Fossil record and evolution..?

Question

I recently took a trip to the Museum of Natural History. Many creationists claim that the fossil record hopelessly fails to show any signs that evolution has taken place. I think anyone who makes this claim needs to take a trip to this museum. They have literally hundreds of thousands of fossils. They had an entire warehouse of just nothing but tetrapods, and they put the fossils in order by age and it was very clear by looking at the fossils that they evolved over time. Tetrapods were not the only example they had however. They had like 14 or 15 warehouses of nothing but fossils and countless examples of intermediate forms that creationists claim are "missing links." My friend jokingly said to me "I guess we don't have any missing links." I think to visit this museum, and to come up with any other conclusion other than evolution is no longer skepticism, but rather denial bordering on stupidity.

Answer 1

Are you talking about the museum in New York? I had the same experience there. It's a wonderful place.

We know FAR more about this than most people ever realize. Denial of evolution is not "bordering on stupidity": it's firmly in "deliberate ignorance" territory.

I strongly recommend a visit to a good natural history museum. In recent years I've been to the one in New York, the Field Museum in Chicago, and the one in Tokyo. They're all stunningly mind-expanding.

Answer 2

Creationism is practically a synonim for denial now adays. Don't get me wrong, I believe in God and all, but to claim the Universe was created in 7 days and every being was created simultaneously is ridiculous. Now creationists, out of denial, tend to try to turn creationism into a science when it's the complete opposite. They even have museums deticated to creation science. It's absolutely perposterous.

Answer 3

Really?
Then, would you comment on the following quote, please?

"I admit that an awful lot of that [fantasy] has gotten into the textbooks as though it were true. For instance, the most famous example still on exhibit downstairs [in the American Museum of Natural History] is the exhibit on horse evolution prepared fifty years ago. That has been presented as literal truth in textbook after textbook. Now, I think that that is lamentable, particularly because the people who propose these kinds of stories themselves may be aware of the speculative nature of some of the stuff. But by the time it filters down to the textbooks, we've got science as truth and we have a problem" (Dr. Niles Eldredge, paleontologist and evolutionist).

Answer 4

Imagine how I felt when I realized that the creationists had lied to be the entire time I was an evangelical.

In any sense, though, I'm glad to hear that you had a good experience at the museum.

Answer 5

I believe there is something called "Panspermia" which is a third alternative to Creationism and Darwinism ("evolution"). I don't know a great deal about it but feel there must be another explanation for how things evolved here:

http://leiwenwu.tripod.com/panspermia.htm

I've a few things I'd like to discuss re this if anyone is intereested!

Answer 6

A few things don't make for a whole system

And HOW COME we ain't still evolving.

How come we don't find anymore new spieces and see where they come from.

Everything provable about evolution is still limited and the rest is conjecture.

They can't even decide on the division lines.

There is ONE faction of SCIENCE that says NEADERTHAL died out LONG before SAPIENS and we never met.

The other guys (Clan of the Cave Bear ones) say they coexisted and mated.

Now explain that division in science to me.

Explain why science is slowly abandoning the FROM PRIMATES to SEPARATE SPIECES

Finally why is the SHARK still the same as it was in dinosaour perids. The SHARK is said to be THAT OLD

It is said to be one of the earliest forms of ocean life and it is unchanged in 50 million years.

Evolution either works on a total and continual basis or it has rules and we have yet to learn those rules.

Evolution as a science is just a little older than Psychiatry as a science to Science has totally abandoned Grandaddy Freud.

In 1950 EVERY Psychiatrist was trained in a Freudian clinic, today his is part of history and he is taught as an elective for historical puposes only.

Every single one of his viewpoints is considered WRONG by the profession today.

Few schools give advanced degrees in Evolution. IT's NOT a major field of study in the University system except at a few schools like the London School of Economics.

You're grasping at total straws buying into something long before the Fat Lady get's ready to sing and she won't in in your lifetime more than likely.

Some facets of evolution have some merits, but the jury is still out.

You couldn't convict a murderer based on EVOLUTIONARY EVIDENCE, it's too superficial.

LOOK at the OJ CASE. I SAW the DNA charts on TV and I saw the DNA EXPERT who was WAITING TO BLOW THEM OUT OF THE WATER and the taint and after images on those DNA chartings MADE ME SKEPTICAL and I feel strongly HE DID IT, but those LABORATORY READINGS made me laugh.

And they didn't use them and the DNA expert did take the stand.

I have a strong feeling if they had used that SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE Johnny Cochran wouldn't have had to say much of anything.

