Ann Coulter on the dog that ate Darwin’s fossils

_{Denyse O'Leary

August 31, 2011

Cambrian explosion, Culture, Darwinism, News

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In the mess that preceded the Cambrian explosion. Which is why they’re not there. Okay?

In “Liberals’ View of Darwin Unable to Evolve” (Human Events, August 31, 2011), Coulter riffs,

Any evidence contradicting the primitive religion of Darwinism — including, for example, the entire fossil record — they explain away with non-scientific excuses like “the dog ate our fossils.”

Jan Bergstrom, a paleontologist who examined the Chinese fossils, said the Cambrian Period was not “evolution,” it was “a revolution.”

So the Darwiniacs pretended they missed the newspaper that day.

Intelligent design scientists look at the evidence and develop their theories; Darwinists start with a theory and then rearrange the evidence.

These aren’t scientists. They are religious fanatics for whom evolution must be true so that they can explain to themselves why they are here, without God. (It’s an accident!)

Any evidence contradicting the primitive religion of Darwinism — including, for example, the entire fossil record — they explain away with non-scientific excuses like “the dog ate our fossils.”

Put another way, if the Cambrian is not a problem for Darwinism, Darwinism is not science. All real theories have problems, but Darwinism, like any cult, never has any problems – because evidence always takes second place to cult beliefs.

Darwin’s Dilemma explains:

See also: California Science Center answerable for canning non-Darwin film.

