Conquer Club

Feathered fossil proves that birds did not evolve from dinosaurs
By Steve Connor , Science Editor
The Independent News Paper
(http://www.independent.co.uk/news/scien ... 13382.html)

A foot-long lizard that glided through the trees of prehistory 220 million years ago has overturned an established theory of how birds evolved from feathered dinosaurs.

The lizard, which lived 75 million years before the first known bird, may have sported a set of feathers yet was not a dinosaur, a study published today has found.

Finding feathers on a lizard which belongs to the ancestral stock of dinosaurs suggests that these most bird-like of biological structures are far more ancient that anyone has until now realized.

The scientists who made the discovery, reported in the journal of Science,"I believe the existence of a 220 million-year-old fossil with feathers, blows a hole in the idea that birds are "living dinosaurs".

The research has focused on the fossils of Longisquama insignis, an archosaur - the group that gave rise to the dinosaurs, crocodiles and birds - that lived in the forests of what is now central Asia by probably jumping from tree to tree.

"These are some amazing fossils, and at the very least they prove that feathers did not evolve from dinosaurs," said John Ruben, professor of zoology at Oregon State University in Corvallis and a member of the research team. "The supposed link between dinosaurs and birds is pretty entrenched in palaeontology, but it's not as solid as the public has been led to believe."

Soviet scientists originally found the fossils in Kyrgyzstan in 1969 but they laid in a museum drawer in Moscow for many years after an initial examination concluded that two parallel rows of appendages on the back of the animal were scales, not feathers.

However, closer scrutiny of the "scales" by a team of Russian and American scientists found that they have several key features in common with feathers. The scientists found that the appendages had a long, thin tube or shaft running down their centre, with projections or "pinnae" extending from the sides of the base, just like modern feathers, but quite unlike reptilian scales.

Another feature is that Longisquama appears to have a feather growing in the same manner as modern feathers, where the pinnae unfurl inside a tube called a feather sheath.

The scientists believe that they have identified an unfurled pinna inside a sheath where the outer wall has flaked away. Larry Martin, another member of the team at the University of Kansas, said this was the factor that clinched it for him. "I'd been holding back until that point, thinking that these were unusual and feather-like scales, but scales none the less. The results were startling," he said.

Feathers are so distinctive that it is unlikely they they had evolved more than once, Professor Ruben said. "A point that too many people always ignored, however, is that the most bird-like of the dinosaurs, such as Bambiraptor and Velociraptor, lived 70 million years after the earliest bird, Archaeopteryx," he said.

"So according to these findings, you have birds flying before the "evolution" of the first bird-like dinosaurs. We now question very strongly whether there were any feathered dinosaurs at all ... they were probably like flightless birds."

Source:
The Independent News Paper
(http://www.independent.co.uk/news/scien ... 13382.html)

I post this because it is one of evolutionist's strongest point that the birds of today evolved from Dinosaur's. Museums everywhere depict this as truth and fact. Yet in the article is stated that Birds basically existed before the first dinosaur with feathers and that the feathers were only scales that appear in the fossilized rocks as feathers when in fact they are not upon closer inspection.

Masses of unsuspecting intelligent people all over the world are duped into believing that Evolution is real when it is really a theory, a possible explanation that just does not hold any water.

The Bible states that Birds did not come from Land but from the waters instead (Genesis 1:20).

so the precise evolution of creatures remains largely unknown. thanks for the update viceroy!

Why does Viceroy feel the need to constantly try to convince us that evolution is wrong? I don't go to his church telling everyone that the Bible is wrong, so stay out of my science classroom.

Viceroy63 wrote:I post this because it is one of evolutionist's strongest point that the birds of today evolved from Dinosaur's. Museums everywhere depict this as truth and fact. Yet in the article is stated that Birds basically existed before the first dinosaur with feathers and that the feathers were only scales that appear in the fossilized rocks as feathers when in fact they are not upon closer inspection.

Masses of unsuspecting intelligent people all over the world are duped into believing that Evolution is real when it is really a theory, a possible explanation that just does not hold any water.

The Bible states that Birds did not come from Land but from the waters instead (Genesis 1:20).

Cool. So birds may be even older than we thought.
The article sheds some new light on natural history and says that we might well have been wrong about something we'd accepted as true. The article most definitely does not make for any kind of argument against the theory of evolution as a whole. If you read it carefully you might notice that it says something or other "evolved" several times and its author clearly accepts evolution as the best explanation for observed phenomena.

