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From: gnewman@iglou.com (Greg 'Bonz' Newman)
Subject: Re: Creation VS Evolution Survey Now Complete
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Date: Mon, 8 Jul 1996 12:33:03 GMT
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Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu sci.skeptic:187657 sci.lang:57123

On Tue, 9 Jul 1996 02:00:45 -0400, david ford
<dford3@gl.umbc.edu> wrote:



>In an attempt to explain away the fossil evidence, which says
>that there do not exist Darwin's predicted transitional forms,
>Eldridge says on 171 that "rapid evolution, which is most likely
>to occur in small & rather restricted populations, will tend to
>reduce the chances of finding any traces of the intermediates in
>the fossil record."  In other words, we don't find the predicted
>transitional forms because the change occurred so rapidly.

 No, because the changes occurred LOCALLY.

 Look -- when McDonalds or some other large company introduces a
new product, they often test market it with small groups before
they take it national. Suppose they try the new product with a
few focus groups for a few months -- anly a few hundred people
know there is going to be a new product. They add a little
lettuce, take off a little mayo -- until they hit on a recipe
that seems to have acceptance.

 Then they introduce it in a couple of test market areas --
Denver and Minneapolis, say.  If it holds up THERE for a few
months, they release it world wide.

  Suppose you're a researcher from the future, trying to figure
out how so many companies managed to release so many VERY popular
products. You see that one day, there were no Big Deluxe
sandwiches, and the next day there were Big Deluxes in Paris and
New York -- everywhere you dig.

  Then, one day, you dig in Denver. Hey -- here are Big Deluxes
MONTHS before they showed up anywhere else!!! And if you happen
to uncover the wrappers from a focus group, you go back MORE
months.

 So you write up your findings: While it APPEARS that McDonalds
sandwiches just SUDDENLY appeared planet wide, we found a few
sites where the sandwiches were just developing. They made the
changes in small populations first, and THEN, when conditions
were right, released the product world wide. The development
proccess REALLY took months. It's just hard -- though not
impossible -- to find the evidence of the changes.


  As I
>put it before, *"How to explain the lack of transitional fossils
>in the fossil record?"  "Evolution occurred so quickly,
>relatively speaking since the earth is billions of years old,
>that no fossils were able to form."  Pretty clever, don't you
>think?

Not particularly clever. How closely did you read Eldrege's and
Gould's paper? WHy do you neglect to mention the pages of math?
And the discussions of snail populations?


>How can one expect fossils of transitional forms, if the changes
>occurred in the mere blink of an eye in the context of the
>geological time scales?

 By finding the small, local areas where the 'test marketing' was
done.

 Look -- some critter has an enormous range. Within that range
are several smaller, sub populations. Over HERE, by the lakes,
they do better in wet conditions; over THERE, by the desert, they
tolerate dry conditions better. One day, the normal range
changes. It get wetter or drier. The major population dies off.
An already existing, small population suddenly gets larger.

The gross APPEARANCE is that the population just suddenly
changed. There is no way for yuo to know that there was a small,
lake population unless you happen to dig RIGHT THERE.


>  It was just this lack of transitional
>forms that compelled Gould & Eldridge to propose in 1972 their
>theory of punctuated equilibria.  This theory basically admits
>that the history of life on earth is one where organisms appear
>suddenly, with little in the way of change following this abrupt
>appearance.

 Exactly. Things have the APPEARANCE of sudden jumps. It APPEARS
that they suddenly change. They DON'T, but it APPEARS that way.

>  It says that long periods of stasis, or time when
>not much was happening except microevolution (horizontal
>changes),

 There is no such thing as a horizontal or vertical change.
Change is change.

> were punctuated by periods when vast changes were
>undergone, i.e., macroevolution (vertical change), e.g., as that
>seen in the Cambrian explosion.  No transitional forms were left
>because the changes conveniently occurred so rapidly.


 Did you read the paper AT ALL? Or any of the following ones?
NONE of them say this. Zero. None.




