Acceptance, Evolutionists vs. Creationists

Try to get one of them to address the patterns in the paleobotanical record, and then come back and tell me they "aren't ignoring anything."

That doesn't sound right to me. The fossil record is constructed from the assumption that, in a system where new material is being added to the top (burial), those things on the bottom have been there longer, and are therefore older, than the things on top.Even without radiometric dating, we could infer relationships between fossil species because the order of burial gives us the relative ages. All radiometric and other kinds of dating give us is the absolute age.I'm not familiar with any part of the fossil record that would be considered "arbitrary." Well, we reconstruct species often from relatively scant fossil evidence based on the assumption that, when we find a vertebrae, or a finger joint, or a jawbone, that bone was most likely part of an entire organism. That sounds like a pretty reasonable assumption to me.Remember too that the fossil record isn't simply a record of phylogeny. The fossil record is a record of skeletons of various completeness and form sorted into definate stratiographic patterns. There's just no escaping the obvious pattern of fossils in the geologic column. Explaining that pattern is the purpose, in part, of the theory of evolution. In a world of erosion, how could you expect such a place to exist? Moreover, the geologic column is a record of events that aren't always global. The geologic column under the Great Lakes looks different than the column under the Gobi desert, because those are two different areas of the world. Why on Earth would you expect those two places to have the exact same geologic history?Honestly, the things you creationists ask for sometimes. This is what we mean by willfully ignoring things - there's no way you could be so foolish as to honestly be asking for complete, identical geologic columns everywhere on Earth. You're just asking for impossibilities in order to set the bar of evidence so high you never have to worry about any theory meeting it.

Not any discontinuity. For instance there would be no evolutionary explanation for the existence of an organism based on a biochemistry radically different than the carbon chemistry we're familiar with, or for an organism with a triple helix.Evolution can't explain all possible discontinuties, because some of those discontinuities represent the falsifications that evolution must possess as a scientific theory. It's just that we've been able, so far, to explain all the discontinuities that we've observed.Now, on the other hand, what explains absolutely everything - and therefore nothing at all - is the explanation that things are the way they are because God made them that way, miraculously, just to trick us. Sure. Just because change and erosion and upheaval happen in some places, doesn't mean that they constantly happen in all places.What we should expect in a world where different regions have different geologic histories is a wide variety of strata completeness between areas. What a surprise, that's exactly what we find. Sure, you have your reasons. The problem is, none of them are good reasons for rejecting a scientific theory. The reason you reject evolution is because you don't like the conclusion, not because it's not supported by the evidence. I see you ignoring the fact that evolution is supported by the evidence because you don't like the conclusion. That's what we're talking about.If you don't believe that you're ignoring evidence, then why don't you tell me what the falsifiable creationist explanation is for the obvious pattern of increasing complexity in paleobotany?This message has been edited by crashfrog, 06-07-2004 01:39 AM

In so far as the length of a "year" and what date it is today are essentially arbitrary, yes. Though usually when I see the results of radiometric dating, it's given in so many years ago.If you really wanted to be pedantic about it, I suppose you could start counting from the Big Bang...

"Silicon-based life forms" sounds good in sci-fi, but I understand that it's pretty crappy chemistry. It's not clear that silicon-based compounds could support life. Then again I'm not a chemist.Maybe I picked a bad example. Didn't we all come up with evolutionary falsifications a while back? What were some of those?

You only have one friend?

No, because he didn't address the point.The point is that there's a pattern of increasing complexity in the fossil plant record. I've never heard a creationist explanation, because whenever I bring it up, they start talking about radiometric dating.The problem is that I'm not talking about dates, or even age. I'm talking about position. There's a pattern of complexity and position in the plant fossil record, and the only explanation I'm aware of for that pattern is called "evolution." No creationist has ever proposed an explanation; they just pretend like the pattern doesn't exist.That's what I mean by "willfully ignoring evidence." That's what you're doing when you pretend that something that's right in front of you doesn't exist.

Not in the least. Did you understand what I was asking for? I'll try again:What's the creationist explanation for the corellation between complexity and position in the plant fossil record?

See, once again the willful ignorance comes out. You can't explain the pattern, therefore there must not be a pattern.Ridiculous. There's a pattern in the fossil plant record. For instance, You never find grasses in the stomachs of dinosaurs. (For that matter, you never find cows in the stomachs of dinosaurs, though we've found nearly everything else.)There's a pattern, and you have to explain it. Telling me there is no pattern is not an explanation; and moreover, it's not even true.

If they were, we'd notice the speed of light changing, though.Physics college students measure the speed of light as freshmen. It's not changing. How much do you think we claim to know? If you think we're claiming we know everything, you're quite mistaken. If we knew everything, there wouldn't be any science left to do. I can assure you that that is not the case.But just because we don't know it all doesn't mean we know nothing. We don't know everything about how cancer works, for instance. But that doesn't mean we tear down hospitals - it means we build more schools.

Incomplete in the evolutionist model, yes. According to the creationist model it's a nearly complete record. We find plenty of dinosaur fossils, and plenty of mammal fossils.Look, we have this theory that says that the vast majority of modern mammals didn't come to be until long, long after the dinosaurs. If this isn't true - if dinosaurs and modern mammals are contemporaries - should we find at least one fossil that suggests that? Especially from a creationist model that predicts a much greater rate of fossilization?

My friend with the physics degree described an experiment involving a laser and a mirror spinning at a known rate. Don't ask me for the math but when you consider the wavelength of the light and the precise speed of the mirror required to put the reflected beam exactly out of phase with the primary beam, you can calculate the speed of light. I guess. That's the point of the scientific method, though - it's an epistomology designed to let us be as sure as we can that we really know what we think we know.

A scoliosis fundraiser?

Oo! Oo! Let's keep going!Dr. Atkins' funeral?