You are right about the article not making any argument against the theory of evolution but what does that say about all that supposedly evidence that presents evolution as a true fact. Children in schools open up their text books and learn that this is how the birds came to be and then they see a picture of an ape evolving into a man and are taught that this is how man came to be when none of that is true. It's a theory but they are not taught it as theory. "Evidence" is presented and young minds accept it.

I'm just saying, where is all the fossil evidence at? There is more evidence in the Bible version of creation then in the theory of evolution. If something is not true, why teach it? If you present something as true when it is not then it's a lie. Plain and simple. This article is really explaining that what we have been taught and are still being taught about the birds being living dinosaurs is a lie and that's all. So basically tax dollars go to teaching children, lie's.

Viceroy63 wrote:You are right about the article not making any argument against the theory of evolution but what does that say about all that supposedly evidence that presents evolution as a true fact. Children in schools open up their text books and learn that this is how the birds came to be and then they see a picture of an ape evolving into a man and are taught that this is how man came to be when none of that is true. It's a theory but they are not taught it as theory. "Evidence" is presented and young minds accept it.

I'm just saying, where is all the fossil evidence at? There is more evidence in the Bible version of creation then in the theory of evolution. If something is not true, why teach it? If you present something as true when it is not then it's a lie. Plain and simple. This article is really explaining that what we have been taught and are still being taught about the birds being living dinosaurs is a lie and that's all. So basically tax dollars go to teaching children, lie's.

You can find a fossil of an archeopteyrx in many museums. They're up for public view.

Viceroy63 wrote:You are right about the article not making any argument against the theory of evolution but what does that say about all that supposedly evidence that presents evolution as a true fact. Children in schools open up their text books and learn that this is how the birds came to be and then they see a picture of an ape evolving into a man and are taught that this is how man came to be when none of that is true. It's a theory but they are not taught it as theory. "Evidence" is presented and young minds accept it.

I'm just saying, where is all the fossil evidence at? There is more evidence in the Bible version of creation then in the theory of evolution. If something is not true, why teach it? If you present something as true when it is not then it's a lie. Plain and simple. This article is really explaining that what we have been taught and are still being taught about the birds being living dinosaurs is a lie and that's all. So basically tax dollars go to teaching children, lie's.

dude, you are too stubornly stupid. The theory of evolution is what is the most likely and logical, have your own beliefs but what we have absolutely no proof of is your gibberish. There are many religions/sects out there each claiming to know "the truth" based on their folklorical beliefs. Why don't we teach reincarnation in biology classes instead of scientific discoveries?

I know I said I wouldnt feed the troll, but...

A lie-to-children, sometimes referred to as a Wittgenstein's ladder, is an expression that describes the simplification of technical or difficult-to-understand material for consumption by children. The word "children" should not be taken literally, but as encompassing anyone in the process of learning about a given topic, regardless of age. It is itself a simplification of certain concepts in the philosophy of science.

Because life and its aspects can be extremely difficult to understand without experience, to present a full level of complexity to a student or child all at once can be overwhelming. Hence elementary explanations tend to be simple, concise, or simply "wrong" — but in a way that attempts to make the lesson more understandable. Sometimes the lesson can be qualified, for example by claiming "this isn't technically true, but it's easier to understand". In retrospect the first explanation may be easy to understand for its inaccuracies, but it will be replaced with a more sophisticated explanation which is closer to "the truth". This "tender introduction" concept is an important aspect of education.

Such statements are not usually intended as deceptions, and may, in fact, be true to a first approximation or within certain contexts. For example Newtonian mechanics, by modern standards, is factually incorrect, as it fails to take into account relativity or quantum mechanics, but it is still a valuable and valid approximation to those theories in many situations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lie-to-children

Viceroy63 wrote:You are right about the article not making any argument against the theory of evolution but what does that say about all that supposedly evidence that presents evolution as a true fact. Children in schools open up their text books and learn that this is how the birds came to be and then they see a picture of an ape evolving into a man and are taught that this is how man came to be when none of that is true. It's a theory but they are not taught it as theory. "Evidence" is presented and young minds accept it.

I'm just saying, where is all the fossil evidence at? There is more evidence in the Bible version of creation then in the theory of evolution. If something is not true, why teach it? If you present something as true when it is not then it's a lie. Plain and simple. This article is really explaining that what we have been taught and are still being taught about the birds being living dinosaurs is a lie and that's all. So basically tax dollars go to teaching children, lie's.

