Originally posted by Proper KnobI asked you directly to explain it, you could not, that is fine, indeed, it has only
Rob has no interest in learning anything on this topic.
I offered to send him one of my books on evolution with the postage to send it back to me. He declined.
He doesn't want to even entertain the possibility of his faith being diminished.
confirmed my suspicions that the theory itself has led to more disinformation and
ignorance than the meanest medieval church could hope to muster. I know, i come
into contact with persons who profess it all the time, when you press them upon the
matter, they know even less than me!
Originally posted by Proper Knobperhaps i should like you consult a high priest on the matter, say a professor of
You know this because of your voluminous research you've carried out on the topic right?!
biology? then again, i just may use my own mind to make an evaluation rather than
take it upon trust from another.
Originally posted by Proper Knobsure knock yourself out 😉
Explain to me how the fossil record is evidence for creationism.
FOSSILS are the remains of ancient forms of life preserved in the earth’s crust. These may be skeletons or parts of them such as bones, teeth or shells. A fossil also may be some trace of the activity of what was once alive, such as an imprint or trail. Many fossils no longer contain their original material but are made up of mineral deposits that have infiltrated them and have taken on their shape.
2 Why are fossils important to evolution? Geneticist G. L. Stebbins noted a major reason: “No biologist has actually seen the origin by evolution of a major group of organisms.”1 So, living things on earth today are not seen to be evolving into something else. Instead, they are all complete in form and distinct from other types. As geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky observed: “The living world is not a single array . . . connected by unbroken series of intergrades.”2 And Charles Darwin conceded that “the distinctness of specific [living] forms and their not being blended together by innumerable transitional links, is a very obvious difficulty.”3
3 Thus, the distinct varieties of things now alive offer no support to the theory of evolution. That is why the fossil record became so important. It was felt that at least fossils would provide the confirmation that the theory of evolution needed.
What to Look For
4 If evolution were a fact, the fossil evidence would surely reveal a gradual changing from one kind of life into another. And that would have to be the case regardless of which variation of evolutionary theory is accepted. Even scientists who believe in the more rapid changes associated with the “punctuated equilibrium” theory acknowledge that there would still have been many thousands of years during which these changes supposedly took place. So it is not reasonable to believe that there would be no need at all for linking fossils.
5 Also, if evolution were founded in fact, the fossil record would be expected to reveal beginnings of new structures in living things. There should be at least some fossils with developing arms, legs, wings, eyes, and other bones and organs. For instance, there should be fish fins changing into amphibian legs with feet and toes, and gills changing into lungs. There should be reptiles with front limbs changing into bird wings, back limbs changing into legs with claws, scales changing into feathers, and mouths changing into horny beaks.
6 In this regard the British journal New Scientist says of the theory: “It predicts that a complete fossil record would consist of lineages of organisms showing gradual change continuously over long periods of time.”4 As Darwin himself asserted: “The number of intermediate varieties, which have formerly existed, [must] be truly enormous.”5
7 On the other hand, if the Genesis creation account is factual, then the fossil record would not show one type of life turning into another. It would reflect the Genesis statement that each different type of living thing would reproduce only “according to its kind.” (Genesis 1:11, 12, 21, 24, 25) Also, if living things came into being by an act of creation, there would be no partial, unfinished bones or organs in the fossil record. All fossils would be complete and highly complex, as living things are today.
8 In addition, if living things were created, they would be expected to appear suddenly in the fossil record, unconnected to anything before them. And if this was found to be true, what then? Darwin frankly admitted: “If numerous species . . . have really started into life at once, the fact would be fatal to the theory of evolution.”6
How Complete Is the Record?
