Since what we see in nature are many variations of the same species, why don’t you interpret the record the same way? You call them transitions but they probably are variations of the same species killed in a flood. Calling them transitions is based solely on the “belief” of evolution. I’m neither old or young earth, however, dating methods all have an element of human guess work as part of the equation so bias plays a part of the big picture. Nor can believers of evolution explain the biochemical pathways of the formation of the simplest single cell life form. If evolution were true then it should be scientifically possible but it’s not. It would take an intentional intelligent engineer to design it.
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That’s not actually true. Radiometric dating methods and red shift involve measuring things. Tree rings and ice varves involve counting things. You can get an exact answer that can be cross-checked for accuracy using multiple methods.
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That’s kind of smoke and mirrors since tree ring dating only goes back no more than 50K years. And you didn’t address my main point so I probably should have excluded comments about dating and stuck with the question why you call forms a “transition” form when you don’t know if it’s just a variation of the same species?
Hello friend,
Have you actually looked at transitional fossil data in any detail?
Without digging into the details, someone could perhaps believe your explanation of transitional forms in the case of early hominins like Lucy. This is because all the early human species all look pretty human-like or chimp-like. It’s actually more complex than that, but one could be forgiven for such a broad summary.
It’s awfully hard to look at an archaeopteryx, though, and say that it’s a “variation of the same species” with (non-avian) dinosaurs or birds. It really looks like a bird! Except that it has teeth, claws on its wings, and a bony tail…
What do you make of transitional forms like that?
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Prior to the Devonian period (419mya - 359mya) we find zero fossils of terrestrial animals. We find a good many fossils of fish, although they are significantly different from today’s fish.
After the Devonian, we find abundant fossils of amphibians, such as the late Carboniferous microsauria (320mya - 300 mya) you see illustrated below:
The prediction of the theory of evolution is that we should be able to find fossils in the Devonian that are transitional between the pre-Devonian fish and the post-Devonian amphibians. Due to the incompleteness of the fossil record, we may not be able to draw lines from specific pre-Devonian fish species to specific post-Devonian amphibian species. But we should find fossils of transitional species that are “half-way” between the two periods. Does that make sense?
So the million-dollar question is: have we found such transitional fossils? Let’s take a look:
Yes, exactly what the theory of evolution predicted.
Moreover, a careful study of anatomical features shows the transitions very clearly. One of the features shared by tetrapods even today is the pattern of one bone > two bones > many bones > digits in limbs. This pattern developed during the Devonian, as seen in this illustration from paleontologist Neil Shubin:
On the far left, prior to the Devonian, the pattern does not exist. As we move chronologically left to right, we see the pattern become more like today’s structures, although it’s clearly still a long way off at the beginning of the Permian.
Now let’s take a look at the development of the cranial structure during the Devonian. Again, we see the gradual appearance of more and more amphibian-like craniums over the 60 million years of the period:
What you see in this post, @G_Lac, represents the work of thousands and thousands of paleontologists over almost 2 centuries. The scientific community has carefully studied transitions in structures such as limbs and craniums. We do well to marvel at God’s creativity and power that are manifested in these creatures that lived and evolved according to His sovereign will long, long ago. We also do well to thank the scientists, among them many Christians, who have labored so assiduously with their God-given abilities to make this knowledge available to us.
Yours,
Chris
EDIT:
My source for microsauria illustrations is here.
My source for Devonian illustrations is here.
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There are no fossils that you would ever accept as being transitional. That is the truth of the matter.
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Christy also addressed the other three dating methods. I don’t see any smoke and mirrors in her response.
She likely didn’t address it because it made no sense.
These forms are clearly different species. Transitional fossils are those that have characteristics of two species we already know to be different! There aren’t a lot of those, but there are plenty that combine features of groups much further apart than species–classes, as shown above by Chris.
