Destroying Darwin

[PoliticalChic]

But what does PoliticalChic consider that to be?

illogical and filled with fallacies....

Let's see how easy it is to show you to be a fool.

I gave Darwin's theory in the OP....in his own words:

3..For purposes of clarity,this is Darwin's perspective, the pillars on which his thesis rests:
The universal common ancestry of all living things: all had a single common ancestorway back in the distant past..."all the organic beings that have ever lived on this earth have descended from some one [ONE SINGLE] primordial form"
Darwin, "On The Origin of Species," p.484.
Then, via the accumulation of finite, beneficial changes....finally, the diversity of life present today.



This just isn't your day, is it.

What's the problem with what Darwin said?

Long ago before telescopes a smart guy like Darwin name Bruno Giordano told christians that the stars were other suns and the universe was bigger than they believed and they burned him alive for blasphemy. Darwin would have been killed to. That's how bad your theory is. It is threatened with truth facts logic and science.

And so even religion has evolved. Lol

"What's the problem with what Darwin said?"


The problem is that sites have been found that clearly show sudden new organisms, with no evidence of 'evolutionary attempts' to produce same, e.g., Burgess Shale, Chengjiang in China....the 'Cambrian Explosion' of new diversity...



7. How to counter this?
If the Ediacaran fauna can be

a. shown to be a structural antecedent to Cambrian fossils found in Burgess, or Chengjiang,...and

b. if their occurrence can be pushed back into the Precambrian period...

..well, then....that goes a long way toward boosting Darwin's stock!

If neither.....Darwin is destroyed.




8. At first, dating suggested that the Ediacaran fossils appeared between 700 and 640 million years ago....but recent, more accurate radiometrics now fix the dates for the first appearance of these fauna at 570-565 million years ago....and their last appearance about 543 million years ago- that means 13 million years prior to the start of the Cambrian explosion.
Grotzinger et al., "Biostratigraphic and Geochronologic Constraints in Early Animal Evolution."
Biostratigraphic and Geochronologic Constraints on Early Animal Evolution




9. Alas....none of 'em are of the hard shelled type identified with the Cambrian Explosion.

More to the point....it would be a bald-faced lie to claim that the Ediacaran fossils represent ancestral forms of the Cambrian animals, or, as some Darwin supporters claim, that they provide examples of such forms.


In this game....two strikes and you're out.

This is the scientific method.

Even in the cosmos they explain how many great discoveries took years to make it to scientific consensus. Sucks but that's the scientific method. Slow beurocratic etc. But maybe this guy is right.

Actually, it is as far from the scientific method as you are from an education.


"I have imposed upon myself, as a law, never to advance but from what is known to what is unknown; never to form any conclusion which is not an immediate consequence necessarily flowing from observation and experiment; and always to arrange the fact, and the conclusions which are drawn from them, in such an order as shall render it most easy for beginners in the study of chemistry thoroughly to understand them."
Antoine Lavoisier, "The Elements of Chemistry," 1790 Antoine Lavoisier


Do you imagine that Darwin's thesis is the product of observation and experimentation?

Imagine is the operative term.


"And let us dispose of a common misconception. The complete transmutation of even one animal species into a different species has never been directly observed either in the laboratory or in the field."
Dean H. Kenyon (Professor of Biology, San Francisco State University), affidavit presented to the U.S. Supreme Court, No. 85-1513, Brief of Appellants, prepared under the direction of William J. Guste, Jr., Attorney General of the State of Louisiana, October 1985, p. A-16.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Even if Darwin was wrong does that prove a god did it or would we just admit we still dont know and may never know.

Really it means that little flaws or inconsistencies in a Victorian's writings, research and predictions will not make the theory of evolution go away. I mean according to PolitcalChic's assertion Darwin is already destroyed as his 'pillar' statement is held to be false according to current knowledge.

BFD.

I doubt his findings have passed sciences peer review. If it does we will hear about it from someone other than politichick. Lol. Their shit never pans out but we have to remain open.

And just like Darwin doesnt disprove god, her finding dont prove god. That's impossible because he really doesnt exist.

