The Barbarian
Member (Idle past 6261 days) Posts: 31 From: Dallas, TX US Joined: 01-09-2002
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Message 10 of 90 (2023)
01-13-2002 6:44 PM
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The major misdirection I see in Fred's rant is the sleight-of-hand (not "slight-of-hand") wherein he makes much of the relative frequency of invertebrate vs. vertebrate fossils. Most marine sediments are made of invertebrate fossils, which make up a significant portion of the Earth's crust. One might conclude, if one didn't know better, that there aren't many vertebrate fossils. In fact, there are millions. There are so many that there aren't enough paleontologists to survey all the ones existing in museum collections. Fred doesn't make this clear. Because he makes much of the relative numbers of invert and vertebrate fossils, I'm not sure he knows that there are millions of known vertebrate fossils. One shouldn't jump to conclusions, and assume dishonesty here; ignorance is also a good possibility. Likewise, one can draw either conclusion from Fred's assertion that there are no evolutionary transitions in inverts. There are many, some of which are even mentioned by Stephen Gould, the proponent of punctuated equillibrium. (forams and ammonites) One clue might be obtained by a visit to Fred's website, where his discussion of evolution is a good hint at his knowledge base on the subject.
http://www.evolutionfairytale.com/
| Replies to this message: | | | Message 11 by edge, posted 01-13-2002 10:19 PM | | The Barbarian has not replied | | | Message 39 by Pogo, posted 07-03-2003 5:59 PM | | The Barbarian has not replied |
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