The Great Creationist Fossil Failure

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You say you do have evidence for early transitional fossils. Please show me any evidence for any ancestor of the trilobite.

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Transitional fossils are rarely identifiable as direct ancestors - the fossil record is usually too sparse for such identifications to be reliably made.Trilobite ancestry is obscure, but we do have earlier relatives, such as the anomolacarids and arthropod traces can be dated back to the early Cambrian.

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A transitional type with a form about halfway between bacteria and a trilobite would be particularly convincing.

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Do you imagine that trilobites evolved directly from bacteria ? Perhaps you would like to explain - at least roughly - where this intermediate of yours would fit into the actual tree of life.

If you identify the Creationist "kinds" with the phyla of taxonomy - an unusual idea which grants more to evolution than almost any creationist is willing to admit, perhaps you ought to include that in your answer to the fossil record.Perhaps Adam and Eve were Haikouella
Or something similar.

What you are missing is that if you want to claim the Appearance of phyla as evidence of Creation you really have to equate phyla with "kinds". So the whole idea of the Cambrian Explosion supporting creationism doesn't really work even if you throw out the dating evidence. Not that there is a good reason to throw out the dating evidence.

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I believe the missing fossils of the pre-boundary era are a minor flaw in my version of creationist theory compared to lack of evolutionist explanation for the Cambrian Explosion. All those missing links required!

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In fact the opposite is true. We have some fossils. We have reasons to expect many fossils to be missing (creatures without hard parts and very small creatures only fossilise under rare conditions - and those are the conditions where the fossils we do have are found). In contrast the assumption that all the "modern"life was living in Siberia is an ad hoc assumption - and not a very likely one.Evidence beats ad hoc assumptions every time.

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You are incorrect there. The sudden appearance of a number of organisms even if not reflecting all organisms is still creationist evidence, not evolutionary evidence.

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Humans evolving from primitive chordates doesn't sound like any sort of creationism I've ever heard of.

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It appears the predominant environment on the planet was as follows:
1 Cold/Anoxic Ediacaran biota
2 Warm/Anoxic/sulfuric bacteria/trilobites (plus some more)
3 The presence of large volumes of bacteria then cause widespread aerobic conditions.

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If this is correct , this is not evolution, its the spread of niche organisms due to widespread volcanic activity then widespread bacterial activity allowed more organisms to spread outside their niche.

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It is not correct, as we already know, but if it was correct it would hardly agree with YEC expectations. Air-breathing life does not do well without atmospheric oxygen.

And you don't think that world-wide marine oxygen concentrations have any relationship to the oxygen content of the atmosphere ?

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I explained myself. I don't believe humans evolved from primitive chordates. That then is a strawman argument.

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It is not a strawman. It is a logical consequence of claiming the sudden appearance of phyla as evidence for creation. If you want to claim that particular groups are individual creations you need to establish that THOSE groups "suddenly appeared".Seeing the implications of your arguments is a far different thing from constructing a strawman. Saying that using the "sudden appearance" of phyla as evidence of creation implicitly identifies phyla as "kinds" is not talking about what you believe - but it is talking about what your arguments are saying.

In other words you just claim that the strange creatures depicted on some genuine artefacts are dinosaurs, even though any such identification is highly dubious. Those are not "OOPARTS". Or at least that is true of the Namer Palette and the Gobekli Tepe lion.

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Its not actually a ploy, it's a legitimate requirement. Its not like we expect a complete record of intermediates, we merely require a significant record among many "species".

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If the fossil record is sparse because few of the creatures living in that period were fossilised - and the evidence supports that view - then the absence of fossils is not a point which favours either view. The fact that when we do find fossils they are consistent with our view and not with yours, on the other hand does favour our view. A bogus argument which attempts to avoid the evidence is an obvious ploy and obviously not legitimate.

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All fossils are consistent with creationism. So I do not see why you think any fossils are more consistent with evolution than creationism. Could you cite some examples please

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If I had said that, I would point to the many known intermediate fossils.However I did not say that. So instead I will point to the fact that our explanations for the sparsity of the fossil record mostly do not work for your position - which is why you have to resort to the excuses seen in this thread.

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Many so-called evolutionist sequences are incorrect on closer analysis of the sequence. This problem is particularly prevalent with human sequences where the fossils are normally full fledged apes or full fledged humans, and yet intermediates are claimed.

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Creationists claim that, but cannot agree on which are "fully human" and which are "fully ape" (well, they are all apes - humans have been classified as apes since Linnaeus). In reality there are intermediates.

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If you like you can use one of your human sequences to prove evolution and we can analyse the physical attributes of them to see if evolutionists have any legitimate case for the evolution of humans. Any evidence for evolution will be appreciated.

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That doesn't doesn't sound on topic for this thread. And quite frankly I don't see it worthwhile to create one.

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If the fossil record is sparse, what then are you basing your theory on?

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I am basing my understanding on what we do know, both the evidence - including the fossils we do have - as well as our background knowledge.

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The more logical conclusion is that organisms just appeared which is what is observed if you do not have intermediate fossils.

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In the same way that it is logical to believe that anyone without a birth record just popped into existence ? We do not assume miracles just because the evidence is not available - especially when some evidence IS available.

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Even if you have a good reason for your lack of intermediates , this just justifies not immediately discarding evolutionary theory. It should be immediately discarded based on the lack of evidence, but yes, you have an excuse not to discard it because you have an excuse for the lack of intermediates.

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You seem to be forgetting that you are the one who has the more serious problem with missing fossils, and you are the one who needs to resort to excuses. We actually have evidence in the fossils that are found. You do not.

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How that FAVOURS evolution, is beyond me. The evidence favors sudden appearance without intermediates.

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We know that there were creatures alive at the time. The evidence points more to there being potential ancestral forms among them, than it does to there being modern life forms among them. How can you possibly regard that as favouring your view ?Or perhaps I don't need to ask. You did write Message 636. Maybe you should manage to get more acquainted with rational thought before making pronouncements on what is "most likely" or "logical" or supported by the evidence.Edited by PaulK, : Fix tag

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The problem with any ape sequence is that every layer has a range of apes, including today. So its easy to cherry pick the correct looking ones, just as it would be easy today to arrange modern skeletons into an order of least human looking ape to most human looking ape. That obviously does nothing to prove any evolution, it just proves that there exists a range of species at any given moment in time.

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Remember that the skulls include species you would classify as human.If there is in fact a continuum between modern humans and other apes then your claim that there is a distinction between "fully human" and "fully ape" seems to fall by the wayside. And wouldn't that fact in itself be evidence for evolution ?But if there is no continuum - if there is a clear gap - it would NOT be easy to pick the "correct-looking" ones by "cherry picking" at all.

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I disagree completely. Even using today's apes, they can be arranged in a continuum. Some apes look less human , some more. Some stand upright, some have a greater skull capacity. So if a continuum exists today, it would likely exist in every age, making any so-called sequence meaningless as one cherry picks an artificial sequence.

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The ability to arrange things in an order does not imply that there is a continuum. I could arrange a shrew, a mouse, a rat and an elephant in order of size but there would still be a clear - and obvious - jump between the rat and the elephant.

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Exactly! That is my point

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Your point is that you can easily tell the humans from the other apes ?Then go ahead and do it. Without all the attempts to move the goalposts.