She is concerned with empirical evidence to back a theory, yet creationist have no empirical evidence for the existence of God and where he hid Heaven...and Hell...

"creationist ... God ... Heaven...and Hell..."

Now...why would you inject any of those terms?

Oh...right...because you've lost on any scientific basis.

 

[sealybobo]

Even if Darwin was wrong does that prove a god did it or would we just admit we still dont know and may never know.

Really it means that little flaws or inconsistencies in a Victorian's writings, research and predictions will not make the theory of evolution go away. I mean according to PolitcalChic's assertion Darwin is already destroyed as his 'pillar' statement is held to be false according to current knowledge.

BFD.

I doubt his findings have passed sciences peer review. If it does we will hear about it from someone other than politichick. Lol. Their shit never pans out but we have to remain open.

And just like Darwin doesnt disprove god, her finding dont prove god. That's impossible because he really doesnt exist.

She is concerned with empirical evidence to back a theory, yet creationist have no empirical evidence for the existence of God and where he hid Heaven...and Hell...

It is amazing that it doesnt matter to them. But I've gotten a few actually many theists to admit they choose to believe. That's cognitive dissonance. Wishful thinking. And they want it to be true so bad they dont even fathom he isnt real. I was one once. Even when I knew religions were made up and god never visited I still believed in "something". I was brainwashed from birth. The idea is very pervasive in our community.

Omg the other day I saw an old Good Times where michael didn't believe in god. I remember that episode when I was a kid. After I was too old to believe in Santa. I want to thank that liberal show for helping me realize I wasn't alone. Took me another 20 years to realize i dont believe in gods.

 

[sealybobo]

illogical and filled with fallacies....

Let's see how easy it is to show you to be a fool.

I gave Darwin's theory in the OP....in his own words:

3..For purposes of clarity,this is Darwin's perspective, the pillars on which his thesis rests:
The universal common ancestry of all living things: all had a single common ancestorway back in the distant past..."all the organic beings that have ever lived on this earth have descended from some one [ONE SINGLE] primordial form"
Darwin, "On The Origin of Species," p.484.
Then, via the accumulation of finite, beneficial changes....finally, the diversity of life present today.



This just isn't your day, is it.

What's the problem with what Darwin said?

Long ago before telescopes a smart guy like Darwin name Bruno Giordano told christians that the stars were other suns and the universe was bigger than they believed and they burned him alive for blasphemy. Darwin would have been killed to. That's how bad your theory is. It is threatened with truth facts logic and science.

And so even religion has evolved. Lol

"What's the problem with what Darwin said?"


The problem is that sites have been found that clearly show sudden new organisms, with no evidence of 'evolutionary attempts' to produce same, e.g., Burgess Shale, Chengjiang in China....the 'Cambrian Explosion' of new diversity...



7. How to counter this?
If the Ediacaran fauna can be

a. shown to be a structural antecedent to Cambrian fossils found in Burgess, or Chengjiang,...and

b. if their occurrence can be pushed back into the Precambrian period...

..well, then....that goes a long way toward boosting Darwin's stock!

If neither.....Darwin is destroyed.




8. At first, dating suggested that the Ediacaran fossils appeared between 700 and 640 million years ago....but recent, more accurate radiometrics now fix the dates for the first appearance of these fauna at 570-565 million years ago....and their last appearance about 543 million years ago- that means 13 million years prior to the start of the Cambrian explosion.
Grotzinger et al., "Biostratigraphic and Geochronologic Constraints in Early Animal Evolution."
Biostratigraphic and Geochronologic Constraints on Early Animal Evolution




9. Alas....none of 'em are of the hard shelled type identified with the Cambrian Explosion.

More to the point....it would be a bald-faced lie to claim that the Ediacaran fossils represent ancestral forms of the Cambrian animals, or, as some Darwin supporters claim, that they provide examples of such forms.


In this game....two strikes and you're out.

This is the scientific method.

Even in the cosmos they explain how many great discoveries took years to make it to scientific consensus. Sucks but that's the scientific method. Slow beurocratic etc. But maybe this guy is right.

