Living fossils expose evolution

Living fossils expose evolution, eh?Don't you mean "Living fossils disprove evolution?"What about the dead fossils? What about genetics? What about the multiple lines of evidence from multiple fields of study? Don't those count for anything? Or are you just going to ignore those?And I'm sure others will explain your mistake on the "living fossils" argument.(By the way, the term "Living fossils" is more a newspaper/magazine term than a scientific one. Are you going to consider newspapers and magazines as evidence, rather than what is published in scientific journals, to disprove evolutionary theory? Where will this end? Jack Chick comics as evidence against the theory of evolution?)

---

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

Actually, that is incorrect. The scientific evidence supports the theory of evolution, and has been only getting stronger since the theory was proposed in 1859.What has remained the same are religious beliefs that deny that evidence.We have seen any number of religious beliefs presented as science, but they have to twist, misrepresent, ignore, or outright lie about the evidence to support their position.The "living fossils" are a good example. First, in a stable environment, a well-adapted organism doesn't need to evolve! It does just fine as it is.Second, those "living fossils" that you cite--are they the same species for millions of years? Or are they different species or even different genera--or worse?One might claim that cockroaches are "living fossils" for having changed little over millions of years, but the generic term "cockroach" covers some 4,000 different species. All of those species didn't evolve in 6,000 years unless there was some real super evolution going on!It sounds like you have accepted a religious belief and are willing to deny any empirical evidence that contradicts it.

---

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

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?

---

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

It sounds like you found religion and then "tossed out that ridiculous theory" rather than the other way around. See, the scientific data supports the theory, while religious belief prohibits believers from seeing that evidence. This is a standard creationist quote mine that suggests something other than what the author was saying. Here is a different take on your statement (from something called Misquoted Scientists Respond):

quote:

---

Oxnard similarly never implied that Australopithecus is unrelated to any animal living today. Instead, Oxnard argued that late Pliocene and early Pleistocene Australopithecus was not directly ancestral to Homo erectus but shared a more remote common ancestor with an earlier variant of the genus Homo. He further argued that Australopithecus, while facultatively bipedal, probably engaged in climbing activities as well. His research question was functional: Was Australopithecus a habitual bipedal? His analysis was based entirely on some postcranial fragments. Oxnard readily acknowledged the shared dental and cranial features of Australopithecus and Homo (signs of their common ancestry). He explicitly argued that the postcranial resemblances of Australopithecus to orangutans imply functional similarities, not a closer relationship of Australopithecus to Pongo (the orang) than to Homo. Source

---

This one (a handsome creature he is, too):

---

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

In case you are not aware of the fact, "spontaneous generation of life from non-life" has nothing to do with evolution. That is an entirely different field of study, which to date is in its infancy.The theory of evolution is a mature and well-tested scientific theory, and does not rely on any particular origin.So you have shown that your decision to reject the theory of evolution actually had nothing to do with evolution!

---

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

Maybe he will answer my question from post #169 at the same time.I asked about the kinds=family definition, and what implications that had for family Hominoidea (ours). I even provided a graphic of some of our close relatives in that "kind" (chimps, etc.). So far no answer.Maybe kinds is not equal to family in the case of Hominoidea? (Or perhaps "kinds" is an unscientific and largely undefined term used to support a religious belief?)

---

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

Back to families and "kinds" -- the question you have ducked for 100 posts now.Your claims rest a great deal on the differences between species, genus, and family. Since you are working with the biblical definition of "kinds" rather than scientific classification, what is a kind?You seem to be tending to kind=family. If that is the case, what do you say about the human family (Hominoidea), which includes apes?

---

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

And your answer undermines much of your argument.In many posts you argue that Family relationships are all within the loose definition you prefer for "kinds."Yet when it is pointed out that at the family level (Hominoidea) "kinds" include the extant apes as well as modern humans you have nothing to say.This undermines your entire argument in this thread.

---

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

And it takes a particular religious a priori belief, which supplies blinders and encourages a closed mind, to look at all of the empirical evidence and then deny just it. Yet this is what you have done on this thread.You really should be posting in the Faith forums, as what you're doing here is not science. It is in fact anti-science. Mostly you keep repeating the same point, which has been well-refuted. Rather than deal with the refutations, you just repeat the same point again and again. You seem to be proselytizing, not debating.Also, hominid evolution is well established both by fossils and genetics, and is denied only by the more extreme varieties of creationists. Again, this is anti-science.