Right now Science is trying to convience use that WAVE UNDULATIONS of a star 30 light years away means LIFE POSSIBLE PLANET

Yet the JURY ON MARS 35 million miles away, is still out with MACHINES ON THE SURFACE that are supposed to CONCLUSIVELY SAY if there is life and the scientists say "Well, it's still not convincing."

YOu know why that is, because we'll be in Mars in the next 100 years and if our surveys with MAN show NO EVIDENCE of life and science says "YES THERE WAS AND COULD BE LIFE" today, they'll be laughed at when they are still alive.

SO they take the 5th.

NO ONE will go to that star 30 light years away for hundreds of centuries.

NO ONE can go into the past.

NOW if they invent a time machine in the next 30 years and go back to DINOSAUR LAND or go back and WATCH JESUS get crusified, some scientists will be working on projects in the tundra of Alaska due to the STANDS THEY TAKE ON ISSUE

Such as Dr. Dawkins

Of course THAT won't happen either, so they can say what they want to and get YOU to buy into HOOK LINE AND SINKER

That makes you JUST LIKE US

You buy in something SOMEONE TELLS YOU

YOU buy INTO A STORY

Most of US look at the evidence and say

"This could be somewhat truthful"

"This is very skeptical"

AND non of this Tetratroplis stuff has anything to do with Adam, Eve, Jesus, Jacob and John the Baptist

It has to do with creepy crawly creatures

Now if YOU want to think you were once an APE, an ANIMAL, go right ahead. I'm sure a lot of girls out there will agree that men are APES and they don't need science or college degrees to make those POSTULATES

I think I came from BETTER STOCK THAN THAT

And if you want me to think I evolved from something, pick something that isn't hairy, smelly, ridcoulous.

I was SOONER BELIEVE I CAME FROM DOLPHINS, than APES.

AT least a dolphin is a nice, friendly, playful intellegent creature.

All your theory justifies, is the play "The Hairy Ape"

Answer 7

How do we know what 7 days is to the Creator of the universe. 7 days to god could be 4 billion years. We are too primitive to presume we understand how god works. I believe god created the universe but to deny evolution is insane. The bible is a great book but is written by people even more primitive than we are. Just think, a shooting star to them was an angel. That should say it all.

Answer 8

traditionally, there are 4 substantial helps for the thought of evolution: comparative morphology, the fossil checklist, biogeography, and genetics. Leaders of the creationist flow do not hesitate to lie while they think of that lies will strengthen their reason. the a lot of followers are too poorly knowledgeable to renowned the lies for what they're.

Answer 9

I still haven't heard them get around dikika baby either.

One of your answerers has never heard of msr or esr dating techniques, either.. it's amazing how little they know of science to be able to argue against it.

