead

Calypsis, He's an evolutionist so I very much doubt he said that. Secondly, where did you learn he did the "most thorough job?" Thirdly, he did this in the 1970's, before Lucy was discovered, lots more data has been found since them.

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There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't

Calypsis, I enjoy it.I assume that you concede that your argument is a strawman, since you didn't comment on the substance of my argument?Mark

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There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't