Christian Forums

Quote from: Amo on Sun Dec 22, 2019 - 12:15:21
Of course you are preaching to the quire when you tell me that chance didn't have anything to do with it,

Choir?  Don't think so.  Creationist often think evolution is about chance, but as you now realize, Darwin's discovery was that it's not by chance.

[quote[and I do appreciate your use of the word theory or theorizing when referring to your theory of evolution. [/quote]

In science, "theory" means an idea or group of ideas, repeatedly verified by evidence.   Until verified, we call them hypotheses.

QuoteIf you are suggesting that God was actively involved in the processes you call evolution so that they were not chance oriented, this would be acceptable.

His activity doesn't depend on chance or necessity.   God can use either for His purposes.

QuoteIf on the other hand you suggest He just started the process and then simply observed,

You're thinking of deism.  For a Christian, even the physical forces of the universe are there because He's involved with them.

Quotethen the idea of chance accomplishing evolution is still absurd.

But Darwin showed it wasn't by chance.

Quote from: The Barbarian on Sun Dec 22, 2019 - 13:26:37
Choir?  Don't think so.  Creationist often think evolution is about chance, but as you now realize, Darwin's discovery was that it's not by chance.

His activity doesn't depend on chance or necessity.   God can use either for His purposes.

You're thinking of deism.  For a Christian, even the physical forces of the universe are there because He's involved with them.

But Darwin showed it wasn't by chance.

A perfect example of where your faith really lies, in your chosen prophet Charles Darwin. Darwin is the one who has showed us it wasn't by chance according the the faith of Barb and his "Christian" evolutionist buddies. Never mind that millions who also submit to the man Darwin's false prophecies, do believe it is according to random chance. So be it. You continue your search and education into Darwins evolutionary tree of life, I will continue mine into God's word unto partaking of the authentic tree of life.

Rev 22:12  And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be. 13 I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. 14 Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city. 15 For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie. 16 I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star.

Through the faith you have chosen in your precious theory, you have and do reject the testimony of one of the commandments of God. You are in danger. Seek to be part of the first group in the above scriptures unto partaking of the tree of life, let go of anything that will place you among those of the second group who will never partake of the same.

Exo 20:8 Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: 10 But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: 11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

Merry Christmas Amo, all the best to you and yours. 

Quote from: Alan on Tue Dec 24, 2019 - 16:18:11
Merry Christmas Amo, all the best to you and yours. 

Likewise to all the Grace Centered posters and staff.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/12/06/ghosts-future/?arc404=true

                                                        Ghosts of the future

A massive Canadian fossil trove reminds us how fleeting life on Earth can be —
                                                     and how much peril we're in

So very true. Would to God, that those taken in the evolution delusion supported in the article quoted below from the link provided above would understand who really destroyed this world the first time, and who alone can save them from the destruction He has determined upon this world once again when He returns. As the evidence they themselves repeat over and over again in their findings is right in front of their faces as they do.

QuoteThis remarkable record exists only because of a catastrophic underwater landslide that buried the organisms in a deluge of sediment millions of years ago. The sand was so fine it would have filled the animals' gills and the hinges of their legs, trapping and suffocating them. The high alkalinity of the oceans, combined with the utter absence of oxygen, would have held at bay the bacteria that would otherwise decompose an organism's soft and squishy parts.

There are massive burial grounds all over the earth filled with millions of creatures and water and mud were a crucial part of preserving the vast majority of all of them. Yet the flood continues to be denied by most. So be it.

Instead, the article goes on to preach the climate change political message concerning saving ourselves through political actions and control. Rejection of the testimony of God's word concerning the past, and defiance of His prediction for this planet in the future. Jesus Christ alone saves and can save anyone from what is coming. All who place their faith in the religious and political leaders of this world who contradict God's word will perish with them. Turn away from faith in fallen humanity to save you, place your faith in the sure word of God and His prophecies and you shall live.

Psa 146:1 Praise ye the LORD. Praise the LORD, O my soul. 2 While I live will I praise the LORD: I will sing praises unto my God while I have any being. 3 Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help. 4 His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish. 5 Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the LORD his God: 6 Which made heaven, and earth, the sea, and all that therein is: which keepeth truth for ever:[/b] 7 Which executeth judgment for the oppressed: which giveth food to the hungry. The LORD looseth the prisoners: 8 The LORD openeth the eyes of the blind: the LORD raiseth them that are bowed down: the LORD loveth the righteous: 9 The LORD preserveth the strangers; he relieveth the fatherless and widow: but the way of the wicked he turneth upside down. 10 The LORD shall reign for ever, even thy God, O Zion, unto all generations. Praise ye the LORD.

Quote from: Amo on Tue Dec 24, 2019 - 11:13:57
A perfect example of where your faith really lies, in your chosen prophet Charles Darwin. Darwin is the one who has showed us it wasn't by chance according the the faith of Barb and his "Christian" evolutionist buddies.

The beauty of science is, no faith required.   Just evidence.   In this case, evidence so compelling that many creationist organizations have conceded that natural selection is a fact.   Would you like to see that?

QuoteNever mind that millions who also submit to the man Darwin's false prophecies

As you know, science deals in evidence, not prophecies.   Darwin merely showed us the facts.

Quotedo believe it is according to random chance.

You're the only one here, who seems to think so.   And seeing as you don't get how evidence works, I'm pretty sure you're not an evolutionist.

QuoteSo be it. You continue your search and education into Darwins evolutionary tree of life,

Actually, it was discovered by Linnaeus, who didn't know about evolution.   You'd be more effective against science if you knew more about it.

Do you have some sort of random Bible verse generator, or are you just flipping pages?

Quote from: The Barbarian on Mon Dec 30, 2019 - 18:49:10
The beauty of science is, no faith required.   Just evidence.   In this case, evidence so compelling that many creationist organizations have conceded that natural selection is a fact.   Would you like to see that?

As you know, science deals in evidence, not prophecies.   Darwin merely showed us the facts.

You're the only one here, who seems to think so.   And seeing as you don't get how evidence works, I'm pretty sure you're not an evolutionist.

Actually, it was discovered by Linnaeus, who didn't know about evolution.   You'd be more effective against science if you knew more about it.

Do you have some sort of random Bible verse generator, or are you just flipping pages?

Yes, I know. You follow the facts according to the man Darwin by faith in the powers that be of this world called by many "science". I will stick to the facts according to the man Jesus Christ and His chosen prophets, whose power is from above. All will choose either faith in that from above, or faith in that from below. So be it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fossil_sites

The above is a list of fossil sites around the world. Not likely it actually contains all of them. Many more are sure to be found. The evidence is there for all to see. Either the biblical account of the flood is true which such evidence continuously supports without end it appears, or the perfect conditions for preserving fossils occurred over and over and over again according to deep time evolution. Which is more likely? If in fact it has happened so many times over and over throughout this worlds deep time history, and we have found so very many examples already, why are there so very few if any supposed transitional fossils among the many millions we have already found? Does this make sense? Why are so many fossils found together in fossil graveyards, that shouldn't be together according to evolution? 

Quote from: Amo on Fri Jan 03, 2020 - 09:13:03
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fossil_sites

The above is a list of fossil sites around the world. Not likely it actually contains all of them.  Many more are sure to be found.

You don't really understand.   The Himalaya mountains are composed of marine fossils.   Huge stretches of rock all over the world are made of fossils.  Hundreds of thousands of square miles of rock contain fossils, mostly small marine animals in silt that was gradually laid down as it is being laid down today.   So gradually that animals burrow in it, construct tunnels in which to live, and eventually die and are buried in it.

The "finds" are fossil beds that contain fossils from a critical point in life's history, showing important transitionals.   For example, until we found rock from a specific age, there were no known transitionals between land animals and whales.  Then, in Pakistan, we found coastal deposits of the right age, and the predicted transitionals were found.