9 However, is the fossil record complete enough for a fair test of whether it is creation or evolution that finds support? Over a century ago, Darwin did not think so. What was “wrong” with the fossil record in his time? It did not contain the transitional links required to support his theory. This situation caused him to say: “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 serious objection which can be urged against the theory.”7
10 The fossil record in Darwin’s day proved disappointing to him in another way. He explained: “The abrupt manner in which whole groups of species suddenly appear in certain formations has been urged by several paleontologists . . . as a fatal objection to the belief in the transmutation of species.” He added: “There is another and allied difficulty, which is much more serious. I allude to the manner in which species belonging to several of the main divisions of the animal kingdom suddenly appear in the lowest known fossiliferous rocks. . . . The case at present must remain inexplicable; and may be truly urged as a valid argument against the [evolutionary] views here entertained.”8
11 Darwin attempted to explain these huge problems by attacking the fossil record. He said: “I look at the geological record as a history of the world imperfectly kept, . . . imperfect to an extreme degree.”9 It was assumed by him and others that as time passed the missing fossil links surely would be found.
12 Now, after well over a century of extensive digging, vast numbers of fossils have been unearthed. Is the record still so “imperfect”? The book Processes of Organic Evolution comments: “The record of past forms of life is now extensive and is constantly increasing in richness as paleontologists find, describe, and compare new fossils.”10 And Smithsonian Institution scientist Porter Kier adds: “There are a hundred million fossils, all catalogued and identified, in museums around the world.”11 Hence, A Guide to Earth History declares: “By the aid of fossils palaeontologists can now give us an excellent picture of the life of past ages.”12
13 After all this time, and the assembling of millions of fossils, what does the record now say? Evolutionist Steven Stanley states that these fossils “reveal new and surprising things about our biological origins.”13 The book A View of Life, written by three evolutionists, adds: “The fossil record is full of trends that paleontologists have been unable to explain.”14 What is it that these evolutionary scientists have found to be so “surprising” and are “unable to explain”?
14 What has confounded such scientists is the fact that the massive fossil evidence now available reveals the very same thing that it did in Darwin’s day: Basic kinds of living things appeared suddenly and did not change appreciably for long periods of time. No transitional links between one major kind of living thing and another have ever been found. So what the fossil record says is just the opposite of what was expected.
15 Swedish botanist Heribert Nilsson described the situation this way, after 40 years of his own research: “It is not even possible to make a caricature of an evolution out of palaeobiological facts. The fossil material is now so complete that . . . the lack of transitional series cannot be explained as due to the scarcity of material. The deficiencies are real, they will never be filled.”15
Life Appears Suddenly
16 Let us take a closer look at the evidence. In his book Red Giants and White Dwarfs Robert Jastrow states: “Sometime in the first billion years, life appeared on the earth’s surface. Slowly, the fossil record indicates, living organisms climbed the ladder from simple to more advanced forms.” From this description, one would expect that the fossil record has verified a slow evolution from the first “simple” life forms to complex ones. Yet, the same book says: “The critical first billion years, during which life began, are blank pages in the earth’s history.”16
17 Also, can those first types of life truly be described as “simple”? “Going back in time to the age of the oldest rocks,” says Evolution From Space, “fossil residues of ancient life-forms discovered in the rocks do not reveal a simple beginning. Although we may care to think of fossil bacteria and fossil algae and microfungi as being simple compared to a dog or horse, the information standard remains enormously high. Most of the biochemical complexity of life was present already at the time the oldest surface rocks of the Earth were formed.”17
18 From this beginning, can any evidence at all be found to verify that one-celled organisms evolved into many-celled ones? “The fossil record contains no trace of these preliminary stages in the development of many-celled organisms,” says Jastrow.18 Instead, he states: “The record of the rocks contains very little, other than bacteria and one-celled plants until, about a billion years ago, after some three billion years of invisible progress, a major breakthrough occurred. The first many-celled creatures appeared on earth.”19
