Does evidence of transitional forms exist ? (Hominid and other)

Of course, carbon decay is not used in dating rocks.But the steady decay of radioactive elements is, in a way, an assumption of radioisotope dating. It is an assumption in the sense that it is not checked by the process of dating. Of course, the steadiness of radioactive decay is not assumed by physicists, and has been tested and measured and analyzed six ways from Sunday. Radioactive decay is steady except for a very few types that are irrelevant to almost all radioisotope dating, and those very few types are steady except under conditions that would destroy the entier Earth. Bzzzzt! Wrong. Thank you for playing. Isochron methods and concordia-discordia mehtods, the most widely used methods today, will tell us when external forces influenced the material being dated. Concordia-discordia methods can often give us a good date when the material has benn disturdeb by outside forces. Only for one particular type of decay, of one particular isotope, in exactly the way that was predicted over 50 years ago, and only under conditions that would destroy the entire Earth instantly. Thousands of laboratory and astronomical and paleontological tests have, conversely, demonstrated that the decay rates of all isotopes involved in radioisotope dating are steady under any and all conditions that could possible be encountered on Earth. Bzzzzt! Still wrong. We have the home game for you: see Radiometric Dating: A Christian Perspective and Isochron Dating.

That almost certainly refers to the fact that Rhenium-187 decays about 10⁹ times faster when stripped of all seventy-five of its electrons (Observation of Bound-State beta - Decay of Fully Ionized 187Re: 187Re-187Os Cosmochronometry). Of course, the creationists don't like to talk aobut the fact that this only happens in plasmas, and is a type of decay that is only involved in one of the many radioisotope dating methods. And there's some more sleight-of-hand going on; see Modifications of Nuclear Beta Decay Rates: Post of the Month: March 2001 which includes a link to Woodmorappe's AIG article, which is so bad I can't stand to post a link to it.[This message has been edited by JonF, 01-20-2004]

Let's go there. You have mis-stated the second law, and in a manner that is typical of creationists whose only knowledge of thermodynamics is gleaned from creationist web sites.I got A's in both undergraduate and graduate thermodynamics at MIT. Tell me exactly how the second law of thermodnamics is incompatible with evolution.

Yes, we can answer your questions straightforwardly ... but I for one will not answer any except the one that is relevant to this topic. No, we've got thousands and thousands and thousands of transitional fossils; Archy's just one of the best known, and it's impressive. Of course, in a sense, every fossil is a transitional.Some of the many, many, many other fossils that are obviously transitional forms are the many whale fossils, the thousands of hominid fossils, snails, Foraminiferida, and on and on and on ...Sad to say, that and your other questions do reveal extreme ignorance about the subjects of your questions, and they do reveal the nature of the sources of what little you think you know. See CA221: Were you there? , CB101: Most mutations harmful?, CB010: Probability of Abiogenesis, and CC300: Cambrian Explosion.

As I said, I didn't answer your other questions because they were and are off-topic.I did point you to places where you could easily learn the answers to your questions. Sorry, you have it backwards. No proposition is assumed true. Only propositions for which evidence is found (and no falsifying evidence is found) are conditionally accepted as true. If a proposition has not been proven false, but no evidence exists for it, it is set aside.By your standards we should assume that it is true that the universe was created last Thursday by an invisible pink unicorn. After all, it hasn't been proven false ... Irrelevant. Name some, and discuss them in your own words. I love creationist "logic". We look for evidence that might confirm a hypothesis, we find that evidence, and therefore the hypothesis is suspect. Very amusing. You got it backwards agian. The fact that there is disagreement (there isn't much) about whether Archy is a bird or a reptile clearly demonstrates that it's hard to decide ... which in turn means that Archy is a xclassic transitional.