The evidence is there for all to see.

QuoteEither the biblical account of the flood is true which such evidence continuously supports without end it appears, or the perfect conditions for preserving fossils occurred over and over and over again according to deep time evolution. Which is more likely? If in fact it has happened so many times over and over throughout this worlds deep time history, and we have found so very many examples already, why are there so very few if any supposed transitional fossils among the many millions we have already found?

As you learned, there are many, many examples of transitional fossils.   Your fellow YE creationist, Kurt Wise lists dozens of them, as I showed you earlier.  Would you like me to show you again?

QuoteDoes this make sense? Why are so many fossils found together in fossil graveyards, that shouldn't be together according to evolution?

I don't know of any.   Could you show us some?

Quote from: The Barbarian on Fri Jan 03, 2020 - 09:40:43
You don't really understand.   The Himalaya mountains are composed of marine fossils.   Huge stretches of rock all over the world are made of fossils.  Hundreds of thousands of square miles of rock contain fossils, mostly small marine animals in silt that was gradually laid down as it is being laid down today.   So gradually that animals burrow in it, construct tunnels in which to live, and eventually die and are buried in it.

The "finds" are fossil beds that contain fossils from a critical point in life's history, showing important transitionals.   For example, until we found rock from a specific age, there were no known transitionals between land animals and whales.  Then, in Pakistan, we found coastal deposits of the right age, and the predicted transitionals were found.

The evidence is there for all to see.

As you learned, there are many, many examples of transitional fossils.   Your fellow YE creationist, Kurt Wise lists dozens of them, as I showed you earlier.  Would you like me to show you again?

I don't know of any.   Could you show us some?

Of course I don't understand, and never will. Just as you do not understand and never will. The narratives we have chosen as the basis of our beliefs are completely contradictory. Neither will allow for the other without both denying critical aspects of each other. Our standards of truth just are not the same.

https://www.discoveryworld.us/geology/fossil-record-doesnt-support-evolution/

QuoteFossil Record Doesn't Support Evolution!

When one visits the Dinosaur National Monument in Utah, one finds fossilized dinosaurs mixed with marine fossils; sea shells are the most common fossils in this huge deposit of dinosaur fossils.  The flood waters obviously covered the continents, bringing with them the marine creatures and burying them along with dinosaurs and other animals.  From all over the world, throughout the fossil record (geological column) fossilized sea creatures and found land animals are found all mixed together!........................

Furthermore, insect fossils have also been found in the same layer as the dinosaurs and sea creatures.  These insect fossils look just like our modern insects.  If evolution were true, we should find one creature somewhere changing into another in the fossil record.  Yet, what we find in the fossil record are modern looking fossils of crickets, katydids, millipedes, spiders and centipedes in the same rock layers as the dinosaurs and sea creatures.  No change!

A fossilized termite next, on display at Petrified Forest National Park, looks just like a modern termite nest.  The fossil record reveals that modern looking wood wasps, scorpion flies and mayflies flew with the flying reptiles (pterosaurs).

Even the fossilized birds found in the same rock strata as dinosaurs were the same as birds we see in today's world!  Paleontologist have dug up bones of a parrot, penguins, and owls in the dinosaur rock layers.

Perhaps the most challenging fossil phenomena for Darwinian apologists to explain are the vast graveyards of animal remains that are found throughout the world. Ongoing excavations in the Gobi Desert tell of one such sight that has become an embarrassment to evolutionists. Twenty-five theropod dinosaurs have been discovered along with 200 skulls of mammals. There is no evidence of the several million year evolutionary gap or of the iridium boundary that is thought to delineate when the dinosaurs became extinct.

A massive repository of fossils is found in South Africa. We can only speculate how many creatures are contained in this graveyard. One mind-boggling analysis estimates "The Karoo formation in South Africa alone contains fossil remains of about 800 billion animals." (Milner, Richard, The Encyclopedia of Evolution: Humanity's Search for Its Origins, 1990, p. 330.) Only a catastrophe operating on the scale of the Genesis Flood would be sufficient to account for this!

https://www.livescience.com/3794-dinosaur-fossil-mammal-stomach.html

QuoteDinosaur Fossil Found in Mammal's Stomach

In China, scientists have identified the fossilized remains of a tiny dinosaur in the stomach of a mammal. Scientists say the animal's last meal probably is the first proof that mammals hunted small dinosaurs some 130 million years ago.

It contradicts conventional evolutionary theory that early mammals couldn't possibly attack and eat a dinosaur because they were timid, chipmunk-sized creatures that scurried in the looming shadow of the giant reptiles.

In this case, the mammal was about the size of a large cat, and the victim was a very young "parrot dinosaur" that measured about 5 inches long.

A second mammal fossil found at the same site claims the distinction of being the largest early mammal ever found. It's about the size of a modern dog, a breathtaking 20 times larger than most mammals living in the early Cretaceous Period......................

https://creation.com/dinosaur-and-mammal-tracks-found-together

QuoteDinosaur and mammal tracks found together

..............................

With the help of famous track expert Martin Lockley, they discovered that the small slab had 70 non-overlapping tracks from eight species. It not only contained dinosaur tracks, but also mammal tracks and pterosaur traces. The nodossaur track first noticed by Stanford was the only such track, but it was accompanied by baby nodosaur tracks. The slab also had one large sauropod print, a nodosaur scale, and a coprolite. There were possible invertebrate traces, possible crocodile tracks, and unidentified tracks (figure 1).

The slab is dominated by small tracks, one type being a hypsilophodon and a series of four trackways made by crow-sized theropods. Three types of mammal tracks occur with one of the mammals making tracks in a sitting position, and one large print that surprised the paleontologists, since they have come to believe Mesozoic mammals were rat-like and unspecialized. However, more and more evidence is accumulating for sophisticated Mesozoic mammals.3 Mammal tracks are rare in the Mesozoic but a few are being found, including a recent find in Angola. There are multiple other 'mammal' tracks in the early Mesozoic, but paleontologists have attributed these to 'mammal-like reptiles' called synapsids because of their evolutionary assumptions. It is possible that they are true mammal tracks, explained away because of evolutionary bias..................................

Conclusion

This slab of dinosaur, crocodile, pterosaur, and mammal footprints provides dramatic evidence that supports the biblical account of creation and the Flood. The fact that dinosaur and mammal prints are found on the same slab goes against the evolutionary idea that mammals largely diversified after the dinosaurs. Rather it shows that mammals and dinosaurs lived at the same time. This is expected from a creation perspective because all animals were created during Creation Week and had diversified across the earth before the global Genesis Flood began. The rapid formation and preservation of the prints in days or hours is consistent with the rapid processes that occurred during the Flood. Further, the existence of footprints means that the animals were alive, suggesting that the tracks were made as the floodwaters were rising and before they covered all the earth. After that, all land-dwelling, air-breathing creatures had perished. The prints likely represent the efforts of the animals to escape the ongoing inundation of the rising waters.

https://www.genesispark.com/exhibits/evidence/paleontological/modern-fossils-with-dinos/

Quote"Modern" Fossils with Dinosaurs

....................................................

Paleontologists have found 432 mammal species in the dinosaur layers, almost as many as the number of dinosaur species.  Also many modern bird species have been discovered buried with dinosaur remains: "parrots, owls, penguins, ducks, loons, albatross, cormorants, sandpipers, avocets, etc." (Batten, Don, "Living Fossils: a powerful argument for creation," Creation 33 (2), 2011.) "This symphysis appears to represent the oldest known parrot and is, to my knowledge, the first known fossil of a 'terrestrial' modern bird group from the Cretaceous. The existence of this fossil supports the hypothesis, based on molecular divergence data that most or all of the major modern bird groups were present in the Cretaceous." (Stidham, Thomas A., Nature 396, 29-30, November 5, 1998.) Such stasis (virtually no evolutionary change in these birds for 60 million years) is hard to fathom. It is evidence that both the dinosaurs and birds lived together much more recently.

https://www.genesisalive.com/the-question-of-fossils.html

....................................