I asked before but you dodged it, I shall try again; You argue that because there is not 100% proof for the theory of evolution that it is a lie , but you claim there is a God despite there being no proof, zilch , nothing at all. Why are you not consistent , why are you such a hypocrite, why are you happy that your church peddles an obvious lie to children ?

crispybits wrote:I know I said I wouldnt feed the troll, but...

A lie-to-children, sometimes referred to as a Wittgenstein's ladder, is an expression that describes the simplification of technical or difficult-to-understand material for consumption by children. The word "children" should not be taken literally, but as encompassing anyone in the process of learning about a given topic, regardless of age. It is itself a simplification of certain concepts in the philosophy of science.

Because life and its aspects can be extremely difficult to understand without experience, to present a full level of complexity to a student or child all at once can be overwhelming. Hence elementary explanations tend to be simple, concise, or simply "wrong" — but in a way that attempts to make the lesson more understandable. Sometimes the lesson can be qualified, for example by claiming "this isn't technically true, but it's easier to understand". In retrospect the first explanation may be easy to understand for its inaccuracies, but it will be replaced with a more sophisticated explanation which is closer to "the truth". This "tender introduction" concept is an important aspect of education.

Such statements are not usually intended as deceptions, and may, in fact, be true to a first approximation or within certain contexts. For example Newtonian mechanics, by modern standards, is factually incorrect, as it fails to take into account relativity or quantum mechanics, but it is still a valuable and valid approximation to those theories in many situations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lie-to-children

This is exactly correct. I wouldn't even call it lying. I would say that science education is a series of building better approximations to reality.

Viceroy63 wrote:You are right about the article not making any argument against the theory of evolution but what does that say about all that supposedly evidence that presents evolution as a true fact.

That it is a true fact.

Viceroy63 wrote:You are right about the article not making any argument against the theory of evolution but what does that say about all that supposedly evidence that presents evolution as a true fact. Children in schools open up their text books and learn that this is how the birds came to be and then they see a picture of an ape evolving into a man and are taught that this is how man came to be when none of that is true. It's a theory but they are not taught it as theory. "Evidence" is presented and young minds accept it.

I'm just saying, where is all the fossil evidence at? There is more evidence in the Bible version of creation then in the theory of evolution. If something is not true, why teach it? If you present something as true when it is not then it's a lie. Plain and simple. This article is really explaining that what we have been taught and are still being taught about the birds being living dinosaurs is a lie and that's all. So basically tax dollars go to teaching children, lie's.

No, our tax dollars are going to help insure they don't end up as uneducated as you.

You are an adult, so you can choose to live in your delusional world, and thats fine, but we owe it to children to teach them the actual reality of the world, so they have a fighting chance of surviving in it. If you choose to misinform your child, that is your right, but at least they will have had access to reality, before you've corrupted them with insanity.

Viceroy63 wrote:Feathered fossil proves that birds did not evolve from dinosaurs
By Steve Connor , Science Editor
The Independent News Paper
(http://www.independent.co.uk/news/scien ... 13382.html)

A foot-long lizard that glided through the trees of prehistory 220 million years ago has overturned an established theory of how birds evolved from feathered dinosaurs.

The lizard, which lived 75 million years before the first known bird, may have sported a set of feathers yet was not a dinosaur, a study published today has found.

Finding feathers on a lizard which belongs to the ancestral stock of dinosaurs suggests that these most bird-like of biological structures are far more ancient that anyone has until now realized.

The scientists who made the discovery, reported in the journal of Science,"I believe the existence of a 220 million-year-old fossil with feathers, blows a hole in the idea that birds are "living dinosaurs".

The research has focused on the fossils of Longisquama insignis, an archosaur - the group that gave rise to the dinosaurs, crocodiles and birds - that lived in the forests of what is now central Asia by probably jumping from tree to tree.

"These are some amazing fossils, and at the very least they prove that feathers did not evolve from dinosaurs," said John Ruben, professor of zoology at Oregon State University in Corvallis and a member of the research team. "The supposed link between dinosaurs and birds is pretty entrenched in palaeontology, but it's not as solid as the public has been led to believe."

Soviet scientists originally found the fossils in Kyrgyzstan in 1969 but they laid in a museum drawer in Moscow for many years after an initial examination concluded that two parallel rows of appendages on the back of the animal were scales, not feathers.

However, closer scrutiny of the "scales" by a team of Russian and American scientists found that they have several key features in common with feathers. The scientists found that the appendages had a long, thin tube or shaft running down their centre, with projections or "pinnae" extending from the sides of the base, just like modern feathers, but quite unlike reptilian scales.

Another feature is that Longisquama appears to have a feather growing in the same manner as modern feathers, where the pinnae unfurl inside a tube called a feather sheath.