Actually, it is as far from the scientific method as you are from an education.


"I have imposed upon myself, as a law, never to advance but from what is known to what is unknown; never to form any conclusion which is not an immediate consequence necessarily flowing from observation and experiment; and always to arrange the fact, and the conclusions which are drawn from them, in such an order as shall render it most easy for beginners in the study of chemistry thoroughly to understand them."
Antoine Lavoisier, "The Elements of Chemistry," 1790 Antoine Lavoisier


Do you imagine that Darwin's thesis is the product of observation and experimentation?

Imagine is the operative term.


"And let us dispose of a common misconception. The complete transmutation of even one animal species into a different species has never been directly observed either in the laboratory or in the field."
Dean H. Kenyon (Professor of Biology, San Francisco State University), affidavit presented to the U.S. Supreme Court, No. 85-1513, Brief of Appellants, prepared under the direction of William J. Guste, Jr., Attorney General of the State of Louisiana, October 1985, p. A-16.

You can't observe something that takes a million years.

And I was keeping an open mind to your guys theory. So explain it again. Has he seen a new species pop up out of nowhere? Because science can recreate conditions so that mold forms and given a million years who knows what that mold will turn into.

We dont know how life got started on earth. We think we know how it evolved into all the diversity we see now but we dont know how life first started.

It'd be cool if you could tell us how.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Since none of my opponents here are well versed enough in the subject to try to help Darwin....

....I guess I have to.


10. To give Darwinists some cause for hope, there was a recent discovery in cliffs in northwestern Russia of some species of a possible mollusk called Kimberella "that had a strong [though not hard] limpet like shell, crept along the sea floor, and resembled a mollusk... "This may be our first good look at what was going on before the Cambrian explosion, because the mollusks in the Cambrian didn't come out of nowhere. Kimberella may be a look at what those ancestors were like,"
Monastersky, "Ancient Animal Sheds False Identity.'
Ancient animal sheds false identity. - Free Online Library


But not too much hope, as even Kimberella doesn't have the characteristisics that would identify it as a member of the Cambrian Explosion:

"The mollusk shell is typically a calcareous exoskeleton..."Mollusc shell - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia


"The fossil record from this period is sparse, as more easily fossilized hard-shelled animals had yet to evolve. The Ediacaran biota include the oldest definite multicellular organisms with tissues, and the most common types resemble segmented worms, fronds, disks, or immobile bags.

Ediacara biota bear little resemblance to modern lifeforms, and theirrelationshipeven with the later lifeforms of the Cambrian explosion is rather difficult to interpret."
Ediacaran - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia


Too bad.




So....the best the searchers can do, is "... the mollusks in the Cambrian didn't come out of nowhere."

Or did they?

 

[sealybobo]

Since none of my opponents here are well versed enough in the subject to try to help Darwin....

....I guess I have to.


10. To give Darwinists some cause for hope, there was a recent discovery in cliffs in northwestern Russia of some species of a possible mollusk called Kimberella "that had a strong [though not hard] limpet like shell, crept along the sea floor, and resembled a mollusk... "This may be our first good look at what was going on before the Cambrian explosion, because the mollusks in the Cambrian didn't come out of nowhere. Kimberella may be a look at what those ancestors were like,"
Monastersky, "Ancient Animal Sheds False Identity.'
Ancient animal sheds false identity. - Free Online Library


But not too much hope, as even Kimberella doesn't have the characteristisics that would identify it as a member of the Cambrian Explosion:

"The mollusk shell is typically a calcareous exoskeleton..."Mollusc shell - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia


"The fossil record from this period is sparse, as more easily fossilized hard-shelled animals had yet to evolve. The Ediacaran biota include the oldest definite multicellular organisms with tissues, and the most common types resemble segmented worms, fronds, disks, or immobile bags.

Ediacara biota bear little resemblance to modern lifeforms, and theirrelationshipeven with the later lifeforms of the Cambrian explosion is rather difficult to interpret."
Ediacaran - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia


Too bad.




