To be fair, this is, by and large, what a lot of us laypeople have to do. Speaking only for myself, I’ve certainly never been trained to read and interpret scientific studies, and so my conclusions have to take into account the conclusions of experts, and I simply have to do my best to follow the right ones.
Hence why gracious discussion can be so useful, in that we all have a chance to better understand where people get their information from, and to critique the information or understanding if necessary.
“Since we proposed punctuated equilibria to explain trends, it is infuriating to be quoted again and again by creationists—whether through design or stupidity, I do not know—as admitting that the fossil record includes no transitional forms. Transitional forms are generally lacking at the species level, but they are abundant between larger groups.”–Stephen Jay Gould, “Evolution as Fact and Theory”
" Preserved transitions are not common—and should not be, according to our understanding of evolution (see next section) but they are not entirely wanting, as creationists often claim. The lower jaw of reptiles contains several bones, that of mammals only one. The non-mammalian jawbones are reduced, step by step, in mammalian ancestors until they become tiny nubbins located at the back of the jaw. The “hammer” and “anvil” bones of the mammalian ear are descendants of these nubbins. How could such a transition be accomplished? the creationists ask. Surely a bone is either entirely in the jaw or in the ear. Yet paleontologists have discovered two transitional lineages of therapsids (the so-called mammal-like reptiles) with a double jaw joint—one composed of the old quadrate and articular bones (soon to become the hammer and anvil), the other of the squamosal and dentary bones (as in modern mammals). For that matter, what better transitional form could we expect to find than the oldest human, Australopithecusafarensis , with its apelike palate, its human upright stance, and a cranial capacity larger than any ape’s of the same body size but a full 1,000 cubic centimeters below ours? If God made each of the half-dozen human species discovered in ancient rocks, why did he create in an unbroken temporal sequence of progressively more modern features—increasing cranial capacity, reduced face and teeth, larger body size? Did he create to mimic evolution and test our faith thereby?"
Stephen Jay Gould, “Evolution as Fact and Theory”
Isn’t that exactly where Evolutionary evidence is most powerful? While individual lineages seem marred by incomplete examples, on the whole, the entire array of fossils all indisputably point to new populations, usually with a few novel traits, taking over where older populations end.
Isn’t the very idea of serial “special creations” more about being able to mix and match traits that have no connection with an earlier population - - because the new population has to work with the old population’s genetric legacy?!
If every few million years, God can start from scratch with a new specially created template, there would be little reason to expect that God’s creations will slavishly follow a cladistic format … why would there even be any genetic similarities?
Are you saying God is an Obsessive-Compulsive? … where he can’t bring himself to make a new “kind” without making the new population have old genetic contents from an earlier model?
The fossil record is not a complete history of everything that ever lived on earth. The conditions required to form a fossil are very rare— whatever dies must be buried quickly, before scavengers have had a chance to eat it and scatter the bones, and then the sand, sediment, or volcanic ash that buried it must remain undisturbed for centuries until fossilization can take place. Darwin based his theory of evolution to a large extent on his observation of the fossil record, so saying that the fossil record “supports” evolution is not quite correct. The theory of evolution is an interpretation of the fossil record.
An earlier BioLogos blog entry mentioned that most people have looked for transitional fossils in the wrong place. Transitional fossils between apes and humans occur before either apes or humans appeared, not between the two current species. The fossil record is very incomplete, and some say we can’t really draw conclusions from it, but we do have occasions when we see many transitional species that have been preserved, such as the transition from land animals to whales.
An equivalent to the fossil record would be a series of photographs of a city taken at ten year intervals, If photography had been around earlier, imagine NYC from 1600 to the present. If the vantage point originally chosen never showed a building under construction when the picture was taken, an observer might think that the buildings just popped into existence, or magically changed in size and shape.
So Edgar, am I to understand that by “figurative” you are really saying that it is not true?
Thus discoveries in geology has made parts if not all of the bible to be false or untrue.
