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CREATIONISIM vs EVOLUTION

i have been flummoxed recently by the assertion from a theist that " the general failure of the record to display gradual transitions from one major group to another" ...........and...... "the eye appears to have been designed; no designer of telescopes could have done better"

It's hard to believe but i hadn't come across this before, your thoughts please

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Permalink Reply by Loren Miller on March 28, 2012 at 8:58am

Michael Behe tried to pull that same crap about a lack of transitional fossils during the Kitzmiller v Dover trial back in 2005 ... and on cross-examination, was confronted with documentation on more transitional forms than I think he cared to consider. Oh, and should I mention - he and his cohorts from The Discovery Institute LOST that case.

As for the formation of the eye, may I suggest this excellent piece from PBS.

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Permalink Reply by booklover on March 28, 2012 at 9:11am

then who created the designer who created the eye?

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Permalink Reply by matthew greenberg on March 28, 2012 at 12:15pm

your title give the word "versus" a bad name :)

it's not exactly a fair matchup.

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Permalink Reply by Pat on March 28, 2012 at 12:26pm

When pitted against each other on a level playing field, it never is.

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Permalink Reply by Napoleon Bonaparte on March 28, 2012 at 1:14pm

There are transitional fossils as well as transitional living species.

For example, the fossil of the four limbed whale and the remains of the hind limbs on the skeleton of some extant species of whale. We have extant snakes with leg marking on their bodies and we have the fossil of a beak-less bird with teeth.

The difference between the mammalian eye and a telescope is that only the latter is designed.

I wear glasses, anyway.

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Permalink Reply by mark haycock on March 28, 2012 at 5:09pm

thanks but can you provide some referance material so i can do a bit of study on this subject, the pbs material helped thanks loren

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Permalink Reply by Loren Miller on March 28, 2012 at 5:12pm

Google works great, Mark. That's how I found the PBS piece. As for transitional fossil evidence, I just Googled that phrase and came up with all manner of stuff!

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Permalink Reply by mark haycock on March 28, 2012 at 6:27pm

sometimes you cant see the forrest for the trees eh, thanks again

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Permalink Reply by matthew greenberg on March 28, 2012 at 5:15pm

What Potent said, but I'll add talkorigens.com as a useful reference.

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Permalink Reply by matthew greenberg on March 28, 2012 at 5:15pm

Loren, not Potent. Autocorrect.

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Permalink Reply by Napoleon Bonaparte on March 29, 2012 at 2:15am

Starting with Wikipedia is a good way

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Permalink Reply by Sara on March 28, 2012 at 6:34pm

Perhaps one of the most detailed books I've read with evidence for evolution would be Dawkin's "The Greatest Show on Earth". He very eloquently explains and breaks it all down, including hords of fossils as well as controlled experiments that show evolution happen in just a few decades.

The problem you face when talking to such people that you initially described is not a lack of evidence, though. Regardless of how much evidence you show them, through recent studies or fossil records, they will continually deny that you've provided any evidence at all. They are so trained with their mantra of "there's a missing link", "irreducible complexity", and the link that they simply just repeat it until you're exhausted in dealing with them.