Second question - If evolutionary theory was correct, the fossil record should show a pattern of gradual divergence from a common ancestor, with major differences arising only after a long accumulation of minor differences. But the fossil record shows exactly the opposite.
This directly contradicts what you're saying regarding "Darwinism". While he may have theorized that scenario, that's NOT the modern view of how evolution works. The reason you don't find all the intermediary steps is that there are so few of them. Modern theory postulates that changes occur in relatively small groups that a nearly indistinguishable from the greater population, until such time as those changes prove a definite advantage and the population explodes. Look up "Punctuated Equilibrium".
You know, everyone keeps saying, "Oh, we don't believe Darwin any more. You keep referencing Darwin (even though it's not Darwin I'm referencing at all) but that's obsolete", but no one feels the need to tell me what it is they think modern evolutionists DO believe that's so wildly divergent from what I listed. Curious.
By the way, nothing you said changes what I said a single iota. The fossil record still doesn't show what your theory would require, no matter how much you try to manipulate the facts to fit your theory. And frankly, the theory you're currently postulating is even less likely than the original. It never ceases to amaze me that evolutionists will pooh-pooh intelligent design for being "wild and unlikely", but will embrace comic-book scenarios like this without a peep.
You're incorrect. No one says, "we don't beieve in Darwin anymore". That would be as dumb as saying, "we don't believe in Newton anymore", just because Einstein expanded our notion of how gravity works. The fossil record does show species disappearring and new ones appearring. How does that happen? We're not manipulating facts to fit the theory; we're manipulating the theory to fit the facts. The facts are: many species not found millions of years ago are found now and many species are very similar to those from the past, but obviously different. To expect to find all the intermediary forms is unlikely because a whole species does not change, rather individuals within that species acquire new characteristics. Therefore, initial numbers will be very small until some change provides the emerging species an advantage that helps them out-compete the old or gives them the ability to move to a new ecologoical niche and thrive.
Well, this is what you said:
This directly contradicts what you're saying regarding "Darwinism". While he may have theorized that scenario, that's NOT the modern view of how evolution works.
Sounds like "We don't believe Darwin anymore" to ME, but maybe they interpret English differently where you live.
This is what Father Time said just a couple of pages ago:
Cec why do you insist on calling it 'Darwinian evolution' when it's been pointed out to you several times that current evolutionary theory is not what Darwin originally proposed?
Sounds like "We don't believe Darwin anymore" too.
This is Hick, just a couple of posts later:
Once again you return to "Darwinian evolution" when several people have pointed out several times that the infant understanding of the topic in the early 1800s is not equivalent to evolution.
I found that particularly funny, since I had been quoting a science writer from Nature magazine just recently, but at any rate, it still sounds like "We don't believe Darwin anymore".
But now you're telling me no one's actually saying that, so I have to ask: Are you reading the same thread I am?
How do species disappear? They die. No one has ever argued over the existence of death, or the fact that species go extinct. How do they appear? Well, that would be the argument, now wouldn't it?
While I appreciate that modern evolution has had to make allowances for the fact that Darwin didn't know much that is now standard knowledge, it is just a piece with the general disingenuousness of evolution apologists to pretend that I'm citing Darwin's original theory. Rather than sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting, "Evolution today is different, and you just don't understand!" over and over, why don't you try actually READING my definition of Darwinian evolution, and telling me what it is that you believe that's so radically different from what I said? Because so far, all I'm getting are dodges, designed to allow everyone to pretend that the controversy is over things that no one is actually arguing.
I never said I expected to find all the intermediates. What I said was that the impossibility of doing so is one reason the fossil record cannot, in principle, prove evolution. I further said that even if we DID have all the generations and intermediates, it STILL wouldn't prove evolution. All it proves is that stuff lived then died. As the man said, no fossil is buried with its birth certificate.
This idea that species exist now that didn't then, therefore that proves they evolved from some totally other species is rather a large leap of . . . well, I can't call it a leap of logic, because it's not logic. I guess I'll have to call it what it really is: a leap of faith. Which belongs in the realm of religion, not science.
Furthermore, no one has ever argued that species change within themselves. This is, as I said, a disingenuous dodge to try to pretend that the debate is over something completely non-controversial and undisputed. Change within a species does not prove change from one species to another, no matter how much evolutionists have tired of trying to prove that it does, and decided to simply assert that the issue is "obvious, and settled, and you're stupid!"