The scientists believe that they have identified an unfurled pinna inside a sheath where the outer wall has flaked away. Larry Martin, another member of the team at the University of Kansas, said this was the factor that clinched it for him. "I'd been holding back until that point, thinking that these were unusual and feather-like scales, but scales none the less. The results were startling," he said.

Feathers are so distinctive that it is unlikely they they had evolved more than once, Professor Ruben said. "A point that too many people always ignored, however, is that the most bird-like of the dinosaurs, such as Bambiraptor and Velociraptor, lived 70 million years after the earliest bird, Archaeopteryx," he said.

"So according to these findings, you have birds flying before the "evolution" of the first bird-like dinosaurs. We now question very strongly whether there were any feathered dinosaurs at all ... they were probably like flightless birds."

Source:
The Independent News Paper
(http://www.independent.co.uk/news/scien ... 13382.html)

I post this because it is one of evolutionist's strongest point that the birds of today evolved from Dinosaur's. Museums everywhere depict this as truth and fact. Yet in the article is stated that Birds basically existed before the first dinosaur with feathers and that the feathers were only scales that appear in the fossilized rocks as feathers when in fact they are not upon closer inspection.

Masses of unsuspecting intelligent people all over the world are duped into believing that Evolution is real when it is really a theory, a possible explanation that just does not hold any water.

The Bible states that Birds did not come from Land but from the waters instead (Genesis 1:20).

You are the one duped, if you believe one fossil of a lizard with feathers disproves the entirety of evolution.

Thats like an alien finding you and deciding all humans were well...like you.

True Story: I know a girl with an archaeoptryx fossil tatoo.

Also, I had to correct a typo in my earlier post. Thanks for the quoting Lootifer

Also, what the hell. As soon as I switch categories and start looking at Biblical arguments, Viceroy changes the topic again. Sigh. Luckily, I have a pre-prepared argument against the Dino/Bird bs too.

I post this because it is one of evolutionist's strongest point that the birds of today evolved from Dinosaur's. Museums everywhere depict this as truth and fact. Yet in the article is stated that Birds basically existed before the first dinosaur with feathers and that the feathers were only scales that appear in the fossilized rocks as feathers when in fact they are not upon closer inspection.

Actually, this is one of the most controversial opinions in evolutionary biology. It is not scientists who support this opinion, but rather the popular press. It is true that skeletal remains make birds look similar to dinosaurs. However, there is one major fact that has prevented this view from being scientifically verifiable. Namely, in birds the digits are numbered 2,3,4 (compared to a human with digits 1-5). The corresponding dinosaur digits are 1,2,3. This difference has been considered unsurmountable. Of course, modern molecular approaches are starting to prove that we have the bird numbering scheme wrong. Once that is proven, it will be a strong point for evolutionary biology, but not until then.

DoomYoshi wrote: The canonization of the Bible had one reason and one reason only: to declare the Catholic Church as the only church. So, if you accept the Old Testament with the New, if you accept the books in the order often presented, you are affirming that the Catholic Church is the only church. However, the reformists ignored this inconvenient piece of history and started worshipping the Bible instead of God. Now, Christianity has deviated so far, that Joel Olsteen is the most recognizable religious face in America (he, of course, became famous by promising people riches if they donated to his church).

You are ignoring huge swaths as well.... and rather distorting what happened within the reformation, but this is not the thread in which to discuss it. The Roman Catholic church would love for people to believe they are the only Christian church and always have been, but....

anyway, another thread for that discussion.

DoomYoshi wrote:

I post this because it is one of evolutionist's strongest point that the birds of today evolved from Dinosaur's. Museums everywhere depict this as truth and fact. Yet in the article is stated that Birds basically existed before the first dinosaur with feathers and that the feathers were only scales that appear in the fossilized rocks as feathers when in fact they are not upon closer inspection.

Actually, this is one of the most controversial opinions in evolutionary biology. It is not scientists who support this opinion, but rather the popular press. It is true that skeletal remains make birds look similar to dinosaurs. However, there is one major fact that has prevented this view from being scientifically verifiable. Namely, in birds the digits are numbered 2,3,4 (compared to a human with digits 1-5). The corresponding dinosaur digits are 1,2,3. This difference has been considered unsurmountable. Of course, modern molecular approaches are starting to prove that we have the bird numbering scheme wrong. Once that is proven, it will be a strong point for evolutionary biology, but not until then.