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Comments

Elizabeth Liddle:
Well, it isn’t the definition of transition when it comes to evolution.
So evolution needs to rewrite definitions to suit its needs? Beyond pathetic.
Oh, and “synamorphy” doesn’t mean “common design”. It means a “shared trait”.
Right and a shered trait is a common design.
You don’t need genetics to determine traits,
Traits are determined by genes.
and in fact not all genetic sequences have phenotypic effects,
Yes I know. And there STILL isn't any genetic evidence that demonstrates the changes required are even possible.Joseph_{September 8, 2011
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Well, it isn't the definition of transition when it comes to evolution. In fact it's not a word with a precise definition even - some people will say that all organisms that leave offspring are "transitional". And if Shubin had hadn't looked where he did, he wouldn't have found Tiktaaliks. Now that we have the data from Poland, there's reason to look for Tiktaaliks in rather earlier strata as well. Oh, and "synamorphy" doesn't mean "common design". It means a "shared trait". You don't need genetics to determine traits, and in fact not all genetic sequences have phenotypic effects, i.e. confer traits. Some of the most interesting ones don't.Elizabeth Liddle_{September 7, 2011
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Cladistics is based on synamorphies, ie a common design. There still isn't any genetic evidence that demonstrates the changes required are even possble. My argument is based on what Shubin wrote in his book. My argument does not depend on any single line of descent, just logic and reason- in order for something to be a transition it has to be between the two points- that is the very definition of the word. Also if Shubin had the data from Poland he would not have looked where he did.Joseph_{September 7, 2011
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Cladistics can be done with both fossil evidence and genetic evidence. Joseph, your argument seems to be based on the fallacy that there is a single line of "ascent" in which each population is some kind of "improvement" on the previous. That is not the way even Darwin conceived it, and certainly not the modern biological model. Take a look at the phylogenies in this post: http://talkrational.org/showthread.php?p=937654#post937654 Not all populations undergo the same adaptations.Elizabeth Liddle_{September 7, 2011
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The fossil record shows fish-> tetrapods-> fishapods. Tiktaalik has not been found in strata predating tetrapods. And again you are question-begging- the fossil record does not show tetrapods are descended from fish. Only genetics can do that and so far there isn't any genetic evidence that demonstrates the changes required are even possible via Darwinian processes.Joseph_{September 7, 2011
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or rather from fish-like ancestors of modern fish and tetrapods.Elizabeth Liddle_{September 7, 2011
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No, it doesn't show that. It shows that tetrapods are descended from fish, and that the earliest descendents included a population of tiktaaliks, in one region, which is now Northern Canada, and another population, somewhat earlier, in what is now Poland.Elizabeth Liddle_{September 7, 2011
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Elizabeth, The fossil record should show-> fish-> transitions to tetrapods-> tetrapods Right now it shows fish-> tetrapods-> transition to tetrapods Is that the successful prediction you are talking about?Joseph_{September 7, 2011
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Elizabeth Liddle:
For a start, think about what you are saying with those “brackets”.
I have.
Clearly the earliest tetrapods must predate any extant tetrapods.
They must post-date the transition.
So if there are amphibians dating from 365 mya, then the earliest tetrapods must be older than that.
Not if those are the earliest, which is what Shubin wrongly thought.
Shubin and colleagues figured out that there should be tetrapods at least 15 million years older than that, and, from the places they would have lived, where they were likely to be fossilised, and where that strata would be near the surface.
Geez Liz- they were looking for the TRANSITION not a tetrapod. And according to the quote I provided you are totally wrong. Also calls for intermediate characteristics is just a call on our classification scheme- meaning it ain't as neat as we like to think. But anyway I will go with what Shubin wrote- why he was looking where he did- ya see there isn't anything in the theory of evolution that states transitional forms will remain around millions of years after the transition took place. HOWEVER, as Shubin pointed out, the place to look for evidence of the transition is BETWEEN two points- one being where only one point is, ie fish and the other where tetrapods existed.Joseph_{September 7, 2011
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I think you aren’t listening to what they say, Joseph :) For a start, think about what you are saying with those “brackets”. Clearly the earliest tetrapods must predate any extant tetrapods. So if there are amphibians dating from 365 mya, then the earliest tetrapods must be older than that. Shubin and colleagues figured out that there should be tetrapods at least 15 million years older than that, and, from the places they would have lived, where they were likely to be fossilised, and where that strata would be near the surface. And they got it absolutely right – they found tetrapods with just the right transitional features in those exact rocks. Finding earlier tetropods doesn’t infirm that prediction at all – as it couldn’t really, seeing as the prediction came true and they found them! But finding that group of transitional tetrapods certainly doesn’t rule out earlier tetrapods. It’s how the features fit into the systematics that matters. As Martin Brazeau pointed out:
Before a fossil can be declared “intermediate” between anything and anything else, its relationships must be known. A fossil can do one of two things: fit into an existing classification framework without alteration, or fit into a classification forcing all or partial alteration. Ironically, transitional fossils are often the least interesting fossils from a systematic standpoint because they rarely alter existing schemes of relationship. Rather, they tend to fit neatly into them and cause few or no problems. Tiktaalik is one of those fossils.
