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Hello Bex (and others ...)

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Evolutionists, when confronted by evidence that contradicts their theories (pictures of the fossils themselves) will find any means possible to vindicate their theory, ...
Except for one small detail:
Except? What follows looks like a perfect example!

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Not one of those pictures of fossils contradicts any of the theories of evolution.
Look again - without goggles. Notice the stasis?

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This is a common misunderstanding for people that don't understand science and evolution, and it is another example of the "All A is B, B! therefore A" logical fallacy. Evolution does not HAVE to happen, nor does it HAVE to affect all species in any major way -- species that are in a stable niche can - and do - remain virtually unchanged (certainly unchanged enough for the average person to see little difference). The blue-green algae that lives today is similar to the fossils that are found in rocks 3.5 billion years old, the oldest known fossils.

This does not mean that evolution does not happen.
Means it hasn't happened to whichever type of life you're talkin' 'bout. Even in cases where lifeforms have gone extinct, they always exhibit stasis even in evotime.

Requirements for stasis, even under evolutionism: stable temperatures, food supply, predation, precipitation, um, what else is in the environment? Well, I think it's easy to get the picture. One last requirement: non-accumulation of mutations. None of this can be explained away.

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Even when species appear unchanged this does not mean that evolution has not occurred -- that these species were not also descended from common ancestors to other species that have changed visibly while they remain well suited to a stable niche.
No such thing. Aren't y'all the ones always claiming the global climate's changed & asteroids have wiped out nearly all species, and stuff like that?

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Take the coelacanth example given previously. The ones living today are not only different species from the ones from 65 million years ago they are not the same GENUS. This is because "coelacanth" is the name for an ORDER of related fish, much the same way we are members of the Order Primates, and this is like using a 60 million year old primate fossil to claim that humans are unchanged since then.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coelacanths

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Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Sarcopterygii
Subclass: Coelacanthimorpha
Order: Coelacanthiformes
Families See text.
:
Although now represented by only two known living species, as a group the coelacanths were once very successful with many genera and species that left an abundant fossil record from the Devonian to the end of the Cretaceous period, at which point they apparently suffered a nearly complete extinction. No fossils dated after this point are known to have been found.[citation needed] It is often claimed that the coelacanth has remained unchanged for millions of years but [color:"red"]in fact the living species and even genus are unknown from the fossil record.[/color] However, some of the extinct species, particularly those of the last known fossil coelacanth, the Cretaceous genus Macropoma, closely resemble the living species.[citation needed] The most likely reason for the gap is the taxon having become extinct in shallow waters. Deep-water fossils are only rarely lifted to levels where paleontologists can recover them, making most deep-water taxa disappear from the fossil record. This situation is still under investigation by scientists.
You can find lots of similar information from other sites for those that are squeamish about WIKI

http://www.dinofish.com/biologyandbehavior.html

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The living coelacanths, Latimeria chalumnae,and Latimeria menadoensis are possibly the sole remaining representatives of a once widespread family of Sarcopterygian (fleshy-finned) coelacanth fishes (more than 120 species are known from fossils)all but one of which disappeared at the end of the Cretaceous, 65 million years ago. The classification of coelacanths is a murky business with more than one vairation in the class category, but we'll give it a shot. Kingdom: Animalia, Phylum: Chordata, Class: Pices (fishes), Sub class: Gnathostomata- jawed fishes, Sub class: Teleostei- bony fishes (though cartilaginous, coelacanths are usually classed with the teleosts), Sub class: Sarcopterygii (lobed-finned fishes), Order: Crossopterygii, Family: Actinistia (coelacanths), Gennus: Latimeria, Species: chalumnae and menadoensis.
These are not the same species, or genus, or even family, of fish.
Looks like they did "give it a shot". So what? What'd happen if they weren't maximizing every hint of a difference & trying their best to distance the fossils from the living fish? If there's one thing we've seen, it's that some folks hate like anything to admit any two creatures are the same species, and will dream up any excuse to claim they ain't.

