Posted this as a response in another thread, but I figured I should move it. We always seem to get onto the topic....let's give it its own thread.





Here are 2 reasons that the fossil record is incomplete, and they are real reasons, arrived at by the scientific method. They are not excuses.

The first is that only a very tiny number of all the animals that ever lived were fossilized. Compared to every individual animal that ever lived, the number fossilized is extraordinarily tiny. More on that later.

The second reason is that most evolutionary theorists now believe that evolution occurs is steps....that there are periods of relative stasis interspersed with periods of relatively quick evolutionary change within a given population.

There are a number of reasons for this, one of which is that individuals of a given population (let's say mice for this example) are sometimes separated from their larger population, due to a storm, family migration, accident, etc. If the migrated population of mice has moved far enough, it will encounter new predators, food sources, environment, etc.

Possibly the new population will eventually die out, if they are not at all suited to their new home. But possibly (if they are plucky enough) the general population will evolve to suit their new environment. This will be a slow process, measured by human standards. It may take say 500,000 years (or 100,000 generations of mice, at a 5-year lifespan) for the new population to evolve into what we would now classify as a new species.

Now, just to push our example to the farthest, lets say something else happens: That any number of members of the new population of mice, 500,000 years later and now existing as a new species, for whatever reason returns to its ancestral stomping grounds, or at least relatively near to it. It is also possible that it never moved that far away, but was separated by a mountain for example.


Anyways, now scientists dig up fossils in that region. They find fossilized remains of 3 entire mice. They date from 14 million years ago, 12 million years ago, and 10 million years ago respectively.

The oldest mouse is 8 cm long. The second oldest mouse is 8.4 cm long. The least old mouse is 13.5 cm long, but is otherwise quite similar.

Now the 10 million year mouse has made a huge evolutionary leap from the 12 million year mouse. This is explained by the fact that the actual evolutionary change occurred over what, to a mouse, is an extraordinarily long time, but what, to a geologist, is an extraordinarily small amount of time. To find a cache of fossils cataloging the evolutionary change that happened during that half a million year period would be an incredible stroke of luck. Animals just aren't fossilized that often.

Charles Darwin, in the Origin of Species, wrote: "Many species once formed never undergo any further change....; and the periods, during which species have undergone modification, though long as measured by years, have probably been short in comparison with the periods during which they retain the same form."

The problem I see is that the theory still has so many inconsistancies with it. As darwin said, adaptation is the only way thing survive and adaptation is not evolution...Another problem is that many organism just dont fit with any relevant theory that exists today. Take the rat squirel that was recently found. Was supposed to have been extinct 11 million years ago yet it was found to still exist. According to darwin, the newer higher evolved animal should kill out the lower one. But that isnt the case...

Then again Darwin had this to say about women:

“It is generally admitted that with woman the powers of intuition, of rapid perception and perhaps of imitation, are more strongly marked than in man: but some, at least, of these faculties are characteristic of the lower races, and therefore of a pas”

I don't know what you mean. No...adaptation and evolution are not the same thing. This shows that evolution doesn't occur?




There is only one "relevant" theory, and it encompasses all of the species that have ever lived on earth. There are discrepancies and debates within the field, just as there are within Christianity, or even within any specific form of Christianity. But there is only one "relevant" theory to be discussed.





And they have found fish, thought to be extinct far longer than that, which still exist and are very similar to their ancient fossilized ancestors. This relates exactly to my previous post, about the periods of stasis. Populations can exist for hundreds of millions of years (or however long) without undergoing significant change.

And the newer animal does not exactly "kill out the lower one." Often the two types are competing for genetic reproduction, and the newly adapted animals will slowly take over the genetic make-up of the general population. Or, with a migrated population, the old population does not need to evolve. Perhaps it is perfectly suited for its environment. Only the newly migrated population needed to evolve to suit its new home.

Again, in my previous post, I had this quote from Darwin: "Many species once formed never undergo any further change." It is not surprising that we find species that we had thought were extinct. It is also not surprising that there are species living today which are hardly different than their remote ancestors.




....And our founding fathers were all slaveholders. Does that mean we throw out the Constitution?

