Evolutionism and the fossil record

Evolutionists commonly use the fossil record and evidnence for their "theory". However fossils canNOT tell us anything about a mechanism. Therefore in any debate pertaining to a mechanism, such as ID vs. evolutionism, the fossil record is totally useless. Not onlt is it useless it doesn't tell us what evolutionists want us to believe it tells us:

Exposing the Evolutionist’s Sleight-of-Hand With the Fossil Record

Marine inverts make up the bulk of the fossil record. Yet with these fossils we do NOT see any common descent or nested hierarchies. Why is that? Why is the richest part of the FR devoid of evidence for evolutionism?

The fossil record is just "I would not have seen it if I didn't already believe in it." Yet even the great zoologist Pierre-Paul Grasse, said the FR is the ONLY place where we "observe" evolution.

As a reminder- evolutionism is evolution #6:

The meanings of evolution, from Darwinism, Design and Public Education:

1. Change over time; history of nature; any sequence of events in nature
2. Changes in the frequencies of alleles in the gene pool of a population
3. Limited common descent: the idea that particular groups of organisms have descended from a common ancestor.
4. The mechanisms responsible for the change required to produce limited descent with modification, chiefly natural selection acting on random variations or mutations.
5. Universal common descent: the idea that all organisms have descended from a single common ancestor.
6. “Blind watchmaker” thesis: the idea that all organisms have descended from common ancestors solely through an unguided, unintelligent, purposeless, material processes such as natural selection acting on random variations or mutations; that the mechanisms of natural selection, random variation and mutation, and perhaps other similarly naturalistic mechanisms, are completely sufficient to account for the appearance of design in living organisms.

Evolutionism can be extended back to abiogenesis as if life did not arise from non-living matter via some "blind watchmaker-type" process then there is no reason to infer its subsequent diversity arose solely via those type of processes.

Evolutionism and Nested Hierarchies

As anyone familiar with evolutionism should know, evolution can select any direction. Therefore nested hierarchies are not a prediction, ie not expected, of evolutionism. Realistically NH should be evidence against evolutionism and evidence for some common design as both Aristotle and Karl von Linne (the father of modern classification) stated.

That evolutionists attempt to use NH as evidence for evolutionism should demonstrate their ability to accomodate ANY data into their "theory".

It should also be noted that NH can be constructed of unrelated objects. And again NH is circumstantial evidence

Evolutionism vs. a Real scientific theory

The Germ Theory of Disease- first put forth by Creationist Louis Pasteur makes many specific hypotheses, which link specific micro-organisms (germ) with specific communicable diseases. In each case it is explained how the germ was/ is transmitted. In each case it is explained how the infection (by the germ) produces the syptoms associated with the disease.

Now THAT is a testable theory. We can treat the the disease with an agency (anti-b) known to be fatal with the hypothesized germ, then see if the disease is cured. Or we can use an agency known to block the channels known to transmit the disease and see if it is contained.

Evolutionism has none of that. It relies solely on circumstantial evidence.

Factors required for Complex Life

The following is a list of things required in order to maintain/ sustain complex life- (outside of the required chemical processes at the cellular level). The point of the list is to show how very incredibly lucky we are. We won the cosmic lottery! Or is there a purpose for our existence? Does Occam’s Razor really favor one designed universe over multiple chance collisions & multiple lucky events? Does science really favor the chance collisions & multiple lucky events scenario? (also mixed in are the ways the factors aid in scientific discovery)

ID vs. sheer dumb luck- You decide.

Factors for complex life:

1. Liquid water
a. Enough surface water to help regulate the planet’s temperature
b. Good solvent
c. Transports minerals
d. The presence of liquid water means the planet is in the habitable zone of it’s local star (Sun)
e. The presence of liquid water defines the CHZ (Circumstellar Habitable Zone. The CHZ of our solar system lies between Venus & Mars. Some scientists have narrowed it to:
-If the Earth were 5% closer to the Sun – too hot, no liquid water
-If the Earth were 20% father away from the Sun- too cold carbon dioxide would build up

2. Carbon based
a. Great bonding affinities
b. Allows for complex macro-molecules

3. Terrestrial planet
a. Crust thin/ thick and pliable enough to allow for plate tectonics
b. Recycling of minerals
c. Plate tectonics means the crust is sitting on an active core
d. Must retain enough heat for convection, i.e. keep the core liquid
e. Convection mixes the elements & shapes the continents
f. Active iron core is required to generate a protective magnetic field
g. Magnetic field has to be strong enough to withstand the solar winds
h. Must provide protection from radiation