---

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

DeletedEdited by Coyote, : Possibly off topic

---

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

You present us with a series of fossils that you claim "prove" evolution never happened because of similarities over large expanses of time.It has been pointed out repeatedly that your point is moot; there is no "rule of evolution" that requires all species to proceed at the same pace.And besides, focusing just on "living fossils" ignores a huge amount of related data from organisms that did actually change more than the "living fossils" did--again negating your argument.Here is just one example--D2700, Homo georgicus: A small section from an article at Talk Origins:

How will creationists interpret this fossil? Despite its erectus-like features, if D2700 had been found in isolation creationists would almost certainly call it non-human, given its small brain size and its similarities to H. habilis. The problem with this is that D2700 is a member of a population, and the largest skull in that group would almost certainly be classified as human by most creationists.

​

Because of the obvious humanness of the Turkana Boy fossil, and the fact that H. erectus brain sizes overlap the extreme lower range of modern human brain sizes, creationists have nowadays almost entirely abandoned the old line (popularized by Duane Gish) that Peking Man and Java Man are apes, and now generally claim that Homo erectus fossils are a variant form of modern humans (ignoring the inconvenient fact that there are many obvious differences between Homo erectus and Homo sapiens).

​

Most creationists now place the line between human and ape fossils between Homo erectus (human) and H. habilis (ape), with some disagreement about which side of the line the habiline fossil ER 1470 should fall.

​

Now, however, in the Dmanisi fossils, we have a group of three closely related skulls which, in both brain size and physical characteristics, nicely straddle that line and resemble the fossils on either side of it.

​

The largest, D2280, resembles but is a bit smaller (780 cc) than Homo erectus fossils such as the Turkana Boy and ER 3733. The next largest, D2282, is very similar to it but considerably smaller (650 cc), below the previously smallest known erectus (750 cc), and in the middle of the H. habilis range. The last Dmanisi skull, D2700, is even smaller (600 cc) and also more primitive, containing a mixture of erectus and habilis traits.

​

In short, it's hard to imagine a more convincing series of transitional fossils.

​

Only one thing can be predicted for certain about the creationist response: whatever D2700 is, they'll say, it sure as heck ain't a transitional form!

​

Fossil Hominids: Skull D2700

Here is an example where there is significant change over a period of 1.8 million years, negating the argument of the "living fossils."The Dmanisi fossils also are clear cut transitionals--as the Talk Origins article points out, Casey Luskin of the Discovery Institute calls them possibly apes, while Answers in Genesis calls them human. Having features in common with both earlier and later forms is the hallmark of a transitional, and creationists by calling these fossils both human and ape have clearly demonstrated this.So, with the evidence above and the evidence already presented in this thread I think your point concerning "living fossils" (which you never actually got around to making) is pretty much disposed of.

---

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

His argument fails also because it is wrong.It attempts to take a biblical concept with no scientific accuracy (created kinds) and force that concept onto scientific findings. Areas where it doesn't fit are ignored.The examples of living fossils given in the OP and afterward attempted to force the concept of "kinds" into several contrary directions. First, kinds were equated with the family level, then when it was shown that bats, for example, include many families, kinds was equated to the generic term "bats"--which for scientific purposes is useless. This was done for a number of different creatures.But when it comes to the human "kind" the family definition was way too broad, as Family Hominidae includes the apes as well as numerous extinct species of Homo. In this one case the definition of kinds must be extremely narrow, contradicting the other definitions for this term. But in the established tradition of creation "science," internal consistency is not required. The only thing that matters is coming to conclusions that agree with one's interpretation of scripture and revelation.In summary, trying to force the biblical concept of kinds onto scientific data fails because 1) kinds is never well defined; 2) the concept of kinds does not fit the data if either tightly or loosely defined, and 3) any definition of kinds which separates modern humans from all other hominids makes the problems of Noah and his ark even more insurmountable than they would be with a loose definition. In other words, with "kinds" you can't get there from here.Those of us who were debating this issue using empirical evidence and the scientific method were doomed to fail because "kinds" is a religious belief, and not something that was derived from scientific data. As such, no amount of evidence against that concept will make any difference to those who believe in it. In the minds of many creationists, religious belief trumps scientific data when the two come into conflict.

---

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