Edgar… very interesting. Good thoughts. Bishop Ussher was wrong about the age of the universe, and what other civilizations believed about human history — the incredible ages of the Sumerian king list, for example – would be an interesting thing to know more about. My understanding is that many Christians in the 19th century were beginning to entertain the idea of an aged universe. I am not sure HOW “many” that would be, however. The issue became polarized (as so many things these days do) when individuals from various sides took things to the extreme. Evolution does not negate the need for a Creator, for example, but there are those who speak as though it does. The reaction on the other side – that is, toward a literalistic reading of things — is probably partly a response or reaction to that.
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In The Panda’s Thumb, for example, Gould describes the fossil record as an “embarrassment” to Darwin’s theory of gradualism. I don’t have the book with me at the moment, otherwise I could give you the page number.
Incidentally, why did Gould state that stasis in the fossil record brought him “terrible distress”? I find this a very curious statement.
Yes, for example, the theory of Punctuated Equilibrium was invented as a Band-Aid to cover up the “embarrassment” of all those troublesome gaps in the fossil record.
I determined it by reading the opinions of various experts in the field. But I won’t bother citing them because their words will simply be dismissed as dishonest “quote-mining” … or I will get the evolutionist “Get out of jail” card that all life-forms are transitionals and are therefore plentiful.
I can modify my position gradually each time a gap is “filled”?
I suspect that evolutionists are prone to a great deal of wishful thinking, desperation and outright fantasy when it comes to interpreting fossils. This is done mainly to an a priori position that evolution must be true - scientific arrogance creeps in and all of a sudden mere speculation becomes fact.
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Sorry, what I meant was, human evolution, according to Genesis 2:7, is biblically unsound.
Did you know he was accused of allowing personal ideology to cloud some of his scientific judgements?
Why did he state that stasis in the fossil record brought him “terrible distress”?
Do you have a Ph.d in paleontology and how many years have you spent actually studying real fossils? How many real fossils have you actually held in your hand and have you studied the entire fossil record? Or like 99.9999% of evolutionists, is your knowledge of the fossil record obtained by reading the opinion of others - who are no doubt evolutionist themselves?
Gould said the fossil record is characterised by sudden appearance and stasis. So the lack of transitionals is not the only problem for evolution. Regarding stasis, Gould stated that its presence brought him “terrible distress” - why?
I left that up to the experts. I simply read their conclusions.
How do you know there are “genetic similarities” between dinosaurs and birds, for example?
It is a much greater demonstration of God’s power and glory to create new creatures from nothing than modify existing creatures. As to why some of these new creatures may be morphologically related to certain pre-existing creatures, you’ll have to ask the Creator.
No, because if the description is figurative, it is impossible to determine what is “true” in the first place.
This verse is simply reiterating what Genesis 1 says - which is obviously figurative - as science has established. Why God describes billions of years of creation as “six days”, I’m not sure, but it has something to do with establishing the Sabbath as God’s holy day of rest from human-related activities, as well as acknowledging God’s creative acts. The six days is not a literal description of creation, but a symbolic model of creation.
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According to ToE, there should be no shortage of convincing transitionals left after MILLIONS-BILLIONS OF YEARS of evolution. Where are they?
Thanks. I’ll check it out.
Unlike some other models of progressive creation, I don’t try and decipher the Genesis creation accounts scientifically at all - except the creation of Adam from inanimate matter. For example, I don’t think “six days” has an scientific relevance whatsoever, nor the order of creations detailed in Genesis 1, 2.
I look at the what experts say about the fossil record and am led to believe that, although it reveals an overall evolution of life-forms, it is also characterised by sudden appearance, stasis, significant gaps and a relative lack of transitionals in critical places. This doesn’t suggest to me a contiguous process of biological evolution, so I imagined a process of progressive creation, which I think better fits the evidence.
I then discovered that some other Christians have also adopted various models of progressive creation, some of which are a bit silly owing to their attempts to read too much into the Genesis text.
I don’t care if the dating methods are not completlely accurate and the earth and life are much younger than presenlty claimed by science. But I’m pretty sure we talking about creation that is much older than 6000 years. Even without radiometric dating, a strong case for an old earth and life can still be made.
Do scientists factor evolution - which requires millions of years - into their dating calculations? I don’t know.