On 11 Jul 95 12:28:27 EDT you wrote:
JB>..The "whole truth" about apologetical books is that they cannot be
>tarred with a single, broad brush. For instance, in Gish...(ICR
>1993), the transition problem is always discussed as one of the VAST
>lack of transitions (plural) we should expect. For example, 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 'punctuated equilibria' mode of
>evolution. There would be absolutely no challenge to the fact of
>evolution, no Institute for Creation Research, no Creation Research
>Society, no scientific creationists." (Id. at 112)
JB>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-Ambulocetus problem) and when the only
>mechanism suggested is Goldschmidtism.
Yes. I was reading Carroll's Vertebrate Paleontology and the thing
that amazed me is that the chart of taxa discovered looks just as
creation would expect. Solid parallel lines for taxa found and dotted
lines to show the missing evolutionary transitions.
While I disagree with Gish et. al. that "there are no no transitional
forms", they are certainly very rare. I maintain that the evidence
best fits a model of progressive creation than either a young earth
creation model or a naturalistic evolution model.
BTW I believe one of the problems is that Darwinists control the
language. As I have said, the term "evolution" means an unrolling
from within. IMHO it is inherently un-theistic, if not anti-theistic.
Another loaded term is "transitional" form. This begs the question
just
using it. I prefer the more neutral "intermediate" form, which does
not prejudge the issue.
JB>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.
Yes. They are extremely rare, even if Glenn's amphibian fin-legs are
counted (and not all paleontologists would). The point is that there
should be *millions* of intermediate structures. Flight "evolved"
at least four times: insects, reptiles (pteradactyls), mammals (bats)
and birds, yet there is not one half-arm / half-wing anywhere. The
claim that these transitional structures and forms *all* happened in
small, isolated populations and were not fossilised, is just
incredible, and is equivalent to a series of miracles, which IMHO is
exactly what they were.
God bless.
Stephen