If so, then where does that leave you with regards to which parts of the bible to trust and which to disregard as being simply fables?
How about this part in Exodus 20 verses 8-11 where it clearly states “…for in SIX days the Lord created the heavens and the earth and ALL that in them is…”
This part of the bible is saying basically the same as Genesis 1 so it should then also be regarded as false/untrue. Yet this is what Moses got straight from God himself and furthermore Moses then took it onto the Israelites for them to LIVE by. Sabbath after Sabbath after Sabbath ad infinitum.
So would you say that the Israelites of today who adhere to this six-day creation idea are living a lie, or at best a falsehood?
Now isn’t this the exact problem that evolutionists face? They have absolutely no way to distinguish between the building popping up magically and it forming gradually all by itself in-between the photos.
The observer in the present is unable to put together all the required missing or transitional pieces to firmly convince that indeed gradual buildings are indeed the real process followed. Thus one can only assume the magic.
Currently, there are absolutely ZERO undisputed transitional fossils in the offing and even then they are so few in number as to be a total disgrace compared to the vast variety of lifeforms found today.
Just to correct this false claim. Creationists are fully aware that evolutionists have various sample fossils that they claim to be transitional. However, creationists are also fully aware that even among the evolutionists there is fervent dispute that those fossils are indeed transitional. So right now, as things stand, there are absolutely zero undisputed transitional fossils.
Your point is taken. I’m well aware the figure doesn’t reflect a view of progressive creationism that does not correspond to “days” in Genesis. But if that is your view, how can you argue that it makes any prediction of the fossil record whatsoever? Doesn’t it look retrospectively into the record and attribute the appearance of species following periods of scarcity to special creative events? Or am I understanding it wrongly?
Any particular fossil may not be the direct ancestor of a modern species, but if it has features that combine qualities of different modern species, it stands a good chance of being a distant cousin of the actual ancestor.
These fossils show that the argument against Darwinian evolution, that in-between forms would not be viable, is false.
The fossil record at any particular location will never be complete, since population change will be the result of migration, not a gradual process of evolution. Unless, of course, we have lots of fossils from the localized area where the evolution took place.
In the time-lapse photo analogy, suppose we picked a trailer park. We would never see a trailer under construction, since the construction took place in a trailer factory miles away.
Good question, Edgar. A biologist at Washington University St. Louis, Joshua Swamidass, suggests that God could have created Adam and Eve ex nihilo in order to make a special covenant with them. They were genetically similar enough with the existing population of Homo Sapiens for their children (Cain, Seth, etc.) to have sexual relations with them.
This hypothesis would explain how it is that Cain fears the cities full of people all around him. The cities were populated by members of the existing population of Homo Sapiens at the time God created Adam and Eve.
Or just more briefly here: It is the belief that while there may be gaps in time or other things going on that the creation accounts don’t mention, that nonetheless all the things the creation accounts do mention refer to, or “concord with” actual scientific/historical events.
So, for example, even if a concordist interprets “day” as an age, they would still think of that period of time (however big or small) as something that has an actual referent to be found, at least in principle, in scientific study (like an ‘age’ of sea creatures that might precede an ‘age’ of land creatures.)
Most folks who have been around the block on these issues many times (from either side) see concordists, at least for those who are of an “old earth variety”, as trying to occupy some sort of middle ground between full acceptance and full rejection of evolutionary understandings. And as such it seems to be a transitory “way-station” between sides more than a stable middle ground attracting any long-term homesteaders. Both sides probably have very good, but very different reasons for rejecting it. At least that’s my take. Of course YECs go all the way on this claiming that Genesis 1 events don’t just merely “concord” with recognizable historical occurrences, but that they actually are the occurrences exactly as described. That could be an extreme form of concordism, I suppose.
[ I only mentioned the creation passages above as the obvious example to use here, but concordism is really a more generally applied attitude toward the whole bible, seeing in passages clues that might be potentially profitable for the scientific study of the world. ]