Dinosaurs were diverse, not just one group. That is part of the problem. Beyond that... yeah, the media likes to simplify things. Tends to happen when you decide "news" has to fit in 2 minute segments.

I admit I put forward some about birds/dinosaurs. I was just reading up on the subject. However, my basic point is that V's idea of transition species is just idiotic.

Viceroy63 wrote:I'm just saying, where is all the fossil evidence at?

All over the world -- both in various rock formations (particularly, but not solely, sedimentary rock formations), in museums (both the actual, original rock and scientifically accurate copies), and well, plenty of pictures online.

The problem is not that they don't exist, its that you refuse any evidence you dislike. That is why you are not a scientist.... and never will be. In fact, you are having a hard time even holding a real discussion with those of us with science backgrounds.

Viceroy63 wrote:There is more evidence in the Bible version of creation then in the theory of evolution.

YOu will have to explain this one.

First, nothing in the Bible disputes the theory of Evolution. You keep making that claim, but then point to false explainations for why.

Second, there is no real evidence of the Biblical Creation, the only proof that what the Bible said actually happened is that the various groups named did come about and in essentially the same order given (whales were one exception). There is certainly no evidence of what you seem to believe happened, in fact what you have claimed so far is just plain wrong on ALL fronts, including the Bible.

Viceroy63 wrote:If something is not true, why teach it? If you present something as true when it is not then it's a lie. Plain and simple. This article is really explaining that what we have been taught and are still being taught about the birds being living dinosaurs is a lie and that's all. So basically tax dollars go to teaching children, lie's.

Try reading, not just googling things that seem to have a sentence or two that agree with your thinking. The article you presented is not a critique of evolution, it is a discussion of whether one idea that makes up part of the whole theory is or is not correct. Your presenting it as evidence of evolution's falsity is just laziness on your part.. shows you either did not read or read without understanding what you read.

Also, look up the difference between theory, sciientific theory and fact. See, theories are things that are believed true, but which could be proven false. Your article points to one on-going discussion. No one really knows, as yet, what is and is not true in that particular case. We come closer and closer as more information is discovered. The problem here is not that peopel are lying. Its that you ..a nd yes, some teachers, seem unable to understand the difference between a fact and a theory.


Oh, and just finding fault with evolution is not the same at ALL as proving your ideas are correct.

Viceroy, you cannot pick one animal having a slight difference in evolutionary process than what is popularly believed and say "welp, evolution in total has been disproven."

Because I could easily have disproven the Biblical story ten times for each little thing you have quibbled about in this thread.

Henceforth he shall be known as The Dodger

The Vanishing Case for Evolution
(http://www.icr.org/article/260/)
by Henry Morris, Ph.D.

Evolutionary belief is a remarkable and largely unexplained phenomenon. It is a belief held by most intellectuals all over the world, despite the fact that there is no real scientific evidence for it at all. Evolutionists allege that evolution is a proved scientific fact, based on a multitude of scientific proofs, but they are unable to document even one of these supposed proofs! This curious situation is illustrated below in quotations from several leading evolutionary scientists.

THE ALTOGETHER MISSING EVIDENCE

No Evolution at Present.
The lack of a case for evolution is most clearly recognized by the fact that no one has ever seen it happen.

"Evolution, at least in the sense that Darwin speaks of it, cannot be detected within the lifetime of a single observer." 1

"Horizontal variations" (e.g., the different varieties of dogs) are not real evolution, of course, nor are "mutations," which are always either neutral or harmful, as far as all known mutations are concerned. A process which has never been observed to occur, in all human history, should not be called scientific.

No New Species.
Charles Darwin is popularly supposed to have solved the problem of "the origin of species," in his famous 1859 book of that title. However, as the eminent Harvard biologist, Ernst Mayr, one of the nation's top evolutionists, has observed:

"Darwin never really did discuss the origin of species in his On the Origin of Species."2

Not only could Darwin not cite a single example of a new species originating, but neither has anyone else, in all the subsequent century of evolutionary study.

"No one has ever produced a species by mechanisms of natural selection. No one has gotten near it. . . ." 3

No Known Mechanism of Evolution.
It is also a very curious fact that no one understands how evolution works. Evolutionists commonly protest that they know evolution is true, but they can't seem to determine its mechanism.

"Evolution is . . . troubled from within by the troubling complexities of genetic and developmental mechanisms and new questions about the central mystery--speciation itself." 4

One would think that in the 125 years following Darwin, with thousands of trained biologists studying the problem and using millions of dollars worth of complex lab equipment, they would have worked it out by now, but the mechanism which originates new species is still "the central mystery."

