In a recent post, I wrote:
>> You cannot form a chain of creatures from primate to man consisting of
>> creatures known to have no direct ancestral relationship with modern
>> humans.
and Jim Foley responded:
>Thought experiment: accept, for the sake of argument, that evolution is
>true, and we did evolve from habilis. Take my father, and his father,
>and so, until we've got 100,000 generations going back 2 million years.
>This would form a pretty impressive transitional series. Now, replace
>each of those skeletons with that of one of his brothers. We now have a
>series that looks just as gradual, with just as many transitional forms,
>even if not one of those skeletons had any descendents.
An excellent point, allow me to rephrase:
A chain of creatures from primate to man consisting of creatures known
to have no direct ancestral relationship with modern humans is not compelling
evidence for evolution because it could also be construed as evidence that
diversity and naturalistic presuppositions are responsible for the presence
of such "phylogenetic sequences" in the fossil record.
In Christ,
robert van de water
Associate Researcher
UCLA