Are you certain thats what Darwin said. I believe its more the higher evolved animal is more likely to surive (take giraffes for example, the ones with the longer necks will survive by reaching food that the lower neck giraffes can't reach, so when food is only obtainable on high trees the lower neck giraffes die out. Not the longer necks giraffes will wack the lower neck ones to death.)

This has to do with "survival of the fittess". In truth it survival for the one who adapts. Many animals have been able to survive despite not necessarily being more fit. For example I would consider the lion more fit then the zebra, but the zebra survives by adapting to the enviorment (granted one zebra gets taken by the lion, but we are talking about the race of zebras not just one or two that die).

I am not familar with this rat-squirl thing you are talking about, but it doesn't really go against darwin (just the scientists that thought it extinct).

nah just wanted to toss in a darwin quote haha




at the moment but you know it will be changing soon enough



the original constitution doesnt mention slavery

Actually it won't. I don't know why you think that. The earth orbits the sun.....this theory won't change.........and speciation occurs through a process of what is called natural selection.....this won't change.





It does mention that a black man is to be counted as 3/5ths of a white man, for tax purposes or whatever.

Your were making a point that Darwin wasn't enlightened regarding the equality of the races and sexes.....my point is that his racist or sexist notions don't mean we should disregard his scientific ideas.

On the first one...that isnt a good comparison. Darwins theory has changed from its original one. we know this and theres no reason to believe it wont change again. I mean we obviously dont have complete knowledge so you should expect that it should change also

As for the second, It was more darwin tryin to show the "gradual evolution" that he preached. That we could watch evolution shift.





Yes im certain about the quotes though i dont know which one you were talkin about haha. Both are quotes from darwin himself.

I agree, we don't have complete knowledge. We also don't have a complete understanding of the nature of light, for example.

Yes Darwin did believe in gradual evolution. But as my earlier quote showed, he also believed in periods of quickening and stasis.


Was Darwin 100% correct about all of his ideas? No. Was Einstein? No. But Darwin WAS right about evolution, as Einstein was right about special relativity.

All I have to say for anyone who believes in evolution should take a look at www.drdino.com. It's by Dr. Kent Hovind and it's great site that disproves Darwinism and Evolution and such using both biblical and scientific principles.

you know, there are some pretty intellectual-sounding creationist sites on the web that at least pretend to reach their conclusions through a scientific approach - this isn't one of them. this one is just designed to influence the ignorant through misinformation that no informed person would take seriously. you should look for better creationist sites if you're gonna post them.

I just can't believe you could say this if you've ever seen one of Dr.Hovind's seminars. His lectures are so information-filled to me that only the most stubborn atheists out there could not at least say, "This is interesting."

adaptation through natural selection is the definition of darwinian evolution.



no, not if the "newer" species is a branch off the older - which happens when a sub population of a species starts to evolve on a separate path from the main population through genetic isolation. in other words a branch can diverge from the main species without eating it up if it is reproductively isolated from the main branch. on geologic time scales this actually has been shown to have happened a lot, due to extreme environmental change (populations being fragmented due to ice ages, being isolated on islands etc). also it's not necessarily the newer species that survives longer that the older - just depends on which is better able to adapt to environmental change.

I read some of the articles that describe how, using modern physics, one can show that the universe could have been created only 10,000 years ago. He describes a "white hole" as the mechanism through which the universe was created. Unfortunately (for his theory) a white hole is a physical impossibility (in the real world). But it sure makes him sound smart, right?

sorry, i read through this site the first time you posted it and it put me to sleep. again, there are more intelligent arguments for creationism than are presented here. these are at a pretty low level designed to appeal to people who are uninformed about the issues.

Yeah, you really don't get the full effect of it by just reading. You should really think about ordering some of his DVDs you might particularly like some of his debate videos.

what do you mean full effect? i would think much more information can be presented on a website or book than in a seminar. if by effect you mean that there's more emotionalism involved in how you view these issues when you see them presented live then you aren't viewing them objectively.

Taken from an article on DrDino:

"Noah would have taken young specimens, not huge, older creatures. Dinosaurs would have emerged from the ark to inhabit an entirely different world. Instead of a warm, mild climate worldwide, they would have found a harsh climate which soon settled into an ice age. If climatic hardships did not cause the dinosaur's extinction, man's tendency to destroy probably did."