QuoteMore Caverns filled with bones World-Wide
Alfrend Rehwinkle in his volume The Flood, 1951 (See Corless Handbook of Geological Enigma's Sourcebook Project 1980 p. 668-9) relates this type of phenomena is not isolated, there being documented discoveries in England, France, Spain, Germany, Greece, USA, Russia and Malta of these same deposits. For example in Greece on the Island of Cerigo, there is a place called the "Mountain of Bones" being 1 mile in circumference. In Burgundy France, is found a steep promontory 1000 feet above the valley floor. Looking skyward is a natural fissure filled to the brim with the broken remains of bears, foxes, wolves, horses, oxen and other animals. Such a deposit was surely made by waters passing over the top of the edifice, these parts settling to fill the crevasse. Similar deposits exist in the British Isles and Sicily, the latter where more than 20 tons of bones were mined out for commercial purposes. On Gibraltar, fissures in number reach over one thousand feet high, full of animal bones, and in one place, claimed human artifacts. Near Odessa, Russia, a cavern was found full of animals such as cat, hyena, horses, boars, mammoth, rhinoceros, deer and smaller animals such as rodents, hares, martens, otter, wolves and foxes all mixed together in no order. This not to mention the 4500 bone remains of bears! Upon close examination of all these deposits we find that very few complete skeletons remain, disproving these deaths being accidental. We must consider their occurrence being a direct consequence of the Flood. More evidence of high water deposition is found detailed in the fossils section in this volume.

Vertical Whale Fossil in CA
Chemical and Engineering News 54:4 Oct. 11, 1976, See Corless Handbook of Geological Enigma's Sourcebook Project 1980 p. 643 and Snelling, PhD, Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal, Vol. 9, no. 2, pp. 244–258, 1995.
While mining in a pit near Lompoc CA, workers uncovered an 80 foot Baleen whale entombed vertically in a pit depression structure. The fossil was found in the presence of many other marine fossils. Whale deposits in groups have been found in Oregon, Peru and recently in Norway. These mixed with various marine mammals and reptiles, each signifying a catastrophic and not a gradual end.

Its official, fossil sites have totaled more than 1 million around the world. 3 Great fossil graveyards that exist in every major continent in the world. In these graveyards vast numbers of creatures are violently mixed together. There are dinosaur graveyards in America and China with hundreds of dinosaurs mixed and buried together with clams, turtles and many other animals. Many fossil graveyards are high up in mountainous areas. In Sicily for example, four thousand feet above sea level on Mount Etna, there are two caves crammed with the bones of thousands of hippopotamus in each grave. On the island of Malta there are lions, tigers, mammoths, birds, beavers, hippopotamus, foxes and more all mixed together. One cave in Malta contains so many fossils that Malta's present size would not keep this awesome quantity fed for just one week!  In America, a death pit exists near Hollywood, with eagles, doves and approximately two hundred and fifty saber tooth tigers and fifty elephants. In Oregon there are beds with elephants, camels, cats, bison, mammoths and mastodon, whales and turtles, mice, lemurs, opossum, beaver and dozens of types of clams to name a few all in water sediment deposits.......................

Along the Arctic coast, naturalists found thousands of mastodons laying out in the tundra, in Siberia, entire islands were made of bones and carcasses of the animals and many were found intact and washed in jumbles by the millions. In Antarctica, fossil beds abound. In California, petrified fish, fossilized with mouths open, backs arched and fins spread, have been found. Many of these fish are partly on end with the body passing through two planes of rock-strata.By modern geology this would mean that the fish-tail is separated from its head by millions of years. That, of course, is not possible. There are approximately five fish per square foot over approximately four square miles. This equates to more than one billion fossilized fish! These graveyards are dramatic evidence that an era of the world ended with enormous violence world-wide in scope.  Many Geologists and Paleontologists have an innate distaste for catastrophism, and that's understandable, Catastrophists easily identify every strata of sediment with a worldwide flood, layer upon layer in the rocks. The author experienced this in college geology classes, when professors were presented with this evidence they abandoned uniformity!  See Grand Canyon and Last Mountain Standing this series. ....................................

Quote from: Amo on Sun Jan 05, 2020 - 09:54:31
https://www.discoveryworld.us/geology/fossil-record-doesnt-support-evolution/

I will first note that I do not, and will not ever hold the belief of evolution. Not in the way that others on here believe it.

Second I will state that I do believe in in a world wide flood.

Always remember... no matter what it appears I am saying.... NO evolution ~ YES world wide flood.

But playing devils advocate here there are two noticeable things that jump out at me from what you posted.

QuoteFossil Record Doesn't Support Evolution!

When one visits the Dinosaur National Monument in Utah, one finds fossilized dinosaurs mixed with marine fossils; sea shells are the most common fossils in this huge deposit of dinosaur fossils.  The flood waters obviously covered the continents, bringing with them the marine creatures and burying them along with dinosaurs and other animals.  From all over the world, throughout the fossil record (geological column) fossilized sea creatures and found land animals are found all mixed together!........................   

There is absolutely nothing in what you have posted that would discount or deny that evolution could not have taken place in the millennia before the flood.

The next thing is that for all the listings of places world wide that talks of these build up fossil pieces, that "they" whoever "they" are list.... why do they NOT show photographs of each and every one of them but expect one to take it at face value that what "they" say is true.

Quote from: seekingHiswisdom on Sun Jan 05, 2020 - 12:39:34
I will first note that I do not, and will not ever hold the belief of evolution. Not in the way that others on here believe it.

Second I will state that I do believe in in a world wide flood.

Always remember... no matter what it appears I am saying.... NO evolution ~ YES world wide flood.

But playing devils advocate here there are two noticeable things that jump out at me from what you posted.

There is absolutely nothing in what you have posted that would discount or deny that evolution could not have taken place in the millennia before the flood.

The next thing is that for all the listings of places world wide that talks of these build up fossil pieces, that "they" whoever "they" are list.... why do they NOT show photographs of each and every one of them but expect one to take it at face value that what "they" say is true.

Most, even "Christian" evolutionists do not accept the biblical testimony of a global flood. As far as photo's, the same could be said for non stop articles by evolutionists who do not supply photos or try few at that. The evidence for the flood is not so much about proving evolution couldn't happen, but rather that the testimony of scripture is true and literal concerning not only the flood but creation as well. It is all a matter of faith according to one's chosen narrative. The evidence is the same for everyone, interpretations of that evidence are what vary.

https://news.softpedia.com/news/Discovery-of-a-Large-Jurassic-Mammal-Turns-Theory-on-its-Head-18659.shtml

Emphasis in below article is mine.

QuoteDiscovery of a Large Jurassic Mammal Turns Theory on its Head

Scientists have long thought that during dinosaurs' time mammals were tiny, rat-like creatures that kept a low profile in order to survive. However, a discovery in northern China of a furry aquatic creature with seal-like teeth and a flat tail like a beaver has demolished that image. This creature, that lived around 164 million years ago, weighted more than half a kilogram and was around half a meter in length. It used to swim in lakes, eating fish and lived alongside dinosaurs. This is the largest mammal from this time period discovered so far.

The Chinese archaeologists led by Qiang Ji of Nanjing University found the well-preserved fossil in the Jiulongshan Formation in Inner Mongolia. Besides the skeleton including teeth, there were also impressions of soft tissue and fur, both guard hairs and short, dense under-fur that probably kept the water from the skin.

"Based on its relatively large size, swimming body structure, and anterior molars specialized for [fish] feeding, Castorocauda was a semiacquatic carnivore, similar to the modern river otter," the team writes in the paper announcing the find in today's issue of Science.