4. Oxygen atmosphere
a. Our oxygen/ nitrogen mix is good
b. Clear- allows for good viewing
c. Ours is <1% of planet’s diameter
d. Allows in the right kind of light for viewing

5. Stable circular orbit

6. Large Moon (see also Gonzalez, G., “Wonderful Eclipses,” Astronomy & Geophysics 40, no. 3 (1999): 3.18- 3.20) (J. Laskar et al., “Stabilization of the Earth’s Obliquity by the Moon,” Nature 361 (1993): 615-17)
a. Our Moon is ¼ the size of Earth
b. Stabilizes the Earth’s axis of rotation
c. Gives our oceans a required tidal action
d. Just so happens that our Moon is 400x smaller than the Sun, which is 400x farther away
e. Both with a very circular shape
f. Allows for perfect solar eclipses
g. Confirmed Einstein’s prediction with the 1919 solar eclipse (gravity bends light) when scientists photographed the Stars behind it. We could have only made that discovery during a total solar eclipse.
h. Light spectrum
i. Observing & studying the Sun’s chromosphere is made possible

7. Gas Giants
a. Protection from intruding cosmic debris
b. Great for observing & scientific discovery

8. Sun- Spectral type G2 dwarf main sequence star-
a. If it were smaller the habitable zone would shrink and any planets in that zone would be locked into a synchronous orbit (rotation = revolution) as our Moon is with us
b. Total number estimated in the Milky Way- 100 billion
c. Over 80% are low-mass red dwarfs (most likely lack a habitable zone)
d. 1-2% are massive short-lived blue giants
e. Only about 4% of the stars are early G-type, main-sequence stars like our Sun
f. 50% of those are in binary systems
g. Then we have to consider what % of those are in the Galactic Habitable Zone


9. Location in the galaxy- Galactic Habitable Zone
a. We are between spiral arms
b. Perfect for viewing
c. Not a lot of activity
d. Not too close to the violent and very active center
e. More radiation near the center
Neighbors
Not a good viewing platform from which to discover
Not so far away where the heavy elements are scarce

10. Fine-tuning
a. Laws of Nature
b. Laws apply here also apply anywhere
c. Constants that are independent of those laws

Summary:
Within the Galactic Habitable Zone
Within the Circumstellar Habitable Zone
Liquid water
Orbit a Spectral type G2 dwarf main sequence star
Protected by gas giants
Nearly circular orbit-
Oxygen rich
Correct mass
Large moon to stabilize the angle of rotation
Moderate rate of rotation
Terrestrial planet
Ratio of water to continents
Plate tectonic re-cycling
Magnetic field
Both plate tectonics and the magnetic field require the core have enough heat to keep it liquid. The convection currents mix the minerals before recycling and also produce the required magnetic field as it flows around the iron inner core.
The Earth’s orbit is slightly elliptical. When the Earth is closest to the Sun (perigee) the southern hemisphere is enjoying summer, i.e. the Earth’s axis of rotation has the southern hemisphere at a better angle (than the northern hemisphere) towards the Sun for absorbing its vital rays. The Earth has the bulk of its continents in the northern hemisphere. Water stores the heat and then transfers it around the globe.

The above list contains factors required for complex life, but life is not guaranteed to arise even if all factors are met. The fact that a large, stabilizing moon is required and ours just happens to provide us with a huge natural setting in which we can & have conducted a multitude of scientific experiments that have increased our knowledge base and confirmed scientific predictions, is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to evidence to support their finding that habitability = measure-ability. Think about it. In the accepted age view of the solar system & Earth, with the Moon’s recession rate coupled with the Sun’s expansion rate, these perfect solar eclipses, along with the scientific discoveries that accompany them, will soon be gone (10 million years). The best place for viewing eclipses, is also the only place in the solar system with perfect solar eclipses, is also the only place with conscious observers and we, intelligent observers, just happened to arrive when the scenario was best for scientific discovery.

Earthquakes, even though very destructive, are a necessary byproduct of the required plate tectonic recycling. They also offer us a way to measure the density of the material between designated points via the sound waves produced by plate movement. Volcanoes offer a way to vent the internal pressure. Without vents the internal pressure would build uncontrolled, until the planet exploded. Plate tectonics also means that there is an active core. An active core like the Earth’s creates a protective electro-magnetic field. The size of the field is important- too small and the solar winds blow it away; too large and life is a no-no. Volcanoes are part of the mineral recycling process. Volcanic ash also covers the ground, not only providing rich soil for future generations but also in some cases creating a time vault that enables scientists to get an excellent view of the past. To support plate tectonics a crust that is thick enough to support oceans and continents is required, but it can’t be so thick that it doesn’t have subducting plates to recycle vital minerals.