19 Thus, at the start of what is called the Cambrian period, the fossil record takes an unexplained dramatic turn. A great variety of fully developed, complex sea creatures, many with hard outer shells, appear so suddenly that this time is often called an “explosion” of living things. A View of Life describes it: “Beginning at the base of the Cambrian period and extending for about 10 million years, all the major groups of skeletonized invertebrates made their first appearance in the most spectacular rise in diversity ever recorded on our planet.” Snails, sponges, starfish, lobsterlike animals called trilobites, and many other complex sea creatures appeared. Interestingly, the same book observes: “Some extinct trilobites, in fact, developed more complex and efficient eyes than any living arthropod possesses.”20
20 Are there fossil links between this outburst of life and what went before it? In Darwin’s time such links did not exist. He admitted: “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.”21 Today, has the situation changed? Paleontologist Alfred S. Romer noted Darwin’s statement about “the abrupt manner in which whole groups of species suddenly appear” and wrote: “Below this [Cambrian period], there are vast thicknesses of sediments in which the progenitors of the Cambrian forms would be expected. But we do not find them; these older beds are almost barren of evidence of life, and the general picture could reasonably be said to be consistent with the idea of a special creation at the beginning of Cambrian times. ‘To the question why we do not find rich fossiliferous deposits belonging to these assumed earliest periods prior to the Cambrian system,’ said Darwin, ‘I can give no satisfactory answer.’ Nor can we today,” said Romer.22
21 Some argue that Precambrian rocks were too altered by heat and pressure to retain fossil links, or that no rocks were deposited in shallow seas for fossils to be retained. “Neither of these arguments has held up,” say evolutionists Salvador E. Luria, Stephen Jay Gould and Sam Singer. They add: “Geologists have discovered many unaltered Precambrian sediments, and they contain no fossils of complex organisms.”23
22 These facts prompted biochemist D. B. Gower to comment, as related in England’s Kentish Times: “The creation account in Genesis and the theory of evolution could not be reconciled. One must be right and the other wrong. The story of the fossils agreed with the account of Genesis. In the oldest rocks we did not find a series of fossils covering the gradual changes from the most primitive creatures to developed forms, but rather in the oldest rocks, developed species suddenly appeared. Between every species there was a complete absence of intermediate fossils.”24
23 Zoologist Harold Coffin concluded: “If progressive evolution from simple to complex is correct, the ancestors of these full-blown living creatures in the Cambrian should be found; but they have not been found and scientists admit there is little prospect of their ever being found. On the basis of the facts alone, on the basis of what is actually found in the earth, the theory of a sudden creative act in which the major forms of life were established fits best.”25
Continued Sudden Appearances, Little Change
24 In the layers above that Cambrian outburst of life, the testimony of the fossil record is repeatedly the same: New kinds of animals and new kinds of plants appear suddenly, with no connection to anything that went before them. And once on the scene, they continue with little change. The New Evolutionary Timetable states: “The record now reveals that species typically survive for a hundred thousand generations, or even a million or more, without evolving very much. . . . After their origins, most species undergo little evolution before becoming extinct.”26
25 For example, insects appeared in the fossil record suddenly and plentifully, without any evolutionary ancestors. Nor have they changed much even down to this day. Regarding the finding of a fossil fly that was labeled “40 million years old,” Dr. George Poinar, Jr., said: “The internal anatomy of these creatures is remarkably similar to what you find in flies today. The wings and legs and head, and even the cells inside, are very modern-looking.”27 And a report in The Globe and Mail of Toronto commented: “In 40 million years of struggling up the evolutionary ladder, they have made almost no discernible progress.”28
26 A similar picture exists for plants. Found in the rocks are fossil leaves of many trees and shrubs that show very little difference from the leaves of such plants today: oak, walnut, hickory, grape, magnolia, palm and many others. Animal kinds follow the same pattern. The ancestors of those alive today appear in the fossil record suddenly and were much like their living counterparts. There are many variations, but all are easily identified as the same “kind.” Discover magazine notes one such example: “The horseshoe crab . . . has existed on earth virtually unchanged for 200 million years.”29 Those that became extinct also followed the same pattern. Dinosaurs, for example, appear suddenly in the fossil record, with no links to any ancestors before them. They multiplied greatly, then became extinct.