"Its lifestyle was probably very similar to the modern-day platypus," Zhe-Xi Luo, curator of vertebrate paleontology at Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, said in a statement. "It probably lived along river or lake banks. It doggy-paddled around, ate aquatic animals and insects, and burrowed tunnels for its nest."

According to Thomas Martin of the Research Institute Senckenberg in Frankfurt, Germany, who was not part of Luo's team, this discovery pushes back the date of the mammal conquest of the waters by more than 100 million years. "We stand at the threshold of a dramatic change in the picture of mammalian evolutionary history," he said. "The potential of fossil-rich deposits like the Jehol group in Liaoning Province in China or the Jiulongshan Formation in Inner Mongolia is only just beginning to be exploited."

Modern semi-aquatic mammals such as beavers and otters and aquatic mammals like whales did not appear until between 55 million years ago and 25 million years ago. This is the first evidence of much earlier semi-aquatic mammals and indicates a greater diversification than previously thought.

Although the animal looks in many ways like a beaver, it is not actually related to modern beavers. Nonetheless, scientists named it Castorocauda lutrasimilis - Castoro from the Latin for beaver, cauda for tail, lutra for river otter and similis meaning similar.

On another thread some time ago, I postulated that if the biblical account of creation is true, evolutionists would continue to find more complex life forms further back in time than they had previously anticipated. Then I posted article after article by evolutionists documenting this very thing. The above is of a similar nature. As highlighted in the above article, it moves mammal evolution back 100 million years further than once though by those of the Darwinian faith. This trend continues, as I see it, because the creation account is truth. Complexity and fully developed plants, animals, insects, marine life, and whatever else were here from the beginning. Deep time evolution theories are built upon faulty presumptions.

https://phys.org/news/2016-06-mammals-began-takeover-death-dinosaurs.html

Emphasis in quote below from link above is mine.

QuoteMammals began their takeover long before the death of the dinosaurs

It's a familiar story—the mighty dinosaurs dominated their prehistoric environment, while tiny mammals took a backseat, until the dinosaurs (besides birds) went extinct 66 million years ago, allowing mammals to shine. Just one problem—it's not true. A new article in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B reports that mammals actually began their massive diversification ten to twenty million years before the extinction that ended the age of the dinosaurs.
.........................

The old hypothesis hinged upon the fact that many of the early mammal fossils that had been found were from small, insect-eating animals—there didn't seem to be much in the way of diversity. But over the years, more and more early mammals have been found, including some hoofed animal predecessors the size of dogs. The animals' teeth were varied, too. Grossnickle, along with his co-author Elis Newham at the University of Southampton, analyzed the molars of hundreds of early mammal specimens in museum fossil collections. They found that the mammals that lived during the years leading up to the dinosaurs' demise had widely varied tooth shapes, meaning that they had widely varied diets. These different diets proved key to an unexpected finding regarding mammal species going extinct along with the dinosaurs.

Not only did mammals begin diversifying earlier than previously expected, but the mass extinction wasn't the perfect opportunity for mammal evolution that it's traditionally been painted as. Early mammals were hit by a selective extinction at the same time the dinosaurs died out—generalists that could live off of a wide variety of foods seemed more apt to survive, but many mammals with specialized diets went extinct.

The scientists involved with the study were surprised to see that mammals were initially negatively impacted by the mass extinction event. "I fully expected to see more diverse mammals immediately after the extinction," said Grossnickle. "I wasn't expecting to see any sort of drop. It didn't match the traditional view that after the extinction, mammals hit the ground running. It's part of the reason why I went back to study it further—it seemed wrong."

More of the same. The biblical creation account is true, and they will keep finding more and more evidence pushing their dates further and further back, because their deep time scenarios are false. It is no surprise at all to creationists that the mammals were decimated by the flood just like all other creatures, as the actual evidence all over the globe suggests. Evolutionists simply cannot go where the evidence really leads, so they stick to deep time and alternate cataclysmic events for their ever evolving explanations.

https://news.unl.edu/newsrooms/today/article/unprecedented-wave-of-large-mammal-extinctions-linked-to-ancient-humans/

QuoteUnprecedented wave of large-mammal extinctions linked to ancient humans

Homo sapiens, Neanderthals and other recent human relatives may have begun hunting large mammal species down to size — by way of extinction — at least 90,000 years earlier than previously thought, says a new study published in the journal Science..................................................

Everything is always earlier than they previously thought because things were so very different from the beginning than they think. This scenario will continue to play out over and over, because the creation account is true, regardless of the non stop changes evolutionists make in their adaption to new evidence more in line with creation than their own theory.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2951268/Furry-forerunners-Jurassic-arboreal-burrowing-mammals-unearthed.html

Dinosaurs DIDN'T have it all their own way: Earliest tree and underground dwelling mammals discovered - and are far more advanced than previously thought

The title says it all.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-40881480

Emphasis in quote below from link above is mine.

QuoteFirst 'winged' mammals flew over dinosaurs

Fossils of the first "winged" mammals, from 160 million years ago, have been discovered in China.
They reveal that mammal ancestors evolved to glide between trees in a similar way to some mammals today.This adds to evidence that mammals were more diverse during the age of dinosaurs than previously realised..................................

Quote from: Amo on Sun Jan 05, 2020 - 10:05:29
https://creation.com/dinosaur-and-mammal-tracks-found-together

Actually, that's not a surprise at all. mammals preceded dinosaurs in the fossil record, and overlapped with them for millions of years.  And in that time, there were also pterosaurs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_mammals

Why would you think that was a surprise?

Quote from: The Barbarian on Sun Jan 05, 2020 - 19:09:11
Actually, that's not a surprise at all. mammals preceded dinosaurs in the fossil record, and overlapped with them for millions of years.  And in that time, there were also pterosaurs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_mammals

Why would you think that was a surprise?

Why would you ask why I would be surprised by such. You know that I am not as a creationist. Creationists are not the ones who are surprised. It is the articles from your fellow evolutionists that suggest surprise, and admit of wrong calculations in the past once again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and on and on. Each and every time they move their dates back further and further as they have so very many times, they admit of another piece of evidence which very well may suggest fully complex life such as that of this day from the very beginning. They will never go there though, just like you. Their "science" is about proving their precious theory, not arriving at truth. They just won't admit their faith as faith, but insist it is fact. So be it. Thinking themselves wise, they have become fools.

https://creation.com/fossils-out-of-order

QuoteAre there out-of-sequence fossils that are problematic for evolution?

...................................

A constantly changing story

So how can we answer this challenge? Is this a problem for creationists? First, by definition evolutionists would say there are no out-of-sequence fossils. They would claim that the fragmentary nature of the fossil record means that we don't have a good idea of the entire period a fossil belongs in. So if we find a fossil in a stratum that is supposed to be 100 million years older than the species (using evolutionary dating for the sake of the argument), it simply means that it evolved 100 million years earlier than we thought. The evolutionary interpretation of the fossil record is so flexible that it can incorporate virtually any new change, no matter how unexpected. In other words, if an out-of-order fossil is found (according to their standard view), then it is just incorporated as new evidence to provide a better understanding of evolution! In short, evolution is assumed and then used to explain the fossils. So, no matter what we find, by the very nature of the way they interpret the facts, nothing would falsify evolution anyway!