This is a joke. Dinosaurs and man never lived at the same time. Not even close. At all.

Also from an article titled More Clues That The Earth Is Young:

"The spiral galaxies Should Have long ago unspiraled, and the uneven dispersion of matter in the universe Should Have long ago dispersed."

This is made up. He gives no reason why a spiral galaxy should "unspiral." That's because there isn't one. And regarding his second point.....the galaxies are spread out very evenly.

No, that's not what I mean. Dr. Hovind is a very good speaker. When reading them online it does come of as dry and boring. Dr. Hovind is actually very entertaining when giving his seminars and his debates are just engaging. There's no emotionalism involved. It's kind of like the difference between taking an online college course or actually taking a course on campus. You just get a better sense of what the lesson is.


How do you know that dinosaurs and man never lived at the same time? Just because your teacher told you in school? I'm not an expert on this subject by any means. I suggest sending an e-mail to Dr. Hovind. I've sent him a couple and he has answered them. He could answer your question a lot better than I could.

actually there sort of is a real issue with this one, although as usual it's one that creationists have seized on and taken completely out of context to fit into their propaganda campaign. the visible (shining) mass of galexies does not appear to be enough for them to hold together (or form in the first place for that matter). of course rather than automatically invoking a creator, the logical assumption is that there is a lot of mass in the universe that isn't shining - possibly black holes that formed when the universe was young, unkown elementary particle(s) that don't interact with photons, or some other form of "dark matter" that can account for the mass discrepency.

this isn't about entertainment value. the website is boring because he's trying to pawn off anti-intellectual propaganda on the ignorant, not even caring that anyone that happens to know anything at all about the subjects he brings up could easily refute everything he says.

ideas like all known land species including the dinosaurs (which is hundreds of thousands - or millions if you include insects) being able to fit on an ark of any size a human could build should be insulting to your intelligence, not feeding your faith.



because their fossils without exception are never found in the same strata (not even remotely close), and because multiple corroborating dating methods have accurately placed the last existing dinosaurs at ~65 million years ago and the first proto-humans ~3-5 million, among other reasons.

Here's a better site to check out:

15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense from Scientific American.

as a christian i read and believe in what the bible has to say.

when the trinity states they made the world in 7 days, that could have been a representative of 7 billion years, each day could have meant millions or billions of years. which would explain why the first billion or so there was simple single celled organisms, then fish then animals and so far. this follows through with the darwin theory or evolution and things comming at certain times in the world history. humans being the last, animals before hand, hence apes into men.
god could have used evolution as a means to creating the world and its inhabitance.

Nobody can deny that micro-evolution happens, daily. I believe that this is the same thing as adaptation. Anyone who denies this is not dealing with reality. I say this a creationist.

On the other hand, to think that a single cell reproduced into a man, after a long line of intermediates is also a joke. Discovery of DNA should more than create doubt in even the hardest of evolutionists. A monkey will always give birth to a monkey.....period. Take the mule for example. You create a mule by breding a horse and a donkey. Read that again if you did not catch it......you have to bred a horse and a donkey. A mule does not come from another mule. Mankind has been breding mules for centuries and everytime they come out sterile, everytime. If Darwin was all that, eventually that mule would be able to reproduce on his own and propagate his own species, but he won't. The mismatch of chromosomes will not allow it.

I think that both sides of this issue have to be honest critics of themselves before any meaningful dialogue will happen.

Yeah it is ridiculous to believe than man and monkeys could have the same common ancestor. It's just a coincidence that we look almost exactly like them, just without the hair or tail.

Why should the discovery of DNA create doubt in evolution? I really don't know what you mean.

It IS ridiculous to try and think how a single cell reproduced into man. That's because the leap is so utterly enormous. So you should look at all the small steps in between.

One of the main reasons people can't grasp evolution is because of the gigantic lengths of time involved. People can understand 100 years, or even 1,000 years, but try to imagine all the possible things that could happen in a MILLION years, and anyone will have a hard time truly knowing what that length of time is like. In a million years, you could live 13,000 lifetimes (at 75 years a pop). Then try 10 million. Then 100 million. Then a billion. Then 5 billion. In 5 billion years, you yourself could live to be 75 over 65 million times.

