"Best" evidence for evolution.

The fossil record shows phyla appearing suddenly and separately; after which diversification occurs within each phylum.

The "sudden" appearance of these critters was preceded by their soft-bodied ancestors and, being lucky, even then we have the rare fossils of such pre-cambrian critters.

quote:

---

Tracks from an animal with leg-like appendages have been found in what was mud 551 million years ago.

---

Precambrian - Wikipedia

The major body plans were well on their way in development when the hard-body versions developed and stuck easily in the mud to be fossilized.

It should be no surprise that these newly evolved critters would further diversify over the next 30 million years. That's what evolution does. And THAT is where and when the present body plans evolved.

Not suddenly or separately but slowly over millions of years in further development of life from the pre-cambrian populations.

Sounds like you too have been misled.

If acknowledging the known facts is being misled then you are crazier than you sound.

Denial of known fact is lying.

You are lying.

I take lying to mean asserting as true what you believe to be false. So I'll give Dredge a pass on that.

However, people who follow the science are expected to do some of their own reading. They are expected to understand what the scientists mean. The evidence for evolution is very strong, and cannot be overturned by the simplistic assertions that Dredge is making.

In the face of all the truckloads of evidence Dredge insists it's all fake.

If he truly believes his god creation fantasy is true and all of human intellect is wrong then you are right. He is not lying. He's god awful fucking stupid.

In the face of all the truckloads of evidence Dredge insists it's all fake.

He hasn't looked at the evidence. He has been too busy reading creationist fairy tales.

Dredge writes: I take your point. I'd forgotten what the Bible actually says. Having been reminded, I realize that a phylum is way too broad to be a "kind", so maybe it refers to a class, order or family. Thank you for pointing out my error.

You really only have one choice, that kind is equivalent to the lowest level of classification for a given lifeform, such as species, subspecies, race or breed. Let me explain.

Let's say you have a dog, a Tibetan Terrier female, and it has puppies with a Tibetan Terrier father. According to the Bible it will reproduce according to its kind. So of course the puppies will be Tibetan Terriers, right?

But if kind===species, which for your Tibetan Terrier is canis lupus (wolf, and dogs are a large grouping of subspecies of wolf)), then if the Tibetan Terrier mother had Fox Terrier puppies it would still be in the same kind. If she had Great Danes it would still be the same kind. If she had wolves it would still be the same kind.

So it must be that kind===subspecies, at least for canis lupus. For some organisms there might be no subspecies and therefore species would be the lowest level of classification for that organism.

Furthermore, the creatures described in the verses you quoted are what we see today and not the 'original' creation.

I'm having trouble making sense of this. If you think the creatures we see today are not the same as those you think were originally created by God, then how do you think they became different?

--Percy

I wasn't sure what you said that dwise1 thought a lie, ... I'm not sure why dwise1 called it a lie.

I didn't do any such thing. Rather, this is what I wrote in Message 771:

DWise1 writes: I have yet to encounter any creationist who has any clue what he's talking about. That seems to be an article of faith. Plus there's that unspoken requirement for them to lie once they have learned anything about what they are talking about. And the more that they actually learn, the more they have to lie.

So I was not addressing what Dredge had said, but rather I was making a general observation about creationists in general.

That Dredge immediately took it personally speaks to me of his having a very guilty conscience. Kind of like if the police pulled you over for not stopping at a stop sign and the first thing you blurt out is "I didn't kill anybody!" That would be rather suspicious, wouldn't you agree?

So then the question is: What lies does Dredge know full well that he has told which would make him feel so guilty that he would drop that very telling tell?

Edited by dwise1, : added final paragraph

I take lying to mean asserting as true what you believe to be false. So I'll give Dredge a pass on that.

That is and has always been a problem when calling creationists out on their lies.

