On Sun, 25 Jun 1995, Kevin Wirth wrote:
KW>I join with you in wishing your friends success in their fossil
hunting.
>But let's be clear about one thing: they are not finding evidence for
>evolution. They are finding evidence, period.
>
>To which Lloyd Eby replied:
LE>What do you mean to say here? That you have established that
evolution is
>false, and therefore fossils *cannot* be evidence for it, or that
>evolution is unproven, thus putative evidence for it is inconclusive?
>
KW>The latter. I'm not saying that fossils *cannot* be evidence for
>evolution. I am saying that to call all fossils *evidence* for evolution is
>preposterous in the extreme.
LE>Fossils *may* be evidence for evolution...If evolution
>(in whatever of it forms -- atheistic or theistic, gradualist or PE) is
>true, then fossils *do* constitute evidence for it.
>
KW>I don't need to show that evolution is false. Those who advocate
evolution
>have that role squarely on their shoulders. It is up to THEM to demonstrate
>that evolution warrants the status it currently enjoys...I'm taking aim at this >sense of *expectancy* that all the fossil evidence points to evolution. No way.
I can't find Gordon's original post but if it said that finding
fossils was "evidence for evolution", then surely that cannot be so.
It would only be
evidence for evolution if evolution was known to be the only
alternative. For
example, it could equally be evidence for progressive creation (or
even a
global flood).
Besides, there is a practical matter. Even though the parents are
trained
palaeontologists (or at least one is), it is highly unlikely they will
find
evidence for anything, except that fossils exist in a certain
stratigraphic
order, which even YEC acknowledge. According to all the books I have
read,
the chance of finding a transitional fossil that could be argued as
"evidence
for evolution" (ie. macro-evolution) is extremely unlikely.
Kevin's point was there is the *expectation* by the evolutionist
parents
that everything will point to evolution, and so the children will no
doubt
grow up unconsciouly believing that "evolution is a fact".
I must therefore agree with Kevin, that they are finding "evidence",
but
not necessarily evidence for evolution.
God bless.
Stephen
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