Evolution is a very slow process, measured by human standards. That a mule cannot mate with another mule shouldn't make us skeptical.....most mutations in the wild will be detrimental to the organism. LARGE mutations are virtually always detrimental, if not always. But small mutations can be beneficial. When we find an organism which is sterile, or grossly mutated, there's no reason why we should see that organism as falling outside the bounds of evolution.

tim and maybe my memory is not correct but I thought evolution taught that all mutations were for the benefit of the organism not for the detriment.

Also I would like to point out the rat squirel that has just been recently found...Imagine how much mutation has happened in something that was dated to have become extinct 10 million years ago....Go on and venture a guess....absolutely none. It is still the same as the fossils they have from 10 million years ago..Who knows how old they actually are but that they were to have been extinct 10 million years ago.

Seriously Matt, and I don't mean this to be rude, you should read some evolutionary theory before you attempt to shoot it down. A mutation is a random occurence, a genetic "mistake." They are very rarely beneficial.

Here is a great analogy I read: pretend you are a scientist with a microscope, trying to focus on a slide. Your microscope it 1/4 inch out of focus. Now if you move the focus in a random direction, what are the chances that the focus will improve? Well it depends on the size of your move.

First let me clarify - the movement of the microscope represents genetic mutation. Now, evolution does not have a goal (like the scientist does, trying to get his slide in focus), but the focused slide represents a specific mutation which, for whatever reason, will be helpful to an organism. The slide 1/4 inch out of focus represents the organism as it is now...surviving, but perhaps not totally suited to its environment. The slide becoming more out of focus represents a mutation which is detrimental to that organism.

So, lets say you move the focus 1/8 inch in a random direction. What are the chances that it improves? 50/50 - you were 2/8 inches away initially, and by moving 1/8 inch you are now either 3/8 inches away or 1/8 inch away. So your 'small mutation' has a very great chance of being beneficial. Now lets say you move the focus 1/2 inch in a random direction. What are the chances that you improve the focus? Zero. If you move it up then you are now 6/8 inches above, and if you move it down you are 2/8 inches below.

This is just an analogy, but it explains why large mutations are almost never beneficial, and small ones can be.

It should be noted that beneficial mutations in nature are rare. Extremely rare. But because an organism which has a trait seen as beneficial will in general live longer than organisms without that trait (and produce more offspring), AND because offspring inherit traits from their parents, that organism's mutation MAY tend to spread into a larger population, over many generations.





Actually it's quite probable that, given every rat squirrel that has lived over the last 10 million years, there have been ENORMOUS amounts of mutations within the population. Again, most mutations will cause that organism to die, or live a shortened life. Some won't. That the rat squirrel has been well-suited to its environment for 10 million years isn't astounding. There's no reason it should change, if it didn't need to.

If you want to see how species can change, look at dogs. A few thousand years ago there were wolves and coyotes. Now, through man's selective breeding, there are poodles, pugs, great danes, etc. Go back 5,000 years and you will not find a poodle on earth. They did not exist. Yes, man GREATLY sped up the process. But 5,000 years is immeasurably small on the geologic scale.

Yes I am not an expert on evolution...Never said i was...which is why i was posing questions. What it appears though is that you have combined micro and macro evolution into the same thing. Of course there is micro evolution. Some things will be bigger than others some may be smaller...The big point is that the DNA does not change. Prime example.... of this

Before the US became a state they were part of the british army. But there was a problem. They were all to big for the british army uniforms. Now you might say that they evolved and now americans were bigger than the british but we know that wasnt the truth. It was that because of the diets they were all now healthier and b/c of that bigger. But the key is that DNA never changed. So to look at a something and say its bigger or smaller and b/c of that is evolution is really not right. The DNA is the same. It has not mutated into something else

Another problem i have with what you said was the example of the dog. How is forced mutation the same as the evolution that people try to say also exists? When an outside factor mainly humans forces it to occur it is no longer a natural process but something that has been forced....From a scientific standpoint those little words "all other things equal" is no longer correct and the experiment has changed.

