home school evolution questions

My compliments. An interesting assignment for your students. How detailed would you like the replies? I would say the student essay you posted covers the basics of those two areas quite well - if not in excruciating detail.The reason I ask is that several of the points you raise would require fairly lengthy responses to cover adequately. As a for instance, the coelocanth statement: This is in essence erroneous. In the first place, it's not a "living fossil" because Latimeria chaumnae has never been found as a fossil. In fact, no other species assignable to the Genus Latimeria has been found as a fossil either. Latimeria and the Cretaceous fossil genus Macropoma are closely related, and they're included in the same taxonomic family. Beyond that, all fossil coelacanths belong to the order Coelacanthini. Basically, the coelacanths that are being caught off Madagascar are NOT the same animal that lived around 360 mya, nor are they the same animal that is found in the late Cretaceous shallow marine strata dated around 80 mya. There are differences in Don't confuse a member of a large group (taxon like "order") with the group itself.There was actually a pretty good discussion about living fossils awhile back. This thread covers the topic fairly well - although you'll have to interpolate a bit with the creationist ksc, who went back and deleted all his posts in a fit of pique. Most of his responses, however, are included in the counters by various people.[This message has been edited by Quetzal, 02-13-2003]

What a nicely ambiguous insult. Would you care to use your vast knowledge and refute the reply (thus far ignored by all) contained in message 11 of this thread? If not, I would ask you to reconsider your "faith bashing" accusation - unless you can show that what was discussed in that post "was not science", or that anywhere in that post was any discussion of credentials.It's creationists that provide the "cheap entertainment" most of the time...