So....the best the searchers can do, is "... the mollusks in the Cambrian didn't come out of nowhere."

Or did they?

Your own report says "other hard shell ones had yet to evolve" ? So your own source believes in evolution!

What does this prove?

 

[Hollie]

Destroying the fraud of Christian fundamentalist's false "science".


Slaying Meyer’s Hopeless Monster
By Richard B. Hoppe on September 4, 2013 11:49 AM

Slaying Meyer s Hopeless Monster - The Panda s Thumb

One is reminded of the Black Knight scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The limbs keep being lopped off.

Stephen Meyer’s “Darwin’s Doubt” has taken a beating from scientists who have reviewed it. Nick Matzke (recently Ph.D.’d and on his way to postdochood in Knoxville), in Meyer’s Hopeless Monster, Part II, eviscerated Meyer’s understanding of phylogenetics, among other things (see also Luskin’s Hopeless Monster). Don Prothero, in Stephen Meyer’s Fumbling Bumbling Amateur Cambrian Follies did the same to Meyer’s presentation of paleontology. John Pieret has a list of critical reviews.

The most ambitious effort is on Smilodon’t Retreat, the blog of an anonymous scientist. The reviewer is slogging through the book section by section. Eight posts are up and we’re just into Chapter 1 (of 20). Go there, read, comment, and cheer the reviewer on.

 

[Hollie]

Stephen Meyer: workin’ in the quote mines
http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2013/08/stephen-meyer-w.html

By Richard B. Hoppe on August 19, 2013 8:43 PM | 86 Comments

Stephen Meyer’s new book, “Darwin’s Doubt: The Explosive Origin of Animal Life and the Case for Intelligent Design,” has received highly critical reviews from several working scientists. Don Prothero panned the book for (among other things) its misrepresentations of paleontology, and Nick Matzke showed Meyer’s ignorance of (among other things) phylogenetic methods (see also here). Now John Farrell has critically reviewed the book in National Review (behind a $0.25 paywall). Farrell’s review criticizes Meyer’s book on several grounds, but the part of immediate interest here is Meyer’s quote mining of a genuine scientist. I’ll quote from the review at some length below the fold.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Since none of my opponents here are well versed enough in the subject to try to help Darwin....

....I guess I have to.


10. To give Darwinists some cause for hope, there was a recent discovery in cliffs in northwestern Russia of some species of a possible mollusk called Kimberella "that had a strong [though not hard] limpet like shell, crept along the sea floor, and resembled a mollusk... "This may be our first good look at what was going on before the Cambrian explosion, because the mollusks in the Cambrian didn't come out of nowhere. Kimberella may be a look at what those ancestors were like,"
Monastersky, "Ancient Animal Sheds False Identity.'
Ancient animal sheds false identity. - Free Online Library


But not too much hope, as even Kimberella doesn't have the characteristisics that would identify it as a member of the Cambrian Explosion:

"The mollusk shell is typically a calcareous exoskeleton..."Mollusc shell - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia


"The fossil record from this period is sparse, as more easily fossilized hard-shelled animals had yet to evolve. The Ediacaran biota include the oldest definite multicellular organisms with tissues, and the most common types resemble segmented worms, fronds, disks, or immobile bags.

Ediacara biota bear little resemblance to modern lifeforms, and theirrelationshipeven with the later lifeforms of the Cambrian explosion is rather difficult to interpret."
Ediacaran - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia


Too bad.




So....the best the searchers can do, is "... the mollusks in the Cambrian didn't come out of nowhere."

Or did they?

Your own report says "other hard shell ones had yet to evolve" ? So your own source believes in evolution!

What does this prove?

The subject is Darwin's theory....not evolution in general.

Is that too nuanced for you?

 

[Hollie]

Since none of my opponents here are well versed enough in the subject to try to help Darwin....

....I guess I have to.


