From: shafto@ils.nwu.edu (Eric Shafto)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Darwin's Enigma
Date: 16 Apr 92 17:43:06 GMT
Organization: The Institute for the Learning Sciences

jloucks@uts.amdahl.com (Jim Loucks) writes:


> that may be what's preventing my point from being understood. 

Or it could be that we do understand your point, and you don't.  See
below. 

> The
> evidence for punctuated equilibria is a lack of transitional
> fossils,

A *relative* lack -- fewer than might be expected from a gradualistic
theory.  Your theory predicts a *total* lack -- none.  Do you see the
difference?  It is not the first time that you have used this sleazy
trick of confusing the two.


> which is exactly what we would expect with special creation. How 
> does a scientist determine the difference in the evidence between 
> a fossil that was the result of punctuated equilibria, and a 
> fossil that was the result of special creation? The physical 
> evidence (fossil record) for both will be identical. This is all
> I'm asking.

Ah, then it will be easily answered.  A created fossil will start
appearing at the moment of creation in the fossil record.  It will
continue to appear until the current day, unless it goes extinct
somewhere along the way.

A fossil that is the result of punctuated equilibrium-style evolution
will appear in the fossil record in association with some similar
species. It will begin to exist somewhere during the fossil record,
and will continue to exist until the current day, unless it goes
extinct somewhere along the way.  Since hydrological sorting was
throughly refuted (beaten to death, actually, and then jumped on a few
times) right here on our very own newsgroup.

> 
> 
> >Gradualist types argue that it is not the speciation mechanism, but the
> >spotty nature of the fossil record, which generally leaves these low-level
> >gaps.  They point to places where the fossil record is very detailed (very
> >fine resolution in time, and a type of creature which fossilizes very
> >well), where a gradual evolution can be seen to take place.  (PE types
> >would counter that this sort of evolution *can* occur, but that it is
> >the exception rather than the rule.)
> 
> Doesn't this cover all angles in reference to the fossil record,
> and therefore cannot be falsified?

No, it does not put any cow below the first fish.  Not even one.
There are zillions of insects.  How come we don't find even one in the
Burgess shales, or below them?  A fossilized cow in the Burgess shales
would be an astonishing anomaly.  If we suddenly turned up a number of
such anomalies, the theory of common descent would be in serious
trouble.  It would take more than a single find because of the
hundred+ years of evidence in favor of common descent, but it is
theoretically possible.

We never should have sent Loucks back to the ICR to find out about
their lies.  They've brainwashed him again, and it will probably take
months of this bullshit before he starts to question again.  Look at
the post I'm responding to here.  It could have been his third post
t.o.  Pathetic.

-- 
*Eric Shafto             * The longer I live the more I see I am never    *
*Institute for the       * wrong about anything, and that all the pains I *
*    Learning Sciences   * have so humbly taken to verify my notions have *
*Northwestern University * only wasted my time.          --G. B. Shaw     *