Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Something had to be created for evolution to happen. Maybe the amino acids that make up DNA were "created". Maybe the chemicals that exist in our sphere of the galaxy were "created".
Much evil has been committed in the name of all religions, all nations, all races.
The witch burnings in the 1700's - if you meant what Wiccansn today refer to as "The Burning Time" occured primarily between 1550 and 1650. Civil courts were those responsible for the accusation, sentencing and death of "witches", not the Catholic Church. The only way in which the Catholic Church was involved was through the foundation of theology that opposed witches common to all Christian faiths.
By the 1700's, such as during the infamous Salem Witch trials in the US, it was a Protestant based society that killed witches.
The laws were very strongly influced by Christain based religion. There were multiple countries that burned witches at the stake, not to mention other forms of discapline for jont following those laws and rules. I was not just talking about the Salem Witch Trials in the US. In fact, I was mostly concentrated on the hell in Europe. Most of those who came to America came to get away from a lot of that, to have more freedom, regardless of the fact that some time longer to become adapted by those in the US. Even after there were laws passed to stop the foolishness, there were still a 100 years of waiting for those generations to die out, taking most of that foolishness with them. It amazes me. Part of the history that I teach, I sometimes get a welll educated person who points out that a specific invention that was seen as witchcraft by many individuals who did not understand the physics of it, was invented well after burning witches at the stake, ect was stopped by law. It was also been recorded historically that it happened and it I am quite shocked that a well educated individual does not realize that signing something into law does not mean that rooted ideologies do not simply go away, regardless of how foolish they may be.
Let me explain it this way: Most of would agree that slavery was foolish. Most of us would agree that African Americans should not be denied the same rights as everyone else. HOWEVER, that does not stop an unusually large amount of people from still thinking otherwise. As was the with witchcraft back in the 1700's and even into the 1800's. While it was seen as foolish by most those who followed the cultural trends, you had your old fashioned "traditionalists" who not only held fast onto those beliefs but passed them onto their children. That is a big reason why public schooling was pushed...to guarantee the push the beliefs for the common good of society, as from political viewpoints, to the youth of America.
I have so far stayed out of this argument, mostly, because your claim is so blatantly stupid.
Still, you keep repeating it, so I'll just take a minute to respond.
Your argument goes something like this:
1. If evolution were true, it would have created hundreds of millions of fossilized transitional life forms.
2. We do not have hundreds of millions of fossilized transitional life forms.
3. Therefore, evolution is not true.
Let's just keep with this lack of hundreds of millions of fossilized life forms thing, though.
1. If the species on earth today are the same as the species on earth in the distant past, we would have hundreds of millions of fossilized life forms in the same form as current organisms.
2. We do not have hundreds of millions of fossilized life forms in the same form as current organisms.
3. Therefore, the species on earth today are not the same as the species on earth in the distant past.
Or, to make it even more straightforward:
1. If life on earth existed in the distant past, we would have hundreds of millions of fossilized life forms.
2. We do not have hundreds of millions of fossilized life forms.
3. Therefore, life did not exist on earth in the distant past.
Any way you look at it, your argument is based on the assumption that past conditions would have given rise to the existence of hundreds of millions of fossilized life forms. You provide no evidence for this assumption. In fact, other posters have pointed out that it is, in fact, rare for dead life forms to become fossils. Since your fundamental assumption (your major premise) is false, your entire argument is invalid.
Eeeeeexactly.
But why bother with logic when dogmas don't require them? If it was in Genesis 1:1 then it MUST be true. They can't see past that.
In the early 1990s some obviously non-avian dinosaur fossils were discovered with preserved feathers. Today we know of more than twenty genera of dinosaurs with fossil feathers. Hell, the fossil feathers of one of them -- Shuvuuia deserti -- have tested positive for beta-keratin which is the main protein in bird feathers.
Ok! Right there! There is a bit that I always struggled with. I remember being a kid in the first grade where they talked about dinosaurs and where they came from, that they were all reptiles. I remember I raised my hand and said that the short little arms and big meaty thighs to me made them seem like they were more closely related to birds. The teacher acted like I was a dumb kid and discounted me in class, and the kids all laughed at me. Then, not too long later, the evidence proved that was a real possibility. Many of the things I concluded as a kid from looking at all those pictures before I could read, words that would have "proved" me wrong are now being accepted. To me, things are obvious to me that scientists are suddenly having great discovery moments and I'm just thinking, "Didn't everyone think that all ready?"
One that DH and I have come up with is that evolution can happen much faster than anyone realizes, that the estimates may be way off. As came up earlier, evolution is not survival of the fittest but rather the theory is about those more adaptable to change. Let us look at farmed pigs that escape into the wild and become "hogzillas". Right there, that is a step backward in mammalian evolution. That species of animal has not been recorded to become that large in the wild for a very long time, but a few escapees can change within their own lifetime. We're not talking about gradual changes over gernerations because the amount of oxygen was higher, hunting is lower, ect. We are talking about how a forced change of environment changing species very radically. When we talk about mammal size and how various large species were hunted to extinction, we forget to stop and look at how much smaller species have become over just the last few hundred thanks to a combination of the genes that make a large individual within a species being wiped out by hunting but also targeted hunting for the largest.