So a better way to counter this would be to ask whether evolution has made predictions about the fossil record that have been confirmed or otherwise by subsequent discoveries. And by this measure evolution falls dramatically short. For instance, Charles Darwin said that "no organism wholly soft can be preserved." He was simply wrong, because we have many examples of this. For instance, hundreds of fossilized jellyfish and a fossilized squid, that look remarkably similar to the same creatures living today. Yet they were claimed to be 505 million years old (myo) and 150 myo respectively. The squid even contained an ink sac so fresh that the ink could be used to paint a picture. The ages assigned to these fossils comes from their position in the alleged geologic column and the dates assigned to the rock layers in which they were found. Remember that it is believed that the rock layers were supposed to have been slowly deposited over millions of years, and similarly, the process of burial and permineralization is supposed to have taken a very long time. But besides soft-bodied creatures, we have fossils like an ichthyosaur giving birth, and fish in the process of eating other fish, that capture moments in time. They must have been preserved quickly. Logically, if the fossils themselves provide evidence that suggests rapid burial then it only makes sense to presume that the sediments that buried them had to also be deposited quickly.

Lots of inconvenient fossils

In reality, there are a lot of fossils that don't fit within the neatly-defined evolutionary order of things paraded in our geology and biology textbooks:

Trilobites, which are allegedly 500 myo in the Cambrian strata, have eyes that are far too complex for their place in the fossil record. That is, they have no precursors to their appearance.

Perhaps most astonishingly, pollen fossils—evidence of flowering plants—were found in the Precambrian strata. According to evolutionists, flowering plants first evolved 160 mya, but the Precambrian strata is older than 550 mya.

Dinosaurs are supposed to have evolved into birds. But Confuciusornis was a true beaked bird that pre-dates the 'feathered' dinosaurs that it allegedly came from. It also has been found in the stomach of a dinosaur.

Grass which has been found in fossilized dinosaur coprolites (fossilized dung). But grass is not supposed to have evolved until at least 10 million years after the dinosaurs went extinct.

A dog-like mammal fossil was found with remains of dinosaurs in its stomach—but no mammals large enough to prey on dinosaurs were supposed to exist alongside them.

CMI's Calvin Smith wrote:

"To the surprise of many, ducks,3 squirrels,4 platypus,5 beaver-like6 and badger-like7 creatures have all been found in 'dinosaur-era' rock layers along with bees, cockroaches, frogs and pine trees. Most people don't picture a T. rex walking along with a duck flying overhead, but that's what the so-called 'dino-era' fossils would prove!"

Tiktaalik! 'You gotta be kidding'

Being the media entertainer he is, Nye waxed eloquently about the discovery of an alleged sea-to-land (fish to tetrapod) intermediate called Tiktaalik roseae. That he spent so long detailing the find of this 'perfect missing link', he obviously thought it was a 'slam dunk' for evolution. Indeed, Tiktaalik has appeared on the cover of numerous magazines, textbooks, and it even has its own theme song and website to promote evolution. Now, either Nye was ignorant of, or deliberately dishonest, when he conveniently failed to mention that fossil footprints that predated Tiktaalik have been in Poland predating Tiktaalik by some 18 million years. It can't be the transition it is claimed to be if creatures that evolved 'from it' actually lived 'before it'. That looks like a slam dunk for falsifying that evolutionary story, 'wethinks'.................................................

There are many exceptions to the neatly portrayed order of the fossil record

In fact, the more fossils we find, the more random the picture becomes. This does not fit the orderly progression of ever-evolving specimens that evolutionists would predict. But it does fit very well with the creationist narrative of plants and animals created "according to their kinds", and buried in a worldwide catastrophe.

Bill Nye actually did creationists a favour by inadvertently pointing out a major weak spot for evolution. In fact, the fossil record is evidence against Bill Nye's position, and certainly evolutionists might want to think twice before drawing attention to such a vulnerable chink in their armor!

QuoteIn fact, the more fossils we find, the more random the picture becomes. This does not fit the orderly progression of ever-evolving specimens that evolutionists would predict. But it does fit very well with the creationist narrative of plants and animals created "according to their kinds", and buried in a worldwide catastrophe.

Bill Nye actually did creationists a favour by inadvertently pointing out a major weak spot for evolution. In fact, the fossil record is evidence against Bill Nye's position, and certainly evolutionists might want to think twice before drawing attention to such a vulnerable chink in their armor!

Your fellow YE creationists disagree with you:

Evidences    for    Darwin's    second expectation  —  of  stratomorphic  intermediate  species  — include    such    species    as Baragwanathia27    (between rhyniophytes and lycopods), Pikaia28 (between echinoderms and  chordates), Purgatorius29  (between  the  tree  shrews  and the  primates),  and Proconsul30  (between  the  non-hominoid primates  and the  hominoids). Darwin's  third  expectation — of  higher-taxon  stratomorphic  intermediates  —  has  been confirmed  by  such  examples  as  the  mammal-like  reptile groups31  between  the  reptiles  and  the  mammals,  and  the phenacodontids32  between  the  horses  and  their  presumed ancestors.  Darwin's  fourth  expectation  —  of  stratomorphic series — has been confirmed by such examples as the early bird  series,33  the  tetrapod  series,34,35  the  whale  series,36  the various  mammal  series  of  the  Cenozoic37  (for  example,  the horse  series,  the  camel  series,  the  elephant  series,  the  pig series,   the   titanothere   series,   etc.),   the Cantius   and Plesiadapus   primate   series,38   and   the   hominid   series.39Evidence for not just one but for all three of the species level and above types of stratomorphic intermediates expected by macroevolutionary   theory   is   surely   strong   evidence   for macroevolutionary  theory.  Creationists  therefore  need  to accept this fact. It certainly CANNOT be said that traditional creation theory expected (predicted) any of these fossil finds.
https://creation.com/images/pdfs/tj/j09_2/j09_2_216-222.pdf

Evolution is not a theory in crisis. It is not teetering on the verge of collapse. It has not failed as a scientific explanation. There is evidence for evolution, gobs and gobs of it. It is not just speculation or a faith choice or an assumption or a religion. It is a productive framework for lots of biological research, and it has amazing explanatory power. There is no conspiracy to hide the truth about the failure of evolution. There has really been no failure of evolution as a scientific theory. It works, and it works well.

I say these things not because I'm crazy or because I've "converted" to evolution. I say these things because they are true. I'm motivated this morning by reading yet another clueless, well-meaning person pompously declaring that evolution is a failure. People who say that are either unacquainted with the inner workings of science or unacquainted with the evidence for evolution. (Technically, they could also be deluded or lying, but that seems rather uncharitable to say. Oops.)

Creationist students, listen to me very carefully: There is evidence for evolution, and evolution is an extremely successful scientific theory. That doesn't make it ultimately true, and it doesn't mean that there could not possibly be viable alternatives. It is my own faith choice to reject evolution, because I believe the Bible reveals true information about the history of the earth that is fundamentally incompatible with evolution.
http://toddcwood.blogspot.com/2009/09/truth-about-evolution.html

As you see, the fossil record is increasingly well-documented, with many series of transitionals, including many that were predicted by evolutionary theory before being found.   Even more compelling, we never find a transitional where there shouldn't be one.   No mammals with feathers, no insects with bones, no whales with gills.

The fossil record is, as your fellow creationist Kurt Wise admits, strong evidence for macroevolutionary theory.   He's honest, even if he prefers his own interpretation of Genesis.

Wouldn't it be great if all creationists were like that?

Quote from: Amo on Fri Jan 10, 2020 - 11:55:39
Why would you ask why I would be surprised by such. You know that I am not as a creationist. Creationists are not the ones who are surprised. It is the articles from your fellow evolutionists that suggest surprise

Don't see how. It's been known for nearly a hundred years that primitive mammaliforms preceded dinosaurs.   You've been misled once again...

https://www.icr.org/article/more-proof-that-dinosaurs-lived-with

QuoteMore Proof That Dinosaurs Lived with 'Later' Creatures

According to evolution, dinosaurs lived during an age when birds and non-reptile land creatures were either present in just a few "primitive" forms or not at all. But a recent National Geographic online interview offered a summary of fossil discoveries made in a dinosaur-bearing deposit in Madagascar. And like most dinosaur deposits—but unlike museum dinosaur displays—it was richly endowed with plenty of non-dinosaur fossils.