27 On this point the Bulletin of Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History states: “Species appear in the sequence very suddenly, show little or no change during their existence in the record, then abruptly go out of the record. And it is not always clear, in fact it’s rarely clear, that the descendants were actually better adapted than their predecessors. In other words, biological improvement is hard to find.”30
No Transitional Features
28 Another difficulty for evolution is the fact that nowhere in the fossil record are found partially formed bones or organs that could be taken for the beginning of a new feature. For instance, there are fossils of various types of flying creatures—birds, bats, extinct pterodactyls. According to evolutionary theory, they must have evolved from transitional ancestors. But none of those transitional forms have been found. There is not a hint of them. Are there any fossils of giraffes with necks two thirds or three quarters as long as at present? Are there any fossils of birds evolving a beak from a reptile jaw? Is there any fossil evidence of fish developing an amphibian pelvis, or of fish fins turning into amphibian legs, feet and toes? The fact is, looking for such developing features in the fossil record has proved to be a fruitless quest.
29 New Scientist noted that evolution “predicts that a complete fossil record would consist of lineages of organisms showing gradual change continuously over long periods of time.” But it admitted: “Unfortunately, the fossil record does not meet this expectation, for individual species of fossils are rarely connected to one another by known intermediate forms. . . . known fossil species do indeed appear not to evolve even over millions of years.”31 And geneticist Stebbins writes: “No transitional forms are known between any of the major phyla of animals or plants.” He speaks of “the large gaps which exist between many major categories of organisms.”32 “In fact,” The New Evolutionary Timetable acknowledges, “the fossil record does not convincingly document a single transition from one species to another. Furthermore, species lasted for astoundingly long periods of time.”33—Italics added.
30 This agrees with the extensive study made by the Geological Society of London and the Palaeontological Association of England. Professor of natural science John N. Moore reported on the results: “Some 120 scientists, all specialists, prepared 30 chapters in a monumental work of over 800 pages to present the fossil record for plants and animals divided into about 2,500 groups. . . . Each major form or kind of plant and animal is shown to have a separate and distinct history from all the other forms or kinds! Groups of both plants and animals appear suddenly in the fossil record. . . . Whales, bats, horses, primates, elephants, hares, squirrels, etc., all are as distinct at their first appearance as they are now. There is not a trace of a common ancestor, much less a link with any reptile, the supposed progenitor.” Moore added: “No transitional forms have been found in the fossil record very probably because no transitional forms exist in fossil stage at all. Very likely, transitions between animal kinds and/or transitions between plant kinds have never occurred.”34
31 Thus, what was true in Darwin’s day is just as true today. The evidence of the fossil record is still as zoologist D’Arcy Thompson said some years ago in his book On Growth and Form: “Darwinian evolution has not taught us how birds descend from reptiles, mammals from earlier quadrupeds, quadrupeds from fishes, nor vertebrates from the invertebrate stock. . . . to seek for stepping-stones across the gaps between is to seek in vain, for ever.”35
What About the Horse?
32 However, it has often been said that at least the horse is a classic example of evolution found in the fossil record. As The World Book Encyclopedia states: “Horses are among the best-documented examples of evolutionary development.”36 Illustrations of this begin with a very small animal and end with the large horse of today. But does the fossil evidence really support this?
33 The Encyclopædia Britannica comments: “The evolution of the horse was never in a straight line.”37 In other words, nowhere does the fossil evidence show a gradual development from the small animal to the large horse. Evolutionist Hitching says of this foremost evolutionary model: “Once portrayed as simple and direct, it is now so complicated that accepting one version rather than another is more a matter of faith than rational choice. Eohippus, supposedly the earliest horse, and said by experts to be long extinct and known to us only through fossils, may in fact be alive and well and not a horse at all—a shy, fox-sized animal called a daman that darts about in the African bush.”38
34 Placing little Eohippus as the ancestor of the horse strains the imagination, especially in view of what The New Evolutionary Timetable says: “It was widely assumed that [Eohippus] had slowly but persistently turned into a more fully equine animal.” But do the facts support this assumption? “The fossil species of [Eohippus] show little evidence of evolutionary modification,” answers the book. It thus concedes, regarding the fossil record: “It fails to document the full history of the horse family.”39
35 So, some scientists now say that little Eohippus never was a type of horse or an ancestor of one. And each type of fossil put into the horse line showed remarkable stability, with no transitional forms between it and others that were thought to be evolutionary ancestors. Nor should it be surprising that there are fossils of horses of different sizes and shapes. Even today, horses vary from very small ponies to large plow horses. All are varieties within the horse family.
