Evolution been a matter of speculation [read: a vivid imagination] since Darwin first made the theory of atheistic origins popular. He theorized that life had a common descent and had developed from one-celled organisms to soft-bodied invertebrates to athropods to fish to frogs to reptiles to dinosaurs to mammals to man via innumerable small changes over vast periods of time. There was no evidence of the insane number of transitional forms required for the theory to work either observable in the present-day nature world nor in the fossil record, but he shrugged these objections off. These two objections were made trivial to him in the light of his wild speculations of how life developed. He was too interested in fleshing out this self-authored Just So Story to be bothered with the details that the natural world showed adaptation but never one kind of creature changing into another or that the fossil record was void of transitional forms. Since his theory required evolution to occur over vast periods of time and the changes would occur and a mind-boggling slow rate, he reasoned that it would not be observable now. Rather like the Flash’s most rediculous villain, The Turtle, a man so slow no one could see him! And we all know how he explained away the fossil record’s lack of support by complaining that it was imperfect.
It is no wonder that his modern-day apologists are trying to play fill in the blanks to his fantastical tale of What If?
There are a few key points one should keep in mind when discussing transitional forms:
1. It’s based on speculation. Just because you can speculate that a thing occurred a certain way does not mean it actually happened that way.
Darwinists make the presumption that just because they can speculate about how the dots MIGHT have been connected IF evolution were true that it means that they’ve discovered both that it occurred and that it occurred that way.
For example, we have the famous instance of Darwin’s speculation on how the eye might have developed bit-by-bit. Darwinists love to crow about how he showed it was possible. They forget that he did not show that it actually happened that way.
Or take the ungulates-to-whale series promoted as evidence for vertical [phyletic] microbes-to-man evolution. The entire series consists of a groups of hoofed animals wholly unrelated to whales, some partial fossil skeletons and fossils of creatures not in direct ancestral line to modern whales. Propped up by good story-telling.
Take Rodhocetus. Dr. Phil Gingerich [Director of the Museum of Paleontology, University of Michigan], one of the leading experts on whale evolution and Rodhocetus‘ discoverer, promoted the idea that Rodhocetus had a whale’s tail and flippers. Unfortunately, if you visit the University of Michigan, you’ll find that the portion of the tail that would allow us to determine whether Rodhocetus had a whale’s fluke [or not] is missing! “Since then,” Gingerich admits, “we have found the forelimbs, the hands, and the front arms of Rodhocetus, and we understand that it doesn’t have the kind of arms that can be spread out like flippers are on a whale.” [As quoted in Evolution: The Grand Experiment – Volume 1 by Dr Carl Werner, pg 143]. In other words, in the name of Darwin “scientists have added a whale’s tail to an animal when none has been found, and they have added flippers to this same land animal when none have been found.” [Werner, pg. 219]
Consider also the neck of the giraffe. Darwin cheated in Origins, using Lamarkism to explain how he thought the neck might stretch over succesive generations to reac taller trees in a drought. The neck of the giraffe is generally cited as an example of why Lamarck was wrong.
2. It’s based on presumption. Transitional forms carry a bit of circular logic about them. One says that we have proof of the truth of evolution because we have the evidence of transitional forms that fill Darwin’s prescription. One then says that we know these are transitional forms because evolution is true and predicts them.
It is this presumption that has allowed modern-day neo-Darwin apologists like Richard Dawkins and TalkOrigins to make the outlandish claim that we have living examples of transitional forms today. Darwin predicted that these changes would occur over such a long period of time that we could never see evolution in progress. But if we ASSUME evolution is true, we can speculate that each adaptation of species within their kind is actually a transitional form. Therefore they make the ludicrous claim that we can see evolution in action today. Again, that presumes evolution is true a priori. These transitional forms they cite are only transitional forms in truth IF Darwinism is true. We can only truly say we are seeing evolution in action today IF evolution is true.
The evidence speaks more reasonably of the same variation and adaptation of species within their kind that we see today than some Just So Story of common descent.
Now, I say that evolution is just an unfalsifiable belief about the past. We don’t have a time machine to go back and see what happened. Darwinism is the only pseudo-reasonable hypothesis to explain the diversity of life without the need for God. Hand-in-hand with cosmological evolution, it presents a picture of atheistic origins that is completely at odds with the Gensis account of theistic origins.
Recently, Ubiquetous Che objected to my statement that it is an unfalsifiable tautology. He gave this reason:
“Evolution predicts that two sets of fossils that are significantly out of date with one another will never be found within the same geological stratum. The moment that happens, evolution is disproved. Show me a rabbit next to a velociraptor and evolution will be disproven.
“Not only that, but it also predicts that there will never be a fossil for a more recent lifeform found in an earlier geological stratum than an older one. Find me some human bones that are in an older geological stratum than dinosaur bones and evolution is pretty much toast.”
Ignoring [for the moment] the fact that points made while discussing the so-called march of the horse actually make these two similar objections a farce, let’s make some quick observations.
1. A single incidence would not suffice to falsify evolution. Scientists would call that an anamoly. They’d come up with speculation as how it might have happened in ths incidence and then file it away under “Not enough information, but science will have all of the answers someday.” [I call this faith.]