The laws that govern nature are independent of the constants that control them. IOW fudge with the constants and even though the outcome is changed, the law still remains true. And that change will, in all likely-hood, prevent the conditions required for complex life.

Did we win the “cosmic lottery”? Or is intentional design, design with the purpose of having said design be understandable and ensuring beings exist that can grow to understand it, the better explanation?



See also:

The Privileged Planet

Origins of Eukaryotes- trouble for endosymbiosis

Can evolution make things less complicated?

Instead, the data suggest that eukaryote cells with all their bells and whistles are probably as ancient as bacteria and archaea, and may have even appeared first, with bacteria and archaea appearing later as stripped-down versions of eukaryotes, according to David Penny, a molecular biologist at Massey University in New Zealand.

Penny, who worked on the research with Chuck Kurland of Sweden's Lund University and Massey University's L.J. Collins, acknowledged that the results might come as a surprise.

“We do think there is a tendency to look at evolution as progressive,” he said. “We prefer to think of evolution as backwards, sideways, and occasionally forward.”

OK if euks aren't a union of proks AND if euks were first on the scene (in any evolutionary senario), abiogenesis just got a bit more difficult to explain. And if life didn't arise from non-living matter via unintelligent, blind/ undirected (non-goal oriented) processes, there is no reason to infer its subsequent diversity arose solely via those type of processes.

The million dollar question

"Could a system we do not completely understand be constructed by means of a process we cannot completely specify?"*

Only dogma answers "Yes". Yet that is the answer evolutionism provides. Go figure.




*David Berlinski in The Deniable Darwin. A must read for everyone interested in understanding the BS that is evolutionism.
He answers with "The intellectually responsible answer to this question is that we do not know- we have no way of knowing."

Evidence? for common descent

“Some defenders of Darwinism embrace standards of evidence for evolution that as scientists they would never accept in other circumstances.” Henry Schaeffer, director of the Center for Computational Quantum Chemistry at the University of Georgia

“Circumstantial evidence is a very tricky thing; it may seem to point very straight to one thing, but if you shift your own point of view a little, you may find it pointing in an equally uncompromising manner to something entirely different.” Sherlock Holmes

“Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change.” Unknown

Common descent, that being that all of life’s diversity owing its collective common ancestry to some unknown last universal common ancestor via descent with modification, is based on indirect, i.e. circumstantial, evidence. It cannot be objectively tested. It cannot be repeated. It cannot be verified. The concept isn’t even of any practical use. Yet it endures as a scientific concept. And people wonder what has happened to science education.


“The validity of the evolutionary interpretation of homology would have been greatly strengthened if embryological and genetic research could have shown that homologous structures were specified by homologous genes. Such homology would indeed be strongly suggestive of “true relationship; of inheritance from a common ancestor”. But it has become clear that the principle cannot be extended in this way. Homologous structures are often specified by non-homologous genetic systems and the concept of homology can seldom be extended back into embryology. The failure to find a genetic and embryological basis for homology was discussed by Sir Gavin de Beer, British embryologist and past Director of the British Museum of Natural History, in a succinct monograph Homology, a Unresolved Problem.” Michael Denton

“The concept of homology is absolutely fundamental to what we are talking about when we speak of evolution- yet in truth we cannot explain it at all in terms of present day biological theory.” Sir Alistor Hardy

Fossil record:

How was the fossil record formed?

Was it formed by one or a series of catstrophies? Was it formed by slow and gradual sedimentray deposition? Or was it a combination? For any combination scenario how can we tell which sediments were laid down via some catastrophy and which were deposited via some gradual process?

Exposing the Evolutionist’s Sleight-of-Hand With the Fossil Record

Fossils can’t tell us anything about a mechanism.
Fossils can’t tell the difference between phenotypic plasticity and a mutation which causes a phenotypic change.
Fossils can’t tell the difference between divergent and convergent evolution.
Fossils can’t tell us anything about how the species originated. Just that it existed.
Not every organism that has lived gets fossilized. IOW absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
Fossilization requires a rapid burial of the organism to protect it from scavengers and weathering.
Fossilization does not require millions of years.

Theobald, Douglas L. "29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: The Scientific Case for Common Descent." The Talk.Origins Archive. Vers. 2.87 2006

The first issue I have with that article is the definitions of micro and macro evolution:

In evolutionary biology today, macroevolution is used to refer to any evolutionary change at or above the level of species. It means the splitting of a species into two (speciation, or cladogenesis, from the Greek meaning "the origin of a branch") or the change of a species over time into another (anagenesis, not nowadays generally used). Any changes that occur at higher levels, such as the evolution of new families, phyla or genera, is also therefore macroevolution, but the term is not restricted to the origin of those higher taxa.