What the Fossil Record Really Says
36 When we let the fossil record speak, its testimony is not evolution-oriented. Instead, the testimony of the fossil record is creation-oriented. It shows that many different kinds of living things suddenly appeared. While there was great variety within each kind, these had no links to evolutionary ancestors before them. Nor did they have any evolutionary links to different kinds of living things that came after them. Various kinds of living things persisted with little change for long periods of time before some of them became extinct, while others survive down to this day.
37 “The concept of evolution cannot be considered a strong scientific explanation for the presence of the diverse forms of life,” concludes evolutionist Edmund Samuel in his book Order: In Life. Why not? He adds: “No fine analysis of biogeographic distribution or of the fossil record can directly support evolution.”40
38 Clearly, the impartial inquirer would be led to conclude that fossils do not support the theory of evolution. On the other hand, fossil evidence does lend strong weight to the arguments for creation. As zoologist Coffin stated: “To secular scientists, the fossils, evidences of the life of the past, constitute the ultimate and final court of appeal, because the fossil record is the only authentic history of life available to science. If this fossil history does not agree with evolutionary theory—and we have seen that it does not—what does it teach? It tells us that plants and animals were created in their basic forms. The basic facts of the fossil record support creation, not evolution.”41 Astronomer Carl Sagan candidly acknowledged in his book Cosmos: “The fossil evidence could be consistent with the idea of a Great Designer.”42
courtesy of watchtower bible and tract society, Pennsylvania.
references
1. Processes of Organic Evolution, by G. Ledyard Stebbins, 1971, p. 1.
2. Genetics and the Origin of Species, by Theodosius Dobzhansky, 1951, p. 4.
3. The Origin of Species, by Charles Darwin, 1902 edition, Part Two, p. 54.
4. New Scientist, book review by Tom Kemp of The New Evolutionary Timetable by Steven M. Stanley, February 4, 1982, p. 320.
5. The Origin of Species, Part Two, p. 55.
6. Ibid., p. 83.
7. Ibid., p. 55.
8. Ibid., pp. 83, 88, 91, 92.
9. Ibid., pp. 94, 296.
10. Processes of Organic Evolution, p. 136.
11. New Scientist, January 15, 1981, p. 129.
12. A Guide to Earth History, by Richard Carrington, 1956, p. 48.
13. The New Evolutionary Timetable, by Steven M. Stanley, 1981, p. 6.
14. A View of Life, by Salvador E. Luria, Stephen Jay Gould, Sam Singer, 1981, p. 642.
15. Synthetische Artbildung (The Synthetic Origin of Species), by Heribert Nilsson, 1953, p. 1212.
16. Red Giants and White Dwarfs, by Robert Jastrow, 1979, p. 97.
17. Evolution From Space, by Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe, 1981, p. 8.
18. Red Giants and White Dwarfs, p. 249.
19. The Enchanted Loom: Mind in the Universe, by Robert Jastrow, 1981, p. 23.
20. A View of Life, pp. 638, 649.
21. The Origin of Species, Part Two, p. 90.
22. Natural History, “Darwin and the Fossil Record,” by Alfred S. Romer, October 1959, pp. 466, 467.
23. A View of Life, p. 651.
24. Kentish Times, England, “Scientist Rejects Evolution,” December 11, 1975, p. 4.
25. Liberty, “Evolution or Creation?” by Harold G. Coffin, September/October 1975, p. 12.
26. The New Evolutionary Timetable, p. xv.
27. The New York Times, “Prehistoric Gnat,” October 3, 1982, Section 1, p. 49.
28. The Globe and Mail, Toronto, “That’s Life,” October 5, 1982, p. 6.
29. Discover, “The Tortoise or the Hare?” by James Gorman, October 1980, p. 89.
30. Field Museum of Natural History Bulletin, Chicago, “Conflicts Between Darwin and Paleontology,” by David M. Raup, January 1979, p. 23.