2. A generally recurring pattern would only force an adaption or modification of the theory.
3. Fossils are NOT dated by the strata they’re contained in. On the contrary, the rocks are dated by the fossils they contain.
4. Nowhere in the world are fossils found in neat, successive strata like we see in textbook diagrams. Yes, textbooks are lying to us. Most of the well-known charts, diagrams and illustrations are pure propaganda. In some cases, strata dated older [due to fossil contents] sit on top of strata we have dubbedmore recent [due to fossil contents]. This is all part, we’re assured, of Darwin’s notoriously imperfect fossil record. Geological events have flip-flopped the strata, et cetera.
So let’s examine the objections separately:
In the case of finding a velociraptor and a bunny rabbit together:
1. If it were an incidence or scattering of similar but separate finds, or if the fossil deposit contained predominantly dinosaur remains, it might be theorized that rabbits evolved much earlier than previously supposed. Small mammals did co-exist with dinosaurs, if you’ve forgotten.
2. If it were a general and undeniably obvious pattern, or if thefossil deposits were predominantly mammilian, it might be theorized that some dinosaurs thrived past the Cretaceous in isolated portions of the world or in isolated populations. Darwin was a fan of isolated populations, after all. Call it the Lost World theory. It’s happened before [ex. the coelacanth] where a species thought to be extinct for aeons has shown up in the living world. It is not such a stretch to imagine that a dinosaur might unexpectedly show up in a later fossil record.
3. In either case, I think it’s safe to presume that we would further theorize that the rabbit was on the velociraptor’s menu. I also think it’s more presumable that the Lost World theory would be considered the more probable theory in either circumstance [incidence or pattern] since rocks are more likely [except in unusual circumstances] to be dated be the most recent fossil species contained. For example, a strata containing fish, mammals and insects is not likely to be dated as Devonian or Carboniferous, even if the characteristics of the fish or insects are found to be more similar to fossil species from those strata than to modern species. The presence of the mammalian fossil will cause the finds to be dated according to evolutionary preconceptions and will be assigned a date in the Tertiary.
In the case of human fossils contained in “older geological stratum” than dinosaurs, we have the aforementioned problem. Fossils are not dated by strata. Strata are dated by the fossils they contain.
Therefore, I’m at a loss to speculate just exactly HOW this would even be possible — and you can’t use the impossible as an example of how something might [“might” implies it is possible] be falsifiable.
Strata containing human fossils would be assigned a date in the Quaternary according to evolutionary presuppositions. Any fossils from older periods would be explained in light of this more recent date assignment.
That be as it may, if an indisputably older strata [and, again, how would we determine that?] was found to contain human fossils, we would not throw out the rest of the record! Given modern atheistic science’s predisposition to consider anything, so long as it’s not God, I’d wager they’d be more likely to speculate that they’d found evidence of future human time travel to past epochs of history than to throw out their favorite nontheistic theory of origins.
A few more observations:
1. Let’s face it: If it appeared that human fossils were in a strata older than dinosaurs, it is more likely that the strata containing human fossil remains would be dated as Quaternary and the dinosaur strata would be dated as Mesozoic. Geological events would be used to explain the juxtaposition. This is what Darwinists do today when confronted with such contradictions to their theory, after all.
2. If the geological column [due to a recurring and undeniable pattern of finds worldwide] was accepted as is [however unlikely] AND the evidence was to be interpreted as there are human fossils that predate dinosaur fossils, it is not likely that Darwin apologists would interpret the evidence to mean that ALL human fossils predate ALL dinosaur fossils.
a. Tell me you can’t see these true believers speculating that human evolution has occurred not once, but twice!
b. On the other hand, a gap in fossil finds [man in pre-dinosaur strata, man absent in dinosaur strata, man in post-dinosaur strata] would not invalidate the theory. The fossil record of insects contains a similar gap. They show up in amazing variety and profusion in the Carboniferous, but are absolutely rare in the Creataceous. Scientists chalk up this inconsistency with bad luck rather than observing that it may have more to do with how the strata was laid down than when they lived [catastrophism anyone?]. Such a gap, if accepted as valid and not explained by Dawkinsian flights of fancy like the failed experiments of space aliens or time travellers, would only suggest that humans predate dinosaurs. it would not falsify evolution, since evolution is a theory of common descent via minor changes over vast periods of time; it would only mean that our flow chart is wrong! We’d have to re-evaluate how life progressed, but Darwinists wouldn’t have to throw the baby out with the bathwater, so long as they keep the faith, a vivid imagination and do not stretch the public’s credulity too far. How far is too far? Well, they’re DEFENDING Dawkins despite his speculation that evidence of design might imply life on Earth seeded [and presumably patented] by little green men, so what’s that tell you?
3. If the geological column [due to a recurring and undeniable pattern of finds worldwide] was accepted as is [however unlikely] AND the evidence was to be interpreted as there were dinosaurs living after man evolved, we would hear more Lost World theory, incorporating world-wide dragon legends, lake monsters and modern-day cryptid speculation.
So you see, every time they suggest a way that it might be possible to falsify evolution, it can be shown that they could and would simply imagineer their way out of it to preserve the pet theory.
This, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, is why Origins is shelved under science fiction in my personal library.