No Fossil Evidence.
It used to be claimed that the best evidence for evolution was the fossil record, but the fact is that the billions of known fossils have not yet yielded a single unequivocal transitional form with transitional structures in the process of evolving.

"The known fossil record fails to document a single example of phyletic evolution accomplishing a major morphologic transition. . . ." 5

This ubiquitous absence of intermediate forms is true not only for "major morphologic transitions," but even for most species.

"As is now well known, most fossil species appear instantaneously in the fossil record, persist for some millions of years virtually unchanged, only to disappear abruptly. . . ." 6

As a result, many modern evolutionists agree with the following assessment:

"In any case, no real evolutionist . . . uses the fossil record as evidence in favor of the theory of evolution as opposed to special creation. . . ." 7

[Note]
That is to say that no reputable evolutionist "Now", uses the fossil record as evidence in favor of the theory of evolution as opposed to special creation... In the past the fossil record is what was used to teach evolution as a fact.
-Viceroy63
-End note.

No Order in the Fossils.
Not only are there no true transitional forms in the fossils; there is not even any general evidence of evolutionary progression in the actual fossil sequences

"The fossil record of evolution is amenable to a wide variety of models ranging from completely deterministic to completely stochastic." 8

"I regard the failure to find a clear "vector of progress" in life's history as the most puzzling fact of the fossil record. . . . we have sought to impose a pattern that we hoped to find on a world that does not really display it." 9

The superficial appearance of an evolutionary pattern in the fossil record has actually been imposed on it by the fact that the rocks containing the fossils have themselves been "dated" by their fossils.

"And this poses something of a problem: If we date the rocks by their fossils, how can we then turn around and talk about patterns of evolutionary change through time in the fossil record?"10

"A circular argument arises: Interpret the fossil record in the terms of a particular theory of evolution, inspect the interpretation, and note that it confirms the theory. Well, it would, wouldn't it?" 11

No Evidence That Evolution Is Possible.
The basic reason why there is no scientific evidence of evolution in either the present or the past is that the law of increasing entropy, or the second law of thermodynamics, contradicts the very premise of evolution. The evolutionist assumes that the whole universe has evolved upward from a single primeval particle to human beings, but the second law (one of the best-proved laws of science) says that the whole universe is running down into complete disorder.

"How can the forces of biological development and the forces of physical degeneration be operating at cross purposes? It would take, of course, a far greater mind than mine even to attempt to penetrate this riddle. I can only pose the question. . . ." 12

Evolutionists commonly attempt to sidestep this question by asserting that the second law applies only to isolated systems. But this is wrong!

". . . the quantity of entropy generated locally cannot be negative irrespective of whether the system is isolated or not." 13

"Ordinarily the second law is stated for isolated systems, but the second law applies equally well to open systems." 14

Entropy can be forced to decrease in an open system, if enough organizing energy and information is applied to it from outside the system. This externally introduced complexity would have to be adequate to overcome the normal internal increase in entropy when raw energy is added from outside. However, no such external source of organized and energized information is available to the supposed evolutionary process. Raw solar energy is not organized information!

No Evidence From Similarities.
The existence of similarities between organisms--whether in external morphology or internal biochemistry--is easily explained as the Creator's design of similar systems for similar functions, but such similarities are not explicable by common evolutionary descent.

"It is now clear that the pride with which it was assumed that the inheritance of homologous structures from a common ancestor explained homology was misplaced. 15

The really significant finding that comes to light from comparing the proteins' amino acid sequences is that it is impossible to arrange them in any sort of an evolutionary series." 16

No Recapitulation or Vestigial Organs.
The old arguments for evolution based on the recapitulation theory (the idea that embryonic development in the womb recapitulates the evolution of the species) and vestigial organs ("useless" organs believed to have been useful in an earlier stage of evolution) have long been discredited.

". . . the theory of recapitulation . . . should be defunct today." 17

"An analysis of the difficulties in unambiguously identifying functionless structures . . . leads to the conclusion that "vestigial organs" provide no evidence for evolutionary theory." 18


THE RESIDUAL CASE FOR EVOLUTION

In spite of these admissions, all the scientists quoted above continue to believe in evolution. Limited space precludes giving the full context of each quotation, but each point noted is fully warranted in context, and could be further documented from other authorities also. 19

What, then, remains of the case for evolution? Stephen Gould falls back on what he believes are "imperfections" in nature.