31. New Scientist, February 4, 1982, p. 320.
32. Processes of Organic Evolution, p. 147.
33. The New Evolutionary Timetable, p. 95.
34. Should Evolution Be Taught? by John N. Moore, 1970, pp. 9, 14, 24; New Scientist, “Letters,” September 15, 1983, p. 798.
35. On Growth and Form, by D’Arcy Thompson, 1959, Vol. II, pp. 1093, 1094.
36. The World Book Encyclopedia, 1982, Vol. 6, p. 333.
37. Encyclopædia Britannica, 1976, Macropædia, Vol. 7, p. 13.
38. The Neck of the Giraffe, by Francis Hitching, 1982, p. 31.
39. The New Evolutionary Timetable, pp. 4, 96.
40. Order: In Life, by Edmund Samuel, 1972, p. 120.
41. Liberty, September/October 1975, p. 14.
42. Cosmos, by Carl Sagan, 1980, p. 29.
a. The Enchanted Loom, p. 29.
b. The New Evolutionary Timetable, pp. 4, 5.
c. The World We Live In, by Lincoln Barnett, 1955, p. 93.
d. Red Giants and White Dwarfs, p. 224.
e. Science, February 23, 1973, p. 789.
f. Red Giants and White Dwarfs, p. 249.
g. The Natural History of Palms, by E. J. H. Corner, 1966, p. 254.
h. Encyclopædia Britannica, 1976, Macropædia, Vol. 7, p. 565.
i. The Insects, by Peter Farb, 1962, p. 14.
j. Encyclopædia Britannica, 1976, Macropædia, Vol. 7, p. 567.
k. Marvels & Mysteries of Our Animal World, by The Reader’s Digest Association, 1964, p. 25.
l. The Fishes, by F. D. Ommanney, 1964, p. 64.
m. The Reptiles, by Archie Carr, 1963, p. 37.
n. Ibid., p. 41.
o. The Mammals, by Richard Carrington, 1963, p. 37.
p. Processes of Organic Evolution, p. 146.
q. The World Book Encyclopedia, 1982, Vol. 2, p. 291.
r. The Primates, by Sarel Eimerl and Irven DeVore, 1965, p. 15.
s. Science Digest, “The Water People,” by Lyall Watson, May 1982, p. 44.
t. Science Digest, “Miracle Mutations,” by John Gliedman, February 1982, p. 90.
u. The New Evolutionary Timetable, p. 5.
Originally posted by robbie carrobieI do not know the exact specifics of how feathers evolved, i am after all not an evolutionary biologist. A simple Google investigation reveals lots of information on the topic, i could spend the next few hours reading up on the topic and presenting you with the evidence you so desire or i could just copy and paste as you have done above. But you are a grown man and are capable of performing a Google search on your own.
I asked you directly to explain it, you could not, that is fine, indeed, it has only
confirmed my suspicions that the theory itself has led to more disinformation and
ignorance than the meanest medieval church could hope to muster. I know, i come
into contact with persons who profess it all the time, when you press them upon the
matter, they know even less than me!
If you really wish to learn you can, it's within your grasp.
Originally posted by robbie carrobieBut that's the point, you haven't made an evaluation with your own mind. You have repeatedly refused to look at the evidence for evolution. How can you evaluate something you've not even looked at? 😞
perhaps i should like you consult a high priest on the matter, say a professor of
biology? then again, i just may use my own mind to make an evaluation rather than
take it upon trust from another.
Originally posted by Proper Knobdid i not just post a whole article on the subject?
But that's the point, you haven't made an evaluation with your own mind. You have repeatedly refused to look at the evidence for evolution. How can you evaluate something you've not even looked at? 😞
Originally posted by robbie carrobieYou think copying and pasting something from your organisation amounts to an 'evaluation'?
did i not just post a whole article on the subject?
Anyhow, most of those quotes are 50 YEARS OLD!!!!!! The latest one is from 1982, that's positively prehistoric in terms of evolution!!!
Originally posted by Proper Knobit matters little, Darwins theory is older than that.