But let us say that suddenly we were only able to shoot the smallest of every herd of deer. Each year, wouldn't it reverse and wouldn't the size gradually increase over time. Let us also say that hunting is not even part of the equation and we look a herd of deer from the north and let us say there is a dramatic climate shift and the deer in the north suddenly have shorter, warmer winters. Will they not change? Will the types and amount of food change over time and slightly adjust the DNA of fawn fetus' in small amounts over time? What if this goes on for say 200 years? Will we then look at the fossils of today and declare those deer of tomarrow a seperate species? Will that then mean that the deer of today are extinct?
Sure. But where are the hundreds of millions that are necessary evidence?
Or do you believe that there weren't billions of transitional life forms? Is that not a fundamental premise of the theory of evolution - that billions of microscopic changes took place over hundreds of millions of years?
So again, where are the fossilized remains of hundreds of millions of transitional life forms? If these remains cannot be produced, you must admit to yourself that you've got a problem with your theory.
I've already explained why you are wrong.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gplex
Some important factors prevent the formation of fossils from being common:
Fossilization itself is not a particularly common event. It requires conditions that preserve the fossil before it becomes scavenged or decayed. Such conditions are common only in a very few habitats, such as river deltas, peat bogs, and tar pits. Organisms that do not live in or near these habitats will be preserved only rarely.
Many types of animals are fragile and do not preserve well.
Many species have small ranges. Their chance of fossilization will be proportionally small.
The evolution of new species probably is fairly rapid in geological terms, so the transitions between species will be uncommon.
Passenger pigeons, once numbered in the billions, went extinct less than 200 years ago. How many passenger pigeon fossils can you find? If they are hard to find, why should we expect to find fossils that are likely from smaller populations and have been subject to millions of years of potential erosion?
There are many transitional fossils. The only way that the claim of their absence may be remotely justified, aside from ignoring the evidence completely, is to redefine "transitional" as referring to a fossil that is a direct ancestor of one organism and a direct descendant of another. However, direct lineages are not required; they could not be verified even if found. What a transitional fossil is, in keeping with what the theory of evolution predicts, is a fossil that shows a mosaic of features from an older and more recent organism.
I have so far stayed out of this argument, mostly, because your claim is so blatantly stupid.
Still, you keep repeating it, so I'll just take a minute to respond.
Your argument goes something like this:
1. If evolution were true, it would have created hundreds of millions of fossilized transitional life forms.
2. We do not have hundreds of millions of fossilized transitional life forms.
3. Therefore, evolution is not true.
Let's just keep with this lack of hundreds of millions of fossilized life forms thing, though.
1. If the species on earth today are the same as the species on earth in the distant past, we would have hundreds of millions of fossilized life forms in the same form as current organisms.
2. We do not have hundreds of millions of fossilized life forms in the same form as current organisms.
3. Therefore, the species on earth today are not the same as the species on earth in the distant past.
Or, to make it even more straightforward:
1. If life on earth existed in the distant past, we would have hundreds of millions of fossilized life forms.
2. We do not have hundreds of millions of fossilized life forms.
3. Therefore, life did not exist on earth in the distant past.
Any way you look at it, your argument is based on the assumption that past conditions would have given rise to the existence of hundreds of millions of fossilized life forms. You provide no evidence for this assumption. In fact, other posters have pointed out that it is, in fact, rare for dead life forms to become fossils. Since your fundamental assumption (your major premise) is false, your entire argument is invalid.
My claim is so blatantly stupid?
How about somebody - like you - who believes, without any fossilized evidence, that hundreds of billions of little evolutions "just happened" over hundreds of millions of years.
And all your excuse making about it being "relatively rare" for dead life to become fossils is inane. By your own claims, there would have had to be hundreds of billions of transitional life forms. Even if 1 100th of 1% of those transitional life forms were fossilized, there would be millions of them.
But there aren't.
Talk about blatantly stupid... Indeed. Blatantly stupid. AND arrogant.
The Nebraska Man - and "his" entire sub-species is fact too.
Thanks for the clarification, big guy!
In the light of the MASSIVE amount of evidence (of which fossils, that DO exist and you have been pointed to a link, is just a small part) it IS a fact.
On the other hand, what is the EVIDENCE of your imaginary friend, big guy?
I just gave you the key to disprove evolution... go disprove it. And BTW, if you do (hint, you won't), that will still NOT prove creationism.
In the light of the MASSIVE amount of evidence (of which fossils, that DO exist and you have been pointed to a link, is just a small part) it IS a fact.
On the other hand, what is the EVIDENCE of your imaginary friend, big guy?
I just gave you the key to disprove evolution... go disprove it. And BTW, if you do (hint, you won't), that will still NOT prove creationism.
Who is talking about creationism? Your overly-defensive tunnel vision is overwhelming you.
I'm not promoting anything, regardless of how many time you theory of evolution zealots claim I am.
What I'm doing is pointing out the FACT that your theory LACKS EVIDENCE. Were you to try to prove something about the theory of evolution, in a court of law, you would UTTERLY FAIL. Why? Because you're lacking evidence.
THAT is your problem. And while you all keep repeating the same cultic mantra about all this fossil evidence, you all fail to produce any.
No wait. I'm wrong. You HAVE produced fossil evidence - PROOF, like your Nebraska Man, and his entire sub-species.
My bad. Sorry. I guess your PROOF is infallible! Do carry on!
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Start digging! In the meanwhile, evolution stands as fact.