Er, no you can't; the best you can do is to point me to places that don't like those answers and refuse to accept them, and throw up a cloud of double-talk around that fact.You still haven't learned anything, even when given the opportunity. If you want people to answer your questions, start discussing the answers you've gotten already instead of just regurgitating what you've read on websites that support your preconceptions. {Sigh} I grow weary of people who haven't thought about the issues claiming to have a valid viewpoint ...Your receipt shows nothing other than the fact that a receipt exists with that date on it. My hypothesis is that the invisible pink unicorn created that receipt last Thursday, along with everything else in the Universe and all our memories. You cannot disprove that hypothesis, therefore by your criteria you should accept it as true. By my criteria, of course, we don't do that. But you're the one that proposed that "If it can not be proven false, it is reasonable to assume it true". Absolutely false. Most creationists want their particular religous views taught as science in U.S. public high schools, and that's far from just "admitting we are both operating on faith".If you want to get all philosophical about it, "evolutionists" and all scientists are operating on the premises of methodological naturalism (that there is a world, that our senses give us a reasonably accurate picuture of the world, ...) and indeed those premises might be false .... but assuming that they are true has given us our current civilization, including the computer you're typing on, and in spite of the many flaws of our civilization it's better than anything we've had before. So, whether or not methodological naturalism is "true" (whatever that means), it works, and we're going to continue to use it. That doesn't necessarily mean that science and methodological naturalism are all there is, or that there are not other valid and useful ways of looking at the world. Again off topic ... I believe that much of the Bible is true and important, but some of it is outright false. You can claim anything you want, but establishing that claim is another kettle of fish.Of course, the peculiar interpretations of the Bible by many creationists are trivially false. Life is old, the Earth is older, the Universe is older still, and there was never any global deluge. No, but I'm certinaly much more knowledgable and familiar with both sides of the controversy than you are.

Please present your data to support these assertions.You might want to note that several Scandinavian countries with very low church attendance rates also have incredibly low crime rates. You might also want to note that the percentage of atheists in the U.S. prison population is significantly lower than the percentage in the country at large. Think on what those facts might mean. Indeed? Where's your data to support that? And how do you propose to enforce your religious beliefs on others? You're beginning to sound like one of those that the Founding Fathers wisely protected us against.

The only people disputing hominid transformations are cranks and kooks.It's interesting that creationists can't agree which fossils are apes and which are humans, precisely because they are transitional and there's no hard-and-fast line between Man and apes. See Comparison of all skulls. It was recognized as fact a long time ago. The denial of a few religious nuts does not change that.

We've got thousands of those ... Chart of Human EvolutionBy whom, and for what reason? Disputes by people who have no other reason than disliking being apes aren't meaningful. What do you mean by "organic design"? Of course, the thousands of "missing links" that we have are all physically different from us. They're transitions between us and the other apes.You have yet to comment on why creationists can't decide which fossils are apes and which fossils are men, as pointed out at Comparison of all skulls. Of course, the obvious reason is that the fossils are transitionals.

Out of the many lies in that quote, I pick this one.Prove it, almeyda!Mods: I understand bending over backwards to avoid charges of anti-creationist bias, but how long is almeyda going to be allowed to post without ever backing up his assertions?

Almeyda, it's rude to dump a pile of claims and ask us to research them. Pick one or two claims and focus on them.My goodness, you're (sort of) right ... some people did say those things, back in the 80's or thereabouts. Of course, they were wrong when they said them, and they're much more wrong today.Without references, it's difficult to say whether they are out of context or not. Those that I can find are all tremendously out of date, and irrelevant today. But I can make some comments: It's virtually certian that this one is out of context. He appears to be pointing out that we don't have fossils which are known to be direct ancestors, which is essentialy always the case; "transitiona;" does not mean "direct ancestor". Certainly out of date; it's from 1977. You tell me: has the questions he raised been resolved as fart as mainstream science is concerned, and, if so, how?Does AIG tell you the answer to my question? Zuckerman was a maverick. Another tremendously out-of-date quote, from 1970 ort earlier. Zuckerman spent years studying Australopithecus ... and all his findings were derived before Jophanson found Lucy and we obtaiend the many more Australopithecus fossils we have today. In other words, obsolete. This one is very suspicous, since it's not published in a scientific journal or even a popular-press scintific magazine.

Lots and lots, including Lucy.