Science vs. Creationism

[BENTLEY]

from chapter 6 of On the Origin of the Species - titled "Difficulties on the Theory":

Why, if species have descended from other species by insensibly fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms.

-- The fossil record is insufficient to support the theory. So says Darwin.


Here's chapter 9 called "On the Imperfection of the Geological Record" for any of those who would like to read it.
https://www.literature.org/authors/darwin-charles/the-origin-of-species/chapter-09.html

Here's a couple links to fossil forgeries (yeah, since there wasn't any actual "missing link" transitional fossils people forged them):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piltdown_Man
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaeoraptor


Why would people be so determined to prove evolution that they would forge the "proof"? It makes you wonder. But take Christian conspiracy theories out of the debate. In fact, take the whole idea of God out of it too. Let's be rational about this and try to avoid getting sucked into some debate on the existence of God.

Simply, Darwin had a theory - one even he admitted was lacking. There's been plenty of time to find the evidence, but all we've found are forgeries. So until there's evidence for the theory, it's just a theory, and I'm not gonna be a sheep and accept it on blind faith. You don't have to believe in God to doubt Darwin's theory.

 

[BENTLEY]

Have you read Origin of Species? People refer to it not just because it was revolutionary for it's time or because they are bullies but because it is that good. An important thing to remember is that it is not called the Origin of Life for a reason.

What's the reason? I'm not as smart as you.

 

[♪alt13]

from chapter 6 of On the Origin of the Species - titled "Difficulties on the Theory":
-- The fossil record is insufficient to support the theory. So says Darwin.


Here's chapter 9 called "On the Imperfection of the Geological Record" for any of those who would like to read it.
https://www.literature.org/authors/darwin-charles/the-origin-of-species/chapter-09.html

You're right. The fossil record was insufficient in 1859.

Here's a couple links to fossil forgeries (yeah, since there wasn't any actual "missing link" transitional fossils people forged them):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piltdown_Man
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaeoraptor

Why would people be so determined to prove evolution that they would forge the "proof"? It makes you wonder. But take Christian conspiracy theories out of the debate. In fact, take the whole idea of God out of it too. Let's be rational about this and try to avoid getting sucked into some debate on the existence of God.

Simply, Darwin had a theory - one even he admitted was lacking. There's been plenty of time to find the evidence, but all we've found are forgeries. So until there's evidence for the theory, it's just a theory, and I'm not gonna be a sheep and accept it on blind faith. You don't have to believe in God to doubt Darwin's theory.

Some people will for their own advancement create forgeries. Science being an open endeavor where the evidence is the ultimate arbiter of claims will eventually expose them. The same process that was used to expose these forgeries has verified many others.
https://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/specimen.html

It is a very rare thing for any creature to become a fossil. Despite this we have found early hominid fossils.

What's the reason? I'm not as smart as you.

Not sure if you're just being sarcastic but I'll bite.

The Origin of Species talks about just that, speciation. How gradual changes can produce new species. The origins of life are still very much a mystery that we are now only beginning to understand. There are some very good theories out there to explain how life may have originated. The theory of evolution while related to the origins of life is not dependent upon it for validation. Even if we were never able to come to a proper understanding of how life began that would not keep us from understanding how it evolves.


PS You should read your links before posting. Darwin in that chapter explains, much better than I ever could, the "imperfection of the geological record". It is not, despite the title, an acquiescence to his theories skeptics.

 

[One Brow]

Like many of us, I too had always thought that those who didn't accept evolution were Bible thumping morons.

There are many bible-thumping geniuses. Being a genius is no guarantee of being right, being a moron is no guarantee of being wrong. Humans often blind themselves to evidence in subservience to their ideological needs. By contrast, evolutionary theory is based on evidence, and it's conclusions are correct regardless of the intelligence of the proponent or opponent.

Turns out you don't have to be religious to doubt Darwin's theory. ... This guy David Berlinski's great.

Modern scientists don't use Darwin's theory. Instead, they took most of the theory, removed the parts that were wrong, and added a lot more as indicated by the evidence.

Berlinski is a hack. If you like, I can link yo to several critiques of his positions that demonstrate this.

 

[One Brow]

-- The fossil record is insufficient to support the theory. So says Darwin.

...

Here's a couple links to fossil forgeries (yeah, since there wasn't any actual "missing link" transitional fossils people forged them):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piltdown_Man
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaeoraptor

Why would people be so determined to prove evolution that they would forge the "proof"? It makes you wonder. But take Christian conspiracy theories out of the debate. In fact, take the whole idea of God out of it too. Let's be rational about this and try to avoid getting sucked into some debate on the existence of God.

Simply, Darwin had a theory - one even he admitted was lacking. There's been plenty of time to find the evidence, but all we've found are forgeries. So until there's evidence for the theory, it's just a theory, and I'm not gonna be a sheep and accept it on blind faith. You don't have to believe in God to doubt Darwin's theory.