Tim, what i mean is, as much as a monkey looks like a man, or a man like a monkey, it is observational evidence only. It is said that many pet owners look like their pets too, but c'mon....

The point is that throught the science and discovery of DNA, we know to the microscopic level how genes come together to make new life. If you are suggesting that a monkey got it on with another monkey and eventually, a human appeared, you have more faith than i do. DNA tells us that only a monkey will come from the unioun. If there is a mutation, no matter how small, we know from DNA science that it is more than likely the recessive gene, NOT the dominant gene, meaning it will not carry on. Back to the mule, the DNA does not match up between a horse and a donkey, producing a sterile mule.

Your analogy of dogs only proves my point. As dogs have progressed over the years, they have always remained dogs. The DNA will not allow them to be anything but dogs, in different breeds, but dogs just the same. It is micro evolution that allows the creation of a new breed. It happens all of time. It may be a mutation that causes it.

Show me the "hopeful monster" and I'll see macro evolution as a possibility.

Anyone else notice that Genesis's story of creation has the same line of development as the evolutionary timeline??

Don, That is an interesting observation. Especially when you consider that Darwin was a graduate from a bible college.

Evolution always occurs on the small scale. A monkey didn't one day just give birth to a bald, smart monkey, and thus man was born. It is a process of slowwwwwww gradual change.





It's not the same, and I didn't mean to imply that it is (if I did). In dogs, the force at work was humans, selectively breeding for whatever specific purpose. In evolution, the force at work is nature.....changes in geography, climate, etc. So-called "arms races" also play a part in evolution (for example, cheetahs have evolved to be fast runners because gazelles (their prey) are able to run fast.......and gazelles evolved to be fast runners because their predators (cheetahs) can run so fast........this might sound like circular reasoning, but it's not, and I'll go into it more if you'd like). Evolution is a much slower process than human interbreeding, and the forces at work are somewhat different, but I just meant it as a concrete example of speciation.

i think you better read genesis 1 again. the earth is made before the sun, land plants before sea life, whales and birds before land animals etc. the timeline in genesis couldn't be much more messed up than it is.

I think I like cuin4years's take on it. You can't look at Genesis as a literal, word-for-word representation of how the world evolved. But it can represent true occurences....and then the order and specifics are less important. The real point of Genesis as I see it is that God created the heaven and the earth, etc, not which animal came first.

One other point though:



The only reason we see ourselves as the end-all of evolution is because we exist now, and because evolution is too slow a process to be witnessed in a lifetime. People have looked the same since they began making paintings of themselves....but evolution does not have a goal.

that's true only if you just take a glance. science does much more than that, though - evolutionary relationships are judged based on quantifiable morphological and genetic evidence, not just impressions.



and as humans have diverged they have stayed humans. that's because (for the most part) breeds of dogs and races of humans aren't truly reproductively isolated, and all breeds/races are under about the same amounts and types of selective pressures, so they won't reproductively isolate and radically diverge easily (it's pretty much impossible for a new "species" of humans to form under current conditions). different breeds of dogs (and humans) certainly could potentially be on their way to being different species if they do diverge reproductively for whatever reason - in the case of humans it would take something radical like isolating settlers on mars or global nuclear war fragmenting human populations..



if by hopeful monster you mean transitional - living transitionals are rare, as you would logically expect because most transitionals die out quickly. however also as you would expect transionals are abundant in the fossil record. here's this again (sorry matt lol) -

http://www.origins.tv/darwin/transitionals.htm#Transitionals

cuin4years brings up a good point..It is something I am still not sure on as to what the days symbolize if they do symbolize anything

As for the other. Yes that is one theory. Or the other theory is that we are the end-all of evolution b/c thats how God created us. That we were meant to be this way.

for me the point is more that genesis looks like an obviously human-created fable written by someone with a limited understanding of the world exactly at the level you would expect at the time it was written.

if you're not gonna take it literally you can interpret it to represent anything you want. it's pointless to try to meld creation and evolution by speculating that the author might not have been being literal.

crow i know you really love that site..but its not an accurate site...it is out of date.