Elizabeth Liddle_{September 7, 2011
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Hi Joseph, Missing links, in the widest sense of the term, are supposed to provide the clinching evolutionary connection between otherwise discontinuous species, families, classes, etc. They're all the fossils that Darwin predicted would be found if his theory was true, but that no-one ever did find. Missing links are yet another failed evolutionist prediction. Whatever they found in Tiktaalik, it was certainly not a missing link.Chris Doyle_{September 7, 2011
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1- Saying Tiktaalik is a transitional is question-begging 2- According to Shubin in "Your Inner Fish" Tiktaalik was not what he was looking for- see comment 7 below to Chris- they found it so it ain't missing. But as far as anyone knows it was a stand-alone population, ie not diverged from anything.Joseph_{September 7, 2011
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Elizabeth Liddle:
How could it have been found “in the wrong place and wrong strata” when they, um, actually found it?
Again according to Neil Shubin himself:
Let's return to our problem of how to find relatives of the first fish to walk on land. In our grouping scheme, these creatures are somewhere between the "Everythungs" and the "Everythings with limbs". Map this to what we know of the rocks, and there is strong geological evidence that the period from 380 million to 365 million years ago is the critical time. The younger rocks in that range, those about 360 million years old, include diverse kinds of fossilized animals that we would recognize as amphibians or reptiles. My colleague Jenny Clark at Cambridge University and others have uncovered amphibians from rocks in Greenland that are about 365 million years old. With their necks, their ears, and their four legs, they do not look like fish. But in rocks that are about 385 million years old, we find whole fish that look like, well, fish. They have fins. conical heads, and scales; and they have no necks. Given this, it is probably no great surprise that we should focus on rocks about 375 million years old to find evidence of the transition between fish and land-living animals.- Neil Subin in "Your Inner Fish" pages 9-10
The new data has tetrapods appearing over 390 million years ago, meaning the 365 million year end of bracket now gets moved to that 390+ million year mark. IOW his brackets were wrong because the data he used to form them was wrong. Without any data that puts Tiktaalik before the arrival of tetrapods, and no one knows when that was, Tiktaalik was NOT what they were looking for- that is if you listen to what they say.Joseph_{September 7, 2011
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Tiktaaliks were almost certainly not ancestral to anything that survives today, and may even have gone extinct before evolving into anything much like Tiktaaliks. Thank-you, I'll take that as a "No, Tiktaalik is not a missing link".Chris Doyle_{September 7, 2011
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Cut to the chase Elizabeth: are you saying Tiktaalik is a missing link or not.
First of all, Chris, I'm rejecting the term "missing link". For a start, if you find it, it isn't missing, and for a second, it depends what you mean by "link". Tiktaaliks were almost certainly not ancestral to anything that survives today, and may even have gone extinct before evolving into anything much like Tiktaaliks. But they are "transitional" in the sense that they can be fitted very beautifully into the phylogeny of fish-tetrapods. Here is part of a discussion with Per Ahlberg on Talk Rational - Dean is quoting an earlier post of Per's here: http://talkrational.org/showthread.php?p=937654#post937654 And Per replies here: http://talkrational.org/showthread.php?p=938394#post938394 An interesting relevant post from Per on another thread is here: http://talkrational.org/showthread.php?p=691409#post691409
Because if you are, you’re wrong. If you’re not, then you’re just wasting my time. Again.
When have I wasted your time, Chris? Your time is your own - you are free to respond to me or ignore me as you wish. Cheers LizzieElizabeth Liddle_{September 7, 2011
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Joseph, that's sort of funny :) How could it have been found "in the wrong place and wrong strata" when they, um, actually found it? In the place and strata they predicted they would? No, the Zachalmie find doesn't render Tiktaalik as a mosaic. I can link you to an interesting discussion about that if you like.Elizabeth Liddle_{September 7, 2011
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Cut to the chase Elizabeth: are you saying Tiktaalik is a missing link or not. Because if you are, you're wrong. If you're not, then you're just wasting my time. Again.Chris Doyle_{September 7, 2011
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Umm Tiktaalik was not a successful prediction of anything as it was found in the wrong place and wrong strata- that is according to Neil Shubin's nook "Your Inner Fish". Ya see Shubin said he was looking where he did because there wasn't any evidence of tetrapods before 385 million years ago but there was evidence for tetrapods 365 mya- therefor it made scientific sense to look between 365-385 mya. Then along comes a new find that pushes tetrapods back to before 390 mya and that renders Tiktaalik as a mosaic rather than a transition.Joseph_{September 7, 2011
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In other words, religion is compatible with modern evolutionary biology (and indeed all of modern science) if the religion is effectively indistinguishable from atheism.1
…
The frequently made assertion that modern biology and the assumptions of the Judaeo-Christian tradition are fully compatible is false.2
…
Evolution is the greatest engine of atheism ever invented. Naturalistic evolution has clear consequences that Charles Darwin understood perfectly. 1) No gods worth having exist; 2) no life after death exists; 3) no ultimate foundation for ethics exists; 4) no ultimate meaning in life exists; and 5) human free will is nonexistent.3