At the time Darwin wrote, the fossil evidence was lacking. Since then, we've found tens of thousands (at least) of fossils. There have been a couple of attempts at forgeries, but the same scientists (collectively) who found the genuine fossils also rooted out the forgeries.

For example, almost every fossil on this page was found after Darwin died:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_human_evolution_fossils

That's just for the changes that happened after humans diverged from chimpanzees.

The general reason for faking fossils is to get individual or local recognition. Sometimes money can be a factor. In particular, part of the reason Piltdown Man was created was because some people didn't like the thought than humans evolved in Africa, as opposed to Europe.

 

[One Brow]

There are some very good theories out there to explain how life may have originated.

This is strictly about the choice of words. We have no theories about the beginning of life, just hypotheses. We don't want to water down the word "theory" as used in science; that just gives ammunition to the anti-science folks.

 

[Jazz Spazz]

There are many bible-thumping geniuses. Being a genius is no guarantee of being right, being a moron is no guarantee of being wrong. Humans often blind themselves to evidence in subservience to their ideological needs. By contrast, evolutionary theory is based on evidence, and it's conclusions are correct regardless of the intelligence of the proponent or opponent.

Just a thought based on this line.

Religions are also often based on evidence. A different type of evidence, but just as real to many people. Just because some people dismiss the evidence does not make it any less real. It's a different perspective and opinion of what counts as evidence, and what is real, but not less valid.

 

[One Brow]

Just a thought based on this line.

Religions are also often based on evidence. A different type of evidence, but just as real to many people. Just because some people dismiss the evidence does not make it any less real. It's a different perspective and opinion of what counts as evidence, and what is real, but not less valid.

I agree. I would have been more precise by saying "observational, repeatable, objective evidence".

 

[Jazz Spazz]

I agree. I would have been more precise by saying "observational, repeatable, objective evidence".

objective if it's a noun, sure
repeatable applies to both
observational applies to both

 

[One Brow]

objective if it's a noun, sure
repeatable applies to both
observational applies to both

In another thread, perhaps on another day if you don't wish to have it now, I would enjoy having a discussion with you about this. For example, I don't think we mean "observation" in quite the same way, but I would be interested to hear what you mean, rather than assuming it, when you feel like discussing it.

 

[BENTLEY]

PS You should read your links before posting. Darwin in that chapter explains, much better than I ever could, the "imperfection of the geological record". It is not, despite the title, an acquiescence to his theories skeptics.

Seriously? I wish you could explain it better because Darwin's rhetoric is so dry and tedious. And severely lacking in evidence. And yeah, he doesn't acquiesce to his critics, but he does at least acknowledge the reasons for their skepticism - and acknowledges that he lacks the proof to persuade them. But he sticks to his theory, defending it with vague, unprovable rhetoric. Let's sift thru a few excerpts to see his defense in action (this will be a lengthy post, friends. And this is only excerpts from chapter 9):

The main cause, however, of innumerable intermediate links not now occurring everywhere throughout nature depends on the very process of natural selection, through which new varieties continually take the places of and exterminate their parent-forms. But just in proportion as this process of extermination has acted on an enormous scale, so must the number of intermediate varieties, which have formerly existed on the earth, be truly enormous. 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 gravest objection which can be urged against my theory. The explanation lies, as I believe, in the extreme imperfection of the geological record.

Darwin's defense for the lack of numerous intermediate varieties is that the geological record is extremely imperfect. Yes, it's sorely lacking. I agree. This is his best defense?

I have found it difficult, when looking at any two species, to avoid picturing to myself, forms directly intermediate between them. But this is a wholly false view; we should always look for forms intermediate between each species and a common but unknown progenitor

This isn't proof. This is speculative rhetoric.

On the lapse of Time. Independently of our not finding fossil remains of such infinitely numerous connecting links, it may be objected, that time will not have sufficed for so great an amount of organic change, all changes having been effected very slowly through natural selection. ...A man must for years examine for himself great piles of superimposed strata, and watch the sea at work grinding down old rocks and making fresh sediment, before he can hope to comprehend anything of the lapse of time, the monuments of which we see around us.

How can he expected to prove something that takes eons of observational study? ok, so no proof here.

I have made these few remarks because it is highly important for us to gain some notion, however imperfect, of the lapse of years. During each of these years, over the whole world, the land and the water has been peopled by hosts of living forms. What an infinite number of generations, which the mind cannot grasp, must have succeeded each other in the long roll of years! Now turn to our richest geological museums, and what a paltry display we behold!

Speculative, vague rhetoric - the proof of which he admits is paltry.

That our Palaeontological collections are very imperfect, is admitted by every one.

Ok.

