Evolution, Critical studies, and the Canon

[Paraleptopecten (Timothy Campbell)]

@Burrawang

you are hostile to

I am hostile to deceptive claims and bad logic being promoted as evidence of Christianity.

@Burrawang

deny/mock/ridicule

Making assertions of logical fallacies, bad arguments, and slander are not mocking or ridicule; they are accusations.

@Burrawang

you do not list what you believe they are.

Now that I have found the notes from watching it, here are some examples of each:
There are a number of false dichotomies (like atheistic usage of a caricature of evolution as a philosophy being the only alternative to YEC) and hasty generalizations (like using atheists with bad philosophy to argue against evolution), some circular reasoning (“we’re right because our position is the correct one”), usage of propaganda techniques (like preferentially citing people whose philosophy is bad as examples of those who affirm evolution), and at least half a dozen other types that I’m not remembering.

As to bad or deceptive claims, the claims that mutations don’t produce new information, that all mutations are harmful, that random processes do not make information, that Dark Matter and Dark Energy are fudge factors, and that redshift differences among angularly associated objects are a problem; and the denial of cracks in bent rock formations that have them are all lies.

As to slander, they implicitly accuse all honest biologists, geologists, paleontologists, and cosmologists of being incompetent; and accuse all Christians who disagree with them of caving to the world.

@Burrawang

where are the trillions upon trillions of TRANSITIONAL FORMS that must exist

Exactly where they have been since the last time you asked that question–filling deposits, private collections, and backroom museum drawers across the globe.

@Burrawang

We don’t have any because there aren’t any, it really is that simple!

Your credibility would be helped if you would stop telling me that the transitional fossils that I have found do not exist. The only way to make them not be transitional is to redefine “transitional” or “species.” They are intermediate in stratigraphic position and in morphology between other forms; I can show complete intergradations between Busycon maximum, Busycon auroraense, and Busycon carica over time.

Transitional forms exist. I have found or seen specimens of dozens of them. Asserting once again that they do not does not change that. Anyone who claims that they do not and claims to be an authority about paleontology is lying about one of the two.

@Burrawang

the mere tiny handful proposed

What do you want me to do, start spamming this text with examples?

@Paraleptopecten

Let’s take Chesapecten as an example: in the lowermost part of the Yorktown Formation, one can find C. jeffersonius, an inflated shell with about 10-14 widely spaced, rounded ribs (based on the ones I have sitting around). In the lower-middle part of the same formation, one finds C. septenarius, with about 5-12 widely spaced, squarer ribs and low-ribcount type C. madisonius with 12-16 lower rounded ribs. In the uppermost part of the Yorktown formation, one only finds high-ribcount type C. madisonius with 20-30 lower rounded ribs.

@Paraleptopecten

from personal observation, I can assert that there is a transition from a variety of Yorktown Formation (dated through correlation with fossils from Florida that can be radiometrically dated as mid-Pliocene) species, such as Terebra indenta, Ilyanassa granifera, and Solariorbis yadkinensis; through Waccamaw Formation (dated by the same method as basal Pleistocene) ones, Terebra cf. dislocata, Ilyanassa irrorata and Solariorbis cf. yadkinensis; to recent ones, namely Terebra dislocata, Ilyanassa obsoleta, and Solariorbis blakei.

@Paraleptopecten

Claiming that they cannot exist, and then drawing arbitrary lines on phylograms, or making horribly inaccurate claims about relationships, to separate them doesn’t make them go away. A few examples include: myllokunmingiids; stem-tetrapods that have lateral lines and labyrinthodont dentition, like certain fish, but no modern amphibians; Pakicetus, which has clearly amphibious features, and Basilosaurus-like dentition; and the numerous mollusks in the Waccamaw Formation (as an example familiar to me), whose appearance is halfway between their Yorktown-Formation predecessors, and their recent equivalents. Really, nearly every fossil in any deposit is transitional, we just have so few really good deposits that we don’t have a complete transition in most cases.

@Paraleptopecten

@GodsDisciples

You cannot find a “single” transitory fossil between a kind to a kind.