Microevolution refers to any evolutionary change below the level of species, and refers to changes in the frequency within a population or a species of its alleles (alternative genes) and their effects on the form, or phenotype, of organisms that make up that population or species.

Another way to state the difference is that macroevolution is between-species evolution of genes and microevolution is within-species evolution of genes.

The issues are:
1) Species is a vague/ ambiguous concept at best
2) Creationists have accepted that the "Created Kinds" were most likely close to today's classification of Genus. Meaning with the above definitions even YECs are macroevolutionists. IOW there isn't any distinction.

The following offers a better insight into the debate:

glossary

evolution, biological n.
1) “microevolution”—the name used by many evolutionists to describe genetic variation, the empirically observed phenomenon in which exisiting potential variations within the gene pool of a population of organisms are manifested or suppressed among members of that population over a series of generations. Often simplistically (and erroneously) invoked as “proof” of “macro evolution”; 2) macroevolution—the theory/belief that biological population changes take (and have taken) place (typically via mutations and natural selection) on a large enough scale to produce entirely new structural features and organs, resulting in entirely new species, genera, families, orders, classes, and phyla within the biological world, by generating the requisite (new) genetic information. Many evolutionists have used “macro-evolution” and “Neo-Darwinism” as synonymous for the past 150 years.

A Critique of Douglas Theobald’s “29 Evidences for Macroevolution”

The ERV argument for CD is especially weak. We are expected to believe that an ERV will hang around at the same chromosomal position and in intact enough to be recognizable as an ERV for millions of generations, all the while other genetic changes are occurring that will bring about the morphological differences in the diverging species. Now why would a useless piece of genetic material be afforded that type of preservation? Why would it be kept at all?

Do evolutionists understand the process of meiosis? The ERV argument tells me they do not.

Physicians and Surgeons for Scientific Integrity

PHYSICIANS AND SURGEONS WHO DISSENT FROM DARWINISM


As medical doctors we are skeptical of the claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the origination and complexity of life and we therefore dissent from Darwinian macroevolution as a viable theory. This does not imply the endorsement of any alternative theory.

Sadly, academic freedom is no longer assured in America and other countries. This is especially true when it involves espousing views contrary to the theory of Darwinian macroevolution. Numerous instances have been documented where scientists and teachers have been censored and even removed from their positions for facilitating open discussion of the empirical problems of the dominant theory. In fact, one scientist who simply followed procedures in allowing a controversial article to be peer-reviewed and then published in the journal he edited, was publicly vilified and relentlessly persecuted.[1]

As academia has suppressed freedom of speech in this area, another avenue needs to be available to promote accurate knowledge and the free exchange of ideas concerning the debate over Darwinism and alternative theories on origins. To accomplish that goal, Physicians and Surgeons for Scientific Integrity (PSSI) has been established. PSSI is a means for physicians and surgeons to be counted among those skeptical of nature-driven Darwinian macroevolution. PSSI members agree to a “Physicians and Surgeons’ Statement of Dissent” which states "We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the origination and complexity of life and we therefore dissent from Darwinian macroevolution as a viable theory. This does not imply the endorsement of any alternative theory.” This statement is similar to that signed by over 500 scientists worldwide and posted by Discovery Institute at the web site www.dissentfromdarwin.org.

Allowing physicians and surgeons to speak on this subject with a united voice in significant numbers is one of the best ways to let the scientific facts be known, and to dispel falsehoods, innuendoes, fantasies, and distortions that recently have been flooding the media.

Any person with an M.D., D. O., D.D.S., D.M.D., D.V.M. or equivalent may become a member of PSSI. There is no cost to become a member, and agnostics or members of any religious faith are welcome. Information provided to PSSI by its members beyond their name, medical specialty and city of residence will be kept strictly confidential. To join PSSI, click here and complete the simple application. You will be notified via e-mail of your inclusion on the members’ list.

Each new member will be provided, at no cost, a copy of the superb video, Unlocking the Mystery of Life [2] (UMOL). UMOL has been shown nationally in the United States by the Public Broadcasting System and is being translated into numerous languages, many of which are completed, including Bulgarian, Burmese, Cantonese, Catalan, Czech, Japanese, Khmer, Mandarin, Spanish and Russian.

PSSI will be involved in activities and events to educate the public on this critical subject. These include the distribution of the UMOL DVD to high school and college students, teachers and professors, and sponsoring educational conferences, seminars and debates in the United States and internationally.