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I would not be surprised to see fish, turtles, frogs, bugs trees and other generic TYPES of life in the fossil record, as they are part of the evidence FOR evolution. The difference between a scientist and a layperson looking at the fossils is that the scientist sees the differences and trends over time, while many a layperson can barely distinguish one bird from another, other than by colors (we have some red birds and some blue birds and lots of brown birds ...).
So "scientist" is defined as... evopusher? But even they have confessed there's little difference between a lot of species, and the demarcation is arbitrary.

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For you to show that evolution can not work with this kind of "evidence" is that you need to show that speciation does not happen and that there are no common ancestors between each of the different forms of life we know.
Wrong. Undefined "speciation" isn't "evolution" by any real definition. Why not frame an argument using real words for a change? Can't evolutionism survive in an environment of clear-cut, unambiguous communication?

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Problem is: we know speciation happens, we know that there are common ancestors, and thus your evidence is not evidence that evolution does not, has not nor can not happen.

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Adaption to ones environment is simply "adaption" (e.g. thicker coat in the cold, shedding in the heat etc). We have been through this before on this forum.
And what you have failed to show is that there is any limitation to adaptation. For creationists to claim that there is only "adaptation" within "kinds" you need to demonstrate that there is some barrier to the amount of variation that can occur.
Geneticists have already done so. No new information shows up in nature. New variety comes from deletions. This is what's observed.

It's also been long demonstrated in selective breeding. Want a mouse-sized dog or horse? You're out of luck. The genes for such don't exist anywhere in the pool. Genetic combinations for lots of sizes have been discovered, but the pool is what it is - there's your limit.

Furthermore, there's another kind of stasis that Darwin said wouldn't happen.
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In the number just out of Fraser's Magazine2 there is an article or review on Lamarck and me by W. Hopkins, the mathematician, who, like Haughton, despises the reasoning power of all naturalists. Personally he is extremely kind towards me; but he evidently in the following number means to blow me into atoms. He does not in the least appreciate the difference in my views and Lamarck's, as explaining adaptation, the principle of divergence, the increase of dominant groups, and the almost necessary extinction of the less dominant and smaller groups, etc.
See what I bolded? That means if humans had evolved from apes, the apes would almost necessarily have become extinct. They don't get to play stasis while they're being out-competed. They die. That's how competition works, according to Darwin's words. I think he'd probably consider humans vs. apes as a necessary exception (or he didn't really give it much thought, or he didn't seriously mean what he says here - none of these would surprise me.)

That's from http://darwin-online.org.uk/content...p;amp;itemID=F1548.1&pageseq=170
Letter 104. TO ASA GRAY. Down, June 8th [1860].

And stasis cuts both ways. Looking back into evotime, we find species existing in stasis and then -Boop! No sign of them. No ancestor - nothing. Works for most anything you can name. We don't see features shrink away into nothing. The wing, for example. Creatures have wings, back... back... still wings... back... back... gone! Wing, critter, all gone.

Almost works better going forward. Thanks to the minor god of evolutionism known to the rest of us as mutation, features can indeed become diminished - perhaps lost for good. Vision can degenerate, wings can shrink, lots of problems come along. But we don't see shrinking wings becoming hands, do we? They don't have the genes for that, so no we don't.

Now having said all that, I don't think stasis arguments can be used to disprove evolutionism in the case of any committed evolutionist. If it exists, it cannot be a problem "because we already know we evolved". That's how they think. The bulk of the record they don't never bring into the discussion displays stasis, so it's just ignored.

It's no good demanding evidence of evolution in any species that displays stasis - they see life & in their eyes life is all the proof one needs - it must have evolved or it couldn't be there because their religion does not permit them to admit that there even might be any alternative. Imaginary ancestry accepted by faith works just fine - better in some cases than the embarrassing frauds.

But it would be a mistake to forget where the burden of proof lies. Who has claimed the fossil record is evidence in favor of evolutionism? Now under those terms, all that stasis... not looking good.

Dark Matter + Dark Energy = Dark Truth

"We find that such evidence demonstrates that the ID argument is dependent upon setting a scientifically unreasonable burden of proof for the theory of evolution." - Judge Jones Kitzmiller case
http://www.talkreason.org/articles/Falsify.cfm

"To Compel A Man To Furnish Funds For The Propagation Of Ideas He Disbelieves And Abhors Is Sinful And Tyrannical." - Thomas Jefferson

"And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath?" - Thomas Jefferson