[Krsqk]

Wow, so much to respond to. Where to start:

BM: Excellent description of scientific materialism. As for the horse series, let me give you what I know about it, and then refer you to several other sources. 1) The number of ribs is inconsistent throughout the series, beginning with 18, climbing to 19, then dropping to 15 before ending up back at 18 with the modern horse, Equus. 2) No transitional teeth exist. They are all either browsing or grazing teeth. 3) The series does not exist in order in the fossil record. Frequently, earlier forms are found on top of later forms; Eohippus has even been found in the same strata as modern Equus. In fact, the only places the complete series is to be found is in museums and textbooks. 4) The first animal in the series is not even a horse, but a badger. 5) There are no transitional forms between members of the series. They are all distinct species. 6) There are no transitional forms to link Eohippus to its supposed ancestors, the condylarths. 7) The series is heavily keyed to size; but even modern horses vary in size as much as the horse series does. 8) Skeletal remains are insufficient to determine relationship. Horse and donkey remains would appear similar, but they are vastly different animals.

Here are some further sources for study:[*]Science News Letter, August 25, 1951[*]Garrett Hardin, Nature and Man�s Fate (1960)[*]L.D. Sunderland, Darwin�s Enigma (1988)[*]Francis Hitching, The Neck of the Giraffe (1982)[*]G.A. Kerkut, Implications of Evolution (1969)[*]Charles Deperet, Transformations of the Animal World[*]David M. Raup, in Field Museum of Natural History Bulletin 50 (1979)[*]The New Evolutionary Timetable[*]G.G. Simpson, Life of the Past (1953)[*]George G. Simpson, "The Principles of Classification and a Classification of Mammals" in Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 85:1-350[*]G.G. Simpson, Tempo and Mode in Evolution (1944)
Hope that helps.

The primary point which Krsqk is trying to show you is that the evidence does NOT support evolution, at least not gradualist evolution by random mutation.

That's exactly the point I'm trying to make. Thanks for the clarification.

Taz:

Of course you are BOTH assuming that evolution and creationism are mutually exclusive.
How about Evolved Creation. This is the theory that something (GOD?) created the initial conditions and set-up the natural laws just so that now the current conditions are as they are.

No serious evolutionist or Bible-believer buys into that, or should. The Bible specifically records a six-day creation, and its credibility is at stake. Everything else in the Bible is based on the belief that God created the world the way He recorded it.

Capt. Kwok:

Evolution occurs, but the method of evolution is just a theory. Just like gravity - it happens, but our explaination is only a theory. Last time I checked, gravity was treated like a fact too.

The difference is that gravity is constantly being observed and verified, while evolution has not been observed. It is theoretical. If you mean micro-evolution occurs, you're right; but we've never seen a species turn into another species.

The rate of radioactive decay is constant and is not affected by external conditions. While the ratio of rad. isotopes to the naturally occuring element is subject to flucuations - it is not exponential as Phoenix has already shown. It would take a *significant* change in the rate to make any dramatic change to age estimates.

I misspoke (mistyped?) in my previous post. I meant to say that if the rate of formation were decreased (by canopy, magnetic field, meteor dust, etc.), then the rate of absorption would be decreased, resulting in animals which appeared much older than they really were.

Aside, mutations aren't the single factor in evolution anyways.

If mutations aren't thought to cause evolution, then what is? From what I can tell, that's the current popular mechanism, combined with natural selection. Mutations bring about beneficial changes which allow the organism to survive and pass on its traits to its offspring. Has something new come up?

Textbooks can get dated in a hurry. Schools don't generally have the funds to get the most recent books for students.

The horse series has been in doubt since the 1950s. Embryonic recapitulation has been disproved since the late 1800s. I know it's government-funded, but how long does it take?

In re: to the E. coli. They are not necessarily the same E. coli! In fact, they are becoming more genetically diverse. Sooner or later, they will be significantly different as one will be able to readily survive harsh conditions while the other will not. However, since E. coli doesn't really reproduce sexually as most higher lifeforms, much of the other mechanisms are not really applicable and the changes less pronounced.

No one has said they're not E. coli. They're just drug-resistant E. coli. We haven't developed any new bacteria since the invention of penicillin; they've just adapted to the drug and are less affected by it. Staph is still staph, E. coli, etc. The only "harsh conditions" its been proven they can survive is the presence of specific drugs; that's hardly "natural" selection. No one knows if they're more fit to survive their natural predators, whatever they are. And why should sexual/asexual reproduction matter? If we came from something else, it had to start with a single asexual cell somewhere. The same mechanisms have to apply to both types of organisms.

Phoenix-D:

Questionable yes, unverifiable no. The more independant sources you have giving the same result, the better the result tends to be. Either the result is correct *or* there is something consistantly throwing your results.

