How do miracles fit into your “common-sense presumption”?
If the creation of life was a miracle, why shouldn’t the evolution of life involve miracles?
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…nothing that is relevant, since not only is argument from authority a fallacy, but that was 50 years ago, and a minority view even then.
But creationism bingo is coming along nicely.
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Now that is something I concur with.
Shame it is not the norm on this forum
Richard
That pre-dates DNA sequencing and a lot of fossil discoveries, and is not very relevant by now.
Every time that someone finds another example of them?
For the first, the decrease in variability of Busycon carica over the last 2 million years would work as an example. Telling apart the second and third from fossils is basically impossible, but nearly every species-level transition would fit. For speciation, the divergence of Chesapecten septenarius and C. madisonius from C. jeffersonius ancestors would fit. As would the divergence between Busycon roseae and Busycon contrarium, the diversification of the Argopecten gibbus group during the Pliocene and early Pleistocene, or the increasing differentiation among varieties over time in Ilyanassa harpuloides.
Those are just examples off the top of my head from the groups and deposits that I work on most.
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Really?
Do you know how many dots you have to find to make the connections claimed by ToE?
A fossil is the existence of a single creature. it does not show what came before or after it, or even if there was any more than one of them, that they persisted for any length of time. It does not show what other creature were “in competition” if any, nor does it show any reason why this particular creature was well adapted for the time. All this is human deduction and supposition.
Richard
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Well, given that the examples that I cited are based on hundreds to thousands of dots each, I would be inclined to think so.
In a specific location and specific depositional context.
The issue here is that the types of transitions that I’m talking about are not based on “a fossil”; they are based on anywhere from a handful of fossils to millions of fossils from multiple deposits, and combining them with recent specimens. They’re recent enough that finding modern taxa extremely similar to the fossils is comparatively easy. They are also relatively easy to determine relative dating for, based upon direct superposition, extinction rates, biostratigraphy, stable isotope ratios, or, rarely, radiometric dating.
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You’re dodging again: why would you think that anything else produced those? What evidence points to a different process?
I knew I should have included “of creation”. Nothing suggests that creation per se was going to continue.
It’s presented the same way that atoms are – you start with a simple model.
But that’s a matter of pedagogy, not of the theory itself. It’s also to a substantial extent a matter of technical language where ordinary words have taken on new meaning, perhaps the most egregious example being “adapt” – which in ordinary parlance indicates seeing a new situation and making decisions to adjust to it whereas in ToE usage means making use of an existing but thus far un- or under-utilized capability to deal with new circumstances.
First, because this is not still day 6, and second because God is faithful and can be counted on not to play games with the rules (at least not on a regular basis).
How is it vanity to think that as a race we are capable of understanding the very Creation that God out in our care?
Because science has built-in error-checking.
Of course there’s a burden of proof: what cause is there to invent some processes that we don’t already see at work?
The capriciousness would be switching back and forth between two sets of rules.
A Christian will confidently believe that the Creation that God put us here to have dominion over will be comprehensible, and that thus seeking to search out these hidden things is not pointless.
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Given some textbooks I’ve seen, Richard has a point; some are sloppy about how things are presented. But the bigger problem is that he’s tripping over the fact of technical terminology. All sciences use language that looks like ordinary words but that are used with special meanings; it just happens that the vocabulary used in ToE all too often gives the impression that evolution is some kind of intelligent force that manipulates things.
An anecdote: One biology professor commented about this problem, and noted that certainly scientists could write more carefully to stop giving such impressions, but he had estimated (he’d actually set some grad students to counting the additional words that would be required in typical science articles) that this would make all papers concerning biology to increase by anywhere from 15% to 40%. The humor was that biology department budgets were already too tight and the added cost of the extra paper and ink that would be required would be crippling to research.
Last month I watched a two-hour program explaining how the traditional explanation of why wings work is quite wrong yet also somewhat right. I’d have to watch it again to grasp the fine points, but in light of what I recall – yes, the lift on the wing comes from lower pressure above and from higher pressure below but that these are not really the whole story, so yes-and-no, yes-and-no . . . but no.
They can’t be measured, so they don’t fit. But as far as natural explanations go, those should be counted on because God doesn’t switch rule sets.
Because the six days are over.
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Now those are far more interesting than the simple transitional forms issue.
You aren’t the first to misuse Gould’s quote. He wasn’t arguing against evolution. He was arguing against gradual evolution. He is no friend to YEC.
Edit to add: Any time you find a quote in YEC literature it is a very good idea to look up the original source and read the quote in context. You will find most, if not all, are misuses of the original.
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we are not using Genesi1 as a framework
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We are discussing events before an equivalent of day 7 (or probably day 6)
So try again
So you think you can dictate to God what set of rules He works under? What makes you think that He is/was working under the rules you wish to dictate/
Are you claiming some sort of scientific restriction to God?
Thank you
Richard
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In a moment of candor, creationist Buzzard conceded…
Kindly explain how I misused Gould’s quote.
Huh? When did I say Gould was arguing against evolution? Gould was a devoted evolutionist and he wrote several articles and books on the subject.
I’m familiar with Gould. I even have one of his books, The Panda’s Thumb. It seems that he and Eldredge were more honest about the fossil record than some others.
I point I was trying to make by quoting Gould was that nested hierarchies in the fossil record often feature “ghost” branches that are inferred (assumed) and not the actual evidence of fossils … as explained by the following AI comments …
From AI Overview
Stephen Jay Gould pointed out that evolutionary trees in textbooks primarily show inferred relationships between species, rather than direct fossil evidence. While these trees are useful for understanding evolutionary patterns, they rely on interpretations of data from fossil “tips and nodes,” with the connecting branches representing inferred evolutionary paths rather than documented fossil sequences.
• Fossil Record Gaps:
Gould, along with Niles Eldredge, highlighted the “extreme rarity of transitional forms” in the fossil record, particularly at the species level, according to Evolution News.
• Inference over Evidence:
While evolutionary trees are useful for visualizing relationships, Gould emphasized that the majority of connections between species (the branches) are not directly supported by fossil evidence but are inferred based on patterns and assumptions about evolutionary processes.
I’m also familiar with YEC literature, even though I’m not YEC myself. Yes, they do sometimes use quotes out of context, but not always.
Please explain how I misused Gould’s quote.
A model based on the alleged evolution of eukaryotes from a prokaryote is fine as an academic exercise, but as science, it’s pointless and useless.
Considering your literal interpretation of Genesis, I’m surprised you’re not a YEC.
Wow, your knowledge of how God operates is astounding! 
So far as I’m aware, there are no models based on that; models which predict that and describe that are a different issue, and make for interesting, albeit somewhat difficult to test in high detail, science.
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Unfortunately for your argument, Genesis says God “rested” after creating Adam and Eve and all the vegetation and animals that we see today.
In other words, God’s supernatural creative “work” was in effect from the appearnce of the very first life-forms until the appearance of all extant life-forms.
So your claim from Scripture that God rested from his supernatural creative work and let natural process produce the history of life on earth is easily shown to be false.
I based my comment on the post below …
TIm knows more than me on this, I defer to his expertise.