On the sudden appearance of whole groups of Allied Species. The abrupt manner in which whole groups of species suddenly appear in certain formations, has been urged by several palaeontologists, for instance, by Agassiz, Pictet, and by none more forcibly than by Professor 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 all at once, the fact would be fatal to the theory of descent with slow modification through natural selection. For the development of a group of forms, all of which have descended from some one progenitor, must have been an extremely slow process; and the progenitors must have lived long ages before their modified descendants. But we continually over-rate the perfection of the geological record, and falsely infer, because certain genera or families have not been found beneath a certain stage, that they did not exist before that stage. We continually forget how large the world is, compared with the area over which our geological formations have been carefully examined; we forget that groups of species may elsewhere have long existed and have slowly multiplied before they invaded the ancient archipelagoes of Europe and of the United States. We do not make due allowance for the enormous intervals of time, which have probably elapsed between our consecutive formations, longer perhaps in some cases than the time required for the accumulation of each formation. These intervals will have given time for the multiplication of species from some one or some few parent-forms; and in the succeeding formation such species will appear as if suddenly created.

Again, Darwin clings to the vague bastion of "Time." Y'know, evolution takes an insane amount of time so we can't observe it in order to prove it, and y'know, no one lives for eons of time so no one can say one way or another what occurs over time, or doesn't occur over time. This is science? This is compelling?

On the sudden appearance of groups of Allied Species in the lowest known fossiliferous strata. There is another and allied difficulty, which is much graver. I allude to the manner in which numbers of species of the same group, suddenly appear in the lowest known fossiliferous rocks. Most of the arguments which have convinced me that all the existing species of the same group have descended from one progenitor, apply with nearly equal force to the earliest known species. For instance, I cannot doubt that all the Silurian trilobites have descended from some one crustacean, which must have lived long before the Silurian age, and which probably differed greatly from any known animal. Some of the most ancient Silurian animals, as the Nautilus, Lingula, &c., do not differ much from living species; and it cannot on my theory be supposed, that these old species were the progenitors of all the species of the orders to which they belong, for they do not present characters in any degree intermediate between them. If, moreover, they had been the progenitors of these orders, they would almost certainly have been long ago supplanted and exterminated by their numerous and improved descendants.

Consequently, if my theory be true, it is indisputable that before the lowest Silurian stratum was deposited, long periods elapsed, as long as, or probably far longer than, the whole interval from the Silurian age to the present day; and that during these vast, yet quite unknown, periods of time, the world swarmed with living creatures.

To the question why we do not find records of these vast primordial periods, I can give no satisfactory answer.

Look at the evidence. Not the rhetoric. The evidence mentioned here is in conflict with Darwin's theory. To which, his rebuttal once again is Time. So much time that no one can possibly KNOW that his theory is incorrect. He again is given to speculative rhetoric. But when it comes to actual evidence he can't answer.

The case at present must remain inexplicable; and may be truly urged as a valid argument against the views here entertained. To show that it may hereafter receive some explanation, I will give the following hypothesis. From the nature of the organic remains, which do not appear to have inhabited profound depths, in the several formations of Europe and of the United States; and from the amount of sediment, miles in thickness, of which the formations are composed, we may infer that from first to last large islands or tracts of land, whence the sediment was derived, occurred in the neighbourhood of the existing continents of Europe and North America. But we do not know what was the state of things in the intervals between the successive formations; whether Europe and the United States during these intervals existed as dry land, or as a submarine surface near land, on which sediment was not deposited, or again as the bed of an open and unfathomable sea.

Speculation is his rebuttal.

The several difficulties here discussed, namely our not finding in the successive formations infinitely numerous transitional links between the many species which now exist or have existed; the sudden manner in which whole groups of species appear in our European formations; the almost entire absence, as at present known, of fossiliferous formations beneath the Silurian strata, are all undoubtedly of the gravest nature. We see this in the plainest manner by the fact that all the most eminent palaeontologists, namely Cuvier, Owen, Agassiz, Barrande, Falconer, E. Forbes, &c., and all our greatest geologists, as Lyell, Murchison, Sedgwick, &c., have unanimously, often vehemently, maintained the immutability of species. But I have reason to believe that one great authority, Sir Charles Lyell, from further reflexion entertains grave doubts on this subject. I feel how rash it is to differ from these great authorities, to whom, with others, we owe all our knowledge. Those who think the natural geological record in any degree perfect, and who do not attach much weight to the facts and arguments of other kinds even in this volume, will undoubtedly at once reject my theory. For my part, following out Lyell's metaphor, I look at the natural geological record, as a history of the world imperfectly kept, and written in a changing dialect; of this history we possess the last volume alone, relating only to two or three countries. Of this volume, only here and there a short chapter has been preserved; and of each page, only here and there a few lines. Each word of the slowly-changing language, in which the history is supposed to be written, being more or less different in the interrupted succession of chapters, may represent the apparently abruptly changed forms of life, entombed in our consecutive, but widely separated formations. On this view, the difficulties above discussed are greatly diminished, or even disappear.

Again, he says that TIME and the lack of perfection in the geological record allows for the possibility of his theory. Ok, fine. But this isn't proof of anything.
Darwin's arguments are speculative. This is science?

 

[One Brow]

Darwin's arguments are speculative. This is science?

Many of Darwin's arguments were speculative. That is science; you need to posit a way forward and a next step, not just catalog what is know.

Most of the speculations have since been confirmed, a very few were rebutted. That is also science.