apologetical books

Glenn.Morton@ORYX.COM
Tue 11 Jul 1995 13:09 CT

Jim Bell wrote:
>Gish is right. That's the key issue. One arguable transitional form is not
>going to do it. Especially when that form has numerous problems (e.g., the
>Mesonychid-Amulocetus problem) and when the only mechanism suggested is
>Goldschmidtism.
>
>The central fact which most apologetic books make is that there is a lack of
>SEQUENCES, the very thing Darwin thought should be there. The history of
>evolutionary thought for the last fifty years has been trying to find ways to
>get out of this central, fatal conundrum."<

Jim, I noticed that you totally failed to mention the little fact that a bird
embryo can be induced to make a reptilian leg with only a small, change.
There is no half reptilian/half chicken leg in that situation. Why are you
ignoring this nasty little fact? Maybe the evolutionists have solved their
"central, fatal conumdrum", yes?This is not Goldschmidtism that they are sugg
esting. Goldschmidt suggested that out of a reptile egg cam a fully formed
bird. What is being discovered is that out of areptile egg can come a reptile
with bird legs? Later, other parts are altered.

You also failed to mention any example where this type of manipulation would
give to a bird or a fly would give a mammalian type of result? Are you unable
to answer the question, "Why are there only similarities with the evolutionary
ancestors?" If there are some such examples I have never seen them in the
literature. Does anybody know of any? I would love to know of some.

Finally to repeat what I said last night, This type of mechanism will explain
what we see in the fossil record. It is a viable mechanism for such an
explanation of the chimaerical nature of the transitional forms. Thus we have
biology supporting the paleontological record and the paleontological record
supporting the latest biology. But there is no support for statements like
Gish writes "If evolution is true, then at least many tens of thousands of the
quarter of a million fossil species in our museums should consist of
unquestionable, transitional forms. This would be true even if one invokes
the so-called ' puncuated equilibria' mode of evolution."Gish, Creationists
answer their critics, (ICR, 1993), p. 112.

Logically if Gish incorporates the latest knowedge of embryology and heredity,
his arguments fall flat on their face because what he expects of Darwinism, is
not what is predicted by the latest knowledge. If Gish want to attack
evolution as it was taught in the late 19th century, that is fine, but isn't
it about time that Christians deal with what is being found in laboratories
today?"

glenn