Answer 10

--I AM NOT A CREATIONIST, but where do you get your referenced support from a updated material?
--BECAUSE a museum has failed to practice honesty or ingenuity enough to change the estimate of the many faked transitional fossils,in or out of their warehouses-- you will believe that over facts such as:
*** ce chap. 5 pp. 57-59 LETTING THE FOSSIL RECORD SPEAK
How Complete Is the Record?
--9 However, is the fossil record complete enough for a fair test of whether it is creation or evolution that finds support? Over a century ago, Darwin did not think so. What was “wrong” with the fossil record in his time? It did not contain the transitional links required to support his theory. This situation caused him to say: “Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely-graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and serious objection which can be urged against the theory.”7
--10 The fossil record in Darwin’s day proved disappointing to him in another way. He explained: “THE ABRUPT MANNER(MC) in which whole groups of species suddenly appear in certain formations has been urged by several paleontologists . . . as a fatal objection to the belief in the transmutation of species.” He added: “There is another and allied difficulty, which is much more serious. I allude to the manner in which species belonging to several of the main divisions of the animal kingdom SUDDENLY APPEARS(mc) in the lowest known fossiliferous rocks. . . . The case at present must remain inexplicable; and may be truly urged as a VALID ARGUEMENT AGAINST (mc) the [evolutionary] views here entertained.”8
11 DARWIN ATTEMPTED(my caps=mc) to explain these huge problems by attacking the fossil record. He said: “I look at the geological record as a history of the world imperfectly kept, . . . imperfect to an extreme degree.”9 It was assumed by him and others that as time passed the missing fossil links surely would be found.
--12 Now, AFTER WELL OVER A CENTURY of extensive digging, vast numbers of fossils have been unearthed. Is the record still so “imperfect”? The book Processes of Organic Evolution comments: “The record of past forms of life is now extensive and is constantly increasing in richness as paleontologists find, describe, and compare new fossils.”10 And Smithsonian Institution scientist Porter Kier adds: “There are a hundred million fossils, all catalogued and identified, in museums around the world.”11 Hence, A Guide to Earth History declares: “By the aid of fossils palaeontologists can now give us an excellent picture of the life of past ages.”12
13 AFTER ALL THIS TIME (MC), and the assembling of millions of fossils, what does the record now say? EVOLUTIONIST Steven Stanley states that these fossils “reveal new and surprising things about our biological origins.”
***13 The book A VIEW OF LIFE, written by THREE evolutionists, adds: “The fossil record is full of trends that paleontologists have been UNABLE TO EXPLAIN(mc).”14 What is it that these evolutionary scientists have found to be so “surprising” and are “unable to explain”?
--14 What has confounded such scientists is the fact that the massive fossil evidence now available reveals the very same thing that it did in Darwin’s day: Basic kinds of living things appeared suddenly and did not change appreciably for long periods of time. No transitional links between one major kind of living thing and another have ever been found. So what the fossil record says is just the opposite of what was expected.
--15 Swedish botanist Heribert Nilsson described the situation this way, after 40 years of his own research: “IT IS NOT EVEN (mc) possible to make a caricature of an evolution out of palaeobiological facts. The fossil material is now so complete that . . . the LACK OF TRANSITIONAL (my caps)series cannot be explained as due to the SCARCITY of material. The deficiencies are real, they will NEVER BE FILLED.”15
*** ce chap. 5 pp. 59-60
***Life Appears Suddenly
--16 Let us take a closer look at the evidence. IN HIS BOOK Red Giants and White Dwarfs Robert Jastrow states: “Sometime in the first billion years, life appeared on the earth’s surface. Slowly, the fossil record indicates, living organisms climbed the ladder from simple to more advanced forms.” From this description, one would expect that the fossil record has verified a slow evolution from the first “simple” life forms to complex ones. Yet, the same book says: “The critical first billion years, during which life began, are blank pages in the earth’s history.”16
*** ce chap. 5 p. 62 par. 22 Letting the Fossil Record Speak ***
These facts prompted biochemist D. B. Gower to comment, as related in England’s Kentish Times: “THE CREATION ACCOUNT in Genesis and the theory of evolution could not be reconciled. One must be right and the other wrong. The story of the fossils agreed with the account of Genesis. In the oldest rocks we did not find a series of fossils covering the gradual changes from the most primitive creatures to developed forms, but rather in the oldest rocks, developed species suddenly appeared. Between every species there was a COMPLETE ABSENCE (mc)of intermediate fossils.”24
--HOW MANY OF THE QUESTIONALBLE HUMAN genuine transitional fossils might exist:
*** ce chap. 7 pp. 84-85 “Ape-Men”—What Were They? ***
**How Much Fossil Evidence?
--5 From the accounts in scientific literature, in MUSEUM DISPLAYS(mc) and on television, it would seem that surely there must be abundant evidence that humans evolved from apelike creatures. Is this really so? For instance, what fossil evidence was there of this in Darwin’s day? Was it such evidence that encouraged him to formulate his theory?
*** ce chap. 7 p. 85 par. 7 “Ape-Men”—What Were They? ***
--7 After more than a century of searching, how much fossil evidence is there of “ape-men”? RICHARD LEAKY (MC)stated: “Those working in this field have so little evidence upon which to base their conclusions that it is necessary for them frequently to change their conclusions.”6 New Scientist commented: “Judged by the amount of evidence upon which it is based, the study of fossil man hardly deserves to be more than a sub-discipline of palaeontology or anthropology. . . . the collection is so tantalisingly incomplete, and the specimens themselves often so fragmentary and inconclusive.”7
*** ce chap. 7 p. 86 par. 9 “*
--9 Just how sparse is the fossil record regarding “ape-men”? Note the following. Newsweek: “‘You could put all the fossils on the top of a SINGLE DESK(mc),’ said Elwyn Simons of Duke University.”10 The New York Times: “The known fossil remains of man’s ancestors would fit on a BILLIARD TABLE. That makes a poor platform from which to peer into the mists of the last few million years.”11 Science Digest: “The remarkable fact is that all the physical evidence we have for human evolution can still be placed, with room to spare, inside a SINGLE COFFIN(mc) . Modern apes, for instance, seem to have sprung out of nowhere. They have no yesterday, no fossil record. And the true origin of modern humans—of upright, naked, toolmaking, big-brained beings—is, if we are to be honest with ourselves, an equally mysterious matter.”12