10. To give Darwinists some cause for hope, there was a recent discovery in cliffs in northwestern Russia of some species of a possible mollusk called Kimberella "that had a strong [though not hard] limpet like shell, crept along the sea floor, and resembled a mollusk... "This may be our first good look at what was going on before the Cambrian explosion, because the mollusks in the Cambrian didn't come out of nowhere. Kimberella may be a look at what those ancestors were like,"
Monastersky, "Ancient Animal Sheds False Identity.'
Ancient animal sheds false identity. - Free Online Library


But not too much hope, as even Kimberella doesn't have the characteristisics that would identify it as a member of the Cambrian Explosion:

"The mollusk shell is typically a calcareous exoskeleton..."Mollusc shell - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia


"The fossil record from this period is sparse, as more easily fossilized hard-shelled animals had yet to evolve. The Ediacaran biota include the oldest definite multicellular organisms with tissues, and the most common types resemble segmented worms, fronds, disks, or immobile bags.

Ediacara biota bear little resemblance to modern lifeforms, and theirrelationshipeven with the later lifeforms of the Cambrian explosion is rather difficult to interpret."
Ediacaran - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia


Too bad.




So....the best the searchers can do, is "... the mollusks in the Cambrian didn't come out of nowhere."

Or did they?

Your own report says "other hard shell ones had yet to evolve" ? So your own source believes in evolution!

What does this prove?

The subject is Darwin's theory....not evolution in general.

Is that too nuanced for you?

I'm trying to educate you about evolution. What you "quote-mine" from Harun Yahya is nonsense.

You're just low IQ, right.


Prothero reviews Meyer’s Hopeless Monster

By Richard B. Hoppe on July 22, 2013 2:11 PM
Donald Prothero, paleontologist and author of Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters, has reviewed Meyer’s “Darwin’s Doubt” monstrosity on Amazon. Money quote:

In short, Meyer has shown that his first disastrous book was not a fluke: he is capable of going into any field in which he has no training or research experience and botching it just as badly as he did molecular biology. As I’ve written before, if you are a complete amateur and don’t understand a subject, don’t demonstrate the Dunning-Kruger effect by writing a book about it and proving your ignorance to everyone else!

Via Larry Moran at Sandwalk.

 

[Hollie]

The disappearing Disco ‘Tute

[URL='http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2012/03/the-disappearin.html']http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2012/03/the-disappearin.html[/URL]

An interesting pattern of Discovery Institute behavior has become evident in several events over the last 8 years. It’s a hit and run tactic, with emphasis on the “run.” In at least four significant instances of attempts to jam intelligent design creationism or one of its semantic equivalents into an educational context, the Disco ‘Tute was involved early in the process, providing aid and comfort to the local ID Creationism pushers. But later when push came to shove, the Disco ‘Tute backed out, abandoning their local proxies to the courts and the voters. I’ll briefly describe the four instances (Ohio State BOE; Mt. Vernon, OH, Dover, PA; and Darby, MO) I have in mind below the fold, highlighting the Disco ‘Tute’s style of participation.

 

[PoliticalChic]

11. The Ediacaran fauna is a search in deadly earnest....a search for support for the cause of Darwinian evolution. It represents a need, a desire, to explain the rapid emergence of novel body plans and forms which, as of this time, remain a mystery to evolutionary science.

If Ediacaran fossils are not early forms of the organisms found in the Cambrian Explosion....well, then the fossil record does not show an overall increase in complexity from Precambrian to Cambrian times...as Darwin expected.



a. Darwin posited evolution based on a gradual series of small changes, many of which would result in doom for the organism, as most mutations are lethal, but some which would make same better equipped to survive, and be passed on. But early on, contemporary paleontologists and geologists found contrary fossil evidence: the Cambrian explosion revealed "geologically abrupt appearance of a menagerie of animals as various as any found in the gaudiest science fiction."



b. "THE ABRUPT manner in which whole groups of species suddenly appear in certain formations, has been urged by several palæontologists—for instance, by Agassiz, Pictet, and Sedgwick—as a fatal objection to the belief in the transmutation of species. If numerous species, belonging to the same genera or families, have really started into life at once, the fact would be fatal to the theory of evolution through natural selection."
Darwin, "On The Origin of Species," p.302


Exactly as Darwin stated....the lack of evidence for gradual change...and, in fact, dynamic evidence of sudden change, destroy Darwin's proposal....