If you repeat a lie but you believe it to be true, then are you actually lying? Yes, you are making a false statement, but since you believe that false statement to be true then you do not have to bear the moral onus of lying. But if you are repeating a lie knowing that it is a lie, then you are indeed guilty of lying.

The problem for us is how to determine when a creationist knows that he is telling a lie. In four decades, I have been able to detect a deliberate creationist lie only a few times.

But the moral issue is not important since that's completely between the creationist and his imaginary god whom he disregards anyway. The important issue is that spreading lies does very real damage.

When you spread a lie, it does real damage. And that damage does not depend on whether you know that it's a lie or you don't. Deliberately or unknowingly lying does not change one single bit the damage that it does.

Hilarious. Pray tell, what " lie" have I uttered?

Just what the hell are you talking about? Why are you falsely accusing me of something that I did not do? And I am making the assumption here that you are able to read plain English and actually comprehend what you are reading. So am I wrong in that assumption?

Refer to my Message 786 to Percy:

DWise1 writes: I didn't do any such thing. Rather, this is what I wrote in Message 771: DWise1 writes: I have yet to encounter any creationist who has any clue what he's talking about. That seems to be an article of faith. Plus there's that unspoken requirement for them to lie once they have learned anything about what they are talking about. And the more that they actually learn, the more they have to lie. So I was not addressing what Dredge had said, but rather I was making a general observation about creationists in general.

As I also said in that reply to Percy, your reaction speaks loudly of your guilty conscience, like if the police were to pull you over for going through a stop sign and the first words out of your mouth were "I didn't kill him!" Very suspicious, you must agree.

So then, what have you done to be so guilty about? What lie are you admitting to having told? Do come clean; confession is supposed to be good for the soul.

I forgot to mention that, not only are the "branches" connecting phyla inferred from theory, phylogenetic trees of life's history based on genetics often contradict phylogenetic trees based on different evidence, such as anatomy.

Furthermore, phylogenetic trees based on a certain anatomical feature will often contradict a tree based on a different anatomical feature. Brusca and Brusca state in "Invertebrates" (p.120) that "phylogenetic analysis at the level of phyla is highly problematical"; Jenner, in "Evolution of Animal Body Plans" (p.209) says "the study of higher level animal phylogeny has yielded ... little detailed consensus ... In point of fact, there exists no such thing as 'the traditional textbook phylogeny'. A diversity of different schemes can be found."

If common ancestry is the reality, such contradictions should not exist and different forms of evidence should all point to one, unambiguous phylogenetic tree.

AZPaul3 writes: Precambrian - Wikipedia The major body plans were well on their way in development when the hard-body versions developed and stuck easily in the mud to be fossilized. It should be no surprise that these newly evolved critters would further diversify over the next 30 million years. That's what evolution does. And THAT is where and when the present body plans evolved. Not suddenly or separately but slowly over millions of years in further development of life from the pre-cambrian populations

Thank you for this little piece of Darwinist folkllore. What a pity there is next to nothing in the fossil record to support it.

Edited by Dredge, : No reason given.

Edited by Dredge, : No reason given.

quote:

---

If he truly believes his god creation fantasy is true ...

---

Just curious ... how would you describe my "god creation fantasy", exactly?

quote:

---

I'm having trouble making sense of this. If you think the creatures we see today are not the same as those you think were originally created by God, then how do you think they became different?

---

I don't know how they became different ... and I dont think anyone else knows either ... or will ever know.

Edited by Dredge, : No reason given.

quote:

---

In the face of all the truckloads of evidence Dredge insists it's all fake

---

I can't recall insisting it's all fake. Please tell me you're not lying. God forbid!

quote:

---

He is not lying. He's god awful fucking stupid.

---

Wow ... such overt anger and hatred. Are you really that God-phobic?

Edited by Dredge, : No reason given.

dwise1 writes: Just what the hell are you talking about? Why are you falsely accusing me of something that I did not do

Why are you lumping me in with other creationists?

Edited by Admin, : Fix quote.