The issue of whether dinosaurs co-existed with a wide range of other creatures is critical, because evolution's version of dinosaur history directly contradicts the history attested in the Bible. According to evolution, dinosaurs dominated certain "times" millions of years ago. But according to Scripture, all animals and plants had been created by the end of the sixth day. If the former is true, then dinosaur fossils should primarily be found by themselves. But if the latter is true, then dinosaur remains should be found mixed with those of birds, mammals, and all kinds of plants.

Medical doctor Carl Werner undertook an extensive investigation of evolution. His results are published in a series of books and videos. He explained his prediction about dinosaur strata and fossils in the video titled Evolution: the Grand Experiment, Episode 2, Living Fossils:

If evolution was not true, and if animals did not change over time, I should be able to find modern-appearing plants and modern-appearing animals in the dinosaur rock layers. And this is in fact what I found.1

But to find them, he had to go behind the museum display scenes that omit them and into the scientific literature. In an interview with Creation magazine, Werner said that dinosaur rocks contained "fossilized examples from every major invertebrate animal phylum living today" and "cartilaginous fish...boney fish...and jawless fish," as well as "modern-looking frogs and salamanders." Mixed in among dinosaurs are "all of today's reptile groups" and "parrots, owls, penguins, ducks, loons, albatross, cormorants, sandpipers, avocets, etc."2

David Krause of Stony Brook University in New York has been digging fossils in a Cretaceous deposit in Madagascar for over ten years. The interview with National Geographic highlighted his "most interesting and important finds," and the array of remains he's discovered lines up with what Werner found—plenty of non-dinosaur kinds located in dinosaur rock layers.3

Along with dinosaurs, the finds included an extinct bird named Rahonavis, a short-bodied crocodile-like creature called Simosuchus, and a toad that Krause and his colleagues named Beelzebufo. Other than having been about twice the size of today's largest toads at 10 pounds, it was just like a modern toad.

None of these showed any hint of transitioning from one form to another, as Darwinism predicts, but instead each was found fully formed. And who knows what other birds, amphibians, and possibly mammals were discovered by the team in Madagascar that have yet to be publicized.

Dinosaur rock layers contain all kinds of creatures from all kinds of habitats, including those of both land and sea.4 Evolution can provide no explanation for this circumstance. It is completely to be expected, however, if these creatures were created all together and then deposited in catastrophic mudflows powered by the year-long, world-destroying Flood and its residual effects.

https://creation.com/images/pdfs/tj/j10_1/j10_1_026-027.pdf

The quoted letter from Kurt Wise below from the link provided above, states his reasoning concerning lack of transitional evidence supporting macroevolution. It is not in support of macroevolution over creation as some would suggest, but rather his choice to shift the parameters of historical debate between evolutionists and creationists. He is a creationist not an evolutionist. He simply allows for, what many creationists and even some evolutionists contest. The case for transitional forms is extremely weak, and most if not all suggested transitions are highly contested even among evolutionists themselves. Nevertheless, even if rare occasions afforded such, it would not prove evolution as the mechanism of our existence in any way shape or form. To the contrary, it would only suggest that such is quite obviously much more likely to occur if creation has already provided an atmosphere millions of times more conducive toward the same.

QuoteIn the midst of a remodelling project in our home, I found myself searching through my tools for some item to accomplish the task before me. As I searched, I found some tools which would be of no use at all, some which I might be able to use, and still others which would likely do the trick. I noted and found it interesting that in an earlier phase of the project (the deconstruction phase) I had a very different prioritisation of the very same tools. Mr Chapman and Mr Johnston take exception with my classification and prioritisation of 'transitional forms' arguments merely because they are focused on very different tasks than I. Both Mr Chapman and Mr Johnston seem intent on attacking (deconstructing) evolutionary theory, whereas I am interested in building a creation model. As a result we use the tools of the 'traditional transitional forms' argument differently.

Allow me first to rephrase their concerns in the language of my article. Mr Chapman feels that the 'rarity of stratomorphic intermediates' argument has historically been, and continues to be, a substantial challenge to current evolutionary theory. Mr Johnston feels that both the 'chimeromorphic nature of morphological traits and features' and the 'rarity of stratomorphic intermediates' are substantial challenges to current evolutionary theory. I deny neither of these claims, and for those who are focused on merely attacking evolutionary theory these are reasonable tools.

In contrast, those who are involved in theory construction rather than theory deconstruction will utilise the available tools of argument very differently than Messrs Chapman and Johnston. Evolutionary theorists, for example, would point to the very existence of stratomorphic intermediates (rare or common; chimeromorphic or not) as evidence for their theory. In fact, stratomorphic intermediates would be understood to be powerful evidence because alternate theories (for example, creation theory) do not predict them. More specifically, as explained in my article, traditional evolutionary theory has predicted at least four different types of stratomorphic intermediates (those between species, those of species, those of higher taxa, and series of them). Examples of three of these categories of evidence have been found. This has been heralded as powerful evidence of macroevolutionary theory and should be considered powerful evidence of macroevolutionary theory. This is true regardless of how difficult the rarity and chimeromorphic nature of those stratomorphic intermediates might be for macroevolutionary theory to explain. To an objective macro- evolutionist the existence of the stratomorphic intermediates would be powerful evidence that macroevolution actually occurred, and the rarity and chimeromorphic nature of those stratomorphic intermediates might be evidence that a better mechanism of macroevolution is still needed. This is more or less the position of Michael Denton, for example, and not really very far from the current position of even Stephen Jay Gould.

Young-age creation theorists, in contrast, will use the tools of the 'traditional transitional forms' argument differently from both the anti- evolutionists and the evolutionists. I suggested in my article that, as positive theory-builders, we should begin by explaining the major features of the fossil record. In the provisional list in the article I included both the 'chimeromorphic nature of morphological traits and features' and the 'rarity of stratomorphic intermediates'. I believe that not only are these substantial challenges for modern macroevolutionary theory (as do Messrs Chapman and Johnston), but that they are major features of the fossil record of the Earth. As such, it is incumbent upon us as creation theorists to explain why it is that these features characterise the Earth's fossil record.

Messrs Chapman and Johnston wish to use these two arguments to 'bash' evolution. My article argued

(1) that we should not focus on
showing that there are no stratomorphic intermediates; and

2) rather than using them as a weapon, we should focus on using these two particular arguments as a pry-bar to open the door to a creationist understanding of the fossil record, and as a hammer to building a creation model.

Dr Kurt P. Wise,
Dayton, Tennessee,
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

Quote from: The Barbarian on Sat Jan 11, 2020 - 06:49:28
Don't see how. It's been known for nearly a hundred years that primitive mammaliforms preceded dinosaurs.   You've been misled once again...

The holy scriptures are not misleading me. Those of us who place our faith in them will of course continue to claim that the faith of evolutionists is misplaced. While those who place their faith in "science" or some kind of mixture of "science" and scripture will claim the same concerning creationists. So be it.

https://crev.info/2018/04/do-fossils-show-evolution/

Good article at link above, concerning "evidence" as effected by one's world view.

https://insider.si.edu/2013/01/discovery-of-prehistoric-mosquito-species-reveal-these-blood-suckers-have-changed-little-in-46-million-years/

QuoteDiscovery of new prehistoric mosquitoes reveal these blood-suckers have changed little in 46 million years

................................................

The newly named Eocene mosquitoes—Culiseta kishenehn and Culiseta lemniscata—represent just two of perhaps hundreds of mosquito species that have come and gone in the last 45-million years, Greenwalt explains. "The consensus is that one species of insect might be able to make it through one million or two million years, and in the extreme maybe 10 million years. So it is amazing how similar the insects flying around today are to the ones that were flying around 50 million years ago. We can find morphological differences that distinguish specific species, but overall they are extremely similar."