All that modern work on the dino to bird is wrong. What has come to light recently is that all the work done in china is in fact wrong. It was the overzealousness of the chinese peasants that ruined it. What they have found is that they were actually putting together new with the old (common theme with evolution) and passing them off as the real deal. It was only after modern testing that they realized that all the work done there was in fact useless

lol i know you were too smart to keep trying to support literal creationism forever




reference please?

did i ever say i did support that? I hear good cases for both sides but i am withholding judgement

you've been arguing for it and against evolution for months, and as far as i've seen you've never ever before admitted you can allow that evolution might be how god accomplished creation. but no biggie, just giving you a hard time.

ive argued against evolution but never for literal creation...im not sure what my take on that is yet as i havent done enough research on it yet. either way its not a major issue to what i believe so its not the focus right now

Before you marry creation and evolution, you have answer a couple of questions and see how those answers fit into what you are attempting.

1 When did sin enter the world?
2 What was the result of sin?

Answer the questions then follow the logic to its conclusion. I'll be interested in hearing what happens.

Yes but people ARE like monkeys. A fat person with close-together eyes may own a fat dog with close together eyes, but biologically that dog is not very similar to that person, except that both are mammals. Monkeys and apes are very similar to man biologically. Men are apes....this is a fact.




What I wrote certainly did not prove your point. The dog analogy is an example of speciation, and in this case it was not brought about through natural selection. My point was that in a mere 5,000 years, man has caused enormous change in what a "dog" is. Imagine the difference between a wolf and a toy poodle. Don't think of them as dogs, just as organisms. They are quite different looking. Call the difference between them Z. Now try to imagine something Z different than a poodle. It shouldn't be a real creature, but an imagined one. Say, something like a poodle, but bald, and only 2/3 as big (for example). Now imagine something 2Z different than that. Even smaller, say, and with a pronounced bump on its head. Now imagine something which is 50Z different than a poodle. Pretty difficult to imagine....as with that many changes it would be completely indistinguishable from a dog.

Evolution is a slow process. Again, 5,000 years is LITERALLY less time than a geologist can measure. If humans were breeding ever smaller poodles for, say, 100,000 years, we should arrive at a poodle no larger than a mouse. And 100,000 years is a VERY small amount of time to a geologist. Natural selection takes much longer than human interbreeding of dogs.....but the time available is vast. Hundreds and hundreds of millions of years. A lot can happen in a hundred million years.

" Men are apes....this is a fact" You sir, have more faith than I. Site your source. Show the DNA strands....they are not the same. That is a fact.

From the Encyclopedia Britannica (is that a good enough source?):

"APE: tailless primates of the families Hylobatidae (gibbons) and Hominidae (chimpanzee, bonobo, orangutan, gorilla, and human being). Nonhuman apes are found in the tropical forests of western and central Africa and Southeast Asia......"


This does not mean that humans and chimps are the same. It means that they have been classified by scientists as belonging to the same biological grouping.


I don't know how you expect me to "show the DNA strands," or even what that means.

well that settles it then. the scientists classified that way, i guess i am an ape. My wife will be interested in knowing this. sw

You said men are apes. Implying we are the same. DNA is the root of what makes a life what it is, biologically, or scientifically.

What i am saying is you cannot show DNA strands to be the same because men are not apes. Dare I disagree with an encyclopedia?

Funny how people will crush the bible based on "it is written by man." but will cling to every word of a "scientist", who is just a man.

No, you daren't. Men are apes. Gorillas are apes. This does not imply that men are gorillas.

Apples are fruit. Oranges are fuit (and what could me more different than apples and oranges lol). But apples are not oranges.






Well, scientists are often wrong. It is science that I believe in, not scientists.

From Wikipedia: "At present estimate, humans have approximately 20,000–25,000 genes and share 98.4% of their DNA with their closest living evolutionary relatives, the two species of chimpanzees."

You're an ape. Deal with it.

i have heard others with similar explanations, and I believe it shows a mix good faith and common sense.

Anyone that wants to suggest that the Earth and Universe is only a few thousand years old really has some hard questions to answer.

A willingness to take non-literal interpretations shows a healthy mind

Are humans animals? If yes, then what's the big deal with being an ape? It's just a biological group that we share many traits with. Does it mean that we're soulless or sentient or not created in God's image? Definitely not.