Hi Bex,

I'm going to go back and pick up some points that I haven't addressed. First I'd like to say that when discussing evolution, we're first and foremost talking about the evidence from the natural world. We both need to be referring to that, which is why I and others here provide links. What I tend to see is that you don't read them and then claim that there is no evidence. Recently, in particular, RAZD posted a fascinating link about the foraminifera fossil record, complete without gaps for millions of years, and I don't see any evidence that any creationist here has read it. If you go on to claim that there is a lack of evidence, and no transitional fossils, you need to discuss foraminifera. As I said earlier, in a scientific pursuit of what's true, you can't just sweep anything under the rug which inconveniently doesn't fit your model of how things work. So continually making claims such as


is pretty inconsistent with the evidence that's been presented in the various threads here. There's nothing to "block my ears and scream" about when the science is out there -- it's a question of whether people here are wiling to address this. When I accuse people of dodging, my primary definition of that is writing a post in which the evidence -- things like the foraminifera article -- is ignored or waved away. Notice the conversations about tree rings, varves and ice cores have stopped too. It's difficult for a creationist to explain how each of these pieces of evidence match up to give similar dates. Speaking of dating, I also see creationists claiming that dating methods are wrong, with no explanation as to how.

It must be frustrating to be asked by me and others to discuss these things, but it's how we figure the nature of the world out. How else do you propose getting at the truth? You can argue with someone, each of you making assertions, and maybe the loudest or most charismatic one wins. Does that means they also are right? Wouldn't it be better to explain why you are right, backing up your assertions with evidence of some kind? That's what we do here; though again, in following the scientific method, the evidence comes first and the arguments/opinions/ideas etc are based on that. The only reason I accept evolution as the likeliest explanation for what we see in the natural world is because there is so much evidence that it has happened and continues to happen.


I didn't comment on that because RAZD or LinearAQ did; though if you want to raise the subject again, you are welcome to. You've seen evidence here for transitional forms. Maybe we ought to discuss the foraminifera article in detail and discuss why these organisms are such good evidence. I can't remember when Patterson made the comments you refer to -- are they old? -- and I don't know anything about him, so I would need to be able to place his words and the incident in their proper context.


As I explained above, I personally call a dodge when someone writes a post which ignores or brushes away evidence which has been presented for evolution. You and CTD did not directly address the hominid skulls in your posts in that thread. You've said more here now. This is the last time I'll say this as well but if you are going to continue to claim that there are no transitional forms, you need to explain why the evidence here from horse, hominid and foraminifera fossils is not transitional. "I don't believe they are" unfortunately doesn't count for much when you are wanting to overturn a scientific theory.


Then I suggest you refrain from writing long paragraphs here about how the Bible is literally true, that a true Christian has to take the Bible literally, etc etc. You know that I for one don't believe this dogma and it also does not exist within the realms of science. If we're talking about evolution then we look at the evidence from the natural world. When you set yourself up to think that looking at this evidence objectively is going to destroy everything you believe in and hold dear, then cognitive dissonance comes into operation -- for example, sweeping things under the rug that don't "fit." I've seen many Christians claim that God gave us a brain to use and that he meant us to work things out with it, not deny them in the face of evidence to the contrary, but I guess none of these are "real" Christians by your definition.

Regarding your comments about hominid fossils -- we can learn a lot from the fossils and yes we can make an educated guess about what they would have looked like. I suggest you have a look at the links I provided in my post last night. In most cases it's as simple as looking the fossils up on Wikipedia and learning about why these are classified as particular species, and how they are similar and different to each other and us. This information comes from the fossils themselves, and increasingly from genetics as well; scientists don't sit around and make it up.

You said about Yahya's site:

But this information is all over the internet. As I suggested above, it's there on Wikipedia -- the real information, and all of it, unfiltered by someone like Yahya who has an agenda to manipulate and misrepresent it. Why is it a test for authenticity if it appears in National Geographic? Scientific articles written by people like paleoanthropoligists appear in peer-reviewed journals all the time. These hold rather more weight in the scientific community, yet National Geographic stands out does it?

Regarding cutting and pasting from websites. I used to have the time to sit here for hours and refute whatever was presented, but really that was because I had nothing else to do. I don't think it's fair in a debate to paste a block of someone else's evidence and expect others to accept the time-consuming task of refuting it -- especially as it's usually thankless because more rug-sweeping is usually all that comes of it. (Denial, waving away, etc.) I wouldn't paste pages from a website and ask you to refute.

What I suggest might have been a good idea was selecting a part of what you presented here, so that we could look at it in detail; for example, the fossil of Lucy. You could say you weren't convinced that she was anything other than an ape who walked on all fours, and we could discuss the fossil and what scientists have learned from it. We might have talked about other hominid fossils by way of comparison, and dating methods as well. That would be enough to keep us going for quite a while. Instead, I've addressed a wide variety of topics under the umbrella of hominid fossils in a rather shallow way in order to address Yahya's web pages; each of them deserves more discussion than I had time to give to it. Discussing one fossil at a time, or one geological phenomenon (for example varves) is the way I'd prefer to go and I think it would be less frustrating and time-consuming for all.


Yes, you've made the point very well by presenting Yahya's claims here.


You're welcome to do so, but he's not going to be able to make a more convincing case for Lucy and other hominids of her kind to have been apes who walked on all fours; the anatomical evidence is simply too sound that they were bipedal. Most of his other assertions evaporate as well when you simply look the facts up. While you're inviting him to come here and tell us that we're all infidels, maybe you can explain to him why Islam is not the true faith and why the earth is not old.

If I've omitted any comments you've made about the hominid skulls or other fossils, please let me know; it's hard to pick through what's here and try to sift out what hasn't been addressed. Keep in mind that those skulls are not the sole evidence we have, and that Turkana Boy for example comes with most of his skeleton intact too. The site I referred you to gives details about how the skulls differ from each other and from modern humans as well as chimps. You can't claim "we can't learn much from a skull" because there are people who spend their lives doing just this and publishing papers about it. The information is out there if you want to read it.