Equally remarkable is the level of preservation in the Montana fossils, which contain details as intricate as wing veins, sexual organs, scales and hair-like structures on the mosquito wings. "To think that something as fragile as a mosquito would die and settle to the bottom of a body of water and be preserved in rock is extraordinary. It must have been shallow, very calm water with an extremely thin annual sediment layer—something only a few hundred microns thick," Greenwalt says. The Montana climate was much warmer then—wet subtropical to tropical, he adds..........................

Nothing unusual about the above to creationists of course. Deep time is a myth, rapid burial explains the preservation in this fossil as it does in the vast majority of all fossils due to the flood.

https://crev.info/2018/09/darwinist-fossil-props-propaganda/

QuoteDarwinists Use Fossils as Props for Propaganda

With one-party rule in any institution, everything supports the party line. Open debate would be healthy for paleontology.

In the heyday of communist Russia, the "mainstream media" of the day (Pravda, Izvestia), towed the party line as it presented the "news" to the people. It wasn't news, of course; it was party propaganda, sanitized of any serious investigative reporting. Lenin had destroyed the free press and replaced it with instruments of his own messaging. Consequently, every news development could be framed in terms of Marxist-Leninist doctrine: dialectical materialism, the class struggle, the revolution of the oppressed proletarians against the bourgeoisie, and the triumphal progress of world communism [for more on Marx, see Prager U]. This was absolutely necessary to the dictators, because a free press would undermine their regimes. If starving North Koreans could see how prosperous Americans are, they might begin to doubt what Kim's state-controlled press tells them, that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is the most successful and free society in history.

A similar situation exists within Big Science (BS), which has not only embraced the Darwinian Revolution unquestioningly, but has rejected anything that does not promote scientific materialism and Darwinian evolution. Obviously, creation and intelligent design never get a hearing, as one could imagine under Darwin Party control, but neither do criticisms of Darwin—the Dear Leader of BS. He must be presented to the public continually like the huge posters of Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Kim have been used in totalitarian dictatorships of the past and present, staring down in every public venue to keep the populace aware of who is in charge. BS uses BM (Big Media) as its propaganda arm: it is the Pravda of BS, and even more powerful than its communist predecessor, because it has truly achieved global revolution. The Darwin Party Comintern punishes reporters in Turkey [17 Sept 2018 commentary], Louisiana or Uganda—wherever dissidents might emerge. BS uses BM to achieve BB (Big Brother).

Ideology Before Interpretation, and Enforcement

Readers of secular science media need to realize that every fossil bone, every tooth, and every footprint is being interpreted in terms of millions of years of death and struggle in the upward march of progress from bacteria to man. Free-thinking reporters never stray, because they would quickly be shamed out of their jobs. Readers of BM, whether at Science Daily or at national park signs, never hear that there are other ways to interpret fossils. Even when Dr Mary Schweitzer found soft, stretchy tissues in dinosaur bones, eliciting gasps from hosts on 60 Minutes, nobody was permitted to question the 80-million-year age of the fossils or the reality of dinosaur evolution. Only creationists pointed to the obvious contradiction with the party line, but they have to operate in the gulags of BS, or outside the institutions of power, as did members of unregistered churches or dissident groups in communist countries. The situation is so bad that even anti-creationist scientists who have doubts about Darwin's mechanism have to meet in semi-secret groups and publish with caution (example: The Third Way of Evolution). They feel obligated to make it clear up front that they are not one of "them" (the creationist counter-revolutionaries).

Plagiarism for the Good of the Party

Lenin and Mao tolerated limited capitalism in times of crisis, when communism was failing, as it inevitably did. In a similar way, BS tolerates some forms of intelligent design: e.g., SETI. But as Richard Dawkins asserted in the movie Expelled, if space aliens were to send an intelligent message to us (the I in SETI), the aliens would have had to initially evolve by Darwinian evolution. As with communism, Party doctrine serves as a covering model that handles all apparent exceptions. Undoubtedly Pravda reported many actual facts that were uncontroversial. The point is that its raison d'être was to advance world communism. Facts, half truths and big lies were all acceptable as long as they served that over-arching goal.

Note: As we read BS paleontology news, keep your eye on the ball: the Darwin Party Line is naturalistic origin of species by means of natural selection resulting in molecules-to-man common ancestry over millions of years. Don't be distracted by ancillary details or jargon; they don't matter. Creationists might agree on many facts in BM articles, such as classification and scientific names. They might find the writing polished and engaging. The only non-negotiable aspect of secular BS and BM is to advance the Party line in some way, even if to just appear scholarly and nice.

The Party Play and the Fossil Props

What can you tell from a bone? You dig up a fossil. There's no date on it. All you really know is that a creature once alive has died some time in the past. You can tell some things from experiments on living animals. If a dinosaur has its neck arched back (the common "dinosaur death pose", 23 Nov 2011), it must have suffocated in water, because drowning chickens look like that. If it is intact (i.e., articulated), it might have been buried quickly without being transported. Such details are OK to state, as long as you reassure the Party that it happened over 65 million years ago, and probably happened in a localized flood, not a global flood like creationists teach. A secular scientist or reporter can even express shock and surprise at an anomalous fossil, like a "living fossil" or out-of-place fossil. The Party supplies BM with ready-made explanatory strategies, such as "this species must have evolved 60 million years earlier than thought" (thought by whom, you ask? by the Party loyalists, the only ones holding the imprimatur). The important thing is never to violate the party line: millions of years and Darwinian evolution. Let's watch how BS and BM treat fossils as props for their propaganda.

Newly discovered dinosaurs fill in evolutionary gap spanning 70 million years (Phys.org). The top illustration looks like drawings of ducks and chickens covered in gaudy feathers, but the writer insists these are dinosaurs. Writer Katie Willis (U of Alberta) tells her comrades that these are missing links that had been reported in Current Biology. Were any feathers found on them, as the picture implies? No; just imaginary feathers. Looks like a Big Lie just came to Darwin's rescue. (For more problems with these fossils, see the 28 Aug 2018 entry.)

Mammal forerunner that reproduced like a reptile sheds light on brain evolution (University of Texas at Austin). We are told by these Darwin loyalists that a Jurassic fossil represents a "mammal ancestor" even though there were mammals before the Jurassic, and this animal "probably had hair." The only observational evidence presented is an adult with the bones of 38 babies, assumed to be its clutch or litter. From that, an evolutionary tale is woven: "The discovery that Kayentatherium had a tiny brain and many babies, despite otherwise having much in common with mammals, suggests that a critical step in the evolution of mammals was trading big litters for big brains, and that this step happened later in mammalian evolution."

Note: The paper in Nature on which this press release is based says very little about evolution. Authors Hoffman and Rowe only mention it twice, and never explain why a mammal with a smaller litter should be considered more fit than this animal with a large litter (if that is what the fossil cache represents). Mammals exhibit a lot of variation in litter sizes and brain sizes. So what? The authors speculate that the animal "may reflect a transitional phase" in limb sizes, but they don't say what about brain sizes require smaller litters. They say the fossil is "consistent with a scenario" (a just-so story) where larger brains "drove later changes to mammalian reproduction," but the connection is foggy, and association does not prove causation anyway. Did this animal somehow "want" to evolve a bigger brain? Did Darwin tell it, "The only way I can give you a larger brain is for you to give up large litters"? If this were a law of nature, large families would have no geniuses, and pandas would be the brainiest, fittest animals on the planet, instead of being on the verge of extinction. None of this makes any Darwinian sense. It reinforces the observation that the Darwin Party can use any fossil as a prop, just like the editors of Pravda could twist any news item into support for communism. In dictatorships without free and open debate about evidence, ideology drives the interpretation, and nobody gets to hear hard questions asked by dissidents.