...yet it is pushed emphatically throughout the education system.


Only intelligent folks ask why.

 

[PoliticalChic]

12. So....Darwin himself commented on the need to consider the sudden appearance of new and novel body plans and organization as "fatal to the theory of evolution through natural selection."
Darwin, "On The Origin of Species," p.302


Wanna see exactly what he feared?


a. The reason for the name 'explosion,' in Cambrian Explosion, is that during a short geological periodat least 16 completely novel phyla and bout thirty classes first appeared in the fossil record.


b. To give perspective, the Cambrian Explosion, in less than a 2 minute period out of a 24 hour day, in geological terms, with no transitional fossils preceding them in the fossil record, most of the major phyla presently on earth appear abruptly in the fossil record.


c. "During this explosion of fauna, representatives of about twenty of the roughly twenty-six total phyla present in the known fossil record made their first appearance on earth."
Meyers, "Darwin's Doubt," p. 31.


d. " To the question why we do not find rich fossiliferous deposits belonging to these assumed earliest periods prior to the Cambrian system, I can give no satisfactory answer..... The case at present must remain inexplicable; and may be truly urged as a valid argument against the views here entertained." Charles Darwin
X. On the Imperfection of the Geological Record. On the Sudden Appearance of Groups of Allied Species in the Lowest Known Fossiliferous Strata. Darwin Charles Robert. 1909-14. Origin of Species. The Harvard Classics

 

[Hollie]

Oh my. What's a religious zealot to do?

Darwin s Theory of Evolution Definition Evidence
Natural selection

Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection is one of the best substantiated theories in the history of science, supported by evidence from a wide variety of scientific disciplines, including paleontology, geology, genetics and developmental biology.

 

[Hollie]

I thought the fundie simpletons might benefit with a definition that explains evolution.


Teaching IDiots About Evolution

Sandwalk Teaching IDiots About Evolution

The National Academies (Science, Engineering, Medicine) (USA) have just published their latest book on the evolution/creationism controversy. You can download it for free on their website [Science, Evolution, and Creationism].

The book attempts to define evolution and it doesn't do a bad job of describing a minimal definition that would be acceptable—that is if you only look at the actual definition. Here it is from page 5.

Evolution consists of changes in the heritable traits of a population of organisms as successive generations replace one another. It is populations of organisms that evolve, not individual organisms.

 

[PoliticalChic]

13. And here is the basis for the OP: the evidence of the Burgess Shale, for example, spotlights not just the increase in complexity....but the sudden quantum leap in complexity!

Its the fact of radical differences, novel body plans that do not arise from a gradual sequence of intermediates that requires the removal of Darwin's theory to the ash bin!


a. Cambrian: "Some of these animals have mineralized exoskeletons, including those representing phyla, such as echinoderms, brachiopods, and arthropods, and each represent clearly distinct and novel body plans."
Meyers, "Darwin's Doubt," p. 34.


b.How about the sudden.....sudden....appearance of vertebrates in the Cambrian??

In 1999, paleontologists in Southern China also found fossil remains of fish in the Cambrian period. Fish are vertebrates, members of the phylum chordata.
Shu, et. al., "Lower Cambrian Vertebrates in Southern China" (Haikouichthy) Evidence for a single median fin-fold and tail in the Lower Cambrian vertebrate Haikouichthys ercaicunensis - Zhang - 2004 - Journal of Evolutionary Biology - Wiley Online Library



14. More evidence: Opabinia- 15 articulated body segments, 28 gills, 30 flipper-like swimming lobes, long trunk-like proboscis, intricate nervous system...and five separate eyes!
".... found in the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale..."
Opabinia - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia

To get an idea of how dangerous this organism is to Darwinian theory....check out this defensive language..." At first Opabinia was regarded as strong evidence for the "explosive" hypothesis. Later the discovery of a whole series of similar lobopod animals, some with closer resemblances to arthropods, and the development of the idea of stem groups suggested that the Early Cambrian was a time of relatively fast evolution but one that could be understood without assuming any unique evolutionary processes."
Ibid.