As the creationists claim, belief in modern evolution makes atheists of people. One can have a religious view that is compatible with evolution only if the religious view is indistinguishable from atheism.4
click here for a hint:
‘Let me summarize my views on what modern evolutionary biology tells us loud and clear … There are no gods, no purposes, no goal-directed forces of any kind. There is no life after death. When I die, I am absolutely certain that I am going to be dead. That’s the end for me. There is no ultimate foundation for ethics, no ultimate meaning to life, and no free will for humans, either.’ 5
Thank you for your honesty Will Provine. 1- Academe January 1987 pp.51-52 † 2-Evolutionary Progress (1988) p. 65 † 3- “Evolution: Free will and punishment and meaning in life” 1998 Darwin Day Keynote Address 1 2 † 4- No Free Will (1999) p.123 5- Provine, W.B., Origins Research 16(1), p.9, 1994.Joseph_{September 7, 2011
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Darwinism isn't atheism, Gil.Elizabeth Liddle_{September 7, 2011
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Chris, have you read the actual papers on Tiktaalik? And why are you talking about the "sudden appearance of new body plans" in this context? And what do you mean by "Punctuated equilibrium is merely an exercise in moving the goalposts"? It's true that "I don't get it" :) Tiktaaliks were a spectacularly successful prediction of Darwinian theory, right down to the place in which they were found! It seems to me that those the authors of those articles you linked to are the ones who "don't get it"! I'm no palaeontologist, but "I know a man who can" as the AA ad used to say, actually two (Per Ahlberg and Martin Brazeau)- let me know if you want me to ask them anything :)Elizabeth Liddle_{September 7, 2011
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dmullenix, why I tend to consider you to be disingenuous: you state:
'Eventually, of course, organisms evolved ways to protect themselves against oxygen'
Other than your blind faith in the atheistic materialism of Darwinism, do you have any hard 'demonstrated' scientific proof whatsoever??? Perhaps you would like to cite the peer-reviewed papers that refute Doug Axe's work???bornagain77_{September 7, 2011
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Dmullenix, clearly you don't get it with Tiktaalik either so let me spell it out for you: it's not a missing link. Did you watch "Darwin's Dilemma" yet?Chris Doyle_{September 7, 2011
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Why I tend to skip over your posts: "Yet it appears dmullenix’s is as faulty checking his imagination as he is in checking his memory for He then goes on to state: "Oxygen affected them about the same way fluorine or chlorine affects modern life. It just tore them right up." Yet the little fact dmullenix leaves out of his imaginative (without substance) ‘excuse’ for neo-Darwinism is that higher life-forms cannot exist without oxygen, for oxygen reactions, on the ‘molecular-machine’ scale - blah blah blah" What I wrote right after that: "Eventually, of course, organisms evolved ways to protect themselves against oxygen and today most non-photosynthesizing organisms get the energy they need to be multi-cellular by oxidizing their food. Bless those little bacteria. Neither we nor the fossil record would exist without them."dmullenix_{September 7, 2011
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So you don't see gradualism in the single fossil we've found of Tiktaalik? Well, guess evolution is doomed. Ditto with finding footprints of another tetrapod a few million years earlier. So much for the so-called "bush" those crazy evolutionists talk about.dmullenix_{September 7, 2011
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further note to 'terraforming'; It is interesting to point out how extremely finely-tuned bacterial life is to the needs of higher life forms which are above them:
The Life and Death of Oxygen - 2008 Excerpt: “The balance between burial of organic matter and its oxidation appears to have been tightly controlled over the past 500 million years.” “The presence of O2 in the atmosphere requires an imbalance between oxygenic photosynthesis and aerobic respiration on time scales of millions of years hence, to generate an oxidized atmosphere, more organic matter must be buried (by tectonic activity) than respired.” - Paul Falkowski http://www.creationsafaris.com/crev200810.htm#20081024a Microbial life can easily live without us; we, however, cannot survive without the global catalysis and environmental transformations it provides. - Paul G. Falkowski - Professor Geological Sciences - Rutgers http://www.bioinf.uni-leipzig.de/~ilozada/SOMA_astrobiology/taller_astrobiologia/material_cds/pdfs_bibliografia/Biogeochemical_cycles_Delong_2008.pdf Just how crucial, and finely tuned, the nitrogen cycle is is revealed by this following study: Engineering and Science Magazine - Caltech - March 2010 Excerpt: “Without these microbes, the planet would run out of biologically available nitrogen in less than a month,” Realizations like this are stimulating a flourishing field of “geobiology” – the study of relationships between life and the earth. One member of the Caltech team commented, “If all bacteria and archaea just stopped functioning, life on Earth would come to an abrupt halt.” Microbes are key players in earth’s nutrient cycles. Dr. Orphan added, “...every fifth breath you take, thank a microbe.” http://www.creationsafaris.com/crev201003.htm#20100316a Planet's Nitrogen Cycle Overturned - Oct. 2009 Excerpt: "Ammonia is a waste product that can be toxic to animals.,,, archaea can scavenge nitrogen-containing ammonia in the most barren environments of the deep sea, solving a long-running mystery of how the microorganisms can survive in that environment. Archaea therefore not only play a role, but are central to the planetary nitrogen cycles on which all life depends.,,,the organism can survive on a mere whiff of ammonia – 10 nanomolar concentration, equivalent to a teaspoon of ammonia salt in 10 million gallons of water." http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090930132656.htm
bornagain77_{September 2, 2011
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dmullenix, I'm pointing out how easy you make it sound.
That’s when oxygen levels in the ocean finally got high enough so calcium would precipitate out of sea water. Which means that for the first time in history, animals could have teeth, shells and eventually bones.
Calcium does not enable animals to have teeth, shells, or bones, even though those things require it. That's a bit like saying, "We have lots of sand, which means that now we can have big-screen plasma TVs." Sand does not explain TVs, amino acids do not explain life, and calcium does not explain teeth or shells.ScottAndrews_{September 2, 2011
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Footnote" On The Non-Evidence For The Endosymbiotic Origin Of The Mitochondria - JonathanM - March 2011 Conclusion: To conclude, while one can find examples of similarity between eukaryotic mitochondria and bacterial cells, other cases also reveal stark differences. In addition, the sheer lack of a mechanistic basis for mitochondrial endosymbiotic assimilation ought to — at the very least — cause us to raise an eyebrow and expect some fairly spectacular evidence for the claim being made. At present, however, such evidence does not exist — and justifiably gives one pause for scepticism. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/on-the-non-evidence-for-the-endosymbiotic-origin-of-the-mitochondria/bornagain77_{September 2, 2011
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No problem TG. I really wouldn't call it expertise so much as I would call it holding Darwinists accountable to even a minimal amount of scientific plausibility, which or course, even a minimal level of scientific integrity, is unable to be maintained by them.bornagain77_{September 2, 2011
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