Tiny fossils reveal how shrinking was essential for successful evolution (University of Birmingham). The previous story argued that evolution makes things bigger. Here comes a story that evolution makes things smaller. "A new study published today in Nature shows that getting smaller was a key factor contributing to the exceptional evolution of mammals over the last 200 million years." What a convenient theory! It simultaneously explains why "exceptional evolution" in dinosaurs made them gigantic, but the same force made mammals smaller. They even say this openly:

"The origin of modern mammals can be traced back more than 200 million years to the age of dinosaurs. But while dinosaurs evolved to become some of the largest land animals, for the following 150 million years, the ancestors of all modern mammals pursued an entirely different strategy: getting very small."

Did the mammals "pursue" this "strategy" by design, or did the Stuff Happens Law direct it? Such a theory could explain anything, even opposites (as here), depending on what "scenario" a BM reporter wants to tell about that day. In this scenario, the authors use a jawbone as their divination tool. As expected, whatever happens always requires "millions of years" that are never open to observation.

Fossil teeth show how reptiles adapted to change (University of Ediburgh). This story, emerging from Darwin's alma mater, quotes Darwin Party fossil commissar Steve Brusatte using teeth as divination tools to glorify Darwin:

"Teeth are humble fossils, but they reveal a grand story of how sea reptiles evolved over millions of years as their environments changed. Changes in these Jurassic reptiles parallel changes in dolphins and other marine species that are occurring today as sea-levels rise, which speaks to how important fossils are for understanding our modern world."

Notice that all they had in their hands were a few teeth. Can a yarn about climate, ecology and evolution really support the bite put on it? Such language parallels what a Pravda editor might say to affirm Party loyalty when reporting that an election in America demonstrates the class struggle against the bourgeousie.

Are the Paleozoic era's giant dragonflies still among us? (The Conversation). A fun mystery story can sometimes entertain the peasants so they don't revolt. In this tale, Romain Garrouste and André Nel tease that the large dragonflies found in Permian rocks might still live today! Actually, they don't – but it's fun to imagine. Remember to ask what this has to do with Darwinism. Shouldn't today's smaller relatives of dragonflies indicate de-evolution has occurred? But lest we spoil the play, we sit and listen quietly to the actors:

"Don't worry. This isn't an announcement of a new invasion from elsewhere, but a leap into the past in the Paleozoic: the time of giant insects, 100 million years before the dinosaurs, during which insects also had their T-Rex: Carboniferous and Permian giant dragonflies that terrorised the skies of those times, sometimes call "griffenflies"). A short trip back in time to a kind of another Earth in search of insects that were already major actors of the ecosystems."

Holding their props, they sing praise to Darwin: "This observation complements our vision of the ecosystems of this period during which the conquest of airspace allowed important evolutionary lineages to be established." Dissidents in the audience might be wondering how the Party could explain the origin of powered flight in the first place, using only the Stuff Happens Law.

These Tiny Burrows Might Be Some of the Oldest Fossils on Earth (Live Science). Might doesn't make right, but Darwinist reporters love to speculate whenever a fossil "might" make a good offering to lay at the Dear Leader's feet. Faithful BM reporter Catie Keck looks at some tiny openings in Australian rocks, and says they "might" be fossils. They are "suggesting that these 3.4-billion-year-old rock samples once housed some of Earth's earliest life." To add tension to the story (and thus not appear too doctrinaire), she mentions some Party scientists who are not convinced they are fossils at all. But they might be! Mission accomplished. Dear Leader BBBB* has been honored. (*Big Brother Bearded Buddha.)

End-Permian extinction, which wiped out most of Earth's species, was instantaneous in geological time (Phys.org). Danger ahead! Here's a story that creationists might use to support a global Flood in the recent past. This must not happen! In totalitarian regimes, Party strategists sometimes allow risky stories to be published, because it can pre-empt the enemy's line. This story supports de-evolution (extinction), not Darwinian evolution, and it risks sudden, catastrophic scenarios. Not to worry; BM can handle this. By "instantaneous" they still mean a lot of time. "From their analysis, they were able to determine that the end-Permian extinction occurred suddenly, around 252 million years ago, give or take 31,000 years." Why, it could have taken a few centuries! But it was so long ago—252 million Darwin years, BBBB will not object. Besides, think of how so many new "endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful" would be able to evolve in the cleared habitats after the slate was cleaned!

Note: Did anyone point them to another recent news item that asked, "Does the fossil record tell the true story about mass extinctions?" (Astrobiology Magazine). Actually, the answer to that question was "Not necessarily" (see "Fossils Can Mislead Big Time," 15 Sept 2018).

Finally, don't forget one of the biggest whoppers of all. We just reported it a few days ago: scientists found soft tissue (original fat molecules) in an Ediacaran fossil (22 Sept 2018). Did BS and BM repent of their big lies and fake ages? Never! Without blinking, they immediately twisted it into support for Darwinism, claiming it is an ancestor of all the animals. And they cheered the Big Lie that this organism's original fat molecules survived for 558 million years, something they could never test or prove without first pledging allegiance to Darwin. Not only that, they announced that future soft tissue discoveries—rather than falsifying their belief—actually will help them find more evidence for evolution! That's not just holding up props for propaganda. That's parading them like batons before a marching band.

Scientists of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but blind chance. You have a designed world to win. Join the Revolution!................................

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rav8sfuJFYc

Good video about human chimp dan similarity.

QuoteFinally, don't forget one of the biggest whoppers of all. We just reported it a few days ago: scientists found soft tissue (original fat molecules) in an Ediacaran fossil (22 Sept 2018).

Whoever wrote that isn't very smart, or maybe he's woefully ignorant of biology and terms used therein.   Molecules aren't tissue:

Tissues are groups of cells that have a similar structure and act together to perform a specific function. The word tissue comes from a form of an old French verb meaning "to weave".
https://biologydictionary.net/tissue/

Oh, and they weren't "fat molecules."   They were cholesterol molecules, found only in animals.  Plants may tiny amounts of similar "phytosterols", but they are easy to distinguish from cholesterol. Hence, the finding of a few molecules of cholesterol indicates these Precambrian organisms were true animals.   This is not welcome news for creationists, who put all their bets on a sudden appearance of animals in the Cambrian, much later.   This is why they changed the story to "fat molecules" instead of cholesterol.

QuoteWithout blinking, they immediately twisted it into support for Darwinism, claiming it is an ancestor of all the animals.

Pretty much a dead giveaway; only animals produce cholesterol.  Not "fat molecules"as they told you to hide the truth.

Cholesterol's molecular fossil identifies Earth's oldest large animals
https://cen.acs.org/biological-chemistry/origins-of-life/Cholesterols-molecular-fossil-identifies-Earths/96/i38

QuoteAnd they cheered the Big Lie that this organism's original fat molecules survived for 558 million years, something they could never test or prove without first pledging allegiance to Darwin.

Actually, it's been over a half-century since biologists and chemists showed that organic molecules could survive many millions of years under some natural conditions.   Creationists sometimes claim, without any evidence whatever, that it's impossible.   But they have only their imaginations to support the idea.   No evidence whatever, and biochemists have noted that in the presence of iron atoms and the absence of oxygen, some of these biological molecules have decay reaction rates many millions of years long.

QuoteNot only that, they announced that future soft tissue discoveries—rather than falsifying their belief—actually will help them find more evidence for evolution!

It's already happened.   Some time ago, scientists found a small amount of heme (fragment of a hemoglobin molecule) in T. rex bone.  It turned out to be more like the heme of birds than that of other reptiles.  Which is precisely what evolutionary theory predicted.   

As scientists get better at finding more of these traces of organic molecules, look for more evidence to come.

QuoteThat's not just holding up props for propaganda.

Right.  That's compelling evidence for evolutionary theory.

There's a lot more errors in your guy's story.   I'll be back to talk about those later.