>When Darwin presented his _Origin of Species_ in 1859, it was
>already known among paleontologists that the fossil record simply
>lacked transitional forms.[Fossils, 38.]  Says Darwin on 99 of
>Philip Appleman's abridged (1975) edition of _The Origin of
>Species_, "Those who believe that the geological record is in any
>degree perfect, will undoubtedly at once reject the theory....
>the forms of life... falsely appear to have been abruptly
>introduced."  At the time Darwin wrote, organisms appeared
>abruptly, suddenly, with no prior warning.

>Further study only compounded the problem: before the assiduous
>searching, the lack of such forms, those forms to be expected if
>Darwin's theory were really true, could be blamed on lack of
>study.  With much effort now having been expended trying-- &
>failing-- to find those forms, that excuse is no longer possible. 
>A few of examples of possible intermediate forms have been
>proposed, e.g., _Archaeopteryx_, therapsids, & a whale fossil
>that purportedly has vestigial limbs (not an _intermediate_,
>though), but there should be present literally _thousands_ in the
>fossil record.  Searching has shown that they're not there, that
>they don't exist.

>Darwin predicted on 95 that they would:
>       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, be
>       truly enormous.  Why then is not every geological formation
>       & every stratum full of such intermediate links?  Geology
>       assuredly does not reveal any such finely-graduated organic
>       chain; & this, perhaps, is the most obvious & serious
>       objection which can be urged against the theory.  The
>       explanation lies, as I believe, in the extreme imperfection
>       of the geological record.

>Darwin further states on 96, "the number of intermediate &
>transitional links, between all living & extinct species, must
>have been inconceivably great.  But assuredly, if this theory be
>true, such have lived upon the earth."

>In a nice example of where the paleontologists have not allowed
>Darwin's idea to be falsified in the face of the evidence,
>Eldridge comments on 36 that Darwin had
>       saddled himself with the prophecy that his theory would
>       ultimately stand or fall on the successful demonstration
>       that the fossil record does indeed yield examples of slow,
>       steady, progressive evolutionary change.

>in predicting, on the basis of his theory, that the missing forms
>would eventually be discovered.  Darwin made a prediction, &
>surprise surprise, he was dead wrong.  Yet has Darwin's theory of
>evolution been considered disproved?  Of course not.  We simply
>fix the theory so that the changes occur so rapidly that no
>transitional forms can be found.  (Well, OK, a few transitions
>are claimed to have been found.  But where are all the others? 
>There should be literally _thousands_.)

>The fact that Darwin was wrong doesn't bother Eldridge on 208 in
>the least:
>       Nonetheless, his was an empirical claim: he said it himself,
>       that future paleontological research would settle the matter
>       of the basic patterns of evolutionary change.  (He actually
>       said that his theory would stand or fall on what future
>       paleontologists had to say on the matter-- which was going
>       too far!

>Compare this situation with Einstein's theory of relativity.  If
>relativity were to predict results, & the key predictions of the
>theory were not borne out in measurements, physicists would throw
>the thing out.  Yet in the case of the theory of evolution, it
>makes a very important prediction, & rather than ditch the theory
>when it turns out totally incorrect, the thing is twisted so
>severely that we no longer have "natural selection," but
>"miracle."

>We have things appearing abruptly, Gould & Eldredge label those
>appearances punctuations, give no explanation of how those things
>came to be, & voila, the "fact" of evolution.  This lack of an
>explanation of how this happened can be once again compared with
>relativity: Einstein had a reason for why the results would be as
>they eventually were borne out to be, namely, saying that gravity
>was a function of the warping of spacetime.  In comparison, for
>the theory of evolution, there are all kinds of differing
>explanations-- none credible.  Everyone that's respectable in the
>biological & paleontological community, though, _of course_
>agrees that evolution is a _fact_ & that it really did occur in
>the past, even though nobody can agree on a mechanism & its
>predictions don't match up with reality.  Go figure.

>Why this is the case is because the biologists & paleontologists
>wish to avoid God.  They would abandon Darwin's theory for
>another that could actually explain in naturalistic fashion the
>fossil record in a non-ad hoc manner if only that "another"
>existed.  Since it does not exist, rather than accept God as an
>explanation they must stick with Darwin's & proclaim to the
>public that it's fine, when it has actually been terminal for
>years.