You think copying and pasting something from your organisation amounts to an 'evaluation'?
Anyhow, most of those quotes are [b]50 YEARS OLD!!!!!! The latest one is from 1982, that's positively prehistoric in terms of evolution!!![/b]
Originally posted by robbie carrobieLet's give the article it's full title Rob -
sure knock yourself out 😉
FOSSILS are the remains of ancient forms of life preserved in the earth’s crust. These may be skeletons or parts of them such as bones, teeth or shells. A fossil also may be some trace of the activity of what was once alive, such as an imprint or trail. Many fossils no longer contain their original material but are made ...[text shortened]... ites, in fact, developed more complex and efficient eyes than any living arthropod possesses.”20
Life--How Did It Get Here? By Evolution or By Creation? written by Harry Peloyan
A creationist book from the Jehovah's Witnesses, filled with gross inaccuracies and creationist falsehoods.
http://evolutionwiki.org/wiki/Life--How_Did_It_Get_Here%3F
There's some absolutely shocking quote mining in this article. Come on Rob, you can do better than this dishonest piece of work.
For example take the Carl Sagan quote at the end -
The basic facts of the fossil record support creation, not evolution. Astronomer Carl Sagan candidly acknowledged in his book Cosmos: “The fossil evidence could be consistent with the idea of a Great Designer.”
But when you examine Sagan's full quote -
The fossil evidence could be consistent with the idea of a Great Designer; perhaps some species are destroyed when the Designer becomes dissatisfied with them, and new experiments are attempted on an improved design. But this notion is a little disconcerting. Each plant and animal is exquisitely made; should not a supremely competent Designer have been able to make the intended variety from the start? The fossil record implies trial and error, an inability to anticipate the future, features inconsistent with an efficient Great Designer (although not with a Designer of a more remote and indirect temperament).
Do you think misrepresenting someone like this is acceptable? It is essentially a form of dishonesty, ie lying.
Originally posted by Proper Knobis that the best you have? that we misrepresented a quotation? was not the full reference , volume and page number also given? well then either address the points the article made, for side issues like, 'you have misrepresented this and that', are just that, side issues which tend to obfuscate the actual content of the post. The article itself was simply one chapter from the book, citing that its a creationist book hardly makes any difference, you state it as if its a bad word. I dont think we have misrepresented him at all, in fact, they were his words, not ours, we simply quoted them. No i dont think i can do better than that, to me it makes perfect sense.
Let's give the article it's full title Rob -
Life--How Did It Get Here? By Evolution or By Creation? written by Harry Peloyan
A creationist book from the Jehovah's Witnesses, filled with gross inaccuracies and creationist falsehoods.
http://evolutionwiki.org/wiki/Life--How_Did_It_Get_Here%3F
There's some absolutely shocking quote minin esenting someone like this is acceptable? It is essentially a form of dishonesty, ie lying.
Originally posted by robbie carrobieThe quote was taken out of context and used to suggest something which the original quote wasn't making. It's called 'quote mining'. It is dishonest and you know it is. If someone had used that tactic on your organisation you would be up in arms, and rightly so, it is unacceptable.
is that the best you have? that we misrepresented a quotation? was not the full reference , volume and page number also given? well then either address the points the article made, for side issues like, 'you have misrepresented this and that', are just that, side issues which tend to obfuscate the actual content of the post. The article itself was ...[text shortened]... simply quoted them. No i dont think i can do better than that, to me it makes perfect sense.
If all you can muster is a misinformed quote mined piece of work that's nearly 30yrs old, it doesn't say a lot does it.
Originally posted by Proper KnobI think the article is beautifully crafted and clearly demonstrates why the fossil record shows incontrovertible evidence for creationism. You can always beg to differ.
The quote was taken out of context and used to suggest something which the original quote wasn't making. It's called 'quote mining'. It is dishonest and you know it is. If someone had used that tactic on your organisation you would be up in arms, and rightly so, it is unacceptable.
If all you can muster is a misinformed quote mined piece of work that's nearly 30yrs old, it doesn't say a lot does it.