Could you define “kind”? If “species” is what is meant, then the genus Otodus and the Argopecten gibbus species group form obvious counterexamples. If a higher level is meant, then what are Myllokumingia, placoderms, stem tetrapods, gorgonopsids, and rostroconchs, if they aren’t transitional?

Also, given that most fossils in well-preserved deposits are transitional, no, you can’t find a “single” one, you can find millions of them. I have tens of thousands of them in the room I am sitting in right now.

@Paraleptopecten

A specific example of a transition I am familiar with: the Yorktown Formation ~4.5-3.2 MYA Melanella laevigata, based on the photograph in Campbell, 1993, has 11-13 teleoconch whorls when the shell is 10 mm long, and has a very weak suture. The similar recent species M. jamaicensis has 8-9 teleoconch whorls at that size and has a somewhat stronger suture. Three specimens that I have from the 2.4 MYA Waccamaw Formation have 9-11 whorls at that size and an intermediate-strength (still weak) suture.

@Paraleptopecten

We do not have confident examples of most Pre-Cambrian transitions (e.g. Kimberella might be an example of one, but we don’t know which), but part of the problem for animals is that generic worms still look like generic worms, whatever their taxonomic affinity.

However, there are some tranbsitions which we have very good evidence for, like rostroconchia to bivalvia and scaphopoda, early ungulates to cetaceans, early archosaurs to birds, etc.

@Paraleptopecten

But what we have shows thing like a transition in morphology from Chesapecten jeffersonius to C. madisonius. Or from Limatula virginiana to L. hendersoni.

@Paraleptopecten

Stem-amniotes are pretty obviously transitional between fish and amphibians-they still have lateral lines like fish; but have necks, lungs, and a number of other amphibian-like features; a dentition unlike anything else; and the wrong number of toes for anything modern.

Rostroconchs show a pretty obvious transition between something like the early-Cambrian “monoplacophorans” and scaphopods.

@Paraleptopecten

Examples of distinctive, very basal members of phyla seem to include radiodont arthropods and myllokunmingiids.

An obvious example for transition to a class is the long series of non-mammal synapsids.

For orders, the series of fossils intermediate between generic cetungulates and modern cetaceans come to mind.

And an obvious case for transition to a family would be Echinofulgur and the busyconids. And given that Busyconidae seems to fall out closest to Fasciolariidae on genetics, Echinofulgur makes perfect sense as a transition.

@Paraleptopecten

most people don’t get excited about “New finding of transitional form between Pelycidion matthewsi and Pelycidion megalomastoma” [tiny snails].

@Paraleptopecten

they’re still there, as I have said about five times, I’ve found over a dozen of them myself, and with a bit of hunting, could list a few hundred more.

@Paraleptopecten

I see them because they are there. They are intermediate in stratigraphic position and morphology between other taxa. If they were not intermediate in morphology and stratigraphic position, then I would not conclude that they are intermediates.

@Burrawang

that pass rigorous scientific examination and scrutiny

I have examined the ones that I have found rigorously enoguh to conclude that the most parsimonius explanations are that they are intermediates. I have had no one in the field tell me that they don’t look likely for intermediates.

@Burrawang

I do not speak lies nor do I desire the plunder of evil

I do not think that you do. But there are enough demonstrable lies in the “documentary” in question to raise serious questions about the honesty of those in it and producing it. Most of those (so far as I can tell, including you) who promote these claims are simply honestly misled, rather than lying.

@Burrawang

18 “If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you. 19 If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you. 20 Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A slave is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will persecute you as well; if they followed My word, they will follow yours also. 21 But all these things they will do to you on account of My name, because they do not know the One who sent Me. . . . John 15:18- 21

Yes, I wholeheartedly concur with the passage. However, all of us (very much myself included) must be very careful that the reason for being hated or ridiculed is for Christ, and not for being overbearing, obnoxious, or making confident wrong assertions that display profound ignorance.

@Burrawang

I know the PhD researchers at CMI are extremely honest, God fearing men and women who love the Truth and abhor deception, (despite the many contrary claims published on this site), and I know they would never do anything that is untrue or against Scriptural honesty in all areas of their work.

See above. I quickly become suspicious of the honesty of someone who repeatedly promotes demonstrable falsehoods and does not retract them when their falseness is pointed out.