How can these results come from accurate dating methods?[*]For years the KBS tuff, named for Kay Behrensmeyer, was dated using Potassium Argon (K-Ar) at 212-230 Million years. See Nature, April 18, 197, p. 226. Then skull #KNM-ER 1470 was found (in 1972) under the KBS tuff by Richard Leakey. It looks like modern humans but was dated at 2.9 million years old. Since a 2.9 million year old skull cannot logically be under a lava flow 212 million years old many immediately saw the dilemma. If the skull had not been found no one would have suspected the 212 million year dates as being wrong. Later, 10 different samples were taken from the KBS tuff and were dated as being .52- 2.64 Million years old. (way down from 212 million. Even the new "dates" show a 500% error!)[*]Basalt from Mt. Etna, Sicily (122 BC) gave K-AR age of 250,000 years old. [*]Dalyrmple, G.B., 1969 40Ar/36Ar analysis of historic lava flows. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 6-47 55.[*]Lava from the 1801 Hawaiian volcano eruption gave a K-Ar date of 1.6 Million years old. [*]Basalt from Mt. Kilauea Iki, Hawaii (AD 1959) gave K-AR age of 8,500,000 years old.[*]Basalt from Mt. Etna, Sicily (AD 1972) gave K-AR age of 350,000 years old.[*]"One part of the Vollosovitch mammoth carbon dated at 29,500 years and another part at 44,000. --Troy L. Pewe, Quaternary Stratigraphic Nomenclature in Unglaciated Central Alaska, Geological Survey Professional Paper 862 (U.S. Gov. printing office, 1975) p. 30.[*]"One part of Dima [a baby frozen mammoth] was 40,000, another part was 26,000 and the "wood immediately around the carcass" was 9-10,000. --Troy L. Pewe, Quaternary Stratigraphic Nomenclature in Unglaciated Central Alaska, Geological Survey Professional Paper 862 (U.S. Gov. printing office, 1975) p. 30[*]"The lower leg of the Fairbanks Creek mammoth had a radiocarbon age of 15,380 RCY, while its skin and flesh were 21,300 RCY. --In the Beginning Walt Brown p. 124[*]"A geologist at the Berkeley Geochronology Center, [Carl] Swisher uses the most advanced techniques to date human fossils. Last spring he was re-evaluating Homo erectus skulls found in Java in the 1930s by testing the sediment found with them. A hominid species assumed to be an ancestor of Homo sapiens, erectus was thought to have vanished some 250,000 years ago. But even though he used two different dating methods, Swisher kept making the same startling find: the bones were 53,000 years old at most and possibly no more than 27,000 years� a stretch of time contemporaneous with modern humans." --Kaufman, Leslie, "Did a Third Human Species Live Among Us?" Newsweek (December 23, 1996), p. 52.

How about this quote: "Structure, metamorphism, sedimentary reworking, and other complications have to be considered. Radiometric dating would not have been feasible if the geologic column had not been erected first." (O�Rourke, J. E., "Pragmatism versus Materialism in Stratigraphy," American Journal of Science, vol. 276 (January 1976), p. 54) What does that mean, then? That radiometric dating doesn't really matter; it's the strata that determine the age? Or if strata age and radiometric age conflict (which should never happen, if the geologic column were correct), the rock age wins?

Take two populations, seperate them for a long period of time in different enviorments and allow for that micro-evolution you mentioned. What happens?

No one knows what happens, because no one has ever observed it. Science doesn't guess or predict the future.

Check out the different varieties of dogs some time. They result from artifical selection applied by humans. Put a really big dog and a really small dog and try and breed them; what happens? Likely nothing, or the offspring dies. the only reason they can be considered the same species is because of the breeds in between.

A dog is a dog is a dog. Science still classifies them as dogs. And who's going to put the current breeds of dogs in a series? Do the small ones or the big ones come first? Or is it the middle ones? Which species is more advanced? Would these varieties exist if not for artificial selection? Are humans the new mechanism for evolution? The hundreds of varieties of dogs are just varieties, not new species. They never result in anything but a dog.

1940? Please tell me you're not going to bring up the "Darwin couldn't say how A could happen so A must not happen" point next? Science does advance.

Science has yet to do what Darwin couldn't do. No one has found a mechanism for evolution. If they have, then why are Gould and so many others going with this "hopeful monster" garbage? I don't think anyone will say they're ignorant doofuses or religious bigots.

You say that microevolution does occur. Fine, -where does the variation come from orriginally-? i.e. you have a population consisting of entirely one type of gene. In your view would microevolution ever occur?

Do you mean 500,000 blargs with a single gene, or 500,000 blargs with uniform genetic code? Either way, I would say that micro-evolution would occur, but I wouldn't predict that they turn into snorks. They'd just have more and more blargs, each with variation.
Let's throw another light on the variation/new species question. No two humans in the world are alike (besides identical multiple births). Each has variations on the same human "average." Some have dark skin, some have light skin, some are bigger, some are smaller, etc. Which ones are more advanced? Which ones are more fit to survive? Do we have any that are new species? Do we have any that are still older species? With all of the variations in the tens of billions of people from the Last two millenia, have we got anything other than humans?

I think this is more the common science textbook being badly done more than anything else. A wish to avoid causing confusion, perhaps, that snowballs into something else.

And inaccurate textbooks are excusable? Confusion about what? That this is what we think happened, (although the evidence we're giving you is dated or doubtful), and we want you to believe that this is unquestionably what happened (despite any evidence we find to the contrary), so we'll just teach you what we have to so you believe the "right" thing. And, someday, we'll find the missing link or some formula or astronomical evidence will come to light and vindicate what we're teaching you right now.

-similar topic, but if you try and de-bunk a worldview without offering an alternative, you encouter a lot of resistance.

My worldview is simple. God created the world in six days, the way the Bible records it. He made the world, He owns it, and He makes the rules. That pretty much sums it up. So there's the alternative.