No post is going to satisfy me until the fundamental questions I asked are answered, because at the moment those questions are invalidating just about everything the creationists here are saying. You have taken those points up in your previous post though, so we can look at that in a minute.

Also, my sincere apologies about the animals passage you wrote. If I’d realised you’d written it yourself I would certainly have been more tactful about what I said. I won’t refer to it again, I will stick to discussing the science of evolution.

Most of what you say that the beginning of your post is a re-assertion that scientists are making arbitrary guesses about fossils, and that these guesses are made according to a pre-determined “need to believe” in evolution. I addressed both of these points in my previous post. What we again need to talk about is how fossils are dated. Firstly, though, I’ll just say that I don’t like the term “microevolution” either. And that yes, whether or not something is a species is a decision made by scientists, not one that is determined in an absolute way. However, scientists do have classification systems based on the range of differences in organisms. For example, the lion and the tiger are going to be more closely related in the classification system than the lion and the amoeba.

I’m not familiar with the plant example you gave, but I gave you some myself: the crocodile and the scorpion. They have not essentially changed either, and they have been around even longer than 50 million years; they pre-date the dinosaurs. The vast majority of other species have changed, if they managed to avoid extinction. The question that then needs to be asked is, why not crocodiles and scorpions? One reason is because they are so perfectly adapted to their ecological niches. Any mutations that occur detract from this and are eliminated. There’s simply nowhere for them to go, from an evolutionary standpoint, unless their habitat changes. You can see an example of this with mammals. The first ones appeared when the dinosaurs ruled the earth. They remained more or less unchanged – small and nocturnal – for 20 million years. Once the dinosaurs were extinct they, like many other species, began to evolve rapidly because new ecological niches opened up that were previously monopolised by the dinosaurs.

Another reason is because certain species are so readily adaptable, and can live and thrive in many different places. The cockroach for one, which people agreed here is a pretty ubiquitous creature. You can read more about “living fossils” in this article, which is easily accessible to the layperson: http://www.newscientist.com/channel/life/evolution/mg16422094.900 “The Creatures Time Forgot”

Many scientists define evolution as the change in the frequency of alleles over time. This doesn’t specify what is driving the process, though most scientists will tell you it’s random mutations and natural selection working on them. Personally I think there’s room here for exploration and discovery, but looking at the evidence I don’t see how you could deny that life has existed and changed on earth for billions of years. Let’s talk more about the evidence then, and how it is analysed.

You said:

Which makes me wonder if you read the example from my own quote which you posted just above this. I explained why studying fossils is not just guessing. Scientists always look to date the rock in which the fossil was found and usually are able to do so through radioisotope methods. Also, some fossils are seen to occur only in certain strata. Such fossils can be used as index fossils. When these fossils exist, they can be used to determine the age of the strata, because the fossils show that the strata correspond to strata that have already been dated by other means. Finally, as a point about scientists having a “need to believe” in evolution, you might be interested to know that the geological column, including the relative ages of the strata and dominant fossils within various strata, was determined before the theory of evolution. By Christian creationist geologists. Look up William Smith.


Incorrect. The Williston Basin of Montana, North Dakota and southern Canada is one example of a place where the geological column is complete. As for places where the geological column is incomplete, Karen Bartelt explains here http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/icr-visit/bartelt3.html


You said:

IF ANYTHING IN YOUR POST NEEDS EVIDENCE IT IS THIS. I have said that radioisotope dating is a major underpinning of paleontology, geology, and other scientific disciplines. You are telling me it is wrong and giving me a figure out of the ether. Who said this and what was their basis for it? I can make up figures too. Would you believe me?


The geological column is never out of order in areas that have not been greatly disturbed by earthquakes or other great forces within the earth. It’s not hard to see why creationists would want to try to discredit Lyell, who greatly influenced Darwin. Tell me where you got your 85% figure from and give me an example of a place where the geological column is out of order, and the area has been undisturbed by geomorphological processes. Layers of delicate, undisturbed sedimentary rock would do nicely.

You’ve brought up points about the Grand Canyon again but this is going to necessitate quite a lengthy discussion involving various aspects of geology. You said my posts are too long. Why don’t we put this to the side for now and deal with the other issues we are discussing at the moment. I’ll take your archaeopteryx points next because they are pretty easily addressed.

Your source mentions Alan Feduccia. He is considered to be “on the fringe,” i.e. most scientists do not agree with his ideas. That doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s wrong, but that his ideas need to be viewed with caution because many other “world authorities” in the subject disagree with him. At any rate, as I’ve said before, scientists who disagree in these areas are disagreeing about ways that evolution occurred; they are not questioning the theory itself. Here is what Feduccia said:


Carrying on, you said:

This is the much-repeated creationist mantra, “What use is half a wing/eye/etc”.

Here are some uses for “half a wing.”

In insects, half a wing is useful for skimming rapidly across the surface of water (Marden and Kramer 1995; Kramer and Marden 1997; Thomas et al. 2000).

In larger animals, half a wing is useful for gliding. Flying squirrels and lemurs have skin between their legs which assists with this.

In immature chickens, wing-flapping enhances hindl imb traction, allowing the chickens to ascend steeper inclines. This function could be an intermediate to the original flight of birds. (Dial 2003)

In some flightless birds (e.g., penguins), wings are used for swimming.


O'Connor, PM and LPA Claessens (2005). Basic avian pulmonary design and flow-through ventilation in non-avian theropod dinosaurs. Nature 436, 253-256.

From the abstract:


There’s a lot of scientific jargon here, but what this study is saying is that these specialisations imply the existence of avian lung-type characteristics in theropod dinosaurs, indicating that flow-through ventilation of the lung is not restricted to birds but is probably a general theropod characteristic. In other words, you can’t assume that the dinosaurs from which archaeopteryx evolved had lungs that were the same as those of modern reptiles. The lungs of theropods already had some birdlike characteristics. It’s not difficult to imagine how these would have continued to evolve in archaeopteryx.


This is an outright lie. Unless, of course, you can give me a specific example of where this is the case. The world of science will reel in shock.

To make a long story short, why don’t you actually read about archaeopteryx yourself and you will see why it is a good example of a transitional fossil, and how it shares characteristics of birds and reptiles. Try looking here, “All About Archaeopteryx” http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/archaeopteryx/info.html It lists characteristics of each that archaeopteryx shared.

Bex, when are you going to stop pasting quotes from creationist websites and say something that reflects your own thinking on these subjects? For every claim from people like Gish, Ham and Hovind, there are scientists who have refuted them. Please, at least try checking the veracity of these claims yourself before you give them as evidence for anything.