a. Picking up on the theme of sudden appearance, Roger Lewin wrote of a 'top-down approach:' “Several possible patterns exist for theestablishment of higher taxa, the two most obvious of which are the bottom-up and the top-down approaches. In the first, evolutionary noveltiesemerge, bit by bit [ala Darwin]. The Cambrian explosion appears to conform to the second pattern, the top-down effect[sudden appearance of fully formed new organims].”
Roger Lewin, “A Lopsided Look at Evolution,” Science 241 (July 15, 1988) p. 292

 

[Hollie]

Meyer’s Hopeless Monster, Part III

Meyer s Hopeless Monster Part III - The Panda s Thumb

The paperback edition of Stephen Meyer’s book Darwin’s Doubt: The Explosive Origin of Animal Life and the Case for Intelligent Design has just been published. It has a new chapter responding to critics of the book – Donald Prothero, Charles Marshall, and yours truly, the blogger the ID guys were dismissing for a year based on the fact that I wrote the review quickly. The largest section of the new chapter responds to me.

The response shows Meyer is finally improving on a few issues like crown/stem group thinking, but rather like a student who flunked the midterm of a phylogenetics course and decided to finally start paying attention, Meyer still makes huge, amateur mistakes. I’ll highlight a few.

 

[Hollie]

10 facts of Darwinian evolution young-earth creationists don’t want to understand

10 facts of Darwinian evolution young-earth creationists don t want to understand How good is that

 

[PoliticalChic]

So....we can see that the recent attempts to explain away the damning evidence against Darwin's theory, i.e., that rather than a succession if small changes in organisms leading to diversity of life...by positing that Ediacaran life....Precambrian, led to the new life forms....

....doesn't hold up in the light of inquiry.




15. "The Precambrian era was a period in earth history before the evolution of hard-bodied and complex organisms. Throughout the extent of both periods, dominant Precambrian and Vendian organisms were simple, entirely marine, and for the most part soft-bodied: hard-bodied organisms did not occur until nearly the beginning of theCambrian Periodwhen the so-called "small shelly faunas" appeared. Vendian Period



16. "The fossil record from this period is sparse, as more easily fossilized hard-shelled animals had yet to evolve. The Ediacaran biota include the oldest definitemulticellular organismswith tissues, and the most common types resemble segmented worms, fronds, disks, or immobile bags.

Ediacara biota bear little resemblance to modern lifeforms, and their relationship even with the later lifeforms of the Cambrian explosion is rather difficult to interpret." Ediacaran - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia



17. The science establishment continues to stone-wall the public, "There are no weaknesses in [Darwin's] theory of evolution."

This was the testimony of Eugenie Scott to the Texas State Board of Education in January when the Board was debating new state science curriculum standards.Dr. Scott is Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), ..." Stutz, T.Texas education board debates teaching of evolution. Dallas Morning News,January 21, 2009....


a. Dr. Stephen C. Meyer produced a binder of one hundred peer-reviewed scientific articles in which biologists described significant problems with the theory.
Meyer, "Darwin's Doubt."



So....when you hear Darwin upholders refer to the Ediacaran fauna as support for Darwinian evolution....be aware that as of this moment.....

....it is a lie.



And, with that in mind, perceptive individuals should begin to wonder why Darwin's is the only theory of evolution being propounded, taught to captive audiences in schools throughout the nation.

 

[Hollie]

15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense
15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense - Scientific American

1. Evolution is only a theory. It is not a fact or a scientific law.
Many people learned in elementary school that a theory falls in the middle of a hierarchy of certainty--above a mere hypothesis but below a law. Scientists do not use the terms that way, however. According to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), a scientific theory is "a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that can incorporate facts, laws, inferences, and tested hypotheses." No amount of validation changes a theory into a law, which is a descriptive generalization about nature. So when scientists talk about the theory of evolution--or the atomic theory or the theory of relativity, for that matter--they are not expressing reservations about its truth.