As I understood their position (and admitedly I have not delved into this for many years) the argument was that we have never seen a cat evolve into a fish. Or variations of that sort of argument. The ones I remember were based on the idea that we had never seen a species mutate to the point that it could not breed with its progenitors. This idea Diogenes the Cynic’s sites crushes quite nicely (thanks again BTW).
“We have never seen a cat evolve into a fish”.
Bugger it, my cover is blown. Mmy whole position was predicated on that argument.
I’m a convert now. Please send me the badge.
Or a half-dog/half-cat. I must admit that this type of creationist never lasted very long - I got the impression they learned this from some particularly idiotic minister, and were so shocked that the evil evolutionist did not repent from this powerful refutation of godless atheism (sorry, athiesm) that they depart, never to return.
Truly, I think they’ve seen the famous cartoon of the fish becoming a man, and think that is the way evolution is supposed to work.
Never hung around talk.origins, I take it. 
You now accept that species die out and are replaced by other species which weren’t there before, over millions of years?
The “kind” argument is simply yet another way to keep changing the rules. Somewhere I’ve got some old creationist books (early 70s, maybe?) in which they clearly state that ‘macroevolution can’t be proved because we’ve never seen a species split into two’. Of course, as with all things Creation Science, it’s a moving target. Over the last few years they’ve moved back a step, just as they’ve consistently done with the irreducible complexity nonsense. Now that there are numerous documented examples of observed speciation, it’s become ‘macroevolution can’t be proved because we’ve never seen a genus split’.
The God of the Gaps keeps getting smaller, but is infinitely divisible into tinier and tinier motes. I think it’s part of that ineffable thing…
You pretty much nailed it, redtail23. Add to this the general argument that if there’s anything where we haven’t yet figured out how it happened, that’s proof that God did it, and you have most of “Creation Science” summed up.
Also, many thanks to voyager, DF and Diogenes.
You should put that on your headstone you know, sentient meat.
And no, I’m still not convinced it’s true.
Did you look through the examples in Diogenes the Cynic’s cite? They are quite convincing.
In the Blink of an Eye by Andrew Parker, is an outstanding book which explains this in great detail.
From the description at Amazon:
I especially enjoyed his discussion of how hypothoses about early life can be demonstrated in the fossil record. Many of his descriptions are facinating.
Note: I am not a paleantologist by any means. If there is a better description of these things I do not mean to disparage them.
Well, do you accept that trilobites, dinosaurs and humans/tigers/horses/eagles etc. are only found together in strata separated by millions of years?
As far as I’m aware, yes. But I don’t see that as clinching evidence. As I’ve said all along, though, I have little emotional investment in creationism, so I’ll continue to keep my mind open on this.
Probably my last post of the day, as the server usually takes its 75 minute break at around this time.
Non-sequitur. If you had little emotional investment in creationism, you would have acknowledged the mountains of evidence by now.
Seriously, what is the more likely proposition? That God created everything the way it is and then went to enormous lengths to hide his handiwork and make it look exactly like species die out and become replaced, or that it is as it seems to be?
Understand, bodswood, that if you don’t think it is true that the species appeared at different times but accept that this is what the fossil record tells us explicitly, you must think an alternative explanation for the fossil record is true. Agreed?
If so, perhaps you could tell us what that is. Is God misleading us, or did tigers and horses somehow dispose of their corpses until very recently?
I have come under some peer pressure from others in my church, to develop emotional investment in creationism, because dismissal of it is seen as the top of a slippery slope; arguments like “Well, if we don’t absolutely believe in the literality of Genesis, how can we be sure that Jesus even existed?” are not at all uncommon.
The only honest answer to such arguments is “So what?”; consider:
We believe A to be true and our belief is such that it is strongly reliant upon B.
Then someone demonstrates B to be substantially false.
We could choose to doggedly cling to B, fearing that if we accept it as false, we will eventually lose our grip on A.
Or we could accept that it is actually more important to get hold of the truth, even if this means we might have to let A go at some point.
In actual point of fact though, the all-or-nothing argument is the staple of the two extremes in the debate; the fundie extreme using it as emotional blackmail to keep the flock in formation, the anti extreme using it as an argument as to why the whole lot belongs in the trash. Black and white are not the only colours.
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Something I’ve never understood is how it’s possible to absolutely believe in the literality of Genesis. Genesis 1 and 2:1-2 give an account of creation in 7 days, with plants produced on the third day and man (and woman) on the sixth. Genesis 2:4-7 gives an account in which Adam is created when “no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the earth.” How can someone absolutely believe in the literality of both accounts?
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The moment one stops being oneself in church (or in any other part of life) is the moment when one is on the edge of the slippery slope. But I accept that pressure to conform to group thinking can be extreme. One or two good friends is a great boon.
To be more specific, Parker’s hypothesis does not differ from the current hypothesis regarding what the Cambrian Explosion was: a rapid increase in the number of organisms with fossilizable hard parts, not a rapid increase in the number of phyla. What Parker offers is an explanation for that sudden increase in hard parts: the rapid evolution of eyes. This spurred an incredibly rapid (in geological terms) evolutionary arms race which resulted in the explosion of forms we see in the fossil record; critters began evolving hard parts as defense against predators which could now find them much easier. The evolution of eyes is thought to have very rapid indeed - perhaps in as little as half a million years (and that’s a conservative estimate)!
What would be clinching evidence? The voice of god booming out saying, “bodswood you fool, how much evidence do I have to show you that this is how it happened?”
Because if you believe god is responsible for the earth, creationists are believing a book written by humans over the evidence of the rocks directly written by god. I know the Bible is supposed to be inspired, but the rocks are direct.
BTW, your claim that you have only a little emotional investment in creationism does not fit the evidence I see. You have a lot.
The only appropriate response to this is an investigation of your psychology.
Absolutely. I did not mean to suggest that Parker’s book was some sort of wholely new explanation for the evolution which took place during the Cambrian Explosion. Merely that it offeren another explanation for that explosion, and that his book does so in a way which is very accessible for a non paleontologist. His early chapters explaining in detail the characteristics of fossils which prove one or other characteristic of early life were especially fascinating.
I highly recomend this book to anyone who is interested in how the fossil record is translated into detail knowledge of the history of life on earth.