"If there were no imperfections, there would be no evidence to favor evolution by natural selection over creation." 20

But this is essentially the same as the old discredited argument from vestigial organs, and merely assumes our present ignorance to be knowledge. Even if there are imperfections in nature (as well as harmful mutations, vestigial organs, extinctions, etc.) such trends are opposite to any imaginary evolutionary progress, so can hardly prove evolution.

There is one final argument, however: Gould's fellow atheist and Marxist at Harvard, geneticist Richard Lewontin, says,

"No one has ever found an organism that is known not to have parents, or a parent. This is the strongest evidence on behalf of evolution." 21

That is, if one denies a Creator, the existence of life proves evolution!

But apart from its necessity as a support for atheism or pantheism, there is clearly no scientific evidence for evolution.

The absence of evidence for evolution does not, by itself, prove creation, of course; nevertheless, special creation is clearly the only alternative to evolution.

"Creation and evolution, between them, exhaust the possible explanations for the origin of living things. Organisms either appeared on the earth fully developed or they did not. If they did not, they must have developed from pre-existing species by some process of modification. If they did appear in a fully developed state, they must have been created by some omnipotent intelligence." 22

While we admittedly cannot prove creation, it is important to note that all the above facts offered as evidence against evolution (gaps between kinds, no evolutionary mechanism, increasing entropy, etc.) are actual predictions from the creation "model!"

Creationists prefer the reasonable faith of creationism, which is supported by all the real scientific evidence, to the credulous faith of evolutionism, which is supported by no real scientific evidence. The question remains unanswered (scientifically, at least) as to why evolutionists prefer to believe in evolution.

This article can be read at...
(http://www.icr.org/article/260/)



REFERENCES

1 David Kits, "Paleontology and Evolutionary Theory," Evolution (vol. 28; September 1974), p. 466.
2 In Mayr's book Systematics and the Origin of Species (1942), as cited by a prominent modern evolutionist, Niles Eldredge, in his book, Time Frames: The Rethinking of Darwinian Evolution and the Theory of Punctuated Equilibria (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1985), p. 33.
3 Colin Patterson, "Cladistics." Interview on BBC, March 4, 1982. Dr. Patterson is the senior paleontologist at the British Museum of Natural History.
4 Keith S. Thompson, "The Meanings of Evolution," American Scientist (vol. 70, September/October 1982), p. 529.
5 Steven M. Stanley, Macroevolution: Pattern and Process (San Francisco: W.M. Freeman and Co., 1979), p. 39.
6 Tom Kemp, "A Fresh Look at the Fossil Record," New Scientist (Vol. 108; December 5, 1985), p. 67. Dr. Kemp is Curator of the University Museum at Oxford University.
7 Mark Ridley, "Who Doubts Evolution?" New Scientist (vol. 90; June 25, 1981), p. 831. Dr. Ridley is Professor of Zoology at Oxford University.
8 David M. Raup, "Probabilistic Models in Evolutionary Biology" American Scientist (vol. 166. January/February 1977), p. 57.
9 Stephen Jay Gould, "The Ediacaran Experiment," Natural History (vol. 93; February 1984), p. 23. Dr. Gould, Professor of Geology at Harvard, is arguably the nation's most prominent modern evolutionist.
10 Niles Eldredge, op. cit., p. 52.
11 Tom Kemp, op. cit., p. 66.
12 Sydney Harris, "Second Law of Thermodynamics." This nationally syndicated column appeared in the San Francisco Examiner on January 27, 1984.
13 Arnold Sommerfeld, Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics (New York: Academic Press, 1956), p. 155.
14 John Ross, Letter-to-the-Editor, Chemical and Engineering News (July 7, 1980), p. 40. Ross is at Harvard University.
15 Sir Gavin de Beer, Homology, an Unsolved Problem (London: Oxford University Press, 1971), p. 15. Sir Gavin is a leading European evolutionist.
16 Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis (London: Burnett Books, 1985), p. 289. Denton is a research microbiologist in Australia.
17 Stephen Jay Gould, "Dr. Down's Syndrome," Natural History (April 1980), p. 144.
18 S.R. Scadding, "Do `Vestigial Organs' Provide Evidence for Evolution?" Evolutionary Theory (vol. 5, May 1981), p. 173.
19 See the main ICR books with such documentation (Creation and the Modern Christian , Evolution in Turmoil, Scientific Creationism, etc.). Write for free descriptive book list.
20 As cited by Jeremy Cherfas in "The Difficulties of Darwinism," New Scientist (vol. 102; May 17, 1984), p. 29.
21 As reported in an interview by Tom Bethell, "Agnostic Evolutionists," Harper's (February 1985), p. 61.
22 D.J. Futuyma, Science on Trial (New York: Pantheon Books, 1983), p. 197.


*Dr. Henry Morris is Founder and President Emeritus of the Institute for Creation Research.

Viceroy, when you initiated this debate, what were your motives?

Viceroy63 wrote:No Evolution at Present.
The lack of a case for evolution is most clearly recognized by the fact that no one has ever seen it happen.

"Evolution, at least in the sense that Darwin speaks of it, cannot be detected within the lifetime of a single observer." 1

"Horizontal variations" (e.g., the different varieties of dogs) are not real evolution, of course, nor are "mutations," which are always either neutral or harmful, as far as all known mutations are concerned. A process which has never been observed to occur, in all human history, should not be called scientific.

No New Species.
Charles Darwin is popularly supposed to have solved the problem of "the origin of species," in his famous 1859 book of that title. However, as the eminent Harvard biologist, Ernst Mayr, one of the nation's top evolutionists, has observed:

"Darwin never really did discuss the origin of species in his On the Origin of Species."2

Not only could Darwin not cite a single example of a new species originating, but neither has anyone else, in all the subsequent century of evolutionary study.

"No one has ever produced a species by mechanisms of natural selection. No one has gotten near it. . . ." 3

This is a criticism of something that scientists widely acknowledge. The creation of an entirely new species is not going to happen on human timescales, given that the predictions of the theory predict that such changes happens over something more like million-year timescales. This criticism is like saying that because no one has ever observed a planet forming, that our theories of planet formation have no support and that Earth has existed forever. Or that because we've never witnessed two galaxies collide and merge, that we have no understanding of the process of galaxy merging. Sometimes the evidence leads us to make predictions about things that happen on longer timescales than we can observe. It's still science, because creating a model isn't about proving the truth of any particular data, it's about coming up with a cogent model that explains what we see in a way that ties together disparate observations.

No Known Mechanism of Evolution.
It is also a very curious fact that no one understands how evolution works. Evolutionists commonly protest that they know evolution is true, but they can't seem to determine its mechanism.

"Evolution is . . . troubled from within by the troubling complexities of genetic and developmental mechanisms and new questions about the central mystery--speciation itself." 4

One would think that in the 125 years following Darwin, with thousands of trained biologists studying the problem and using millions of dollars worth of complex lab equipment, they would have worked it out by now, but the mechanism which originates new species is still "the central mystery."

We spent 100 years building up the Standard Model of particle physics, and we spent a lot more money than biologists did and had a lot more people working on the problem, and only until 2012 was there strong evidence that the particle that is responsible for mass actually exists. Sometimes you can throw a lot of smart people at a problem and give them a lot of money, and it still just takes a while to solve because of how complicated the problem is. We're talking about the origin of life itself here, and how it evolved over time. You can't expect us to figure out all the details immediately; it's going to take a while. That doesn't cast doubt on the theory, which is independent of mechanism. We knew that particles had mass even before we discovered the Higgs boson.

...

No Evidence That Evolution Is Possible.
The basic reason why there is no scientific evidence of evolution in either the present or the past is that the law of increasing entropy, or the second law of thermodynamics, contradicts the very premise of evolution. The evolutionist assumes that the whole universe has evolved upward from a single primeval particle to human beings, but the second law (one of the best-proved laws of science) says that the whole universe is running down into complete disorder.

"How can the forces of biological development and the forces of physical degeneration be operating at cross purposes? It would take, of course, a far greater mind than mine even to attempt to penetrate this riddle. I can only pose the question. . . ." 12

Evolutionists commonly attempt to sidestep this question by asserting that the second law applies only to isolated systems. But this is wrong!

". . . the quantity of entropy generated locally cannot be negative irrespective of whether the system is isolated or not." 13

"Ordinarily the second law is stated for isolated systems, but the second law applies equally well to open systems." 14

Entropy can be forced to decrease in an open system, if enough organizing energy and information is applied to it from outside the system. This externally introduced complexity would have to be adequate to overcome the normal internal increase in entropy when raw energy is added from outside. However, no such external source of organized and energized information is available to the supposed evolutionary process. Raw solar energy is not organized information!

This guy needed to re-take his thermodynamics class.

Ahahahahahahahahahaha @ 2nd Law of Thermodynamics argument!

Too funny. "Lets artificially define the primeval source of life as "disorder" and subsequent evolution results in increasing "order"; therefore evolution is false because the 2nd law of thermodynamics says order (entropy) can only decrease!"...

Top notch argument that one.